Man Plans. Weatherman Laughs

January 26, 2026January 26, 2026 ~ sanebishop ~ 5 Comments

On the Tuesday before the storm, I called my wife to begin the necessary bureaucratic process. We make each other jump through hoops to justify big purchases, if for no other reason than one of us–usually her–can say “I told you so” once the purchase proves imprudent.

“I think we need to buy a generator,” I said, sneaking the comment nonchalantly into a conversation that started as inquiry into our dinner plans for the night.

“A generator!?–where did that come from?” she asked.

“They’re calling for a big snowstorm this weekend.”

“Weren’t they calling for snow last week too–and we didn’t get anything?”

“Yeah, but this one is different. They’re saying it’s going to be bad–even catastrophic.”

“Generators are dangerous–my dad burnt up a refrigerator with a generator when I was a kid.”

“Well, how else are we going to stay warm if the power goes out?” Although our old farmhouse has three fireplaces, the unstable fieldstone chimneys have been cut down. The fireplaces are now defunct, and we have no alternate heat source if our heat pump is without power. “Remember how bad it was when we lost power during Helene–and that was when it was warm,” I continued.

“Let me think about it,” she said. At that point, I knew she would acquiesce, but the problem with our bureaucratic process is that it takes time. By the next morning, when she verbally rubber stamped my acquisition request, saying “I guess you can get a generator,” there were no generators left to acquire. I had done my research overnight and had hoped to buy a small gas generator in the $500 to $600 dollar range but Lowes was completely wiped out, not a single generator remained in the store.

I was left to hurry home and scour Amazon in search of any generator that could be delivered before the storm hit on Saturday. The cheapest one I could find was $1000, but supposedly it could be delivered by Friday afternoon. I don’t think I’ve been so nervous about a delivery since the birth of my son.

“Why are you so wound up?” my wife asked.

“I’m worried the generator won’t get here in time.”

“We’ll survive if it doesn’t.”

Sure enough, on Friday, I got a notification from UPS that my delivery was delayed. Had the original forecast proved accurate, we would have been doomed to shiver, but the storm had slowed and the generator was delivered Saturday afternoon, right before the first sleet pellets began to fall.

Sleet was actually good news. Meteorologists had been waffling back and forth on sleet versus freezing rain, warning that freezing rain would be the worst case scenario in terms of power outages. But the freezing rain held off until the tail end of the storm on Sunday evening–and, of course, the power never went out.

“I told ya we didn’t need a generator,” my wife said, though she did sprinkle her “I told you so” with some pity, “but at least we have one now if we ever need it.”

Despite being secretly disappointed the power didn’t go out so I could justify my big purchase and prevent the marital “I told you so,” I am glad it wasn’t all freezing rain. Thomas got to go sledding for the first time!

Spring is Coming: Dust Off Your Dollar Bills

January 19, 2026January 19, 2026 ~ sanebishop ~ 2 Comments

Last week, I had to set up a booth at a farming conference. It was my first time in a den of vice–well, technically, my second. The day before, I had gone to the wrong den of vice, thinking it was the right den of vice.

“I’m here to check in for the conference,” I said. “My name is Stephen Bishop.”

“Conference?” the front desk clerk asked. “I don’t think we have any conferences booked for this weekend.”

“This is Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, right?

“Yes, it is, but we don’t have any conferences scheduled. Do you remember the address for your conference?”

“I think it was like 777 Casino Drive.”

“I’m sorry. This happens all the time, but you’re at the wrong casino. This is Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in Murphy at 777 Casino Parkway. You need to be at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino in Cherokee, which is 777 Casino Drive. It’s about an hour away, back through the gorge.”

I can tell you as someone who has traversed the gorge, in different directions on the same evening, that nightfall imbues all the normal hazards–falling rocks, blind curves, and the raging Nantahala River running beside the road–with a slightly menacing sense of abject terror. You’d think not being able to see the hazards might reduce the sensation, but it does not.

The correct casino was many scales of magnitude larger than the incorrect casino. And, much to my surprise, my room was big and clean and nicely decorated, the service was outstanding, and the food wasn’t half bad–it’s almost as if they wanted you to stay awhile. I ate twice at Gordon Ramsay’s food court, and his fish and chips and street tacos were quite scrumptious. I doubt Gordon even knows he has a food court in Cherokee, North Carolina, but who knows, maybe he was slaving away in the back?

