Farming Plan "B"

28th Book Excerpts

2009-03-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Another Christmas has come and gone. A new year is upon us. May the human race come to it's senses in time to prevent a complete collapse of civilization. It's obvious that we cannot continue to abuse our planet as we are presently doing but I have little hope for the future in view of our past performance.

Current Rant:

Since I have lost interest in updating this blog on a regular basis I have decided to post all of the remaining chapters of "Defying the Odds" this time. There has been very little feedback so I can only conclude that it's a waste of my time to continue this blog. To those that have responded over the years I extend my thanks. Your comments are much appreciated.

28th and Final Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Our First Harvest…

Toward the end of August I started cutting grain. It was tough going. The binder ran well enough, but it wasn't designed for cutting such a short dense crop. It produced bundles which looked more like wads than sheaves of grain. To make matters worse, the ground was so wet that the tractor was constantly getting stuck. But finally, after many days of frustrating struggle, the last field was bound.

Then there was the job of stooking the bundles, which dad had explained before he left. Stooks are bunches of ten or twelve bundles standing on end, with their tops leaning together. This is done so that the grain will dry out for threshing and to facilitate loading them onto wagons. Standing the bundles on end allows rain to run down the straw to the ground, rather than soak into the straw and causing it to mold. I had never watched anyone stook bundles before, but by the time two hundred acres were finished, I was getting the hang of it.

The folks showed up to help with the harvest on September 5th, dad's sixty eighth birthday. It had been raining for several days before they arrived. Dad's fears of missing harvesting altogether soon turned to fears that we might not be able to harvest at all. They had planned to stay for two weeks, but it turned out that we couldn't even start threshing in that time. But, eventually the weather turned nice enough to start.

Threshing went surprisingly well. The John Deere tractor was used to power the thresher and the smaller Allis Chalmers tractor was used to haul bundles. We would load two wagon loads of bundles, thresh them out and then load up again. The grain was augured directly into one of the wooden granaries, that were scattered among the fields, and the straw was blown into piles at each threshing site. Although the crop was very poor, the granaries gradually filled and the straw piles grew into large stacks. Things looked much better and my disposition improved with each succeeding day. The folks left for home right after the grain was all threshed.

I started plowing the fields the day after we finished threshing. In a good day—when you didn't break down or get stuck too many times—about twenty five acres could be plowed. It was a slow cold job, sitting all day long, unprotected from the weather, on a steel tractor seat. At three miles per hour, it takes a half hour to make one round on an eighty acre field. Plowing four feet per round, you could just about spit across your work at the end of the day.

But winter caught up with us before the plowing was finished. On the day I finally had to give up, it started snowing just after noon. For a while it didn't seem to matter, except for the miserable cold snow blowing down my neck, but as the ground became whiter, the tractor tires began to slip. Before long it became impossible to move, so that ended the field work until springtime.

Worrisome Times …

We sold just over six hundred dollars worth of grain that fall…our entire income, from the farm, in 1962. The only other income came from the federal government Family Allowance program, which paid five dollars per month for each child under the age of sixteen. This only amounted to twenty five dollars per month, but it did help stretch our rapidly disappearing savings.

It may have been possible to survive, even on such a small income, if we had not also been faced with paying off the debt to the Fertigs. According to the purchase agreement, the entire debt was to be paid off by the end of the first crop year…otherwise we would forfeit our purchase option and become renters. In that event, the Fertigs would retain ownership of all the machinery, as well as the land, and we would have to pay them one third of the crop as rent.
I suspect that some might think that this was a stupid arrangement, and maybe it was. But the circumstances of the time must be taken into account: I had no job; our home in Washington had been sold; we had moved to Canada with no other place to go, or the money to go with. So, it had been necessary to make some kind of deal that would give us the time to sell our home, move to Canada and put in the crop. As well, the Fertigs had to look after their own interests, and they knew very little about me. My only option had been to make a deal that would buy us some time, and then sort things out later.

In hindsight it does seem a bit foolhardy…but it worked! It not only worked, but it gave me the confidence to take other calculated risks that have paid off in subsequent years. It also changed my life from a dull existence of working for someone else to an exciting challenging life of being my own boss. It turned out to be the second smartest thing I ever did—marrying Betty being number one. So far, we had managed to defy the odds.

Shortly after moving to the farm, we received a down payment of two thousand dollars from the sale of our house in Washington, a substantial part of which had gone to the Realtor. The balance owing was to be paid out in monthly installments. It was the best arrangement that could be made under the disadvantaged bargaining position that we were in.

Although the payments arrived on time each month, we needed a substantial lump sum of cash very soon if we were to hang on to the farm. So, out of desperation, I offered to drastically cut the balance owing on our house if the buyer would pay us out immediately. Fortunately they agreed and we subsequently received a cheque for about seven thousand dollars. But seven thousand dollars wont pay off a fourteen thousand dollar debt.

The Farm Credit Corporation (FCC) had recently been established, by the federal government, to provide low interest long-term loans for expanding existing farms and to help new farmers get started. I went to see the local FCC representative about a loan to pay off the Fertigs and was relieved to find that I was qualified, as a landed immigrant. But I was surprised when they recommended that I borrow more money than I asked for. It was their policy to only lend money to farms they considered to be 'viable'. That is, if in their opinion, after making a loan, a farm was unlikely to generate enough income to provide a satisfactory living for the farmer plus enough money to make the loan payments, they either declined the loan or offered enough money to make the farm viable.

In my case they felt that more land and livestock were necessary to meet their criteria. Consequently, a loan was approved for sufficient money to pay out the Fertigs, clear additional land, build a barn and buy six more milk cows. That loan turned out to just the first of several and the beginning of thirty years of debt—but the only thing that mattered at the moment was that we still had our farm.

Tempting Murphy's Law…

That hurdle cleared merely led to the next one. Our most pressing financial problem had been solved, for the moment at least, but we were still faced with the reality of having no income and very little cash. Our rule was: Only spend money for absolute necessities and stretch every dollar to the limit.

Now that the money was available to buy more milk cows, getting them became the first priority. The thing about cows is that they start making you money immediately—the first time they're milked, there's more cream to sell.

By coincidence, a farmer, who lived about twenty miles away, happened to have six milk cows for sale. We went to look at them. They were nice big Holsteins…just what we wanted. He said he was selling them because he was away working in the oil fields most of the time and the milking chores were more than his wife could handle by herself. The cows looked okay to me, so we made a deal to by them…on the condition that he would help with the hauling. The reason being that it would cost me around twenty five dollars to hire a trucker to haul them.

Now, I need to explain something at this point. Our old '47 Dodge truck, which had served us so faithfully while moving to Canada, was not a standard pickup with the conventional steel box. I originally bought it with the idea of making a family camper out of it. To this end, I had replaced the steel box with a wooden flat-bed…slightly wider and longer than the original box. This made it well suited for hauling furniture or lumber but less than ideal for hauling livestock.

As mentioned before, Don…the owner of the cows…had agreed to help haul them. He had a stock rack, for his three quarter ton pickup, and could haul two cows per trip. I had no stock rack for my half ton pickup but figured I could haul two cows as well…fuzzy figuring at best. Anyway, that was the plan.

We first loaded Don's truck with a couple of the least docile cows and locked them securely in his heavy duty steel stock rack. Then we loaded two of the most docile…but largest…animals onto the open deck of my truck, securing them with ropes, around their necks, tied to a steel ring in the deck floor (I don't think duct tape had been invented at that time).

Driving cautiously out of the barnyard, to see how the old girls would react, we proceeded blithely on our way. The cows actually seemed to enjoy their ride…gazing around from their unusual vantage point with the wind blowing in their faces. They quickly learned to cope with the swaying of the truck and stood solidly as stumps as we made our way homeward.

Admittedly, I was a bit apprehensive about driving through the town of Athabasca—mostly for fear of attracting the attention of an RCMP—but all went well. Apparently the cops were all busy with their dough nut shop security checks. Anyway, aside from the double-takes of pedestrians as we drove up main street, all went well…at least until we were almost home.

On the final leg of the journey, after labouring in first gear to the top of the last steep hill, a back tire, on my truck, exploded with the sound of a shotgun shell. Fortunately we were barely moving at the time. My passengers promptly regained their balance and stood quietly, on the now badly listing truck bed, as I got out to inspect the damage.

The back wheel had suffered the same fate as its mate on our final move to Canada. The rim had split wide open from being grossly overloaded. My accomplice, who had been following close behind, stopped to help assess the situation. Having little choice, we decided to take his load on to the farm and then come back for mine…which we did without further incident. He then went back home for the last two cows while I put another wheel on my truck and drove it home.

"How stupid can a person get?", you might ask. Well, you needn't bother because I've already asked myself that question a hundred times. A better question might be, "How often can a person expect to break Murphy's Law and get away with it?" The answer: "Until your luck runs out."

Saved By Rutabagas…

There were the family expenses to contend with too. Seven faces to feed three times a day, and the only income being the twenty five dollar Family Allowance check that came once a month. We certainly didn't starve, but there wasn't much variety.

Fortunately Aunt Georgina had planted a garden for us while dad and I were busy putting the crop in. Unfortunately, her choice of which vegetables to plant seemed to be influenced more by what grows well in our planting zone than by the palatability of the vegetable. Her tendency was to lean heavily toward root crops that swine and starving peasants might relish. Beets and carrots are civilized foods but, in my opinion, no member of the turnip family was ever intended for human consumption.

My memory might be a bit clouded by the lingering taste of boiled rutabagas, a staple of our diet, but it seems that at least half the garden was planted to this repugnant vegetable. Rutabagas do exceptionally well here. Apparently every seed germinates. I suspect that even the little particles of dust and seed residue left in the empty package would germinate—possibly the package itself, for all I know. At any rate, every little seedling eventually develops into a massive spheroid, like a pumpkin-sized blackhead zit erupting through the skin of the earth.

It is difficult to find anything favorable to say about rutabagas, except that it doesn't take many of them to make a meal for a large family. This would be a good feature in some vegetables—meal-sized potatoes, peas or beans, for instance—but it is a definite flaw in rutabagas. Pea-sized would be much better. They could then be swallowed whole without offending the taste buds or triggering the gag reflex mechanism. But, regrettably, they are huge and must be reduced to bite sized portions prior to mastication. This is most often done in one of two ways—cutting them up into spoon-sized chunks or mashing them like potatoes. Either way they are going to taste like rutabagas, but chunks are slightly preferable to mashed because they can be swallowed whole.

Mashing—a good thing to do with potatoes, because it brings the food into more intimate contact with the taste buds, allowing one to savor the delicious juices and flavors—is not a good thing to do with rutabagas. Mashing rutabagas reduces them to a consistency of pre-chewed baby food. (Prior to canned baby food and blenders, some mothers used to chew food to the consistency of gruel, then spit it into a spoon and feed it to their babies—a practice, in my opinion, just one level above regurgitation.) Swallowing such a nauseating mess requires a good deal of reflux control.

Another staple of our diet was sausages, the little greasy highly spiced ones made from slaughter house pork trimmings. These little culinary delights were the cheapest meat available at the local Red & White store. They were cheap because they were sold in bulk quantities, ten pound boxes, and they were largely lard in composition. In fairness to the little critters, they are very tasty as well as a good cold-climate food. But, when you sometimes have them three times a day, they can become a little monotonous.

I would not want to leave the impressions that we suffered gastronomically. On the contrary, we had very nutritious and delicious meals. Betty was a very good all-around cook and an excellent baker. She consistently turned simple foods into gourmet meals. Sausage gravy on mashed potatoes with freshly picked garden peas and hot homemade bread slathered with home churned butter, is hard to beat. Sugar coated raised doughnuts or chewy oatmeal cookies fresh from the oven, with all the cold milk you can drink is about as good as it gets.

Huey the Human Hoover…

The thought of rutabagas brings to mind our neighbor. Huey showed up just after dark one evening shortly after we moved to the farm. He was a dried up little Englishman, probably in his early fortys at that time, who was destined to become the talk of the community.

We had just finished eating our evening meal, rutabagas being the main dish, when the sound of a tractor driving into the yard caught my attention and I went outside to see what was up. Beyond the circle of light from the yard light, it was pitch dark. I could hear someone fussing about in the dark and went back to the house for a flashlight.

When I came back, a very loud voice from the dark was speaking non-stop. There was no greeting or introductory remarks, just an unbroken series of complaints. "…I've been on the road since afore sunrise this morning. Me wagon broke down about half ways here and set me back a couple hours…else I would'a made it afore dark. Been pushin hard all day…plumb wore out. Haven't had a bite to eat since mornin. Seen the light in yur window and was hoping you'd be neighborly enough to offer me a meal…"

I introduced myself and asked him where he was heading. He said his name was Huey and apparently thought that I should have known that he was the "feller that had bought the Lovejoy place" a couple miles to the south of us. As we walked toward the house, I got my first look at him under the yard light. He was a short man, probably no more than five foot four, but it was impossible to tell much more about his size because he was so bundled up.

Aside from the hobos that used to camp along the railroad when I was a kid, right after the depression, and the homeless people I had encountered in Korea, I had never seen such garments as this man wore. He may well have been wearing every stitch of clothing he owned. The outer layer consisted of an over sized mans suit jacket, with the sleeve cuffs rolled up to expose his hands. The tail of the jacket hung well below his knees, hiding from view most of the mix and match trousers of his ensemble. The trousers, the crotch of which hung to about knee level, were supported by a twine tied around his waist and the legs of which were tucked into the tops of his rubber boots…giving him the appearance of a short fat man with unusually short legs. As I recall, on his head was some kind of furry thing.

In the light of the back door mud room, I told him we had just finished supper but there was plenty left over. After removing an outer layer of clothes, he followed me into the kitchen where I offered him a chair at the table. Betty had already set a plate and cup of coffee for him and cautioned him that the coffee was very hot…just a fraction of a second too late. I don't recall any audible indication, but the way he arched his back and the rigid neck muscles stood out as the hot liquid made its way down his esophagus, gave an almost x-ray view of its progress.

Giving no indication of hearing Betty's profuse apologies, he immediately prepared to take a second swallow, but this time he cautiously extended his upper lip nearly halfway across the cup as he noisily slurped its steaming contents, all the while batting his eyes like a toad in a hailstorm.

By this time, Betty had reheated the remains of our supper and placed it on the table. The bulk of the leftovers consisted of a large bowl of rutabagas, but there were a few potatoes and some sausage gravy. Huey did not spoon the food onto his plate, he simply tipped the bowl over his plate and scraped out the contents. After emptying the potato and gravy bowls in this manner, there was still a bit of room on his plate, which he promptly filled with rutabagas.

The man was a human vacuum cleaner. There was little evidence of chewing as he shoveled the food into his mouth, which, by the way was placed as near as possible to the plate. Being a short man to begin with, it required very little bending forward to locate his mouth to close proximity with the food.

Stopping occasionally for a gulp of coffee to wash things down, the plateful of food disappeared amazingly quickly as we all watch in fascination. The last morsel on his plate had hardly been shoveled in when he again loaded his plate with rutabagas…the only thing left. This process was repeated until there was nothing left on the table to eat. Betty asked if she could get him anything else and he replied, "Another cup of coffee would be nice." While drinking his last cup of coffee, he informed me that he would be leaving his wagon behind for the night and would come back for it in the light of day.

As he was taking his leave, he said, "Seeins I don't have a flashlight and no electricity at my place, I wonder if I could borrow your flashlight for the night. I'll get it back to you first chance." Not having a good excuse to offer for not lending him the flashlight, I reluctantly gave it to him. Now, I should point out that, since flashlight batteries cost money and have a rather limited life span, we tended to view a flashlight as an emergency device to be used very sparingly and only when necessary. Huey apparently did not share that view, at least with a borrowed flashlight.

Bright and early the next morning, Huey showed up on his tractor to get his wagon. Now, it may have been just a coincidence that he arrived at breakfast time, I couldn't say for sure, but anyway, I went outside to talk to him rather than inviting him into the house. After talking for a few minutes, with no mention of the borrowed flashlight, I asked about it. He said, "I'll be needing it again tonight, so I didn't bring it with me."

Toward evening that day, a semi-truck, hauling a small house, went by. It had been raining most of the day and the road was getting soft and muddy. The house, which showed signs of once having been painted white, was covered with mud from bottom to top and end to end.
Somewhere between Edmonton and here, the back door of the house, which happened to be directly in line with one of the truck drive wheels, had blown wide open and remained so. Mud and gravel from the spinning truck wheels had been flying into the open door for many a mile, from the look of things.

Just after dark, Huey came charging into our yard on his little tractor. He was yelling something which I couldn't make out as he drove up, but from his state of agitation, I assumed that there had been an accident of some kind. As his tractor came to a stop, I began to understand what he was saying…the truck with his house on it was high-centered in his driveway and his little tractor couldn't pull it out and the truckers had to get back to Edmonton tonight and he would have to pay them extra if they didn't and he needed a pull with my bigger tractor.

Well, as I said, it was already dark and it was raining steadily. I explained to him that I had no lights on my tractor and, since I could see no real emergency, I would prefer waiting until morning to pull them out. Muttering something about it costing him extra money and something inaudible about neighborliness, he headed back home.

Early the next morning I got my tractor started and set out for Hueys place. The top speed on the old John Deere Model D was five miles per hour. It was two miles to Hueys. About a half hour later, soaking wet and feeling more stupid by the minute, I pulled into his driveway. There was no sign of a truck. His house was sitting on the ground where it belonged and he was talking loudly to himself as he shoveled mud out the back door.

Leaving my tractor running, I walked over to his house. He looked up and said, "You're about ten hours late." I'd about had it with him by then and just asked for my flashlight. As he handed me the mud covered flashlight, his only comment was that the battery must have been about dead when I loaned it to him because he had hardly used it before it died completely. That was only the first of many similar encounters with my good neighbor Huey.

Our First Barn…
Although there were a dozen or more small sheds, of various kinds, on the farm, there weren't any suitable for cattle. Our long range plan was to ultimately have beef cattle as our main enterprise, but our immediate need was for a multipurpose cattle shelter that could be used either for dairy or beef cows. Now, with the FCC loan, we were in a position to fill that need.

The plan was to build a barn as large as possible with the available money. It would be an open front pole-frame building with both ends and the back side enclosed. The roof would be a truss-frame with plywood sheathing. The intention was to construct a bare-bones building that would provide shelter at minimal cost…a simple plan, easy to build, with no frills..

The pole-frame design was chosen for its simplicity, fast and easy construction and the fact that a foundation was not required. In theory, it's just a matter of digging holes with a post auger and dropping poles in them. In practice, at least one large rock will be found at each pole location. Consequently, by the time a hole is dug deep enough to support a pole, it will most likely be about the size and shape of a toilet hole. This makes it easy to line up the poles accurately, but difficult to back-fill them solidly. But, once the poles are set and braced, it's just a matter of chain-sawing all the tops off to the same level and the framing is largely done.

The pressure-treated poles had to be purchased from the lumber yard but the dimension lumber, for wall and truss framing, came from a neighbor who had a pile of farm-sawn rough lumber. Rough lumber is, ordinarily, full-dimension lumber…that is, a two by four is a full 2 inches by 4 inches, rather than the undersized dimensions of planed lumber. However, the sawyers of this particular pile of rough lumber either didn't know that, or weren't too concerned about trivial matters, because their two-by-fours varied from 1.5 to 2.5 inches thick by 3.5 to 4.5 inches wide. But, since Tony was only asking forty five dollars per thousand for his pile of lumber…less than half the lumber yard price…we opted for the savings.

The unevenly sawn boards worked pretty well as nailers, but building trusses out of them was problematic. The boards first had to be sorted according to thickness, so a completed truss could be constructed of evenly matched components…more or less. By the time the last truss was constructed, I was beginning to think it might have been wiser to pay the extra money for planed lumber. The trusses were strong, but very heavy and lumpy looking.

By the way, we actually made twice as many trusses as would have been necessary if we had placed them on the customary four-foot centers. Not knowing any better, as well as not wanting to err on the weak side, we put them on two foot centers.

By the time the folks came up that fall, the barn was all framed up…ready to install the trusses. A few days before going back home, dad offered to help us put them up. Guy and I had planned to do the job by ourselves, but, knowing it would be quite a job for just the two of us to wrestle those monsters in place, we accepted his offer. So, it was decided that Guy and I would lift them up from the ground and dad would work from above. His job was mainly to nail a temporary brace on each truss, to hold it upright, while we climbed up to finish nailing it.

All went according to plan for a while. We had worked out a system for handling the heavy trusses, and had about half of them in place, when trouble developed. As sometimes happens when things are going well, we were probably not paying enough attention to what we were doing…maybe talking a bit too much…because dad forgot to nail the temporary brace to the truss we had just put up. Nobody noticed the oversight until he climbed out on it to help pull up the next one.

As he reached down to help lift it in place, the unbraced truss he was standing on started to tip. There was nothing anyone could do but watch as he and the truss came down in a heap. It was about a ten foot fall, which could easily have resulted in serious injury, but, as luck would have it, Dad managed to ride the buckling truss to the ground, with only a blow to the ribs when he ended up beneath it. No bones were broken, but he was sore for a couple of days. After the folks had gone back home, Guy and I finished building the barn and it's still in use more than forty years later.

Learning the Ropes…

Our land is classified as marginal for farming. It is rocky, sandy, hilly and thin soiled. The normally fiberscarce soil had been further depleted by thirty five years of poor farming practices. Erosion had become a problem because the soil could not absorb and hold water efficiently. Continuous grain cropping and excess tillage had pulverized the soil to the point that tractor tires found little traction. Implements often had to be lifted to enable the tractor to make it over small knolls or around a corner.

The meager farming experience I had was mostly of little value because it had been imported from an entirely different environment. Temperate climate farming practices are not wholly transferable to the subarctic conditions of Central Alberta. A rain forest background does not prepare one for semiarid conditions—nor is fifteen years of industrial training a proper apprenticeship for farming.

We learned many things the hard way, and mistakes were made, but gradually we discovered what worked and what didn't. We also discovered it was necessary to do without things once thought essential. The station wagon was traded for a forage harvester shortly after we arrived, leaving us with just the old pickup truck for transportation. We had no water system until 1974, when we built our new house. There weren't many frills, but there was a growing satisfaction in knowing that we were able to cope with the challenges.

With the passage of time, the details of the first few years have kind of blended together, but the general trend remains clear. Our first significant source of income was from the sale of cream and hogs. For several years, when we only had a few milk cows, we milked by hand and separated the milk with a hand-ranked cream separator. The skim milk was fed to the pigs and the cream was sold to the creamery in Athabasca. We first shipped our cream in three gallon cans and then switched to five and finally to ten gallon cans, as production increased.

At first the cream separator was kept in the house and all the milk was carried from the barn to the house for separating. As the herd grew, it became too much work to carry the milk to the house, so we moved the separator to the barn. When the old hand powered separator wore out, we bought an electric one, which made the job much easier.

The skim milk was mixed with barley chop and fed to the pigs. As the dairy herd increased in size, the number of pigs we could feed also increased. Before long the hog house, that Fertig had built, became too small, so we built a new hog barn…a combination farrowing and finishing barn. It was designed to handle forty sows and their litters.

More than forty five cubic yards of concrete was used in the construction of the building and every bit of it was mixed in a little concrete mixer that we had brought from Washington. The building was heated with an oil furnace and had water piped into it, the first building to have running water and central heating on our farm since the beginning of time.

We kept all of the heifer calves, to build up our milking herd, and sold the bull calves when they weighed about seven or eight hundred pounds. In 1965 we bought nineteen more cows from a farmer in Boyle. We also bought his milking machines. With the increased herd size, the old log barn became too crowded and inefficient, so we built a small milking parlour addition where we could milk four cows at a time. Moving ahead in this manner, one small step at a time, we slowly but surely made progress

For a time we did very well with pigs. At first we shipped them at a market weight of two hundred pounds, but later on we decided that we could make more by selling them as weaner pigs…around thirty five pounds…and let someone else raise them to market weight.

We were no longer growing enough grain for the number of animals we were feeding, so I made a deal to buy feed on credit from Ron's feed mill in Athabasca. We had been dealing with Ron for several years and had gained his confidence and trust. Being in a period of expansion, having just built our new hog barn and setting up to sell weaner pigs, the deal was made to charge feed until we started selling pigs. We knew there would be very little income for a while, but once we reached full production, the money would start coming in on a regular basis.

This arrangement worked fine for some time. The account would grow for a while, then a payment would be made and it would drop a little. The feed mill's policy was to give two percent off for cash, so even though we weren't technically paying interest, any feed we charged on the account was costing us two percent more than when we paid cash.

About this time the market price for pigs started dropping. Over a period of several months, the feed bill climbed to around four thousand dollars. It was beginning to look like we were never going to get out of debt. Finally, when it became apparent that things were only going to get worse until hog prices increased, we were forced to ship enough livestock to pay off the feed bill.

In addition to all of the pigs, all male calves, down to the age of one week, were sold, some of them bringing only twenty five to thirty dollars each. The pigs did even worse. Good brood sows went for forty dollars each. The total check came to just over four thousand dollars. Almost the entire amount was handed over to the feed mill. This left us in the rather awkward position of having lots of skim milk and no pigs to feed it to.

For a time we continued shipping cream and feeding all the skim milk to the few calves we had left. Although the calves did well, they couldn’t use all the skim milk and they certainly didn't bring in the income that the hogs had. Nevertheless, we kept on gradually expanding the milking herd.

Family Matters…

In January of 1964, Ken was born. Five years later Pat, our last baby and seventh son, arrived. Right from the time I had first started thinking of farming, I had visions of someday having a family farm partnership with my boys. The five we had before moving to Canada would have been the envy of most farmers, and now we had two more sons…my dream seemed almost assured.

There were lots of good times…but there were some very bad times too. One winter afternoon, the boys and I were finishing up the afternoon chores, just before supper time. The wood pile was a little low, so we were splitting fire wood and looking forward to watching one of our favorite television programs. Frank and I were splitting wood and the other boys were packing it to the wood box in the house. Frank would set the chunks of wood upright on the chopping block and I would split them with the axe.

In attempting to keep up with the wood packers, Frank set the blocks up as fast as he could and I would split them just as quickly as he set them up. Everything went well for several minutes and we had just about enough wood split.

Then Frank set up another block and it started to tip over. He grabbed it and set it up again just as I was about to swing the axe. I noticed in time to stop the swing and warned him to be careful. After splitting a few more blocks the same thing happened again…Frank grabbed the block, with his gloved hand on top. I had already started to swing the axe. He wasn't able to get his hand out of the way, and I couldn't react quickly enough. The axe struck his hand.

I can never forget the way Frank looked up at me. It was a mixture of disbelief, horror, pain, anger and guilt. I couldn't believe what had happened, it was the worst moment of my entire life. I knew I had hurt him badly, but his glove was still on his hand so I couldn't see how badly. My first thought was that I had cut his hand in two.

The next few moments are permanently printed on my memory. I carefully pulled the glove from his hand, dreading what I would see. By this time it was bleeding quite a bit. One after the other his fingers were exposed. The middle finger was about half missing and I feared the worst. The next finger to it was bleeding but not cut off. The last finger was okay. A surge of relief shuddered through my mind and body, but the horror of it all was overwhelming. I could only hold his hand and repeat over and over, "I'm sorry Frank, I'm sorry Frank." I will never forget that terrible feeling.

Luckily he had only had one finger on top of the block, or it would have been much worse. As traumatic as it was, I controlled my panic. If anything could be done to help Frank, it was up to me to do it. I told one of the boys to remove the severed finger from the glove and wrap it in waxed paper. I ran to the house and told Betty what had happened, wrapped Franks hand in cloth, grabbed the truck keys and started for the hospital in Athabasca with Frank. The temptation was strong to drive recklessly, but I managed to keep control.

The doctor happened to be at the hospital when we arrived. He looked at Franks hand. After cleaning it up and bandaging it, he told me that he wouldn't be able to sew the severed finger back in place. He said that there was a chance that it could be done, but it would require the skills of a doctor in Edmonton. He packed the finger in an ice pack and suggested that we get to Edmonton as quickly as possible.

The ambulance service was very poor at that time (still is, for that matter). I knew that I could be half way to Edmonton before an ambulance driver could be located, so decided to leave immediately by truck.

The drive to Edmonton seemed endless, it takes about two hours by truck. I didn't know the exact location of the hospital, but somehow got there without getting lost. When we arrived at the emergency entrance, we went directly to the first doctor we saw. Without looking at Franks bandaged hand, he told us to sit down and we would be called in our turn. We waited for several minutes. By this time Franks hand was getting pretty painful. I couldn't stand waiting any longer and told one of the attendants that something had to be done soon. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry.

Eventually they called our name and we went with the doctor. He had Frank undress and lie on a cot. After examining the hand he said that there was no point in attempting to sew the finger back on because it probably would not be functional, even if it healed properly. Frank was given something to ease the pain and his hand was re-dressed.

At the time I was very upset and angry with the doctors and the entire hospital system. It seemed that nobody really cared. In retrospect, I realise that I was overly critical because of my own extreme feelings of guilt. I wanted someone to bail me out, to make it all right again. Compared with some accident victims that the emergency personnel see every day, Franks injury was actually not very severe, but it took me a long time to realize it.

There is no way to make amends for the carelessness I was guilty of that day. Nothing has ever had such a devastating impact on me, before or since. If there was anything I could do to give back Franks finger, I surely would. Obviously there isn't. I am so very sorry, but there is nothing I can do about it. It was a painful lesson that I shall never forget. The best I can hope for is that someone else might learn from my foolish carelessness and avoid the anguish that I have felt ever since that hateful day. Franks hand eventually healed—I never will.

Guy Leaves and Returns…

Soon after Guy graduated from high school he got a job working in the oil fields, in order to make money for his university education. Since he planned to come back to the farm after graduating, he enrolled in agricultural courses. After completing his first year, he again went to work in the oil fields. About three months into his second year, he quit school because he was failing his math courses. I hated to see him quit, but assumed that he would be coming back to the farm. Instead, he went down to the states and joined the army.

At that time the Viet Nam war was being fought. Hundreds of American boys were moving to Canada to avoid the draft. Apparently Guy wanted to show people that he was not going to hide in Canada. He not only joined the U.S. army, he volunteered for the paratroops and ranger school and became an airborne ranger. He spent two years in the army and was discharged without having to go to Viet Nam. When he came back home, we formed a partnership and started making plans to include all the other boys as they finished school.

Those were optimistic times. With the newly formed partnership between Guy and I, and the potential of several more partners in the future, it seemed advisable to start expanding our land base. And, as luck would have it, our neighbour, Joe, had decided to sell his farm at this time.

Expansion Pains…

Joe had moved onto the farm joining ours a few years prior to us. He was farming with horses and an old tractor at the time we moved in. He had five or six cows, a team of horses, a couple sows and a flock of chickens. His machinery was old and in poor repair. He and Nellie had raised three children…just eking out a living. Their chances of succeeding as farmers were slim.

Eventually they decided to sell out and move to town. Land prices at the time were picking up, but still low. He listed the farm, in the local newspaper, at a price of seventeen thousand dollars. Another of our neighbours told me that the farm would never sell at such a ridiculously high price. However, I suspect that he was actually interested in expanding also but wasn’t in a position to take on such a large debt at that time.

The recently organized Alberta Agricultural Development Committee (AADC), happened to be promoting a scheme designed to enlarge the average farm size, to make them more viable in the changing agricultural world. Their plan was to assist small farm owners in selling their farms, so there would be more land available to farmers that wanted to expand.

After investigating the plan, it seemed perfect for both Joe and us. Joe would be eligible to receive three thousand dollars from the government, on the condition that he sold his land to a farmer who was expanding, and we would save that amount on the cost of his farm.

There was little interest shown in Joe's farm by other farmers. Betty and I had discussed buying it, while Guy was still in the army, but we couldn't see how we would be able to manage the additional work. Still, the fact remained that, if someone else were to buy the land, we would probably never have another chance to buy it.

Luckily the land still hadn’t been sold by the time Guy came home, and, in the meantime, Joe had dropped his price to fourteen thousand five hundred dollars.

Just a few days after Guy came home, we went down to talk to Joe and offered him eleven thousand five hundred. We explained that this offer would include a payment of three thousand dollars from the AADC…our investment would actually be only eight thousand five hundred dollars. We also advised Joe to talk to the AADC people and get detailed information, to ensure that he understood how the plan worked. After talking to the AADC people, he came back to us and accepted our offer. He then made arrangements to buy house in Colinton and we arranged for a loan from the AADC, to cover our share of the money for the farm.

There were some misunderstandings about the deal that caused some problems for a while, but within a few days the deal was finalized. It's unfortunate that such things happen, but it is understandable when so much is at stake for all parties.

Another land deal that turned problematic was with our neighbour, Mike. I had made it known to Mike, several years before, that I was interested in buying his land if he should ever decide to sell. As a matter of fact, I had told other nearby neighbours the same thing about their land. Then one day Mike stopped in and said that he had decided to sell his farm and he was asking eight thousand dollars for the half section.

I immediately went to Athabasca and talked to the FCC loans officer, who assured me that the money would be available. Then I went back and made a handshake deal with Mike. We agreed to his price of eight thousand dollars, which was actually a relatively high price at that time. I then applied for an FCC loan and started making plans for farming the additional land. Among other things, the plans included some additional machinery purchases.

A few days later, Mike and his wife stopped in. Without even getting out of their car they told me that the deal was off because the land was worth more money. I reminded them that we had shaken hands on the agreement and that I had already made arrangements for a loan. His wife replied, "Mike has put too much work in the farm to sell it for such a low price” and then added that there was nothing I could do about it. It was obvious who was in charge in that family.

Then there was the land deal with Frank, another neighbour. Frank had apparently been moving from one farm to another for years, never succeeding on any of them. He and his wife bought the farm just east of our home quarter the same year that we bought ours. After several years of struggle, with little sign of progress, they decided to sell their farm. They listed the farm with a local Realtor, for around nineteen thousand dollars. After making a deal to sell their farm to another local farmer, they backed out at last minute because they figured they had set the price too low…apparently because they had found a buyer quite easily.

A few years later they again put the farm up for sale, this time listing it with an out of town Realtor, but they increased the price to twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars. We contacted the Realtor and anonymously made a ridiculously lower offer of twenty five dollars per acre, through the Realtors local representative. She went to Frank with the offer and was angrily told off. She was visibly shaken when she came back to us to report the abuse that had been heaped upon her.

Well, to understate things a bit, the Realtor's rep seemed less than enthusiastic about repeating the experience and suggested that maybe we should do our own dealing…which we did. We met with Frank and his wife a few days later. They ranted and raved about people trying to rip them off and threatened to raise their price again. But in spite of all the rancour, we finally managed to make a deal and wrote out a cheque for their farm.

Even after paying for the farm in full, they remained very belligerent and uncooperative. They refused to vacate the house until they were good and ready, even though the agreed upon vacating date had past. During one of our 'discussions' it actually came to blows. Frank had picked up a two by six board and waved it threateningly at us. Then his son, the class bully in school, attacked Guy physically…to his regret.

After that unpleasant incident we had no further contact with them. On the day they finally vacated the house, we went over to check things out and found that they had turned the oil heater up full blast, apparently to use up the remaining fuel oil. The house was extremely hot and the furnace was actually pulsing and throbbing as though it was about to explode. It’s a wonder the house hadn’t burned down.

Each time we bought land, our neighbours told us that we had paid too much…but time has proven them wrong. In every case we borrowed money when interest rates were very low and then paid off the loans with inflated dollars. My only regret is that we didn't buy more land while it was so cheap.

Throughout this period of expansion, several more buildings were constructed. In all we built three cattle barns, a hog barn, a machine shop, a large metal Quonset building for machinery storage, three steel granaries, a sheep shed, six dugouts, three large pit silos, eighteen miles of fence and a new house. In addition to the construction projects, we had purchased a total of ten quarter sections land and cleared five hundred more acres, ending up with eight hundred acres of cultivated land and eight hundred acres of pasture land.

Partnership Pact…

From the time that I first started thinking of moving to Canada, I had been making plans to involve the boys as farming partners With five sons—later to become seven—the possibilities seemed limitless. We had an opportunity to build a family farming enterprise that most farmers dared not even dream of.

However, having heard many stories of failed partnerships, I was determined to devise a plan which would maximise the chances of the partnership's success. I knew that compromises would be necessary, that it would take time to build a farm that could support several families and that we would likely have to do without many desirable things until the partnership could afford them. But the rewards of success appeared to far outweigh such costs.

Presumably, the ultimate goal of most family farm enterprises is to pass the farm on from generation to generation. Finding a method of doing this, in a fair and practical way, is difficult. The most common way is to sell the farm to the next generation, but this usually burdens succeeding generations with huge debts. Such debts severely handicap young farmers while enriching lending agencies and lawyers. A better way, of passing a farm from parents to progeny, would be to adequately compensated the parents for their contributions while allowing the progeny to take over debt free. With these thoughts in mind, I set out to develop a partnership agreement that would avoid the causes of failure of so many family partnerships in the past.

The older boys were now experienced enough to think for themselves and make decisions about their own futures, so we worked out a partnership agreement together. It was designed to benefit all partners equally, safeguard each members time and money investments and ensure the viability of the farming enterprise.

In brief, our partnership agreement is based on an orderly and gradual transfer of ownership via share certificates. An initial number of shares are issued to cover each partners original investment, in time and/or money, and then additional shares are issued annually in such a way that each partner gradually attains equality of ownership. Over a defined period of time, the older generations shares will be paid out by the younger generation, thus gradually transferring ownership without burdening the younger generation with a massive debt.

