Different Times
June 9th, 2007 by Northern FarmerStarted cutting some hay today, got fifteen acres down so that’s a teeny start to the next few weeks work. Went good, no breakdowns or unexpected woodchuck holes to wreak havoc with the sickle on the haybine. If the weather holds we might be baling come Monday but I hope the weather don’t hold! Could use a few inches of rain here. Last weekend we had a few minor rains and with the winds this week that moister we had must be somewhere else in the world now. Grounds drying up again. But it’s still fairly green here.
Been moving chickens outside these past couple of days in the spare time and it looks like they’re doing well. We won’t be raising as many as last year even if we have more orders than last year. Must be the cattleman coming out in me! The beef take up most of my time, plus make a lot more money for the family so I tend to drift that direction. The beef business is really taking off with orders multiplying two, three, four times more than last year. Customers are expanding their orders plus their relation that got a taste of it are on the bandwagon too! I never knew marketing would be this easy! I guess when a person raises a good product it can take off almost by itself, although I suppose my gift of gab don’t hurt matters all to much.
So that’s what’s been going on around here lately, seasonal work and plenty of it keeps me off the computer most of the time. Write a little over on Healing Waters blog and have our traditional morning coffee over there before most people with half a lick of sense are out of bed in the morning. But some of us country folk find that it’s the best time of the day to shoot the bull. You know, the usual subject, “droughtâ€. Sometimes I wonder about central Minnesota, they call it the land of ten thousand lakes but I figure there’ll be a lot less lakes in years to come if these years keep up. Just be a bunch of sink holes. But then again the oldtimers made hay in the lake bottoms around here during the “dirty thirtiesâ€. I always wondered about that, but see that it sure isn’t impossible! And some of those years were some humdingers! Always around a hundred degrees, no rain, plus and economy that basically didn’t exist to deal with. I think folks were a lot different then though. I’d hate to see what would happen now under the same conditions with the self centered society we have now. Everything me, me, me! And when all that or worse happens again there ain’t gonna be nothing for me, me, me! Nothing! Plus some might have to ponder on a dirty four letter word called “workâ€!
I don’t mean a career job or anything like that, I mean to get out and work just to rustle up enough to eat, to feed the family. Hmm, just thought, gets to that point maybe families will be eating together a bit more eh! Like no choice. Be at the table at meal time or go hungry. There weren’t all that many over weight folks during the depression either. From what I hear tell, they’d almost burn as many calories just trying to get their share of food as they took in. And wild critters took on a whole new meaning, they were called food! Get done with the days work and send the kids down to the creek at dark to catch bullheads. Bullheads in the creek don’t like to take a hook in daylight, but come nightfall you could slaughter them. And there always seemed to be an ample supply of those things in the creek. The smart fishermen, or kids, would go fishing down river from the town creamery. Skim milk fattened bullheads, a treat from heaven! The creameries back then just took the cream and any milk left was flushed down the drain directly into the creek. And for some reason those bullheads loved it! And no, they didn’t flush the toilets into the creek cause there were no toilets, just the co-op outhouse over to the side of the place. The one where the local jokers would come and tip the thing over every Halloween. Back when my grandpa was the head buttermaker at the local creamery that happened every year so one Halloween my grandpa and his assistant decide to catch the evil villains and at dark the moved the outhouse a few feet to the side and sat back in the dark creamery building and waited. It didn’t take long when some of the good old boys from the local barley pop establishment came to do their dirty deed and the plan worked perfect! And they couldn’t return to the barley pop establishment either in the condition they were in. Make a skunk jealous!
Whew, talk about writing off track here, although as usual I have no idea what track I’m on anyhow! Get started writing about what would happen if tough times would ever hit and just sidetracked a long ways! Come to think of it, I wonder if people today are even up to pulling practical jokes like they were back then, might be to much work you know. I wonder how many would go a few evenings a week to catch bullheads for food, not for just the entertainment factor. Then clean them by the sack full early the next morning. Even bullheads for breakfast, fried in some side pork grease, mmmm! Yup, times were different! And you know what people always say that grew up during those times, “we never knew we were poor!â€
June 10th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Tom,
Good luck with the hay making, we started on Thursday and finished on Saturday with all the hay on the home farm. Now all we have left is 250+ acres of hay at two of the rental farms. Makes me tired just thinking about all those bale to be stacked.
I know what you are talking about people not knowing how to work any more like they used to. One good example that comes to mind is walnuts. For years Joel would run a walnut hulling station. The company would drop of the hulling machine before the black walnuts started falling. People pick up black walnuts and bring them and we would run them thourgh the huller and then buy the nut from them. All the hulls where then ours to spread on the fields, plus we got payed a small % of the price. The black walnuts go in 3-4 year highs and lows. in 2005 there was a bumper crop of black walnuts but we got almost no one bringing in walnuts. Most of those that did bring walnuts in where about 75-80 and somtimes you wondered of they were going to make it home, they looked so old. We finely decided to quit the walnuts be cause there where not enouh people around that would knew how to work. The money was not bad, 10 for 100# of walnuts which ment that you could make a 100 bucks in an afternoon if the walnuts where thick. It is sad to see those type of people that know how to work and save a penny or two pass on.
