The Horse Drawn Corn Planter

At the top of Rawl's farm property, two driveways descended sharply to the west into the barn yard.  The milk room and milking barn were towards the top of the property, just below Rawl's small orchard.  The baby calf barn and hay barn were next, followed by the cow yard, silo, and feed bunker.  Towards the bottom of the barn yard, and off to the north a bit was Rawl's "older calf" pen and shelter, which housed the calves which were roughly three to nine months of age.  In one corner of the older calf shelter was an old green and yellow horse drawn corn planter.  I don't know if it was a John Deere or an Oliver corn planter, but I suspect it was a John Deere.  This corn planter and the OPEC oil embargo of '72-73 created a problem in my mind that I was determined to solve.

Having witnessed the impact of the OPEC oil embargo, first hand, as a ten year old, I was deeply concerned about how countries thousands of miles away could impact my life and the life of my family and fellow Americans so directly.  It was as if they could control much of our fate on a whim.  If they didn't like us, they could refuse to trade or sell oil to us.  That would drive up fuel prices, fertilizer prices, and other prices of items that depended on fuel for delivery.  I wondered what would happen if the oil stopped flowing.  What if there were no more oil for farming?  What if there were no more oil for automobiles?  What if there were no more oil for delivery trucks or the milk truck which came every other morning to pick up fresh milk from Rawl's farm?

As I observed the old, unused, horse-drawn corn planter, I came to the conclusion that at least Rawl had a corn planter if we had to go back to using horses for motive power if there were no diesel or gasoline for the tractors.

I didn't think through all of the energy requirements of the farm operation.  But I started to think through the issues.  The farm was old enough that is was quite clear that petroleum and electricity came well after the farm was established and made operational.  I assumed that there must be a way back to farming without dependence on middle-eastern oil producing countries.  I assumed we would be able to bring back horses and use them effectively to farm Rawl's modest farm of roughly 80 acres.

I had little experience with horses at that time.  I had ridden horses a few times, but had never really seen a draft horse or draft mule.  I don't think it was until years later when Budweiser started using Clydesdales in their advertising that I started to grasp the size of the draft horse breeds.  Rawl had never really farmed with horses, but I did not know that at the time.  I know he witnessed the tail end of the horse farming era.  I think he was glad to move on to tractors.  

But the cool thing about the idea of farming with horses is that horses could participate in raising their own energy sources.  They could eat pasture, hay, and maybe grain if they were working hard.  With pasture, they could even eliminate most human intervention.  The horses would not depend on OPEC.  The horses would depend on themselves and on the farmer(s).  That would be both Rawl and I, in my own mind at the time.

I started to wonder if we had gone too far with depending on other people or other countries for providing us with basic needs.  What if we had to take care of ourselves?  I had heard much about the Great Depression from my Grandparents.  What if fuel were rationed?  What if food were rationed?  What if other basic necessities were rationed?  The OPEC oil embargo and the horse-drawn corn planter set my mind in motion on the merits of being self-sufficient.  

Could one take care of himself and his family?  Could someone provide for himself and his family?  Could a community provide for their own needs?  Could a country provide for their own needs?  In short, I started asking the question, "How can someone provide for all of his or her own needs in the space in which they live?"

Job As a Ten Year Old on Rawl's Farm

I had a blast feeding Rawl's calves night after night.  I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have Rawl let me feed his calves.  I enjoyed working with the animals.  I enjoyed taking responsbility for the animals.  Rawl helped correct my feeding of hay and grain to make sure I was not feeding too much or too little.

At the end of a week's feeding of the calves, Rawl came into the calf barn, where I was feeding the calves.  He asked how I liked feed the calves.  He asked if I would be interested in continuing to do it.  He told me that he was busy with his other farming activities, and wondered if I would be willing to continue feeding the calves in the afternoon and morning for the foreseeable future.  I was delighted that he would be willing to let me continue to feed the calves.  The next question was stunning to me.  He asked me if I would work for him.  He told me he was willing to pay me $40 a month to come feed the calves in the afternoon and mornings.  Wow!  I could not believe my luck.  I was head over heels.  Not only would I get to feed the calves, but I would get paid for it as well.

At age 10, I had never had a job before.  I had mowed my parents' lawn for 25 cents, but I had never really earned any kind of substantial discretionary money.  I didn't know how to spend money.   I had a savings account at Davis County Bank.  I had put $5.00 in the account in order to open it..  The whole money thing was a mind swirl for me.  It would take awhile to process.

