More Than a Number: The Reality of Farm Safety

Agriculture consistently ranks as one of the most dangerous industries in the country, but on the farm, those stats often feel like they apply to "someone else." This week, we’re looking at the grim data behind farm accidents and why they keep happening. Tyler calls in to play devil’s advocate, walking us through the safety guards he’s removed to save time and make his life "easier." We’re having a blunt conversation about the cost of a few saved minutes and why the "it won't happen to me" mindset is the most dangerous tool on the farm. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Women farmers or not even farming but supportive roles of the farm. They talk about infertility of women in farming, mainly because of the chemicals. This sounds so interesting. So Brady, I have a question for you. What's it like when the corn is high but the chaos is higher?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

It's a lot of things, but it's never boring. This is the farm why files. Life between the rows. And we're back for another episode of Life Between the Rows. Yay!

SPEAKER_03 0:34

Sometimes I just like to be so- I was gonna say that was so serious.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

We always have a topic for every well, most of the time, we have a topic for every episode, but we just get on like I hope people don't think it's like a scripted outline because even if it was, we just get on such tangents that it just does not stay that way.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Okay, today we're talking about farm safety. Which I think our husbands would laugh at.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Honestly, they would.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

I do get so worried about like okay, I have a really I we did not even base this episode off my last experience, but I do have a good example for this. Okay, I had a baby shower on Saturday, and so Tyler was supposed to watch the kids, and this has been in the works for like a month. Well, he gets a call, and someone is stuck on a dirt road, and they need a tractor to pull him out.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Which of course this also happened, they called me, and not this last time, but you guys were out of town or something like that, and they were trying to get a hold of somebody, and they called me anyway. Um, well, this was the co-op calling. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. The co-op called Matt. Matt didn't answer. He was down in the Ozarks, Tyler was doing something maybe in Carney, Grand Island. So then they tried calling Cody. They tried calling Cody, but it was my number because my number's on the co-op thing.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

They're like, I can't help you.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Well, and they were like, so and so is stuck on a dirt road over by Robert's. Can you go help them? Blah blah blah blah. And I was just like, Literally no. Well, Cody's not even at work. Matt's in the Ozarks, and Tyler's um M-I experience. Everybody's gone. No. Anyway, sorry, continue.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

So anyway, Tyler just can't say no. And um he's like, Well, it's fine. And I was gonna take Branson anyway because you know it's just it's easier. He I can just latch him onto me and yeah, it's just yeah. And figured Taylon can have some dad time before he gets busy with planting and he's not around. But yeah, he's like, Oh yeah, I'll come do that. And I'm like, I have to leave in an hour.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Like, in what world do you think like he's like, well I just figured I'll take her with me. And for whatever reason, I'm like, I'm like, no, that's not safe. Like, I have seen way too many chains fly through the back of windows, and that's more pickups, I guess. But still, like, I guess that that's just not a place I wanted my daughter.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

I don't know why, but and he's like, I would never bring her somewhere, she's unsafe. And I'm like, okay, I I I understand that, but like your idea of safe and my idea of safe are not the same definition.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Yeah. Well, I was just a little bit I know we originally when we first started talking about it. There's a lot more to talk about it because I'm actually certified in like as a nurse, I'm certified in.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

This was a topic we wanted to talk about like long ago, but we just haven't got to it.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

But no, tell us about your background and what you did for your certification though.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Yeah, so as n a nurse, I have to do what they call continuing education hours um to keep my license. And so there's other things that I have to do to keep my license, but one of them is a CEU, and they the state of Nebraska does not require you to do it on any specific thing. Like, of course, you still have to like have CPR and all this stuff, and that will count towards some of it. But um the other CEUs can be do like you can do it whatever. So sometimes in the past years I've done it where it's like something I want to learn about that I really have no idea about it, or sometimes I would do things on maybe just up-to-date practices on things that I feel very confident on, just that I work with every single day in my job. So very different. Um, there was an opportunity that someone reached out to me that they were um offering scholarships to do what they call the agri-safe like nursing scholar. And so, what that means is there's a bunch of different nurses that take this class, and it's a series of classes with tests and online like discussions and all of this stuff, and we they were looking at paying for this, and it's like a $600 course, and I ended up getting it for free because I I just applied for it and whatever. Well, it's all about specifically the health strategies of farming, and they pay more attention to rural nurses and what support rural communities have because you could go to Omaha and get a lot of these services, but it may not be as accessible in those smaller communities, so they teach a little bit about just everything, like from Yeah, I'm wondering how like widespread this is.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, it was like anywhere because you know you hear farming, like are we talking like hobby gardening to like row crop tens of thousands acres operation? You know what I'm saying there?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Right. So they didn't they just say like farmer, for example. Like they don't necessarily say like this is for a 10,000 because like health is health.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Right. I mean, but the equipment, like I when I'm thinking like safety equipment-wise that's right.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

