Author Archives: wingedelmfarm

From the Curmudgeon’s Desk

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The talkative teenager

The Kid mistakes my compliment on his work spreading hay around the barn as an affirmation of my interest in chatting and consequently an invitation for him to talk … a lot. Never, ever, I remind myself, underestimate the loquacity of a teenage boy. He stops working while relating another story, so I finally cut him off in mid-flow: “If you must talk, then you must work at the same time.” He complies. And that slows him down. But just a bit.

Sweet Gum in the snow

 

The one-handed boy

Always with just the right hand, the Kid reaches out to do a task, leaving his left hand waving around on its own, independent course. “Help me hook up the bush hog.” He stoops, reaches with his right and tries to shift a tractor link. I suggest using both hands, and for a moment he embraces the two-fisted approach. Within a minute, though, he’s back to the one-handed action. I’m flummoxed. Is he practicing for the eventuality of a late-in-life stroke? A career at the Las Vegas slots? Has he made a Lentian resolution to put himself in the shoes of the one-armed man?

The next day he’s once again forking soiled barn bedding into a wheelbarrow singlehanded. I try once more. “Kid, use both of your hands on that pitchfork. You’ll find it a heck of a lot easier.” He does and it is. Yet after only a few minutes he reverts to the right-only approach.

The cause and the impossible solution to this worker’s handicap finally dawns on me that afternoon as I watch the Kid collecting eggs. There are only so many eggs you can pick up while holding them all in the same hand, and I’m really curious how it will resolve. I watch from the doorway of the coop. He gets creative (he’s certainly not lacking in intelligence in solving the challenge, albeit in a roundabout fashion) and snags a nearby bucket, tucking the handle into the crook of his left arm. This allows the heretofore torpid left hand to semi-reengage with life as the right goes on collecting eggs.

That’s when the proverbial light bulb finally comes on and I point out the obvious: “Kid, if you would stop carrying your phone around day and night, you might just remember God gave you two hands.” He stares at me blankly for a moment. Then a comprehending smile spreads across his face. The man is making a joke, so he laughs.

 

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Reading this weekend: Born in a Bookshop (V. Starrett). This autobiography of the famous author and bibliophile has surprised me in all the best ways. While it is certainly an accounting of his reading and collecting in life, it is also the story of early 20th century journalism in Chicago. There are unexpected stories of his war reporting from Mexico, where he hangs out with Jack London and his wife, with whom he goes shopping while waiting on the fighting to happen (which it never does). He shares numerous accounts of breaking into gruesome murder scenes to take pictures. Starrett shares the recollection of fellow journalist Carl Sandburg’s routinely buying a mystery book, then tearing out the first thirty pages and tossing the rest, saying he only needed thirty pages to read while commuting home on the train). He recounts playing hooky in D.C. with a young FDR while they scouted rare books and drinking and writing stories with Ben Hecht (of “The Front Page” stage and movie fame) … and I’m only halfway through the book.

This Forgotten Valley

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That in this blighted landscape there are still places of settled beauty is a comfort: a chance to glimpse what went before and could be again. Yet it is also sad—that the occasion of removing oneself from an anywhere to a somewhere should be so jolting as to be noticeable; that the simple absence of suburbs, strip malls, check-cashing joints, derelict commercial ventures, new fast-food emporia serving up empty calories for the lost, the bloated, and the lonely, before those buildings too slough off into the accumulating mire of abandoned infrastructure on the edges is somehow distinctive.

On this morning I am in my truck driving on a remote road in another state on my way to pick up ewe lambs earmarked to become next year’s breeding ewes. The valley, not the vertical, winding, densely wooded path I expected, is everything one would not imagine so close to the heart of empire. Now, I’m not going to name this forgotten valley, because it deserves privacy. Of course it is not inconceivable that some AI algorithm or, more likely, a real estate developer is already mining the coordinates to bring this place into the commercial fold of modern capital, thus ruining it forever.

This forgotten valley is a working valley. It is not the preserve of the newly arrived affluent in gated enclaves, who provide gainful employment to the natives by allowing them to scrub their toilets and polish their antiques. Nope, this is the genuine somewhere, a rare gem just a few inches on the map from D.C., that expanding Borg cluster of the soulless, the clueless, the grifters, and the grafters. So just in case this valley remains off their maps, let us keep it hidden, mum’s the word, ok?