Admittedly, my only other point of reference for gambling facilities dates back to my childhood. Back then, video poker parlors were everywhere in South Carolina, kinda like Dollar Generals nowadays. The parlors were about the same size as Dollar Generals, but they had the eye-catching design aesthetic of a bouncy house. Parlors were often super concentrated on the state line so North Carolinians (living in an uppity state where politicians prohibited gambling) could easily cross over the line and try their luck at games of chance. Usually, right next to the parlors were fireworks stands. In South Carolina, you could buy the big stuff, like rockets with warning labels about downing satellites. If you happened to win the jackpot, you could just walk next door and spend all your winnings on an arsenal of pyrotechnics. I believe economists call this “burn-it-up economics.”

Surprisingly, most farmers seemed to be in good spirits. Nobody won the jackpot that I know of, but spring is coming. In the spring, despite the odds, farmers always think this could be the year–the year of great weather, bumper crops, and premium prices. Six months later, we all wonder if we lit our money on fire, but that’s farming.

But maybe, just maybe, this could be my lucky year. If I hit profitability, I will inevitably spend it all on more farming stuff, which is better than spending it on rockets, right?

From Conception to Cow on a Billboard

January 12, 2026January 12, 2026 ~ sanebishop ~ 4 Comments

I’m not sure exactly at which meeting the idea was hatched, but I know who hatched it: Myron.

I first met Myron years ago at an Ag Advisory Board meeting. Our county has a Farmland Preservation Ordinance, which is mostly a feel-good ordinance meant to recognize farms in the county, but the ordinance also created a seven member Ag Advisory Board whose purpose is to advise county commissioners on issues pertaining to cows and corn and such. Back then, one of my job responsibilities was to be the staff liaison for the Ag Advisory Board. Liaison is a high falutin word for complaint herder.

Some farmers could be pretty bitter and acidic in their complaints (who can blame them), but Myron never took that approach. He was more of a positive lamentor. “It’s a comin’,” Myron would tell me, “maybe not in my lifetime, but in yours. We cain’t do nothing but try to slow it down.”

The “it” he referred to was development, the bogeyman of farmers in North Carolina. Mryon has indeed lived long enough to see another surge of widespread farmland loss and the subsequent loss of farms and farmers in the county, especially in the last five years due to our proximity to Charlotte. People are now moving to the rural ring of counties outside of Charlotte. The only thing popping up faster than housing developments here are fire ant hills, and the latter are probably better constructed.

But when agriculture depends on global markets and when rampant development is a response to a national shortage for affordable housing, what can you do at a local level to make a large scale difference, or any difference?

A lost cause has never stopped Myron. At a board meeting, Myron hatched a new idea. “I was a thinkin,” Myron said, “it’s a shame our community college doesn’t have an ag degree.”

That thought grew into a mission for our Ag Advisory Board. Three out of our four high schools in the county have ag programs, so the board got proactive and surveyed the local high school ag students to gauge interest in continuing their ag education at the community college. Armed with statistics, the board invited a college administrator to attend an Ag Advisory Board meeting, which may have been a culture shock for the ultra professional and sophisticated Dean of Academic Affairs, but she returned time and time again and helped guide the board through the process and red tape of creating a new degree and the board helped guide her on what classes might be most applicable and beneficial for students in the county.

Three years later, after many meetings, the Cleveland Community College Animal Science degree was officially hatched and the college unveiled a billboard advertising the program. One board member (there is always one) was upset because the billboard featured a holstein instead of an angus cow.

“Fiddle sticks,” Myron said, “I don’t care if it’s a longhorn, there’s are cows on a billboard. We ought to be happy about that.”

The college then hired a bright young go-getter to build the program, and she has done a great job of increasing enrollment every year. I’ve even taught a few classes and have enjoyed passing along my extensive knowledge of what not to do when it comes to farming. This semester, I’m teaching basic farm maintenance–and my primary learning objective is for students to learn how to maintain farm stuff while also maintaining all ten fingers.

“All you can do is try,” Myron likes to say. Indeed, you never know what can happen when one person starts thinking and a group of people start trying. In the grand scheme of things, the creation of an ag degree at a community college may not seem like much, but it’s not nothing. It has already made a difference–one of the first graduates from the program now works down the hall from me in the Extension office.

Here is a great video about Myron that highlights his love devotion to farmland preservation. I make an appearance on the tailgate.

