On the road again! So much of what's happened here on the farm the last few weeks hasn't actually happened on the farm.
We've been busy criss-crossing Montana, first with me in Helena for the Made in Montana Tradeshow to promote our line of dry mixes. Meanwhile that same weekend, the Farmer and our daughter traveled to Bozeman to watch our son play with the boys' high school basketball team in the state tournament.
We logged a collective 1,860 miles that weekend. After a three-day turnaround, we traveled to Billings to watch our daughter play in a senior invitational basketball tournament, then sent our son on a ski hill/service mission weekend with our church group. Add another 804 miles and at a minimum three coffee shacks, all without leaving the state of Montana.
During our second trip away from the farm, we received word that the river was rising and roads were flooding. Thankfully we were able to get home by taking a longer route and coming in from a different direction than our normal road. The water cut out parts of our main road in several places, though. And while the roads are passable now, they're going to require some ongoing work to make them stable for the long run, and certainly before they're ready for the heavy equipment traffic that comes with spring and seeding.
In our county, just like many other rural areas, resources are stretched. Budgets and people are at capacity during normal operations. Extensive damage to many roads in the area at once means farmers, ranchers and others living at the end of a rural route will become their own maintenance crews. They'll need to allocate financial and equipment resources, taking time away from other urgent jobs on the farm, to repair what they can while waiting their turn for county crews to finish the rest.
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It's also the time of year when the rush is on to empty the bins in anticipation of a new crop in the fall. The summer months will be busy with seeding, haying, crop maintenance, fencing, working cows and other jobs, so it's crucial to get the last of the previous year's crop marketed and hauled to the elevator. For us and others in our area, that means 50 or 60 miles one way - depending whether we haul east or south. On a really good day, Terry can get three loads delivered. I'll let you do the math on the miles logged over a few weeks of that routine! Notice I said Terry there. It's one of the few jobs I haven't learned to help with, and between you and me, that's entirely by design. But don't tell the Farmer.
It's a long stretch like this that makes me appreciate the solitude of a few nights at home, listening to the coyotes howl from the back deck or honestly just making sure the recliner doesn't up and wander away. Home. It's the craving that tempts me most when I'm away too long and the salve that soothes my soul when I'm road weary and in need of some rest.
I suspect we're all very much the same in that way. Whether it's travel for work, with kids or even for play - home is the place we return to. It's the place where we center ourselves and our families. Where we recharge, rejuvenate ... and ready ourselves for the next round.
