the cows are hungry,
and they're really giving you the business for not bringing them hay any sooner,
and these are frozen to the ground?
A farmer temper-tantrum, that's what.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
When You Live in the Country
When you live in the country, you can park your vehicle in the middle of the road.
You can leave the keys in the ignition in your vehicle in the middle of the road.
You can even leave the engine running with the keys in the ignition in your vehicle in the middle of the road.
And ain't nobody gonna come along and steal your vehicle.
You can leave the keys in the ignition in your vehicle in the middle of the road.
You can even leave the engine running with the keys in the ignition in your vehicle in the middle of the road.
And ain't nobody gonna come along and steal your vehicle.
I love living in the country.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
An Op-Ed from Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson
Seeing as I'm on a Wendell Berry kick, I figured I'd copy and paste this article here for your reading enjoyment. It is an Op-Ed piece written by Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson (founder of The Land Institute of Kansas). It was published in the New York Times on January 4, 2009.
A 50-Year Farm Bill
By WES JACKSON and WENDELL BERRY
Published: January 4, 2009
THE extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by the little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.
Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government.
Agriculture has too often involved an insupportable abuse and waste of soil, ever since the first farmers took away the soil-saving cover and roots of perennial plants. Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland. This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice.
To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. Some of this toxicity is associated with the widely acclaimed method of minimum tillage. We should not poison our soils to save them.
Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological “solutions” for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.
Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.
For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.
Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.
But a more radical response is necessary if we are to keep eating and preserve our land at the same time. In fact, research in Canada, Australia, China and the United States over the last 30 years suggests that perennialization of the major grain crops like wheat, rice, sorghum and sunflowers can be developed in the foreseeable future. By increasing the use of mixtures of grain-bearing perennials, we can better protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and toxic pollution.
Carbon sequestration would increase, and the husbandry of water and soil nutrients would become much more efficient. And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture — provided, of course, that farmers would be paid justly for their work and their goods.
Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.
This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.
Wes Jackson is a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer in Port Royal, Ky.
The permalink to this article is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05berry.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
A 50-Year Farm Bill
By WES JACKSON and WENDELL BERRY
Published: January 4, 2009
THE extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by the little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.
Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government.
Agriculture has too often involved an insupportable abuse and waste of soil, ever since the first farmers took away the soil-saving cover and roots of perennial plants. Civilizations have destroyed themselves by destroying their farmland. This irremediable loss, never enough noticed, has been made worse by the huge monocultures and continuous soil-exposure of the agriculture we now practice.
To the problem of soil loss, the industrialization of agriculture has added pollution by toxic chemicals, now universally present in our farmlands and streams. Some of this toxicity is associated with the widely acclaimed method of minimum tillage. We should not poison our soils to save them.
Industrial agricultural has made our food supply entirely dependent on fossil fuels and, by substituting technological “solutions” for human work and care, has virtually destroyed the cultures of husbandry (imperfect as they may have been) once indigenous to family farms and farming neighborhoods.
Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our rural communities.
For 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe that as long as we have money we will have food. That is a mistake. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy. The government will bring forth no food by providing hundreds of billons of dollars to the agribusiness corporations.
Any restorations will require, above all else, a substantial increase in the acreages of perennial plants. The most immediately practicable way of doing this is to go back to crop rotations that include hay, pasture and grazing animals.
But a more radical response is necessary if we are to keep eating and preserve our land at the same time. In fact, research in Canada, Australia, China and the United States over the last 30 years suggests that perennialization of the major grain crops like wheat, rice, sorghum and sunflowers can be developed in the foreseeable future. By increasing the use of mixtures of grain-bearing perennials, we can better protect the soil and substantially reduce greenhouse gases, fossil-fuel use and toxic pollution.
Carbon sequestration would increase, and the husbandry of water and soil nutrients would become much more efficient. And with an increase in the use of perennial plants and grazing animals would come more employment opportunities in agriculture — provided, of course, that farmers would be paid justly for their work and their goods.
Thoughtful farmers and consumers everywhere are already making many necessary changes in the production and marketing of food. But we also need a national agricultural policy that is based upon ecological principles. We need a 50-year farm bill that addresses forthrightly the problems of soil loss and degradation, toxic pollution, fossil-fuel dependency and the destruction of rural communities.
