“May the road
rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back.”
So begins an “Irish Blessing”. There are four or five versions floating
around the barbershop world.
It may be an Irish
blessing, but it most certainly is NOT a combine driver’s prayer, or a tractor
driver’s, either. Like many things in
the world, the words mean well, but really have the opposite effect. I can see if you were taking a journey on
foot or perhaps by bicycle, a tailwind would be a good thing. (OK, airplane fliers like tailwinds, too.)
I’ve sung the
song a few times, so can’t really complain if my prayer gets answered. I set out this week to work the summer fallow,
which is yielding lots of volunteer millet.
I would destroy the crop which a year ago was a cash crop, but now is a crop
of weeds.
The theory and
practice of good tillage dictates that you work a field in a direction
different from the preceding operation.
Other considerations for what direction to work include consideration of
conservation, preventing erosion from water and wind. Taking all the forgoing considerations into
account, I decide at the beginning of an operation which direction to head
tractor and plow.
It seems no
matter which direction I lay out the land, the wind finds me out, and answers
the prayer, at least half the time. That
is to say, no matter which way I go, the wind will follow me.
Ideally, I would
have a wind blowing at a right angle to my tractor’s direction of travel. So if the wind is blowing out of the southwest,
I lay out the field so the tractor is heading northwest half the time and southeast
the other half. Perfect, the wind is at
right angles to the directions of travel.
Except, that
after an hour or two, the wind dies down, and then comes up a little later out
of a different direction—either from the southeast or the northwest. Then, half the time I have a clean ride with
the wind in my face, the other half, I am covered in the dust kicked up by the
implement’s interface with the soil.
The combine
driver has the same dilemma. A tailwind
brings not only dust but also chaff and beards that hunker down in the shirt
collar or wherever elastic goes, such as underwear band. Not pleasant.
Of course, with
modern-day equipment, cabs, air conditioners, and the like, it’s not much of a
problem. I do have a tractor with a cab,
but no air conditioner. It spent last
week waiting for clutch parts. I wanted
to get the summer fallow done. I didn’t
take the few hours it will take to install the clutch on the cab tractor.
Instead, I took
the 820 out, no cab, let alone air conditioner.
Last time I worked the field, I went northeast by southwest. The wind blew an inordinately long time out
of the northeast.
This time, I
went southeast by northwest. The wind
blew predominately out of the southeast.
I put on lots of sunscreen, without cab or umbrella to protect me from
solar rays. When I came in at noon or at
the end of the day, a glance in the mirror revealed a character who spent too
much time in the makeup artist’s chair, who had gotten the pancake flour mixed
up with the dust, and the grease paint applied plentifully on the nose where I
pushed up my glasses several times a day with greasy finger. After a shampoo in the shower, I had to
scrape mud off the shower floor.
How does the wind
know? Perhaps I should change the words when
I sing “Irish Blessing”. “May the wind
be always at your side.” Doesn’t have
the same ring. Maybe quit singing it
altogether. Or just give in to the inevitable.
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again, may He hold you in His hand,
May god hold you in the palm of His hand.
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