While I certainly understand Rawl's needing help, what Rawl did for me, in giving me, as a ten year old lad, a chance to take on a significant responsibility and to give me both personal and economic rewards for doing so, was one of the most significant life impacting events of my entire life.  I would learn many things about farming, personal responsibility, animal husbandry, care of animals, kindness, hard work, and a sleep schedule that has never recovered.  Working on Rawl's farm gave me a work ethic that kids today rarely have an opportunity to learn.  Most kids, even when I was young, eschewed responsibilty.  They would rather play and have fun, or sleep in.

Working for Rawl, I learned about hard work.  I learned about being dependable and reliable.  At age ten, for the next couple of years, I would work for about an hour in the mornings and an hour in the late afternoon.  I would get up and go feed the calves before school.  After school, I would go feed the calves as well.  During the summer I would do the same.  I had to be there every morning and every night.  Rawl would give me Sunday night off, which was very kind of him.  As I grew older, bigger, and stronger, I was able to help with field work.  Through most of my junior high school  years and all of my high school years, my summers were full of work.  I would work from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., with an hour break for breakfast and an hour break for lunch.  I would only do that six days a week, resting up on Sunday.

I suspect today that Rawl may have been called out on child labor laws.  I look back and saw the privilege I had to learn, and grow.  I scratch my head when I see current laws that "protect" children from such "exploitation and abuse."  I saw it as a distinct privilege.  I would do it over again.  I wish my kids would have had similar opportunities.

Maybe on Grandpa's Farm, my potential future grandkids or neighbor kids will have an opportunity to learn and grow under my tutelage.  Rawl was an important mentor in my life.  Perhaps I will have the opportunity to pass it on to others.

"Volunteering" to Feed Rawl's Calves

Some time after I went to see Rawl's cows the first time, I started going back again and again and again.  Rawl didn't seem to mind my being around.  I stayed out of the way.  I did what he asked.  I think I asked pretty good questions for a nine or ten year old.  After several days of doing that, he asked me if I would come early one day to help him feed the young calves.  I was pretty excited about that and said, "Yes!"

On the day I went down to feed the calves, at 5:00, Rawl mixed up milk replacer for the calves over four weeks of age.  I actually liked the smell of it pretty well.  It smelled good.  Rawl poured a couple of quarts of milk replacer in a bucket and I would put it in front of the calves that were tied in the calf barn.  The calves would eagerly push their noses deep in the bucket and drink their meal.  It was pretty exciting.  After feeding the calves their milk replacer, I gave them each a good handful of hay.  Rawl showed me how to give each of them grain as well.

After we were done milking the cows, Rawl saved a few gallons of fresh, warm milk to feed to the younger calves.  Rawl had me feed the younger calves out of a bucket with a nipple on it.  It was pretty much the same as bottle feeding the calves, but the nipple was attached to a bucket instead of a bottle.  Rawl told me that his idea was to give the calves a good start on whole milk for the first month before switching them to milk replacer.  Eventually, he would wean them at about three months of age.  I asked him, "If milk is better for them than milk replacer, why do you feed the older calves milk replacer?"  Rawl said, "I sell milk to earn my living.  I lose more money using the milk to feed the calves than it costs me to buy milk replacer to feed the calves.

At three months of age, the calves would get all the hay they would eat, roughly a quart of grain mix a day, and all the water they could drink.  Typically by the time they were about three months of age, the calves would move out of the calf barn, where they were tied, to a small corral for the older calves.  Rawl spent focused time helping me and letting me "help" with the very young stock.  

There was a door between the milking barn and the calf barn that would allow me to get the grain out of the grainary and go in to feed the calves.  The grainary was a big room full of grain mix from Pillsbury, that was delivered about once a month.

I was enthralled with feeding the calves.  I was walking on cloud nine.  After a couple of days of his showing me how to feed the calves, he asked me if I wanted to do it on my own.  Of course I said, "Yes!"  The first day of feeding the calves on my own was a little scary.  Would I do it right?  What if I made a mistake?  Sometimes the calves were pretty aggressive going after their milk or milk replacer.  What if they accidentally hurt me?  When I was ten years of age, the young calves weighed more than I did.  A Holstein calf weighs about 80-85 pounds at birth.  Within a couple of days I was a confident calf feeder.  I was living a dream.  What could be better that feeding Rawl's calves and helping him out?  It was fun.  It was exciting.  It was great.