So they go into a little bit of the safety of like how to safely handle equipment and that stuff, not a ton of that. It was more of okay, what are farmers using? They're using heavy machinery. What are the things that we see with heavy machinery? Hearing loss is one of them, and I'll get into that. But like, okay, so with farmers that are around, or pig farmers, for example, number one farming industry that have hearing loss is pig farmers because of the squeal of a pig is so loud and such a different dev. Yeah, so pig farmers are always gonna have a higher risk. Sorry, Grandpa, but yeah, like pig farmers have a higher risk of hearing loss because they're around pigs all the time.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

So hearing loss.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Yeah, my grandpa my papa used to furrow out pigs and they had a whole like pig operation. Um, and then just like, you know, farming too. Yeah, he has a really hard time now.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Okay, so yeah, so like I'm sorry, that's just really interesting.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Yeah, so they go into like that, but like chemical. Like farmers are gonna spray chemicals, we know it's part of their job. But what are the risks that are we're spraying chemicals? Okay, we know these risks, we know what to do, but it's like, okay, a farmer spills chemical on them. What are what are the things that we need to do as nurses right away? Oh and so it's like more of like the responding to, and of course, I'll get into all of that. So there was that one thing that I really, really enjoyed that I didn't think that this class would even touch on was women producers. Oh, so like women farmers or not even farming, but supportive roles of the farm. They talk about infertility of women in farming, mainly because of the chemicals.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

This sounds so interesting. Like, this should be something that could be offered to like just farm wives and farm families.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah, it was really, really cool. I really enjoyed learning about it, and I still talk to the nurses that I did it. We have quarterly like um lunch, they do it over lunches, so we just get to like eat lunch and talk and all that stuff. But they talked about that, but they also talked about the safety of children. Okay, and how typically kind of the story that you were just telling about Tyler is one of the higher risks of children having farming incidents is because it's always linked back to the mother.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Not necessarily the father, and it's because the children see their mother multitasking on the farm more, so they think that they can multitask and they can't because their brain is not wired the way that it sh it it's not mature enough to do that, and so they end up getting in an accident, a farming accident, because they thought it was okay because mom was multitasking, so oh no, so and that's typically double check myself, yeah. And so that's what typically they see children and farming accidents and that type of stuff, and then they um one of the other things that I really liked was the mental health aspect of it because farming is just a tough and if our husbands are listening, they're gonna be like they'll blah like uh uh, you know. But actually, there is um the there's three top professions that are always listed on your highest written or suicide. Suicide rates are the highest. One of them are which is kind of confusing, but like dentist orthodontics is one of them, but farming is also always one of the top three. And then um first responders.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Oh, I could see that.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

And I think first responders is also linked into military, but so those are the three professions that are always typically at the top of the chain for suicide rates and that stuff, unfortunately. But um, I do think that that it's one of the things that this class has, or this course and certification has brought light to.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

But and we'll get into that just a little bit more. But when we were first talking about this episode, we talked about how you were like, Oh, let me just see what Chat GPT says.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yes, yeah, so because I was like, Oh, what are some talking points for me? Because you know, I want to be able to add into the conversation. But then, of course, like I give her such nonchalant and like just bring up whatever, and she goes, She said, always shut off equipment and remove keys before servicing. Okay, okay, thanks. Great advice. And then the next one, never bypass safety guards or shields. Stay away from moving parts, PTOs, belts, augers. So here I gotta call Tyler really quick, and we're just gonna ask. We may have to cut this out because it could be a total flop. We'll see what he says.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Hello.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Hi. Okay, I'm I'm calling you now.

unknown 11:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

So we're doing an episode uh over safety and health strategies for farmers.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

How many shields do you have around the PTOs on any of our equipment?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I don't know, probably one.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Are you serious?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Like on an uh irrigation letter, there's only one.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

I'm talking Okay, that's fine. Okay, what other what other like um what other like safety things do they have? Or like shields or like guards or whatever that you guys have taken off or you don't have on there?