In Defense of Compartmentalization

November 24, 2025 ~ sanebishop ~ 4 Comments

One drawback of the modern Sports Utility Vehicle is the fact that the trunk has been truncated into non-existence. Owning a SUV is like owning a house with an open floor plan. Sure, there is more space, but it is shared space, shared with all your cargo tumbling around in the back. Sometimes you hear the cargo tumbling, sometimes you smell it wafting, and sometimes you see it levitating in the rearview mirror (depending on how much air you got going over a speed bump). With a SUV, you have to live, or at least drive, in the presence of your possessions. You can’t just stuff boots in the back of your trunk and forget about them. With an SUV, your wife would eventually smell them.

With a car, however, your options are endless. I have been riding around with a pair of old muddy manure-caked rubber boots in the trunk of my Camry for at least four weeks–and my wife has never even detected a whiff. Nor can she smell the contents of my tackle box in the trunk. I don’t go fishing much anymore, but that is exactly the point. There is fish grime and scented power baits in that tackle box that date back to the previous century. Sometimes it is nice to have a hermetically sealed trunk.

And sometimes it’s nice to have compartments in life as well. One of my laments about modern society is that we can no longer compartmentalize. Everything is always open, always on, always accessible, always wafting into our heads, always vying for our attention. Through the conduits of wires and wifi comes an onslaught of electrons–emails, notifications, texts, videos, and social media posts–that bombard and erode the walls that protect our attention, focus, and sanity. Sometimes I think we’d all be better off if we found an old sedan somewhere, popped the trunk, and tossed our cell phones in there and forgot about them for four weeks. At the very least, we wouldn’t have to live with the manure wafting up from the screens.

According to statistics, the average American checks their phones 144 times a day, and the average American checks their email every 37 minutes. I suppose I’m an above average American because I check my email every 37 seconds. I’m not sure what I’m checking it for, but I’m checking it nonetheless. Companies are now selling containers, basically lockboxes with a timer on them, so families can incarcerate electronic devices and reduce screen time for both parent and child. In other words, they are literally selling compartments so we can recompartmentalize our lives.

Schools are also doing this. I guess educators realized that it’s probably not a good idea for students to be snapchatting with friends in English class when they’re supposed to be focusing in math class. In the past, such interdisciplinary communication was simply limited by classroom walls. Sure kids once passed notes in the hallway, but notes are a lot easier to police than electrons.

All this is to say, sometimes technological progress is a synonym for societal regress. Let’s bring back the sedan, with a nice hermetically sealed trunk.

Hallelujah: The First Frost

November 10, 2025 ~ sanebishop ~ 5 Comments

In the South, most people say “cut grass” instead of “mow grass.” Cut sounds a bit more aggressive and more accurately reflects our feeling toward vegetative maintenance after a long growing season. By the time our first frost date arrives, it seems like we’ve been cutting grass for a short eternity. I usually look forward to cutting grass in the spring, but by fall, it’s drudgery and my spring eagerness has turned into a general aversion toward chlorophyll.

Growing up, one of my first “jobs” was cutting yards with a push mower. I think this was supposed to instill in me a good work ethic, but mostly it started a pattern of poor life choices in regards to my means of generating income. Just to get my push mower to my main client, Mrs. Ernestine, meant I had to push it half a mile, uphill, past several houses with formidable canines. Most of these dogs were not well educated in laws regarding property lines or speed limits on public thoroughfares. I suppose it is rare for a push mower to break the speed limit, but you have to remember that the speed limit on small town streets was only fifteen miles per hour in those days, and I was a lot younger.

These days, even with a zero-turn riding mower, cutting grass is not merely as simple as jumping on the lawnmower, cranking up, and riding around in circles for a few hours. I’ve got to move all the stuff scattered around the yard—dead branches, Thomas’s bike and assortment of Fisher Price yard ornaments, and the cage traps I have deployed across the yard to try to thin out our local skunk herd. Then I have to walk to the barn to get my portable air compressor to pump up the front tire on the lawnmower. Then I have to fill up the lawnmower with gas. Likely, the gas can will contain ten drops, so I’ll have to journey to the gas station.

Some folks may wonder why I don’t just forgo grass in favor of a permaculture landscape. Rest assured, there is nothing more permanently cultured in my yard than wiregrass. You can’t kill it. If an asteroid plunged to earth and struck my house, in a matter of months the crater would be carpeted with wiregrass. It is an unstoppable force. Likely, that is why the dinosaurs went extinct—all the other vegetation withered away, and the dinosaurs just got tired of grazing wiregrass. Or, possibly wiregrass ate the dinosaurs.

The only thing that seems to phase wiregrass is frost. Hallelujah, we got our first frost last night.