Fading Dreams…

As the boys finished high school most of them left home to find work. John went on to graduate from the University of Alberta with an agricultural engineering degree. He had intended to become a partner with Guy and I, and worked with us for a couple summers while still in school, but it didn't work out. There were just too many incompatibilities. Later on, Ken decided to stay on as a partner. He tried it for a short time, but it didn't work out either.

As each of the boys made his decision to leave home to find other work, he was invited to join the partnership. They were told that they would have until age twenty six to make their decisions. It was also made very clear to everyone that only partnership members were eligible to share in the farm estate. One by one they all declined…with the exception of Guy.

I think I understand why the boys decided to leave the farm. One of the major factors was their need, or desire, for immediate personal discretionary money. They had grown up in a money deficient environment. Their only source of spending money had been from the sale of furs. They were never paid an allowance or wages because, in my opinion, the farm could not afford it.

Another factor was their lack of opportunity to meet girls. The only vehicles the farm owned, for many years, were trucks…first a one-ton truck and later a three-ton. Again, this was because, in my opinion, the farm could not afford a car. Cars cost money, they burned more expensive fuel than trucks, they are expensive to maintain, they have to be insured and insurance for young drivers was very expensive.

Possibly another major factor was their lack of confidence in farming as a way of attaining a satisfactory standard of living. Farmers, in general, appeared to have substandard lives, in comparison with their urban counterparts…at least in the perception of young people. Many farmers had to find off farm work to subsidise their farms. The most successful farmers were often the ones who had married nurses, teachers or women with some other off-farm sources of income.

But possibly the most significant factor might have been their perception of me as a satisfactory partner. I am rather inflexible when I'm convinced that I'm right. Although I try very hard to make clear my reasons for certain key management decisions, sometimes my explanations may not be persuasive. But, be that as it may, whenever I am confident that I am right, and the welfare of the farm is at stake, and endless discussion has failed…I take the responsibility of making the final decision.

Some of my decisions may have been unpopular and some may have even been mistrusted, but the most important decisions have withstood the test of time. My dreams of a whole-family partnership ultimately ended in disappointment, and I accept my share of responsibility for that failure. Nevertheless, our farm has thrived as a partnership between Guy and myself, at a time when so many other farms have failed.

Switching To Cattle…

After feeding our skim milk to hogs for several years, a Northern Alberta Dairy Pool representative contacted us about shipping bulk whole-milk to them. They were looking for new sources of milk because the dairies around Edmonton were unable to fill the demand. They offered a price for our milk which would be much more profitable than the sale of cream alone. The deal looked good, so we signed up.

It took us about a month to get ready, at a cost of approximately twenty thousand dollars. The Milk Marketing Board gave us sufficient quota to permit us to ship all the milk were currently producing and we became the first farmers to ship bulk milk from Athabasca County to Barrhead. As a matter of fact, we were the only shipper for a while and their trucks had to drive all the way from Barrhead, more than a hundred miles round trip, just to pick up our milk, twice per week.

Shortly after we started shipping bulk milk, the dairy commission activated a program designed to gradually integrate new milk producers into the quota system. The quota system was designed to regulate milk production via a two-price system. A premium price was paid for quota milk while over-quota (surplus) milk received a much lower price. At the time there was a shortage of milk being produced in Alberta, so the dairy commission was offering quota, free of charge, to producers who signed up and agreed to maintain a specified level of production. Over the next few years, we accumulated a substantial amount of quota in this way…absolutely free.

When we first started milking cows, we intended to switch over to beef cattle as soon as we were financially able to do so. We had no desire to spend the rest of our lives in the dairy business, but it made sense to milk cows, for a time, as an interim step to reaching our ultimate goal more quickly. In light of that plan, we were careful not to invest more money than absolutely necessary in equipment that would not be useful after switching to beef cattle. Consequently our milking facilities were just barely adequate to meet the dairy commission's minimum requirements.

As more and more dairies began to ship bulk milk from our area, the marketing regulations became more strict. As a consequence, since our set-up barely met the original, more lenient, regulations, we were constantly pestered by the milk inspectors to upgrade our facilities. Finally we were told that we would have to upgrade if we wanted to continue shipping fluid milk. For a while we just stalled them off, without making any commitments, one way or the other. Our strategy was to continue shipping milk as long as we could in order to put ourselves in the best possible financial position before converting to beef cattle. There was no rush to give up the ten thousand dollars per month that the milk cows brought in during the peak months.

As luck would have it, just as we were about to quit the dairy business, the dairy commission initiated a new plan which permitted the sale of quota directly from one producer to another—provided that the seller agreed to quit producing milk altogether. Upon investigation, we discovered that our quota had a market price of approximately one hundred thousand dollars! It sounded too good to be true, but further inquiries confirmed it. To make the deal even better, the dairy commission would handle the sale for us and we would have no contact with the purchasing party. All we had to do was sign an agreement to sell our quota and the commission would find a buyer and deliver the cheque to us. And that, in a nutshell, is what happened.

The money from the milk quota, plus some additional money from the sale of a few cull milk cows, provided us with the capital needed to get started in beef cattle.

The conversion to beef cattle was made in two steps. The first step was to breed our Holstein milk cows to Hereford bulls, which we had already started doing. We had kept our best milk cows as the nucleus of our breeding stock. The second step was to buy a hundred head of
Hereford heifer calves, to be bred in the spring.

Later on, when our breeding herd had become a bit too large for our feed supply, and the price of milk cows had risen, we sold the remainder of our Holstein cows. Our herd grew steadily and eventually peaked at five hundred and fifty one head, of which three hundred and eight were mature cows.

Costly Mistake…

Although the beef business has been very good to us, there have been some bad times, the worst of which occurred one cold January day. We had been feeding the cattle in a sheltered area back in the bush, nearby a beaver pond where they watered. The pond was frozen over with thick ice. Every morning we would cut watering holes through the ice, in the shallow water near the edge of the pond. This was a common way of watering cattle in the winter.

That morning, as we were passing the beaver dam with a load of hay for the cattle, we stopped to break open the watering holes. It had been extremely cold the night before. The cattle were still bedded down back in the shelter of the trees.

As Guy was chopping open the water holes, I noticed some strange looking round frost covered mounds out in the middle of the pond. There were a couple dozen of them and they stuck up about a foot above the ice. The pond was eight or nine feet deep where the mounds were. As we walked over to investigate the strange pinkish mounds, the sickening realisation dawned on us that they were the bloated sides of drowned cows.

The rest of the herd had to be moved away immediately so more wouldn't drown if they came to drink. So, Guy jumped on the tractor and pulled the load of hay up close to the remainder of the herd and started calling them. As the cattle came out of the bush, most of them started following the load of hay, but some were thirsty and headed for the water holes, where I was standing guard. Guy kept going with the wagon and called the cattle while I did my best to chase the thirsty ones away from the water. As hard as I tried, I could not turn them away. Some of them got by me and walked out on the pond. The ice around the drowned cattle was not thick enough to support their weight and they began breaking through.

By the time we were able to drive the rest of the herd to safety, a total of thirty head had drowned. Although we did manage to pull two or three out, one of them was so far gone that it had to be shot. It took us four days to chop the frozen carcasses out of the ice and drag them onto the bank. It took much longer to recover from the financial and emotional effects of the loss.

Windfall Income…

As much as one might like to take full credit for his success, the truth is that we have had a number of pleasant surprises, in the form of windfall income, that have been very helpful. In addition to the milk quota windfall, there have been others, from time to time.

During the past forty-plus years, oil and gas companies have seen fit to share some of their vast wealth with us peons. They apparently like to pay for the privilege of driving heavy equipment across our land and punching holes in our fields. Then, when they tire of punching holes, they move their equipment out and send in a crew to pick rocks for us and fix our fences. Sometimes they even continue sending us money for several years after completing their work, apparently because they are too busy punching holes in other places and just can’t find the time to mail out release forms.

Considering the fact that, in all the time we've been farming, we have received thirty to forty thousand dollars from these guys, it’s a bit embarrassing to admit that greed has occasionally motivated us to take advantage of their generosity. Like the time they wanted to cut some seismic lines across our land, and we happened to know that they had already signed up all the neighboring land owners, and that our land was vital to their plans because two of the lines crossed smack dab in the middle of one of our quarters. This is an interesting situation to be in…I think it's called "being in the drivers seat". I’m mortified to admit that we may have taken advantage of the situation and got a teeny bit more than they really wanted to pay. But, as the saying goes…"You'd better get while the gettin's good."

Computer Crash Course …

My first experience with computers was back in the late '50s when ALCOA installed a state-of-the-art computer system at the Vancouver works. The components of the system cost over a million dollars and filled two good sized rooms. One room housed the card punching machines, where a dozen or more women sat, at typewriter-like keyboards, typing in raw data to be read by the computer. These machines created cards, about three inches by six inches in size, with rows of small rectangular holes in them. Each card represented a single instruction. For example, the set of holes in one card might represent an employees name, address, telephone number, et cetera. Another card would represent the number of hours he had worked, his rate of pay, and so forth. The computer then read these instructions by electrical contacts through the holes.

The computer, card sorters and the printer were in the other room. The computer itself was a huge contraption. At the back were openings filled with program boards. The boards were very similar in appearance to old fashioned telephone switch boards, with tangles of wires plugged into them. These wired circuits routed the electrical impulses…which had been read from the punched cards…to the central processor in the innards of the computer. After processing the data from the cards, the computer then punched the results of its calculations into still more cards.

The thousands of cards thus produced by the computer, and the key-punch operators, were next taken to the card sorters. The card sorters were much like the letter sorters in a modern post office. Stacks of cards were fed into the machine, which sorted them into separate stacks, according to the data which had been punched into them. After all this punching, calculating and sorting, the cards were then sent to the printer.

I should point out that the computer did not have 'memory' or data storage capability and there was no monitor for displaying information. So everything had to be printed on paper to be read.

The printer was another huge machine, approximately eight feet long by four feet wide and about table height. A endless chain of alpha-numeric characters continuously revolved around the perimeter of the printer top. As this chain of characters passed by a battery of little hammers, the appropriate character would be struck by a hammer and the character would be printed, via an inked ribbon, on the paper behind the ribbon. It was all very cumbersome, noisy and awkward by modern standards but it was fascinating to watch.

It was not until about 1981 that computers next invaded my life. That was when Radio Shack started marketing their first home computer, which they called the CoCo…short for ColorComputer. I bought one immediately…justifying the expense by assuming I could learn computer programming and write programs for farm use.

The CoCo consisted of just two components, a combined keyboard/computer—with 128K of memory—and a monochrome monitor. The operator's manual contained excellent programming instructions for beginners. I learned to write computer programs on that humble little machine and became hooked on computers. My goal was to computerise our farm accounting system and other farm bookkeeping jobs. There were no commercially written programs available for farm accounting at that time.

My first programs, although useful, left a lot to be desired. They were slow in operation and very limited in scope, mainly because of the meagre amount of memory in the primitive little CoCo. Over time, with better computers and improved programming languages, I eventually wrote a complete set of farm bookkeeping programs, which we used exclusively for several years. Ultimately we switched to a commercial accounting program, when they became available, but we still use some of the other programs that I wrote.

Going Public…

My fascination with computers and programming lead to a desire to put this newly learned technology to some monetary use. The first thought was to write programs to sell, which I did…with very limited success. This was mainly because my programs were not 'user friendly', in that they did not have graphic user interface (GUI) capability, which quickly become the standard.

I had noticed in the GrainNews, a western Canada farm newspaper, that many of the articles were contributed by freelance writers. There were articles on just about every subject of interest to farmers, but there was little mention of computers. This was understandable, however, because very few farmers had computers at that time.

There was a kind of a Catch 22 situation associated with farm use of computers. Very few computer programs of any kind were available at that time and practically none that farmers would find useful. So, farmers weren’t apt to buy computers if there was no useful software available and programmers weren’t apt to write software that few would buy.

The programs I wrote had proven to be very useful to us. They not only made our bookkeeping chores easier and more accurate, they also made the job more enjoyable. I felt that if more farmers were made aware of the advantages that computers had to offer, they would be more apt to buy one—provided, of course, that useful programs were also available.

An idea started forming in that space between my ears: "Maybe I could teach other farmers to write their own programs!"; or, "Maybe I could sell my programs to them!"; or, "Maybe it would even be possible to write articles about computer programming, for the GrainNews paper, and not only get paid for the articles but advertise my programs, to a large number of farmers, at the same time!"

Now, it’s easy enough to dream up such an idea but not so easy to work up the guts to actually do something about it. I agonised about it for days, then finally decided to write to the GrainNews publishers. I explained to them that, although I had no writing experience and no formal computer programming training, I would like to write articles about computer programming for their newspaper.

I was surprised to get any response at all, but even more surprised that they wanted me to start right away and asked me to submit something for them to evaluate. I did so and a few days later received a phone call from one of their editors. He said he liked my article and asked if I would be willing to submit a series of them. He also informed me that the starting pay for new writers was a hundred and fifty dollars per article. I agreed to give it a try.

Every article I submitted, for approximately a year and a half, was published. My name was even added to the newspapers mast head, as a staff writer. It was a very interesting experience. I received a number of letters from people all over western Canada, some of them suggesting ideas for future articles, some just expressing their appreciation, and some asking questions about programming. But one letter in particular really surprised me. It was from a professional software publisher. He complained bitterly about the fact that he had recently invested over a hundred thousand dollars in a new business to produce software for farmers. He went on at length to tell me how unfair it was for me to try to teach farmers to write their own programs, when people like him were trying to make a business of it. As if!

Not long after that, I realised that the whole idea was just a pipe dream. My own enthusiasm for computers had clouded my judgement. The fact was that most farmers had little, if any, interest in computers and even less interest in programming. But, even more importantly, a number of professionally written accounting programs, as well as a variety of other software of use to farmers, were now being marketed. So, with some reluctance I informed the editor that I would no longer be writing for them.

I Lose My Betty…

Nineteen eighty nine was the worst year of my life. Betty died shortly before noon on the 28th day of October, three weeks after her 61st birthday.

In retrospect, there were some early indications of her deteriorating health. The first sign was an occasional numbness in her left hand. Later on she started dropping things that she was carrying in her left hand, and would be unaware of dropping them. She actually thought it was kind of funny and laughed about it. It didn’t occur to me that it might be an indication of a serious problem.

I first took notice that something was odd about her behaviour when Betty and I were walking through the pasture together, looking for rocks. Betty liked to collect small rocks to cut and polish with her lapidary outfit. She usually went out by herself, carrying a little burlap bag that she had made, and always brought back a load of rocks. I used to get upset with her for bringing so many rocks home. She had boxes of them stored all over the basement. She did a little cutting and polishing occasionally, but the huge stockpile of rocks she had accumulated would have kept her busy for years.

On this particular day I went along with her. As we strolled along, I noticed that she seemed to be walking differently than normal and hardly seemed aware of me being with her. Once or twice she nearly ran into me and would laugh and say she hadn't seen me. I also noticed that she dropped her rock bag a couple times but didn’t seem aware of the fact for a few moments.
I walked a short distance away and stood watching her. When she saw me looking at her she apparently thought I was being critical and became quite irritated, saying something like, "What's wrong now?" I think it was at that moment that I first realized that there was something seriously wrong.

The next day we went to Dr. Oldale's office in Athabasca. After a quick examination and a few questions, he apparently suspected what the problem was and immediately made an appointment for a neurological examination at the University Hospital in Edmonton. The following morning we went to Edmonton.

Upon examination it was determined that she had a brain tumor. They operated about three days later and removed a large malignant tumor…two others were inoperable. The operation was followed by a series of treatments, both radiation and chemotherapy. Her health was deteriorating very noticeably.

I had phoned my daughter as soon as the operation was scheduled and she immediately flew to Edmonton. Lynne was with her mother all through the operation and the first days of recovery, which was a great help for both Betty and I. I went down to see Betty about every other day. It was a period of emotional highs and lows. One day the doctors would seem a bit optimistic when she showed signs of improving. The next day things might look totally hopeless.

One of the sad things that happened was when Betty's hair started falling out. Lynne had treated her mother to a permanent just a day or two before her operation…her first permanent since moving to Canada. She looked very nice. Shortly after the radiation and chemotherapy treatments started, her hair began to fall out. Betty didn't seem to mind, but it was very distressing for me.

She recovered slowly over the next few months, eventually to the point that she felt well enough to take a short trip. We left one morning, with the truck and camper, intending to make a camping trip through southern Alberta and east into Saskatchewan. We visited the Terrell Museum, which Betty seemed to enjoy and camped at public campgrounds.

She complained of a pain in her leg about the third day of the trip. The next day the pain got worse, so we decided to go back home. By that afternoon all she wanted was to get home as soon as possible, she also mentioned several times that she wanted to see Pat. We drove straight through, getting home late in the evening.

Her health deteriorated rapidly after that. She was in pain most of the time. Stronger and stronger drugs were prescribed, with little effect. Finally, there was nothing to do but take her to the hospital where they could give her better care and ease her pain.

On the morning I took her to the hospital, she had a seizure and fell in the bathroom. Guy and I were outside doing chores at the time. When I came in to check on her, which I did every hour or so, she was in very bad condition…confused and in great pain. On the way to the hospital she had another seizure. I had to support her with one hand and drive with the other. I feared she was dying and drove extremely fast, hoping for an RCMP escort.

The hospital staff helped Betty as much as they could, but there was really nothing anyone could do except try to ease her pain. Toward the last the pain was unbearable. Betty always had a high tolerance of pain, but this was too much.

I spent as much time as I could with her during the final days and nights…sleeping on a couch next to her bed at night. I knew there was little chance of recovery but refused to give up hope. Finally, late one night, Dr. Reddy told me that Betty wouldn't last more than a few more days.
That evening Betty and I had our last meaningful talk. It is too painful and personal to relate in detail what we talked about, but I’m glad we at least had a chance to say some long overdue things to each other. Although I had never cheated on Betty during our entire marriage, I know she thought I had and I felt the guilt of knowing how close I had actually come a couple times. I wanted very much to clear my conscience in that last conversation with Betty, but could not bring myself to cause her any more pain. Without being specific, I just asked her to forgive me for the times that I may have hurt her in the past. We forgave each other.

The next morning Betty was feeling a bit better, so I went home for a few minutes to change clothes and then went right back to the hospital. About a half hour after I got back, Bettys pain became extremely bad. She asked for "Something to knock me out". By that time normal doses of morphine were ineffective.

She was lying on her back. I was kneeling over her at the bedside trying to find some way to comfort her. The pain distorted her face and showed in her eyes. I had not noticed that Dr. Reddy and two or three nurses and other staff members had entered the room.

Betty pleaded for something to stop the pain but there was nothing anyone could do for her. Watching her pain contorted face was unbearable. She looked up at me, her feverish eyes pleading for help. I said , "Why don't you just let go?". She responded, "Do you mean, die?" I nodded my head and said, "Yes". Those were our last words to each other. How I have wished ever since that I had told her once more that I loved her, before it was too late.

The end came very quickly—I remember every detail. The pain appeared to leave at once. Her face became relaxed and she seemed to breath more easily, she was breathing through her partially opened mouth. Her breaths gradually slowed and became weaker. Her face relaxed more. Then, there was one final small breath and her pain ended.

It was then that I realised that several people had quietly entered the room. Obviously word had gone out that Betty was dying. Officially, they were there as witnesses but their tears belied that mere professionalism had brought them to bid my Betty goodbye.

My daughter-in-law, Louise, happened to be in the hospital that morning for a lab appointment. It was her birthday and she was in her usual good spirits. She had been in to see Betty a little earlier, before going to the lab. Within minutes after Betty died, Louise came back to see mom before going home. As she entered the room, she immediately realized what had happened and came to me. We held each other and cried. She was as broken hearted as I. That shared moment of grief proved to be the beginning of a close friendship between the two of us.
I took Louise home because she felt unable to drive alone and then went on home to tell Guy.

The next few days were the saddest and most difficult days of my life. All the kids except John came home. Pat was flown home in a military helicopter, which landed on our lawn not more than fifty feet from the house. Betty had requested that there be no funeral, because she did not want to be "a bother to anyone". She had also requested that her body be cremated. In respect of her wishes, the only public awareness of her death was a notice pinned up at the post office and an obituary in the local newspaper.

Guy, Bill and I made the arrangements with the undertaker and were shocked by his attitude. He tried to intimidate and pressure us into going against Betty's wishes, implying that we were not showing proper respect. He tried every pressure tactic he could to shame and cajole us into having an expensive funeral. It was a real shock to see firsthand just how unfeeling and money grubbing undertakers can be.

Betty's ashes are buried in her garden, near her apple trees, in a stainless steel container that Bill made. It is stamped with her name and dates of birth and death. I designed and carved a small wooden plaque as a marker for her burial place and Guy cast it in aluminum. My will specifies that my body is also to be cremated, there is to be no funeral, and my ashes are to be buried next to Betty's in a similar manner.

No man ever had a more devoted wife than my Betty. She stood by me through every adversity…"in sickness and in health, for better or worse, 'til death us did part." It so unfair that, after more than forty years of defying the odds together, she was not allowed to live and reap her share of the rewards.

Life Without Betty…

Adjusting to life without Betty was very hard. After living together for more than forty years and expecting to have her by my side for many more years, her loss was an emotional shock. Although her death was neither sudden nor unexpected, I was still not prepared for the dramatic change in my life.

I went through the same stages of sadness, denial and anger that I suppose most people experience with the death of their spouse. At first I tried to hang on to the past, denying that she was gone by refusing to allow changes to take place. I wanted everything to remain as she had left it. I didn't want any of her things to be given away. No matter how trivial a thing might have been, if it was hers it had meaning. Her clothes, dishes, books, household appliances—all the things she had collected during our forty one year honeymoon—now took on a greater significance. I would touch and smell her clothing in the dresser drawers and closets. It was more than two months before I changed the sheets on our bed. Then, before the sheets finally went into the washing machine I pressed them to my face and wept.

Gradually it became obvious that it made no sense to keep clothing and other things that we had no use for when most of these things were perfectly good and of use by others. As the job of sorting out her things got underway, I saw that I needed the help of a woman. Louise volunteered to help. She not only helped sort and box up everything that I decided to give away, she also hauled it all to her house where it could be divided up amongst the other daughters-in-law without me having to be involved. Louise worked hard and made many trips hauling the heavy boxes away and, as it turned out, she ended up getting the things that others didn't want. I am very grateful for your help Louise.

As time passed, it became easier to get rid of things that we had no use for, but it never ceased to surprise me that there are memories attached to everything in ones house, no matter how trivial it might be. Old Christmas tree decorations, a damaged cooking utensil, tattered old books that Betty had read, all caused pangs of remembrance.

With further passage of time, parting with the past became easier. As a matter of fact, it eventually became almost an obsession to get rid of everything that was not being used. It was like a purge. Truck loads of old furniture and space consuming junk were eventually hauled to the dump until the house actually echoed with hollow emptiness.

The nature of our partnership had obviously changed as well. With the passing of Betty, there were now only two partners, rather than three. Additionally, it had become more apparent, with each passing year, that none of the other boys were apt to join Guy and I in farming. It also became obvious that it is much easier for two partners to make decisions than it is for three or more. But to be brutally frank, the most significant change was that management plans and decisions would no longer have to be concerned with a woman's point of view. That is not to imply that women should not be involved in decision making, or that a woman's point of view is not important…it just means that the decision making process was significantly simplified.

Debt Free At Last…

One of our main goals had always been to eventually become completely debt free. As with most farmers, we had, for many years, no option but to borrow money for most of our major expenses. In fact for most of our farming life it had even been necessary to borrow money for our day to day operating expenses. Our annual operating loan, of forty five thousand dollars, had been routinely renewed every year.

Interest on borrowed money had become one of our major operating expenses. In 1981 alone, we had paid out more than thirty thousand dollars in interest, when bank interest peaked at over twenty one percent. It didn’t take a genius to see that the elimination of interest would make a significant difference in our net income. So, we made it a high priority to get completely out of debt as quickly as possible and eliminate the need for an operating loan.

Using frugal spending practices, careful planning, plus some lucky breaks, we were able to realize our goals. It has been a long difficult process but the security and pride that comes with being out of debt is well worth the sacrifices required. It would have taken longer to accomplish our goal had it not been for an occasional bit of good luck however.

We, like most farmers, have had some unexpected windfalls that had little or nothing to do with good management. For example, a number of seismic lines and gas exploration wells, mentioned previously. We also benefited from the sale of things as diverse as milk quota, timber, and even rocks. Although there is no question that such windfall income helped us attain our debt free goal much sooner, we do take credit for spending the money wisely. Also, we take some credit for having made decisions in the past that ultimately led to our being in a position to benefit from such windfalls. At any rate, for whatever reason, we have been completely out of debt since 1992 and have been banking enough money each fall to cover the next years operating expenses.

Another event that enhanced my personal lifestyle was when I started receiving government pension checks at age sixty five. Although the amount of the pension is modest, it nevertheless made it possible for me to do things that I might not otherwise have been able to do, such as travel and meet new friends.

One of those friends was Afton. For a period of about two years we were close friends and spent many pleasant hours together. We travelled and went camping together. We spent time in the mountain parks, flew down to Washington D.C. to visit the Smithsonian museums, went to art shows, attended agricultural fairs, and drove all over Alberta together. She introduce me to opera and musical concerts. I introduced her to computers. We had a lot of fun together and enjoyed each others company very much but eventually stopped seeing each other because of differences in personal objectives. She later married another man whom she had known in high school.

Senior Citizen Student…

I have thought for many years that it would be fun to go back to school some day when there was more time for such things. I’ve worked with educated people most of my life and regret not having a better education myself. Even though I read quite a bit, and have learned to do many things on my own, one would expect to learn quicker in a structured education environment. I was also just curious to know how well I could do.

So, I enrolled at Athabasca University. I should point out that, being a senior citizen, there was practically no cost involved, just a thirty five dollar enrolment fee and nothing at all for the courses or course materials. At first I intended to take only courses that I was particularly interested in. Later on I decided to try for a general degree of some kind, by taking a prescribed set of courses, even though I was most interested in writing and computer courses.

Things went very well for some time. I completed a number of prerequisite courses and then went on to complete courses of my choice in writing, computer programming, et cetera. By the end of the first year I had accumulated a significant number of credits toward a degree.

With all due modesty, I was pleased at how well I was actually doing. In fact, it came as a total surprise when I received a check for fifty dollars, in the mail, for having made the highest grade in the current class of students who were taking the Critical Thinking course.

Well, my inflated ego was soon to be deflated. As a school kid, taking tests had never been a problem for me. I made it a practice to be prepared and there was never a feeling of stress. Not so with the old kid though. Even though my grades were good enough, I felt more and more anxiety with every final examination, even after thorough preparation.

I think a large part of the stress was caused by the conditions under which the tests were conducted. They were given in a small room, furnished only with a chair, a table and a clock on the wall. The first few exams went quite well. But when it came time for the final exam in a writing course, in which an extemporaneous essay was required, I went totally blank. After several false starts, with time running out and a blank sheet of paper still in front of me, the clock on the wall started looking more and more like a fan. I felt panicky. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t think. Finally I just gave up and walked out, never to return. I still feel like a failure for quitting.

Dealing with Dealing…

Farming involves many business dealings. As one gains skill in the art of dealing, it sometimes becomes kind of a game. Often a farmer is at a disadvantage because he’s in a poor bargaining position. This is especially true when first starting out, particularly when dealing with bankers.

Dealing with business men, lawyers, bankers and so forth, is much different than dealing with other farmers though. The main thing in dealing with business men is to be aware that they are as dependent on your business as you are on theirs. Also, be aware that they are not telling the whole truth and they will never reveal their bottom line figure until forced to. The main thing in dealing with most farmers is honesty and frankness. Farmers generally get to the bottom line quickly. But…there are exceptions to all rules.

One notable exception involved the sale of a used forage harvester, that we no longer needed, to a Lac Labich farmer, whom I will call Mr C. Mr. C. had a reputation of being a rather difficult person to deal with. Gary, the sales manager of the local John Deere agency, had dealt with Mr. C. many times and had finally reached the point where he refused to deal with him any more.

One day Gary phoned to say that Mr. C. was looking for a used forage harvester and he had referred him to us, because he knew we had one to sell.

That afternoon Mr. C. came out to see us. He was a friendly man and he liked to talk. We spent about an hour looking at and discussing the forage harvester. We went over the machine quite thoroughly, pointing out some of its faults and problem areas as well as its good features. Mr. C. seemed willing to talk all afternoon, but we had work to do. He thought our price of thirty eight hundred dollars was too high and left without making a deal.

About a year later, Mr. C. called us one morning, wanting to know if we still had the forage harvester. We told him we did and that the price was now forty five hundred—we raised the price primarily to see if he was really interested in buying or just wanted to talk some more. He said that he would be out that afternoon for another look.

In the meantime, we called Gary and told him what had happened. Gary was a bit reluctant to say much, but cautioned us to be careful in dealing with Mr. C. Being for-warned, we decided that we would stick to our price and not waste time dealing.

When Mr. C. showed up later that day, he immediately started finding fault with the machine. He claimed that it required a lot of repairs to get it in shape to use. We told him that, to the best of our knowledge, it was ready to use as is and the price was firm. He attempted to waste our time by haggling, but we told him that we were too busy to talk any more and that he had already had ample time to make up his mind over the past year.

To our surprise, Mr. C. finally took out his cheque book and wrote a cheque for forty five hundred dollars. After he left with the forage harvester, I called Gary and told him about the sale. Gary didn't have much to say, but mentioned again that Mr. C. was a funny guy to deal with.

Later that evening, Mr. C. called and said that we had misrepresented the machine. He claimed that it vibrated excessively and feared that it would shake itself to pieces. He said that it needed a lot of repairs and he was returning it. We knew that we had not misrepresented the machine, and suspected that the excessive vibration was caused by hooking up the power-take-off shaft out of phase (which we had cautioned him about), but told him we would give his money back if he returned the machine and we found there was actually something wrong with it.

I immediately called Gary and told him what had happened. Gary said he had expected something like that to happen because the same sort of thing had happened to them several times. He said that Mr. C. had a habit of taking a machine home, then claiming there was something wrong with it and returning it. It had happened so often, in fact, that Gary would no longer deal with him. He asked to be kept informed on how the deal turned out. He also suggested that we have the cheque certified for our own protection.

Early the next morning, I left for Lac Labich, which is about ninety miles north east of our farm, to have the check certified. Just a mile or two from Lac Labich I met Mr. C. and his two sons, towing the forage harvester back with their pickup truck. As luck would have it, they didn't recognize me and so were completely unaware of what I was up to.

After having the cheque certified at their bank—which I understand banks cannot refuse to do—I immediately started home again. About halfway home, I noticed their truck and forage harvester parked at a coffee shop. This was perfect…it was one of those rare occasions in my life when I knew I was in full control of a situation. I hurried on home, arriving there about a half hour ahead of them.

When Mr. C. and sons pulled into the yard with the forage harvester, he promptly went into a tirade about all the things that were wrong with the machine, intimating that we had tried to swindle him. As we listened to his complaints, we had the satisfaction of knowing we were in full control and that he was completely unaware of that fact. While we were talking, someone noticed a nail had punctured one of the tires on the forage harvester.

After discussing each of his complaints, we found them all to be groundless. We even hooked the machine up to our tractor for a trial run and showed that it ran smoothly. As suspected, he had apparently hooked up the power shaft wrong at his place. We pointed out that he had been made aware of the machines condition prior to paying for it and, since there had been no misrepresentation, we would not return his money.

Mr. C. seemed to take this rather calmly. He made snide remarks about dealing with disreputable people and then said that he would have to go get another tire for the machine, because he didn't want to drive all the way back home with a punctured tire. Of course we assumed that he intended to go straight to his bank to stop payment on his cheque and we would never see him again.

Savoring the situation we were in, we didn't disclose what we had done. We merely told them that they could save themselves a lot of driving if they took the machine with them, since they would just have to come back for it later. Mr. C. and his boys drove away, confident that they had out smarted us.

The next morning the two boys came back alone. They had nothing to say. They just hooked on to the machine, after pumping up the tire, and drove away. We have never been bothered by Mr. C since and the people at John Deere were elated that Mr. C had finally gotten his comeuppance.

Truck Tales…

In 1965 we bought a new truck. The old ‘47 Dodge that had moved us to Canada, and served as our only means for transportation for three more years, was showing its years. It had hauled everything from furniture to livestock. No repairs, of any significance, had been made on it since we moved to Canada, but it needed many.

One time I was going to Athabasca on the old road from Colinton. I usually took that road rather than the highway because there was less chance of meeting a cop. As I drove along, I noticed a vehicle overtaking me. It was a neighbour, Andrew Wood. He pulled along side and waved to me to stop. Upon stopping, he took a battery out of the back of his truck and said, “I think this belongs to you.”

There was no floor mat in the old Dodge, so without even getting out of the cab, I just lifted up the wooden floor board which covered the battery box. There was no battery. It had fallen out, back down the road a ways. The corroded old battery box had finally weakened to the point that it could not support the weight of the battery as we banged along the rough gravel roads. I suspect the battery had dangled by the cables for a while before slipping free. The old girl was literally falling apart.

How the battery had survived the abuse it took, as it rolled and banged end over end down the road, I’ll never understand. But, aside from a little road-rash, it looked okay. Andrew helped me put it back in the truck and tied it in place with a wire he found in his truck. When the cables were again hooked up, the old clunker started as if nothing had happened. I drove on to Athabasca and back home without further incident.

Some time later, on the same road, I was coming home from the feed mill with a full load of feed. Ordinarily I went by myself, but on that particular day Pat went along with me, he hadn’t started school yet. We were about a mile from Colinton when a screeching-grinding noise, from the rear of the truck, told me that something was seriously wrong. I pulled over and had a look.

There was no visible sign of what the problem was, so I decided to try to make it on home. The truck started fine, I shifted into low gear without a problem, but when I let the clutch out, it tried to move momentarily, then shuddered and refused to move. I could see that the drive shaft was turning but we weren’t going anywhere. It turned out that the differential was completely shot. Apparently all the oil had leaked out and it had overheated and melted the gears.

Pat and I walked on to Colinton where I got my neighbour, Ed, to take us back in his truck. After shoveling the load of feed from my truck to his, he towed us to the mechanic's garage in Colinton and then took us home.

I told the mechanic that we couldn’t afford to spend much money fixing the old truck, but if he could find a used differential he should go ahead and repair it, because we had nothing else to drive. It took him about a week to find and install the parts, and he only charged forty five dollars for the parts and his labour. Meanwhile we used a tractor for transportation.

Well, it was obvious that something had to be done. It’s almost impossible to farm without a reliable truck. Replacing the old girl with another used truck would likely have just been trading one set of problems for some different ones. So, as tight as money was, we decided to buy a new truck.

A week or so later we had our new truck…a 1965 one-ton Dodge, with dual wheels and an eight by ten foot grain box with cattle rack extensions and hydraulic hoist. What a difference that truck made! Not only from a reliability and efficiency standpoint but also psychologically. Rather than sneaking around back roads, when going to town, we now proudly drove down the main highway. It’s hard to describe the boost it gave my moral…I was no longer ashamed to drive into the feed mill for a load of feed or go to the post office for mail, or park in front of the grocery store along side other farmers modern trucks. It created the illusion of being a successful farmer…a big boost to my ego.

That truck served us well during its lifetime, it was our only means of transportation for many years. It hauled our feed, took us to town for groceries, transported our pigs and cattle to market, and served as a family car for our very limited social life.

Although it was a source of pride and satisfaction to me, I’m sure it was a source of embarrassment as well, particularly the time it was used to take Lynne to university. Having no other means of transportation, when the time came for her to leave home, we loaded her luggage in the back of the truck and her mother and I took her to the big city in country style. Although she has never mentioned it, I’m sure it must have been more than a little embarrassing for her to be the only one to arrive at the university in a cattle truck.

Eventually we were able to buy a second, more practical vehicle, for family use. One of the problems with the bigger truck was that Betty couldn’t drive it, or at least didn’t feel that she could. Consequently, I always had to go along as driver when she needed groceries or to get the mail, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since she was a very capable driver herself.
Anyway, we bought a second hand Toyota pickup, which she was more confident to drive.

Until we got the Toyota, we really had no means of taking trips or getting away from the farm for recreational purposes. Actually, the Toyota didn’t really change that situation much since only three people could fit into the cab. There was a shell enclosure on the box, but there was neither heat or creature comforts back there.

Shortly after we got the Toyota, dad had a stroke. For a while it looked like he might not make it but then he started showing signs of recovery. Eventually he was able to return home from the hospital, although he still had trouble walking and his speech was quite slurred. My brother phoned one evening to ask if it would be possible for any of us to come down for dads sake. I told him that I wanted to very much and would try to manage it somehow, but not to say anything the folks just yet.

After talking it over with Betty, we decided that she and the two youngest boys and I should give it a try. Money was scarce, as always, so it would have to be a very low budget trip. Betty prepared enough sandwiches, and other things, so we wouldn’t have to eat at restaurants. I filled the gas tank as full as possible, with farm gas, to get us well on our way before having to spend money for fuel. After loading the back of the pickup with blankets and a couple suitcases, the boys jumped in and nestled down in the blankets at the front of the box…where they could see into the cab…and we headed out for Washington.

The weather was miserable…chilly, wet and snowing lightly. The highways were very slushy. Our little toy truck was drenched with sloppy brown slush by every passing vehicle, especially in the heavier traffic of Edmonton. At times the windshield wipers actually stalled, making visibility impossible for a few seconds. Turning back seemed the wise thing to do, but we kept mushing on.