Visiting Rawl's Cows

One of the chapters in The Have-More Plan was on keeping a family cow.  As a young child, I found myself going back to that chapter repeatedly.  I read the descriptions of the different breeds of cows, including how much milk they gave daily, the butterfat content, and their respective temperments.  I recall asking my Mom what docile meant.  Holsteins were the breed that gave the most milk, with the lowest butterfat content, and a temperment listed as, "docile."  What did that mean?  Was it good or bad?  My Mom was able to help me understand that it meant "calm."  I was fascinated by the idea of a dairy cow, fresh milk, cream that rises that can be made into butter...  There was so much to learn that was beyond the scope of a six page chapter.

We moved to Farmington when I was six.  Down the hill and across the street and a little to the south was Rawl's dairy farm.  Rawl had those black and white Holstein cows.

Over time, I became more and more interested in Rawl's cows.  I wanted to go see them, but I was too afraid, as a child, to go ask Rawl if I could come see his cows.  Rumors amongst the children in the neighborhood were that Rawl didn't like kids.  That made him even more scary.  Eventually, after talking about it over and over again, my Mom called Rawl and asked if I could come see his cows.  Much to my delight, he said, "Yes."

It was late Winter when I went down to see Rawl's cows.  I was nine, almost ten years old.  I recall wearing a jacket because it was chilly.  I went down at 5:00, because that was milking time and I would be able to see the cows up close.  I excitedly walked down the hill to Rawl's barn.  The door was closed, so I knocked on the door, oblivious to the fact that Rawl really couldn't hear my timid knocks.  Eventually, I knocked hard enough that he opened the door.  I walked into the warm barn, heated by all of those cows.  It was amazing.

The smell was actually rather pleasant.  The cows were big.  Rawl told me that the milking barn held 18 cows.  He had a milking machine with three milkers so he could milk three cows at a time.  I was fascinated to see the milkers hanging from the cows udders.  He took me into the milk room where I could see the fresh milk surging into a large glass jar.  I could also see when a pump would click on and move the milk from the jar to the refrigerated tank.  The tank looked huge.  It held 500 gallons, which seemed gigantic to me at the time.

As cows do, some of them pooped and pee'd into the dairy gutter behind them.  I was intrigued by the dairy gutter since there was a picture of a dairy gutter in the dairy goat section of The Have-More Plan.  It held the manure in place, but the urine drained out and disappeared under the wall.  I later learned that it moved the urine out to a pasture.  It was a dream come true.  I got to read about something, then I got to see it first hand.  This became a normal patterm for me over the course of my life.  Read, see, learn.

Sheepishly, as a nine year old, I asked Rawl how he could tell the difference between a cow and a bull.  At that point, somehow I hadn't grasped the concept that in the cow world, only the females lactated and produced milk.  In my mind, I presumed that roughly half of the cows in the barn were females and half were males.  Rawl's response was indicitive of his simple, straight forward answers.  He asked in return, "How do you tell the difference between a boy and a girl?"  I cogitated on that for a minute, and decided it was better not to ask any further questions.  I looked at the cows in the barn and they all looked anatomically similar.  That is because they were.

That visit to see Rawl's cows was a thrilling experience in my young life.  I recall it vividly.  It opened many doors both future experiences and doors in my mind to explore possibilities.  Life was good.

The Fruits of Rose Park

Kids usually prefer fruit over vegetables.  I was no exception.  In Rose Park, we actually had quite a variety of fruits available to tantilize our palates and tempt the fate of parents discovering unsupervised consumption.  We had strawberries, raspberries, apples, apricots, peaches and plums.  One good thing about the variety is that the ripening dates spanned late spring through early fall.  We had sporadic opportunities through the outdoor months to sample the fruits of the backyard.

My favorite fruit from the Rose Park home was raspberries.  As a small child, maybe four years old, my Mom sent me out with a small pail to pick some raspberries.  After 20-30 minutes, she called me to come in.  I had five or six raspberries in my little pail and red stains around my mouth.  "What did you do with the raspberries?" my Mom asked.  I held out the pail, proud that I had picked raspberries for her.  "Oh dear!" she exclaimed.  "You weren't supposed to eat them all!"  I hung my little head, but still loved every one of those delicious berries I accidently popped into my mouth.

The strawberries were just outside of the back porch, on the southeast corner of the glossy green house.  Those strawberries just begged to be picked and eaten as I walked to and from the backyard.  Strawberries were special because they were the first fruit that ripened, a few weeks before the raspberries.  They were small and sweet, very different from the large, crunchy, relatively tasteless strawberries we typically find in the store these days.  It would take me a number of years to understand why those little ones by the back porch tasted so much better than the ones from the store.

