The Perilous Perils of Farming

Over the years I have been injured hundreds if not thousands of times. Some, the follies of youth, inevitable outcomes of sports and the side effects of training in the military. In fact, I think I caused more long-term injury to myself running around in full kit, usually with a ruck on while being yelled at by an NCO. At least that’s what my knees and back tell me.

It still amazes me how may injuries have been the result of just hard labor and attempts at self-sufficiency. In the last three years I have been assaulted by sheep, rope burned by horses that didn’t want to follow, lower back pain after an 8-hour session weeding and turning soil, pulled out lots of thorns, stabbed by the spurs of a chicken dozens of times and most recently had my finger slashed by a corn stock I was trying to pull out. Through all of this and dozens of near misses I have begrudgingly understood the value of safety equipment and need to take time to do things right.

Some specific examples include a set of classes my staff and I took about the operational use of chain saws. In the classes the identified a lot of recommended safety equipment of those listed including what looks like an EOD bomb suit. For us the following have been worn when using our chainsaw: Hearing protection, gloves, eye protection, certified chainsaw chaps, a saw with a safety bar, boots, and a head covering. These items have prevented dozens of injuries like about 6 months when the saw slip and bounced on my leg causing minor damage to the chaps but no injury to my leg. We also take breaks or rotate who is using the saw to limit injuries caused by fatigue. We have tried and taken time to evaluate the cuts we make be for cutting to control where the wood falls. Lastly we communicate as much as possible to make sure people are out of the way when a tree falls or to make sure the saw is moved before someone (usually our children) remove the fallen timber.

I could go on with dozens of examples, which I probably will in the future. Needless to say, wearing gloves is at the top. Or become just like I did on Monday of this week. I didn’t follow our prescribed rules the other day, my children were wearing gloves and were complaining about how hard puling the stocks were. I was getting ready to leave to head be to drill and went back to prove them wrong. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal as I was only doing the work for a few minutes. Then 4 stocks into showing them slip, cut and blood I had to go to the hospital to get 3 stitches, for a 1.5 inch deep, 2-inch curved cut on the pad of my ring finger that bled almost a bad a as head wound.

I guess what I am saying is take a step back and evaluate asking yourself, “What injuries can be avoided if I just worked a bit safer”. So, establish your safety TTPs, stick to it and adjust as needed. Please don’t do what I did and get busy thinking this time I don’t need to follow my rules this will only take a minute, or you might end up at the hospital wasting more time you don’t have. Remember to focus on lessons learned and focus on progression not perfection. Deven Little