As we traveled further southward, the weather improved and we started making better time. We drove all day and were well into Idaho before stopping for the night. There was no money for motels…hence all the blankets in back. We just pulled off the highway, on an isolated road, and Betty and I got into the back with the boys for the night.

Before daylight the next morning we were on our way again. Somewhere along the line I phoned my brother to let him know we were coming and asked him to pass the word on to mom. Late in the afternoon we arrived at our destination, tired and bedraggled. Mom met us at the door and said that she had not told dad we were coming, for fear that he would be disappointed if we had to turn back.

I anticipated that dad would have changed quite a bit since we last saw him, but I was really not prepared when I first saw him. He looked so much older and one side of his face was partially paralyzed. He walked very slowly, with the aid of a cane. The shock of seeing him in that condition brought tears to my eyes as I put my arms around him. His first words were, “What’sa matter…got somethin in yer eye?” He showed no emotion or surprise at seeing us, although he obviously recognised us.

Two days later we were on our way back home. The trip home was uneventful and, after tallying up all expenses, the round trip had cost just a bit over fifty dollars. The little Toyota had definitely proven its worth.

Dad continued recovering his health until he was nearly back to normal. He fought hard and his determination brought him through. There were very few signs that he had ever had a stroke. He walked a bit slower than before, but he eventually got rid of his cane. His speech returned to normal, but his language suffered somewhat…used a few swear words now and then, which was a bit of shock to hear from dad.

Eventually he recovered enough so that Don brought him up to Canada for a visit. They stayed with us for several days. Dad was very interested in the farm and I’m sure he enjoyed his visit as much as we did. When they left for home, we did not know that it would be the last time we were to see dad. His second stroke proved to be more than he could handle. He died at the age of eighty five in 1979.

Mom lived alone after Dad's death, in the house that they had built together. When her health started to gradually deteriorate, and it looked like she might not last too much longer, Kathleen brought her up to Canada for what proved to be our last visit. Although she had not had a stroke or any specific illness, she had lost a lot of weight and became quite frail since the last time I had seen her. I rather suspected that it would be the last time we would see her when she and Kathleen left for home. She died at the age of eighty two in 1984.

Destructive Progress…

We had wanted a bulldozer for clearing land for many years. Finally, in 1980, we bought a 1969 D85 Komatsu 'cat'. With a fourteen foot wide dozer blade, and enough power to push over our largest trees, the landscape began to chang very quickly. I disliked killing trees, but we needed more pasture and cultivated land, so the trees had to be sacrificed .

Having said that, it is exhilarating to drive headlong into a heavily wooded area and mash down a fourteen foot swath of trees and brush, leaving behind a path of flattened uprooted destruction. The sound and smell of trees crashing to the ground, mixed with the smells of diesel and the screeching of metal, as the cat grinds and lurches relentlessly ahead, never fails to get the adrenaline flowing. There is a mixed feeling of massive power, tempered with a sense of guilt for destroying natures trees.

The shear massiveness of the machine tends to foster a sense of invulnerability in the operator. It would seem that, under the protective steel canopy and behind the wall provided by the dozer blade, one would be totally protected from physical harm. Not so! More than few cat skinners have been skewered by the end of a pole slipping unseen into the cab and penetrating his body before he can react. Many more have been injured by flying chunks of shattered trees, especially when temperatures are down around minus thirty degrees. At such cold temperatures, green trees are frozen solid and break like glass. When trees are frozen, even a good jolt to the bottom of the tree can cause the top of the tree to whip and snap off. A two or three hundred pound chunk of wood, falling from thirty or more feet, can raise a pretty good lump on your head.

Over a period of several years, we cleared around five hundred acres with our cat. We also dug several dugouts (water reservoirs) and cleaned up approximately eighteen miles of fence line.

Life with Lillie…

Lillie and I met on the internet. On January 5th, 2001 we had our first contact via e-mail. A bit over four months later, on April 12th, we were married. Those ninety days transformed both of our lives forever. It went something like this…

Apparently at some point in my online excursions I had filled out a form, on a match making website, giving a profile of my physical statistics, et cetera. Some time later a lady down in Oregon was searching for the man of her dreams on that same website. To her astonishment and everlasting joy the very first search found her perfect match. Well… almost perfect…she was actually looking for a rich handsome well mannered intelligent charming cosmopolitan man with whom she shared some common interests but, for reasons known only to her, she decided to check out this backwoods tiller of the soil from Alberta instead.

After corresponding via e-mail for a couple weeks, we felt it was time to meet face-to-face. The first plan was to meet at some point halfway between Oregon and Alberta, which seemed fair to me, but she chickened out and we decided that it would be much better if I made the long tiring eleven hundred mile drive all the way down to her place for our first meeting.

In the afternoon of February 5th, I parked my car at Lanes End in front of the most Lavender house I have ever seen and proceeded to the door. Looking through the glassed doorway, I saw this lady standing immobile in the center of the room. Upon entering the room it appeared that she was uncertain as to which way to flee, but too petrified to move. After removing my shoes, a Canadian habit, I walked across to her, took her in my arms and planted a big farmer-kiss on her lips.

We spent the next two or three days getting to know each other. The more time we spent together, the more we realized how lonely our lives had become since losing our spouses. Maybe we had both even subconsciously resigned ourselves to the idea of being alone for the remainder of our lives. But the companionship we had shared for those few days had completely erased any such subconscious thoughts that I may have had. I decided, then and there, that Lillie was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and I told her as much… my exact words were, “You are the woman I want to marry”. Somehow she construed that as a proposal.

As soon as I got home, I told Guy that Lillie and I were going to be married. After regaining his powers of speech, we discussed the ramifications, and there were many, such as the obvious matters of housing, privacy, et cetera. It soon became clear that there were no insurmountable problems. Actually, I thought Guy took the news surprisingly well, being unaware that he had a pending surprise of his own.

Lillie and I corresponded daily via e-mail or telephone and made plans for her to come to Canada. I tried to allay her fears of freezing to death or being mauled by grizzly bears in this God forsaken country, but I don’t think she was totally convinced. In spite of her fears, she eventually agreed to risk her life and bought a plane ticket to Edmonton.

I can only guess what her thoughts were as we met at the airport, but I sensed that she was relieved to find the terminal building was not an igloo. Then, as we drove home, it seemed that she was further reassured by fact that Alberta’s highways and cities were comparable to those in Oregon. But some doubts may have again been raised as we drove mile after mile in the direction of the north pole, taking us farther and farther from civilization.

After spending a wonderful time together at the farm, making plans for our future, Lillie left for Oregon to put her house up for sale, in preparation for moving to Canada. As it turned out, she would be making several trips back and forth before making the final move. In the meantime, we decided to get married without further delay.

On April 12, 2001, dressed in our finest, we were married in St. Alberts by a justice of the peace. I will never forget looking squarely into each others eyes as we said our vows. This union was to be forever. Youth does not have a monopoly on love. Love is ageless...Lillie and I are the living proof.

But no marriage has ever been without some problems. We too have weathered some difficult times, which is not surprising when you realize that people tend to get very set in their ways as they age. It is not easy to change ones own lifelong habits and personal quirks of behavior. It is even more difficult, and totally unfair, to expect another person to change theirs for your sake. We soon realized that we both needed to make some changes…in ourselves and also in our expectations of each other. I think we also learned that age is not necessarily synonymous with maturity. Love, compromise, understanding, tolerance, fairness and respect for each other are vital keys to a lasting marriage.

Shortly after Lillie and I married, Guy and Gail became engaged. Lillie and I had planed on moving into a house of our own, after selling her house in Oregon, but with the advent of another marriage and the prospect of two couples sharing the same household, it became even more urgent that we get our own house. Guy and Gail tied the knot on November 4, 2001.

Dealing with Drought…

It had been several years since an adequate amount of rain had fallen and it was taking a toll on our crops. Pastures too were beginning to show the effects of the lack of moisture. More and more hay fields were needed for pasture. In normal times, we generally had a surplus of hay. But, for the past two years we had been forced to turn the cattle out to pasture earlier in the spring, than is advisable, because our winter hay supply was all used up.

The spring of 2001 was especially dry. The pastures had been overgrazed the previous fall and, with the lack of spring rain, did not recover sufficiently by the time we ran out of hay. On top of that problem, the water in the dugouts was very low and, since there had been insufficient snow runoff, the creek was not flowing. With insufficient pasture and water, and no indications that things would improve, we felt we had no choice but to sell the cattle.

Fortunately cattle prices were at an historic peak, making the decision to sell a bit easier. Calving had gone pretty well that spring, so there was a good number of cow-calf pairs in the herd. Once the decision was made to ship the cattle, it was just a matter of arranging for trucks to haul them and loading them up.

Early in the afternoon prior to the sale day, three cattle liners pulled in to take our entire herd to the auction mart. One after the other, they backed up to the loading chute, each swallowing up a third of the herd that had been slowly building for many years. It was very depressing to watch. It was not by choice that they were disappearing into the bellies of the trucks. It was because of a whim of nature.

We received a very good price for our cattle, which took some sting out of the disappointment of being forced to sell. But even though we deposited a check in the bank for nearly a quarter of million dollars, it was depressing to be out of the cattle business. Strangely, I felt very much like I had when I quit my general foreman job and when I was discharged from the army. Suddenly I was a nobody…my identity had been stripped from me. Our hopes were that it would only be temporary.

Trial by Fire…

Lillie and I both like to go camping and see the country, but since we like to do it in comfort, we decided we needed a motor home. After looking at several units we selected one that suited our needs. One fine day in May, a little breezy but otherwise very nice, we went to pick it up.
As we waited, while the motor home was getting its last minute check out, and listened to the salesman’s explanation of what all the gadgets did and how to use them, we noticed that the breeze had developed into a strong wind. Then one of the employees mentioned that a fire had broken out in Colinton. By the time we were on the way home, the wind had developed into a gale strong enough to rock the motor home quite severely, making driving a bit difficult.

As we made our way up the highway toward home, the wind became progressively stronger, and then we noticed smoke off in the distance toward home. I thought to myself that, in order to see smoke from such a distance, it must be a good sized fire…most of Colinton must be in flames.

Driving as fast as the conditions permitted, we eventually got close enough to the fire to see that it appeared to be south of Colinton. By this time the whole northern sky was filled with gray-black smoke. The closer we got, the more it seemed to originate from somewhere south of our farm.

By the time we finally drove into our yard we knew that we were in serious trouble. Guy, Jim, Bill and Ken were frantically putting out little spot fires in the barnyard area—fires which had been started by flying embers from burning trees more than half mile to the south. The boys, using shovels and pails of water, were able to squelch the smoldering patches as quickly as they were found.

But the howling wind rapidly pushed the fire closer and closer and showered us with more and more embers. Suddenly a roaring fire erupted in the hay field just to the south of our buildings. In a few moments it had crossed the twenty acre field and threatened to engulf our barns and house. There was little choice but to try to save the house, in preference to the barns.

By this time the county fire fighters had arrived with cats, and started cutting fire breaks around the house and adjacent buildings. Within minutes the barn that we had been trying to save was in engulfed in flames. There was obviously nothing that could be done to save it, so we concentrated on saving the house.

About this time the RCMP showed up and ordered us to evacuate. We assured them we were just leaving and then went right back to our work as soon as they drove away. The choking smoke was suffocating, and burned our eyes as we frantically struggled to save our home. As it turned out, I’m quite sure we would have lost everything had we followed the RCMP’s orders.

Finally, with the combined efforts of volunteer help, the firebreak and the fact that the fire had consumed most of the combustible material within reach, the raging inferno died down to more manageable spot fires.

We were very lucky to have saved our home, and most of our buildings, but we did loose two barns, the corral and about two miles of fence…to a fire that originated about ten miles to the south-east of us. We were the end of the line, the fire stopped at our place. From start to finish, it had completely burned three homes and destroyed hundreds of acres of trees.

It was later determined that the fire was started by a tree falling on a power line. The power company was actually at fault because they are responsible for removing all trees, from their right of way, that could fall on the power line. They admitted no blame and compensated none of the victims for their losses.

It should also be mentioned that, although there were water bomber planes and helicopters fighting fires to the south of us, not one drop of water fell on our buildings…even though they were taking water from our dugout.

After the smoke settled and the initial shock of our loss subsided, we began to realize that, in some respects, we had been very lucky. We still had most of our buildings…most importantly, the house…nobody had been hurt, and none of our machinery had been lost. We also realized how lucky we were to have shipped the cattle less than a week before the fire. Had we not shipped them, there’s no telling where they would have ended up, considering that so many of our fences were down.

No amount of thanks can ever show our appreciation for all the help we were given that day, but, thank you boys…I just hope there is never a need to repay you in kind. And, Stephanie, for your thoughtfulness in moving the horses to safety, while anguishing about the unknown plight of your own parent's home…all we can say is a very inadequate, but deeply felt, “Thank you!”.

To Hay and Back…

After shipping the cattle, we decided to give the hay marketing business a try. That year the crop was poor, because of the continuing drought, but, since hay prices were very good, we did reasonably well on the few bales we harvested. The following year the crop was even worse, a total of ninety bales, which would not have even covered our production costs if we sold them. So, we decided to buy some calves and feed our hay rather than sell it.

The forty heifer calves we bought sort of put us back in the cattle business again. That group of calves turned out so well that we decided that, the next fall, we would buy as many more as we could feed. Well, in the meantime, the Mad Cow thing happened and it looked like cattle prices were about to plummet, because the Americans didn’t want our beef.

You may recall that we had sold our original herd at a very good price. What is the old stock market axiom… “Sell high, buy low?”… something to that effect. Anyway, it looked for a while that we were about to fall into that kind of situation. But, for reasons I still don’t understand, it didn’t happen. Calf prices remained high, only dropping about five percent. But we stuck to our plan anyway and bought a hundred and seventy six more heifer calves, bringing our total cattle population back to over two hundred again. Time will tell if it was a wise move.

A Day in the Life…

It was a cold January night. The mercury had been dropping rapidly all night. Several times I had been startled awake from fitful sleep by loud rifle-like reports from the cold-stressed rafters overhead. The uneasy tossing and turning sounds emanating, from the bedroom across the hallway, affirm my son's anxiety as well.

Not knowing what problems might await us outside…but fearing the worst…we get out of our warm beds a half hour earlier than usual. There's no need for talk, as we put on our heavy winter work clothes in the back entrance mud-room, for we each know the others thoughts. Not fully alert yet, we sluggishly put on heavy insulated coveralls over jeans and work shirts. Then oversize felt-lined manure stained boots are awkwardly pulled up over heavy wool socks and tied snugly to ensure no snow gets inside. A furry hat with ear flaps is next, followed by a warm woolen scarf wrapped around our necks. Then, our heavy wind-breaker hip length coats with their protective hoods. Pulling up the neck scarves to cover our mouth and nose, we tighten the drawstring of the hoods until there is just a small hole to see through, then tie them securely. Lastly, we put on heavy moose-hide mitts with replaceable woolen liners, tuck our coat sleeves into the mitt gauntlets. Looking like earth-bound spacemen, we grab our flashlights as we step outside to see what awaits us.

The first sweeping glance tells us that the yard lights are still on…a good sign…the sidewalk is drifted full…as expected…and the yearlings are all huddled together on the lee side of the windbreak. Guy takes the scoop-shovel, standing handily next to the back door, and starts opening a trail through drifted snow, while I check the watering bowl and the barn thermometer. The steaming water bowl is empty…froze up again; the thermometer reads forty degrees below zero…Fahrenheit or Celsius, take your pick. There is no need for discussion because we both know what has to be done… anyway, with all the stuff we have wrapped around our heads, voice communication is almost impossible.

Trying not to think about what's ahead of us when the sun comes up, we trudge sullenly through the snow to check the cows in the calving corral. Turning our flashlights on, as we enter the corral, seems to simultaneously turn on a heightened sense of awareness. Alert to the well-known audible and visual signs of cows in labor, we slowly walk among the cattle—some sleeping, others quietly chewing their cud, but most making little grunting sounds as we quietly pass by.

Watching intently for the telltale signs we know so well—but hoping not to find a cow so bloody stupid as to calve on such a miserably cold night—we make our rounds. As we meet again, having completed our separate routes of inspection, one tentatively asks the other, "See anything?" Relieved by the, "Nope" response, we head back to our beds for a couple hours rest before facing the day.

The sun is just starting to show in the southeastern sky as we finish breakfast. We're a bit more talkative as we again suit-up for what looks to be a tough day ahead of us. The first priority is to feed the cattle. At such cold temperatures, it is vital that they have all the energy-giving food they can eat. Although there is still some hay left in their feeders, the cattle have stopped eating to seek out protection from the wind. By the time we get a fresh supply of hay to them, they will be ready to start eating again. The water problem will have to wait for a while…the cattle certainly will not die of thirst in the meantime.

The first thing to be done is start the tractor, which has been plugged in all night. It starts fairly easily, but the hydraulic oil is too cold to flow through the hoses to the front-end loader. After letting the tractor warm up for a few minutes, we carefully start moving the control levers back and forth to ease the stiff oil into the lines. With two thousand psi pressure from the pump, even steel-reinforced rubber hoses are easily rupture if too much pressure is applied too quickly. After ten minutes or so, the front end loader is responding well enough to get started with the feeding.

In the next half hour, five or six twelve-hundred-pound bales of hay are fed to the cattle—that's about two hundred dollars worth of hay, by the way…which works out to about six thousand dollars worth per month…in case anyone is interested. In the process of moving the hay to the cattle, the tractor traverses ground littered with rock-hard five-pound spheres of frozen manure…potentially lethal missiles, capable of breaking spruce planks, or a man's leg, when they pop out from beneath the heavily loaded frozen tractor tires.

With the feeding finished, and fresh straw bedding spread for the coming night, we tackle the frozen water system. A preliminary check confirms that the water pump is okay—big relief—so the problem must be a frozen pipe line. Most of the time we find that the line coming into the water bowl has frozen just below ground level…because the cattle have not been drinking enough to keep the line open with flowing water. Several trips to the house for jugs of hot water generally clear up the problem in a half hour or so. And, more often than not, when the line is finally thawed, the water comes blasting out…drenching you thoroughly as you scramble to turn off an open valve. This proved to be one of those cases.

But we have been lucky so far, the problems have been relatively minor. For some reason, a cold snap seems to stimulate parturition in cows…particularly late at night. During normal calving weather…around minus twenty degrees Celsius and above…it is only necessary to check the cows about every four hours to see if any are giving birth. This means that there's a fair chance of getting back to your nice warm bed for a little rest before the next check is due. But in very cold weather, it's necessary to check about every two hours, giving little or no chance of sleep between checks. Many a night is spent sitting in the relative warmth of a pickup truck when conditions are particularly bad.

A newborn calf is very wet with amniotic fluid when it is first born. A wet calf chills very quickly in cold weather if it is not dried off immediately. Normally, the mother will lick her new-born clean and dry with her rough stimulating tongue. But, if she fails to take care of it right away, or it is in an unprotected area, the calf must be moved to a warmer location and dried off manually. A good manager tries to always be prepared for such situations. His first concern is for the welfare of his livestock—second only to his family—not the economic ramifications.

However, in the cow-calf business, live calves are rather important monetarily too, because they are the main source of income. A cow normally has one calf per year…multiple births are about as common as with humans. With good management, and luck, a ninety percent live birth rate is considered to be reasonably good. Before the current BSE fiasco, a calf marketed in the fall, weighing five hundred pounds, would gross about five hundred and fifty dollars. After deducting all the expenses involved in producing a calf, the farmer is left with about a hundred dollars profit per calf marketed...marketed being the operative word.

Let me explain: An estimated ninety to ninety five percent of the cost of producing a calf has already accrued by the time the calf is born. In other words, using the above numbers, if a calf is lost at birth, it represents a loss to the farmer of about four hundred and fifty dollars…not just the hundred dollars of potential profit it represents. Looking at it in another way…for each calf lost at birth, it would take the profit from the sale of four and a half calves to pay for the loss of one—a dead calf at birth wipes out the profit of five calves for the year.

Admittedly, these are just ballpark figures to illustrate a point. Furthermore, these figures will vary from one farm to another, depending upon a number of factors, with herd size being one of the most important…the larger the herd, the more animals to spread fixed costs over.

So, be that as it may, from an economic viewpoint alone, it can be seen that it is vitally important to save as many calves as possible. But, I believe that majority of us cattle farmers feel the personal failure, even more than the economic loss, with the loss of a calf. Every farmer, who is worthy of the name, feels a strong responsibility for the health and welfare of every animal in his care.

Retirement?… From What?…

I hope I never have to retire. Although I like the idea of not having to bust my hump until the day I’m planted, I definitely would prefer that to having no work at all. Meaningful work imparts purpose and satisfaction to one's life. But, the real reason that I don’t want to retire is because I’m having so much fun. I enjoy farming and can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing. I’m one of the fortunate few…I have lots of worthwhile work to do, which I enjoy doing, and I can set my own pace.

This is largely the result of anticipating and planning for my old age. One of the main purposes of our partnership agreement was to ensure an orderly transfer of responsibility, labor and ownership from one generation to the next. For several years now, that has been gradually taking place. In the early years, when I was young and strong and full of whatever, I did the heavy work and I assumed total responsibility. Then, when Guy became a partner, we worked side by side, sharing the work equally. For the past decade or more, Guy has assumed most of the management responsibilities, as well as the heavy end of the work load. It seems both fair and logical.

I consider myself to be semi-retired. There is work that must be done at specific times of the year but very little to do at other times. With a little planning and scheduling, it is possible to get away from the farm for several weeks at a time, without overburdening Guy or neglecting my own partnership commitments.

But the truth is…farming is not very labor intensive any more. I’ve never bothered to figure how many hours we actually work per year, but just for the heck of it, I'll make a rough estimate now…

Winter Feeding Cattle: 1.5 hours/day for 225 days = 375 hours.
Calving time: 1.5 hours/day for 60 days = 90 hours.
Spring Seeding: 12 hours/day for 5 days = 60 hours.
Summer Haying: 8 hours/day for 30 days = 240 hours.
Fall Field Work: 12 hours/day for 14 days = 168 hours.
Total for year: = 933 hours.

So, on a year around average, we actually work less than three hours per day…leaving twenty one hours per day to play. Now, if that isn’t semi-retirement, or semi-employment, which ever way you choose to look at it, I don’t know what is. But, to put things in perspective, if it were necessary to work more than three hours per day, the hourly pay rate would suck even more than it does.

On one of dad's last visits to the farm, he was riding with me in the tractor while I was cultivating. The air conditioner was on and we were listening to music on the radio. It was a beautiful day. As we droned round and round the field, leaving a twenty four foot stripe of freshly turned soil in our wake, the occasional coyote or deer would be seen watching us from a safe distance. Dad had been lost in his thoughts for several minutes, and then he said, "It looks to me like you have a year-around picnic, compared to what it used to be." You were right dad, and it just keeps getting better and better…but maybe it's best we don't tell anyone.

In Summary…

Farming is not a celebrated profession. Most often when we farmers do gain public attention it is because of some negative situation—drought, BSE and the like. And, unfortunately, the resolution of our problems often involves government aid…perceived as yet another hand out to farmers. As a result, the public perception seems to be that we a bunch of whiners who are constantly in need of financial assistance; rather than the very foundation of the nation, which we actually are. In truth, it is the farmers who have long been subsidising the rest of society with cheep and plentiful food.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert at anything. Not being handicapped with a college education, my knowledge comes largely from personal experience and common sense. Those with university degrees, and paper proof of their wisdom, are most likely to become the leaders and movers that determine the way things will be—for better or worse. But do they have a monopoly on intelligence? Are their ideas better just because they may be more articulate?
Many examples could be cited to illustrate my point, but one should do. We have all seen instances where two experts in the same field—economists or politicians for example—have contradictory opinions on the effects of a specific action—taxation for example. One adamantly insists that increasing taxes is the only solution to the problem at hand, while the other is equally adamant that lowering taxes is the way to go. Obviously one, or possibly both of them, is wrong.

I contend that, if the experts, in all their educated wisdom, can't agree on the answers to our problems, there's little to be lost in one of us dummies taking a whack at it. At least less harm will presumably be done because who's listening?

The Farmers Dilemma …

References have been made to "The Farm Problem" for as long as I can remember. There was a farm problem back in the 1940s when I was a kid, though then it was no doubt a bit different then than the current one. I suspect there always has been a farm problem and there always will be.

The current farm problem is largely the result of overproduction. There is a false perception among individual farmers that by producing more their revenues will increase. This is true...to a point. When individual farms produce more, and sell at the same prices that farmers who have not increased their own production, they stand to make relatively more than the rest of the farmers. However, when all farmers increase their production at once, it tends to force the price of their produce and their total revenues down…because of over supply,.

No other sector of the economy has experienced such tremendous growth in productivity as farming. But, the demand for all farm products, as a whole, tends to be relatively price and income inelastic. This means that much lower prices, than one would normally expect for non-farm products, are required to significantly reduce a surplus of agricultural products—in other words: "If ya wanna get rid of too many spuds, you gotta give 'em away." Thus, the widespread adoption of more productive agricultural technologies tends to drive farmers revenues down even more. Increasing total production does not necessarily increase total revenues,

Since most farmers tend to follow the same expert advice, they may all end up all doing more or less the same thing. Governmental agencies, such as departments of agriculture, under the guise of offering good advice, more often than not will publish literature and offer seminars, et cetera, that encourage practices designed to increase production and efficiency. The obvious problem with such programs is that, if they are successful, the individual farmer ends up no better off in comparison with the rest of the farmers. Consumers, on the other hand, become the beneficiaries of increased production, in the form of reduced prices.

"The Farm Problem", an encapsulated term sometimes used by economists, is typically defined by them as, "The relatively low income of farmers, in relation to incomes in nonagricultural sectors of the economy, coupled with the tendency for the prices farmers receive to fluctuate sharply from year to year." That sums it up concisely, but not adequately. Although the problem is an economic malady, the cure wont necessarily be found by economists. The problem is not merely the result of fluctuating market demands vs. availability of supplies, it also involves perceptions, politics, global relationships, social structures, ignorance and other things.

Our basic human needs are food, clothing and shelter. To some degree all three of these basics are products of agriculture. A couple of centuries ago, nineteen out of twenty North Americans made their living by farming. Today approximately one in forty remain on the farm and economic pressures for farmers to leave the land remain undiminished. The tiny minority of North Americans who are farmers is an even smaller proportion of all the farmers on earth, yet we are still able to generate large surpluses for export around the world.

Agriculture remains the largest single industry and farming is often cited as the prime example of pure competition. According to well documented statistics, per capita farm income is generally less than in the rest of the economy and tends to be far more erratic as well. For a sixty year period, from 1930 through 1990, per capita farm income varied from a low of thirty percent to a high of ninety percent of non-farm income. It peaked at ninety percent in the mid 1970s and then steadily declined to about fifty percent by 1990.

During the relatively prosperous period of the mid 1970's, many farmers were influenced to go heavily into debt for additional land and larger machinery. The resulting increased demand for land caused land prices to rise sharply. Then when farm revenues fell, after the short period of relative prosperity, the real market value of farm land dropped by approximately thirty percent, in some areas, with the result that, for the first time in fifty years, North American farm debts exceeded farm land values.

This, coupled with rising interest rates, put many farmers in the position of not being able to service their mortgage payments. The resulting foreclosures put many farmers out of business, and, incidentally, some farm community banks as well.

It is difficult to pin down what a typical farm is, because of the large variety of farms. They range from small labor intensive specialty farms; to large wheat farms with huge fields of grain; to vast cattle ranches stretching from horizon to horizon. But they all have a number of things in common. They are all competing for a finite amount of arable land. They are all subject to widely fluctuating commodity prices. They are all very susceptible to the vagaries of nature…to varying degrees.

The distinction between farmers income and their wealth can be misleading. While farm incomes typically lag behind those in urban areas, the average farm owner is wealthier than the average non-farmer. On the other hand, larger farms account for a disproportionate share of total farm wealth, leaving many farmers quite poor in comparison to average urban families. The old cliché, "Farming is a way to live poor and die rich", sums it up very well.

It would seem that persistently low farm income should cause the market value of farm land to be relatively low. But the competition for available farm land tends to keep the market value disproportionately high.

Rapid growth in agricultural productivity has led to overproduction of many farm commodities. Modern machinery, improved strains of seed, selective animal breeding, increased use of chemicals and extensive irrigation are among the technological advances that have expanded agricultural yields while reducing labor requirements. But increased production does not greatly increase farm revenues because food consumption is relatively unresponsive to either lower food prices or increased consumer income. Total demand for farm goods is roughly proportional to populations.

Artificially high farm produce prices, because of various governmental subsidy programs, have created incentives for expansion, which further contributes to excessive production of some commodities—which, in turn, necessitates more governmental interference to help dispose of the resulting glut on the market.

Farm products, like all other goods, are subject to the basic economic law of demand—quantity demand is lower at higher prices and vise versa. Demand for food, in total, fluctuates little when prices change since, being necessities, the total quantities that people consume remains relatively constant. However, quantities of specific foods consumed (apples, oranges, bananas for example) may change significantly with price fluctuation because one commodity can readily be substituted for another.

An overly simplified definition of "The Problem" is that farmers have, in effect, become wards of the state. Over a period of time, the farm has evolved from the nostalgic independent labor intensive family operation to the present day mechanized capital intensive subsidy dependent political nightmare. Efficiency has been stressed to the detriment of conservation. Return on investment is the benchmark of management. Money has become the ultimate goal.

Some feel that farmers are a bunch of complainers. They complain about the weather, interest rates, commodity prices, labor strikes, and a thousand other things. It seems that nothing can please them. It's either too much rain or too little, too many subsidies or not enough, too much government interference or not enough government help.

Admittedly, this reputation is partially deserved. There are farmers who are chronic bellyachers, but their ratio is probably no higher than in any other group. On the whole, farmers are a reasonable bunch and most of them have some measure of common sense.

To be fair, it must be pointed out that farmers as a group must take their due share of blame for their present predicament. Many farmers who are in trouble now are in that position because of their own bad management practices.

However, blaming ones troubles on someone else is just as popular with farmers as with any other group. Pointing the finger at the bankers and politicians is a handy alibi for those of us who are not willing to admit to our own faults. Bad luck can be a factor, but I suspect that the majority of farmers who are in severe financial difficulty are the victims of at least some if their own bad decisions.

Having said all of that, it does not seem reasonable that farmers are responsible for all of the problems of agriculture. On the contrary, we farmers can only be held accountable for a small part of the current crisis in agriculture. We have learned to solve our own problems, if given a chance, and have learned to deal with adversities. Tracing the blame to those responsible will serve no good purpose, but it may put things in perspective and help us to understand what must be done to resolve our "Problem".

There are hundreds of experts giving advice, making rules and scheming for a piece of the action. The farmer must compete with lawyers and school teachers, and such, for available land. They must pay the high wages of factory workers for their machines. They must borrow money to operate their farms and pay high interest rates for the privilege

Granted, most business have their negative aspects. There are certain risks and uncertainties associated with just about any way of making a living. But very few, if any, business enterprises have to contend with the risks and uncertainties of the farmer. Take the weather, for example. The weather effects just about everyone, and every occupation, to some degree. Tourist and sports oriented industries can be just as dependent on the weather as farmers. Obviously the weather is favorable most of the time, otherwise there would be no farmers. But the fact is… farmers are constantly at the mercy of the weather.

There is little point in making comparisons between farmers and factory workers or trades people, because they have very little in common. It is just as pointless to compare farmers with professional people, such as school teachers and bankers. Farmer can only be compared on an equal basis with other business entrepenures.

Most businesses are able to set the price of the product or service they provide. Sure, they all must contend with the effects of supply and demand, but most at least have some control and some bargaining leverage with regard to selling price.

Farmers, on the other hand, do not have this advantage. Almost without exception, farmers make their plans, invest their time and money without benefit of knowing what they will receive in return. To make matters worse, many farmers only have one payday per year. And, to further complicate things, most farmers must make decisions and commitments months, or even years, before any hope of a payoff. Once the seed is in the ground, the cow is bred or the new machine is purchased, there is no turning back. The commitment has been made and the farmer's future is on the line.

So…Let's Fix It…

Stating the problem is easy…solving it ain't. But, as you've probably guessed…I have some thoughts on that too.

As I see it, if part of the problem is that farmers are producing too much, then the obvious solution is to produce less…reduce production to match consumption, or consume more…increase consumption to match production. There are a number of ways of doing this…most of which have been tried at one time or another. I'll briefly list some…you pick and choose.

Restrict production by legislation. Establish quotas. Use price controls. Create disincentives for over production. Drastic price reductions on over production. Limit use of chemicals. Take land out of production. License and regulate land usage. Pay farmers for non-production. Return land to nature…reforestation, wildlife sanctuaries, parks, recreational areas. Reduce the number of farmers…buy them out, pension them off, randomly shoot them. Increase consumption. Distribute surpluses to the needy…famine relief. Put surpluses in storage for emergency use…make use of the vast refrigerators of the polar regions. Burn the surpluses…make fuel from grain crops.

But, as I said, most of these ideas have already been tried. The principal aim of past government agricultural policies has been to restrict farm production to raise prices and farm revenues. Those farm programs can be classified into three general categories: crop restriction programs, purchase-loan price-support programs to boost farm prices, and purchase-and-resale subsidy programs. Unfortunately, most policies, which were intended to preserve the family farm, have principally benefited the larger farming operations, many of which are corporate. The bulk of farm subsidies have been paid to fewer than one fifth of all farmers.

Parity pricing, another idea that has been bandied about, is based on the idea that the prices of farm products should not change relative to the prices farmers pay. In other words, a bushel of wheat should always buy certain amount of whatever. Unfortunately, a policy of 100 percent parity would tend to enrich farmers who experience productivity gains and—no pun intended—that's counter productive…the idea is not to encourage increased production.

Well, obviously this dummy doesn't have the answers either. But, hopefully, by defining some of the problems, and reviewing some of the solutions that have been tried and failed, the reader will have a better understanding of the dilemma faced by the producers of their daily bread.

We Had Fun…Sorry About the Mess, Kids…

Somehow, in this age of greed and self indulgence, we have lost our sense of what is important and what is not. Our standard of living is the highest in human history, but at an unconscionable cost to the environment and natural resources. We capriciously consume and waste the resources of our descendants at an obscene rate. We are more concerned about our present comfort and amusement than we are about the future of our progeny.

It's taken us a couple hundred years to screw up the environment to its present condition. Repairing the damage will take a lot longer, if indeed it is even possible at this eleventh hour. What we have done to our descendants planet is amoral, if not criminal. We have looted and spoiled natures perfection in our selfish pursuit of "the good life". We not only owe our progeny and apology…we should beg their forgiveness. But, forgiven or not, the very least we should do is start repairing the damage we have done.

But I seriously doubt that we will do much because it's our nature to procrastinate and we're having too much fun.. It's our nature, as well, to assume that the unidentified "they" are responsible…therefore "they" must fix it. Wrong!—We let it happen therefore We should fix it!

It's also our nature to assume that the bright boys—scientists, engineers, politicians, inventors—will save our bacon somehow. These smart guys will find alternate energy sources before we burn that last barrel of oil. They will develop a chemical-resistant microbe that will make our burned out soil well again and maybe even permit us to use more chemicals to produce even more surplus commodities. They will invent a water purification system that will allow us to continue dumping the shit of civilization into our rivers and oceans and get away with it. And, they will pass new legislation to correct the unforeseen consequences of their past self-serving legislative fiascos—retroactively, one would hope.

Dream on! That's the kind of reasoning that got us into our present mess and it ain't likely to get us out. One of the signs of insanity is, "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results each time".

I don't pretend to know much about the scientific, technological or political worlds, but from personal experience and observations, I have some ideas about what needs to be done. For what they may be worth…here they are.

Agriculture must move toward more diversification. No, I'm not suggesting that we go back to the small family farms of the past—the nostalgic little storybook farm with a few chickens, a cow and a pig or two—that is obviously ridiculous. What I do suggest is a gradual move away from the large factory-type farming operations—the huge hog and chicken production plants and the enormous cattle feedlots—that have that have proven to be environmentally harmful.
We should limit the concentration of animal populations to a size that the manure they produce can be absorbed beneficially by the farms in the nearby surrounding area. Smaller operations scattered throughout the country will not only make a more tolerable impact on nature but will also generate local auxiliary employment. It would encourage the construction of mid-sized meat processing facilities, which would also be a market outlet for the smaller local farmers. Locate mid-sized feed lots and farm factories only where their waste byproducts can be absorbed efficiently and beneficially.

"But", some might protest, "that would be counter to the principle of efficiency of scale and would tend to reduce profitability!" Probably…but the single-minded pursuit of profit—the almighty bottom line—at the expense of the environment, is exactly what got us into our present predicament. A greedy few have made fortunes at the expense of the environment, but only because of the complacency of the rest of us.

To quote Forest Gump, "That's all I've got to say about that.", but I do have a few ideas on some other things I think we ought to think about. Briefly, they are:

Produce as much of our electrical energy as possible by concentrating generating equipment in areas best suited for harnessing the wind and collecting solar power.

Put our human shit back on the land where it will do some good rather than flushing it into our rivers and oceans.

Eliminate land fills altogether, there is no justifiable reason for them. Almost all of our consumer waste is recyclable if we are willing to pay the cost in money rather than operating on a deficit to the environment. The small amount of waste that is not recyclable, some toxic materials for example, may have to be destroyed in high temperature incinerators et cetera, but this kind of disposal should be kept to an absolute minimum.

Convert to hydrogen fuel for all land-transportation vehicles. Relatively small hydrogen deposits on the moon are viewed as priceless sources of fuel for space exploration, yet the surface of our planet is seventy percent water. Hydrogen would have been the logical source of fuel here on earth had not wood, coal and petroleum been cheaper to develop.

