The heat is intense. I can feel it boiling up inside me. The sweat drips down my neck to my pant line until it catches on my shorts. I can feel the heat pulsing in my forehead. “Drink water!”, my head scream at me. Then, I do the one thing you’re not suppose to on the farm, I look back at the row to see how far I’ve made it weeding and then I look ahead of me to see how far I have to go. I can’t help but feel defeated. Who ever would have though that I would feel more defeated by weeds than any person or challenge I’ve come across in my life. Weeds can just seem endless sometimes. A fly buzzes around me and I don’t even bother trying to swat it away. The fly crawls up my leg and walks straight over my poison ivy and I have to resist the urge to scratch. I think to myself, ‘weeding isn’t the worse thing you have to do on the farm. Just keep on moving. Keep a steady pace’. It’s true weeding isn’t the worse thing to do on the farm. Worse things: thorn bushes, chasing a baby calf through poison ivy when you’re only wearing crocs… but then again weeding is pretty bad, especially during hell month.
Farmers call the period from mid July to mid August “Hell Month.” The reason this period of time is called “Hell Month” is because there is a million things to do and it’s 90 degrees and muggy almost every day. In this kind of weather we are pushing harder than we have so far, but we can’t kill ourselves. You have to take an extra moment to drink more water and cool down.
The crew and I are getting better at dealing with the heat and the frustration of having an endless list. The girls on my crew and I tend to make up songs about weeding and crack lots of jokes with each other out in the field. It helps the time go by when you’re doing something like weeding.
Anyways.. Happy “Hell Month” to all you farmers out there! Don’t forget to fill your Nalgene!