Hay/Farming "widows", where are you?! Help!

[QuietTiger]

I need a dose of sanity and convincing it's not just me being unreasonable.

DH is driving me nuts. He's out on the hay because of this very good weather, I've barely seen him for the last week, he insists on setting his alarm clock for 4am and crawling into bed at midnight and we've just had a row because he doesn't think he'll mange to get to the Royal Welsh Show which is in 2 weeks time as he might be harvesting the Oil Seed Rape...

He's also just had a strop because this years pet lambs escaped from their field this afternoon and went on a self guided tour around our local village which meant he was delayed from baling for 2 hours as he had to go and fetch them because it was too hot for me to work the dog on the sheep and bring them through the village myself...

I want to kill him. He's grumpy, I'm trying to contain my temper and be polite so he doesn't "go off" on one, when in reality he's being a twat because he is so focused on "getting the hay done". His only redeeming feature at the moment, is that he's not in the house!

Help! Advice to survive this hay making weather would be welcome!

I'm out this year, split up with the farmer in jan :-(

But good luck, looks like this years goiing back to the norm after last years shitty summer.

Xxx

Awwwwww I always wanted to marry a farmer!

whats he supposed to do? leave the hay?

I feel for you - everyone round our way is out bailing like mad.

But given I have just taken delivery of some really good hay, which should see my horses through the winter, I have to confess I have a vested interest in the outcome

FWIW my DP, who isnt at all horsey, is just bemused that instead of getting excited about buying a new dress or suchlike, I am really pleased with my new stack of hay. He thinks I am barking

Ooooi put your claws away, harvest is hard for farmers partners. You get months & months where you're partner is pretty much absent & when they are around they're tired/ grumpy.

I'm sure tiger wasn't suggesting he leaves the hay in the slightest. Just a difficult time of year, all your friends are having parties & bbqs & you can't make any plans because you don't know what the weathers doing. Farm first partner second is the farmers ethos & just something being a farmers partner entails. Doesn't meant you can't have a goid old bitch about it from time to time xxx

Absolutely not, Heysoulsister - and anyway getting him to stop hay making would be like trying to stop the tide coming in.

However, a bit of civility from him would be nice instead of barking commands when he walks in, getting stroppy and giving one word answers because he's tired and got up at stupid o'clock 4am, and refusing to have any kind of discussion about anything important "because he's busy" and then accusing me of "hassling him" when I need an answer to something.

I hate this time of year, because although I am seasoned to it and DH & I usually have a fantastic relationship, good weather means long, long busy work days and early starts with no respite for any kind of quality time together whatsoever and it pushes our relationship to the absolute edge because we both get tired and grumpy and the niggles and grumbles between us that usually we don't even notice become big issues for no reason other than we're both tired and short tempered.

Hay making now, will go into harvesting the Oil Seed Rape, which will then go into combining the barley, which will turn into foraging the maize, and in between we have have to cut grass silage, manage the cattle in the shed, and look after 250 sheep.

I'm having a bad day!

23 years ago my DFs came to my wedding at the orher end of the country and left them too it .
Both DFs on the other hand had winter weddings because of hay making and shearing.

I hope he does get to the show. I was brought up not that far from the Royal Welsh and worked there a couple of times. Now I just get to go to Malvern which isn't the same.

Het quite tiger! I get on the tractor and help in the evenings as soon as ive finished evening milking. Then he can keep going, let him do AM milking whilst i sort kids out.
But my god my dp is a grumpy toad as well! Nice to see a thread for harvest widows! I do like bale carting though! Air con full chat .
But farming is all about rubbish hours i guess, we wouldnt do it if we didnt want to/love it!

Hello! He's ambitious to be in the osr in just 2 wks - we haven't sprayed it off yet and reckon we'll be a good 3 weeks. Maybe you will get to the royal welsh! Are you showing anything?

Lilystem - he is very ambitious to be on the OSR in 2 weeks - the Round-up only arrived this morning, so like you, it's not sprayed off yet! Personally, I think we're looking at more like 4 weeks for the OSR and I guarantee combining it will coincide with our wedding anniversary which will mean that we don't go out. like every other fucking year

I was showing my section D cob at the Royal Welsh, but the silly bastard managed to get his sweet itch rug off last week and rub his tail & mane raw, so there is no way he is going now. Animals... who'd have them! On the upside, we have a pretty gorgeous 8 week old ISDS puppy running around (grandfather won the brace at last years internationals) - DH's early anniversary to me, so I can kind of forgive him his behaviour.

Can I join in, dp has been a farm worker, not the actual farmer, for years. I'm fed up already with the lovely smell of slurry that radiates from him when he strolls in late at night. Think they're tethering soon so smell should lessen at least, but stuck most of the 24hrs a day myself with 18 day old baby, so very fed up too.

Hi fellow Widows and Quiet Tiger. Weirdly I met up with Lala yesterday for lunch who was the OP on last year's thread, and then I see this thread!

Of course, being a dairy farmer's wife I'm enjoying actually seeing DH from time to time now it's summer; cows out in field, no kicking and scraping, easy job! Special thanks to QuietTiger too for backing me up when I posted in a fit of temper in AIBU (wow, did I get flamed!!).

Just remember that it will pass Quiet, come and talk to us and let's hope the weather conditions are right for you to go to the show. You've got through harvest every year before now. It's a pain, the farming DHs are tired, grumpy, they feel unappreciated, we feel unappreciated, tempers are short and it will all be over by October......

Oh, and its my 10th wedding anniversary soon, but have been told we won't be going away.

Oh and lookingfoxy, you have your own brand of hell being the farm worker's partner. You do have my sympathy, and it's very tough with an 18 day old baby. Did he get paternity leave? At least you can still smell the slurry, I sometimes wonder whether I've got so used to it that I can no longer smell it and when we do go out in public people are wondering where the pong is coming from.

Hey Ladyflip. :) You're thank welcome for the back-up, it gets to me that people think farming is such an "easy" life.

If I had £1 for everyone who said to me... "oooh, I'd love to be a farmer, I could have loads of animals" Dh & I would have retired to the Bahamas, have a beach bar with no customers and spend the day sunbathing and diving!

DH was apparently up at 4am this morning to turn hay before the contractors come and square bale the stuff. I have no idea what time it was, because I refused to get up at stupid o'clock I got downstairs at 6am to find a freezing cold coffee that he'd made for me as an apology for his behaviour yesterday and a note saying he didn't want to wake me up so he'd left it on the side! I guess the thought was there, but quite how he thought it'd still be hot after 2 hours...

Lookingfoxy - like Ladyflip says, you're lucky you can still smell the slurry! I've taken to accosting various friends and family, shoving my shirt in their face and saying "Does this smell like shit to you?!" Farmer workers have a rougher deal than farmers, as they have no choice in the matter if they want to keep their job, they just have to get on with it. At least with us we can decide to have a day off if we really want to. after I've browbeaten DH So, you have my absolute sympathy.

Glad to hear you got a sort of an apology and a cold cup of coffee though QuietTiger. Gosh, farming realy is tough isn't it? Or do you think there are a whole load of IT widows making friends on an alternative thread somewhere?

The people who annoy me are the ones who say "oh, its a lovely place for the children to grow up".