The fruit trees provided not only fruit, but trees to climb and scale and to set afire the imaginations of children.  One summer day, before the apples were fully ripe, my brother, Dave, my sister, Penny, and I set out to construct a communication device between the apple tree and the plum tree.  We got two tin cans and used a nail and hammer to punch a hole in the respective can ends.  We used string with a button on the end to connect those cans.  We had heard that the can phones would work better if you rubbed a bar of soap on the string, so we did that.  We had a grand time talking to each other on the can phones.  Even with that fun, I was distracted by the green apples in the tree where I was stationed.  I picked one to eat.  It was hard and sour.  It made me pucker.  I was suprised it wasn't all that delicious.  Penny told me that if I put a little salt on the green apples, they would taste better.  She was right.  I'm still not a fan of green apples.

The fruit from the Rose Park house set me on a course to appreciating and antipicating fresh fruit.  Maybe on my farm, I can pick some fresh raspberries on my way back from the barn to go with my breakfast.

The Rose Park Vegetable Garden

Living in Rose Park as a young child, I learned several things from the vegetable garden in the back corner of the yard.  I learned that planning and planting a garden was almost uncontrollably exciting.  I learned that fresh vegetables were quite yummy.  And little did I know at the time, I learned a bit about appropriate technology that is scale and place appropriate.  In this post, I will explore a bit about each of these topics.

I remember as a young child, the buzz and excitement in the spring as we talked about getting ready to plant the garden.  I remember the discussions between my parents about what to plant and when to plant it.  I remember the idea that we had to get the garden ready to plant.  We talked about early vegetables like radishes and peas.  We talked about tomatoes and growing them to make Grandma Leishman's chili and meat sauces.  I remember talking about sweet corn.  How I loved sweet corn!  I wondered, could we plant the whole garden in sweet corn?!  It was the best!  As I recall of my young childhood memories, the house was abuzz with the prospects of getting out of the winter confines of the house and getting our hands in the dirt so we could plant our garden.  It was exciting to plan and to prepare.  It gave a hope for the new.  It gave hope for the excitement of summer after the cold white and gray winter kept us inside for months on end.  I liked the idea of growing the food that we would eat.  It seemed proper.  It seemed right.  Everyone would want to grown their own food, or so I thought.

One vivid memory I have, which seems quite odd to me as I glance backward now, is a memory of sitting in the garden by the tomato plants and eating green tomato after green tomato.  They were delicious.  I remember sharing these tomatoes with someone.  I don't quite recall whom.  Was it my brother, Tim?  Maybe?  Was it my sister, Penny?  I don't think so, she was too grown up for such antics.  Perhaps was it the little neighbor girl, who was my brother's age?  I think her name was Karen Cannon.  My memory is foggy on that one.  At any rate, I remember being scolded by my parents for eating the tomatoes before they were ripe.  At the same time, I recall their thinking it quite funny that I was eating green tomatoes with gusto and lack of cultural concern for their unapproved coloring.

Other garden foods tasted delicious too.  Carrots from the garden tasted both sweeter and with more of a bite than grocery store carrots.  I wasn't much of a fan of lettuce at that point in my life, but I remember eating some leaf lettuce from the garden.  Sometimes I would cringe at a hole in the leaf a bug had eaten.  Sweet corn was the best, of course.  We didn't have a large garden, but we grew a few ears of sweet corn, enough for a couple of dinners.  Each and every thing was yummy.

I really don't know how large the garden was that we had, by I imagine it being maybe 30 X 50 feet.  This certainly wasn't big enough for a tractor.  We really didn't have access to a roto-tiller either.  The solution was quite common, and reflective of an appropriate technology.  My Dad turned over the garden with a shovel.  One shovelful at a time.  He would step down on the shovel and rock it back.  He would take the shovelful of soil and flip it over and sometimes knock the overturned soil to break up any clumps of dirt.  My Dad let me try.  I felt successful in helping, but I'm sure it was mostly about my participating and learning the basic ideas associated with the skills.  A 35 pound child doesn't have much hope in pushing the shovel into the ground very far, let alone turning that shovelful of soil over.  What I didn't realize at that point is that the shovel really was the appropriate technology for the size of garden we had.  We didn't need to spend hundreds of dollars on a tiller that would get used for 20 minutes a year.  The shovel was just fine for what we were trying to do.

The Rose Park garden helped to build a base of memories, principles, and ideals that continued to feed my farm dreams for decades.  I can grow my own food.  Growing your own food can be fun.  Planning the garden is an annual treasure in dreaming and experience.  Appropriate technology is good and satisfying.  Remember, you don't need a dump truck to go to the lumber yard to pick up a couple of 2 X 4's.

