Don't Look Back

We have a cattle and hay ranch.  Cutting hay is a big part of the farming season.  My husband is a hay cutting perfectionist.  His rows are arrow straight.  Mine, not always..

When I first started cutting hay, I thought "How hard can this be? Drive the swather straight, turn at the end, go back and forth...no big deal!" I was wrong.  One of my first experiences, left the evidence of my handy work right along the driveway where everyone could see.  Why couldn't my first assignment been a field at the back of the, hidden from the eye? I didn't go straight.  Not even close.  Husband's instructions were to start the row and look clear to the other end and pick out a focus point.  Keep your eye on that focus point and drive.  For my first row, I picked out a tree.  Problem is there was more than one tree at the other end! Once you mess up your first row, it's hard to get straight.  What's the big deal...nothing really until you get to the levee and end up crossing it on an angle.

I learned that the steering on a swather (hay cutting machine) is nothing like a car.  The small back wheels turn and direct the machine.  The steering is very touchy.  You cant't cough, sneeze or get a drink of water and slightly move the steeriing wheel without making snake row.  When you get to the end of the row you have to lift up the header, turn, then put it back down.  That first hay cutting exposition, I kept lifting the header too soon and leaving little strips at the end.  Husband hadn't seen that yet, so I went to the house, got the weedeater and was preparing to cut those strips down. I got caught..."Why are you doing that?" He asked." I think he realized I was trying to leave perfect rows like his, but it was going to take more than a weedeater.

After a few more fields, I eventually got better.  I have a crooked row every now and then.  We really should have taken a picture of that first field.  What made it get better?  Well, practice of course.  Really, what helped the most was what husband told me...

"When you are cutting, Don't Look Back!  The more you turn around and look back, the more you mess up and the more crooked your row gets.  Keep focused on what is ahead and work to get straightened out.  What is behind you will be raked and baled up in a few days and it will be hauled off of the field forever.  You can't change what is behind you."  Hmmm....seems like that lesson applies everywhere in life.

                   The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post.  ~L. Thomas Holdcroft