Read the Field. Figure it out.

I grew up a farm kid.

Not major acreage–just a small hobby farm–but enough for cows and hay. As long as I can remember, we mowed and raked, and then hired out the baling. (For the record, a baler is a very fussy piece of equipment. Very fussy.) When I say “we” mowed and raked, what I mean is Clay mowed and raked and I got to watch. Sometimes, he’d let me on the tractor for a round or five, but haying was always his thing. I don’t think he thought I couldn’t do it, he just liked it.

For reasons that do not need exploring at this time, I found myself moving home at age 32. For the next seven years, I learned mostly by watching and getting in that occasional round or two. Finally (!) there came the year he announced I would handle the whole thing. Cut. Rake. Manage logistics with the Baler (the person, not the equipment) and our regular buyers. Woo hoo! I’d been graduated.🙂

Hay season is typically a seven to nine day stretch of hot hot sun, clear skies, wind (light to moderate preferred) and NO rain in the foreseeable forecast. So, in May that year, in anticipation of The Haying Window, I started peppering him with questions on technique and strategy. What to do if this happened? How to navigate and pivot if that happened. And I was obsessed with how to get the corners right. All the years I watched him, he never had to back track, but they were always precise. There was never any slop left after the baler went through. It was a high standard to achieve.

You see, the disc mower we have sticks out to the side of the tractor about 10 feet. And the side-deliver rake is canted at an angle, so corners aren’t as straightforward as one would think. There’s a trick to keep them straight, and it’s different with each implement. I didn’t want to waste precious time making mistakes leaving hay uncut or unraked on the field.

Finally, in the middle of me asking AGAIN, he just looked at me and said,

“Read the field. Figure it out.”

That’s it. That’s all I got. Six words.

No other explanation, nothing more on corners. I was utterly flummoxed. To be fair, he had been patiently mentoring and teaching me everything thing else about how to manage the farm since I was four years old. But corners … I was on my own. Since then, these ten years later, I’ve collected a few observations from the field, besides the obvious that practice makes perfect (or, less crooked at least):

Mentors matter.
Finding a good one is important. And mine was amazing. They have to be as willing to give–time, knowledge, patience, etc.–as you are willing to learn. It’s a relationship for sure, and so there has to be “chemistry” for it to be successful. How they set you up can influence the trajectory and speed of your learning curve.

Eventually, you have to learn on your own.
The time will come when your mentor is no longer available to you, and you’ll have to figure out how to extend your learning on your own. The first season after Clay moved residence to heaven was daunting. What if something broke that he hadn’t taught me how to fix yet? Asking “what would dad do?!?” is a common occurrence. I’ve had to figure out a lot … like how to shift and lift a 700 lb piece of equipment on my own (turns out, a floor jack will do nicely). I still miss him like crazy. But I’ve developed a bench of new resources, like that one YouTube farm fix channel and the guys at the local Farm Implement store. Oh, and don’t underestimate the value of a good referral … people you know who know other people who know stuff you need to know. There’s also just going for it, and trying something even if it ends up not working. Failing forward is still legit progress. 

Insight can come from unexpected places.
Whining about corners and those insufferable six words one year to my Baler yielded two invaluable recommendations that applied helped make this recent season one of my cleanest yet. In hindsight of course it makes sense (duh!) that my Baler would have good advice, but at that time, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask intentionally.

Several years and hours and hours of protected thinking time on the tractor removed, I now heartily endorse those six words as the perfect answer for straight corners. They are the best, most practical six words of advice I’ve ever received. Wisdom transcends boundaries.

There will always be a starting point of what you know, and a desired end result of where you want to end up. How you get from start to finish will depend on events and circumstances you can’t predict or understand until you’re in the middle. Just stay flexible–tap your resources when needed–and figure it out as you go.

Points to Ponder:

Think about a situation where you need to do a little “field work.”

• Where has your learning gotten stuck?
• What (or who) novel places can you leverage for breakthrough insight?

Actionable Application:

Identify one action can you take today (it doesn’t have to be a big one) to unstick.