I haven’t planted a field crop on this farm since 1978. That was the year I bought the property and, thinking I should try my hand at farming, I hired the neighbor who had been renting it to plant 20 acres of winter wheat.
When my grandfather heard this, he scolded me for making “a poor investment.” He had walked off the family farm in Iowa in 1910 to go to business school and find a better living than slopping hogs. My farming venture upset him more than my cousin Chris who went off to university and joined the Marxist-Leninist party.
“Chris can stop being a Communist anytime he likes,” declared Grandaddy. “It’s not that easy to get away from a farm!”
As it turned out, he was correct. The winter wheat was a poor investment. The experience persuaded me to return the field to the professionals for the next 43 years. My efforts since then have been restricted to ten acres around the house where I pasture a dozen sheep and a couple of steers.
My Tuesday coffee buddy, Steve, went through a similar experience with pigs and ended up selling the farm 30 years ago. But he has missed it ever since. Recently he has begun dreaming about his lost 624 International and searching for a small plot to grow a crop of something . . . anything.
Things came together for us recently because my doctor told me I needed to get out and walk more. I planted 1500 trees at the back of the farm last year to double the size of the bush and my wife noticed that I did more laps of the field checking the new trees that season than I had since we were married.
“Why don’t you plant more trees?” she said.
So, I called the conservation authority and arranged a second planting of 5,000 trees this spring. Then I took the rest of the field back from the neighbour and suggested to Steve we go farming together. He jumped at the opportunity and recommended a crop of spring grain under seeded with hay. Then he promptly abandoned his search for the 624 and helped me find a Massey 135. The coffee club is helping us source implements to get the job done.
We both know better but we can’t help ourselves. Steve is waiting on a new hip and the only reason I appear to walk normally is I limp on both sides. Our wives have enough experience to ask all the right questions.
“Your gates are sixteen feet. How will you get a combine in there? Where will you put 20 tons of spring grain? After the grain crop, then what?”
At our age there isn’t much time left to think about what you might have done or been. There comes a point where a sense of purpose and movement of any kind is all that stands between you and a hospital bed in the front room.
“The doctors say we need to get out more,” is the short answer.
As a playwright I know that, if you book the hall and put down a deposit, it helps you come up with an idea for a script. The same is true in farming. We decided to buy something that would eat lots of spring grain if it ever got harvested. So we have committed to the purchase and delivery of two steers from my old friend, Will Samis who is trying to wind down his beef farm up on the North Channel. Will is not giving up altogether because cattlemen never do. They tell you every winter that they’re going to quit but when you drive by the place six months later you count the same number of cows as he had last year.
Cattlemen are different from other types of farmers because they never seriously think about doing this for profit. The chief purpose of the cattle business is to make old guys get out of bed in the morning. Cattlemen pay no attention to doctors but they respond instantly to the sound of bawling cows in the barn. Once you understand this principle, it becomes clear why no one seems to notice or care that cows generally die in debt.
As the spring winds rattle last year’s corn stalks and the last of the snow recedes from the fencerows, the air is fresh with hope and promise. I’m replacing the injectors on the Massey. Steve has found a set of cultivators and a seed drill.
All that can save us now is the national seed shortage.