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October 31, 2011
Lessons in Farm Chores
By: Linda Wuebben
This time of year my days are consumed with last minute projects – those dastardly deeds, which have been put off all spring and summer but now, winter looms on the horizon. Most of my last minute projects are outdoor projects that need to be completed before the snow flies.
So just like the farmers who are combining with a vengeance to get this year’s crop out of the field and into a bin, I am feverishly washing windows, trimming hedges and doing touch-ups on painting and staining.
Washing windows – what a boring chore. I remember my mother washed all the windows on our house on the farm twice a year. I soon rectified that situation after I got married and decided the windows only needed to be sparkling in the fall as we headed into winter. There aren’t any bugs in the winter and the windows are shut tight as a drum or at least I hope they are so when we open up in the springtime, they’re basically still clean.
I imagine my hatred for window-washing came from my mother’s meticulous process when washing windows. I was on the outside and she was on the inside, washing the same window at the same time. It was always me who had streaks on the outside and had to go over that window again and again. There had to be better things to do than this mindless spit-shining project.
I was always gleeful to get to the upstairs where I washed windows alone. There wasn’t any way for anyone to be on the outside looking in to see the inside person pointing out the sloppy work they were doing. There wasn’t anyone on the inside to see my sparkling reflection on the outside and that was okay with me. The project from that point on was done lickity-split. It meant the process was almost done and another year’s hard work could be put on the back shelf.
And I could skip quickly away to find other more pleasing endeavors. But I never forgot Mom’s shining example of a clean and still happy home. Hope some of it rubbed off on me – but just not the window-washing part.