This valley consists of open, gently rolling hills. Up to five miles across, it is protected by steep forested ridges on either side. Every few miles I pass through a compact hamlet, and for the last hour and a half to my destination I do not spot a single fast-food restaurant or—and this is more tragically impressive—a dollar store. There are plenty of family diners, small-time tractor dealers, and a scattering of feedstores. Although primarily a valley of crops and livestock, there are also active signs of small quarrying. I see none of the usual small prefabricated factories that so often dot a rural landscape.

The housing stock is mostly modest older ranchers and the classic T-shaped farmhouse so prevalent in the East, a few mobile homes, but to my relief, no McMansions.  A handful of pre-Civil War homes of stone, set back in groves of oaks, signals an agrarian prosperity both past and present. There are even a few water mills that, although no longer in service, are nicely kept up, perhaps awaiting the day in a future low-tech world when reuse makes sense. This is not an empty valley—homes, both clustered and isolated, are to be seen for the full length of my drive—but no strip mall architecture assaults me as I approach and leave each community. While a few farms advertise places to stay, and many promote eggs, produce, and hay for sale, nothing signals the desperation of the developer to sell both virtue and heritage.

At my destination, a slightly stooped nonagenarian in overalls greets me in a pickup by his mailbox. His son is busy in a field spreading manure with a tractor; his grandson is in Pennsylvania dropping off lambs. I trail the old man in my truck as we bump along to where his son is working. Once the son is collected, I follow behind, down a good mile of a family road with half a dozen homes belonging to the three generations who work the 500-acre farm, before arriving at a barn next to a formerly fine brick two-story, now unoccupied and crumbling. The son tells me it is the family home, built in 1833 after the clan had settled in this valley.

A few more minutes of introduction, and we turn our attention to the ewe lambs for sale. I select four chunky four-month-olds to bring home. We load the lambs, exchange cash, and say our goodbyes. I turn to retrace the hour-and-a-half drive through this lovely, remote somewhere valley and then embark on another five hours of interstate, cheek by jowl with too many others driving to anywhere. Finally, a little after seven in the evening, stiff of neck following a total of twelve hours on the road, I pull onto the gravel driveway of our farm. Cindy is waiting for me in the dark by the mailbox.

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For those of you who listen to podcasts, I have been interviewed on a couple over the past few months (promoting my book). The experience of being asked questions and having to respond on the spot is certainly an interesting and new one for me. It has taught me that I’m better at coming up with an answer after a few days of mulling it over. Alas, that is not the format on offer.

A one-and-a-half-hour interaction with two hosts (Josh and Jason) of the Doomer Optimism podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=MIhsXKq0ZzY

A thirty-minute Q&A with John Murdock of the Brass Spittoon podcast: frontporchrepublic.com/2024/01/brian-miller-on-kayaking-with-lambs/ (Link is near the bottom.)

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Reading this weekend: Death Comes for the Archbishop (W. Cather), a slow, evenly paced novel in which nothing much happens but a man’s life. And—I’m just guessing here, having the last third yet to finish—it might just end with his death.

Farm Journal Notes: 2023

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Most enjoyable or interesting books read:

  • The Epistles of Horace (Horace)
  • A Short Walk in Hindu Kush (E. Newby)
  • Memories of Gascony (P. Koffman)
  • Social History of Bourbon (G. Carson)
  • True Grit (C. Portis)
  • King’s Day (T. E. Porter)
  • Burden of Southern History (C. V. Woodward)
  • Complete (3 volumes) Calvin and Hobbes (Waterson)
  • One Man’s Meat (E. B. White)
  • The Last Farmer (H. Kohn)

    2023 readings

It is the wind: Discovered evidence of a tornado down Ross. Rd, Stockton Valley, and Pond Creek. Dozens of shattered and splintered trees in a miles long path. Nothing reported by weather service.

Timing: Anxious to check on Ginger this morning, due to farrow. And…farrowed!

Farewell to a pet: January 30th. Chip is in in final stages of kidney failure. 19, which is quite old for an outdoor cat…. Chip died at 11 am, buried him in the garden.

Connections: Thinking about when we only had three news stations. There seemed to be much more common purpose. Less is more.

Over-sowing pastures: Rye, red and white clover, 7-top turnip sown in three sheep pastures.

The cold: 3-15-23. This is one of the coldest days in March (23 degrees). Although it doesn’t compare with April 7th, 2007 when the temps dropped to 18 degrees. 95% of the Tennessee apple crop was destroyed.

The cold, revisited: 3-19-23, 19 degrees at 7am.

Achieving the proper life balance: 3-30-23. Highs in the upper 70’s. Sitting on the back deck smoking a cigar, sipping an Old Fashioned.