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Oh, like on the grinders where you take all them off.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Yeah, I thought that's literally what I was thinking of.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Make it whatever is convenient. That's awful! So Tyler, do you wear we're trying to use the efficiency on the farm, not uh OSHA approved.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Uh-huh. Okay, Addy has a question. How many times do you wear like glasses when you're like welding?

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Or well, he's probably always wearing his sunglasses, but then when he welds, he wears a helmet. He actually wears the helmet. Yeah, he does actually.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

I don't wear safety glasses under my welding helmet.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

You actually wear the welding helmet though.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I wear my sunglasses when I'm grinding.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

I was gonna say, just grinding though.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah, just grinding helmets. He doesn't wear like safety glasses, they're like his Oakley sunglasses.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, they'll put like in my eyes.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Or like even thinking about like none of them have steel toad boots. Yeah. They're all wearing freaking requirement. No, but your toes really help you walk.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah, but Matt wears flip-flops, so it's not. Yeah, he does.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yeah, he does wear the flip-flops all the time. Okay, what else is like supposed to be safety for you, but you totally take it off and disregard it? Yeah, disregard it. Well, I was thinking like up north, all the pivots up there that were run by a motor, like, none of that stuff is like safe is safe at all. Okay. Well, like, even like a tractor though, like there's not shields over those PTOs.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah, there is.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

I don't think so. I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

The grand card has a PTO chef uh on it already.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

I'm thinking about like the auger.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Yeah, the auger.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

See, we are oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Okay, that's all I mean I kind of figured I knew the answer, but that's what I was looking for.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Okay, sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Okay, thank you. Be safe. Bye. Literally told you.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Love Tyler. Yeah. Well, I love our.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

What was his words? We're for efficiency.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Yeah. We work for efficiency on the farm. We're not ocean-approved. Final last words of Tyler Heidevin.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

No, but honestly, like, as much as that makes me nervous and we laugh about that, they do good. I mean, they are pretty well um, like they think things through. I will say when we have issues is when it's like go season and they get a little bit out of shape because something's not going how they want, or they're they feel like they're behind schedule. I mean, just like the other day, Tyler's trying to get the skid all ready to go, and trying to get the tenor truck all ready to go for spraying and whatnot, planting stuff all all together, and he freaking cut his thumb completely open because something on the I don't know. It's just like Cody. Yeah, and then Cody.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yeah. What'd Cody do? He was trying to change a tire on one of the tractors and it just wasn't coming loose, so he got pissed, of course, and shoved something in there and it came loose, and so when it came loose, it just sliced his finger completely open. That's a bad slice, though. Yeah. And of course, I'm just laying. Well, he comes over and he's like, This is the thing that made me freaking crazy. He was like, Well, I was just gonna have Sarah, which is his sister, come look at it. But she was in town, and I was just like, I was literally right over the hill. Like, why wouldn't you come over here? Well, I knew you were sleeping, so I didn't want to come bother you. And I was just like, I appreciate that, but like when you're bleeding. Yeah. Last time that you went to the ER, you just sent me a Snapchat.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

And I didn't look at it until I looked at it, and here you are, yeah, bleeding from the head. I got a Snapchat saying you were going to the ER, not a text or a call or anything. So there was that. But so yeah, so I just I have some notes that I like compiled off of the courses that I took, and I just wanted to like kind of go through.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

So a little bit about AgriSafe. So I I just want to preface this. This is from AgriSafe Network. In 2003, it was founded by a group of rural nurses, pretty much just identifying the need for their community to have some sort of farm nursing knowledge, because not all communities have a provider in their ER at all times, like they have to call things in. So nurses have to be equipped to have the information to be able to adequately support farming and the farming incidents that happen.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

So they mean know your community, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:52

So I mean, and so that this is why this was founded. In the network, they founded what they called the total farmer health, and that's where they go into a bunch of different things. One of the things like that I said that they talk about a lot was the female producers. So right now they said there's over 1.2 million female producers in the US, and how to adequately also factor those 1.2 million females into the equation plays a different ballgame when it comes to just talking about males. Okay. That's the main gist of just like background. They wanted to focus on the farmer, but they also wanted that unique perspective of females as well. One of the things that they talked about, and we touched on it, was the mental health, the mind over matter aspect of farming. So we know that the ag industry faces higher suicide rates just against the general population. And so some of the factors that they talked about that I think I knew in the back of my head, but I never really like had the validation that it was like actually a thing. And we we've talked about it in previous episodes of like how many decisions do they truly have to make on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_02 18:17

