Tales From A Farm Girl

Pot-smoking, hippie-infested Northern California -- despite being a part of my young past -- was anything but the main, shaping influence in my life. The fact that I'm "from" California does not mean I did most of my growing up there.

This crazy family of mine moved to a small Wisconsin farm in the fall of 1996, when I was seven years old. All of my best memories are from there, and not a day goes by that I don't miss it terribly.

Annyhoo, this particular blog entry is for Risler. Awhile back I posted a story on my MySpace about a wild little horse we had, and he's been waiting for another story every since.

So since someone asked me about it recently (I think it was DeMark), I randomly decided to tell the pointless story of the day I ended up under a piece of farm equipment.

This is back when we were farming with a team of horses, not even kidding. We had a fairly small farm at the time, and considering the cost difference, a tractor would have been overkill. So from around the time I was eight until we left the farm last year, horses were my life. So was farm work.

Now you have to understand what a field disk is. It's got all these rows of disks that turn and chop/break up the ground after it has already been plowed. Here's an example:



That's a big one, though. To be brutally honest, ours was more like this... in fact, this is exactly what ours looked like:



I'd perch up on top of that metal rack (which wasn't meant to be sat on... haha), grab the reins, and drive the team of horses back and forth and all around the field for ages. I thought it was pretty fun, really; it beat a lot of other stuff I could have been stuck with. [Truth is, it's just that it was better than pulling weeds in the garden with Mama. Shhhh...]


Anyway... moving on. One morning when I was ten years old, I was doing my dusty farm girl duties and getting the oat field ready. I remember how much I always loved to watch the big chunks of dirt get sliced up by the disks; I don't know, it was just a randomly mindless thing to watch, and I enjoyed it.


Now, the specific details of what started the whole incident have been hashed and re-hashed over again, but the main point and end result is that the horses got spooked, and I ended up under those disks.


Not all of me, of course... even back then I wasn't quite skinny enough to fit completely through two of those things.


I don't actually remember the moment when my leg got sliced open, either. I'm not sure what happened; it was like I blacked out or something. What I do recall is coming to and hearing my mom panicking, Janelle crying, and both of them half screaming to a certain extent.


Janelle was holding the horses, and my mom was spazzing out, trying (rather pointlessly...) to lift the piece of equipment off of me. I was stuck, but for some reason I was acting completely unbothered by any of it. I didn't feel anything, either.


The first thing I said was, "Scissors. Can someone please get some scissors? Can't we just cut my pants off?" I remember saying it very matter-of-factly and calmly; I don't even know why.


Saying that and seeing the look on my mom's face after I said it are two of the first things I remembered.


Nobody got any scissors... since my pants had already been cut in the place that the disk also went through my leg, it was pretty easy to just tear them right off of me (for the most part...) and just leave the part there that was pinned under the disk.


I don't remember what it was my mom and Janelle had to do then... probably restrain the horses or something so they wouldn't run off. I just started hobbling off towards the house in a daze, like nothing was wrong.


On the way inside, I passed Luke, who was about two years old then. He was sitting in the laundy basket outside, which is where my mom had left him when she went running to go help me. When I saw him, I said something like, "Oh hi buddy, how's it goin'?" At the time, it didn't really register why he just stared at me.


Once I got inside, I flopped down on the couch like I was just resting for a minute or so. That's when I noticed that my lower leg had been cut open by that sharp, nasty, rusty ole disk.


It was a deep gash, and fairly long, on the inside of my left lower leg, almost down to the shin bone. I hadn't noticed it because it hadn't started hurting yet. Apparently, adrenaline can do amazing things.


When Janelle and my mom got inside, they freaked out and started cleaning out my wound. I know for a fact it was tougher on my mom than it was on me!


I think the best thing about that whole thing was Janelle treating me so awesomely because she felt so sorry for me... hehe. Love you, girl. I couldn't even freaking walk, so when we'd go to work in the garden, she'd haul me in the little red wagon (yep, the kind little kids use for fun =]). And Daddy brought ice cream home from work that night! (Huge rarity back then... ahhhh......)


To make a long story short, I've got an interesting scar on my leg now. My leg is pretty much numb between the scar and my ankle. I'm glad it doesn't affect me at all, and man alive, that could have been a whole heck of a lot worse.


And hey, look on the bright side... now I've got a lifelong memento of that farm! ;)


Moi, about eleven or twelve years old... taking Karina for a ride on my favorite horses ever, who I named Apache. Miss all of it so much.