Stop frigging around with nature. The problems we are having with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in cattle, Chronic Waste Disease in domesticated game animals and the emerging problems associated with "Farmed-Salmon" are all examples of the price we can expect to pay for taking risks with Mother Nature.

Being a realist, I really don't expect anyone to pay the slightest attention to these suggestions, but, aside from the guilt I feel for my personal part in creating this legacy of problems we are leaving for our kids to clean up, at my age I'll likely not live to experience the real cost of our crimes against nature.

Have a nice day !

........................................................

With that, I end the posting of my books. For those that stumble upon my blog for the first time, you may read the books in their entirety by clicking back on the previous postings.

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…

Floyd Ells
fells@mcsnet.ca

27th Book Excerpts

2009-03-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Decided to take some time off from the farm and put a few more kilometers on me bike. Rode over to Lloydminster on the eastern Alberta border. The weather was a bit chilly but it was a nice ride nevertheless, about 980k. Hope to go the Rockies for a day or two before haying starts. The bike is a 2007 Honda VTX 1300T.

27th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Betty Toughs it Out...

Right from the start Betty had a very tough life as a farmer's wife. Not only did she have the usual work of looking after five kids and taking care of the household chores, she now had the additional problems of carrying water from the pump house and heating it, both for bathing and laundry, on the kitchen wood stove. Everyone helped in any way they could but Betty bore the bulk of the load. From the time she woke in the morning until bedtime, she was constantly cooking, baking, cleaning, washing clothes and hanging them out to dry, as well as looking after her babies. There were no Pampers for diapers…she made them herself and washed them by hand.

The stress of moving, plus the hard work she was doing, were silently taking their toll. A couple months after moving in, Betty said she wasn’t feeling very well and was worried because there hadn’t been any movement from the baby she was carrying. I took her to the hospital in Athabasca right away. The doctor induced labour to deliver the dead baby. Although it may have been a blessing in disguise, because Betty didn’t need the additional work of taking care of another baby, but still she was very sad because she loved babies.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…
Floyd

26th Book Excerpts

2009-03-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Very slow to warm up this spring. Still getting frost just about every night. The cows are about half done calving and it's gone very well so far. We turned the stallion in with the mares this morning so there should be some foals in about eleven months. My little goat kids are just over a month old now and are into all sorts of mischief. Don't mind their antics unless they get into my garden area...that leads to pot roast.

No Rant this time...haven't felt the need for a good rant since meeting a lovely lady named Tricia on the internet.

26th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Settling In…

It was the middle of June. Within three months we would be harvesting our first crop. Many hours were spent looking over the machinery and making minor repairs..that is, repairs that didn't cost money. After cleaning up each machine and thoroughly inspecting it, we would hook it up to a tractor to see how it worked. The most complex machines were the binder and the threshing machine. I had never seen a binder in operation but had watched a thresher from a distance a time or two. There were no operators manuals and no one to answer my questions.

Betty and Lynne spent most of their time putting the house in order and tending the garden, which Aunt Georgina had planted while I was gone. The boys and I spent much of our time cleaning up the piles of junk in and around the farm buildings. Some of the buildings were so full of junk that they could not be used until cleaned up.

Dad had made some milking stanchions in the log barn while I was away, so we patched up the fence around the barn yard and made some repairs to the hog barn in preparation for our first livestock. We wanted to get a few chickens too, so we fixed up one of the small log buildings, near the house, as a chicken house. By fall we had one milk cow, a sow and about a dozen laying hens. Between the garden and the livestock, the farm was beginning to provide us with a little food! A feeling of security and self sufficiency was growing day by day.

I checked the grain crop at least once a day all summer long. I can still remember the thrill of seeing the first sprouts poke through the ground, in long straight parallel rows. Visions of golden fields of grain blowing in the wind at harvest time filled my mind, at least until the effects of many years of poor farming practices began to show up.

It soon became evident that the soil was polluted with weed seeds…wild oats in particular. Within a week the fields resembled lawns more than grain fields. Wild oats grew so thickly that they even choked themselves out, turning yellow in their competition for soil nutrients. Unusually wet weather compounded the problem. Within a month the grain was stunted beyond belief. It was a miserable looking crop. My visions of a bountiful harvest turned to worry and embarrassment.

To be continued next time…

Final Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Water Usage:

American farmers suffered and failed during the 1930’s partly because they did not have the technology to reach the water supplies deep in the ground. With the advent of new irrigation technologies, that all changed. Not only did it make farming possible in the Dust Bowl area, it was the springboard to today’s highly productive industrial farms and feedlots in the plains.

The United States has been using an estimated four hundred and eight billion gallons of fresh water per day, for all purposes, since 1985. The two largest users are thermoelectric power and irrigation. Fresh ground-water withdrawals of eighty three billion gallons per day in 2000 were fourteen percent more than during 1985. Fresh surface-water withdrawals for 2000 were two hundred and sixty two billion gallons per day.

Agricultural irrigation accounts for about seventy percent of all water use. Water resources are being depleted at a rapid rate, with water tables falling world-wide. The shortage of potable water and agriculture water supplies now seriously affect more than a quarter of the world's population.

There is an urgent need to use irrigation water more efficiently. Water is a principal resource which has helped agriculture and society to prosper, and it has also been a major limiting factor when mismanaged.

Irrigation, the largest user of freshwater in the United States, consumed a total of a hundred and thirty seven billion gallons per day in 2000. Since 1950, irrigation has accounted for about sixty five percent of total water withdrawals, excluding those for thermoelectric power. Historically, more surface water than ground water has been used for irrigation. However, the percentage of total irrigation withdrawals from ground water has continued to increase, from twenty three percent in 1950 to forty two percent in 2000. Irrigated acreage more than doubled between 1950 and 1980, then gradually increased by nearly seven percent by the year 2000.

The Ogallala Aquifer, which irrigates at least one fifth of all U.S. cropland, is now experiencing declining water levels and deteriorating water quality. This water accounts for thirty percent of all groundwater used for irrigation in America. The crops grown with this water provide the Midwest cattle operations with enormous amounts of feed and account for forty percent of the feedlot beef output in the U.S.

The Ogallala ranges in thickness from less than one foot to thirteen hundred feet from one place to another. The average depth, however, is two hundred feet. It was formed over twenty million years ago. The formation process began when gravel and sand from the Rocky Mountains was eroded by rain and washed down stream. Those sediments soaked up water from rain and melted snow forming a sponge-like structure. Most of the water contained in the aquifer has been there for millions of years.

Nearly a third of the water used for irrigation in the U.S. comes from this High Plains Aquifer. This aquifer lies beneath about 175,000 square miles of eight states on the Great Plains. More than five trillion gallons of water are pumped from the aquifer each year. Ninety-five percent of that water is used for irrigation. Heavy pumping has caused dramatic declines in water-levels. The average decline throughout the aquifer since the advent of large-scale irrigation in the 1950s is about thirteen feet. Rates of recharge, the natural movement of water back into the aquifer, are less than an inch per year in most places. Because water is being removed at the rate of feet-per-year, the aquifer is, on the scale of human lifetimes, a non-renewable resource.

The past two years of significantly below-average precipitation in much of the High Plains, namely Kansas, has resulted in higher pumping levels and has worsened an already serious situation.

In California, an extensive water storage and transfer system has been developed which has allowed crop production to expand into very arid regions. In drought years, insufficient surface water supplies have prompted overdraft of groundwater, resulting in the intrusion of salt water, or permanent collapse of aquifers. Droughts, some lasting up to fifty years, occur periodically in California.

Irrigation is treated as a farmers panacea. In the late 1940's the combination of efficient deep-well pumps, low-cost energy, inexpensive aluminum piping, center-pivot sprinklers and other watering technologies, allowed farmers to overcome the lack of rain. Prior to the 40's and 50's, the water shortage was so severe that much of the land was deemed better suited to light cattle grazing than wheat production. By the 1960's, water was being pumped from hundreds of wells, at rates of one thousand cubic feet a minute, to water quarter sections of wheat, alfalfa, grain sorghum, and corn.

Although, in the beginning, farmers tapped into groundwater only as a last resort when the rains failed—and even then often applied the water when it was too late—by the 1960's irrigation was an integral part of the farming routine, primarily to guarantee big yields. Since that time, irrigators have been consuming aquifer water at a rate conservatively estimated to be ten times the rate of natural recharge.

Many people assume that large groundwater formations may temporarily run low, but will fill again when rainfall is plentiful—as do lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. Actually this assumption is not even remotely true. Pumping the Ogallala is a one-time deal, unrepeatable and irreversible.
The withdrawal of this groundwater has greatly surpassed the aquifer’s rate of natural recharge. Some areas overlying the aquifer have already exhausted their underground supply as a source of irrigation. Other parts are fortunate to have more favorable saturated thickness and recharge rates, and so are less vulnerable. Consequently they are still pumping like there is no end to it.

Economic exhaustion occurs when the cost of a resource exceeds the net returns from its use. The economics of irrigation with ground water will likely be the determining factor in ending the wasteful use of this precious resource.

The irony of the situation is that vast amounts of this finite resource are used to grow crops which often only provide farmers marginal financial returns and are sufficient only to service their debts and meet fixed overhead costs. It is also significant to note that in situations of extreme distress, oil men and wealthy ranchers are buying up water rights in the rural areas of the Texas Panhandle, and are selling them to large Texas cities.

Half of the U.S. population and almost all of those in rural areas draw water from underground aquifers for their domestic needs. Many farmers absolutely depend on it for irrigation. Once thought an unlimited source of pure water, these sources are increasingly threatened. While toxic waste dumps, cesspools, landfills, and septic tanks contribute their share of wastes to groundwater, agricultural chemicals contribute the most in sheer volume and affect the greatest area. Excess nitrates from fertilizer and manure, can leach into ground water in high enough concentrations to make such water dangerous to drink.

Since the advancement of agricultural irrigation in the earlier part of the 20th century, the Ogallala has made it possible for such states as Nebraska and Kansas to produce large quantities of grain to be fed to livestock. Not only is that a poor use for grain, in my opinion, and thus an indirect waste of water, it aggravates the situation by creating a secondary demand for water. Cattle feedlots that run tens of thousands of cattle through their pens every year demand a minimum of eight to ten gallons of water per head per day. Today the plains are locked into high water consumption both to grow the grain and water the beef.

Our Faustian bargain with water usage is now coming due. Conservation of water now is vital to the wellbeing of future generations. It is extremely important that we find solutions to deal with the problems involved. As Ben Franklin said, “We know the value of water when the well runs dry.”

Author's Note:

For those readers who are looking for the test at the end of the book…Sorry…I lied! Why would you want another copy of this book anyway? If you really want to read more of my stuff, my autobiography, "Defying The Odds…", is available at most major book stores and specifically from PublishAmerica on the internet.

For those who care, my e-mail address is: fells@mcsnet.ca

Thank you and eat well…

Floyd E. Ells
A concerned farmer.

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…
Floyd

25th Book Excerpts

2009-03-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

The calendar says it's spring ... but we're still up to our knees in winter.

Current Rant:

I don't pretend to understand the Stock Market, but I doubt that makes me unique. It was originally designed as a portal to the business world whereby people could invest money to capitalize member businesses in the hope of sharing in profits. Of course it still serves that purpose...but it seems to me that it has deteriorated into something far less useful and benign. I get the impression, from the wild up and down fluctuations, for indiscernible and questionable reasons, that it now serves more as a casino for wealthy parasites to manipulate stock values for personal gain at the risk of destroying the whole economy.

Even in "normal times" such capricious behavior is counter productive but now, when the global economy is balanced on the brink of collapse, it is unconscionable! Of course it's obvious why these SOB's behave as they do...the more the stock market fluctuates up and down the more opportunities there are to buy low and sell high. The only good thing I can see resulting from a complete economic collapse is that these greedy blood sucking parasites that caused it will go down with the rest of us and maybe a few of them will blow their brains out.

I agree that there must be more government regulation of the banking system...if not nationalism...but what about the stock market? Should we ordinary citizens...the blue collar masses that provide the labor that drives the entire economy...not have some regulatory protection from the insatiable greed of a few wealthy Wall Street parasites?

25th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”

(My latest unfinished book)

(I am still in the process of writing this book. Further excerpts will be posted as the book progresses.)

25th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Home At Last…

It took us about three hours to drive from Edmonton to the farm with our overloaded vehicles. Guy was riding with me in the truck and the rest of the family, with Cliff driving, followed in the station wagon. The date was June 12, 1962…our fourteenth wedding anniversary.

It was a long tiring drive for everyone. Guy kept me busy answering questions. It was a great adventure and he was interested in everything. I could only imagine the conversation going on back in the station wagon, but I knew they were as anxious as I to get to the farm. The closer we got to home, the worse the road became, but it was June so at least is wasn't rutted and muddy.

At last we arrived at the farm driveway. The Spruce trees, which lined both sides of the driveway, obscured the buildings from the road. As we emerged from the Spruce tunnel, a small village of buildings popped into view. Dad stood out in front of the blacksmith shop…the building with smoke rising from its chimney. He had been doing some work at the forge and still held a hammer in his hand as he watched us drive in. Since he had been looking for us for several days, and was beginning to worry a bit, he greeted us with an emotional welcome. The kids immediately scattered in every direction to explore the mysteries of the buildings.

I could hardly wait to show Betty around and see her reaction to our new home. It must have been a shock for her when we went into the house. Although the Fertigs had moved all of their belongings out, our stuff, from the two previous trips, was piled every place. There was hardly room to walk between piles as it was, and now we had three more vehicles to unload.

After moving the heaviest appliances into the house and arranging things enough to clear paths through the rooms, we all went outside to look around. It was a happy exciting time. Dad pointed out all the repairs and improvements he had made while I was away, as the boys ran about ecstatically discovering the wonders of their new world. To my relief, Betty appeared to be equally interested and enthusiastic…in her quieter way.

Dad was anxious to go back home. He had been away for over a month…time enough to have exchanged letters with mom. Right after breakfast the next morning, dad and Cliff left for Washington. Dad said he would be back in the fall to help with our first harvest. I know he was leaving with deep regrets because he had seriously planned to join me in partnership. We had talked for hours about it while searching for a farm and during the long quiet evenings we spent together in the past few weeks. Then a single letter from mom brought those plans to a halt and ended dad's life-long dream of returning to farming. It was also the end of a period of closeness that he and I had never before experienced. Our respect and love for each other had grown significantly during this time together. We had become close friends.

After Dad and Cliff left, and we were all alone for the first time, I felt a strong sense of responsibility for the situation I had placed my family in. The confidence was still there, but some negative thoughts cropped up occasionally. However, there was no feeling of regret or the desire to quit. It was more of a moment of truth…this venture had to work and it was my responsibility to make it work. There would be help…I was not alone…but still the final responsibility was on my head.

Without stubborn determination there would be little chance of making it. But, determination alone is not enough. There was a lot to learn and little room for error. The sense of relief that our first crop was seeded was dampened by the realization that in just three short months that crop must be harvested, and I know practically nothing about the procedures or the machinery involved.

Summer work on small farms, during my high school years, had taught me a little about haying but nothing about harvesting grain crops. And even that meager experience had been with horse drawn machinery. Not only had I never used tractor powered machinery, I did not even know the proper way to connect a tractor to an implement…a simple matter of dropping a pin into a hole in the draw bar.

Another thing to be coped with was the fact that no paycheck would becoming in every second week. This was the first time I'd been in such a situation since my sixteenth birthday. The few dollars we still had left would have to keep us going until there was grain to sell in the fall. Everything…groceries, fuel, supplies, repair parts…had to be paid for in cash. Credit was out of the question. Who would be so foolish as to extend credit to such long shot?

But, as usual, the solution was simple: Get at it! Learn as much as possible before harvest time. Look over the machines and figure out how they work. Clean them up. See if anything needs repair. Try them out by driving or pulling them around the yard. Put the belts on the threshing machine…see which way the pulleys run. Go through all the stuff in all the little log buildings. Try to sort the useful tools and equipment from the countless things that had accumulated over many years of farming—by people who had known hard times and had learned never to throw anything away which might be of use someday.

The days go by quickly. It is an interesting time. Each day something new is learned or discovered. There is a growing sense of confidence with every newly gained bit of understanding. Several truck loads of obviously useless things are sorted out and hauled to the dump.

To be continued next time…

25th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Water Pollution:

In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons applies to the problem of pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in … sewage, chemicals, etc. The reasons for putting things in are much the same as the reasons given for taking things out. The individual finds that discharging his waste into the commons is less costly than the cost of preventing his waste from being released into the commons. Since this is true for everyone, as long as we behave as independent private free-enterprisers, we find ourselves locked into a system of "fouling the public nest".

Privately owned property, on the other hand, is not usually as susceptible to this sort of abuse…rational people tend to refrain from soiling their own nests. So it would seem that the tragedy of the commons as a cesspool must be averted by a different means … by punitive laws or taxation perhaps. Unfortunately for the environment, our concept of private property, while somewhat of a deterrent to wastage of resources, tends to foster pollution.

The pollution problem is a direct consequence of expanded population. It did not matter much how an isolated American frontier family disposed of their waste. "Flowing water purifies itself every ten miles," was a popular myth of the time. But as the population became denser, Nature's chemical and biological recycling processes became overloaded. So now, in our typically idiotic short-sighted way, we compound the problem by diluting our excrement with millions of gallons of pure water before dumping it into our once pristine rivers and lakes.

Confinement livestock production often causes surface and ground water pollution, particularly where large numbers of animals are concerned. Although waste is a problem of almost all such operations, and must be properly managed with respect to both the environment and the quality of life in nearby communities, it is obviously much less of a problem when the waste can be profitably used right on the farm where it is produced. Livestock farms that disperse stock in pastures, so the wastes are not concentrated and do not overwhelm natural nutrient cycling processes, are the ideal solution to the problem. Enough said.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…

Floyd

24th Book Excerpts

2009-03-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

One day it snows, the next it shines...typical March weather in Alberta. The cows, sheep and my pet goat are all nearing the end of their winters' pregnancies. Some of the cows bellies are so large that they had trouble squeezing through the cattle chutes when we tagged them the other day. My nanny goat looks like she will at least have twins. This is her second pregnancy...she is from triplets. It would be nice to have a few weeks of good weather now to get the new arrivals off to a good start.

Looking forward to getting the motorcycles all shined up and serviced for another season of riding.

Current Rant:

My friend Beth recently sent me a thought provoking article questioning whether or not President Obama is a socialist. Although the article concluded that he is not, it left the impression that we would be better off if he was.

The problem with ideological group labels is that they don't precisely define the beliefs of every advocate. Few, if any, so called Conservatives are conservative on every subject or issue. The same reasoning applies to Liberals, Republicans or Democrats. It also applies to Socialists, Nationalists, Capitalist and every other "ists" I can think of...including Pessimists, Optimists and even Baptists.

Political, religious, social, cultural and other sects are divisive by their very nature. Cliques of any kind tend to be restrictive and stifling. Few of us fit fully and precisely under any specific ideological label. We often have socialistic attitudes in some areas (health and education issues for example) and capitalistic attitudes in others (private ownership and free enterprise as examples). Similarly, we seldom fit precisely into any religious, social or cultural organization.

In my view we would be better off without political labels and parties. If all elected officials were "Independents" and free to vote according to their individual conscience on every issue, rather than along party lines, it might result in more efficient governance and wiser legislation.

24th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”

(My latest unfinished book)

Supplies:

When one starts thinking about what to stock up on in the way of consumable supplies there are several things to consider. One of the most obvious is how well it stores…what is its shelf life. Another important thing is the amount of storage capacity that is available. A third thing is whether or not it is something that its something that you only need to stockpile until you are able to find a substitute for it. Of course there are lots of other things to consider but this short checklist will do for a start.

Take kerosene for instance. Kerosene lamps and lanterns are an age-old answer to the lighting problem when electricity is not available. But unless the supply of kerosene can be replaced when the initial supply runs out, it’s just a stopgap solution to the lighting problem. On the other hand, if one is ultraconservative a barrel of kerosene could last for years. It’s relatively safe to store, not very volatile, and if used with due caution it safe to use. The amount of light produced by a kerosene lamp or lantern, while far short of the incandescent lighting we are used to, its far better than candles…or no artificial light at all.

We are opting for kerosene for a couple of reasons. We already have some antique lamps and kerosene lanterns are still available. We reason that it is better to start out with the best lighting system that is available even if may be unsustainable indefinitely. By the time our kerosene barrel goes dry we expect to have a good supply of bees wax accumulated from which candles can be made. So, in addition to kerosene we will stock up on a supply of lamp wicks as well as candle wicking.

This brings up the problem of lighting fires. Two things: matches and magnifying lens. A case of wooden matches will last a long time, especially since there will be a fire going in the kitchen stove twenty-four-seven for a good part of the year. In the unlikely event that we run out of matches a magnifying lens will get a fire started outside on a sunny day. Once a fire is started outside a person has the option of camping around the fire or bringing some coals in to the cook stove. Chances are we will choose the second option.

While we’re on the subject of fire, there’s a couple more fuels to consider…wood and coal. Our living quarters will be heated with a wood range. Besides heating the house the range will also cook our food and heat our water. So, wood is a very basic requirement. Fortunately we have an almost unlimited supply of wood. Unfortunately most of it is too long to fit into the stove. So, it will have to be shortened.

We’ve been heating our farm shop and one of our houses with wood for years. We fall the trees and cut them into stove-wood lengths with chainsaws. Chainsaws are not of much use without gasoline…rubbing them back and forth like a handsaw is very inefficient. We could, and will, cut a huge pile of logs in preparation for hard times, but they wont last for ever. So, back to the ways of my grandfather…crosscut saws and axes. It’s hard to find anything good to say about that system but, as the saying goes, “You get twice the heat from the wood that way…once when you cut it and again when it’s burned.”

Coal, the last fuel on my list, is plentiful and cheap here in Alberta. Not cheap enough to be considered as our main heating fuel but cheap enough to have a few tons stockpiled for blacksmith forge work. Without electricity to power our welders we will have to rely on forges for some of the repair work and construction projects that are necessary to keep a farm running. About the only requirement for storing coal is a dry place…which there will no shortage of when the barns are emptied of cattle.

We always keep a supply of various sizes of steel on hand for our day-to-day repair and maintenance need on the farm. But, in preparation for long term needs when replacement supplies of steel may not be available, we will stockpile extra amounts of the most useful sizes of steel bars and rods, leaning more toward those sizes that will be handy for blacksmith work.

Like most farms, we try to keep a good assortment of nuts and bolts on hand. The bolt bins will receive more attention from now on as will our supply of nails, screw, staples and other fasteners. The same goes for other hardware items such as hinges, etc.

Lumber is another thing that may be hard to come by. Although we have our own portable sawmill it is powered by a gas engine and would be of much use in a gasless economy so we plan to saw a good supply of various sizes of lumber and store it in one of the barns.

One of the most asinine suggestions common to many of the citified survival schemes is the idea of storing plenty of water and canned goods. This may be good advice in cases where survival is defined as a week or so without electrical power but it’s pretty useless, if not bad, advice for purposes of long term survival. The reason I say it’s bad advice is because it gives a false security to anyone naive enough to think that way. Any plans which depend on stored provisions or non-renewable supplies are for short term emergencies only . The only thing that will work in the long term is complete independence from external assistance. This is why the vast majority of the worlds population will likely be S.O.L. in a world where only the self-sufficient can survive. As horrible as that concept is to contemplate, I'm convinced that it is within the realm of possibly. Denial wont make it go away.

Rather than giving up and doing nothing it makes more sense to make sure that the most vital resources are independently renewable, stock up on the ones that are not and make an effort to salvage something while there is still time. There is nothing to be lost in trying, when faced with a seemingly hopeless situation, no matter how slim the odds.

I'm also convinced that, after a period of global chaos and disaster, things will eventually return to some form of an sustainable "normal" lifestyle that resembles our grandparents. It will likely take a long time to evolve but, providing we do not exterminate the whole human race in the chaos to come, and there is a nucleus of human beings remaining, it seems inevitable that having learned our lesson the hard way, civilization will continue.

With that off my chest, let's get back to the question of the kinds of supplies that should be stockpiled in our storeroom.

Water, as always, is at the top of the list. But, as mentioned before, it is ridiculous to plan on storing enough water to last indefinitely. The only thing that makes sense is to have storage capacity for enough water to last for a couple weeks or so. Having a short-term supply of water for stored conveniently inside is highly recommended. But, to be sustainable, there must be a reliable source of water from which to periodically replenish the inside supply. The best outside source would be a well from which water could be drawn manually. Other possible sources would be springs (that weren't too distant and didn't freeze up in the winter), underground cisterns, and as a last resort, dugouts that collected surface runoff. The ideal situation would be to have a well directly under the storage room, but this possibility would be extremely rare.

In addition to water, supplies of foods must be on hand. The very basic ones would include a bin of wheat, vegetables and meat. Perishable foods obviously would have to be preserved in some manner. Potatoes and other root crops can be stored raw in cool temperatures. Meat can be stored uncooked if it is dried or smoked. Grains, including rice, beans, peas and other garden produce can be stored for long periods in the dried stage. Flour, salt and sugar store well also, if they are available. Lard stores well under cool conditions. Honey stores very well either in a cool or room-temperature environment. These foods are representative of the kinds of foodstuffs that one should plan to become self-sufficient in.

Aside from a supply of first-aid bandage material it seems foolish, if not impossible, to stock up on medications. The reality is that if one gets injured or ill there isn't much that can be done for them. At best they will recover on their own with a little TLC. The worst case scenario may not looks so bad under pioneering conditions.

There are other non-food supplies that should be stockpiled and stored under cover. Such things as warm durable clothing, boots, gloves and mitts, and shoes would be important. Hardware items such as nails, screws, staples and rivets would be wise. Hand tools of all sorts are essential items. Gardening tools should also be stored inside. (In later chapters I will make more detailed lists some essential and advisable tools and supplies to have on hand.)

To be continued next time…

24th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

The Final Trip…

The whole family was excited when I got home. I had told them so much about the farm and they were very anxious to see it. Betty must have had her hands full coping with their questions and eagerness while I was gone for so long. That night she told me that she was pregnant.

There were many loose ends to tie before we would be ready to leave. The most serious problem was that our property had not yet been sold. I told the Realtor that we had no option but to leave immediately and gave dad power of attorney to complete the deal for me.

Finally everything was packed and loaded. The truck and trailer were again badly overloaded, with all the heavy household appliances and furniture. We were forced to leave many things behind simply because there was not room. My brother, Cliff, had volunteered to drive our station wagon on this final trip. Betty and the kids would ride with him, along with most of our bedding and clothing.

We were in the final stages of loading when Lois stopped in. We talked as we finished loading the vehicles Neither of us dreamed that we would never see each other again as we said our tearful goodbyes. Then we departed for our new home in Canada.

This third and final trip was very tiring for everyone. We stopped only long enough to refuel and buy something to eat at grocery stores. We could not afford to spend money for motels. But, other than the tedium, the trip was uneventful until we were well into Canada.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Georgina had invited us to stay at their place to rest up before going on to the farm. After driving all day and well into the night, we hoped to arrive at their place around midnight. Then, about 10pm, a tire blew out on the truck. Thankfully I had two spare wheels with mounted tires tied to the front bumper and my tool box and jack were handy on the front seat of the truck.

After removing the wheel with the flat tire, I discovered that the rim had split wide open. The truck was so badly overloaded that it had been necessary to over-inflate the tires and the rims were not designed for that kind of punishment. I was a bit concerned because the tire that had blown was brand new…the spares were not.

It was about midnight when we stopped at a service station to call Uncle Bill. I told him what had happened and that it would take at least two more hours to get to his place. We were planning on going straight on to the farm since it was so late, but they insisted that we stay with them overnight. It didn't take much persuasion because we were all pretty beat.

We pulled in at Uncle Bill's around two in the morning. They were both still up and waiting for us. They even had a hot meal prepared for us. After eating, we went to bed and died. The next morning, after a big breakfast, we started the last leg of our journey.

To be continued next time…

24th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Overpopulation:

The topics of overpopulation and family planning may seem a little out of place in a book such as this, but all God's children need to be fed, and farmers, along with their fishermen brothers, are the ones that will have to provide the food. Having considered the numerous ways in which humanity is destroying its inheritance, it might be interesting to take a look at the concept of overpopulation as it relates to the overall problems we have created.

Overpopulation is generally thought of simply as crowding … too many people in a given area … too high a population density. But, according to this concept, if all the people of China and India lived in the continental U.S. we would still have a smaller population density than England, Holland, or Belgium.

Density per square mile, or the population divided by the area in square miles … which can be easily found in most any encyclopedia or world atlas … is not the most important thing to consider in questions of overpopulation. If density alone was the gauge, it would appear that Africa is under populated, because it has only fifty five people per square mile, while Europe, excluding the former USSR, has two hundred and sixty one and Japan eight hundred and fifty seven.

A more meaningful measure would take into account the amount of Africa which is not desert or impenetrable forest. The inhabited portion of Africa is just a little over half the continent's total area, giving an effective population density of a hundred and seventeen per square mile, or only about a fifth of that in the United Kingdom. Taking this line of reasoning a step further, even by 2020 Africa's effective density is expected to grow to only about that of France today, two hundred and sixty six, which does not seem excessively crowded or overpopulated.

Even the most densely populated places, like the Netherlands with its one thousand-plus people per square mile and Taiwan with sixteen hundred or Hong Kong with over fourteen thousand per square mile, aren't necessarily over populated. After all, they are thriving … even booming … economies. If density is used as the standard of overpopulation, few nations, for that matter the Earth itself, would be considered overpopulated now or in the near future.

Overpopulation has little to do with population density. Overpopulation occurs when the numbers of people in an area exceeds its carrying capacity. The population is too large relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities. An area is overpopulated when its population can't be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources. In other words, if the demands on the resources of an area is unsustainable over the long term, than that area is overpopulated.

By this measure, the entire planet and virtually every nation is already overpopulated. Africa is overpopulated because its soils and forests are rapidly being depleted and therefore its carrying capacity for human beings will be lower in the future than it is now. The United States is overpopulated because we are depleting our soil and water resources and contributing seriously to the destruction of global environmental systems. European countries, Japan and other rich nations are overpopulated for the same reasons.

The crime of the rich nations is that they are not only spending their own resource capital with no thought for the future, they are also using up resources from around the world. We, the people of the richest nations, are sacrificing the resources of the poor countries to sustain our own contemptible wasteful consumerism ... spending as a basis of a sound economy.

We North Americans, although the most wasteful nation on earth, are not the only ones who are exploiting the resources of the poor countries. The Netherlands, for instance, in 1984-86, imported almost 4 million tons of cereals, 130,000 tons of oils, and 480,000 tons of pulse crops, such as peas, beans and lentils. Not only did they import vast quantities for their own consumption, they took some of the relatively inexpensive imports and used them to boost their production of expensive exports, such as millions of tons of milk and meat.

I don't want to offend the Dutch in any way, but their economy does serve as a good example of one country's dependency upon outside resources. In addition to the imports cited above, the Netherlands is also a major importer of minerals. Most of its fresh water is imported from neighboring countries via the Rhine River. They built their wealth using imported energy.

Then, with the discovery of a large gas field in the northern part of the nation, they were temporarily able to export as gas roughly the equivalent in energy to the petroleum it continued to import. But when the gas fields are exhausted, in about twenty years, Holland will once again depend heavily on the rest of the world for fossil fuels or uranium.

So, saying that the Netherlands is thriving with a density of a thousand-plus people per square mile simply ignores the fact that density per square mile vastly exceeds the carrying capacity of that square mile. This carrying-capacity definition of overpopulation is the one I use in this book. By that definition, for now and the foreseeable future, both Africa and the United States are presently overpopulated and will probably become even more so.

Rich country's concerns about population problems generally focus on the rapid population growth in the poor nations. But the impact of humanity on Earth's life support systems is not just determined by the number of people on the planet, it also depends on how those people behave. When this is considered, an entirely different picture emerges: the main population problem is in wealthy countries. There are, in fact, too many rich people. The relatively small population of rich people accounts for roughly two-thirds of global environmental destruction, as measured by energy use. From this perspective, the most important population problem is overpopulation in the industrialized nations.

The amount of resources each person consumes, and the damage done by the technologies used to supply them, needs to be taken into account as much as the size of the population. In theory, those three factors should be multiplied together to obtain an accurate measurement of the impact on the planet. Unhappily, governments do not keep statistics that allow the consumption and technology factors to be readily measured—so scientists substitute per capita energy consumption to give a measure of the effect each person has on the environment.

In the traditional societies of the past—which were more or less in balance with their environments—the damage they caused was largely self-repairing. Wood, which was cut for fires or structures, re-grew and again took up its job of soaking up the carbon dioxide produced when it was burned or harvested. The small amounts of water which was extracted from streams was replaced by rainfall. Soils of the fields were regenerated with the help of crop residues and animal manures. Wastes were broken down and reconverted into nutrients by the decomposition organisms of natural ecosystems.

At the other end of the spectrum we have the modern world which is totally out of balance with environments capability of sustaining and repairing. Paving over fields and forests with concrete and asphalt; mining coal and iron for the production of steel with its associated land degradation; and building and operating automobiles, trains and aircraft that spew pollutants into the atmosphere, are all energy-intensive processes. So are drilling for and transporting oil and gas, producing plastics, manufacturing chemicals (from DDT and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers to chlorofluorocarbons and laundry detergents) and building power plants and dams.

Industrialized agriculture also uses enormous amounts of energy for plowing, planting, fertilizing and pest control as well as for harvesting, processing, shipping, packing, storing and selling foods. So does industrialized forestry for timber and paper production.

The United States poses the most serious threat of all nations to human life support systems. It has a gigantic population, the third largest on earth, more than a quarter of a billion people. Americans are super-consumers, and use inefficient technologies to feed their appetites. Each, on average, uses 11 kW of energy, twice as much as the average Japanese, more than three times as much as the average Spaniard, and over 100 times as much as an average Bangladeshi.

Clearly, achieving an average family size of 1.5 children in the United States (which would still be larger than the 1.3 child average in Spain) would benefit the world much more than a similar success in Bangladesh.

A great change in our stewardship of the earth, and the life on it, is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably damaged. A new ethic is required—a new attitude toward our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recognize the earth's limited capacity to provide for us as well as its fragility.

There is less fertile cropland per person in 2004 than in 1994 because some of Earth's best farmland is being paved over. There is less agricultural soil per person in 2004 than in 1994 because about a quarter of the world's topsoil has been lost since World War II. There is less rice and wheat grown per person in 2004 than in 1994 and rice and wheat are the two most important grain crops consumed by people.

As to population growth control, we tend to pontificate about the need for the third world countries to take responsibility for their actions. "They must learn to control their lust and stop breeding like rabbits."

Every year nearly eighty million unintended pregnancies occur worldwide, and more than half of these pregnancies end in abortion. An estimated 150 million women in developing countries say they would prefer to plan their families but are not using contraception, and another 350 million women lack access to effective family planning methods.

Worldwide, female sterilization is the most common contraceptive method, with nineteen percent of couples of reproductive age using it. The next most often used methods are the intrauterine device, used by 13 percent of couples; the contraceptive pill, eight percent; and traditional methods, eight percent. Vasectomy and condoms are the only modern male methods currently available and are the least used, at just four percent each worldwide

In many parts of the world, marriage grants the men the right of unconditional sexual access to their wives and the power to enforce this access by force if necessary. Women are often powerless to refuse unwanted sex or to use contraception and thus are at high risk of unwanted pregnancies.

Many women are afraid to raise the issue of contraception for fear that their partners might respond violently. In some cultures husbands may react negatively because they think that protection against pregnancy would encourage their wives to be unfaithful. In countries where having many children is a sign of virility, a husband may interpret his wife's desire to use family planning as an affront to his masculinity.

If every family were dependent only on its own resources and if the children of careless parents starved to death and excessive breeding caused its own correction then there would be no public concern about controlling excessive family breeding. But since our society is concerned about public welfare and morality it is therefore confronted with another aspect of the tragedy of the commons.

Appealing to the conscience of individuals to control their breeding urges will never work. As a matter of fact, it is likely to have unwanted repercussions. Those that respond will produce fewer children. Those who don't will continue to over produce and will consequently end up being a larger and larger percentage of the population, thereby exacerbating the problem.
Freedom to breed may ultimately bring ruin to all. But regulation by law is highly unpopular and difficult to enforce. The world can not support an infinite population. It's a conundrum to say the least because we have already passed the estimated long-term carrying capacity of the earth, which has been optimistically estimated at two billion people.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below.

Thank you…Have a warm day…
Floyd

23rd Book Excerpts

2009-03-11T09:33:00.001-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

We spent all afternoon tagging our cattle with Radio Frequency Identification Tags the other day. This was not by choice...the government insists upon it. Essentially no livestock can be sold without these ear tags. As the tags are purchased they are registered to the farm that bought them. When the cattle are sold the tags identify where they came from. The intent is to enable tracing diseased cattle back to the farm of origin. I hope this scheme works better than gun registration did. Why am I not convinced that it will?

Current Rant:

I'm afraid that those who expect everything to be as it was, when the current global financial crisis is behind us, are dreaming. In my opinion, this "recession" is just the tip of the iceberg...a precursor of things to come. The lifestyle which we have taken for granted for the past half century may be thought of as "normal" by most North Americans, but it is not and never was sustainable.

