Tag: Agriculture

Memories in a Box

~ sanebishop ~ Leave a comment

Cleaning out the storage closet at the office seemed to be a task that generations of government employees had somehow managed to avoid, meaning obsolete equipment and general GSA junk had metastasized. So one morning, I made it my task to declutter the closet, and despite my best intentions, it was a task I also managed not to accomplish because I got distracted when I found a box of old farming photos on a shelf.

“Look at these neat photos,” I said to one of my coworkers. Admittedly, she didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could create a book with these?” I continued.

“Sure, you do that,” she said. And so my moment of inspiration to clean out the closet became a two year project to create a book, the proceeds from which would benefit the Cleveland County Farmland Preservation Program.

In the process of creating the book, we had members of the general public bring in old farming photos as well, so we could document their stories about farming in the county. Meanwhile, I did my best to study up on the local farming history, digging through Census of Agriculture statistics and old newspapers articles to write the forward and captions for the book.

Dale brought in several old photos from his family’s old dairy farm. I had gotten to know Dale pretty well in my time working at the agriculture office. He was the type of farmer who would go out of his way to help somebody else, and he had helped me on several occasions, once helping chase down some loose pigs and once helping me doctor on a sick cow. The knock on Dale was that he was always two months behind, and it was easy to understand why because he was always helping other people instead of prioritizing his own crops.

“This here is on the old dairy silo on Bethlehem Rd,” Dale said. He was missing most of his pointer finger, but he used the stub to point out things nonetheless.

“This here is from our first harvest of milo,” he said. “For a few years, a lot of folks planted it instead of corn, but then the grain mill that was buying it closed up.”

“This here is our old silage cutter.”

After he got done pointing out features in his own photos, I slid the box I found in the closet across the desk. A grin spread across his face as he opened the box and started flipping through photos he had never seen before. At one point, Dale leaned back in his seat a little and looked down. He started to tear up. If you would have given a million tries to predict who would ever tear up in my office, I would have never predicted Dale.

“This here is a photo of my Uncle Randle on his old Massy. I still have that tractor,” he said, wiping the corner of one eye. Then he grinned again and started thumbing through more pictures.

“This here…” he just kept saying.

As he examined those pictures, it dawned on me that Dale was an expert in local farming knowledge, not because he had studied it, but because he had lived it. Nobody would have said he was the most successful farmer around–if anything it seemed like he was just scraping by, always two months behind–but he had somehow survived when a lot of other farms and farmers had been relegated to memories in a box. In many ways, he was a living embodiment of the past, and one of the kindest men I’ve ever met.

Farmageddon: The Old Farm Problem

~ sanebishop ~ 6 Comments

Recently, the old farm problem has reared its ugly head again. The farm problem, if you have forgotten, is the fact that farmers can’t afford to farm. This is an old problem that dates back to the beginnings of civilization, when in Mesopotamia, in 5342 B.C., the price of water buffalo dung spiked to all time highs and the flax seed market bottomed out, mostly because ancient Egypt decided to stop buying flax seed from Mesopotamia and instead started importing it from Brazil, which at the time was a burgeoning flax seed producer. 

From its infancy in the cradle of civilization, the farm problem grew and spread to other cultures and civilizations. The Hebrew culture, for instance, took a run at solving the problem by forgoing crop production and relying on manna from a distant trading partner. But after forty years, the supply of manna dried up and they had to go back to growing their own crops, so manna was only a temporary solution for the farm problem.

Eventually, the ancient Greeks took a crack at solving the farm problem. They put their best and brightest marble bust models to the conundrum. For instance, Aristotle started out by writing about agriculture, but then he soon gave up and transitioned to easier topics like metaphysics. Then the ancient Romans came along and tried to solve the farm problem by building lots of cobblestone roads, only to realize they built their roads too small for their mammoth wheat carts and potholes led to the fall of their civilization. 

Fast forward many centuries to America where, to solve the farm problem, the citizenry  enslaved others to do their farming for them, but this did very little to solve the farm problem and, in fact, led to many tangential problems. That more or less brings us to modern times when the farm problem is reawakening with a new sense of urgency. Due to rising input costs and low commodity prices, some farmers will likely be forced to sell their farms. Unless manna falls from heaven or the federal government, this will be a very bad year for the farm problem. 

Truly, I wish I knew the solution. Federal manna will likely fall, but that will not solve the farm problem. And I doubt it is as simple as eschewing all modern farming in favor of old agrarian ways, as the farm problem is as old as time. Many farmers are keeping the faith and hoping that newly installed policies will pay dividends and lead to a revival in the bread basket of America. That’s what they’ve been told at least. However, I believe, if I remember my history right, that once ancient Egypt started buying flax seed from Brazil, Mesopotamia was left holding the bag. 