This is a political issue, certainly, but it far transcends the farm politics we are used to. It is an issue as close to every one of us as our own stomachs.
Wes Jackson is a plant geneticist and president of The Land Institute in Salina, Kan. Wendell Berry is a farmer and writer in Port Royal, Ky.
The permalink to this article is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05berry.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wendell Berry and the Local Library
Our local library is very quaint. It has a great children and youth section, and large, comfortable facilities. The librarians are nice and helpful, they have story hour for little ones, they host meetings and events for different local entities, and they work nicely with the local schools.
My only complaint lies with their adult reading selection. Or lack thereof. This could, admittedly, be due to the fact that I read almost strictly non-fiction. And, well, unless I want to read the next political manifesto (which I don't) or find the (newest) secret to financial success, I'm out of luck.
Our library has both a fiction and a non-fiction bookshelf near the front door where they display the newest selections. Seriously, out of maybe 40 non-fiction books, I'd say close to half are about losing weight or healthy cooking. Another large percentage has either a strong religious slant or the typical new-age "Love Thyself, Heal Thyself" theme.
And I can't decide whether those categories are complimentary or contradictory.
But what really has me confused is why our library, in a small, rural town--a town that is (or at least used to be) agriculturally-based, has so few books about farming or backyard gardening? Why no books like The Rural Rennaissance by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist, or something about revitalizing small-town America? Why can't I find a book like the Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery or anything about the local foods movement?
And why, why-oh-why did nothing (nothing!!) come up when I typed 'Wendell Berry' into the computerized card catalog? Wendell Berry, folks. Perhaps the most ardent advocate for family farms and small town America. A man who champions rural culture. A man who has painstakingly documented and vociferously protested the rise of industrial agriculture and the subsequent demise of the small family farm (and their local rural communities). A man whose books should be showcased in our small town library.
I have to admit it. I was a little incredulous that our library didn't have anything by Wendell Berry. Especially since Berry has written many charming novels about a fictional rural town in Kentucky that lovingly and realistically depict life in small town America, and our library loves fiction.
I thought to myself, "maybe I spelled his name wrong or did something wrong on the computer search page." So I asked the librarian to help me.
"Do you know if we have any books by Wendell Berry?" I asked nicely.
"Hmmn, Wendell Berry. I've never heard of him. Let's check," she replied sweetly.
To which my head is screaming, "NEVER HEARD OF HIM????"
"No, Jackie, I don't see anything. If you have a specific title in mind I could get it for you on the intra-library loan," she added.
Now this librarian is the nicest, sweetest lady ever. She is exactly the type of small-town person that Wendell Berry exemplifies in his books. The one who knows your name. The one who knows who your family is, where you live, and that your grandfather is sick. The one who marvels at how big your children are and who will thank you profusely for that 25 cent donation you put in the Friends of the Library jar.
Of course not everyone is going to know Wendell Berry.
But in a world that values speed and efficiency over mindfulness and quality.....
in a world that promotes upward mobility and independence over strong communities and neighborly responsibility......
in a world that teaches our own, small-town rural kids that in order to be successful they must abandon their birthplace, their family, their rural heritage and move to the city.....
isn't it a shame that we've never even heard of the one person who advocates for us, who values us, who champions us?
What more evidence do we need that we bought the party line? That we lost ourselves and our community somewhere inbetween financial success, upward mobility and individual achievement and recognition?
We drank the punch, people, and it's killing us.
Maybe if we stopped reading "Fat-Free Cooking Means a Fat-Free Me" books and instead read The Unsettling of America, Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry, we could do away with the "Love Thyself, Heal Thyself" books altogether.
*Disclaimer: All of the unattributed titles above were made up. But I wouldn't be surprised if these are real titles to real books. If so, my apologies (and a good finger-wagging) to the authors.
My only complaint lies with their adult reading selection. Or lack thereof. This could, admittedly, be due to the fact that I read almost strictly non-fiction. And, well, unless I want to read the next political manifesto (which I don't) or find the (newest) secret to financial success, I'm out of luck.
