Farm Thoughts 3

Don't push your luck. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve. Never take on too much because you'll end up doing everything a little less well. Unless you have a large enough community that is but even then you have to accept that there are limits.

Last night the three sheep got out as we were trying to corral them back to their home pen for the night. It was sunset, probably too late to start. The sun was a magical orange, the colour you get when you mix orange juice and cranberry juice. Stunning, but they all are once you learn to look. We had done this over a dozen times before but these sheep are skittish and you never know what they're going to do. They rounded the corner and saw us, in our usual places. That was enough. They quickly turned away and broke out into a field.

By this point, another pair of farm inhabitants, our horses turned up to check out what these crazy humans were up to. The sheep proceeded to cut into the horses' fenced in field; fenced for horses not for small sheep.

An almost-tragically comical scene developed. Both horses reared up and were hot on the sheep's heels. Did they mean to kill these small, black intruders? Were they just playing? It seemed real enough to us. The earth shook under their mighty hoofs. I have to admit that I laughed as the scene worsened.

Happily for the sheep, they escaped the horses. Trapped against a fence they blazed a trail straight for me and my trusty dog, Buck. Scared from their ordeal they broke through our line. Buck just watched them pass while I was almost bowled over. My moment, missed.

The sun was dipping ever lower and the shadows grew longer and longer. The sheep made it up the road to the neighbour's house. They led us on a bicycle chase there, no luck. Then they disappeared as we herded them back to the house. Searching for black sheep by flashlight proved fruitless and we retired to our beds.

These sheep were scared and never much cared for us anyway (the feeling is mutual). We thought we might never see them again as the coyotes hunt in darkness. But after a four hour morning search we found them with the help of a dozen smiling neighbours. Eventually they became trapped in a fenced in swimming pool and we lassoed them and bundled them into a truck for the journey home.

A monumental waste of time. Hours gone from our brief lives. I wish the sheep nothing but ill but really how can I blame them? And they did make me laugh, when they met the horses. What would life be without a few chases now and then?

Still my lesson in this is not to overextend oneself. To realize that there comes a moment when you have too many animals, or things or tools or clothes. We do not always need to grow and spread like a cancer. Perhaps there is a wider lesson in all this.

Next Crisis Please

Pile another log on the fire. Today Gordon Brown, the gutless British Prime Minister (just when you thought no one would be worse than Tony Blair) warned that soaring oil prices represented: "the most worrying situation in the world". They are just touching $140 a barrel.

Ha! What about the food crisis or is that too last week? What about climate change? Hail just destroyed much of the greens on the organic farm I'm working on over the weekend, not to mention all the flooding on the Prairies. What about the resurgent Taliban breaking out their comrades from an Afghan jail? Aren't terrorists the biggest threat we face?

Unfortunately our "leaders" and states can't handle complexity. They like neat little packages and one dimensional issues. News flash, nothing is one dimensional about human society or the earth. And you can bet your bottom dollar that out leaders and their bureaucrats aren't going to learn how to handle these threats any time soon.

And really what is there to handle and control? This is all our fault. We being civilized humans. We thought we were being so smart. Didn't we realize that oil was not an infinite resource? And didn't we realize that burning all that fuel would fuck up the planet and mess up climates from pole to pole? Were we not paying attention to the fact that industrial agriculture uses more calories to grow food than you get out (not the case with small, non-industrial farms by the way)? And surely we must all recognize that we ignore injustice and starvation around the world while our waistlines expand ever outward. And we think there's no justification for "terrorists" and make ridiculous statements like "they can't stand freedom".

You reap what you sow.

We are entering a very dangerous time. Civilization is about to go down hard because it's been built on such dodgy and shortsighted foundations. The only salvation is to learn as much as you can so you're actually a useful person and would be indispensable in a future small community. No one will care pretty soon whether you can type fast, cook with saffron or research a species of tree frog in the Congo. Be useful at any cost (love, employment, family) dear reader; surely you can see the writing on the walls as clearly as anyone else? If others can't listen what else can you do but walk away?

Yet just this morning I heard a man arranging for an education fund for his young child. Hate to ruin your day but . . .

Farm Thoughts 2 - Distant

The global economy is frustrating, violent, unjust and just plain weird. Unfortunately most farms participate fully in the global economy. They grow corn and soy for animal feed so some can eat meat while others go hungry. They also grow corn for ethanol and rely on massive chemical inputs to do so. And in the end, they hope to sell their farms so they can pass something on to their children.

The weirdest part for me is how far most food travels including our locally grown food. Canada can grow almost anything apart from rice and coconuts. Yet still we grow food and send it around the world to be sold instead of being consumed locally. For instance, Canada grows apples and sends them to Australia and New Zealand for instance. At the same time those countries grow apples and send them back to us.

Surely you've seen a New Zealand apple in a grocery store?

A more local example that I saw firsthand the other day were ginseng farms. Southern Ontario grows massive amounts of ginseng to be sold to China. How can it possibly be profitable for China to buy ginseng from us? Wouldn't it make more sense for China to grow its own ginseng to save on all kinds of cost? Then fields used here for ginseng could grow food to be consumed locally instead of buying say apples or wheat from China.

It's almost as if the fuel used to transport the food around the world doesn't exist, much like the associated greenhouse gas emissions. And the funniest part is that no one finds this weird in any way. It's normal. I thought capitalism was all about efficiency but in the end it seems waste is the lifeblood of the global economy.

Farm Thoughts 1 - Order and Chaos

There is something of a generation gap in farming as exemplified by concepts of order and chaos. As a farmhand on an organic farm, I, and my fellow farmers, are constantly told that our farm is not proper enough, that it is cluttered and disorderly. A true farm, therefore, must contain no clutter, all straight lines, perfectly cut grass and branches and monocultures.

For instance, we are told that branches trimmed from apple trees must be burned immediately so that the clutter is removed from sight; heaven forbid they become home to insects or small mammals, thereby improving the farm ecosystem (if there is such a thing anymore).

The most common complaint is that the grass is too high and unruly. Farmers in our area spend ridiculous amounts of time mowing their lawns in order to conform to this norm. Not just a small lawn either, sometimes upwards of two acres or more. What harm is there in tall grass? And the drudgery of the mowing; it's not for nothing that teenagers hate mowing the grass. And good luck if you have dandelions or clover interspersed with your Kentucky bluegrass.

In addition, all trees must be planted in perfectly straight lines (in violation of all natural laws) and mixed crops are discouraged (why not a ten acres of only corn or soy). Chemical inputs are necessary to maintain these unnatural systems regardless of the cost as is heavy, oil dependent machinery.

These ideas of order also cross into personal appearance. The farmer of the older generation must never show dirt or dust on his or her clothes. They must be pristine at all times, especially if one is traveling into "town". I can understand the desire to be clean but surely this is a denial of our lives in the dirt. Also likely this desire for personal cleanliness is tied into concepts of class, whereby farmers were once (and likely still are) treated as menial professions, not the foundation of our communities that they should be.

Having said all that, the new generation of farmer, I've come to understand, is also concerned with order and chaos. Chaos is paramount, especially in appearance. The farmer must look the part: dirt under nails, dusty, torn, patched clothes, rough and tanned skin. If you don't present a number of these attributes you are not "farmer enough". Admittedly, these thoughts arise only in consideration of organic farming but it definitely presents a marked contrast with the ideas of the older generation.