We talked, yes, we talk about farming. Like, I know I'm especially growing up, it's oh, your job's really labor-intensive, but you don't have the mental to like we do. BS being married to a farmer, now I know.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

So debt is one of them. If you meet a farmer with no debt, they're not a farmer. Yeah, literally.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

You have well, no, take that back. They're just haven't retired yet.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Yes. Debt, weather, and market is the top three things that cause the suicide rates to go up, or just mental health in general.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

It's just something you can't really control.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

All three of them. I mean, like you can control.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

But like, how are you gonna farm if you're not gonna you need a you need a lot of cash flow? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

So um, one of the things is also there's always the stigma with farmers that are like they're tough as nails, and they need to do all of this, and they need to be the providers of the family, and that also eats them alive sometimes because they don't know how to ask for help. Yeah, and so one or you don't think they can correct, and so one of the things that they taught us in this class was you have to use the check-in strategy, but you have to be direct with it. Yeah, like you can't beat around the bush with them, and obviously, like I could go up to Tyler and I could have this conversation with him if I truly felt like that I was worried about him. Yeah, you could probably do the same with Cody, yeah, but you can't do that with everyone. Um the idea is to use direct but empathetic language. So it sounds like you're under a great deal of stress. I'm worried about you, are you having thoughts? All of that stuff, like just being very direct. Well, I mean, yeah, he probably would, but if he's truly in that position.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

You think?

SPEAKER_03 20:07

I think he I mean, realistically, if someone is really personality, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Unfortunately, I mean, it just Yes.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

With that also being said, we know that farmers have that physical toll on their body too, and so a lot of them have chronic pain.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

So there's one of the statistics that they have is 74% of the ag community has been impacted by opioid misuse.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

What?

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Yeah. So the long hours, acute or chronic injuries lead to those quick fixes, which is those opioid use.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

That's wild.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

And so one of the ways that uh they taught us as nurses is always ask about different pain management. Or if they know that they've used opio opioids in the past, like we need to start asking those questions like before we like present it to the doctor or something like that, so we don't continue giving them opioids when they they have identified that they're right, or they have abused them in the past. And it might not think like, oh, I'm abusing it. It's not necessarily that.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

It's the fact of when you're taking a pain medication like ibuprofen, that's abusing it.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

No. You're taking not necessarily ibuprofen. Like I'm thinking like true opioids, the hardcore pain meds.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

That's what I'm saying. Like when you're taking like over-the-counter pain medication like ibuprofen, that's when it's you should yes, correct.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Yeah. I oh I that stat just really Yeah, that's I never that's a high. Yeah, very, very high. We talked about how your grandpa is deaf.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, I mean he's not, but I know, but he literally can't like I feel so bad for him because he told me the other day and he's trying to Get some different hearing aids. He's just had. I think there's so there's that thing. There's so many on the market, you don't know what to get. It's like, and they're so expensive. So expensive, right? You don't know what to do. But he's to the point where like he has to like try and read people's lips, and yeah, that just is miserable not being able to hear.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

So one of the things that they also talked about was the decibels. So OSHA has a they have different, of course, they have different like levels of things, but 85 decibels is typically where it's like, okay, if you have a consistent 85 decibel or above with long-term exposure, like this is gonna lead to damage. And so whether that's like actual hearing damage or like brain damage could be different based on whatever tractors and livestock tractors and livestock, typically pigs, are always right about that 112 decibel mark. Meaning long-term exposure to like that all the time. I mean, if you're in a barn that's echoing because it's pigs, like the echo is even gonna be making it worse, longer exposure. Plus then maybe you're um I'm thinking of like an auger running around. Right. You're cleaning out a bin, yeah, or you're filling trucks or just all of that. Yep. 112 decibels.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Oh, I don't want that. It it's kind of funny, but like my grandma, my grandpa, when my grandpa can't hear, she literally has to talk in like this, like, bail! Like this high pitch, and she and he can hear that.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I don't want to do that with Tyler.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Well, so that's the one thing is they said like hearing protection is really big, but they talk about that with kids as well.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Yeah, I'm bad about that. Because I'm like, oh, it's the tractor, oh it's like it's fine, and so and it's more like long-term exposure.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