Our library has both a fiction and a non-fiction bookshelf near the front door where they display the newest selections. Seriously, out of maybe 40 non-fiction books, I'd say close to half are about losing weight or healthy cooking. Another large percentage has either a strong religious slant or the typical new-age "Love Thyself, Heal Thyself" theme.
And I can't decide whether those categories are complimentary or contradictory.
But what really has me confused is why our library, in a small, rural town--a town that is (or at least used to be) agriculturally-based, has so few books about farming or backyard gardening? Why no books like The Rural Rennaissance by John Ivanko and Lisa Kivirist, or something about revitalizing small-town America? Why can't I find a book like the Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery or anything about the local foods movement?
And why, why-oh-why did nothing (nothing!!) come up when I typed 'Wendell Berry' into the computerized card catalog? Wendell Berry, folks. Perhaps the most ardent advocate for family farms and small town America. A man who champions rural culture. A man who has painstakingly documented and vociferously protested the rise of industrial agriculture and the subsequent demise of the small family farm (and their local rural communities). A man whose books should be showcased in our small town library.
I have to admit it. I was a little incredulous that our library didn't have anything by Wendell Berry. Especially since Berry has written many charming novels about a fictional rural town in Kentucky that lovingly and realistically depict life in small town America, and our library loves fiction.
I thought to myself, "maybe I spelled his name wrong or did something wrong on the computer search page." So I asked the librarian to help me.
"Do you know if we have any books by Wendell Berry?" I asked nicely.
"Hmmn, Wendell Berry. I've never heard of him. Let's check," she replied sweetly.
To which my head is screaming, "NEVER HEARD OF HIM????"
"No, Jackie, I don't see anything. If you have a specific title in mind I could get it for you on the intra-library loan," she added.
Now this librarian is the nicest, sweetest lady ever. She is exactly the type of small-town person that Wendell Berry exemplifies in his books. The one who knows your name. The one who knows who your family is, where you live, and that your grandfather is sick. The one who marvels at how big your children are and who will thank you profusely for that 25 cent donation you put in the Friends of the Library jar.
Of course not everyone is going to know Wendell Berry.
But in a world that values speed and efficiency over mindfulness and quality.....
in a world that promotes upward mobility and independence over strong communities and neighborly responsibility......
in a world that teaches our own, small-town rural kids that in order to be successful they must abandon their birthplace, their family, their rural heritage and move to the city.....
isn't it a shame that we've never even heard of the one person who advocates for us, who values us, who champions us?
What more evidence do we need that we bought the party line? That we lost ourselves and our community somewhere inbetween financial success, upward mobility and individual achievement and recognition?
We drank the punch, people, and it's killing us.
Maybe if we stopped reading "Fat-Free Cooking Means a Fat-Free Me" books and instead read The Unsettling of America, Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry, we could do away with the "Love Thyself, Heal Thyself" books altogether.
*Disclaimer: All of the unattributed titles above were made up. But I wouldn't be surprised if these are real titles to real books. If so, my apologies (and a good finger-wagging) to the authors.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Random Thoughts for the New Year
Marcel and I have joined the ranks of homeowners, but we are more adeptly described as loan-owers. We are buying the farmhouse, farm buildings and 5 acres from "the farm" (AKA mom).
I giggled as I watched our new horse Brittany slowly and painstakingly slip and slide her way across the icy barnyard. Then I felt like a bad farmer.
What does it mean when I call up each and every Irish Grove owner (AKA Mom, Matt, and Laura), ask them to come over on Sunday to help with the organic certification record keeping, and no one shows up?
Farmer Bill sold the last of his cattle herd. He is officially, completely, 100% retired. It's the end of an era for the Donald Flynn family. Which makes me sad. And worried about the future of their farm.
I wish one of the cousins would get the farming itch. (Hint, hint.)
We are getting nearly 4 dozen eggs a day. Holy Cannoli.
My grant-writing partner, Andrea, and I have written up evil plans to take over the agricultural world. Bwa-ha-ha. OK, not really. But we are pitching ourselves to the local U of I-Extension Director as the up-and-coming, most perfect alternative-agriculture-education-team she's ever laid her eyes on. Think she'll buy into our load of (composted) cow manure?