When, and if, this "recession" is over we will find ourselves living in a much different world. Our collective attitude regarding money, personal savings, indebtedness, consumerism, job security, retirement, pensions and confidence in bankers and government officials will have changed dramatically. We will be less inclined to blindly place our trust in others to look after us. Hopefully we will have learned that it behooves us to become more self reliant.

I predict that there will be a general movement back to the land. In some areas this has already started. Thinking people are starting to become concerned about basic necessities...food, clothing and shelter. Already there's lots of talk about backyard gardens and zoning changes to permit raising small farm animals within city limits.

But the wise will go a step further and put their money in the safest investment they can make...a bit of land in the country. And the sooner the better because "farm land" prices are bound to rise as demand increases for small acreages. The average age of North American farmers is now sixty plus. Most of us will not be farming much longer. We are, or will be, looking for buyers for our land. Many of us would consider sub-dividing our holdings into smaller family-sized farms. If this makes sense to you I suggest that you do not wait too long to make your move.

23rd Excerpt from “Farmageddon”

(My latest unfinished book)

Gardens

Pioneers have always relied upon their gardens for the bulk of their food. Now that the plans for animal food products have been taken care of, we’ll tackle the vegetable and fruit side of our pioneer cuisine. The first thing to consider when planning what to grow in a garden is…what grows best in your locality. That is especially important in our harsh climate and short growing season.

My garden will be located about fifty feet from the entrance to the underground house. The ground in that location has a slight slope for good drainage and it is within thirty feet of a beaver dam where water is available all summer long. There has never been a garden in that particular spot so the soil will have to be well worked up and summer fallowed for a season or two before it is put to use.

This summer I plan to work up an area that will be twice the size that is needed as a garden. After working it up and picking off the rocks, a good layer of peat and rotted manure will be worked into the soil. Nothing will be grown there for at least a year. In the meantime it will be worked several times to control weeds and improve the tilth. Peat, sand, manure and sawdust will be worked in as needed.

The reason for having a garden plot which is twice as big as needed is for rotation purposes. When we start raising crops we will seed one half one year and the other half the next year. In a BS situation, the half that was used during the current year will be enclosed with portable steel corral panels for the winter and our small animals will be housed there until spring…the small animals being goats, rabbits and possibly a pig. All of the manure that they produce over the winter will be dropped right there on the part of the garden that will be summer fallowed the next summer. This will not only save the labour of cleaning out the pens but will build up the soil as well.

Most cool climate annual root crops grow well here. Legumes do well also. Fruits in general do not do so well. Since it is vitally important that our garden produces as much as possible, we will stick to the vegetables and fruits that can almost always be counted upon.

Potatoes will be our primary vegetable because they are such a reliable crop in our area. They also store well with little bother. They don’t have to be canned or dried or preserved in any way. In fact they should not even be washed for storage. All they require is a cool dry airy bin and they will keep for months. Even after months of storage when they begin to sprout and shrivel a bit, they are still edible. So, potatoes will be the main dish of most of our meals.

Carrots also grow well in this climate but they do not keep as well as potatoes so most of them will be eaten “in season”. They are an important part of one’s diet however because of their high vitamin C content. They are more trouble to raise than potatoes because of the need for thinning and hand-weeding, but nevertheless they will make up an important part of our diet also.

Beets, turnips and other root crops also do well here but whether or not they are raised is largely a matter of personal preference. As for myself, I can hardly choke them down, with the exception of beet pickles. Having said that, it would be a good idea to plant a few rows of these vegetables as insurance crops. They might taste a lot better if that’s all you have to eat…their more nourishing than snowballs.

Onions and garlic can usually be depended upon to produce well and will make up a part of our garden. They both store well as hanging bunches when properly dried and kept in a cool place.

Legumes will be another major part of our diet, especially beans and peas. Aside from eating them in season, the best way to preserve them is by drying. A more labour intensive preservation method would be canning but I suspect that we will do more drying than canning because it’s easier and fewer containers are required.

Speaking of containers, a good supply of heavy plastic garbage cans would be a real asset in a survival situation. For dry goods they are the perfect storage solution. Beans, peas, wheat, salt etc. would store indefinitely in such containers.

There are not many perennial crops to choose from, but asparagus does quite well here and rhubarb does exceptionally well here. Both of these foods either have to be eaten in season or canned. Strawberries grow very well also. Rhubarb and strawberries will likely be our only cultivated fruits. In general, native wild berries are not very reliable but when conditions are favorable Saskatoons and blueberries often bare well.

Root crops will be stored in open wooden bins in the storage shed. Canned goods will be stored on shelves there as well.

To be continued next time…

23rd Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Returning to Canada…

Dad and I went back to Washington right away. I soon discovered that Betty and the kids were as enthusiastic as I about the farm. Betty's confidence in me, and trust in my judgement, never wavered…more than once I thought about how lucky I was to have her by my side. And, more than once I silently gave thanks for that thin letter that had since proven to be a blessing.

We started preparing to move and Dad started preparing mom to accept the fact that he would be away for another month, to help plant the crop. Our immigration application had already been approved, so we would be entering Canada as landed immigrants. Our home was listed with a Realtor and we advertised to sell the things that would not be needed on the farm. I built makeshift van‑style boxes for the pickup truck and trailer and packed as much stuff as I could haul on the first trip.

It was around the middle of April when Dad and I left for Canada with that first load. He drove his pickup too, because he planned to stay at the farm while I came back for a second load. My poor old '47 Dodge looked like something from 'Grapes of Wrath'. There was a long wooden ladder tied to the top of the load and an air compressor tank strapped to the front bumper. My tool boxes were sitting on the seat beside me, so the tools would be handy for the inevitable mechanical problems, and a spare tire occupied the floor in front of the tool boxes. There was just barely enough room for me to sit behind the steering wheel.

We had no major problems with the first load. A plugged fuel line delayed us a half hour at Pasco and bucking a strong head wind held us down to a top speed of twenty five miles per hour for a hundred miles or so, but otherwise it went okay. The nice thing was that we had the luxury of sleeping in the back of dads pickup. On the next two round trips, I would be taking short naps slouched over the steering wheel, or leaning back in the seat with a tool box in my ribs, since there was no money for motels and no desire to stop if there had been. As I recall, a loaded trip took around thirty hours and the empty trip back about twenty five hours, with the trailer loaded on the back of the truck.

About halfway to the Canadian border, on the first trip, we had to stop at a highway truck scale. I knew the truck and trailer were both way overloaded and expected trouble. The patrolman looked out of the scale house window…came out to have a closer look…walked around the obviously overload vehicles and said, "Where'ya from?". I told him and he said, "Where'ya going?". I told him and he said, "Good Luck" and waved us on without even weighing the sorry looking outfit. I got the same sort of response at most service station stops and also at the Canadian border.

The last four miles of road to the farm were suffering from the effects of spring thaw by the time we got there. The road had turned into two ruts in a bed of Athabasca gravel—a mixture of dirt, sand and boulders. Once your wheels dropped into the ruts, you stayed there until you hit a rock large enough to climb out on.

About half way up the final steep grade, we met a truck coming down…both of us in the same set of ruts. That's how I first met our nearest neighbour-to-be, Metro Youney. He sized up the situation and, without a word, backed up until he was as able to get out of the ruts, allowing us room to pass—a perfectly normal thing to do during spring thaw in Alberta.

There had been more snow a few days before we arrived at the farm. Although we had intended to immediately start working the fields, in preparation for seeding, it was obvious that it would take several days of sunshine before work could begin. Since there was little that could be done until the fields dried, I decided to go back down to Washington, right away, for another load of stuff. Dad planned to stay behind and do whatever he could while I was gone. (I think he secretly hoped that he could start working the fields by himself but, if so, he was disappointed by another snow storm the day after I left.) By driving twelve hours or more at a stretch, I made it back home in a day and a half.

Betty had been busy packing while I was gone. Her brother stopped in for a few minutes one day as we were loading up for the next trip. I had envied Al ever since we first met, because he had seen a lot of action with the infantry in the Pacific islands. He was just an average sort of guy, but, having heard some of his war stories, I knew he had grit. Anyway, after talking for a bit, he told me that he really admired what I was doing. He said it took a lot of guts to quit a good job and start a new life. Although he liked his job, as a salesman for the Swift Meats company, I think he sometimes regretted not going back to farming when he got out of the army.

It didn't take long to load up the truck and trailer for the second trip. The trick was to take as much as possible on each trip, but leave things behind that Betty would need until the final trip. This meant that the last trip would consist mostly of heavy appliances, furniture and clothing. I arrived back at the farm with the second load just seven days after I had left.

Time was running out, so we decided to start putting the crop in even though the fields were still wet in places. On May 1st, my thirty fifth birthday, we spent the day hauling seed from a nearby farmer. We also bought four tons of fertilizer and some alfalfa seed from the local grain elevator. With fuel and other supplies to buy, funds were getting pretty tight. To my surprise, everyone accepted personal cheques, even though we were unknown to them.

It took about two weeks to prepare the land and seed the crop, but finally the job was done…although we did have to go around some wet spots. As soon as the last field was seeded, I headed for Washington again for the third and final load. This time I would be bringing the family back with me!

To be continued next time…

23rd Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Organic Farming:

The term organic has several meanings but for my purposes it means plants grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides and in livestock it means animals which are raised without the use of drugs, hormones or synthetic chemicals. However, the term is defined much more comprehensively by the purists.

Organic purists build healthy soils by nourishing the living components of the soil, the microbial inhabitants that release, transform, and transfer nutrients. The organic farmer's primary strategy in controlling pests and diseases is prevention through good plant nutrition and management. Organic farmers use cover crops and crop rotations to change the field ecology, thereby discouraging weeds, insects, and disease organisms. Weeds are controlled with crop rotation, mechanical tillage, cover crops, mulches, and other management methods.
Organic farmers rely on a diverse population of soil organisms, beneficial insects, and birds to keep pests in check.

Organic meat, dairy products, and eggs are produced from animals that are fed organically grown feed and allowed access to the outdoors. They must be kept in living conditions that suit the natural behavior of the animals. Ruminants must have access to pasture. Organic livestock and poultry may not be give antibiotics, hormones, or medications in the absence of illness; however, they may be vaccinated against disease. Livestock diseases and parasites are controlled primarily through preventative measures such as rotational grazing, balanced diet, sanitary housing, and stress reduction.

In a natural grassland or forest ecosystem, soil organic matter accumulates with soil development and eventually arrives at an equilibrium which is mainly determined by the environment and natural vegetation. Unfortunately, once the soil is tilled and cropped, massive changes occur within the soil system. Even when livestock manure and green manure crops have been added, organic matter still continues to decline. Tillage mixes oxygen into the soil and breaks up structure, giving microbes everything they need to burn up organic matter and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In the natural state, much of the organic matter is protected because it is trapped in areas inaccessible to microbes. Tillage changes all this by stirring and mixing everything together. Microbes suddenly find a feast and proceed to multiply, expelling excess nutrients that, if not taken up by the crop, get leached out of the soil.

Every time the soil is turned, organic matter is lost, despite additions of manure and crop residues. Cropped land will have a lower organic matter content than the virgin grassland. Only about sixteen percent of the world's farmland is free of fertility problems or problems such as chemical contamination, acidity, salinity or poor drainage. North America has the largest share of the best land … at about twenty nine percent. In Kenya, the soil is so poor that corn yields are twenty percent of what they are in the American Midwest, partly because farmers can't afford to leave stalks and other plant debris in the soil to improve its fertility. They feed the plant material to animals or use it as fuel.

This decline in organic matter has resulted in the release of large amounts of plant nutrients, particularly nitrogen. A level of organic matter higher than required to produce suitable physical properties is beneficial in that the soil has a greater buffering and nutrient holding capacity, but it does not contribute directly to soil productivity.

Soil organic matter cannot be increased quickly even using optimum management practices which conserve soil organic matter. The added organic matter associated with higher crop yields are accompanied by an increase in the rate of decomposition. Only a small fraction of the crop residues added to soil remain as soil organic matter. Over an extended period of time, returning of all crop residues and using forages in rotation with cereals and oilseeds can significantly increase soil organic matter.

The value of forage crops in rotations with cereals and oilseeds has long been recognized. Several long-term crop rotation studies conducted in Western Canada have shown that crop rotations involving perennial forages tend to stabilize soil organic matter at a higher level than crop rotations involving summer-fallow.

Strictly as a source of nitrogen, the value of a legume plowdown is questionable. The amount of nitrogen fixed by a legume is dependent upon the type of legume, the amount of vegetative growth, the nature of the soil and environmental conditions. However, as a source of organic matter, legume plowdown is valuable, but perennial forage is a more effective means of increasing soil organic matter.

Long before soil scientists understood the reasons, decaying organic matter, as in manure or other forms, was recognized as beneficial to the nourishment of plants. Even though we can now feed plants on diets that produce excellent growth without the use of any soil whatever, the decaying remains of preceding plant generations remain the most effective basis for extensive crop production.

Decomposition by micro-organisms within the soil is the reverse of the process of plant growth above the soil. Growing plants, using the energy of the sun, synthesize carbon, nitrogen, and other elements into complex compounds. The energy stored up in these compounds is then used more or less completely by the microorganisms whose activity within the soil makes nutrients available for a new generation of plants. Organic matter thus supplies the "life of the soil" in the strictest sense.

When measured in terms of carbon dioxide output, the soil is a live, active entity. An acre of the best quality soil exhales more than twenty five times as much of this gas per day as does an adult man at work. Such a soil area burns carbon at a rate equivalent to 1.6 pounds of soft coal per hour. The heat equivalent evolved would convert more than 17 pounds of water to steam under 100 pounds pressure. A 40-acre cornfield during a hot summer day burns organic matter in the soil with an energy output equivalent to that of a 40-horsepower steam engine. Putting that another way, every acre may be thought of as a factory using the equivalent of one horsepower. Organic matter is the source of the power without which the plant-food elements could not be changed to usable forms.

Soil organic matter is also a source of nitrogen. In the later stages of decay of most kinds of organic matter, nitrogen is liberated as ammonia and subsequently converted into the soluble or nitrate form. The level of crop production is often dependent on the capacity of the soil to produce and accumulate this form of readily usable nitrogen.

Attempting to hoard as much organic matter as possible in the soil, like a miser hoarding gold, is not the correct answer. Organic matter functions mainly as it is decayed and destroyed. Its value lies in its dynamic nature. A soil is more productive as more organic matter is regularly destroyed and its simpler constituents made usable during the growing season. The objective should be to have a steady supply of organic matter undergoing these processes for the benefit of the growing crop.

Sod crops have not been fully appreciated as the panacea that they are. Grasses have been treated as the stepchildren of the American crop family. They have not been "cultivated" in the same sense as farm crops; they have been left to themselves, to grow on soils often turned over to them because depleted fertility made cereal cropping unprofitable. They have been incidental in the farming program. Consequently, they have not delivered their maximum potential in animal production.

The Old World, with its longer agricultural experience, shows that the lands still in good production today are those occupied by sod crops regularly for a large part of the time and where clean, or summer, cultivation has been reduced to a minimum. In France and England only slightly more than one-fourth of the cultivated soils are in clean cultivation. In Germany the figure is even less, and there are vast acreages of permanent pastures in all these countries.

In the United States the area in clean cultivation and row crops approaches one-half the cultivated land; and this in regions where the rains are often torrential. We would be well advised to take heed of the European example.

Soil organic matter is one of our most important national resources and it must be given its due as one of the major factors affecting levels of crop production in the future.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…
Floyd

22nd Book Excerpts

2009-02-17T09:03:00.000-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

I think I've spent more time plowing out my driveway this winter than any time in the past 45 years. Hopefully this means there will be a good runoff this spring. Our main dugout is as close to empty as I've ever seen it. The way things are going, water is becoming more scarce every year. I had my septic tank pumped out and flushed clean this winter and put in a composting toilet for solid waste. Now only gray water goes into the septic tank. From now on all our waste water will be utilized for watering lawns and gardens.

Current Rant:

After 80+ years on this earth one would expect to understand a thing or two but I find there's an awful lot that I'll never understand.

I don't understand why the leaders of our banking system were allowed to screw things up so badly over such a long period of time without our elected officials knowing what was going on. I don't understand how the chief officers of some companies figure their time is worth several hundred times more than their average employee's. I don't understand why so few politicians have sons and daughters in the military. And...I don't understand why we ordinary citizens put up with this crap.

But there are a few things that I do understand: Common sense trumps a university degree. Good luck is more valuable than brains. It's not necessary to be a liar to be a politician...but it seems to help.

22nd Excerpt from “Farmageddon”

(My latest unfinished book)

Livestock

Within the framework of the broad plan outlined in the previous chapter, we will now flesh out the overall plans with a bit more detail. I will attempt to explain the “why’s” as well as the “what’s and when’s” as we go along. In doing so, I will deal simultaneously with two potential scenarios: One scenario focuses on individual survival only. The other deals with agricultural survival as well. The success or failure of both scenarios depend, in large measure, on whether or not our politicians wake up in time to mitigate the severity of the coming crisis. That, of course, assumes that when they do pull their heads out of the sand…or their behinds, as the case may be… they will react in a beneficial rather than a harmful way.

One of the first things we intend to do is downsize our cattle herd. There are a number of reasons for doing this. For one thing, our present herd size is pushing the carrying capacity of our farm almost to the limit, even under present conditions. Under normal conditions we can raise enough feed for our present herd. But under adverse conditions, bad weather or whatever, if there isn’t enough feed we either have to reduce the herd size or buy additional feed. In view of the fact that we are actually planning for “adverse conditions” it makes sense to reduce the herd sooner rather than later.

By reducing the herd immediately we expect to get better prices than if we wait until many farmers are forced to do the same. As pointed out before, the extra income will be helpful for buying the extra things that will be needed to carry out our over-all plan. A second benefit from downsizing the herd could be that, in favorable years when we have a surplus of feed, we might be able to stockpile the surplus for “tough times”.

Another positive thing about downsizing the herd right away is that it is a step toward
the ultimate goal of preparing for Drywell Farming. As well, jumping ahead of my story a bit, we do not plan to raise beef cattle much longer anyway, regardless of circumstances. Beef cattle are our “retirement fund”. Although we want to farm for as long as possible, we realize that the day will come when we will no longer be able to. Being self employed, there will be no gold watch, severance pay or cushy retirement pension for our sunset days and government pensions are not only minuscule but uncertain.

And finally, beef cattle will ultimately yield to dairy cattle because they have no place in an oil-less economy. Although I would much prefer to be surrounded by cattle than people, and they have provided me a good living for many years, the fact remains that there is no justification for their existence either now or in the future. They are not good feed converters. They only reproduce one thing…meat. They require enormous amounts of space. They are environmentally unfriendly…produce lots of methane. They consume prodigious amounts of water…directly by drinking and indirectly in the production of their feed. So, as far as I can see, it’s goodbye Bossy and all the McInfrastructure associated with you.

Looking at both the BS and SALT aspects of farm animals, some radical changes will have to be made. The main changes will be centered around drastically reducing the numbers of grain-fed animals.

In the BS mode we plan to switch to goats for both milk and meat. Their hides will also be very handy. In the SALT mode, dairy cattle will likely resume their place as the primary source of milk and its by-products. They will probably take the place of beef cattle altogether because they fit very well into diversified farming and they provide protein in a variety of forms. Many small herds of milk cows scattered uniformly across the land will supply the needs of local communities. Home delivery of milk products will likely result…including a return to reusable glass bottles and horse-drawn wagons.

Under both BS and SALT conditions, horses will resume much of their former importance as a major source of power. During BS they will replace internal combustion engines for farm work and transportation. In the SALT period they will, at the very least, supplement those needs.

Pigs and poultry will have their place in both the BS and SALT scenarios. In the BS state pigs will serve primarily as garbage disposals and providers of meat and lard, but their diet will have to be supplemented with grain and/or high protein fodder. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, etc. will be free-ranged as much as possible but grain fed as well. If a choice between poultry and pigs must be made, poultry will win out because they are much better food converters. Their housing requirements are much simpler and they provide high quality protein products as well.

Rabbits are another animal that will have a place in both lifestyles. They require very little grain, if any, and thrive on good quality fodder. They will convert garden scraps…pea vines and pods, potato peelings, weeds, etc…to high quality protein and fur. They can co-habit with chickens and are relatively labour-free. They also make excellent pets for the kids.

Bees are another animal that we plan to use in the BS phase. Sugar will be scarce and expensive. Bees provide both sugar and wax for candles etc. They are basically self-sufficient and require relatively little labour. In the post-oil era bees will assume a much more vital role than they presently have.

Aside from the animals mentioned, the only other animals that might end up as part of our menagerie are cats and dogs, both of which are hard to justify on the basis of need. Cats, of course, do catch mice and could be of some value in that regard. For that matter, in a survival situation they would just about be forced to solve their own nutritional needs. Dogs are in the same category as far as justification goes. They do make nice pets and are good company but they have to be fed. In any case, there will likely be stray dogs and feral cats all over the place because of mass abandonment.

Again I remind the reader to keep in mind that these ideas and plans are designed for our specific farm situation. Farms in warmer climates with more options will handle things much differently than we will. For example, in climates where year-around pasturing is possible there will likely be more emphasis placed on the need for cattle and less concern for shelter and water. All farmers will design their specific plans for their specific circumstances.

With that brief introduction to the livestock aspect of our plans, I’ll get into a bit more detail about the requirements of each species of animal, beginning with horses.

Horses obviously have to be trained before they are of much use. Although we have a limited amount of hands-on experience with horses, there is much we will have to learn. Assuming there will be nobody around to answer our questions, we will rely on books as instruction manuals and common sense as a principle. Horses make great pets. Like most animals they respond to kindness and patience. They can be trained by “breaking”, as in the wild west days, and they also can be trained in a more gentle and humane manner. Ours will be trained gently and humanely using repetitious and progressive teaching methods. Progress in training of the horse will likely be geared closely to the progress in learning by the instructor.

A certain amount of equipment will be required during the training process…lounge lines, halters, ropes, etc. but before they can do any useful work they will have to be fitted with harness and saddles. Making such things is not only beyond our capability, it doesn’t make sense. So, once the training period is underway, we will buy everything else that is needed.

We already have suitable shelter, corrals, etc. for horses, as well as all the other animals mentioned, but we have no horse drawn equipment. So, that bring up the next order of business…making horse-drawn equipment. Here again we will have to rely on books for the knowledge we lack but we are already well equipped with tools and shop equipment. One of the first projects will probably be a cart of some sort and it will likely be constructed from the running gear of a small car. We will need a plow and other horse-drawn field equipment. If we can find suitable equipment at auction sales or other sources, we will purchase them. Otherwise we will make our own from salvaged parts.

Unless an animal has work to do, once it is trained, whether it be a horse or a dog, it will likely need a refresher course. We plan to use our horses as much as possible, even though we have more efficient means of doing the work. Garden work is one option. Dragging logs out of the bush is another. Driving to town to get the mail is a third option. Though these may all be “make work” jobs in one sense, they will serve to keep the horses better trained until such time as they may be needed as our sole means of mobile farm power.

The remainder of the livestock, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits and bees, wont be purchased right away. Housing and other facilities are either already present or can be constructed as needed well before the real emergency arises. Bees, however, may be the an exception, although there are so many beekeepers in our area that there should not be a problem finding the necessary facilities when the time comes. For that matter, all of the animals on our list are available locally, primarily because they are all well suited to local conditions.

To be continued next time…

22nd Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Eureka!…

After a fruitless week or so of looking for a farm close by, we learned that the Canadian National Railway still maintained an office in Edmonton, to assist potential farmers in finding land—a carryover from the land settlement days of the past. Upon phoning the man in charge, I was surprised by his eagerness to talk to us at our earliest convenience.

As we entered the CNR building the next morning, we enquired at the receptionist's desk as to the whereabouts of the man we wished to see. Following her detailed instructions, we made our way up the stairway and down the corridors until we at last came to a small office tucked away in a far corner. Our man was sitting on his desk, apparently in the midst of his coffee break…a mighty long one from appearances. He greeted us enthusiastically as we entered.

Upon hearing our story, he said he might be able to help us. Up north, in the county of Athabasca, he had heard there were lots of farms for sale. There was also a District Agriculturist, a Mr. Godel, that had the reputation of being one of the best in the province. He suggested that we contact Mr. Godel and offered to make an appointment for us. We thanked him and he immediately picked up the phone and called Mr. Godel. After making an appointment for the following morning, he offered to drive us there personally. I wasn't sure whether we were witnessing an example of Canadian hospitality or a guy that desperately needed to get out of his office.

Thanking him for his offer, we explained that we would prefer to drive our own car because we might want to stay there for a few days. So, it was agreed that we would meet at his home the next morning and follow him to Athabasca .

The next morning we were headed north again, in the wake of a man that proved to have a rather heavy foot. For the first fifty miles, or so, the road was paved and we had little trouble keeping him within sight. But about fifty miles from Edmonton, the pavement ended abruptly and we suddenly found ourselves in a hail of gravel behind a car that was rapidly disappearing in the dust cloud up ahead. Finding a point far enough behind so that we could actually see the road, but near enough to not totally loose sight of him, the next couple of hours on this dusty gravel road ultimately brought us to the town of Athabasca.

Catching up with him at the corporate limits of the town, we followed his car to the office of the District Agriculturist. After introducing us to the Mr. Godel, our man promptly departed—never to cross paths with us again.

Mr. Godel introduced us to Ron, his assistant. After listening to my story—no farming experience, no money, no job, a thousand miles from home and a family of seven to feed—they appeared unsure as to whether to giggle or weep. But, for reasons known only to them, they decided to take this naïve kid—with more guts than brains—seriously.

(Years later, when we were well established as farmers, Ron told me that as soon as Dad and I had left their office that morning, they had wagered between themselves as to the odds of our surviving even a single year of farming. Their conclusion was that the odds lay somewhere between slim and none.)

Leaving their office…armed with their best wishes, a packet of pictures and a list of farms for sale…we set out to locate the farms. After looking at two or three over the next few days, we finally got around to the last one—the one that Mr. Godel had hesitated to even tell us about. He said that the farm was in a poor location, the soil was rocky and infertile and only marginally suitable for cultivation. The only positive comment he offered was that it was cheap and it came with a full line of machinery.

Being the only farm on the list that we had not seen, we decided to have a look, in spite of Mr. Godels misgivings. Marvin Fertig, the owner of the farm, had recently suffered a heart attack and could not continue farming. He had homesteaded the original quarter section of his farm in 1927 and had lived there ever since. With the help of his wife and three sons, he had built a farm from raw land, while holding down a full time teaching job.

Over a period of thirty five years, they had purchased four additional quarters of land, cleared fields, constructed numerous log outbuildings and accumulated a full line of grain farming machinery. Now, after all those years of hard work and tough times, they were faced with the prospect of trading it all for a house and lot in town.

We spent the remainder of the day looking around the farm, checking out the buildings and machinery and walking the snow covered fields. The more we saw, and the more we discussed the farm's potential, the better it looked. Before leaving for the hotel that evening, we arranged to come back the following day to talk some more.

I felt sorry for the Fertigs because they really had their backs to the wall. But, on the other hand, I fully intended to negotiate the best possible deal for myself. There's no grounds for sentiment in business deals, especially when you have as little money as we had. Their asking price for the farm, complete with machinery, was seventeen thousand dollars—the machinery being valued at five thousand.

A long afternoon of dealing, over cups of coffee, as well as a good supper, ended with agreement on a price of fourteen thousand five hundred for everything. An earnest money deposit of two thousand dollars, to be held in trust by the local notary public, would make the deal binding. I felt that both the buyer and seller thought they had done as well as possible.

Back at the hotel that evening, Dad and I talked late into the night, studying and discussing the long list of machinery that Mr. Fertig had prepared for us. I still have that list. There were two tractors, a threshing machine, a binder, tillers, cultivators, harrows—a full line of grain farming machinery. There was also a long list of smaller items, hand tools, blacksmith equipment and the like—everything needed to start farming.

Estimating the total value of all the machinery and small equipment at five thousand dollars, placed the cost of the land and buildings at nine thousand five hundred. Putting that in a different light, if the value of all the buildings and the four hundred and fifteen acres of bush land were totally discounted, the remaining two hundred and twenty five acres of cultivated land was costing just a bit over forty two dollars per acre. I fell asleep barely believing it could be true.

The next day, when the deal was finalized, it was as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I not only had a lifetime job, I was the proudest, least experienced, most eager 'FARMER ' in North America.

Later on, with the waning of the initial euphoria, came the sobering reality of our situation. We had to be ready to put in our first crop by the end of April and it was already mid February. In the meantime as many of our portable possessions as possible had to be moved to our new home. There was no money for moving vans. The job would have to be done with the only vehicles available: a 1947 Dodge half ton pickup; a two wheeled home made trailer; and our 1958 Plymouth station wagon.

To be continued next time…

22nd Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?
(Available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Factory Farming:

Factory farming, a term usually associated with confined animal production, is primarily concerned with maximizing yield and profit—with little concern for the system's effect on the animal's welfare. Animals raised on such farms are regarded simply as units of production, to be exploited as efficiently as possible, rather than as living beings. Typically, the animals are kept indoors for their entire lives, crammed into dreary overcrowded pens or cages which are often so small that they cannot even turn round.

Using a combination of selective breeding, rich diets and growth-promoting drugs the animals are pushed to ever higher yields. This often results in high degrees of stress, especially if the animals are prevented from engaging in the social behavior that is natural to their species.
(I wonder where the boiling-alive of shell fish fits into this humane-treatment-of-animals concern that we profess.)

While there is some truth in the claim that factory farming reduces labor costs and feed and capital investment per animal unit, some studies show that these direct input costs are rather insignificant in the long run. It is, however, not just a question of the direct input production costs. Factory farming involves high hidden costs, such as pollution and other harm to the environment.

Although these hidden costs are not included in the price paid by the consumer at the grocery store, they will eventually have to be paid in the form of taxes to clean up the environment and the extra cost of health care for human victims of environmental contamination.

It should be pointed out that if we were to return to free-range systems, from factory farming, the relatively small price increases per unit of production that might result would come at a time when our food costs us less, as a percentage of our overall living expenditure, than ever before. At a time when our food is so cheap, in real terms, it could be argued that as a moral society we can afford to pay the relatively small extra costs needed to ensure that animals are reared humanely.

One thing is for dang sure … the giant corporate farms will not spend a dime on environmental protection if there is no profit in it. The first duty of any corporation is to make a profit for its stockholders. Even if legislation was passed which directed them to take steps to protect the environment, their lawyers will do their best to find loopholes in the laws and their powerful lobbyists will bribe the governments to change the laws.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…
Floyd

21st Book Excerpts

2009-02-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

I've been making butter and cheddar cheese since Guys' heifer freshened. Cheese making is a new experience for me. It's not as much work as I had anticipated and the results have been excellent. Was planning on aging the first cheese for sixty days before sampling but had to try some a few days early...

I've also been experimenting with dehydrating fruit. Apples turned out very well. This summer I plan to dry raspberries but I will run the dehydrator with solar and wind power so no energy cost will be involved. Dehydrating is not as messy as canning and makes great snack food.

Current Rant:

The Obama administration seems to be having trouble drafting a bill that congress can agree will effectively stimulate their economy. The proposal currently before congress advocates, among other things, bailing out the lending institutions with another infusion of several hundred more billions of dollars. This in spite of the fact that the money previously handed out to the banking institutions by the Bush administration seems to have disappeared with no apparent relief to the ailing economy. Doing the same thing over and over with expectations of different results is a classic definition of insanity.

It seems to me that, rather than handing out money to the institutions that were responsible for the current financial mess in the first place, it would make more sense to stimulate the economy by giving the money directly to the consumers. There are approximately 75 million families in the United States. If 750 billion dollars was divided evenly amongst these families, each family/household would receive 10 thousand dollars. The Bush tax refund of 2008 amounted to 300 dollars per family…a relatively insignificant amount…which many families put away as savings or paid on debts, resulting in no stimulus to the economy. Ten thousand dollars is a very significant amount of money in most households. In fact, I suspect that many families have never seen a check that large in their lives.

Of those families which are currently in debt, some would undoubtedly use part, or maybe all, of their 10 thousand dollars to pay down their debts. That money would be good for the economy because it would ultimately end up in the hands of the lending institutions. Families without current debts would have the option of spending their 10 thousand or depositing it in savings. Either option would be good for the economy…the banks would have the use of the money in the savings accounts and the manufacturing and service sectors would benefit by the increased demand for products and services.

At first thought it may seem foolish to give equally to both rich and poor households…another 10 thousand dollars would not mean much to the Bill Gates household, for example… but, on the other hand, it would seem equally foolish to reward the families that got themselves by mismanaging their income. In any event, whether rich or poor, every household would have the option of using their money in the way they deemed best and ultimately a good deal of it will find its way back to the government coffers via taxation of various kinds.

One of the main priorities of the President Obamas’ economic stimulus package is quick positive results. I suspect that positive results would be apparent within a very few days of the mailing of checks to Americas’ households. But I also suspect that an administration that is having trouble selecting a cabinet of people who know how to do their own income tax returns may also have trouble convincing them that the average citizen should have the opportunity to decide how to best spend their own tax dollars.

Oh, by the way Prime Minister Harper, this scheme would work the same in Canada.

(Of course I realize that this will never happen...I just like being on record when the "experts" ideas fail.)

21st Exerpt from “Farmageddon”

(My latest unfinished book)

A House

When thinking in terms of survival, I expect most farmers would tend to think first of their families and secondarily of their farms---and rightly so. Obviously a farm is just a piece of abandoned real estate without people to run it. But just as obvious is the fact that people will not survive long without the food, clothing and shelter which farms provide. In keeping with that thought I will first tackle the problems of a sustainable home and then go on to the problems of a sustainable farm.

When one thinks of a home they generally think in terms of a house. Our present house, like most, was designed and constructed without regard to it's dependency upon cheap and plentiful petroleum products. Although it is well insulated and reasonably economical to heat, under current conditions, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to adequately heat it in the absence of oil.

Equally as perplexing is the fact that without electricity the water system would not function nor would the lighting system and the toilets would only flush once. Without propane and electricity the furnace and the kitchen range would be useless. The freezers would thaw, the clocks would stop and the microwave would quit blinking. Worst of all, we would not be able to use our computers, watch television or DVD's and I would have to learn to use a manual can opener when the Little Woman is away.

As mentioned earlier, the first question we considered was whether it would be best to try to upgrade our present house or to start all over. All things considered, it seems most practical to build a different house designed for temporary emergency use or longer term BS use. Our present house is too big. There are only two of us and we seldom have overnight guests so we don't really have much need for a guest room. Without electricity the bathroom, the computer rooms and the TV rooms will be pretty useless for their present functions and a single bedroom with a double bed would be adequate for two reasonably compatible people. Windows are good for letting light in and for looking out of but they are not absolutely necessary when you come right down to it. One door for egress and exit should also be sufficient.

Considering all these things, plus all the time and labour that would be involved in converting our present house to function efficiently without petroleum and electricity, it appears that the most practical option, in light of the lead time involved, is to start building a new dwelling but continue to live in our current one until the replacement one is finished and/or we are forced to move, whichever comes first.

That decision having been made, the next step is to design the most practical living quarters for an oil-less existence. It doesn’t need to be nearly as large as the present one. It will be unnecessary to plumb it for water or wire it for electricity. It will be heated by a wood burning stove of some sort. So it seems that all that is really necessary is a multi-purpose kitchen room and a single purpose bedroom---two rooms for two people.

Underground houses in an oil-less economy make a lot of sense. They are naturally insulated by the earth...making them economical to heat in cold weather and naturally cool in hot weather. The natural insulation of the earth can be enhances with additional insulation. Theoretically they could be insulated to the point that very little supplemental heat would be required to make them comfortably warm on even the coldest days.

I realize that most people, especially our women folk, would not opt for an underground dwelling under ordinary circumstances, and this has not been an “easy sell” in our case. But the circumstances we anticipate, and are preparing for, are far from ordinary. Since we can only guess at how bad things might become, it seems prudent to plan for the worst likely conditions. Esthetics don't seem nearly so important when one is focusing on survival.

I don't really like the term "survival", although it may turn out to be appropriate. A preferable word is "pioneering" for two reasons. First, we will be taking the lead in a new way of life. Second, it appeals to my sense of adventure. That may sound silly but, if you think about it a moment, one’s attitude will likely be a key factor for succeeding in a survival situation. Things will be tough enough even with a positive attitude. A negative attitude may make survival impossible or even undesirable. So, I will use the terms survival and pioneering more or less interchangeably.

Even if petroleum is cheap and plentiful an underground house has always made sense to me, although it’s a hard-sell to most people. We are so accustomed to to big beautiful spacious well lighted houses surrounded by huge expanses of manicured lawns landscaped with trees and shrubbery and trellises and bird baths and fish ponds and pink flamingos and on and on and on, that we can’t even imagine living in anything less. Our homes are our pride and joy. We think of them as an investment. In some ways our homes become our identity, in the same way that our occupations or professions identify us. We want the biggest and showiest home that we can afford…or, as often as not, cannot afford. Huge kitchens, huge living rooms, huge bathrooms, huge bedrooms…everything must be huge. Multiple bathrooms, multiple bedrooms…as many multiples as possible. Upstairs bathrooms, downstairs bathrooms, basement bathrooms…can’t have too many bathrooms. Then we fill our huge houses with appliances, knickknacks, gadgets, toys, collectibles, etc. until there is barely room to live in. I’ve even been in a home where the living room had so many dolls piled on the furniture that there was no room to sit down. As a consequence of this mania for the big and beautiful and clutter, most North Americans spend most of their productive lives paying off home mortgages.