So if like Taylin was gonna go ride in the tractor with dad, like typically probably it's riding in the tractor and that's about it. Like inside the cab is not nearly as bad. I would hope Tyler's not have making her get out and in with unloading augers and all of this stuff, like all the time. But like kids running around with the augers running, or just tractors in general, or they're walking through the pig barn, or like you they should be wearing ear protection. I mean, the adults should as well, but realistically, we want to try to protect our children as much as possible. So there's there's that. Um one of the things I never did it as a kid, but I know a lot of friends that have is uh going and doing like picking corn in the summer, like detasseling. Um, not necessarily this is the one example that comes to my mind, but they use different examples. Crop workers, so detasseling, so that's what crop workers mean. Die from heat 20 times faster than any other industry. What 50% of those deaths from heat exhaustion happen within the first four days of the job. So someone that has never detasseled corn right, they're not used to that environment. No, and so enforcing breaks, telling people that it's okay to slow down, and specifically like with Cody, it's I always have to remind him I'm like, sit down and eat lunch, just sit inside and eat.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Just or not even lunch, but there I don't think is there a lot of detasseling still going on? Like, I know seed corn, they gotta go in and cut the tops off off some of those, but I'm not real familiar on yeah, and it's not uh they used detasseling as an example in this one, but it's just like Cody going and working cows or haying.

unknown 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

Haying's in the middle of summer, and sometimes he has to hay without the cab, like the tractor with the cab. Like it's okay to take breaks and enforce that and tell the people to just do it. There's that going back to the opioid misuse and just pain and that stuff, but 90% of farmers will experience some sort of muscul musculoskeletal pain, with over half of the older farmers suffering from arthritis and back problems.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Because they try to lift stuff that's way too heavy for them.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yep. So that's that was something that I'm like, wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah, that is eye-opening.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

So safe lifting is a big thing with that.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Whenever I get like a piece of furniture or something heavy on Amazon, this is a two-man lift.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

I know, it's like, nope, I'm just gonna manhandle it in and just get it done.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Well, I don't have another me, so it's gonna be a one-person lift today.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

A hundred percent. So yeah, ergonomics of like posture and just all of that stuff, but then like mixing the heat, the pain, the not taking breaks, all of those things is just a recipe for disaster. Right. We talked about women and all that stuff. One of the things that they talked about in this one is women, specifically pregnant uh like pregnancy, childbearing age.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

R age.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yes. They uh women typically our age and are around farming, the farming industry are at much higher risk of infertility than anyone else. And that's because of the chemicals. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

The environmental hazards, pesticides, biological Well, and something I wanted to talk about a little bit, like you touched base on like the spray chemicals. And I think uh that's something that the farming world gets a lot of hate for and grief for. But what I want to explain to people is okay, where maybe I do think as far as my husband or Cody or the people that are handling it hands-on, maybe are at more of risk. But the people that are even anywhere near the spray when it's being sprayed, like I don't think they understand how diluted it is.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

It is diluted.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

The amount of water that goes into it.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Now, and I'm not gonna sit here and say that some of the chemicals are perfectly safe when they're in their full concentrated form. Um, especially if they're being spilt on or, you know, it's being seeped through their skin or you know, whatever the case may be. But the people that are hating on spraying chemicals, I don't think they understand the amount of dilution as far as like it going on the plant. Well, and then as far as us spraying our stuff, like none of our stuff is food grade, like none of that stuff you're going to be ingesting.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Like no.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

So that's what I want to get across here. Like, I'm all for saying chemicals have some point in um being harmful, but not for the people that are not handling the full concentrated version.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

I think with that as well, is farmers also have to take classes in order to safely apply and spray things. Like they can't just go out and spray.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Like the wind has to be in certain directions and under a certain mile per hour and all of those things. So, yes, the one of the examples with women and the chemicals is doing laundry.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Really? I know Cody's been really good about it.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Super good. Yeah. After he figured out and learned how to use the washer and dryer himself. I need to give him more credit, but yeah, I mean, he is he will take my clothes out of the washer because typically we'll just throw it, we're all on the same floor, so we just go throw them in the washer instead of in a laundry basket. And sometimes it's in a laundry basket, but he will take my clothes out before he puts his and he'll do a load of laundry every night if he has to. Yeah. Because he is like, I don't want you handling them. Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