Correction: The all important Madam Secretary Laura did come to my Sunday meeting, and helped me get started on the all-encompassing, extremely frustrating job of organic certification record keeping. Kudos to you, Madam Secretary.
Can you believe that on the very eve of our new status as homeowners the furnace broke? We fixed it, to the tune of a few hundred bucks, only to have it break again 4 days later. Would this be karma, or a coincidence, or just plain bad luck?
Did you know that the cows and horses both grow a winter coat of fur to protect them from the cold? They're pretty charming this way, all woolly and fuzzy. Olivia the Border Collie also grew a second layer of fur. On top of a layer of fat, the lazy thing.
Marcel and I bought a new point and shoot digital camera. Which means I'll be able to take more (and better) photos of the goings-ons around here. Stay tuned.
I didn't get around to mailing Christmas cards this year. But everyone here at Irish Grove Farms, animals and all, wishes you all a wonderful 2009.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Eggs Galore...."Ooh, Aah"
There are eggs galore here in Irish Grove.
"Ooh, aah."
With some forethought and a little luck o' the Irish, we timed our replacement pullets rather well this year. Since the hens take a much-needed break from egg laying in the late fall, we have a really tough time filling our regular egg orders. Let me tell ya, it can be mighty frustrating to have a barn full of chickens and find 2 or maybe 3 eggs in the nests each day.
"Ooh, aah."
With some forethought and a little luck o' the Irish, we timed our replacement pullets rather well this year. Since the hens take a much-needed break from egg laying in the late fall, we have a really tough time filling our regular egg orders. Let me tell ya, it can be mighty frustrating to have a barn full of chickens and find 2 or maybe 3 eggs in the nests each day.
And I always wonder if our egg customers believe me when I explain to them that the hens just aren't laying right now. Egg production is seasonal. The hens need lots of light stimulation on their pituitary gland in order to lay regularly. The short winter days just don't provide enough light to keep them going. We keep a light on in the barn to help counter that, but like everything else, artificial just can't compete with the natural.
Can I repeat that?
Artificial can't compete with natural.
Thanks.
Anyways, spring is the season for high egg production. Which is why we color eggs for Easter and not Thanksgiving.
We mucked through a month or so of little to no eggs as best we could, and I got to wondering if maybe the pullets (young hens) were gonna hold off until spring to start laying. But then, all of a sudden, we started finding little mini eggs here and there. Yeehaw, the pullets are laying!
Now, unless you've raised laying hens sometime in your life, you probably didn't realize that you can tell the age of the chicken by the size of their egg. Yeah, nature is all neat and tidy like that.
Sometimes.
Pullet eggs are tiny. So tiny, in fact, that when I found an aqua-blue pullet egg (from an americana hen that lays greenish blue eggs), Madelina argued with me that a Robin must have layed an egg in the chicken barn. I tried to explain to her that Robins don't lay eggs in the winter, and that most of them migrate South.
She wouldn't buy my explanation for one second. Stinker.
Pullet eggs will often have a little splash of blood on them as well. Mothers, I'm sure you will readily confirm that that first one is a tough one. (Sorry, guys.)
More seasoned hens lay nice large eggs. The size of egg you ideally buy from a local farmer, or at the store. These eggs are by far the most common egg we find in the nests. And it doesn't take long for a pullet to close the gap, size-wise, with her eggs. Maybe 2 weeks, tops.
But the old hens? The ones you should cull and sell as stew birds, but can't because you believe they've earned their retirement? The ones that are losing money beak over claw? Yeah, these old ladies lay an egg maybe once a week, if you're lucky. Even during egg season. But when they do lay an egg, they are huge, honker eggs. Huge-mongous eggs. The eggs that make it hard to close the carton eggs. Jumbo eggs.
And once in awhile......and I mean these ladies must be sitting on their eggs for a month or so.....they'll lay a super DUPER doozer of an egg--a double-yolker. And we call these eggs, courtesy of my Gramma Alice, "Ooh-Aah" eggs.
Why, you may ask? Please, you've just gotta ask me why, 'cause I can't wait to tell you.
