Tag Archives: South Roane Agrarian

There’s a 100 Percent Chance of Weather

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summer gardens 2

My garden…just not this year.

4:45 this morning and a neighbor maybe a half-mile away is shooting a rifle. Sounds like a .22, so he is probably potting raccoons or rats raiding his cattle feed. Or perhaps he is a man who likes to annoy the world. Regardless, I roll out of bed and make a pot of coffee.

We promise you rain, tomorrow: For a man who gets up so early, it is amazing how late I am in getting to haying this year. It is the perennial struggle to find just the right week between cooperative weather and work schedule. Driving back from Sweetwater yesterday, I observed that almost all the fields were either cut, raked, baled, or a combination. I have been holding off for one more good rain, but apparently all the moisture continues to dump on Texas. Meanwhile, our Roane County forecast is an ever-shifting horizon, the moisture always promised in another three days.

Beware the nine-banded armadillo: On yesterday’s drive back from town, just past the big hog roast in progress at the Luttrell community center, I spotted the distinctive and familiar remains of an animal ­on the road. The sighting was commonplace to me on the backroads of Louisiana growing up. Later that night at dinner with friends, we discussed what I’d seen. Our friend remarked that, coincidentally, she could’ve sworn she’d seen the same kind of animal a few days before, but she decided against it, since the critters are not known to live in these parts. But, sure enough, a quick bit of research and we found that the nine-banded armadillo has arrived in East Tennessee.

Busy little bees: In the immortal words of Margot Channing, “You are in a beehive, pal. Didn’t you know? We are all busy little bees, full of stings, making honey day and night. Aren’t we, honey?” Frantically painting more supers and putting together more frames, Cindy has struggled to keep pace with this spring’s exponential colony growth. The number of our hives has doubled to four, and the girls (all worker bees are female) seem unusually productive. Cindy keeps slapping on supers, and they keep filling them up. We look for a bountiful honey harvest come end of summer: I see horns of mead aplenty and a rereading of Beowulf in my future.

Let’s not go there: I fixed some chicken sausage gumbo last night. “Cindy, when you go out to feed, grab me an onion from the garden. There are three rows of weeds before you get to Petunia. Buried in the last row are the onions.” Typically, the dry years like this are the years the garden looks the best. So I really have no excuse … except the fencing. That massive project of closing in the ravine for the pigs was a time-suck this spring. Sigh.

Who cares why you crossed the road. Where are my damn eggs? After raising speckled Sussex almost exclusively for 16 years, we are going to make a change. We ordered 20 brown leghorn chicks, which arrived this week. They are the foundation bird for the modern leghorns and an egg-laying machine, purportedly. Our dual-purpose meat-and-eggs Sussex are too irregular in the latter department. So, unless the governor calls (and why would he?), the flock will go in the pot. We look forward to endless bowls of coq au vin, chicken paprikash, and gumbo.

Well, with coffee and the blog now done and the eastern sky alight with the approaching dawn, it is time for me to go dig holes and plant grapevines. One must take advantage of the coolness of the morning and reserve the afternoon for a siesta.

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Reading this weekend: The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: a southern girl, a small town, and the secret of a good life by Rod Dreher. A tribute to a sister who stayed put while her brother pursued a career and moved away from home. She died young at forty. A fascinating, emotional, look at family and small town culture.

Becoming Bluegill

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Leap Day 012

Becky at rest

The bluegill were popping the surface of the pond, loudly glopping up insects knocked off the tall grass at water’s edge by the rain. Becky, our English shepherd, was nudging a box turtle crossing in front of the log where I sat. I called her off, and she settled into the wet grass to wait me out.

After a long week away from the farm, I was exercising my favorite spiritual practice, staying put. I had just come off spending time in one of my least favorite cities, Seattle. Apart from a dramatic setting, good beer, and good food, it is much like most cities in this country: too many people, too much concrete, too many drivers — too much of everything — and too little civility. But, lest you think I’m picking on Seattle, let me confess that I just don’t like cities. Give me the chance of spending time in New York or London and I’d turn it down for the same time in a small rural city or town.

I appreciate and understand appropriate scale. I spent a night on this trip in McMinnville, Oregon, visiting with my niece. A small city of 20,000, McMinnville is relatively compact and accessible, surrounded by rich agricultural land. The vineyards, nurseries, and orchards that surround it keep the land prices high enough to fend off the encroaching growth of Portland … for now.

My niece and her fiancé are both employed in the wine business. They are definitely my kind of folks. They are hands on about all aspects of their lives, from the crawfish aquaponics to the raised garden beds, from the handmade staircase banister made from recycled oak staves to the sweat equity invested in renovating their modest home. They get the importance of community, family, food, and work. And after a few peripatetic years, they are now staying put.

Staying put fosters both conservation and conversation with place. It spares resources and allows us to become invested in protecting and being a part of the land, the community, and the people.

Moving about, on the other hand, translates into waste and disconnection. It’s a form of consumer capitalism that encourages a callous disregard for our planet’s resources and cohabitants. It removes the connections of kith and kin from our experience. It’s turns us all into emigrants and immigrants of the world, both spiritual and physical nomads from heart and hearth.

As someone who travels frequently for a job, I know the occasional enjoyments of travel. But I’m also all too aware of the impacts and demands I place on the earth in doing so. Like footprints on a fragile landscape, each trip we take, whether across the country or to the corner store, leaves an indelible mark.

