Tag Archives: farm life

That’s not farming

I know a lot about farming and I know what a farmer is, I was one for the better part of 20 years. When my kids make comments about how much fun they had at their soccer tournaments and sleepovers and ski trips, I jokingly say, “when I was a kid, I was working on the farm.” Yeah, I’m that guy.

I’ve written a lot about farming and every time someone makes a comment about organic this or GMO that or Free Trade or subsidies for “rich farmers,” I have an opinion. I actually hear the voice of my dad yelling in my ear and he’s using bad words. I saw a review of Super Bowl commercials this year and there were several comments that none of them were as good as last year’s “farmer” spot by Dodge with the brilliant voice of Paul Harvey – check it out here if you haven’t seen it in a while.

Well, my dad, Paul Harvey and I saw this story today and couldn’t resist commenting…

Apparently the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is intervening because a Fargo, ND-based “agriculture firm” is trying to buy 27,000 acres of forest land in north-central Minnesota to convert it to farm land. This particular agriculture firm is called R.D. Offutt and in addition to being the world’s largest potato producer at more than 65,000 acres and the owner of the world’s largest collection of John Deere dealerships (more than 82), they own tens of thousands of acres of land in other states and many other agriculture-related companies as well.

What do they want to do with this new land you might ask? Irrigate it, fertilize it like crazy and plant potatoes that can be turned into frozen french fries for the fast food industry. That doesn’t sound like a good trade to me. The world does have a food crisis but more frozen french fries (and less photosynthesis from trees) is not going to solve it. Now, when I say I was a farmer, I mean the kind that Paul Harvey describes – my family feeds animals by hand, my dad stayed up all night with sows when they were having piglets, we carried calves into our basement and bottle-fed them. I drove tractors and combines and spent hundreds of hours in our fields. That’s what a farmer is. An agriculture firm is not a farmer.

That’s what’s wrong with farming today – there are fewer and fewer farmers. Through its spokesperson, another thing that a farmer does not have, R.D. Offutt said that it was “committed to preserving ground and surface water quality.” I’m not sure that I believe them. My dad never cut down one tree in my whole life time so he could farm more land, in fact, we planted trees and cover crop and my nephew is planting more trees around the home that I grew up in. That’s what a farmer would do.

Basements and tornadoes

Growing up on a farm can be lonely. You could sit on the tractor for hours by yourself. I knew the words to every song on every radio station – we only had like two actually – classic rock and classic country. Feeding and taking care of animals alone – you find yourself talking to them. Pigs, cows, dogs, they are all pretty good listeners but they don’t give great advice. It’s a solitary life. One particular place on the farm that was lonely and terrifying was our basement. Now I’m not even really sure you could call it a basement. It was under the house but this wasn’t your typical suburban basement where you entertain with a wet bar and plasma TV. This was a basement from a Steven King novel. There were two ways to get there. First, you could get there from the house by going through a small door just off our living room. From there, you’d pull a string to turn on a light and make your way down some dark and creaky stairs. Or, from the outside of the house, you had to open a “Wizard of Oz” type cellar door that you pull up. That led you down some equally creepy concrete stairs through a crooked wooden door in the house’s foundation. Now the fun is just beginning, once you got in, you were struck by the smell of mildew and you were overwhelmed by darkness – not a quiet and peaceful darkness so much as an unexplained darkness. There were some tiny windows on two walls but for some reason, no light came in. I think the light was scared. The one similarity to typical suburban basements was all the mechanicals like the furnace and water heater and affiliated pipes but they were hidden in the shadows or by the shadows. Behind the furnace was a small room that I never went in. I think it used to hold coal or something but it may also have been the way to Hades. So, you get the picture, not a fun place to have sleepovers or play ping pong. You would think this would be a place that you could avoid if it creeped you out right? You could never go there unless you had your dog or pig with you, you know someone to talk to. Ironically, this basement was where my parents sent me to keep me safe from severe thunderstorms and tornadoes – alone. I wonder if that’s why I hate thunderstorms and tornadoes so much? You think?

Something in the water

Tom was nervous. This was his first job after all. Oscar’s farm was right down the road and helping him take care of the cows and mend fences didn’t seem too bad but he just didn’t know what to expect. Tom loved the farm and after his family lost their land and animals and had an auction, it just didn’t feel the same at home. So, this was a way for him to stay connected and maybe make a few bucks too. Tom was a little scared of Oscar. Not scared for his life scared but just the way you’d be scared of a stray animal or of flying for the first time. He’d seen him around, at church and at the cafe in town, and he was always grumpy. He also walked with a limp, maybe he always had it or maybe he just wasn’t as spry as he used to be.

Tom’s dad dropped him off right after lunch because Oscar had a few hours of work to do but as he put it, he “didn’t want to feed the boy.” Oscar met them in the driveway when they pulled in and Tom’s dad motioned for him to hop out of the truck and then he backed out and drove off. I guess this is it, thought Tom to himself. His thoughts were interrupted by Oscar’s gruff voice, “Did you bring some gloves? We’re working with barbed wire and it will tear up your hands.” Of course Tom had not brought gloves. Oscar just looked at him disappointedly and shook his head. He walked towards the barn and before Tom knew it, a pair of gloves came flying at him. They were about 8 sizes too big but he put them on anyway.

They walked out to the pasture right past the cows. Tom had been around cows before but never up this close. As if he wasn’t nervous enough about today. He didn’t think that cows ate humans but they were certainly big enough to squish him like a bug. They didn’t, they just moved out of the way as he and Oscar walked by – maybe they were scared of him too.

After tugging on wire and holding it so Oscar could pound new staples into old wooden posts for what seemed like a hundred years. Oscar broke the silence and said, “Are you thirsty? It’s hotter than hell out here.” Tom answered “yea” skittishly. Oscar dropped his tools and started walking towards the barn. In Tom’s mind, he thought they would head inside for some lemonade and cookies. No luck. They stopped at the huge stock tank that the cows drank out of. It looked bad. It had some stuff floating on the top of the water, it was green and really disgusting. That didn’t stop Oscar, he reached for a big metal ladle that was hanging from a nearby post, dipped it into the water, brought it to his lips and took a big sip. Tom thought he would pass out and then Oscar would die. He didn’t take a drink from the tank that day or any other day that summer – he brought a water jug instead. Oscar didn’t die any time soon; in fact he lived to be 102. Maybe just like Carrie Underwood sings, “there must’ve been something in the water.”