Gramma Alica calls the double-yolked eggs "Ooh-Aah" eggs because when the hen is pushing the egg out she says, "OOOooooooooh", and when the egg is finally out she says, "AAAaaaaaaah".
Ha, ha ha ha, hoo hoo, ha!
I think that's pretty funny.
Here are some photos of eggs, progressing in size from pullet eggs to an "Ooh-Aah" egg. The photos don't do this subject justice, but I haven't added photos in awhile, so here they are:
The pullet egg:
The regular egg:
The "Ooh-Aah" egg:
As you can see, I am cooking platanos con huevos fritos for breakfast. In Panamanian that means fried plaintains with fried eggs. Yu-u-mmy!
My (delicious) breakfast is providing the perfect opportunity to prove to you skeptics out there (and don't think I don't know about you) that yes indeed, some eggs have two yolks.
Watch. And. Learn.
Here I go, cracking that "Ooh-Aah" egg you saw above:
There you have it, people. A double-yolked egg. An "Ooh-Aah" egg in the flesh, or pan, as it were. Ok, so I did break one yolk when I cracked the egg shell. But you can obviously see that the two yolks came from the same egg....just look at the egg white.
You better believe that with a breakfast like this one, I'll be muttering a few oohs and aahs myself.
Let's just hope there's no accompanying egg.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Mumble Grumble
Blogging hasn't been high priority lately, obviously. But this fall has kicked my butt and I hate to write negative posts. I prefer my witty, delightful posts about how picture perfect everything is, or the ones about how I solved some huge problem by the sheer force of my intelligence and charm.
Wait...?? Who's blog is this?? Sorry....I confused myself with someone else.
Reality is I'm a farmer now, and I'll be damned if farmers don't bitch and moan every once in awhile. So here it goes...
This year's corn harvest dogged me for weeks. It went anything but smoothly, and I was grumpy through the whole dang process.
The weather didn't cooperate at all, raining every other day for basically a month or so. Now I know talking about the weather isn't that exciting for most people, but weather is to a farmer what a moody boss is to the low-level worker. You gotta follow their lead, but you never know what they're gonna throw at you, and most of the time you don't like it.
This harvest season, the weather tossed us a nice mix of rain, mist, cold, some more rain and mist, and suprisingly little wind. Which means we were harvesting wet corn off of wet ground on cold, dark, and yes, wet days.
So what's the problem?
Well, wet corn means that we have to pay exhorbitant charges at the local grain elevator to dry the corn down to 15% moisture. 15% moisture is the level at which corn can be shipped and/or stored without risk of sprouting or fermenting. (Although fermented corn doesn't sound so bad...ahem.)
Thanks to the wet fall, our corn didn't dry down in the field like it could have. We were harvesting our corn at about 23% moisture. Shall we do the math?
The elevator charges $0.07/bushel to dry corn one half of one percent. (Yes, you read that right.) So that means $0.07 to dry it to 22.5%, another $0.07 to dry it to 22%, etc. etc. When you add it all up, we paid $1.12/bushel to dry the corn down to 15%.
I understand that they have to recoup their energy costs, but to the tune of $1.12/bu? Youch. When you're making $4-5.00/bu on the corn, that's 25% of your profit right there. Today's corn prices are at $2.95 or so. Take a smooth buck off of that and we're talking a 35-40% loss.
Wet land means that the oh-so-heavy equipment like the combine, grain wagons, tractors and semi trucks are driving around our farmland and compacting the crap out of our soil. Soil compaction is horrible for the health of the crops, prohibiting the flow of nutrients and water and causing all sorts of terrible problems with run-off, weeds, etc. In a no-till system like ours, soil compaction is your number one enemy. We don't have the option to moldboard plow the land to break through the hardpan, as they call it.
We had a semi truck and a tractor get stuck in the mud. That's how bad it was. And there are huge ruts everywhere, which I can't look at without getting agitated.
Wet, unpredictable weather causes one more major problem....you never know when you're going to be able to harvest. For three weeks, I could go nowhere, do nothing, see no-one. I'd have my boss at Atwood take me off the schedule because I thought we'd be working. Then it'd rain. I'd put myself back on the schedule, and Mark would show up to work the combine for a few hours.