Heel Kicks and Hitch Pins

~ sanebishop ~ 2 Comments

There is a certain physicality needed to farm–namely, the ability to kick. However, as a demographic group, Southerners have tended to be suspicious of kicking, likely due to its close association with the sport we call “soccer.” There are many reasons why southerners distrust soccer. Some fear it’s a scheme of the global new world order, others believe it’s unnatural for a species with opposable thumbs, and others dislike the tall socks. Whatever the reason, soccer has never really caught on in the South. It even ranks lower than other niche sports, like Nascar and competitive eating. 

I, for one, am a fan of competitive eating and Nascar and soccer. All three sports have virtues. All three sports foster skills that have applications to farm life. For instance, gobbling up large amounts of meat in a single sitting can free up freezer space after you catch a trophy largemouth bass on Friday and need to thwart aesthetic decay before taking it to the taxidermist on Monday. The ability to make left turns and drive continuously in circles, without losing interest or dehydrating oneself due to excessive drooling, is fundamental to many common farm tasks, such as plowing, drilling, and bush hogging. Farm life is rife with kicking, in various forms and for various functions.

Take, for instance, your common shovel kick. Any ole person can stomp a shovel, but a former soccer player has a competitive advantage in a drought. Why a farmer might be trying to dig a hole in a drought is irrelevant. It could be to plant a plant, dig a well, bake a potato, or dig his own grave–it doesn’t matter. What matters is form and the downward thrust needed to penetrate hardened red clay. Someone who is skilled in the movement and manipulations of the leg, who can stomp efficiently and powerfully without tiring and without resorting to jumping up and down on the shovel (a desperate and inefficient move often attempted by former basketball players), will be more drought resistant as a farmer. 

Another example: anybody who has ever had chickens also understands the importance of footwork. Despite having tiny brains, chickens instinctively know which way you want them to go. They use this instinct to go the opposite direction. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because a farmer was on the other side. To prevent chickens from moving against the grain and going against your wishes, developing a good trap will give you a leg up. In fact, a leg up is a good way to describe a trap, a soccer move in which you hold your leg up and to the side to slow and stop the movements of an incoming soccer ball or domesticated fowl. Remember, the goal is merely to slow and stop the rogue movement of the chicken, not to punt it, so again the soccer player has a foot up, even against a farmer who is a former punter. 

David Beckham demonstrate proper trap form. Imagine a chicken where the soccer ball is.

The trap should not be confused with the slide tackle, a more advanced soccer move best used to play defense against fleeing pigs. If pigs evade your slide tackle, you’re better off acquiring the services of a former cross country runner. Although they may not be experts in kicking, they know how to run across hill and dale, which is the primary skill needed when pursuing pigs. 

A slide tackle. Imagine a pig where the soccer ball is.

One final example: The heel kick is used in soccer to pass the ball backwards and commonly used in farming to unhook equipment from tractors. Simply raise your foot up, over, and inside the three-point hitch arm. Then, using your knee as a fulcrum, swing your foot backward, and wallop the inner hitch arm with your heel. This will either dislodge the hitch receiver from the pin or dislodge your foot from your leg. If the latter, soccer players have a considerable advantage because most are ambidextrous with their feet, meaning the loss of a dominant foot would have less downside for a farmer who is a former soccer player. 

A Heel Kick. Imagine a three-point hitch arm where the soccer ball is.

I could go on and on, but the point here is soccer is a valuable sport that can be used to develop skills, specifically kicking skills, that can be beneficial to farmers. For that reason, maybe one day soccer will gain acceptance and popularity in rural areas. Until then, please keep my secret that I like soccer between the two of us. If it got out, it could really hurt my reputation in the farming community.

Ratchet Strap Distress

~ sanebishop ~ 5 Comments

In the epic battle of man versus ratchet strap, one man stands befuddled. That described me last week when I was trying to operate a common ratchet strap. Over the years, I have had many battles with ratchet straps—rusty ones, tangled ones, and starving ones that seemed ready to chomp and swallow my fingers. But this one beat all.

“This stupid thing,” I eruditely remarked.

“Here, let me show you,” my wife interjected. No wife has ever watched her husband struggle to tame a ratchet strap and not felt the need to offer assistance. Soon man and wife will stand together, befuddled.

Ratchet straps are used to secure loads for transport. Possibly, they are used by psychologists, in experimental studies, to research and observe how men react under intense stress. I don’t remember signing up for any experimental studies, but who knows what you’re signing up for these days. Everyone, everywhere is trying to sign you up for something (for instance, if you would like, you can sign up for my free Substack newsletter, which is exactly the same as this WordPress blog).

“Can we have your email?” the clerk asked.