Off the farm: Drove out to Overhill nursery. Cindy picked up some bog plants for the pond. Took a lovely drive over the mountain to Tellico Plains for lunch at the bakery.

Sheep: Picked up some Dorset-Hamp crosses. If we can keep them alive, they will mark a change in the direction of our flock. Larger and meatier.

Publisher: 6-25-23. Turned final manuscript into publisher.

Dorper ram: Butchered on the farm, (June 29th) the Dorper ram. 14 for dinner on July 2nd. Smoked the ram for 8 hours in the China box. Expected high of 96 was cooled down by t-storm to 72 degrees. Dined on front porch.

Chanterelles: July 5th, two pounds harvested.

A Good Daily Harvest: July 19th. 1.5 bushels of Golden Delicious, 50 pounds of potatoes, sweet corn, and collards to the kitchen. Fed three tubs of “old” greens to hogs.

It is the wind, again: August 7th. Wind storm. Power out for 24 hours. Neighbors were without for 48. Trees down everywhere. We lost 2 dozen oaks across the farm. Many were snapped off. Tornado? Spent August 8th with chainsaw removing the largest that had fallen across the drive.

August 15th: 5.25 inches of rain. (note: this was the last until late November)

Hog news: High in 90’s, no rain. Ginger is not bred. So, bought barrows from Mike and Sabine to feed out for customers.

Paying the idiot tax: Tractor wouldn’t start. Couldn’t quickly find the problem. In the middle of haying. No time. So, paid an “expert” to trouble shoot. Corroded battery cables. $320. What a chump.

Hog news: Small boar brought in to breed Ginger. He is intimidated and runs away from her. We may have to get him lifts if he is to do the job.

Politics: Democracy is increasingly a chance to play a role as an extra in a play written, directed, and acted by others.

Book news: October 1st. The book is finally published. Feeling ridiculously pleased with the effort.

Cooking schedule for the coming week: October 3rd. Chicken and dumplings, seafood gumbo, beans and cornbread, pork dish with greens, pasta carbonara.

Three rules for a good day: Express gratitude. Work well. Don’t buy anything unneeded.

Women and Men, the real differences: Cindy spent most of the morning doing laundry and the afternoon working on a new table in the workshop. I skipped farm work. And went out and had a burger and a couple of beers with Tim, followed by a long nap. Cindy fixed dinner.

Resilience: How resilient is our farm? It is a question that can’t be answered until the reasons for asking it becomes “active”.

Weather: Hard freeze expected (October 31st).

New Year’s Eve: Nasty cold. 25 meat birds to butcher. Ginger (three failed breedings) to finally be hauled to slaughter on January 4th. Happy New Year.

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Reading this weekend: A Bookseller’s Tale (M. Latham), a marvelous work about why we read. How to Focus, a monastic guide for an age of distraction (J. Cassian). This last is another of the Princeton reprints of classics, each given a modern title.

 

 

 

 

Partings and Reminders

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The low winter sun is a trickster, part coyote. Freed from the confinements of summer’s leafy arbor, it shape-shifts across the horizon, always blinding the beholder no matter which direction he peers. Its glaring illumination finds me most days waving my hands in semaphore ballet simply to see where on the farm I am heading. Still, this morning I manage to glimpse a flicker of bright crimson in the perfect white light by angling my hands and spreading my fingers in deflection. It is a cardinal perched shoulder height in the hornbeam, plumped to substantial girth on this frozen January morning. I manage to outwit the sun and place him behind me, then take a few moments to stare at the red-robed fellow before me.

Folklore says seeing a cardinal is meant to remind us of those departed. If so, there is a lot of reminding going on on the farm. Pairs frequently nest in the muscadine vines, others favor the sweet gums, and at least one couple usually makes a home in the weigela at the southern edge of the yard next to the rusty wrought iron gate. This male appears to be by himself, which is not unusual, although it may be that his vivid plumage creates an impression of a bachelor life, while his mate, with her discreet browns, grays, and hints of red, remains present but hidden in plain sight. Then again, the pair won’t begin nesting until March, so he may simply be scouting, showing off, or spending some much-needed me time after the holidays. In any case, he finally flutters off and perches briefly on the livestock trailer parked to the north side of the house, before lighting in the top of the nearest winged elm. I cup my hands round my eyes so I can track his flight. Again, how did the sun shift directions?

My diversion ended, I approach the trailer and peer inside. It is full of fouled hay—first from accommodating twenty-two meat birds in the final days leading to their butchering, then from housing our still-unpregnant red wattle sow, Ginger, who spent her last night in the space—and it awaits cleaning.

