Farmer B's World of Dirt Farming

an old potato

2012-01-05T17:57:00.002-05:00

zzzzzt!

2012-01-05T17:53:00.001-05:00

liquid bean worm

2011-08-24T03:46:00.000-04:00

not some weird freakshow

2011-08-01T17:22:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I can't figure out why he ended up with a green shirt, either. But that dirt farming just ruins a guy. Just ruins a guy.

a life of shame and debauchery

2011-07-23T01:20:00.002-04:00

Play That Banjo

2011-07-20T17:58:00.002-04:00

you can do magic

2011-07-14T09:59:00.000-04:00

lost my mud

2011-07-06T18:53:00.000-04:00

awful smelling chemical

2011-01-24T17:06:00.003-05:00

huggy bug

2011-01-03T16:19:00.000-05:00

looks pretty

2010-12-31T17:58:00.002-05:00

too much fudge

2010-12-03T03:01:00.000-05:00

skepticism

2010-11-28T17:56:00.000-05:00

city boy

2010-11-20T17:18:00.000-05:00

this old thing?

2010-10-24T10:35:00.002-04:00

Well Within My Danger Zone

2010-10-19T17:12:00.002-04:00

horseradish

2010-10-09T18:23:00.002-04:00

another wacky farming mishap on my watch

2010-09-28T18:01:00.000-04:00

eyebrows, they're coming back

2010-09-19T15:14:00.000-04:00

a visit from Abbott

2010-09-08T18:04:00.002-04:00

allow me

2010-09-08T18:02:00.002-04:00

skepticism

2010-07-19T05:20:00.000-04:00

whatever that means, man

2010-07-12T17:32:00.002-04:00

awful smelling chemical

2010-06-06T10:23:00.002-04:00

Fleet Farm Supply

2010-05-13T18:01:00.002-04:00

that's how weird I get...

2010-02-23T07:43:00.001-05:00

Posted via web from Warren Jason Street

i must run it over

2010-02-06T23:19:00.000-05:00

metaphor

2010-02-03T00:25:00.000-05:00

awkward

2010-02-01T00:24:00.000-05:00

the gold standard

2010-01-31T00:21:00.000-05:00

horny bear with no honey

2010-01-21T00:23:00.000-05:00

you're the dung beetle in my life

2010-01-21T00:06:00.000-05:00

throwing crackers at city folk

2010-01-11T00:25:00.000-05:00

dickweed

2009-11-26T00:50:00.003-05:00

Aldo Nova

2009-11-09T23:31:00.002-05:00

whoa

2009-10-26T22:41:00.001-04:00

philosophy

2009-10-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

Smart Land Management and Farming Stone Age Style

2009-10-16T21:01:00.000-04:00

Now, don't this look interesting:

Most of the land was under management across the south of Britain with very few areas left untouched. The land around each farm was under the plough and producing a large range of crops very efficiently. The outer field boundaries were either wattle fencing or live hedges. Where the cultivated area extended up the hillsides,over a period of time the soil in each field slipped down the slope, and at the lower boundary it created a terrace called a lynchet bank. Further out from the farm, the surrounding hills and open land was used to graze a variety of animals. The land alongside any rivers was used for meadows, hay making in the summer and water-meadow grazing in the winter. Any area of woodland within reach was used to produce the timber required by pollarding and coppicing.

There isn't much difference between the way that I farm and the stone age farmers who had wattles and such. I don't have wattles. I'm behind those people, actually, but my soybeans? My soybeans were excellent this year. They put me miles ahead of the stone age farmer.

doing it for the soybeans

2009-10-13T22:21:00.000-04:00

blowed up real good

2009-09-24T23:37:00.000-04:00

Horseradish, Darn How I Love You

2009-09-13T23:10:00.000-04:00

Damage Deposit

2009-09-08T16:39:00.000-04:00

The Oatmeal Bandit

2009-09-08T16:38:00.000-04:00

Too Dumb to Be a Real Farmer

2009-08-27T23:47:00.001-04:00

This is my busy time of year, spraying and keeping things in order while my plants grow. You would think that I'd just go out and leave them and stay in the house in front of a big block of ice and a metal-blade fan all summer.

Nope! Bugs and critters and the elements are working against my crop, and I have to be vigilant.

I don't know where this poor, misguided soul found the time to ruin his field:

That's got to be about the worst job of crop-writing I've ever seen. Was the fellow drunk from something he made in his own half-assed still? That fellow is too dumb to be a real farmer. He's one of those city boys that put on a flannel shirt and thought he could farm.

Well, back to listening in on party line.

that darned tornado confused me

2009-08-27T20:04:00.001-04:00

Cooking

2009-08-27T20:02:00.000-04:00

Creamed Corn

2009-08-27T20:01:00.000-04:00

medical care circa 2009

2009-08-17T15:35:00.000-04:00

Make it Like Thundercats

2009-08-12T13:26:00.000-04:00

Gonna burn that town to the ground

2009-08-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

britches

2009-08-04T11:36:00.000-04:00

It doesn't weird me out like it used to

2009-08-03T23:34:00.000-04:00

Saving the world from Roy

2009-07-27T14:46:00.000-04:00

I spent the weekend saving the world from Roy. What did you do with your weekend? Did you waste it? Did you spend all day on Saturday wondering why the dog looks better in a dress than you do? If so, I want to know you. Yep. I really, really do.

