The Natural Life - Safety Meeting

Staying out of the ER

Hello Frens,

Welcome back the The Natural Life where we talk about everything on the farm, homesteading, and just getting back to a more natural way of life. This week I got in the garden for the first time in a week and the weeds are already starting to take over. This is a constant battle for us gardeners and the only real way to win it is to go in your garden daily to check and pull weeds. I will say if you wait a day after a rain, the weeds are much easier to pull and the rows are easier to hoe, just thought I’d throw that in there to ya.

The other day I was rushing into a task and got some small metal shavings in my eye, I went to the Dr and he couldn’t find any foreign objects or scratches on my eye, so it was a near miss thankfully. I thought today we would spend a day talking about safety. This will cover most of the safety hazards around your home/homestead. Safety is very important especially if you have children, you don’t want to live with a major accident involving a loved one on your conscience. The worst thing about accidents is you can never go back once they happen, therefore safety is very important.

Safety Hazards Inside your house:

If you have small children, you know babies and toddlers are like little drunk room mates who are always trying to kill themselves, not kidding. There are obvious safety hazards with babies and toddlers that I won’t go into every single one. The main items we implemented for our babies were door knob covers to all outside doors, cabinet door locks on everything low (the ones we didn’t want them to open), and electric socket covers.

Put these on the outside doors if you have toddlers.

Some other things to think about with babies and toddlers are less obvious.

Never let your babies go outside by themselves, even for a second, until they are at least 4-5 years old (especially boys). We had a huge scare with our son when he was about 2.5 years old. I was in the garage working and my wife dressed our son up in warm clothes and sent him out the back door to work with Daddy. About 30 minutes later I went inside to realize what had happened. We looked everywhere and could not find my son. To make a long story short, we finally found my boy, he had walked about a mile and ended up way off the trail in a very thick part of woods, luckily my dog Kodi was with him the whole time, but it was a very scary time for us.

Another safety precaution indoors is to keep an eye on your babies and toddlers when they are eating. Do not let them play and laugh, or run and climb while eating. I have had my kids begin to choke several times. Today is a good day to learn the heimlech maneuver, if you haven’t already. Here is a decent youtube video.

If you have an older child and a young toddler, you need to make sure you keep an eye when the younger one is playing with the older one’s toys. Our youngest daughter at age 3 got hold of her older brothers marbles and swallowed one almost immediately. That was crazy to think about, so I called 911 and got some paramedics to check her out instead of rushing to the hospital. They checked her out and said there wasn’t too much to worry about, but it could have been bad if it was something a little larger or sharp.

Firearms are a major safety hazard with kids around. Never leave a weapon loaded, this is a bad idea even without kids around. You should probably practice racking your weapon instead of trying to rely on it being loaded and ready for you. Anyway, keep your weapons properly stored in a safe. You don’t have to have a huge heavy one, even just a lockable cabinet will keep your family safe from accidents.

Outside your home:

Most safety hazards outside involve operating equipment. Anytime you are operating equipment like string trimmers, chainsaws, lawnmowers, tractors, ATV’s, etc. you should be mindful of where your kids/family members are. Do not let your child outside while someone is mowing grass, weed eating, or operating equipment. If the rest of the family wants to be outside while you’re working, make sure someone is keeping an eye on the kids to make sure they do not get close to running equipment. Make sure you keep a safe distance when operating any equipment from people or animals.

Lawnmowers and string trimmers will sling debris out away from them. The lawn mower has a chute on the side of the mower where the debris exits. Make sure this opening is never pointing towards animals, people, cars, houses, or anything you don’t want to get damaged. String trimmers seem to sling debris back toward you, so keep windows, cars, and family members in front of you when your running a string trimmer.

When my kids were younger, they were fascinated with tractors and lawnmowers, and I would let them ride with me, even though this is a very dangerous thing to do and I wouldn’t recommend it. As long as you are careful and know what you’re doing, you should be able to take the little kids for short rides on your equipment.

One thing to remember is most kids fascinated with tractors, and any type of equipment or ATV. If they see you riding on your equipment, small toddlers will usually run straight up to you to get you to ride them. This is dangerous if you don’t see them, things could turn deadly quickly. Always look behind you when backing up, and stay aware of your surroundings. Try to keep toddlers indoors while big work is being done outside.

With tractors there are two major safety precautions to look out for: flipping/running over and entanglement. Make sure if you are on areas with inclined hills that you have your roll over protection system in place. This will save your life if your tractor flips. For me, I just stay away from steep hills. The other major danger is entanglement. You must make sure no one is operating or sitting on the tractor with it running while you are in the back hooking up the PTO, this would be a nightmare scenario. There is a driveshaft that connects to the back of the tractor for implements like rotary cutters and other implements. When the drive shaft engages, there is no stopping it. If you are anywhere near this drive shaft while it is spinning you are in grave danger.

Make sure the tractor is turned off when making this connection.

Another safety hazard on a farm is trees. Dead trees can be deadly, you want to keep an eye up to the trees around your farm and remember where the dead ones are. They can drop large limbs and they can just straight fall on you or your truck, lol. Be careful doing work around a dead tree since the vibrations could possibly cause limbs to fall. They are called widomakers for a reason.

Pools and Ponds are another safety hazard. If you have a pool make sure you keep it protected properly and teach your kids to swim as soon as possible. If they can’t swim, protect them.

PPE - Personal Protective Equipment

It’s a good idea to have safety glasses handy and wear them anytime you are doing work. I wear safety glasses most of the time when I’m outside working. You can buy the tinted ones and they are pretty decent looking for cheap, check them out here.

A pair of work gloves is essential to working around the house. Leather gloves are my choice since they are tough and hold up to most jobs, but they are loose and air can get down in them, so they aren’t as hot as some of the rubber/synthetic type gloves.

For hearing protection, I like to wear these. They are bluetooth wireless hearing protectors that let you listen to your favorite tunes while you work. These are great when mowing grass or running the tractor. It’s amazing how loud the lawn mower is, wearing hearing protection makes it much nicer.

So there you have it anon, my family has always been sort of on the worry wart side. You can be safe and still have fun and get work done. If you have some safety hazards that I left out, please leave a comment.

Remember, we all gone make it.

Your fren,

Farmer