Manure

We bought our manure spreader over five years ago. The process reminded me that salesmen are the same the world over.

“Are you looking for a 25 or 50 bushel, PTO or ground driven, metal or wooden”, he asked?

Stalling, not sure of what he was asking and unwilling to admit that fact, I replied, “Well…we are not sure if the tractor can pull anything larger than a 50”.

“What size tractor?”

“We have a Kubota M4900.”

“Hell son, I’ve pulled a 125 bushel with a little old 8N!” “How many horses do you have on your place, anyway?”

Horses! With these guys it always comes back to horses. To accuse someone of horse farming is a dismissive and insulting thing to say, without the individual on the receiving end knowing they have been put in their place.

Translation: Hey, are you one of these interloping, dumb ass Yankees, spending too much money on land, driving prices up? You hobby farmer, raising horses, letting them eat the grass down, and not enough sense to know the difference between a 25-bushel manure spreader and 125-bushel spreader!

I said, “We raise cattle and hogs”. Which is of course a white lie; we do raise cattle and hogs. But, we also have two horses that eat the grass down to nothing when they have the opportunity.

After a little more banter about the weather and how glad we were for rain, comparing rain totals across the valley everywhere from Bean Station to Cedar Fork, Harriman to Kingsport, Stinking Creek to Ten-mile, I managed to slip in that I was from Lake Charles, Louisiana: Thus establishing the fact that I was not a dumb-ass Yankee. (Well…some might say I’m at least correct on the Yankee bit).

He allowed that he was from Houston, TX. Cindy stayed mum on her roots in the mid-west. American provincialism dictates that you play your home roots card with care when buying manure spreaders.

He lived up in Cosby on 170 acres, driving an hour and half each way to work selling farm equipment in Maryville. I said, “Owning land in Cocke County is a long way from growing up in one of the biggest cities in the US.”

Translation: Hey, are you one of those interloping, dumb-ass urbanites, spending too much on your land, driving three hours each day to stand here in your overalls, pretending to be a down home Tennessee boy? 8N my hat!

Subtle insults issued, still with smiles on our faces, like dogs peeing on tires; we talked of boudin and hurricanes. Cindy, above the fray, steered the conversation back to the spreaders. Oh, right, manure spreaders.

We did buy our manure spreader but not from him: A 75 bushel spreader, metal and PTO driven…in case you were asking.