Yesterday evening, gentle and trusting to the end, she followed me from her paddock into the trailer without question or falter. This morning, just after sunup, I walked her easily out of the trailer and into the pen at the slaughterhouse. I left her quietly waiting for the butcher to make his dramatic stop. Within minutes, I was sitting with a woman in the small cramped office discussing in practical terms how we wanted the carcass cut and packaged. It is a cruel world. But it can be kind, and sometimes both together. Ginger led a very good life—a sheltered stall with hay to burrow in; a large gravel lot and access to a grassy paddock; fresh produce, dairy, and mixed grains fed twice a day; plenty of scratches. She was never treated with anything but care and respect. She was given many more chances to succeed on our farm than those animals caught in the maw of the industrial farm system.

It is an old theme for us: that all of our actions have consequences, that even the most benign of actions, from hoeing the garden to shopping at the grocery, result in death. It is just that our modern world offers an all-too-convenient buffer, a spectator’s distance, that provides a camouflage, justifiable deniability for consequences. That is a position unavoidable in this farming life we lead: unwinding modernity one meal at a time.

After making a note in my pocket journal about cleaning the trailer, I head to the barn and finish my morning chores. Before arriving, my eye is once again caught by the familiar color. A quick fluttering of my own hands shields the light and reveals the cardinal, now flitting from branch to twig to branch in the nearby golden raintree, gentle and trusting in my presence.

Three Tales From the Farm

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I Am a VIP

August haying

It is true, yes, that there are moments as a farmer when my status as a VIP is confirmed. After all, I am known to multitudes. That these moments happen only between me and my livestock makes them no less important. So, for any of you yearning for that most modern of currencies, celebrity, for those of you who desire to feel valued, follow along with me as I fill up a bucket of feed near the barn.

The ewes who have been let out of their pasture to graze among the buildings hasten to my side from all points of the compass at the clanging of the lid. They form a tight scrum around me, like bodyguards protecting a pop star. The ones behind keep nudging me to move faster, perhaps afraid that my time in the open may expose me to assault, while the ones on either side stay firm against my thighs. The lead ewes keep turning around, making sure I’m safe and with them still. We march in lockstep across the grass, through the gates, to their feed trough. Only as we approach do they cease to see me as someone to protect. Like Roman legionaries who have missed a payroll, they abandon their post and impatiently begin to jostle, demanding that I yield if not an autograph then at least the contents of my bucket. Celebrity is such a fickle mistress.

Fowl Pox

We both looked at the small blisters covering his face, the eyes that were milky white and unseeing. Two days earlier he had stood next to me in the equipment yard, shifting his weight from foot to foot, head tilted as he listened closely in what we now know was the posture of the blind. But even seeing I saw nothing. The next day he stayed in the coop, in a corner, unable to defend himself against the younger rooster. I noticed, vaguely aware that something was wrong, and continued my chores. On the third day I bent down and picked him up by the feet, avoiding the three-inch spurs with difficulty, and cupped his back with my hand. Cindy examined him and recognized the blisters and unseeing eyes. He had fowl pox and needed to be removed immediately from the flock. It was possible he could recover, but old age would be working against him. I continued holding him on his back with feet grasped and walked to the barn. From the rack over a work table I removed a hatchet. I laid him across a railroad timber outside, stretched his neck over the side, and lopped off his head. His head and body in a five-gallon bucket, I placed the remains in the back of the pickup truck.

Cowboys and Ranches Belong West of the Mississippi

When I think of the habits of emigrants from our Western states, I’m reminded—likewise frequently and comically—of zooming down a sidewalk on my bike as a kid, then tumbling over the handlebars when I reached a section pushed up by the roots of an oak: both bring me up short. So when I say that the big man wearing a cowboy hat, his brand new dark blue jeans tucked inside fancy cowboy boots, stopped me cold, I understate. That he was also wearing spurs that stuck out a good three inches prompted me to ask the ladies behind the counter at the farmers co-op, “Are they filming a Western nearby?” How he drove away in that jacked-up fully-loaded brand new Ford F-150 Lightning with those three-inch spurs on his boots … well, I still both wonder and admire. But he did.

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Reading this weekend: the children’s book A Wrinkle in Time (M. L’Engle) and One Man’s Meat (E. B. White). I never had read the first till now, and I found it charming. Regarding the second, I had only read White’s children’s books. His essays, written from his Maine saltwater farm, are warm and funny and perfect for these cold December nights.