June 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Hey Tom, You got no water and we got too much. Crops turning yellow from sittin in water. Got another 1/2 inch in 15 minutes last night as we headed off to church. Got soaked going from the house to the truck. Lots of hay though just need a rice boat to get in their to cut it.
Wife and I were talkin the other day, I do believe we are goin to be in another recession within 5 years. I for one will welcome it. I don’t want hard times for anyone but it seems to give the world a reality check when things get a little tough and up here in Canada people need to be reigned in a bit. Times are too good. Too much work, Too much money. Common sense and decency (sp?) have gone by the wayside. People changing jobs weekly and employers have to put up with whatever (kiss peoples boots) just to get employees. Customer service and manners are a thing of the past. Yea, I wouldn’t mind at all if things tighten up a bit. I know I ain’t goin to go hungry or cold. And I sure won’t miss that big vacation cause I never had one to start with.
Used to set night lines for catfish when I was a kid. 20 lines would give ya 7 or 8 catfish. Used to smoke them. Smoked catfish and an ice cold coke cola. Nothin better
God bless
Guy
June 11th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Nathan,
And everybody knows us Minnesotans all own at least two boats! Kinda like proof of citizenship here. Boat licenses are better than a passport!
We should be baling tomorrow, had a small rain last evening and this morning so I hooked up the gyro mower and cut thistles in the pastures today. Got everything done a few weeks ahead of schedual as far as thistles go! I’ll be cutting hay almost continually the next two or three weeks and hope the grass adds up a little more with these small rains we’ve recieved.
Wow, you can bet if’n I was in a walnut area like that I’d be picking them things. That’s good money! All we got around here are rocks and they just don’t bring in as much money
Have a safe and blessed haying over there!
Guy,
Everytime I check the radar I see some rain up your way. Now if we could just even it out eh!
Times sure have changed, remember years ago, and not all that many, when getting a job was a major accomplishment. Thinking back, some of my best times working out were back in the days when jobs were real tight. I loved being layed off! Back then there didn’t seem to be the “debt up to you eyeballs syndrome”. Get layed off and it seemed more fun rustling up a few bucks here and there on day jobs, cutting some scrap metal, making firewood or something. And thinking back them were some fun times. Now a person mentions a slow down in the economy all the slaves to debt are filling their britches! In reality I kinda like watching some of those folks worry. I know I shouldn’t but what the heck! Jolt them back to reality!
Now that smoked catfish and some ice cold coke got my mouth watering! I got some cold coke here but I suppose I could head seven or eight miles east of here and rustle up some catfish in the Mississippi. Now I’m thinking, I should go lake fishing at dark and get a couple five gallon pail fulls of bullheads, hmm! There’s a couple good lakes within a couple miles of the little bible believin church. Those fish would be close enough to church to be sanctified a bit more than average
Durn it! Now I’m thinking about that, see what you did to me
Have a Blessed One!
June 13th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I have been searching the internet for “real” seeds, as you call them, and found on your sidebar links to some very nice seed sellers. How very thoughtful of you! Thanks! I’ve also enjoyed reading through some of your archived posts. I grew up on what was once a self-sufficient farm and have relished your thoughts on the agrarian movement. Around mid-century our family farm (been in the family since 1823) started to go modern and hasn’t turned back. Less than one hundred years ago my family was living a self-sufficient agrarian lifestyle, furnishing their every need with their own hands and blessed Providence — baskets, gourds, honey, wool, food, medicine, household furnishings…..the list could go on. Now our family farming is done just to pay back the debt taken on to buy the tractor and the seed.
I will be passing your thoughts along to my brothers. Maybe this generation can influence the previous to regain the agrarian lifestyle — if nothing else, at least the debt-free concept — truly radical!
Thanks again!
June 13th, 2007 at 7:43 am
Hi Jenny!
Thanks for all the kind words! It’s very interesting about your family farm’s history. I see a growing awareness of the pitfalls of modern agriculture springing up all over the place. Be sure to pass on to your brothers the benifits of planting real seeds for crops also! Our whole corn crop is Open Pollinated corn where we can save our own seeds year to year. Plus it doesn’t take a back seat to any modern hybrid production! Same with our small grain, it’s our own seed.
The number one thing in all of this is to get debt free as soon as possible, it’s absolutly number one. When that happens it’s a whole new world, believe me! Then a person has the freedom to pursue true farming. That incredible amount of resourses stays on the farm and in the family. Of all the “secrets” to this, that is thee number one secret!
God Bless!