“Only if it helps me get out of here faster,” I responded.

So perhaps I did sign up for an experimental study as I tried to buy a few pieces of dimensional lumber—the 2 x 6s I forgot to buy earlier in the day when I was wandering through Lowes looking for an employee to guide me in my quest for a common piece of hardware. Having wasted several hours, just in trips back and forth to Lowes, I was the perfect subject for scientific research on ratchet strap distress.

In the Lowes parking lot, as I struggled to secure my 2 x 6s while ruefully lamenting all the time I had wasted—was wasting—the psychologists, observing me in secret, were probably commenting on my mental state. Likely they were hiding in the fancy duck blinds that Lowes now sells in the parking lot. Apparently, Lowes is edging into the rural lifestyle market, as evidence by these duck blinds that could also be used as second residences, or research stations for psychologists.

[Two researchers sip coffee in the duck blind and observe men securing loads in the parking lot. RESEARCHER 1 zooms in on me with her binoculars.]  

RESEARCHER 1: Judging by the color in his cheeks, which I would classify a deep burgundy, I would say this man is exhibiting extreme distress.

RESEARCHER 2: With one being a smiley face and ten the head-exploding emoji, where would you rate him on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of ratchet strap distress?

RESEARCHER 1: He is probably at an 8 right now, considering he hasn’t yet started gesticulating. Just wait till his wife attempts to show him how to use it—he should reach 10 here shortly.

RESEARCHER 2: She just offered assistance. Wow, he vigorously declined, not even going to let her try—this is not going to end well.

RESEARCHER 1: Uh, oh, she told him to “relax.” The subject is visibly quavering—I would say the intervals between major tremors are approximately 10 seconds.

RESEARCHER 2: Judging by those spasms, shouldn’t be long till he erupts.

RESEARCHER 1: There he blows! Look how far he just flung the ratchet strap! That could be a record.

If the ratchet strap wasn’t broken before, it was now rendered inoperable, mostly because it was dangling from the top of a maple tree in a curbed island in the parking lot. In my opinion, the neon orange ratchet strap gave the homely maple an eye-catching accessory that added to the parking lot’s overall landscape design and aesthetic. Afterward, I entered Lowes for the fourth time that day and began a quest for new ratchet straps.

Foxes and the Moral Quandaries of Farming

~ sanebishop ~ 5 Comments

We’re currently being out-foxed by a Urocyon cinereoargenteus–a gray fox.  In the last few weeks, the fox in question has carried off two chickens, presumably not to befriend them. Over the years, we’ve never had any luck trapping foxes. We can trap just about everything else–possums, raccoons, neighbor’s cats–but the fox has always been able to sniff out and elude our entrapments. We even caught this hawk a few days ago (and safely released it).

When dealing with a fox, you’d best call in a professional trapper. We know this because we once brought in a non-professional trapper. He was one of my wife’s coworkers, a fellow librarian–and a self-described “outdoorsman.” Be advised: a self-described outdoorsman should not be allowed to handle any spring-loaded contraptions that look medieval–the risk of self harm is just too much. Nor should you ever sniff anything a self-described outdoorsman hands you in a little brown jar–unless, that is, you’d like to become an aficionado in the various wafts and whiffs of urine. 

“Wow, that’s fox pee?” I said, trying not to gag. 

“No, it’s synthetic, but most people can’t tell the difference,” he said. 

Apparently, only pee snobs can tell the difference–these elite outdoorsmen spend much time at highfalutin urine sniffing events, where they slosh pee around, then sniff it and make erudite comments like, “This pee has undertones of roadkill–I believe this fox that produced this urine had just eaten an armadillo in Burgundy.”

Also, foxes can tell the difference. They prefer all-natural organic fox pee. If you haven’t done much comparison shopping in the urine aisle recently, organic fox pee has really suffered from inflation–in fact, most stores now keep it locked in those plastic anti-theft boxes, to prevent shoplifters from swiping it and selling it on the black market. With egg prices back down, sometimes I think I’d be better off just sacrificing the chickens to curry favor with the fox, then asking it to pee in a cup. 

Anyway, after the synthetic fox pee failed, the outdoorsman counseled me on various shades and patterns of camouflage, so we could stake out the fox and shoot it. I chose a Realtree Xtra Oak Camo Print, but the goats quickly blew over cover. They walked right up to us and tried to eat the oak leaves on my shirt. Then the self-described outdoorsman misidentified the goats as sheep (free farming lesson: sheep tails point down, goat tails point up), and I began to question his credentials as an outdoorsman.

Alas, our current fox is probably a descendant of the previous fox I failed to shoot. For now, our chickens remain cooped up. Ah, the moral quandaries of farming: let the chickens live free and die or live cooped up (and live).