Regardless of whether or not that lifestyle ever made any sense, the only thing that made it possible was cheap and abundant petroleum. Indications are that those times will soon be gone forever and huge numbers of those large beautiful houses will be abandoned…left as moldering monuments to our wanton wasteful stupidity. We may not all choose to go underground but those who survive to see the post-oil era will at least be forced to downsize their present living quarters considerably.

Getting back to our plans for an underground house... It seems to me that a nearly perfect “starter kit” would be one or two of those ubiquitous ocean-going shipping containers. They are strongly constructed and of adequate width and height. They come in a variety of lengths. They are relatively cheap and readily available. They are ready-made...no assembly required. They can be hauled right to the site and placed directly into an excavation. Being rectangular they are easy to insulate. They have a large double steel door at one end. All things considered, it seems that they are a ready-made solution to the underground housing problem.

Our underground house will be constructed of two of those containers that we see piled all over north America. The reason they are piled all over North America is because north America is importing far more things in shipping containers that we are exporting in shipping containers and it is deemed to be more economical to build new containers overseas, with cheap oriental labour, that it is to ship the empty containers back. But, one persons liability is another persons asset, or in this case…one persons shipping container is another persons home.

So this is what we plan to do. We will buy two forty foot shipping containers and bury them side by side in a hole dug into a side hill. (Thirty foot containers would be adequate but they don’t make them.) One will be used as living quarters and the other will be used for storage. The living quarters will be heated, the storage room will not. The living quarters will have two rooms, a kitchen/living room and a bedroom. The storage container will a single long room.

Shipping containers have double steel doors in one end as their only opening. The door is the full height and width of the end of the container…eight feet wide by eight and a half feet high. They also have hardwood floors throughout. By building on a hillside, the door-end of the containers can be fully exposed while the rest of the containers is completely buried.

Prior to covering over the containers with earth, their entire exteriors, with the exception of the doors, will be coated with a waterproofing tar product. Then they will be insulated with two inches of Styrofoam and wrapped with a plastic vapor barrier. To protect the insulation from being damaged by the backfill dirt, as well as reinforce the walls a bit, a layer of ¾ inch pressure treated plywood will be placed next to the insulation and vapor barrier. The plywood will then be given a good coat of waterproofing tar. To facilitate drainage, a foot or so of rocks will be placed at the base of the plywood along the back end and both sides. Finally, the previously excavated earth will be used to backfill the walls around the entire structure.

Once the walls are backfilled, a six-inch slab of reinforced concrete will be poured over the entire structure. Prior to pouring the concrete several holes will be cut through the top of the containers. These will be ports for ventilation, a chimney and a toilet vent. Each hole will have a vertical section of steel or concrete pipe, eight inches inside diameter by three to four feet long placed over it When the concrete roof slab is poured these pipes with be held solidly in place with their top ends protruding above ground level. Steel rain caps will be placed on top of each pipe to keep rain and foreign objects from falling in.

When the slab is well cured, the entire structure will be covered with earth to a depth of two to three feet, making sure that it is well crowned for good drainage. When the soil has settled it will be seeded to lawn grass to control erosion.

Although it sounds like a bomb shelter, that’s not it’s intended purpose. It is to be our home…for who knows how long. The only exposed part of the steel containers will be the entrance end. The building will not only be easy to heat in the winter but it will be cool in the summer. It will be dry and weatherproof and, for all practical purposes, fireproof.

“It will also be dark and stuffy”, one might say. Well, we’ve actually thought about that and here’s what we plan to do about it.

Ventilation will be taken care of by the roof vents through the pipe holes in the ceiling. Insects will be kept out of the vents with screen and air flow through the vents will be regulated by adjustable draft controls. The toilet (more about that later) will be in the storage room and will have it’s own vent. The living quarters will be heated by a wood range which will have a combustion air vent from the firebox to outside the building.

Four feet inside the steel entrance doors of each container there will be a partition. The partition in the living quarters will be an eight by eight foot thermal glass window with a thermal glass door in it. The partition in the storage shed will be an insulated framed wall with a door. The door will have a small thermal glass window. The partitions in both cases will serve as draft barriers when the outer doors are opened in bad weather and as a source of daylight in nice weather.

The space between the outer doors and the partitions will serve as “mud rooms” for dirty boots and handy storage for garden tools, snow shovels and the like. The space will also serve as an “air lock” insulator between the living space and outdoors.

At this point I should point out that although a considerable investment will have been made in the underground structure we feel that it will not have been a total waste even if the anticipated economic collapse does not occur. In that event we will continue living in our present houses until it becomes necessary to move out. Meanwhile the underground dwelling stands ready for use if needed in an emergency...i.e.: someone's house burns down or someone's wife boots them out. It’s just a form of insurance, not much different than investing in fire fighting equipment that hopefully will never be used.

After insulating the inside of the front door the new home should be very comfortable to live in under just about any climatic conditions.

The storage room should not require any heat or insulation to remain above freezing year around. A cool dry storage room can be used for anything from a root cellar to a woodshed. An interior port between the living quarters and the storage room would be handy, especially in cold weather when going outside would let cold air inside.

There will be a partition about four feet back from the inside of the steel entrance door of the living quarters. This would serve as a mud room for boots etc. and also as a barrier to cold air when the exterior door was opened. If the partition were made largely of thermal glass it would admit daylight to the living quarters when the weather was nice enough to leave the exterior doors open.

The only other partition in the living quarters will be to divide the living area from the bedroom. This partition will be made of steel storage racks which are accessible from both sides. They will serve both as bookcases, from the bedroom side, and supply storage from the kitchen side. The same kind of storage racks will be used in the store room. The so called steel "Gorilla Racks" that will support heavy loads on adjustable shelves offer both versatility and strength.

Heating of the living quarters will be provided by a wood burning kitchen range. The range will not only supply the central heating for the living quarters but it will also do the cooking, baking and water heating. Both the living quarters and storage room will be ventilated via "roof chimneys". The stove chimney will be topped with a rain cap. The vent chimneys will not only be rain capped but they will be equipped with adjustable dampers to control the flow of air. The vents will also be screened to keep insects out. The stove will be provided with a combustible air vent tube from outside.

Due to limited space, the other amenities and creature comforts will be minimal. In the living quarter, in addition to the stove, there will be a small sink with a slop pail waste disposal system; a small multi-purpose table; three or four nested chairs; a rocking chair; a small cabinet with counter top and drawers and storage shelves for supplies and cooking utensils.

Laundry facilities will consist of a galvanized metal tub with scrub board and wringer washer attachments. The laundry tub will also serve as a bathtub. The toilet will be a compost type located in the storage room. It will be vented through the roof.

Composting toilets are also important items on our list of things to buy. One might ask why that is important when outdoor privies served the needs of real pioneers. I would answer that we intend to make our pioneering lives as comfortable and pleasant as possible under the circumstances. Being unforgettably familiar with the pleasantries of dressing up to go outside in twenty below weather and then partially disrobing in a frost-lined drafty stinking environment and placing your butt on a frozen seat to do your business is to be avoided if at all possible. I much prefer the idea of the relative comfort of an indoor facility even though the initial cost may seem ridiculous and there is a certain amount of ongoing maintenance involved. Case closed!

To be continued next time…

21st Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”

(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

In Quest of a Farm…

On February 15th, 1962, we pulled in to uncle Bills driveway in Edmonton, Alberta. I had previously written to him of our plans. Both he and aunt Georgina were very supportive and had already done some preliminary investigation prior to our arrival. In fact , they had sent me farm sale ads from the Edmonton Journal and I had already responded to a couple of them.
One ad looked particularly promising—a half section farm about fifty miles west of Edmonton near the village of Wildwood. We phoned ahead and made an appointment to look at the farm on the following Saturday. Meanwhile we looked around the Edmonton area but found the prices were too high.

Saturday morning, the four of us set out for Wildwood. We found the farm located about a mile south of the main highway at the very end of a narrow gravel road. Beyond the end of the road was a huge muskeg swamp. To the left, a long driveway led to a farmhouse obscured by Poplar trees and brush. Not knowing the condition of the little used driveway, we left the car at the road and walked in through ankle deep snow.

Aside from the generally desolate appearance of the place, one very noticeable thing was the large number of wild rabbits. They were everywhere. As we rounded a little turn in the driveway , two small stacks of hay came into view. Surrounding the stacks were dozens of the little varmints They had eaten all around the base of the stacks, making them look like huge mushrooms. Dad commented that, with all those rabbits, we at least shouldn't starve to death.

There were two main buildings on the farm; a house and a small barn with a tumbled down corral next to it. The house was a small square box-like structure with badly weathered unpainted board siding. The barn looked much like the house except the siding boards were vertical. The ground was covered with snow so it was difficult to tell much about the small yard. About half way between the house and barn there was a covered well with a rope and pulley for drawing water, and, of course, there was the omnipresent two-holer. A row of power poles along the driveway indicated that electricity was installed…which was a big plus.

After looking around the yard awhile, we took a walk out to the fields. There appeared to be about a hundred and sixty acres under cultivation on the two quarters, but with all the snow it was difficult to determine much about the soil. A few rock piles around the edges suggested that there were probably more in the fields. At the far side of the main field, where the muskeg swamp began, there was a good sized grove of Swamp Spruce and Tamarack trees. Someone commented that this was good because we would be able to cut our own fence posts.

To be truthful, it was actually difficult to find many positive things about the farm other than the price. The owner was only asking six thousand three hundred dollars for the three hundred and twenty acre farm, which sounded like a steal to me.

A day or two later, dad and I met the owner at his lawyer's office, to discuss a deal. Right from the start warning flags went up. The owner wanted extra money for the hay stacks and mentioned that there were some things in the house that didn't go with the deal. Anyway, before leaving the office, I deposited some money with the lawyer, to secure the deal, and informed them that, since we planned to go back to Washington right away, they should contact my uncle if any further discussion was required. We left for Washington the next morning, hoping for the best.

As soon as I got home we started preparing to move to Canada. We only had about four thousand dollars in cash. This would have to cover all the costs of moving and all of our living expenses until the farm started bringing in some income.

We had packed many boxes and made other preparations for moving, when a phone call came from Uncle Bill. He said that the lawyer had called him about some complications that would have to be solved. He suggested that I return to Canada right away if I was still interested in the farm.

It was a bad situation. We had no income and each day that went by used up more money. Another trip to Canada would not only cost money, it would cost us time and time was running out. If a crop was not seeded on time, there would be no income from the farm that year. All things considered, there was really nothing we could do but go back to Edmonton…eleven hundred long time-consuming costly miles…and try to straighten out the problems.

Four days later, we again met at the lawyer's office in Edmonton. Another fellow and his wife were also there with the property owner, who I'll call Sweet Old Bob…or SOB for short. It soon became apparent that this other fellow had made a better offer on the farm and it was obvious that we were expected to bid against each other to establish the selling price. I lost control of my temper. I told them that I had no intention of playing games with SOB and warned the other buyer to be vary careful because he was dealing with a liar. Apparently the lawyer was afraid things might get out of hand because he escorted me out of his office. Needless to say, I was very angry, even though my deposit was returned.

By this time we were pretty well committed to buying a farm somewhere. Too much time and money had already been invested to back out now, so we started looking again. A few days of checking around the Edmonton vicinity convinced us that we would have to go elsewhere if we were to find affordable land.

To be continued next time…

21st Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Erosion:

North America's first European settlers took custody of some of the most fertile grassland soils in the world. Our husbandry of the land since then has not been good. From the devastation of the "dirty thirties", the overuse of summer-fallow and monocropping to modern day pollution problems with fertilizers and pesticides, we seem intent on abusing one of our most valuable natural resources.

None of my generation is likely to forget the disastrous events of the dirty thirties when farms literally blew away and the livelihood of thousands of people was ruined. Historically, soil erosion has been the single most destructive natural phenomenon in the world. Whole civilizations have been washed away with their soils.

Throughout the world, an average of more than eight tons of topsoil per acre are lost every year. A loss of from two to five tons per acre is considered to be the erosion limit for long term sustainability. Almost all countries in the world exceed this value. On the southern prairies of Canada, erosion rates as high as fifty tons/ac per year are not uncommon in some areas.

The single most important factor effecting water erosion is plant cover. Recently broken land, where trees and plants are scraped off the surface, is a prime candidate for erosion, as are clear cut forests and summer fallowed fields. Heavy rainfalls, as well as spring run-off, make water erosion a chronic problem in some areas. Steeply sloped land, long slopes and intermittent water courses across fields are the main potential sites for water erosion.

In flatter areas, especially along rivers, sheet erosion is common. During spring runoff, water may cover large areas of relatively flat land. Material from the upper soil layers is dissolved in the water and carried away when the land finally drains.

Unfortunately the removal of topsoil is only part of the story. Small soil particles find their way into streams, rivers and lakes. Sunlight is absorbed by these particles which raises the water temperature, often changing an entire ecosystem. Pesticide pollutants and excess nutrients are also carried along with the particles, contaminating every part of our environment. The true cost of erosion due to deforestation, intensive cultivation and unsustainable farming practices may not be known until it is too late to do anything about it.

There are a number of things that can be done to control water erosion but one of the most effective is to increase the organic matter content of the soil to improve its structure and its water holding capacity. A grass or legume cover crop with strong root masses resists erosion very effectively.

The more organic material present in the soil, the greater the resistance of the soil to breaking into particles small enough to be carried away by wind or water and the more moisture the soil will hold.

Most of the soils of Canada were developed during the ten thousand years since the last glaciers retreated, but it is only in the last hundred years or so that these soils have been cultivated by man. Farming systems that cause rates of soil loss that are greater than that of formation, are obviously not sustainable.

The condition of the topsoil affects not only productivity, but also its stability and resistance to erosion. In nature, the soil surface is protected by vegetation and plant debris, which is continually being incorporated into the soil by worms and other soil fauna. Rain percolates gently through this layer to the soil beneath. Due to its high organic content the surface soil acts like a sponge, retaining part of the moisture and allowing the surplus to filter slowly into the subsoil and then into streams, rivers and eventually, the sea.

Traditional farming practices of the past helped to maintain the organic surface layer. Crop stubble left after the grain harvest protected the ground from the force of winter rains. Organic matter was maintained by regular applications of farmyard manure, plowing in green-manure crops and short-term grass rotations and by grazing livestock.

The addition of farmyard manure and green-manure crops to soil organic matter is almost a thing of the past now. Artificial fertilizers and slurry from livestock feedlots and liquid manure tanks, which contain very little fiber, are the now the main nutritive supplements for the soil.

The lower layers of soil, the subsoil below the plow-depth, are also suffering from these changes in farming practices. Healthy soil contains numerous worms, insects, spiders and other organisms. These creatures, notably the worms, play an important part in maintaining the health of the soil by maintaining an open texture; incorporating surface litter to make it available for plant growth; and by bringing up plant nutrients from the subsoil.

In general, levels of soil organic matter have fallen to very low levels through intensive farming practices, particularly on those farms that use of heavy dressings of chemicals and pesticides. Since the 1950's, the annual use of fertilizers and pesticides has increased tenfold to the present level of over two million tons.

During this period, average yields have increased greatly. However, some soils require ever increasing amounts of chemicals to maintain these increased yields, because of the deterioration in the condition of the soil. Weed infestations frequently proliferate under these conditions as well. If a farmer decides to convert such soils back to an organic system, the full restoration process can take twenty years or more. The complete rehabilitation of badly eroded soil takes far longer and in severe cases is impossible.

In temperate zones the processes of oxidation of organic matter and soil erosion are slower than in the tropics, where temperatures are higher and rainfall is more intense. However, in temperate zones, the rate of soil formation is also lower. In both temperate and tropical zones, the first symptom of soil degradation is reduced of levels of organic matter in the soil.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…Have a warm day…

Floyd

20th Book Excerpts

2009-01-26T18:26:00.000-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

This has been the coldest winter I can remember or my memory is faulty or I'm getting soft or all of the above. The good news is there should be a decent runoff in the spring because there's lots of snow. Maybe we wont have to pump water into the dugout this year.

I was milking my goat twice a day until Guy's Holstein heifer calved. She is now providing enough milk daily for two households, her calf, two dogs, several cats, two hogs and enough left over for weekly batches of butter, cheese and ice cream.

Current Rant:

If you're tired of hearing about the current global financial collapse, here's something else to think about...

The average age of farmers in North America is sixty-plus years. Only two percent of North Americas' population are farmers. Many of us are beginning to phase out of farming. In many cases land prices are prohibitively high for next generation farmers to take over existing farms. Fertilizer resources are depleting and costs are increasing. Much of our land is in poor condition because of poor farming practices and will not produce well without commercial fertilizers and chemical weed and pest control. It will take a decade or two to restore the land to health by using organic and/or sustainable farming practices. Meanwhile, the worlds ever increasing population needs to be fed.

The future looks bleak for those that do not have the means of growing some or all of their own food. Apartment dwellers and others that do not have even a small plot of soil on which to raise a small garden may be SOL.

I predict that farms will become smaller and more labor intensive as times get tougher. As more and more city dwellers experience difficulty in finding employment they will see the wisdom of migrating back to the country. Many farmers will likely subdivide their land into smaller and smaller parcels to accommodate the increased demand for land and farmland prices will rise.

If I was a young city-dweller with a family to feed I think I would be investing in a country place before it is too late.

20th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

A third thing high on our list is a house that is suited for an oil-less economy. The houses that we presently live in are, like most North American houses, totally dependent upon cheap and plentiful petroleum products for heating and electricity for lighting. They are also dependent upon pressurized water systems, like the vast majority of homes in North America.

The laundry appliances and all the other household appliances that we have become so dependant upon are useless without electricity and propane. My house is heated with propane. My son’s house, although heated by an externally located wood fired hot water boiler that is piped to a heat exchanger in the house, is nevertheless dependent upon electricity to run the pump that circulates the hot water to the house, not to mention the electric fan that forces the heated air from the heat exchanger through the heat ducts.

Although we can hope and assume that electricity will still be available in a post-oil world, there are no guarantees. So it wood seem prudent to be prepared for life without electricity as well as life without petroleum products. In view of the fact that our houses are not insulated well enough to be heated by anything but large capacity central heating systems, it would likely be necessary to either improve the insulation or install some other system of heating.

Those are some of the major problems to overcome with regard to our houses. Due to differences of opinion and personal preference my son and I will likely take different approaches to solving the our individual housing problem but we do agree that changes must be made…and soon.

In my case, I am leaning toward starting over again, but this time I will build underground. We intend to live in our present house until circumstances force us to evacuate. An underground facility would only be used for emergency purposes or, if worse comes to worse, for permanent basic survival. There are a number of reasons for choosing this option but the main ones are the initial costs of construction and the ongoing costs of both heating and maintenance. My calculations indicate that it would cost considerably more to make my present house petroleum-independent than it would cost to start from scratch and build underground. Here again lead time is obviously a big factor…although not as big as the lead time required for horses. The details will be addressed in a later chapter.

Realizing the need for a sustainable source of firewood, we are considering the option of leasing some of our poorest land to the local pulp mill and let them plant it to poplar trees. Although it was back in the 80’s, it seems like only yesterday that we were busting our humps picking roots and rocks to increase our cultivated land acreage. The calluses and aching muscles of all that work are still clearly remembered and now we are actually thinking of replanting trees! It’s mind boggling to think that we would even consider such a thing, after spending so much time and effort clearing land for cultivation, but we are trying to keep open minds to every conceivable option. Desperate times may necessitate desperate measures, I guess.

Before leaving that subject, the morality of the whole business of clearing land is a bothersome thing to me. I still have guilty feelings about burning several hundred acres of trees as an expeditious way of disposing of them. Even though, at the time, we had an urgent need for more cultivated land, the absolute waste of perfectly good firewood seems immoral. But then, is it any more immoral than converting trees into paper to wipe our butts on?

Anyway, the current leasing contracts run for a period of twenty years with annual payments of twenty dollars per acre. This is far below the productive value of the land but we are betting (hoping) that the pulp mill will go bankrupt when high fuel prices make their business unprofitable, in which case the lease contract would likely be defunct and we would be left with a sustainable source of firewood. If that little scheme should fail, we already have enough firewood on our land for our foreseeable needs.

When the real American pioneers set out across the land to build their farms a couple hundred years ago, their “venture capital” was limited to the things they were able to pack into their covered wagons. They also were limited by the state of technology of their time. We twenty-first century pioneers have the huge advantage of being able to prepare ourselves for a pseudo-pioneering lifestyle with the aid of modern technology and tools.

It would be foolish to get so caught up in the pioneering spirit…just for the sake of pioneering authenticity…as to not take full advantage of modern technology as long as possible. We have no qualms about being seen as phony pioneers...we have nothing to prove in that regard. Our objective is to make the transition to oil-independence as effortless, painless and even enjoyable as possible. We have a shop full of power equipment which we will use as long as possible. Our guiding principle will be: "Do it while it's still easy."

That is about the extent of the things we felt needed to be done right away, so we next tackled the problem of establishing priorities and setting a rough schedule of transition. One thing of concern was the advisability of buying certain items that might become in big demand later on…such as wood ranges, harnesses, small field machinery, etc. With that rough outline of our preliminary thoughts and plans, the following chapter will go into more detail on specific plans and priorities.

To be continued next time…

20th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Back to Square One…

After looking around for another job, in line with my qualifications, for a week or so, I began thinking about starting all over again in some new line of work. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I didn't like working for someone else. This was the moment when I realised that being out of work was not totally negative…it was an opportunity to start a new life.
In hindsight, I now realise that it was also about this time that I first started thinking of myself as a transplanted Canadian. It began to dawn on me how thoroughly Americanised I had become. Although I was never a true flag waving red white and blue God Bless America hubristic bloody American, I definitely was on the slippery slope.

I had grown up hearing stories about the good old days of farming in Canada. The stories about horses, cold weather, self reliance and independence were especially appealing. They stirred my imagination. I began to feel a desire for change and adventure.

As a teenager I had worked a bit for local farmers to earn spending money. I liked farm work but gave no thought to ever becoming a farmer. My only plans for the future, at that time, were to finish high school and get a job. Now, as I looked for a new job, my thoughts turned more and more to farming.

Betty actually had more farming background than I. She was born and raised on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. One day I asked her how she felt about us trying farming for a living. We discussed it and it soon became apparent that we both liked the idea. A few days later the folks dropped in for a visit and I brought the subject up with them. Dad was enthusiastic from the start—mom wasn't. Before the evening was over I suggested that maybe dad and I should drive up to Alberta for a look around. He was ready to go as soon as possible. Moms attitude was definitely negative.

Anyway, after a couple weeks of writing letters, reading newspaper adds, and hours of discussion, dad and I left our families behind, early one February morning, and we headed for Alberta to look for a farm.

February is not a good time of the year to be going north, but there was no time to waste. We had no income and I either had to find work or become self employed as soon as possible. But more importantly, if we were successful in finding a farm, it would be necessary to complete a deal as soon as possible in order to get a crop seeded, otherwise there would be no income from the farm until the following year.

Our plans were based more on enthusiasm than wisdom. Dads involvement in farming had ended back in 1929 and I was an absolute novice. Time and money were both critical factors and we had very little of either. From our inquiries, it appeared that the farther north one went, the cheaper land became. It seemed therefore that the sensible thing to do was keep going north until land prices matched our funds. What could be more simple!

To be continued next time…

20th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Energy:

I've done a fair amount of research in preparing to write this book. Most of it was done on the internet because it is so handy. Admittedly my research has been primarily to find support for my theories but I try to sort out radical positions and stick with the ones that seem most reasonable.

I also "do my own math", rather than rely on other people's conclusions. For example, to determine how long it will likely be before we run out of oil, rather than using someone else's calculations, I searched for what seemed to be the least biased estimates of the amount of oil that is still in the ground and then divided that amount by the current daily rate of consumption. It works out to be approximately fifty years. If this estimate is accurate, then it is obvious that we will have to find something to take the place of oil as our main energy source very soon ... certainly within the lifetime of our kids.

The same kind of research and mathematics was applied to natural gas reserves. But the numbers I found were ambiguous so I was unable to work out a useful timeframe. Nevertheless, it is obvious that, since natural gas is also a non-renewable resource of finite quantities, there will come a time when it also runs out—possibly even sooner than oil according to some predictions. But whatever the timeframe may be, between now and then, we, just as obviously, will have to find some way of doing without the fertilizers and other compounds that are synthesized from natural gas …which we are currently so dependant upon. There is really nothing mysterious or mind boggling about it. It should be evident to any thinking person that, sooner or later, we will have to change our ways and the lead-time involved makes it wise, if not imperative, that we get started sooner rather than later.

It is well known that cheap and abundant fossil fuels have been key factors in attaining the high standard of living that we presently enjoy. Modern agriculture is closely tied to non-renewable energy sources, particularly petroleum and natural gas, a dependency which cannot be sustained indefinitely. In fact, our whole life style is absolutely dependent upon fossil fuels … primarily oil and natural gas. Without going into a lot of boring statistics, which are readily available on the internet with a few clicks of a mouse, I will just site a few basic statistics and make a couple simple mathematical calculations that are easy to understand.

According to the latest figures on the internet (2001) it is estimated that the worlds total oil reserves amount to about 1,501,000,000,000 (1.5 trillion) barrels. That figure includes an estimated four hundred and fifty billion barrels of "Undiscovered Reserves"…which seems like kind of fuzzy thinking at best.

Again, according to internet data, the current global rate of oil consumption is seventy six million barrels per day. Assuming these figures are somewhere within the ballpark, the world has 19,750 days, or fifty four years, of oil left … if we continue consuming oil at the current rate. But to my mind, that is a very iffy if.

Considering only the fact that China and India, the two most populous countries in the world, are currently embarking on modernization programs aimed at closing the gap between their life styles and standards of living of the western countries, it seems to me that the current rate of consumption might not be a good figure to use.

Presumably one of the first things these two countries will want is more cars on their roads … millions more … and more roads for the cars. To get an idea of the effect this will have on the worlds oil consumption, just look at what has happened to the price and availability of steel since China started playing catch-up in earnest. By the way, China, the world's fastest growing economy, is now using sixty percent of the total amount of concrete presently being used world-wide, which gives some clue as to what is going on over there.

Petroleum geologists have known for more than fifty years that global oil production should "peak" and begin its inevitable decline within a decade of the year 2000. Unfortunately, no presently developed renewable energy systems have the potential to generate more than a fraction of the power now being generated by fossil fuels. It therefore seems obvious that something will have to be done pretty soon or we'll be up the well known creek without a means of locomotion.

The peak in production of any nonrenewable resource is a very critical point. At that point, demand remains the same, but the supply starts dropping off. The result is rapidly increasing prices. Historically, peaks in production of mineral resources have been very close to the halfway point of the original amount of the resource. In the case of oil, once we're past the peak or halfway point, other sources of energy will likely become more economical as additional research and development takes place.

It appears that we have little time before we reach the critical halfway point for oil production. We've used up over nine hundred billion barrels globally, but we still have fifteen hundred billion barrels remaining. It seems to me that ethics, if nothing else, would dictate that we leave the "other half" to future generations. We've enjoyed the good life with our half, don't our descendants deserve a good life too?

Unfortunately, according to some experts, the estimates of the remaining oil are deceptive and unreliable. They're deceptive largely because the major oil-exporting nations have major incentives for exaggerating the estimates—the more reserves they can claim, the more oil they will be permitted to pump.

These overstated reserves could be called "paper reserves" or "political reserves." It is estimated that fully thirty percent of declared global oil reserves are in fact of the paper/political variety. Furthermore, some think that a large percentage of the undiscovered resources should not even be considered resources because they are not economically recoverable now, and never will be. In geologist terminology, a good part of them are much tighter and deeper, that is, they are much harder to find and much harder to extract and refine.

In many oil fields, the amount of energy used in finding, extracting, refining and transporting the oil is approaching the amount of energy in the oil itself. In such cases it becomes more economical to just leave that oil in the ground and look for other energy resources elsewhere.

The peak in global oil discoveries occurred back in the 1960's. Since then, geologists have discovered progressively less oil annually, and at progressively greater cost. In fact, annual oil discoveries are currently only about a quarter of annual oil consumption . Obviously, this a trend that cannot continue for very long. But, on the positive side, this should trigger a boom in sectors of the economy associated with alternative energy sources and conservation.

There will likely be much keener competition for the available oil as it becomes more scarce, which could lead to wars … but our leaders have had no problem in finding excuses for war since the beginning of civilization, so that's nothing new.

Natural gas, another non-renewable energy resource which is key to our present system of agriculture, has been used in various parts of the world for centuries. The Chinese, two thousand years ago, piped natural gas through bamboo poles from shallow wells. They burned the gas to heat large pans of sea water to evaporate it for the salt. I understand that the first commercial use of natural gas in the western world was for street lighting in Genoa, Italy, in 1802.

Natural gas is mostly methane. It is widely used to generate electricity, provide heat for industrial processes, heat our homes, and as a raw material to produce petrochemicals, plastics, paints, and a wide variety of other products including huge amounts of agricultural fertilizer.

In 2000, the U.S. natural gas consumption reached 22.6 trillion cubic feet, a four percent increase over 1999 as well as an historical peak. The decade began with 18.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas consumed in 1990 and increased steadily to 22.0 trillion cubic feet in both 1996 and 1997. By the year 2020, U.S. natural gas consumption is projected to range between 28 trillion cubic feet and 32 trillion cubic feet, with most of the increase being used for electricity generation.

In 1999, the world's natural gas consumption was 84.2 trillion cubic feet. Russia, which consumed 14.0 trillion cubic feet, and the United States, which consumed 21.7 trillion cubic feet, accounted for 47 percent of the total. By the year 2020, total world consumption is expected to range between 110 and 174 trillion cubic feet. Such numbers are incomprehensible to me except for the fact that this rate of consumption obviously can't go on forever.

With regard to alternates to oil and natural gas as our main sources of energy, there are a number of things which can be developed. Among these are solar-, wind-, thermal-, hydro- and nuclear-electric power generation, for our fixed-grid power needs. For our mobile power needs, the most obvious choices seem to be such things as hydrogen and methane gasses to fuel internal combustion engines. But until it's economically feasible—profitable in our capitalist society—to do the research and development that is required to bring these alternate fuels on-line, very little is apt to be done.

The thing that will most likely cause it to be economically feasible to develop these fuels will be the rising cost of fossil fuels as they become scarcer and scarcer. However, if it is left to industrial corporations alone, little development will take place until they have squeezed all the profit possible from oil and gas. Our governments will either have to create incentives for industry to do the job or create public agencies for that purpose. Either way, with every passing day it becomes more urgent that we put some serious effort and planning into the development of viable alternative sources of energy.

With regard to natural gas as a key source of agricultural fertilizer, the logical thing to do is prepare for the day when it ultimately runs out or becomes too costly to use for this use. The present system of agriculture might lead one to believe that farming is not possible without synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. That, of course, is bunk because nature got along just fine for eons without such synthesized chemicals. The rich organic tops soils throughout the world were developed without such chemicals or the assistance of human beings, and if mankind were to suddenly vanish, Mother Earth would get along just fine without us.

Returning to nature's ways from our artificial ways will take time, and that is the essence of our problem. If the transition period—as my personal experience indicates—is twenty to forty years, and, if our supply of oil and gas will run out in about fifty years … well, you do the math.

To be continued next time…

I would like very much to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…

Have a warm day…

Floyd

19th Book Excerpts

2009-01-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Now that my life is getting back to normal after the death of my second wife, I intend to bring my blog up to date and make more frequent posts. Living alone after so many years of sharing life with a partner is a difficult adjustment. The memories will always be with me.

Current Rant:

As I understand it, the experts see no other reason for crude oil price rocketing up to $140+ dollars per barrel than speculation by stock market parasites. My research indicates that during this period of rapidly rising oil and gasoline prices there was no shortages to justify the price increases. That being the case, it would seem that the Federal Government would act to prevent a re-occurrence of such price manipulation by the stock market parasites. There is no justification for the rich and powerful being able to arbitrarily manipulate prices of any commodity for their benefit at the expense of the general public. Surely it is just as important to regulate the stock market as it is to regulate the banks. President Obama please take note.

19th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

Animal Power:

Another important thing on our list is something to take the place of tractors and provide transportation when and if it should ever become necessary. The most obvious option would be horses. Another option would be oxen. We have no horses at the present time but we do have dozens of would-be oxen. But oxen seem to be more suited to a BS lifestyle whereas horses would be better in a SALT situation. All things considered, personal preference in particular, we have opted to go with horses but have not ruled out oxen in a worst case scenario.

Horses obviously have to be trained before they are of any use other than pets. Since our experience with horses is rather limited we have decided to purchase a couple of weaned fillies and raise them as pets. We estimate the lead time required to have work-trained horses is about four years. They would be trained both as draft animals and for riding.

In the event that it’s not necessary to go all the way back to the “horse and buggy” days, the time and money spent on getting prepared will not have been totally wasted. We like horses and have been looking for an excuse to get some. They are not only nice to have around, they can also become the basis of a great hobby and/or a source of recreation. In addition, having horses opens up a whole new set of options. For example, we enjoy building things in our well equipped shop. Building horse drawn equipment, such as carts or buggies, would be an interesting and potentially useful hobby/business.

I understand that on some farms in England they use horse drawn implements that they call “Hitch Carts” in place of a tractor for pulling small field implements. The hitch carts are essentially two wheeled carts on which the driver rides and other implements, such as plows, harrows, hay rakes, etc., are pulled behind. The carts can also be used alone as a means of transportation or for hauling small loads. These appear to be very practical implements for small scale farms and might prove their worth in either a BS or SALT situation here in north America.

Horses without harnesses would be of little use. Although my son has considerable skill and experience in tanning leather and making leather products…his most ambitious project was making a riding saddle from leather that he had tanned…we will initially purchase a complete set of harnesses. One reason for purchasing is that neither of us know much about harness making. Another reason is the lack of time. A third reason is that we wouldn’t want to risk finding ourselves in a situation where we might be dependent upon poorly made equipment. So…we plan to buy all of the necessary horse paraphernalia to start with and possibly learn to make and repair them later on.

Revisiting the idea of using oxen, it’s really not as farfetched as it might seem when viewed from a purely survival perspective. Any kid who has raised a steer for a 4H project knows how easily they can be trained to lead and what nice pets they make. If you have a cow or two around for milk production, about half of your calves will be males which normally would be slaughtered for meat. Raising one of them to be a draft animal might be a sensible thing to do. A ring in the nose makes them easier to handle and a simple neck yoke and chain would make them useful for pulling a number of things.

Oxen were the second step in the evolution of agricultural power. Man-power was first replaced by ox-power and then ox-power by horse-power. The oxen were not harnessed like horses but merely had a rope or chain attached to a strong wooden neck yoke spanning their necks. This yoke, or ox-bow, not only served to pull their burdens it also kept the animals more or less locked together. They were used for plowing, logging, and heavy hauling that might have ruined a horse. They cost much less than horses, ate much less, and could live off the land on long pioneering treks. They required minimum rest. When they grew old, they were slaughtered for meat. Their main disadvantage was their slowness, being almost incapable of bursts of speed or energy. They are not known for their intelligence either, hence the metaphor, "as dumb as an ox."

One thing that I’ve become aware of while researching for this book is that we north Americans tend to forget that millions upon millions of people on this planet still farm with horses or oxen. We also tend to overlook the fact that those people might hardly notice a change in their lifestyle when gas and oil wells run dry. We may look down on them now as backward peasants but it could well be that we will have to turn to them and their methods when our system folds up.

When I was in Korea with the U.S. Army in 1946, there were a good many oxen still being used as draft animals, as I suspect they still are in rural areas. At that time, even the streets of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, with a population of over two million, were active with teams of oxen pulling every kind of conveyance imaginable, particularly the so-called “Honey Wagons” filled with human excrement. Many of those wagons received their cargo from septic tanks beneath the capital building its self.

All things considered, I believe that in a BS situation the ox would be the wisest choice for subsistence farming draft power, with horses running a close second. In a SALT situation I believe horses will re-establish themselves as a significant source of farm power.

To be continued next time…

19th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Backing Out…

About this time it started to become more apparent why Mr. Letterman had been transferred to the Vancouver works. Two things were going on that we had recently been informed of: The company would soon start 'down-sizing' the number of employees on the payroll, and, a new plant was to be built in Australia. Anyone interested in transferring to Australia was to notify the Personnel Department for interviews. The down sizing started almost immediately and it became my unpleasant duty to inform many good men that they would be laid off.

I lost a lot of enthusiasm for my job after that, even though I became involved in some very interesting assignments. Later on, as the down-sizing continued, my own job was also put on the line. The whole foreman structure was being overhauled and I was eventually informed that I, being the least senior of the general foremen, had been assigned the job of Machine Shop Foreman…the job that I had 'jumped' previously.

It was just before quitting time one day in the middle of January, 1962, when Mr. Danner called me into his office and told me that, "Tough times are upon us again…we must lay off more people…we want you to take a temporary demotion to foreman…bla, bla, bla." I told him I'd think about it and went home.

That evening Betty and I decided that it was time to move on to something different. ALCOA would just have to manage without me. I had worked for them for over fifteen years, moving up through the ranks from office flunky to general foreman. Although it was an interesting and well‑paying job, I knew I would never be happy there anymore and transferring to Australia, though appealing as an adventure, did not seem wise.

I went back to the plant that evening and wrote a letter of resignation. After packing up my personal belongings, I put the letter on Mr. Danners desk and left the plant for the last time…never to see him or even hear from him again.

In retrospect, the experience gained at ALCOA has been a great help to me ever since. Not only being a qualified machinist but also because of the knowledge gained during all those years of working with and around engineers, accountants and management people of all levels. Having had a number of supervisory positions gave me invaluable experience in planning and decision making as well as overseeing other people's work. I had also received extensive training, and have a certificate, in the field of Efficiency Expertise. To some degree, all of these skills and experiences have helped in the successful management of our farm.