Sometimes I'd think, "The ground's way too wet to harvest today", so I'd go to my exercise class or run to the store. Upon return, I'd find that Mark had been working for over an hour, the wagons were all full, and I still had to connect the tractor to the auger, lift the top off the bin, etc. The constant set-up, catch up, take down, set-up again was exceedingly frustrating.
Needless to say, I was swearing like a sailor by the time we got it all finished. But finish we did. Thank God for that.
Yeah, farmers complain a lot. We do. But if your schedule and your success was dictated by and determined by something as unforgiving and unpredictable as the weather, you'd complain too.
We're a sorry lot, we farmers. You'll just have to forgive and excuse us when you can. And when you can't?
Deal with it.
Wait...?? Who's blog is this?? Sorry....I confused myself with someone else.
Reality is I'm a farmer now, and I'll be damned if farmers don't bitch and moan every once in awhile. So here it goes...
This year's corn harvest dogged me for weeks. It went anything but smoothly, and I was grumpy through the whole dang process.
The weather didn't cooperate at all, raining every other day for basically a month or so. Now I know talking about the weather isn't that exciting for most people, but weather is to a farmer what a moody boss is to the low-level worker. You gotta follow their lead, but you never know what they're gonna throw at you, and most of the time you don't like it.
This harvest season, the weather tossed us a nice mix of rain, mist, cold, some more rain and mist, and suprisingly little wind. Which means we were harvesting wet corn off of wet ground on cold, dark, and yes, wet days.
So what's the problem?
Well, wet corn means that we have to pay exhorbitant charges at the local grain elevator to dry the corn down to 15% moisture. 15% moisture is the level at which corn can be shipped and/or stored without risk of sprouting or fermenting. (Although fermented corn doesn't sound so bad...ahem.)
Thanks to the wet fall, our corn didn't dry down in the field like it could have. We were harvesting our corn at about 23% moisture. Shall we do the math?
The elevator charges $0.07/bushel to dry corn one half of one percent. (Yes, you read that right.) So that means $0.07 to dry it to 22.5%, another $0.07 to dry it to 22%, etc. etc. When you add it all up, we paid $1.12/bushel to dry the corn down to 15%.
I understand that they have to recoup their energy costs, but to the tune of $1.12/bu? Youch. When you're making $4-5.00/bu on the corn, that's 25% of your profit right there. Today's corn prices are at $2.95 or so. Take a smooth buck off of that and we're talking a 35-40% loss.
Wet land means that the oh-so-heavy equipment like the combine, grain wagons, tractors and semi trucks are driving around our farmland and compacting the crap out of our soil. Soil compaction is horrible for the health of the crops, prohibiting the flow of nutrients and water and causing all sorts of terrible problems with run-off, weeds, etc. In a no-till system like ours, soil compaction is your number one enemy. We don't have the option to moldboard plow the land to break through the hardpan, as they call it.
We had a semi truck and a tractor get stuck in the mud. That's how bad it was. And there are huge ruts everywhere, which I can't look at without getting agitated.
Wet, unpredictable weather causes one more major problem....you never know when you're going to be able to harvest. For three weeks, I could go nowhere, do nothing, see no-one. I'd have my boss at Atwood take me off the schedule because I thought we'd be working. Then it'd rain. I'd put myself back on the schedule, and Mark would show up to work the combine for a few hours.
Sometimes I'd think, "The ground's way too wet to harvest today", so I'd go to my exercise class or run to the store. Upon return, I'd find that Mark had been working for over an hour, the wagons were all full, and I still had to connect the tractor to the auger, lift the top off the bin, etc. The constant set-up, catch up, take down, set-up again was exceedingly frustrating.
Needless to say, I was swearing like a sailor by the time we got it all finished. But finish we did. Thank God for that.
Yeah, farmers complain a lot. We do. But if your schedule and your success was dictated by and determined by something as unforgiving and unpredictable as the weather, you'd complain too.
We're a sorry lot, we farmers. You'll just have to forgive and excuse us when you can. And when you can't?
Deal with it.
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