What Kind of Farm Do I Want?

People often ask me what kind of farm I want.  When I query what they mean by that, the answers usually underscore a common theme of how people of today think of farms in the US.  The usual replies indicate some form of specialized production.  The answers to my queries are exemplified by these answers.  "I mean, do you want an apple orchard, or a dairy farm?"  Or something like this, "Since you have chickens, I thought you might want a chicken farm."  Or lastly, "My grandfather had a vegetable farm that he ran in the summer, so I was wondering if you wanted to do something similar."  The answer to the question of what kind of farm I want is much more complicated than a type of specialized production.  But we can start with that angle.

The type of farm I want would be categorized as a "mixed farm."  A mixed farm has a variety of agricultural production efforts.  A mixed farm typically grows a variety of crops and animals.  Most farms of 100 years ago were mixed farms.  Each of the production enterprises usually supported in some fashion one or more other enterprises on the farm.  For example, corn might be raised to feed the hogs and to sell on the market.  The hogs in turn would clean up the fallen apples in the orchards and consume the left over whey or buttermilk from on farm dairy processing.  The chickens would lay eggs, provide meat, keep the insects at bay, and act as a second line of defense against small rodent infestations.  The orchard would provide nuts and fruit for the farm as well as shade for the sheep in the summer, and access to insects for the chickens, turkeys, and hogs.  The vegetable garden provided food for the farm family and bartering goods for neighbors or other local farm families that raised other foods not raised on a specific farm.  The woodlot provided firewood, fence posts, lumber for building, acorns for hogs, and a cool restful place to get away from everything for awhile.  These are just a few examples of the interactions on a mixed farm.

Aside from the general production focus of the farm, there are many other aspects that are worthy of discussion.  There is the question of purpose.  There is the question of size.  There is a question of production philosophy.  Of course there are other aspects of some importance, but I will limit this post to these remaining three items.

I imagine several purposes to my farm.  In no particular order these are the primary purposes that come to mind.  I've always wanted to raise food for may family.  My reasons for wanting to raise my family's food has evolved over time, among which are self-sufficiency, nutrition, variety, and economics.  As I age, I also want a purpose to have to get out of bed everyday and stay active.  I'd like my farm to provide me with an opportunity or requirement to do a good 20 hours a week of physical and mental activity.  One aspect of the farm that I believe I want is to provide some level of income in retirement.  Even though I have worked hard and have been fortunate to have good employment in my career, the prospects of living on my retirement savings and Social Security seems troublesome to me, particularly given the tenuous state of the Social Security system.  I feel a need to be able to provide an ongoing modest income stream, which I believe I can do with proper focus on my farm.

When I consider the size of the farm I would like, I think in scenarios.  I have scenarios that range from three to 60 acres, but I usually focus on three scenarios.  The first is a small version of about three acres, plus or minus.  On these three acres, I could raise most food for my family and have some very limited ability to produce an outside, supplemental income.  The next scenario is usually imagined as a 10-15 acre scenario.  This provides everything that the three acre scenario, plus the ability to raise larger livestock, such as cattle, and also provide a greater opportunity for supplemental retirement income.  The last scenario I usually imagine as a 30-40 acre farm.  This provides all the options of the smaller scenarios, plus much greater ability to raise more large stock and provide the level of supplemental retirement income that I believe would be more optimal.  The final selection of size will depend on what is available and on other circumstances at the time of selection.

In terms of production philosophy, my ideal harks back to what I imagined as a child of the 70's during the OPEC oil embargo.  As an early teen, I asked myself, "How could we grow all the food we needed and provide everything else we needed without any inputs from outside the property?"  The question is largely a theoretical question, but its direction is still important to me as the backbone of my farming philosophy.  I hate to use the cliche word, sustainability, but I will, primarily because I thought of it as an early teen before it became defined and redefined by elitists and oligarchs to fit their needs and the ideas they were peddling at the moment.  I want a farm that can provide excellent food for my family, in an ongoing repeatable manner, requiring as little off farm inputs as possible to do so.  In my mind, that is the definition of the sustainable farm I seek.

In a nutshell, what I have imagined as my ideal scenario is that I would like to have a mixed farm where I can raise food for my family, earn a supplemental retirement income, that is 30-40 acres in size and can be run in a sustainable manner using well-defined, stacked production enterprises and appropriate technology and techniques.  How is that for a run on sentence?  I reserve the right to change my mind, whenever I want.