It should be noted, in all due modesty, that had I known how devastating my departure from ALCOA would be to the future of the company, I might have had second thoughts about leaving them. Things apparently started going down hill shortly after I left. I can only imagine the chaos and confusion that ultimately led to the total liquidation and sale of the Vancouver works. I often think of my old friends and work mates who were so devastated by my departure that they could not even bear the pain of saying goodbye.

To be continued next time…

19th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Diversified Farming:

Diversified farms are often more economically and ecologically stable than those that specialize in growing only one type of crop. While monoculture farms tend to be more efficient and less complicated to manage, the loss of a single crop could put such a farm out of business. By growing a variety of crops and livestock, farmers spread the economic risks over a broader base and are less susceptible to the price fluctuations associated with changes in supply and demand for a single commodity.

Diversity is also beneficial in other ways. If crop rotation—the practice of growing a sequence of different crops on the same ground—is included in a diversification plan, it may help to suppress weeds, pathogens and insect pests. Also, cover crops—a crop grown between main crops for soil conservation purposes—can have stabilizing effects by holding soil and nutrients in place, conserving soil moisture and improving both the water infiltration rate and soil water holding capacity.

Mixed crop/livestock operations have several advantages. They often allow farmers to make better use of their land … for example, by growing grain or row crops only on the more level land and pasture or forages on steeper slopes to reduce soil erosion. Also, if there are rocky areas, or areas otherwise unsuitable for cultivation, these areas can be used as permanent pastures. Pasture and forage crops in rotation on the tillable land will improve soil quality and reduce erosion.

There is also the symbiotic aspect of plant and animal diversification, in that the livestock can make use of some of the straw and residues of grain or row crops, while manure from the livestock enterprises will contribute to soil fertility. In may cases, animal and plant diversification also make more efficient use of farm labor.

To be continued next time…

I would like to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…

Have a warm day…

Floyd

18th Book Excerpts

2008-06-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

Another Day on the Farm:

For the second time in my life I have learned that life DOES go on after the death of one’s spouse. Coping with the difficulties of Lillie’s passing was made much easier because of the help and thoughtfulness of a few caring friends. There are many to thank but I am especially grateful to Kathy, Roseanne and Margaret for their support and help both during Lillie’s last days and after her death.

Winter is finally over. The crop has been seeded and doing well so far. The cattle are out on pasture for the summer and it’s motorcycle season once again. My riding friends, Peder and Jim, and I have been out for a few Sunday afternoon rides but I’m looking forward to taking a couple of longer trips this summer. Would like to spend a few days cruising around Southern Alberta and a night or two camping in the Rockies. There are few things comparable with the exhilaration of cruising down the highways astride a bike!

Current Rant:

There are so many things to rant about these days that it’s hard to choose a subject. I am glad though to see that more and more people are gradually waking up to the fact that we are facing very difficult times in the near future. The most serious problem, as I see it, is the inevitable food shortage.

Ironically, it will not be as much a shortage of food as it is inequitable distribution of food. Here in North America the “shortage” will likely be limited only to those who cannot afford the inflated cost of food…there will be plenty available for those who have the money to buy it. In other parts of the world it will be quite a different story though. The combination of changing weather patterns, high production and distribution costs due to petroleum shortages, artificial price inflation due to speculation by the rich and greedy, and hoarding by the general public will likely result in unprecedented mass starvation of the poor.

Until our political leaders wake up to these facts, there is little that can be done to avoid such a catastrophe. Meanwhile it is up to each of us to look out for Number One.

18th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

Indispensable Water

One of the first steps in our planning was to develop a list of things that would be critically important to twenty first century pioneers. Number one on the list is a reliable source of potable water that is independent of electric power. Without an accessible and sustainable source of potable water there is little need for further planning.

At the present time we have a well that is adequate for our household needs. But since it is a drilled well with a submersible electric pump, there is no practical way of drawing water from it without electricity. In the event of the loss of electricity, a source of potable water that is manually accessible would be of vital importance.

Our livestock are watered from creeks during the summer and from “dugouts” in the winter. If electric power becomes unavailable, we have a choice of either manually pumping water for the cattle from the dugouts, when they are frozen over in the winter, or installing a windmill pumping system.

We briefly considered the merits of a windmill to replace electric power for pumping water. One plan was to set up a tower over our drilled well and equip it with a wind-powered pump jack. But, aside from the cost of the equipment, there is the question of having adequate wind when needed.

We also thought of using an animal powered sweep system to run the pump jack as water was needed. As a kid, I worked for a farmer who baled hay with a horse-powered baler. The horses were hitched to a pole attached to a gearbox that drove a drive shaft which delivered rotary power to the baler as the horses walked round and round the gearbox. I’ve also seen this same kind of system used to power buzz saws and fire-wagon pumps. But it’s easy to get carried away with plans such as these. The best plan is usually the simplest plan — the old “KISS” (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle.

The obvious answer to the potable water problem is a bored well. "Real pioneers" dug their wells by hand because they had no other choice. But we are not real pioneers and are not anxious to do the work required, so we opted to spend some of our transition funds to hire a well-boring crew, assuming that we can find a promising place to dig.

Finding a promising place to dig a well brings back childhood memories. During the aftermath of the Great Depression, my father decided to move his family from a rental house in town to a small “farm” in the country. The farm he chose was less than ten acres in size and totally undefiled by the hand of man. Every square foot of it was covered by brush and trees. There was just room enough between two large Oak trees to park his car off the road.

After clearing a short driveway, and a small future building site large enough to turn the car around, Dad turned his attention to the problem of a water supply for his family. Apparently he had some previous experience with “water dousing”, or had seen someone do it.

He first cut a small forked branch from a Willow bush. Holding the Y-shaped Willow, with one of its forked branches gripped in each hand, he applied enough bending pressure to them to make the main stem point horizontally forward as he began slowly walking around the area nearby the building site. After several minutes of walking around, the stem of the branch spontaneously started to twist downward, whereupon he scratched a mark on the ground with the heel of his shoe.

After repeating this process several more times from a variety of directions, the marks he made formed an intermittent line across the ground. Finally, after many more trips walking along the line and across it from various directions, he place a rock at the point where he felt the strongest “pull” on the Willow branch. It all seemed like magic to me, but Dad was confident that he had found a vein of water. In fact, he was so confident that he started digging a well, centered on the spot where he had place the rock.

Over the course of several weeks of hand digging with pick and shovel, and hoisting the dirt to the surface by bucket and windlass, he dug a well four feet in diameter and forty two feet deep, with Mom at the top dumping the buckets of dirt.

To make a long story short, they had to give up on that well because, beyond a depth of forty feet, the physical effort became too great. They tried two other promising locations with the same results. Finally, after moving to the farm, and hauling water from a neighbour’s well for two years, Dad had saved up enough money to have a well drilled. His confidence in the first well location had never waned, so, after filling up the well to enable the drilling rig to get close enough to drill in the center of the original well, they began drilling a six inch well.

The new hole had to be cased with steel pipe for the first forty two feet to prevent the loose dirt from caving in. After reaching solid ground, beyond the forty two foot level, the driller continued on down with a six inch uncased hole. At a depth of one hundred and eight feet they found signs of water.

Upon drilling down another twenty feet or so, to form a reservoir for water, the driller pumped the well dry and shone a light down the hole. To everyone’s amazement they saw a stream of water, which appeared to be about the diameter of a man’s thumb, shooting across the very center of the six inch hole. Within a few minutes the water had risen to a level above the stream so that the stream was no longer visible.

Whether it was luck or magic, or some natural phenomena at work, I cannot say, but since that experience I have been a believer in water dousing and we plan to “witch” for our water supply.

To be continued next time…

18th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Learning a Trade…

After working for about six months for ALCOA, I heard of a better paying job, with a different company, and went to my boss, Mr. Danner, to give notice that I would be quitting. He asked how much the new job paid and offered me an equivalent raise. From that time on, raises and new responsibilities came fairly regularly but I felt insecure with neither an college degree or a trade to fall back on. So, when an opening for an apprentice machinist job was announced, I put in my application, along with a dozen or more other applicants from throughout the plant. A few days later, Mr. Danner called me in to his office and asked why I had applied for the apprentice job. I told him I felt insecure in my present job and wanted to learn a trade. He offered me another raise, which I declined. He then told me the apprentice job was mine.

The standard apprenticeship training period is four years but I got my machinist certificate in three and a half years. New machinists were always assigned to the graveyard shift—midnight until eight in the morning. The machinist that I replaced had been on graveyard for several years and was very pleased when I showed up six months early.

Stepping Up…

After about three months on graveyard, Mr. Danner came in early one morning and asked me to come into the office. He told me that they were setting up an inspection department in the machine shop and wanted to know if I would be interested in the inspectors job, at an increase in pay. I took the job.

A few months later, I was promoted to foreman of the weekend maintenance crew, which was a steppingstone to moving up into management. My crew consisted of machinists, millwrights, welders and pipe fitters and we did maintenance work throughout the plant. Next I was promoted to foreman of the graveyard shift.

Sometime later, a man by the name of Frank Letterman arrived at the plant from the head office in Pittsburgh. He seemed to be some kind of liaison man for the Works Manager, but he was assigned to the Mechanical Engineering department. What his real assignment might be was the subject of much speculation.

Early one morning, about an hour before the day shift started, I was paged to call the cafeteria. Thinking there was some maintenance problem, I went to the cafeteria to have a look. As I entered the dining room, Mr. Danner motioned to me to come over to the table where he sat with Frank Letterman. They had a coffee waiting for me. After a bit of small talk, Mr. Letterman made some comments about the good job I had been doing and then asked how I would like to take over the General Foreman job in the machine shop. It caught me completely by surprise. I suppose I would not have been too surprised to have been offered the job of Machine Shop Foreman, but General Foreman was a double promotion. They both sat there, kind of grinning, waiting for my answer. I'm not sure what I said, but it was probably something like, "Sure – when do I start?"

About a week later I took over the new job. It was a little awkward at first because I was now supervising men who were formerly my supervisors, but, aside from a few attempts to 'test' the new boss, things went quite smoothly.

To be continued next time…

18th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Desertification:

Typically, desertification is the result of bad management practices rather than deliberate human activities, in contrast with deforestation. Overgrazing by domestic animals is the predominant cause of desertification.

Change takes place at a very leisurely pace in nature. One season subtly melds into another; a flower bud forms and opens ever so slowly; a baby's features change imperceptibly from one day to the next. Although these changes are obviously taking place minute by minute and second by second, we don't recognize them in real time. We are not conscious of most changes that are continually taking place all around us until they become noticeable with the passage of sufficient time.

Even in our man-made world of communities, cities, etc., change appears to take place at a snail's pace when you're exposed to it on a daily basis. It's only when you have been away for a while and then go back for a visit that you see how much your old neighborhood has changed.

The same thing is also true on a larger scale. Take the cradle of civilization for example, the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Many of them were once covered with lush forests and deep rich soil. Now some are largely barren and rocky. The forests were cut down long ago and much of the soil washed or blew away. We have come to accept this as normal for those countries, when, in fact, it is not. The change was all due to mismanagement by man.

Human activity is also responsible for the elimination of the forests that once covered much of the Middle East. The Sahara Desert, spreading three thousand miles across northern Africa, is largely a human-made desert. As a desert reaches a certain critical mass it tends to become self perpetuating. The once fertile soils that grew the grain that fed the Roman Empire have largely turned to desert because of human mismanagement. But now the vast desert seems normal to us, because that is all we have ever known it to be.

Sadly, the same thing is taking place right here in North America, but it is not yet apparent to the general public. Our grandchildren may one day think the world of sand dunes, sage brush and bare rock that we may be creating for them is normal because that will be all they will have ever known. According to one journalistic report, forty percent of North America's crop and range lands have already turned to desert.

The western range lands were once grazed by enormous herds of buffalo. Their sharp hooves trampled everything into dust … grass, organic matter, weeds and shrubs. Dead vegetation was trampled into the ground where soil microbes could break it down. The organic litter helped retain moisture for plant growth. Gradually the debris rotted and returned the nutrients to the soil.

When these roaming herds left one area, they were free to find greener pastures in another area and the trampled prairie they left behind was able to recover without interference, thus allowing it to regain its former lushness. Man, on the other hand, fences the land into small parcels and stocks them with cattle which graze much differently than buffalo. Cattle spread out and graze only on the choicest grasses, leaving the course vegetation and unpalatable weeds virtually untouched. They don't tend to trample down standing dead grasses from previous years very effectively. About the only places you will find the vegetation trampled to smithereens by cattle is around their watering holes and salt licks.

Since they are generally confined by fences and not free to wander to greener pastures, cattle are forced to repeatedly return to previously grazed areas, without allowing the vegetation to recover, until it ultimately resembles astroturf and their human manager is forced to move them elsewhere. In time, overgrazing will destroy the grasses that are most palatable, leaving nothing but the coarse unpalatable weeds and shrubs to thrive unmolested.

This insidious process happens slowly and subtly. When the damage becomes obvious, we wring our hands in despair and wonder why someone didn't do something to prevent it from happening. But we eventually become accustomed to the new look and it seems normal to us. And that is the sad irony … we accept the whole process of destroying our environment and our vital natural resources as being normal.

The end result is that our range lands are gradually turning to desert. Maybe not the Sahara sand-dune variety, but desert with regard to its utility as range land. As the weeds take over, the land becomes unfit for grazing livestock and it is essentially desert. Halting and reversing the process of desertification can be done, but it requires playing by Nature's rules. It also takes time and costs money.

Although cattle are generally perceived to be the cause of the problem, that is not precisely true. The cause is the result of management practices, or the lack thereof. There actually is no reason why our vast range lands cannot support huge numbers of cattle if properly managed. Some advocate the clustering of cattle into massive herds, like the buffalo, so that they destroy everything in their path and then leave it to recover. Although that worked well in the free-range conditions of the past, I doubt that it would work with domesticated cattle because their grazing habits are not like those of the wild buffalo. Cattle find no need to bunch up for protection from predators, as was the case with buffalo. It seems to me that limiting the size of livestock herds to the optimum grazing capacity of the land makes more sense. While I'm certainly not an authority on the subject, it stands to reason that the solution to the problem will only be found in proper management.

While the United States has about ninety eight million head of cattle and nine million sheep and goats, China has an estimated hundred and thirty million cattle and two hundred and ninety million sheep and goats. Chinese officials have calculated that nine hundred square miles of land are turning to desert each year. The Chinese government is so concerned that it is considering planting a huge belt of trees that would separate the desert from fertile ground.
How that will solve the problem, I'm not quite sure.

Overgrazing isn't a function of animal numbers, it's a function of time. Overgrazing happens when cattle are kept in an enclosed area too long or brought back too soon. Reducing livestock numbers won't necessarily stop overgrazing. Animals graze selectively. Given the opportunity, they will overgraze because the newest growth is the most palatable forage in the pasture. Even one cow in a big pasture will overgraze the choicest plants if she's kept there long enough.

I believe there is still time to reverse our course and bring some of the damaged land back into production, provided we do not wait too long. At the very least we should stop destroying any more. But I'm not very optimistic because it seems that we humans have to learn everything the hard way.

To be continued next time…

I would like to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…

Have a warm day…

Floyd

My Lillie Died

2008-04-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

My Lillie died a month ago - March 13, 2008. Our 7th wedding anniversary would have been a week from today – April 12th. It is still very hard to accept the fact that she is gone. I have not yet become accustomed to the unfamiliar quietness in our now lonely house.

We met on the internet in January of 2001 on one of those Web Match sites. Lillie’s previous husband, Adrian Artiano, had passed away in 1998. My previous wife, Elizabeth (Betty) Bergeron, died on August 28, 1989. Lillie lived in Oregon City, Oregon when we first met. I lived in Colinton, Alberta. After a brief courtship, e-mailing each other several times daily and commuting back and forth a couple of times over the 1100 miles that separated us, we were married in Saint Alberts, Alberta.

The next seven years went by very quickly. We bought a mobile home and lived it in for a few months. Then, after traveling across Canada and the US for a while, settled down to build a permanent home together. Lillie designed our house and I (with a lot of help from my son Guy) constructed it. I was 74 at that time.

Lillie loved to travel. In addition to motoring around North America, we took a Mediterranean cruise and visited five European countries. Lillie made numerous trips by herself as well, visiting her family and friends down in the States. She never hesitated to venture out alone on long drives when I could not accompany her. She was a remarkably independent and competent woman.

Lillie was an artist. Not only was she an accomplished painter, she was also a knowledgeable and talented potter. She and her dear friend Kathy spent many hours together sipping tea while painting. Our house was filled with works of art and pottery.

This was her third bout with Cancer. Her determination to beat the dreaded disease the first two times was successful and added another twenty years onto her life. Although she fought valiantly to the end, she no longer had the strength to survive the third and final attack.

I and your many friends miss you Lillie. May you rest in peace.

Following is a poem that Lillie’s brother Frank wrote in memory of his sister, whom he and most of her family and Oregon friends knew as “Voni”:

VONI

Yes the world is less lovely without her
This unique and adventurous gal,
And the love of life she is leaving behind
As viewed by her brother and pal.

She was clearly alive every day of her life,
A class act from beginning to end,
With talent for making things beautiful
And a gift for the making of friends.

I’ve known her, of course, since childhood
And have seen how she stayed resolute
In the field of exquisite creativity
In her many skillful pursuits.

She designed magnificent gardens
And toiled in them tirelessly too.
She read many books on the subject
And it showed in the things that she grew.

One more of her gifts was painting,
Her work was in many a show.
Illness canceled her forum in Tuscany
Only a few months ago.

I can surely attest to her potting skills,
She made teapots donburi and plates
That I used in my family Japanese restaurant
Until I retired of late.

Her dishes in fact were our calling card there
People came in expressly to see
Her unique rendition of a Japanese period
Momoyama and Muramachi.

A lover of life and of travel.
A lover of family and friends.
Yes, the world is less lovely without her
An achiever right though to the end.

By Frank Partridge, 2008.

17th Book Excerpts

2008-03-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Lambing will begin in another month. We keep a few sheep for trimming the yard around the buildings and machinery. Not only makes the place look a lot better but reduces the fire hazard and supplies us with all the lamb chops we can eat. Too bad their wool is unprofitable - doesn’t even cover the cost of shearing. Maybe that will change when the price of petroleum based synthetic fibers rises due to oil shortages.

Automatic Self-fueling Lawnmowers

Current Rant:

Can’t understand the apparent complacency about imminent global food shortages. Actually, I don’t think it is so much complacency as it is ignorance of the facts. And that is equally puzzling in light of the abundance of publicity being given to the food situation on the internet, magazines and newspapers...the internet in particular.

Could it be a case of not wanting to know – disbelief – denial? I suspect that it’s just a matter of disinterest. Doom and gloom subjects are not popular, they are not sexy, they might cause one to think...and that’s not fun.

But it’s not just the average Joe Blow that needs to wake up. Our political leaders seem to be equally unaware of what’s going on all around them. When global food inventories are reaching historical low levels and crop failures are rampant in much of the world (Australia and China for example) our government officials choose to promote the use of food grains for biofuel production. Brilliant leadership!

I predict that a year from now we will see starvation in Asia and Africa on an unprecedented scale – and, thanks in part to the brilliant leadership of our governments, there are no stocks of grain in reserve to relieve the crisis.

17th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

Planning Stage

Our first decision was to continue farming just as we are for as long as possible. Then, once we had roughed out an overall plan and identified some obvious changes that would have to be made, we got down to the specifics. In our initial discussions it became obvious that, being reasonably competent at walking and chewing gum simultaneously, we should be able to make more than one change concurrently.

As with many major changes that one faces in life, there is often a “lead time” factor that must be taken into account. In the changes that we contemplated there were a number of things that involved varying amounts of lead time. For example, if new facilities have to be built and made ready for use by the time they are needed, the amount of time required to build them obviously must be factored in. In other words, in planning for such things, one has to establish some kind of schedule of priorities to make sure the plan is workable. Seems obvious enough, but since it is such a critical part of planning, it should be mentioned.

In order to finance some of things that we will need to buy, without dipping into our current operating funds, we decided that it may become necessary to sell certain assets in order to raise additional cash. Those assets could be either land, machinery or livestock.

As we plan to continue business as usual for as long as possible, we will need all of our present machinery, so we will not be selling any right away. Rather, if it should become necessary, we could sell one quarter-section of land and/or downsize our herd by about twenty five percent. By so doing we estimated there would be from fifty to seventy five thousand dollars in our "transition start-up-fund". This should be adequate to cover the initial expenses.

If it becomes clear that our worst fears are inevitable, we will commit ourselves totally to the carefully worked out plan. Until that time we plan to stay in a kind of holding pattern — continuing to farm as usual while gearing our daily decisions to the possibility that radical changes might be necessary at any time. Hopefully the clues will not be too obscure.

For the sake of brevity, I have coined a couple of acronyms that appear throughout the book. They are: “BS”, for Basic Survival and “SALT”, for Sustainable Agriculture - Long Term . Basic Survival is defined as a bare subsistence lifestyle where everything must be done by manual- or animal-power alone — although I suspect some might apply the more common interpretation of the acronym BS. In contrast, the SALT lifestyle could be anything from fully mechanized to labour intensive, depending upon the severity of the shortage of gas and oil ― the keyword here being Sustainable. I define Sustainable as: Perpetual agricultural production without exhausting natural resources or causing ecological damage.

Once we are convinced that the time has come to make our move, everything from that point onward will be geared toward survival, both BS and SALT.

To be continued next time…

17th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Our First Home…

Our combined income was around fifty dollars per week. The apartment cost us forty five dollars per month, which we felt was money foolishly spent, so we started looking for a house of our own. The first plan was to buy a lot somewhere and build a house. Then one day, while driving home from work, I noticed a for sale sign on a small house about half way home. I told

Betty about it and the next weekend we went to look at it.
It was a rather small house, much in need of repairs, but we both liked its possibilities right from the start. On the positive side, there was a half acre of land with a dozen or more old walnut trees scattered about. But the best thing was the price…thirty five hundred dollars. The negative things were entirely related to its location. The property was surrounded by a major highway on the north, a very busy railway on the south and the landing pattern for the Portland International Airport overhead. To top it off, just beyond the railroad was the Columbia River, with all its river traffic. Tug boats towing huge log rafts, fishing boats, pleasure boats, barges, dredges, and even a an occasional naval vessel plied the river constantly. It was a noisy place to say the least, but it became our home—a home we called 'Ells Half Acre'.

The first of our babies arrived in the spring of 1949. Lynn…since changed to Lynne…was born on March 14, 1949. Guy was born August 16, 1950, Jim January 10, 1953, John December 3, 1956, Frank April 15, 1958, and Bill October 14, 1960. Betty was an excellent mother. Her pregnancies were not easy but she never complained. She loved to cook and sew. She worked very hard. We had a good life…busy but happy.

Thankfully, I had sense enough to quit smoking shortly after Guy was born. The difficulty I had in breaking the disgusting habit has been repaid many fold by the knowledge that I was no longer guilty of exposing my family to the dangers of second hand smoke. For the life of me, I cannot understand why any parent, that presumably loves their kids, would deliberately endanger their health.

Anyway, as new babies arrived, it became apparent that our little house was too small…so we decided to build on to it. Taking a second loan didn't seem like a very good idea, but since building materials cost money and we didn't want the remodelling work to stretch on for years, we started looking for a means of building without going into debt.

During the war years, hundreds of temporary apartments were built by the government to house shipyard and other war industries workers. Thousands of people were recruited from all over America to work in these industries. Two of the largest housing projects were located within twenty miles of our place. After the war, these buildings were no longer needed and they were becoming slum areas as well. Most of the buildings were still in fairly new condition but they were unattractive and crowded together. The housing commission decided that they should all be torn down and the land made available for other purposes.

I went to the housing commission and found that they were offering deals that I could not resist. I suppose I was greedy, as well as inexperienced, but I made a deal on a six-apartment unit. It was a two story building about a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, which had housed six families during the war. There were a hundred or more identical buildings in the project, wooden structures built on concrete slabs. The lumber in them was top grade and in excellent condition. Being six-plex buildings…each with three bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room…there was enough material in each building to construct two or more conventional houses.

The deal was very simple: Make a two hundred and twenty five dollar deposit and have the entire building removed, down to the concrete slab and the area cleaned up within sixty days. If the job was done on time, and passed inspection, the deposit would be returned, otherwise it would be forfeited. There was an awful lot of material to be had in exchange for a bit of sweat.

By the time the salvaging was finished, there was very little of our half acre that wasn't covered with building materials. The garage was filled with sinks, toilets, windows, sheet rock, pipe fittings, and electrical fixtures. The yard and driveway was piled high with lumber, brick and concrete blocks. There was hardly room to walk.

Betty took it upon herself to pull nails, sort the lumber and pile it in neat piles. It was dirty hard work, but she really enjoyed it. She worked just as hard at her job as I did at mine, and just as long hours. It was a tough but happy time for both of us. With so much material on hand, the amount of remodelling we could do was almost unlimited. In addition to remodelling and enlarging the house, we built a new garage, a workshop, a greenhouse, and a chicken house…and still sold enough surplus materials to more than cover the cost of small amount of new materials needed for these projects. The salvage job was completed on time so our deposit was refunded in full.

Meanwhile, family activities went on. One by one the kids started school and became involved in swimming lessons, cub scouts, and fishing. There were the usual childhood illnesses and accidents. John broke his foot at age three while 'helping' his mother pull nails. Frank had a couple of corrective eye operations. Betty had a tubule pregnancy that nearly cost her life. We took family vacations to the mountains, beaches and rain forests. We went to the local drive-in theatre on Friday nights and played cards at Betty's mother's place on Saturday nights and visited my folks on Sundays. We built a swimming pool, landscaped our yard, raised chickens and rabbits, had a huge garden and all the other things that families do. We built a boat. We went camping and fishing. And, we accumulated an enormous amount of 'stuff'. It was a great life and we were happy.

To be continued next time…

17th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Deforestation:

Deforestation is the deliberate removal of trees by human activities. It has been going on for thousands of years, mainly as a result of clearing land for commercial and industrial development, intensive collection of firewood, clearing of land for cropping and developing pasture for grazing animals.

At the present time the major concern is for the extraordinary loss of tropical rainforests, one fifth of which were destroyed between 1960 and 1990. Estimates of deforestation of tropical forest for the 1990s range from 21,478 square miles to 46,332 square miles, or approximately 30 million acres each year. To put that into context, Canada's total cultivated acreage has remained fairly constant at approximately 168 million acres for a number of years. So, at the present rate of deforestation of the earth's tropical forests, every five and a half years the earth loses the equivalent of all of the cultivated land in Canada.

The slash-and-burn type of agriculture practiced in the rainforest area is an extreme example of deforestation. Forests are cleared and the trees and debris burned. Crops are planted in very thin soil with low organic matter content. The meager organic matter is quickly used up and the soil becomes subject to erosion, thereby causing huge amounts of sediment to be washed into the lakes and rivers.

The clearing of land for agricultural purposes and the international demand for tropical timber are the main contributors to deforestation. As long as we, the so-called developed nations of the world, continue our demand for tropical lumber for our fancy furniture and beautiful interior home decorative purposes, the tropical forests will continue to be decimated.

The story has been told so many times, by people much more knowledgeable than myself, that there is little point in repeating it. But, in fairness to the people of the developing countries, let's at least be honest about who is to blame. We are guilty of having done, and continuing to do, the same thing in our country that we so piously criticize others for.

To be continued next time…

I would like to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…

Have a warm day…

Floyd

15th Book Excerpts

2008-02-25T09:49:00.001-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Ever since our well went dry, several years ago, we’ve had to haul potable water for household use. It’s a weekly chore…takes about 200 liters per week for drinking, cooking and showering, the toilets are piped to the dugout which waters the cattle. Until recently we had to haul from Athabasca…about a 25 mile round trip. Now that purified water has been piped from Athabasca to our little village of Colinton, the round trip has been reduced to 8 miles.

This is a picture of Guy loading up in Colinton’s new coin-operated pumping station.

Hauling Water

Current Rant:

This business of bottled drinking water bugs me. Everywhere you go you see people packing a bottle of water. It would make sense if they were crossing the Sahara Desert but in a country where purified water is piped into just about every residence and business establishment it seems a tad foolish, to say the least. It seems that it has become a status symbol…”See how health conscious I am”, or some such foolishness.

The fact is that, in North America, the standards for tap water are often higher than for bottled water. Rather than spend a buck and a half for a bottle of water that was transported halfway across the country, or imported from Scandinavia for Pete’s sake, it would be more practical to at least re-fill your water bottle from the nearest tap. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what some bottled water companies have been found to be doing.

Save your bottled water money and pay off your credit card debt…tough times are coming.

15th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

A Brief History Of Our Farm

Our farm is located in central Alberta, Canada. The climate can be quite severe at times. You can count on having a few days of thirty-below temperatures just about every winter, but in general it is quite suitable for farming. The annual precipitation averages around twenty inches, an adequate amount for dry-land farming provided the bulk of it comes when it is most useful. The frost-free period is approximately a hundred days long on average, but over the forty odd years that we have lived here we’ve seen both frost and snow in every month of the year.

My oldest son, Guy, and I have been farming together since 1962. Starting with a five quarter-section mixed enterprise operation, the farm has evolved into a ten-quarter cow/calf beef enterprise. Our only crops are hay and pasture. We use little or no commercial fertilizers and no chemical herbicides or insecticides. All of the livestock manure is returned to the fields.

When we first started farming, our land was classified as marginally suitable for agriculture. The native top soil averages under four inches deep. The land is very rocky, with stones ranging from baseball size up to pickup-truck size. Over the years, by means of crop rotation, manure application and hundreds of hours of rock removal, the cultivated fields have been greatly improved in productivity. We now have just over eight hundred acres of arable land and about the same in native and improved pasture. Although we are not registered "organic farmers", for all intents and purposes that description best fits our system of management.

At the present time we have a breeding herd of approximately two hundred Limosin and cross-bred beef cattle. The cows are bred to start calving in early April, when the worst of winter is generally behind us. The calves are weaned and shipped in late September. We raise all of our fodder and pasture but buy some supplemental grain-based feed for the replacement heifers. The pasture season starts around the first of June and ends with the first killing frost, usually mid-September, so we have to feed hay for eight to nine months of the year.
It takes from six to seven twelve-hundred pound bales of hay for each mature animal, which works out to about four tons each.

The reality is that winter dominates everything we do — even in those three or four months between winters, the bulk of our time is spent preparing for the next winter. Around here a year is described as, “Nine months of winter followed by three months of poor sledding”, or “We have two seasons ― winter and the Forth of July” .

Over the years we have acquired a full line of haying and tillage machinery. We also have land clearing, rock removal and manure handling machinery. The only custom work we hire is cattle hauling, when we ship our calves and cull the herd in the fall.

We are debt free and have been for more than a decade. Our annual operating expenses are approximately fifty thousand dollars and we normally have two to three years operating funds in the bank.

When we took over our farm back in 1962, the land was actually in terrible shape but I was too inexperienced to realize it. The previous owner had farmed the place since 1927, the year of my birth. He had homesteaded the home quarter, which made him the first person since the beginning of time to have cultivated that specific 160 acres of North America. Consequently, the condition of the land, when it passed from his hands, was solely the result of his farming practices.

Now, I'm not accusing the man of wilful mismanagement and he certainly wasn't an ignorant man. In fact, he was a school teacher by profession. He must have realized that his method of farming was destroying, or at least degrading, the soil (he hinted as much after we had purchased his farm). I'm sure he did the best he could under the circumstances and I'm equally sure that he would have liked to have done better. But by using the machinery that was available and the farming practices that prevailed at the time, the results were inevitable.

The farm had been operated as a grain farm for thirty five years with very limited, if any, diversification. The only domesticated livestock that ever set foot on the farm were a few hogs, a couple of milk cows, a team of horses and a flock of chickens and turkeys. The horses were the primary source of power until tractors came along late in his farming career. The cows supplied his family with milk and meat but, being such a small part of his farming enterprise, they did not require enough forage to justify raising hay on a scale that warranted any kind of crop rotation. Most of the hay for his cows and horses came from natural meadows on his own land or nearby public land. The hogs and turkeys were raised primarily to consume grain — the principle product of the farm.

With such an operation there was obviously very little manure generated, certainly too little to justify the effort, machinery and expense of spreading it on the grain fields. To make matters worse, the straw from the grain crops, aside from a small amount that was fed to the horses or used as bedding for the cows and pigs, was either burned or left in stacks in the fields where the grain had been thrashed. One of the first things we did, when we took over the farm, was burn old straw stacks because they were a nuisance to cultivate around. There were dozens of them and burning was the only practical way to get rid of them.

In defense of the previous owner, and other farmers of his generation, I want to point out that there was little incentive to maintain the fertility of the soil. As a matter of fact, there was, and still is, a disincentive in the form of short term gain. It must be understood that those people were barely able to eke out a living, often from marginally productive land, using labour intensive methods. The very limited income from such enterprises often barely covered expenses. What little profit there was had to be frugally budgeted between family expenses, machinery replacement, debt payments, and all the other expenses associated with farming.

The incentive to maximize immediate profits, as a trade off for long term depletion of soil fertility, was very strong — a variation of the old "bird-in-the-hand" philosophy. Besides, many of their generation were soon to retire, so there was little incentive for them to change their ways at such a late date. "Let the next generation shoulder the burden and expense of restoring the land's productivity", seemed to have been the prevailing philosophy.

A bit of clarification is called for at this point. In the short term it is both costly and difficult to switch to sustainable farming practices once the soil has been severely depleted of organic matter, the primary damage in this case. First of all, Mother Nature, in her attempt to restore the soils productivity, makes sure that something grows, if at all possible. Unfortunately weeds tend to thrive where cultivated crops do not.

The weeds that do well in our area are Canada Thistle, Stink Weed, Sow Thistle, Dandelions, Plantain, Wild Oats, Tansy, Chamomile, to mention a few. A field left uncultivated, even though the soil's organic matter has been severely depleted, will produce prodigious quantities of these odious plants and the soil soon becomes polluted with their seeds.

Obviously weeds also do very well in healthy soil, as any gardener knows. But, as any gardener also knows, if the soil is healthy the cultivated plants are able to compete much better with the weeds than they otherwise could.

Once the soil has reached a certain level of degradation, restoring it to health, while trying to derive a living from it at the same time, is difficult, to say the least. In our case, it took approximately twenty years to nurse our soil back to a reasonably productive condition. It took about the same length of time to get rid of our worst weed — Wild Oats.

Our first crop was a disaster. As soon as it emerged from the ground it was evident that the soil was polluted with weed seeds — wild oats in particular. Within a week of emergence the fields resembled lawns more than grain fields. Wild oats grew so thickly that they even choked themselves out, turning yellow in their competition for soil nutrients. Unusually wet weather compounded the problem. Within a month the grain was stunted beyond belief. It was a miserable looking crop. My visions of a bountiful harvest turned to worry and embarrassment.

By the way, with regard to the wretched wild oat, the cockroach of field-crop weeds in my opinion, it is a very interesting plant. It is a survivor, if nothing else. One reason for this trait lies in its ability to "plant its self" — literally. The seeds are designed in such a way that they can actually "dig" their way into the soil. The wild oat seed has a little hairy doohicky, shaped like a grasshoppers hind leg, which reacts to the sun's energy in a way that causes it to kick back and forth and cover its self with soil. Really!

Anyway, some forty-plus years later, as a result of crop rotations and diversified farming enterprises, our land is almost totally free of wild oats, and, with the exception of Dandelions in the hay fields and Stink Weed in the grain crops, the weed problem is almost non-existent. Bear in mind that this was all done without the use of herbicides. The only herbicides ever used on Ells Farms are for brush control in the fence lines and spot spraying of Tansy in the pastures. With the exception of our first year on the farm — when we were informed by the local municipal weed control officer that we would either have to spray our fields with herbicides or the county would do it for us and bill us for the costs — not one drop of herbicide has since been used on any of our field crops.

Furthermore, very little synthetic fertilizer has been used. On average, about once every four or five years, we top-dress some of our hay land with a nitrogen fertilizer (34-0-0) at the rate of about a hundred and fifty pounds per acre. Other than that, the only fertilizer used is the manure from the cattle and crop residues incorporated back into the soil.

I am proud to say that our land is now in much better condition than it was, even in its virgin state. The organic matter has been restored and is maintained at a level which has virtually eliminated erosion — another serious problem when we first took over the farm — and its water retention capacity makes maximum use our twenty-inch average annual rainfall. These are some of the reasons why I feel qualified to give advise on soil restoration. I know from personal experience that it can be done.

Since we took over the farm, there has never been a mouldboard plough in any of our fields. We use chisel- and disk-type implements exclusively for tillage and the age-old system of broadcast seeding for planting. The seeding system, which we have used very successfully for the past forty years, consists of a medium sized tractor pulling a spin-type fertilizer spreader. This small outfit seeds twenty feet per round at a speed of ten miles per hour, or approximately twenty acres per hour. Since we only seed grain one year out of four, and only then as a companion-crop with a mixture of forage seed, the grain and grass seed are mixed together as they are loaded into the spreader. The spreader holds enough seed for fifty acres.

After broadcasting the seed, the field is harrowed and then rolled with a ten-ton land roller, in two separate operations. The total time per acre seeded is approximately one quarter of a man-hour (three minutes per acre to seed plus one and a half minutes per acre to harrow and ten minutes per acre to roll). Our yields are comparable to those of farmers who have a much larger investment in seeding equipment. For example, oat yields in excess of one hundred bushels per acre — bearing in mind that we use neither chemical fertilizers nor herbicides.