Remaining in place certainly doesn’t solve all problems. But, as I got up from the log, I resolved to be more like the bluegill, the soil, and the fruit trees on our farm, staying put as if I didn’t have a choice.

 

An Ode to the Meat and Three

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Meat and three image

One assumes the stewed apples are stage right in this photo

Oh, how I yearn for the return of the meat and three. The simple joy of knowing that with a quick turn off the highway, any small town in the South yielded a diner that served up the sacred trifecta — that assurance brought comfort to restless, dark nights.

The daily break for lunch, the communion with one’s people. They have given way to the blight of Hardees and its ilk, the shuffling herd inching forward at the drive-through, devouring at the wheel, afterward pitching leftover hamburger wrappers out the windows. Our collective soul has been starved, even as our collective waistline has expanded.

We were a people of the garden once, the content of our favorite diner’s lunch fare reflecting the abundance of the seasons. Served in modest portions that allowed us to eat healthy, but not to excess or somnolence, the choices were varied and yet consistent: two or three meats, perhaps six or more vegetables. The daily decision was made while waiting for the iced tea to arrive.

The chicken was a smaller bird, the cuts done to maximize the number of servings. Each breast was cut in half, and when it was served on a small plate, it did not dwarf the other choices. The meatloaf was divvied into small squares, the country ham shaved in modest slices, the vegetables simply prepared with minimal seasoning.Meat and three 2

“Yes, ma’am, we are ready to order. Hmm, I will get the chicken today, dark meat, please. And let me have the okra and stewed tomatoes (which still counted as one side), turnip greens, and the crowder peas. Roll or cornbread? Cornbread, of course. Yes, ma’am, that is all today, no dessert for me. Peanut butter pie? Oh, that’s tempting, but, no.”

Y’all have a good day. We’ll see you tomorrow.

Farm Postcard: March 6

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Speckled Sussex flock

Speckled Sussex flock

Speckled Sussex: We have raised this breed for sixteen years. We have introduced outside stock twice. Good layers for a heavy breed, they are white-fleshed and make an excellent dinner fowl. They still have a natural instinct to go broody, setting and hatching out chicks each spring. The origins, like much of British fowl, come from the Dorking breed, introduced by the Roman’s in the invasion of 55 BC. More recently they evolved out of the Old Kent Fowl in the Kent and Sussex region of England. The first breed standards were established in 1864.

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Reading this weekend: “The Sussex” by Peter Smith, signed first edition (take that, Clem). And “American State Papers, Documents of the Congress of the United States, Public Lands Volume V, December 3rd, 1827 through March 3, 1829”. Published 1860. This has extensive records on our family and their settlement along Bayou que de Tortue, below Crowley, LA in the late 1700’s.

A Farming Guide to the Political Season

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Monday night we spent a couple of hours loading yearling wethers. They were destined for the slaughter the following morning. A fairly straightforward operation, Cindy pointed and I grabbed, hoisting the hundred-pound castrated ram lambs off their feet, the two of us then carrying them out of the barn. A better chute system would help, but we work with what we have today.

Wednesday night, in a rain just above freezing and a mud just below boot tops, we loaded a hog also earmarked for slaughter. We slid and stumbled in the muck, cursed and shot accusatory looks, then laughed with relief when she finally walked onto the trailer unassisted.

Thursday night, during a late season arctic blast, our newest sow farrowed 11 healthy piglets. We provided her an ample bedding of hay in an improvised stall in an open shed, adding a sheet of plywood to block the brutal north wind and a heat lamp for warmth, and, beyond providence, we trusted in the maternal instincts of an experienced mother to keep the newborns comfortable and well fed.Peggy 010

By Saturday the late-winter chill had begun to abate, and we were gifted with a rare sunny day and highs around 50 degrees. I spent the day crossing the smaller lamb paddocks on foot, oversowing a mix of oats, rye, and turnip seed that will hopefully provide some fast-growing early-spring forage for the sheep.

Early afternoon I took a break to help Cindy welcome 20 guests from the area Master Gardeners club. They were on hand to conduct a pruning practice in our half-acre orchard, which had been seriously neglected since the last big pruning two years ago — a pruning that is needed annually. In a short couple of hours, armed with pruning knives, loppers, and tree saws, the crew had cut away the deadwood, the water sprouts, and a host of unwanted branches.

Pruning crew gone, we retired to the front porch for a beer with friends, who afterward pitched in and helped with chores, then we all caravanned to another farm and joined in unloading some newly arrived weanling pigs.

I find that as the years go by, the rhetoric of conservatism and liberalism mean less and less to the life we live. Rhetoric aside, no candidate or party speaks for the rural farms or communities. Left or right the language is of the city: eternal growth and happy days (past, present, or future).

As a farmer I know a couple of truths. First, that the manure I sling has real value. Second, that growth is a part of a larger cycle and is never eternally sustained; that the wheel turns and winter always follows spring, summer, and fall.  

So, green grass must be carefully harvested and stored. Orchards must be pruned of deadwood, a diseased peach tree ruthlessly cut down and burned. Lambs serve a purpose and must be sold and eaten when that day comes. Sows will farrow, cute piglets will grow to 300 pounds before being butchered, and gardens will be tilled, planted, harvested, and prepared for the fallow months.

Manure needs to be conserved and used with care. Seed must be sown in order to grow. Resources must be nurtured. Infrastructure must be repaired and improved. And it is partnership and cooperation, not partisanship, that sustain connections in a rural community and on a farm.

And if adequately prepared for, the winter is traversed relatively unscathed into spring.