Corn is nothing to sneeze at

2009-07-27T14:41:00.001-04:00

Nothing gets me riled up more than people who think corn is hilarious:

For an issue advocate trying to win the hearts and minds of a skeptical public and of (some) skeptical lawmakers, "Cindy," who blogs for the National Corn Growers Association, sure comes off as arrogant and dismissive in her latest post about ethanol.

"The usual suspects are at it again," Cindy begins, going on to describe a set of letters sent to senators last week asking for "scientific integrity" in formulating ethanol policy.

This is an old tactic, characterizing an opinion as somehow bad because it's being repeated by the same people who had previously expressed it. It theoretically makes the opinion sound sinister, or easily written off, coming as it does from the same old people. But of course there's nothing particularly sinister about opposition to ethanol coming from groups like the Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth, the Natural Resources Defense Council, or various food and grocery lobbying groups.

Cindy called out the group for pursuing its own interests, as if this, too, were somehow wrong. (The environmental groups and food companies were joined in the letters by the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, which might be what really set Cindy off. That group, of course, would rather you buy more gasoline and less ethanol.)

Since I don't understand what this thing called "snark" is, let me explain to you what a dirt farmer thinks:

If I can't make money from growing corn, I'm not going to grow corn.

If someone can liquify the corn and put it into a gas tank, I'm all for that. Just don't tell me how it is done. It would spoil the magic for me.

Dirt Farming Considered

2009-07-20T10:41:00.000-04:00

I love me some dirt farming, especially when it is mixed up with horses, manure, and whatnot:

Necessity is the mother of evolution. Julie is a professional horse trainer first, dirt farmer second. People bring their horses to her for all kinds of problems, from anxiety to intensive, around the clock post-op recovery. She also offers riding lessons and has taught classes in horse care and stable management for the past 25 years. But in a global corporate business climate where small independent farms need to compete against enormous agribusinesses which receive billions of dollars every year in government subsidies, there is no such thing as a free agricultural market. To survive requires real economic creativity. Selling organic compost made from horse manure solves a financial problem and an environmental problem at the same time. Financially, the side-business helps to pay bills, keeping the horse business going, and pays for new expenditures, like the monthly payments on the truck they needed to purchase for the operation.

Environmentally, the operation offers a consistent way to manage manure, which can be a real issue on a horse farm. Manure is a natural by-product of Julie’s main business. Consuming 20 Ibs. of hay and 15 gallons of water daily, a single horse produces 9 tons of manure annually. This could be a serious problem, since Julie’s White Wood farm is located on an ecologically-sensitive stretch of land west of Route 80. Smack in the middle of a main watershed and major greenway, the land exhibits a spectacular assortment of beings. “Tons of deer, millions of bats, a bazillion bluebirds, snakes, coyotes, bears,” Patty tells me. “My dog Hap ran off with the most beautiful coyote.”

The sheer abundance of life requires a special mindfulness of the delicate balance of living beings and natural systems. “We’ve always been concerned to do everything we can to reduce our impact on our environment here.” Julie says. For instance, flies can be a really big problem on a dirt farm, as the horse manure smells like candy to a fly. Instead of using chemical insect poison, which injects toxic chemicals into the nutrient cycles, Julie and Patty periodically release tiny wasps which eat fly eggs and then die. The result: neither flies nor poisons anywhere near the farm. Their work on the farm was recently formally acknowledged. This year, the farm won a Horse Farm of Environmental Distinction Award for being an ecologically-sustainable horse farm. As Patty explains, “We’d like to be a model for other farmers who want to do this.”

I don't know about a "delicate balance," however. I tend to find that "delicate balance" doesn't work so well when I'm trying to get my tractor out of the culvert after it rumbled into gear and got away from me while I was cleaning out the corn auger. There isn't anything delicate left on my farm. My doggone pigs took care of that, and I haven't had pigs for a decade or more.

Hobo Train

2009-07-20T09:46:00.000-04:00

Barn Roof Fell In

2009-07-05T23:20:00.000-04:00

What Dirt Farming Is Like

2009-07-02T22:27:00.000-04:00

You CAN fight city hall

2009-07-02T20:29:00.000-04:00

Oh my

2009-07-02T20:28:00.000-04:00

Calamities...

2009-07-02T20:26:00.000-04:00

Farming Hijinks

2009-06-15T22:18:00.000-04:00

Gopher Football

2009-06-09T23:17:00.000-04:00

Got any orange juice?

2009-06-03T19:22:00.000-04:00

When Disaster Strikes

2009-06-03T19:21:00.000-04:00

google0e76a02e6ccae518.html

2009-05-28T19:52:00.001-04:00

Yearning

2009-05-28T08:19:00.000-04:00

Talking to the little bean worm

2009-05-22T23:26:00.000-04:00