A side benefit of using a broadcast seeder is that we don’t have to clean the seed. It goes straight into the seeder as it comes from the combine — a few bits of straw, leaves and other foreign matter are not a problem with a broadcast seeder.

But this kind of farming is not impressive. It does not appeal to the hot-shot grain farmers who yearn to be the envy of their peers, as well as the most prized customers of the machinery dealers. "What fools we mortals be."

With that background on the past and present conditions of the specific farm which the rest of the book deals with, I will now get on with the main subject of this book: Preparing ourselves to farm without cheap and abundant oil and natural gas products.

To be continued next time…

15th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Flying At Last…

At that time the government sponsored an education plan, under a program called the G.I. Bill of Rights, which entitled veterans to grants for educational purposes. The plan basically covered the cost of one year of school for each year in the military. Since I only had seventeen months in the army, the plan would only have covered my college expenses for about a year and a half.

I figured there wasn't much use in starting school if I didn't have sufficient money or the prospects of finishing were not good. The truth is…I really wasn't sure of what I wanted to do, although I had thought some about becoming an architect. No one in my family had ever gone to college before. I had saved a little money while in the army, but had spent most of it already. There were no student loans available in those days and the folks certainly couldn't afford to pay for my education…even if I would have permitted them to.

But college wasn't the only thing that was covered by the G.I. Bill. Among other things, it could also be used for flying lessons. There was a time limit in which you had to start school to be eligible for the government grant. As I recall, you had to enrol in an approved course within two years of being discharged. Anyway, rather than loose the benefits of the G.I. Bill altogether, my friend, Gene Nelson, and I decided to use up our education entitlements on flying lessons.

In order to qualify for a pilot license you had to pass a physical examination. My old nemesis had loomed up again, but this time the exam could be made by any medical doctor. With my past experiences in mind, I went to my doctors office with some trepidation. As usual, the only thing he found wrong was my high blood pressure. He knew how often I had been disappointed by failed physicals in the past and I suspect he also knew the psychological effect of those past failures. After pointing out that I would probably never be able to get a commercial pilots license, he signed the forms, giving me a clean bill of health.

The training consisted of ground school and flight training. The flying lessons were from a half hour to a couple of hours in length. We trained in single-engine land planes. After eight hours of dual training with an instructor, the student was eligible for his first solo flight. The landing strip was just a grass runway in a former cow pasture. At one end there was a high tension power line and tall Fir trees at the other end. Dropping down behind that power line was a bit intimidating at first but it was good training for emergency landing situations. Ward Grove, the owner of the airport, as well as one of my instructors, had actually landed a plane between the goal posts of a football field, as a half-time stunt…which took a bit more skill than landing between power lines and fir trees on a runway at least three times as long.

I qualified for my first solo flight on schedule. It proved to be an uneventful flight but unforgettable nevertheless. Ward had shot a couple landings with me as a final check out before soloing. As we taxied toward the hangers after the second landing, he had me stop and as he got out said, “Looks like you’re ready to shoot a couple by yourself.”, then grinned and walked away.

That was a moment of truth, a rare moment in life never to be forgotten. As I taxied to the end of the runway, all alone for the first time, my mind was racing through the pre-flight checklist. There was no feeling of panic…just a high state of exhilaration and total concentration. After checking the controls once again and making a final check for incoming aircraft, I taxied onto the runway. The hours of practice took over as I revved the engine and released the brakes. As the plane started rolling I thought to myself, as I had done many times before when in tense situations, “This is no big deal…thousands of people have done it before you. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

It seemed that the plane accelerated more quickly than usual and used up less runway to get up to flying speed. Leaving the ground smoothly, I climbed to the proper altitude and made the left turn of the take off pattern. Still climbing, in preparation for making another left turn onto the landing pattern, it dawned on me that the reason that the plane had accelerated faster and was now climbing faster was because it was a hundred and eighty pounds lighter since Ward got out. While flying along the landing pattern, before making my final approach, I reminded myself to compensate for this loss of weight when landing.

Pulling the throttle lever back to half throttle to start my descent and lined up on the runway. In order to clear the power lines, without using up too much of the runway, it was necessary to lose altitude quickly by side-slipping the aircraft. Luckily I had thought about the plane being lighter than usual and compensated by side-slipping a bit more than usual. After touching the wheels down to a decent landing I pushed the throttle full forward and took off again, much relieved that the landing had been okay.

As I taxied back to the hangers, after making the second landing, I was pleased that it had gone well and tried to look cool while preparing myself for the good-natured harassing I was about to receive.
During our training, we made a couple cross-country flights, both dual and solo, but most of our time was spent practising in our own locality. More time was spent shooting landings than anything else but we also practised aerobatics…looping, stalling, et cetera. I really enjoyed flying but knew that there was no hope of a career for me there. After getting my pilots license, I used up the remaining hours of government sponsored flying time, by taking friends for rides or just fooling around by myself. Since it cost twelve dollars per hour to rent a plane, I couldn't afford to fly after the government funds ran out, so that was the end of my flying experience. It was nothing like my dreams of being a fighter pilot, but at least I had experienced the satisfaction of beating the odds to a very limited degree.

To be continued next time…

15th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Summing Up…

Somehow, in this age of greed and self indulgence, we have lost our sense of what is important and what is not. Our standard of living is the highest in human history, but at an unconscionable cost to the environment and natural resources. We capriciously consume and waste the resources of coming generations at an obscene rate. We are more concerned about our own immediate comfort and amusement than we are about the future of our progeny.

It's taken us a couple hundred years to screw up the environment to its present condition. Repairing the damage will likely take a lot longer, if indeed it is even possible at this eleventh hour. What we have done to our descendant's planet is amoral, if not criminal. We have looted and spoiled natures perfection in our selfish pursuit of the good life. We not only owe our progeny an apology…we should beg their forgiveness. But, forgiven or not, the very least we should do is start repairing the damage we have done.

But I seriously doubt that we will do much for a while because it's our nature to procrastinate and, besides, we're having too much fun. It's our nature, as well, to assume that the unidentified "they" are responsible…therefore "they" must fix it. Wrong! We let it happen therefore We should fix it!

It's also our nature to assume that the bright boys—scientists, engineers, politicians, inventors—will save our bacon somehow. We assume these smart guys will find alternate energy sources before we burn that last barrel of oil. They will develop a chemical-resistant microbe that will make our burned out soil well again and maybe even permit us to use more chemicals to produce even more surplus commodities. They will invent a water purification system that will allow us to continue dumping the shit of civilization into our rivers and oceans and get away with it. And, they will pass new legislation to correct the unforeseen consequences of their past self-serving legislative mistakes—retroactively, one would hope.

Dream on! That's the kind of reasoning that got us into our present mess and it isn't likely to get us out. One of the signs of insanity is, "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results each time".

I don't pretend to know much about the scientific, technological or political worlds, but from personal experience and observations, I have some ideas about what needs to be done as far as agriculture is concerned. For what they may be worth … here they are.

Agriculture must move toward more diversification. No, I'm not suggesting that we go back to the small family farms of the past—the nostalgic little storybook farm with a few chickens, a cow and a pig or two—that is obviously ridiculous and unworkable. What I do suggest is a gradual movement away from the large factory-type farming operations—the huge hog and chicken production plants and the enormous cattle feedlots—that have proven to be so environmentally harmful.

We should limit the concentration of animal populations to a size that the waste they produce can be absorbed beneficially by the farms in the nearby surrounding area. Smaller operations scattered throughout the country will not only make a more tolerable impact on nature but will also generate local ancillary employment. It could, for instance, encourage the construction of mid-sized meat processing facilities, which would also serve as a market outlet for the smaller local farmers. Mid-sized feed lots and farm factories should be located only where their waste byproducts can be absorbed efficiently and beneficially.

"But", some might protest, "that would be counter to the principle of efficiency of scale and would tend to reduce profitability!"

Probably … but the single-minded pursuit of profit—the almighty bottom line—at the expense of the environment, is exactly what got us into our present predicament. A greedy few have made fortunes at the expense of the environment, but only because of the complacency of the rest of us. Over a period of time, the farm has evolved from the nostalgic independent labor intensive family operation to the present day mechanized capital intensive subsidy dependent political nightmare. Efficiency has been stressed to the detriment of conservation. Return on investment is the focal point of management. Money has become the ultimate goal.

Aside from the guilt I feel for my personal part in creating this legacy of problems, which we are leaving for our kids to clean up, I'll likely not live to experience the real cost of our crimes against nature. But, on the other hand, my optimistic side tells me, "There's still hope …provided we come to our senses before it's too late."

To be continued next time…

I would like to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…

Have a warm day…

Floyd

14th Excerpts

2008-02-21T17:07:00.001-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

This is the winter view from our kitchen window. The barely visible black object in the center of the picture is a cow moose. The flat area in the foreground is a frozen beaver pond which will be alive with ducks, geese, beavers and muskrats come summer.

Current Rant:

Since my last posting I have received enough responses to my blog to convince me to continue posting. It is good to know that someone out there is interested in an old coffin dodger’s ramblings.

During my short hiatus from blogging I spent some time visiting a number of other blogger’s sites and made several interesting and useful discoveries. One thing that struck me was an apparent common misunderstanding of the intended use of profile lists of personal interests and favorite books, etc. Quite a few of the sites listed their interests in the form of multi-worded phrases rather than single words. Since these lists are intended to be made up of “keywords” to be used for searching for other bloggers with similar interests, it is much more likely that you will find a match when a single keyword is used rather than a phrase.

For example; Let’s assume that one of your interests happens to be “Chocolate” and you would like to find others who share your passion for Chocolate. Since the search engine being used is looking for exact matches to the word, or phrase, that you are searching for, wouldn’t it seem logical that it is more apt to find a match for the single word “Chocolate” than it is to find a match for a phrase such as: “Boy-O-Boy do I love Chocolate”?

If you want your blogs to be found by others of similar interests to yours, I would suggest that you take another look at your profile lists of interests and edit them down to single words, insofar as possible.

“Who am I - an admitted neophyte blogger - to give such pedantic advice?”, you might ask. “What qualifies me as an expert?”, you might also ask. Well – nothing. It’s just that I’m probably a lot older than you and I’ve been getting away with giving unsolicited advice most of my life and see no reason to change now. (If that doesn’t provoke some comments I may have to resort to even more obnoxious tactics.)

14th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

Assessing Our Options

There are a number of possible scenarios that could take place, but for simplicity’s sake I will deal with only two. First case: The politicians and government leaders finally wake up to the fact that the world is on the brink of disaster and take action to help farmers prepare to feed the population of a world lacking unlimited petroleum products. Second case: A general collapse occurs and farmers are unable to raise enough food to feed the population and are forced to assume a survival mode.

For the first case to succeed requires prompt action by politicians of all levels of government They have to recognize that feeding the people must be their first priority. For such a radical change to happen may require that a majority of the politicians be replaced by people who think differently then those presently in office. It will require a group of people who are more concerned about the welfare of the general population than fulfilling their own ambitions. It will require people who understand the need for sustainable agriculture and are willing to make whatever sacrifices and commitments necessary to achieve it.

To get such people elected will require a change in the mindset of the voters. Candidates with a knowledge of agricultural and environmental issues, rather than political savvy, must be found and persuaded to run for office. Such candidates are more apt to be found in the scientific world than in the industrial or entertainment segments of society. Political people like ex-next-president Al Gore and the UK’s lately-converted ecology supporter, Tony Blair, are rare examples of the kind of leaders that will be needed.

There is little likelihood that an abrupt radical change will take place. It is much more likely that there will be a comparatively slow devolution of our petroleum-dependent system. Such a devolution is likely to be the reverse of the evolution to petroleum dependency. I see it as an unwinding of our present system coincident with adaptation to a sustainable system.

But, in my opinion, there is neither enough time, nor the probability of this first option to come to our rescue, so that leaves us with the second case: A general collapse occurs and farmers are unable to raise enough food to feed the population and are forced to assume a survival mode.

To be continued next time…

14th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Return to Civilian Life…

Now that the army was finished with me, it was time to start thinking about what to do with the rest of my life. But, with my recent attitude adjustment, I was no longer the virtuous boy—the naive trusting idiot—I had been. I became a totally different kind of idiot. In retrospect, it seems there was a deliberate determination to defy or break as many of the Ten Commandments as possible. Drinking, fighting, hanging around seedy dance halls…carousing around…became my new life style. My determination to make up for lost time with the girls became an obsession, and I could hardly believe how easy it was.

My paltry savings were quickly disappearing for things like new cloths, to replace the old wardrobe I had outgrown; a car and its associated expenses; and last but definitely not least, the expensive pastime of girl chasing.

So, I started looking for a source of income. I had no particular line of work in mind, because I didn't actually know what I wanted to do, but I was willing to try almost any temporary job to make a little money while deciding what to do next. Jobs weren't easy to find because of all the returning service men, but if you weren’t too particular, there was work available. As it turned out, my first visit to the employment office resulted in a job with the Aluminium Company of America.

I hired on with ALCOA as a clerk in the mechanical department machine shop office, for the impressive salary of thirty two dollars per week. This may not have seemed very bright because I could have gone to work with one of the old construction crews, that I had worked for prior to the army, for twice that amount. But, I decided to give ALCOA a trial until something better came along.

To be continued next time…

14th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

The Good News…

I've painted a rather gloomy picture up to this point, but actually I'm convinced that the future can be bright. The answers to all of our problems can be found in Nature. This has always been the case and always will be. The problem is that we seem to have to get things thoroughly messed up before we learn our lessons, both in our individual and collective lives.

This world of ours has everything required to meet all of our needs in perpetuity, but her secrets are revealed progressively from the simple to the complex. Take the example of fuel. The ancient ones burned wood because it met their immediate needs and was easy to get ... just a matter of sending the wife out for an armload when the cave got cold. Later it was discovered that, due to changing needs, coal was superior to wood. The advantages gained from burning coal led to technological advancements which ultimately led to the discovery of petroleum fuels. Petroleum fuel led to internal combustion engines which led to easier access to more petroleum which led to greater and greater consumption of petroleum fuels.

Now that we are faced with the prospect of the petroleum resources running out, we are forced us to consider the ultimate fuel. The good news is there's an endless supply of its source compound. The bad news is this compound is hard to ignite in its natural state.

Unlike all of the fuels of the past, the ultimate fuel, hydrogen, is a perfect fuel and it is inexhaustible. It is perfect in the sense that it can be used over and over again without loss and with no negative side effects. In the process of "burning" it becomes water, the raw material from which it was obtained. If that is not perfection then I don't know the meaning of the word.

The separation of water into its two components will logically by done with electricity derived from solar energy. So, burning hydrogen is, in effect, the equivalent of using solar power, which is also inexhaustible

Everything that happened in the past has obviously brought us to the current moment and prepared us for the next moment. As humans, we are influenced by both stupid and wise impulses. My guess is that we will follow the familiar pattern of doing the wrong thing until forced to do the right thing. But, in the end, the right thing will prevail because the wrong thing is unsustainable in nature.

So that's why I feel that we will ultimately arrive at a sustainable system of agriculture, but we must get started soon. To repeat myself for the umpteenth time, the place to start is to reduce our dependency on agricultural chemicals and gradually go back to more diversification in farming. This will take time. The transition period will take at least a couple of decades in order to maintain an adequate supply of agricultural products while phasing out of our present unsustainable system. Farmers, both private and factory varieties, must also have time to convert their production facilities … structures, machinery, etc … and adjust their management systems to the requirements of sustainable agriculture.

To make such a transition possible it will take the combined effort and cooperation of farmers, industry and governments. The state and federal governments must take the initiative and create incentives to encourage farmers to move in the right direction. How that is done will be up to the experts of course, but it seems to me that low interest loans, coupled with the obligation of farmers to move in the proscribed direction would be a good starting point. The specific incentives to be used is debatable but the backing and support of the various levels of government is not … the job simply cannot be done without whole-hearted governmental encouragement and backing.

Convincing industry of the need to make preemptive changes will likely be a hard-sell, especially the petrochemical and agricultural machinery branches. But once the transition to sustainable farming gains momentum, business people will find ways to adapt. Adaptation to change is what the free enterprise, market driven, system is all about.

Farmers will likely be an even harder sell. Most of us have spent a good part of our lives—several generations in some cases—getting to where we are now. Unless someone, or something, can convince us to spend the time, effort and money that is necessary to change to a different system of farming, we just ain't apt to voluntarily do it. Why should we? After all, it's really not our problem. We wont starve because we produce the food. It's the other ninety eight percent of the population that will feel the pinch if there isn't enough food to go around. And it really doesn't matter how rich one is … all the money in the world wont buy a potato if it's the last one available.

Of course that's a ridiculous statement because it will never come to that. I'm just trying to make the point that this is not solely a farmer's problem. As Red Green would say, "We're all in this together". But, being such a small minority of the total population, we farmers don't have much clout at the ballot box. It's going to be up to the ninety eight percent who are not farmers to make some noise and get the attention of the politicians. But, keep in mind how slowly they work. Even if they do take the matter seriously, it's apt to take a decade or more for them to make their studies, argue endlessly about their findings, design bandaid legislation, attach all their pork-barrel issues to the legislation, etc., etc.

To be continued next time…

I would like to hear from you! You may send your comments by clicking either the Comments or the Letter icon below. Thank you…

Have a warm day…

Floyd

13th Book Excerpts

2008-02-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Another Day on the Farm:

Can’t remember ever being so fed up with cold weather. Must be getting old. If we get much more snow I’ll have to raise the gates to the animal pens. Sure looking forward to spring…working the fields, getting the motorcycle back on the road, putting the cattle out to pasture…

Current Rant:

With this posting, my books are now half posted online. The fact that there has been no feedback so far indicates there is little, if any, interest in my blog. That being the case, I see no reason to continue. So, unless or until I get some feedback comments, positive or negative, this will be my final posting.

13th Excerpt from “Farmageddon”:
(My latest unfinished book)

What Does "Sustainable" Mean?

“Sustainability” results from conducting economic, social or environmental activities in such a way that current needs are met without compromising the well-being of future generations. A sustainable activity does not plunder the present at the expense of the future.

Cars that run on gasoline are unsustainable on both counts. They use a non-renewable resource, one that will be completely depleted at some point in the future, and they pollute the environment. Thus they negatively impact the present-day as well as tomorrow.

In the case of sustainable agriculture, it must sumultaneously provide a living for those who farm and support the general public’s needs, while maintaining the health of the farm’s ecology and its surrounding environment. A sustainable farm produces crops and animals without damage to the farm’s ecosystem. Sustainable agriculture seeks to pass on to future generations a healthy natural resource rather than one that has been exploited beyond repair.

Some examples of sustainable agricultural practices include minimal use of non-renewable chemicals, rotating crops, and choosing crops that suit the climate. Avoiding genetically modified crops would also fit with the sustainable model, given the uncertainty of their potential negative impact on ecosystems and personal health.

Sustainable agriculture has also been characterized as: “Leaving the world better than you found it, taking no more than you need, trying not to harm life or the environment, and making amends if you do.”

Once a farm has passed the transition period to sustainability, it is likely to be almost as profitable as before. The principal reason for this is an estimated decline in input costs by approximately a third below conventional costs. Yields typically decline in some crops, such as corn and potatoes, but often increase in others, such as hay, soybeans, oats, and barley, especially during dry years when the better water holding capacity of soil translates into a production advantage. Statistical data indicates that average yields of commonly grown crops show only a ten percent yield decline when compared to yields of traditional farming practices.
In other words: Sustainable farming may ultimately be as profitable as conventional farming because the decline in production is partially offset by the decline in expenses.

In 2002, north American farmers produced about two and a half times more food and fibre than they did in 1948, even though the number of farmers had fallen steadily. This can be attributed, in large measure, to increased mechanization.

As farms begin to scale down in size, the need for large capacity machinery will also scale down, but there will always be a desire and need for some mechanization. All farmers appreciate labour saving tools and equipment, just as in all other occupations. The key to survivability is having appropriate technology.

When diversification replaces monoculture there will be a switch from monstrous single-purpose machinery to smaller multi-purpose machinery. There will also likely be a transition to more garden sized machinery. In time, I suspect that the competition among farmers to have the largest most impressive machines will evolve into a competition to see who can get by with the least and most appropriate machinery.

With the ending of the current practice of farmers scaling up to fit in with modern agricultural technology, technology and farm machine manufacturers will begin to scale down in parallel with the farmers. Under present farming conditions, technology and farm machine companies are leading the way. I’m looking forward to the day when that will reverse and the farmers will once again take the lead.

Sustainable agriculture must seek small and specific answers to the challenges it faces. As some wag once said, “When the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, all problems tend to look like nails”. Well, if money was your main problem solving tool in the past, the old practice of throwing money at problems, in the hope that they will disappear, is not likely to be an option any longer.

To be continued - if any interest is indicated…

13th Excerpt from “Defying the Odds”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Korea…

It took twenty one days to get to Korea on the troop ship Marine Devil, a converted freighter. There were twenty five hundred of us on board. About a week out we hit a storm. Two men were washed overboard and not recovered. This resulted in an unscheduled stop at Honolulu, to drop off a couple of guys that had been injured in the storm, and also the opportunity to spend a day in paradise, tossing coins into the clear blue water for the native divers. Guards were posted everywhere to make sure nobody jumped ship.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, unless such things as…spending most of the daytime hours waiting in line for a dinning experience in a galley where the deck is so slippery with puke that it must be neutralised with sugar to provide enough traction so you can stand up elbow to elbow at long steel tables with a hundred or more fellow passengers who are suffering from various degrees of seasickness as you hang on to the table with one hand while feeding yourself with the other from a mess kit that is sliding back and forth with each roll of the ship making it uncertain whether or not you are actually eating your own food as you try to curb a powerful tendency to retch and add your own contribution to the ambience…an other amenities of troopship travel count as eventful.

On the twenty first day we anchored about a mile out from the port of Yung Dung Po, in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of Korea. There was nothing but mud between us and shore. Early the next morning a flotilla of marine landing craft came out to the ship, on high tide, and transported us to shore near a railway station.

That afternoon we boarded a narrow gage Korean train and lurched our way to the city of Seoul. Most of the windows were broken in the rickety old passenger cars, allowing the dense coal smoke from the ancient locomotive to waft through, adding yet another coat to the accumulated grime.

From time to time, for the customary unknown reasons, the train would stop for a few minutes and crowds of ragtag Koreans would appear to barter with this latest trainload of naïve American soldiers. They wanted cigarettes mainly, but also tried to exchange their money for ours or sell us their wrist watches. As dumb as we were, most of us had sense enough to avoid dealing with them. However, I’m ashamed to admit, we denigrated them by flipping cigarette butts out the windows to amuse ourselves by watching them scramble to pick them up. They would strip off the paper and smoke the tobacco in their little brass pipes.

Just before dark we finally lurched into a siding, on the outskirts of Seoul, where we transferred into waiting army trucks for the final leg of the trip. Seoul, the capital of Korea, was a city of over two million in 1946—the largest city I had ever seen, as well as the most wretched. At the end of the war, Russia occupied Korea for a short time, after running the Japanese out, and plundered the country, taking most of their industrial machinery with them when they left.

We spent the first few days in a gutted building that had once been a paper mill. There was nothing left but broken pipes and burned off stubs of structural steel sticking out of the concrete, where the machinery had once been. This apparently was typical of all the country's industrialised areas

We set up our army cots anywhere we could find a bit of shelter from the cold February wind that whistled through the building, sleeping in our clothing under two light army blankets. There were no showers, just a couple cold water faucets where you could wash off a bit of grime. Drinking water was supplied in canvas Lister bags, heavily laced with chlorine tablets. Meals were cooked in an outdoor field kitchen which the infantry cooks had set up. By comparison, the old wooden barracks back at Camp Roberts seemed like the Waldorf Astoria.

After staying about a week in the paper mill, some of us were moved to an old Japanese girls schoolhouse, where life was considerably better. About fifteen men were assigned to each of the former classrooms, allowing each of us enough room for a cot and a duffel bag. There was a small sheet-metal oil stove in the centre of the room, with a bare stovepipe running to the nearest window. The room, and eventually our clothing, reeked of spilled heating oil and smoke fumes.

There was a communal shower room which featured cold water only. To get to the shower room you went outside and walked down a long open corridor exposed to the elements. After a cold shower in the dead of winter there is a tendency to hustle back to the warmth of your bed in some haste. Picture a group of nude teen aged boys running wildly through a cold snowy corridor, clutching their wadded up clothing in their arms and uttering profanity at every step.

When the Americans first arrived in Korea, they set up a Military Government in the capitol city. Of the twenty five hundred men on the ship that brought us to Korea, about fifty of us were assigned jobs in Military Government. Almost all of the rest were sent to Infantry outfits. After living about a month it the schoolhouse, some officers showed up one day to conduct individual interviews. We already knew we had been to be assigned to Headquarters Company of USAMGIK (U.S. Army Military Government in Korea)…these interviews would determine our specific assignments within that organisation. I was assigned to the National Food Administration, for reasons still unknown to me.

It turned out to be the best assignment I could have hoped for. I was in Korea for a total of eleven months. Having arrived as a buck private, I advanced through the ranks faster than any other enlisted man in Military Government and left as a Staff Sergeant. While working at my job in the capitol building, my official classification was Sergeant Major. Outside of working hours, I was one of four platoon sergeants in Headquarters Company, USAMGIK, of the Twenty Fourth Corps. In other words…just another teen aged kid pretending to be a soldier.

Actually my job in military government was quite interesting and it afforded some unique opportunities. One experience, which I will always remember, happened when ex-president Herbert Hoover came to Korea during his world wide food famine survey. An ex-president is treated with a good deal of respect by military people, if for no other reason than he was the personal representative of their commander in chief.

Although the capital building was crawling with military brass, ranging from a couple of generals down to hundreds of lieutenants, the eminent appearance of President Hoover was a cause for consternation throughout the building, but particularly in the National Food Administration. The entire office staff was preparing for his visit and a fair amount of activity filtered down to my level. I became kind of a personal 'gopher' for colonel Hill, the head of the department. It was an interesting period, helping with the preparation of displays and charts for the coming conference, contacting other offices and just generally doing anything that the colonel asked me to do for him.

When the big day arrived, and the conference room was all set up—military police stationed at every entrance and patrolling the hallways, high ranking officers in their best dress uniforms with all their campaign ribbons and medals, strict military discipline being enforced—colonel Hill said he wanted me to attend the meeting as his personal assistant. As we started to enter the conference room, the MP guard saluted colonel Hill and then informed me that I was not allowed to enter. Colonel Hill just said, "He's with me." and the MP replied "Yes Sir!" and stepped aside. Once inside, I discovered that I was the only enlisted man in the room.

The meeting was actually rather boring, but while one of the principle speakers was giving his talk, using flip charts as an aid, he almost knocked the chart stand over while turning pages. Noticing his problem, Colonel Hill nudged me and pointed in the direction of the lecturer. For the rest of the meeting, I steadied the stand while the speakers gave their talks and I was within a step or two of the president—my moment of glory! Mr. Hoover was an old man and spoke very softly. I must have been one of few that heard every word spoken.

Another event also stands out in my memory. It had been raining for several days, and the ground was already pretty well saturated, when a major rainstorm hit. It rained another six inches in the next twenty four hours. The following day reports started coming in to the National Food Administration about infrastructure damage and washed out rice paddies due to heavy flooding. Anticipating potentially disastrous food shortages, it was decided that an assessment of the damage should be conducted immediately. Three Korean officials from the National Food Administration were selected to make the survey. Army trucks were about the only vehicles that could be expected to make such a trip over washed out roads and muddy detours. The Koreans had no such vehicles.

I was assigned the job of driving these officials all over South Korea in a jeep. I attended every meeting with them, although I couldn't understand a word. One of the three Koreans spoke a little English and he would explain what was happening as we drove to the next village. The Koreans roomed at government facilities overnight and I would hunt up the nearest military outpost. The credentials, which Colonel Hill had provide, never failed to secure me a place to eat, sleep and fuel up.

At one isolated military establishment, about a company in size, I ran on to a good friend who I had taken basic training with. He was now a mechanic in the infantry motor pool. I was actually embarrassed by the fact that he was still a private first class and I was a staff sergeant...embarrassed because my stripes had come so easily and he was working his butt off with no hope of advancement. We had a good visit that night, but I felt badly because he was stuck in such a miserable job and I had it so good. Such are the fortunes of 'war'.

While I was stationed in Korea, the army medics made a survey of a hundred or so prostitutes that they had picked up on the streets of Seoul and found that ninety eight percent had a venereal disease of one kind or another. As a result of this survey, all military personnel were warned of the risks involved and advised that anyone contracting VD would be subject to courts marshal. Although fraternisation with Korean women was not prohibited, they made it clear that the odds of contracting VD were great.

Letters from home came quite regularly. Mail call in the services is always exciting, especially when you're on the far side of the globe. Whenever the announcement, "MAIL CALL" came over the squawk box, it was as though the announcement had been, "FIRE!"—everyone stampeded for the assembly area.

I was one of the lucky ones…there was nearly always two or three letters for me. Usually there would be one from mom, occasionally one from dad or one of my sisters, but most of them were from Shirley. When the last letters and packages had been handed out, the guys with letters generally went straight to their bunks and started reading. The ones with packages surreptitiously place their loot in their footlockers, to be opened later in privacy. The empty handed tended to just wander away or maybe start a poker game.

I always read the family letters first…savouring the ones from Shirley until last. Her envelopes were generally thicker that the others because she often sent pictures— tantalising shots of her in bathing suits or photos of her pretty face. After a quick look at the pictures, I would stretch out on my cot to read her cherished letters.

About two weeks before I was due to go back home, we had a mail call. I don't remember if there was any other mail for me, but there was one letter from Shirley…a very thin one. The single page began, "Dear Floyd", not the usual "Dearest" or "Hi Honey". The two paragraphs that followed informed me that she was married.

That night I got drunk. That one thin letter was to radically change my attitude in many ways.
After spending nearly a year in Korea, it was finally time to go back home. The trip home on the Marine Jumper was uneventful and took only nineteen days…taking into account the day lost in crossing the International Dateline. We disembarked at Oakland where we had our first fresh milk in eleven months and then boarded a troop train for Seattle to be discharged.

I think of most of my military experiences in a positive way. It was one of the most interesting and adventurous periods of my life. A great many firsts happened to me while in the service. I had my first train ride, first smoke, first ship ride, first alcoholic drink as well as my first exposure to regimentation and authority over others. But it was a far cry from the romantic vision of fame and glory I had dreamed of such a short time ago. My fantasies of shooting down the enemy, while roaring courageously through the sky, had been reduced to desk jockey in the bloody infantry. The odds of winning had been slim from the start.

To be continued - if any interest is indicated…

13th Excerpt from “But…What About Tomorrow?”:
(The book is available from http://www.publishamerica.com)

Suppose I'm Wrong…

Let's suppose I'm wrong about the damage that has been done to our top soil by the excessive use of synthetic agricultural chemicals. In fact, let's assume that the only thing that is correct in this entire book is the fact that, according to prevailing evidence, the world will run out of oil and gas sometime in the next fifty years if we continue to consume these resources at the current rates. Aside from the effect that it would have on industry, home heating, transportation and all sorts of other industrial, commercial and domestic consumers of these products, it would also mean that farmers would be forced to drastically change their farming practices. (By the way, wouldn't it be a hoot if, when our oil and gas is about gone, someone discovers a better use for them than setting them on fire?)

But, let's go a step further and use a technique used by disaster relief organizations, terrorist security people, and such, to formulate plans for worst-case-scenarios in their particular fields. Let's assume that there has been a little miscalculation and instead of having fifty years, before our gas and oil wells run dry, there's only a ten year supply left.

After debating the situation for a couple months and setting up special investigative committees to figure out who to blame, our politicians finally decide that robust action is in order. Their initial knee-jerk reaction was to declare war on any nation that's in a position to cut off our oil and gas imports. But this plan is abandoned when China subtly hinted that it wouldn't look favorably on any country that decided to take preemptive action against a democratic Iraq or a militarily-challenged Canada, for example. Besides, burning up our emergency oil reserves in the killing of innocent people might not be such a good idea anyway … maybe we might find a better use for it. Reluctantly, warfare is decided against and the robust act of fuel rationing is decided upon instead.

When the demands of the airlines; the entertainment and sports industries; commercial and residential heating; and such are provided for, it is decided that the fertilizer industry should be sacrificed. The farmers needs are ignored because, after all, they only represent two percent of the votes.

After the initial period of whining and toothpick chewing, grain farmers across the land realized that they might actually be better off without fertilizer. Sure, their crops might be half what they had been, but their relative position within the agricultural industry would be unchanged. As a matter of fact, they might actually be better off because poor yields would result in short supply and higher prices. The math is simple enough: half the yield at twice the price equals no change in income. Besides that, if there was only half as much grain to handle, storage and freight costs would be halved and net profits would actually be a little higher.

On the other hand, the diversified farms, with their well established crop rotations and lack of dependence on fertilizer, would see no difference in their crop yields, but their net income would increase because of the higher commodity prices. No longer would they be looked down upon as the retarded step-sisters of the industry. How sweet it is to contemplate!

Of course, the above scenario is a bit flippant but it is not totally inaccurate. A shortage of natural gas will cause a shortage of nitrogen fertilizers. This in turn will result in high prices for the little that is available and it could also mean that using fertilizers at previous levels would no longer be profitable. A shortage of oil would obviously have similar effects on farm fuel costs.

If some version of this scenario were to become reality, then crop yields would drop drastically. In such a case, it is conceivable that North America would no longer be a net exporter of grain and other agricultural produce. Imagine the effect this would have on the countries which depend on our exports, not to mention the effect it would have on our own economy.

Waiting until we run out of oil and gas before preparing for that day is not a sane thing to do. The bountiful crops that we are so accustomed to are not possible without the application of liberal amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. My guess is that North America's agricultural production could be cut by fifty percent without the use of these chemicals. Not only would the yields be drastically reduced, but weeds would have a field day … pardon the pun.

I know, from personal experience, how long it takes to bring soil back to full production once it has lost its fertility and becomes infested with weeds. Although all situations would not be the same, on our farm it took approximately twenty years to make a significant improvement in soil fertility and weed reduction. With a four-year crop rotation—three years in grass and one year in grain—each parcel of land was only broken up five times in those twenty years. Plainly it is only when the land is broken up that the organic matter from the grass phase is incorporated into the soil.

Although I have no proof, it seems that the improvements to the fertility of the soil are more-or-less uniform with each succeeding cycle. In other words, there doesn't seem to be much difference in the percentage of improvement gained from the first rotation cycle or the tenth cycle. There is a gradual but uniform improvement each time, as far as I can see. At any rate, it takes a number of years to make a significant improvement. This is one reason why I believe it is imperative that we prepare for the end of oil and gas long before we run out of these resources.

The transition from a chemical-based system of farming to a natural system must be made in an orderly step-by-step manner. It cannot be done in one swell foop. This might best be understood by looking at it from the view point of one individual farmer.

The farmer's top priority will obviously be survival. He must continue to make a living and pay his bills while making the change from chemical-dependent cropping to quasi-organic (sustainable) cropping. He will likely have to gradually make the change over a period of years. The change will not necessarily be limited to discontinuing the use of synthetic chemicals. In many cases it will also involve some changes in machinery, setting up a long term crop rotation system and starting up a livestock enterprise of some kind. All such changes take time and cost money. If he is to survive the transition, the costs of such changes must be spread over a sufficient period of time. It must be realized that, during much of the transition period, the farmer's income, both gross and net, will likely be reduced significantly. Why? Because it will take several years to bring the soil back to its productive potential.

If I were a grain farmer faced with the problem of converting to a diversified farming operation, I would go about it in the following way … assuming that I have a full line of grain farming machinery and no livestock facilities at all, including fences.

First of all, I would seed from one-sixth to one-forth of my land (depending upon whether I planned to have a six-year or four-year crop rotation) to a grass-legume crop. I would do this by seeding an oat and grass mixture so that there would be a crop of oats to harvest, either as grain or forage, in the year of seeding. The use of fertilizer on this crop would be optional, but herbicides could not be used because they would kill out the under-seeded grass and legume seedlings.

Assuming that I have no haying machinery, I have the options of harvesting the oats as grain; buying a baler and making oat hay; selling the standing crop to a neighboring farmer for hay; or hiring someone to bale the hay for me.

If I choose to make hay of the oats, I have the options of selling it, or buying some cattle to feed it to. Selling the hay is simple enough, but the cattle option will necessitate building some sort of confinement facilities like fences and corrals. Then there is the matter of the class of cattle to buy … feeders or breeding stock being two options. Since I am making long range plans, I opt for breeding stock.

Basically, the pattern for the next few years is now established. Each year I will seed another parcel of my land to grass and add to my cattle herd and facilities and exchange grain machinery for haying machinery as necessary. Eventually all of my land will have been seeded to grass and then the whole cycle will repeat itself and my farm will have been fully converted to a sustainable diversified operation.

For those that opt to continue in a predominantly grain business, but wean themselves from their chemical dependencies, they will have to use a rotation scheme that may only involve grasses in one or two years per cycle. Of course it will take longer to build up the soil this way and the best use will not be made of the grass, but it will help and eventually the soil tilth and organic matter will be improved.

In reality, there are probably as many variations of ways to make the transition as there are individual farms. The main point of the examples given is to demonstrate that, no matter how it's done, it's going to take time to convert to a sustainable long term soil management system.

To be continued - if any interest is indicated…

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Have a warm day…

Floyd