And for him. Also for Cody. Yes, with pesticides and that stuff is women typically are the ones handling the household pesticides. Uh-huh. The bug spray.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

See, and I don't even think about that.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

That's one of the things as well. And then one of the the burnout of women, specifically multitasking. They multitask on the farm because they just have to get stuff done. Their kids see it and their kids think that they can multitask, and we kind of talked about that earlier. So that's typically where they see kids have the most issues, or they run into them is they run into the problems of safety.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

I think as far as like children's safety on the farm, my biggest has just been like repetition. Yes. Like, you know, we were out there the other day and Tyler's loading chemical totes onto the tender truck and Talon's riding a little bike around and just like consistently telling her like daddy cannot hear or see you when he is in the and it's the forklift. So I mean uh he can see better than if he's at the sprayer. But like just being consistent and if this is running, stay away from it. Right. I mean, even like we had a semi um and it was just idling because it needed to be filled, and they just hadn't got to it, and so it's sitting there, and I'm like, and so just telling her, like, we walk around so they can see you. And so that's just been something that we've really implemented. Like, even if somebody like we know nobody's in there, we know that the truck's not gonna move, but they don't run, exactly. Yeah, so just like you know, telling her and and and instilling that in her brain, like this is running, so that means we need to stay away from it. Yes, but then also just practicing what you preach because they watch everything. Yep, kids are just little sponges, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

And that's the thing is kids typically specifically with farming, they always want to go do these fun things. So kids are on four wheelers at eight years old, and there's a reason it's so radical. Right, yeah, and it's always like you run the risk of like, oh, it's good, they need to learn how to do these things, it's instilling them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I get that.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

I think there's a happy medium, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

And so you'll see farming um related incidents with that as well. But what the thing that I'm just gonna keep saying is it's just insane for data to start to be linked to children's related incidents back to the mom. And like it's just insane to think about, like that they could actually do this research and be able to say, like, and I obviously I don't have children, but just with the littles down on the farm, we had Brooke's little one, and he comes down to the farm quite frequently, and every single time we um have to unplug the electric fence because he doesn't know, and so we teach him, but we're gonna unplug it to teach him like just for safety. But it's like, no, you don't touch that. Touch it, see what happens again, right? But you know, and we've we've had that conversation, and it came down to okay, we can do that, but then it they get scared, yeah, and they don't want to go see the bowls, or they don't want to go see these fun things that they were excited to see. So it's like so I get it, there is that happy medium. Like, does a two-year-old need to be shocked by electric fence? No. Does a five-year-old that has now known better that this is an ouchie and that we don't touch it, and they just want to-cause it does become a game. Right. That's the thing, is like, okay, well, you know, and I know that you know better not to touch it, but you're just you're running over and you're smiling and you're putting your finger on it. Okay, go do it. I don't care. You'll learn. But yeah, I think I'm just starting to be more conscious of what you're doing. What I'm doing when I when littles are there too.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

So I mean, yeah, I'm constantly do like doing five things at once. Like, and I guess I haven't thought about like farm-related stuff, but like just here at the house.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Well, and not only that, but like we can say women all we want, but even men. Tyler could have Taylin in the combine or in the tractor taken for a ride, but how many phone calls is he also taking? Taylin, when she gets a cell phone, she's gonna think it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Or do I mean just texting and driving? Yeah. Don't even have to be farm related.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

I mean, especially like my super crews, I'll catch myself all the time because I can be on the highway and my car drives itself. I mean, yeah, I have to be like looking up every once in a while so it thinks that I'm paying attention. Pay attention. But yeah, I've caught myself like I'll just be scrolling Facebook and I'm like, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_03 34:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Yeah, it drives itself, but like I still have to like they're like technology fails all the time.

unknown 35:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

So it's insane.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Yeah. Interesting. Those are really interesting facts.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

And if you guys want to learn more, I could totally grab some more things. Obviously, I needed to keep it high level as much as possible, and the things that really stood out to me. But yeah, I was excited to take the class and now I'm certified in that type of nursing. So farming nursing, and um, we'll definitely continue it in the future.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Super fun.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

That was a fun episode.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Okay, well, we'll wrap this one up, but we will see you guys next time.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

All right, I will see you next time. Bye.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

They say a farmer's work is never done. Well, neither is ours. Come back next week for a new episode of Life Between the Rows.