A few farmers around these parts who plant oats headed to the fields this week to get their oats in the ground. For our location, this is the traditional time for oats seeding. As a farm kid, I still wasn’t allowed to miss school very often growing up. But, the one time during each year that I could count on missing classes was during oats seeding.

At the time, we had an old wagon fitted with a chain-driven endgate seeder. For a day or two, I lived in the back of that wagon, scoop in hand, bouncing along the field. I filled the hopper with seed as my Dad drove the Super M Farmall tractor pulling the wagon. Here are a few life lessons I learned from the back of that seeder wagon.

THE JOYS AND EDUCATION OF SEEDING OATS

The weather had to be bad. It had to be cold, windy and sometimes raining or snowing, or Dad wouldn’t pull into the field. It seemed that we were never ready to seed on nice Spring days. The weather had to be miserable before we got going. So, I learned to wear long sleeved shirts, coveralls and heavy coats in the back of the wagon. Even if it was nice and calm when we pulled off the farm, by the time we got to the field, gale force winds had kicked in. Life lesson:  Always be prepared for the worst.

I learned that oat dust collects inside your eyelids over time and scratches your eyes, under your arms and down your back for days. A shower does nothing to remove this dusty irritation, particularly from your eyes. I learned to wear goggles over my eyes to keep the dust out. Life lesson:  Be safe and protect yourself in the field.

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You never know what critters you might see along West Bow Creek from the back of a wagon in the spring time. Over the years, I witnessed coyotes, blue herons fishing for supper, eagles and hawks, turkeys and deer and even an occasional beaver and muskrat while seeding oats along the creek bottom. Life lesson:  Lots of life inhabits the farm beyond the farm gate.

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Chain-driven seeders require that the chain actually stays on the cogs of the wheel. Unfortunately, as we bounced along, no matter how tight I thought that I had the chain, it still found a way to run off the cogs time and time again. This meant yelling at Dad to stop the tractor and swing back around where the chain fell off. It also meant that I had to jump out of the wagon and reset the chain, sometimes every 30 feet or so, to get the job done. It was a frustrating process. Life lesson:  Frustration is just part of life. Get used to it and learn to handle it with grace.

With lower prices for corn and soybeans, folks are looking more to good, flexible and soil healthy crops like oats. But I don’t see many endgate seeders running across the fields these days with kids bouncing along in the back. I guess good drills have replaced them, but I feel sorry for the farm kids who will never experience that form of education because they won’t learn firsthand what I learned from the back of that old wagon.

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