Farming tips:

1. Anytime you are in a hardware store buy a selection of the cheap crescent wrenches, vise-grips and a variety of screwdrivers that always seem to be located near the counter. Go home and place a selection in the barn, in the workshop, in the house, under the tractor seat or simply toss them at random around the barnyard. Because, experience has taught us that little trolls steal them each night. Spending money on the best is a waste of time.

2. Another trick is to spray the handles red on small tools. Once you’ve dropped your favorite pair of fence pliers in the pig muck you will value the neon color sprayed on the handles.

3. Raise your pigs next to the garden. One man’s rotten tomato is a pig’s idea of lunch.

4. When taking down a barbed wire fence. Roll up segments in 6-10ft loops. Place those loops at random around the farm on top of t-posts. That way they are always handy for emergency fence repairs after the cattle have gotten out.

5. Mow in long narrow rectangles. It saves time because you have less travel time at the end of each headland. And, it makes your fields look neat. Remember that William Cobbett said that the moral heart of a man is to be judged by the appearance of his fields, garden and home.

6. Always plant a Rose of Sharon. Late summer you will be glad to see the spring colors.

7. Make sure to plant jonquils for the same reason in late winter.

8. Use old hay as bedding material. Your cattle and hogs love to sleep in it. And, because they generate tons of manure it is turned into compost. Spread it on your hayfield in late March.

9. Walk your fence lines once a month. Every windstorm drops a branch or a tree and usually on your fence.

10. How to take down a barn in one easy step. Chop a hole in the roof and wait ten years.