Country Grit: A Farmoir of Finding Purpose and Love

by Scottie Jones

  To move sheep, you must approach just slow enough to cause them to feel uncomfortable so they want to move, but not so fast as to trigger their flee response. Often, you will have to stop and patiently wait for the herd to calm down before proceeding. There are long moments of gazing into each other eyes, trying to read each other’s intent. The instant the herd puts their heads down to eat, take a gentle step forward. You can do this for half an hour or so and then, oops, that last step was just a bit too soon, or too large, or too straight, and off they go, back to the starting line.

  It is very, very hard to move a herd by yourself. It’s just too easy for the herd to keep circling you and coming back to the beautiful grass you want them off. If you’re moving a herd with a partner, you must be in as perfect sync with each other as the herd is with itself. You must each stop and start in harmony, constantly working that delicate threshold of uncomfortable, but not a threat. You must sense the breathing, the heartbeat, and the tension of the herd and, with the quiet grace of a Buddhist monk, in unison, apply just the right amount of tension. That’s why successfully moving sheep should be a requirement for granting marriage licenses in every state in the union.

  And the reason sheep are the leading cause of divorce in rural America? It’s very hard to assess who or what caused the herd to bolt, making the situation a kind of kinetic ink-blot for projecting blame. If you’re already stressed and thinking of all the things you have to do and haven’t done and feeling inadequate and/or unsupported, meaning you’re farming, this is just gasoline to the match. To preserve your marriage it would be better to blame the sheep, except your partner is supposed to help while the sheep are just being sheep. There’s nothing like sheep to reveal the shortcomings of a marriage and the people that inhabit that relationship.

  After several sharp exchanges on the differences between gender and intelligence and a few more stand-downs to regain composure and retain marital status, the sheep were at last contained! Except for that one ewe in the far field, which we saw as soon as we turned back. How could we have missed it? I was already calculating who was responsible for collecting sheep from that side of the field, when I noticed something even more troubling. What was that stick figure wobbling behind it? On second look, there were two stick figures rising up out of the grass. Lambs! Oh, God, we’ve only been farmers for thirty-six hours. We’re too young to have lambs! We both looked at each other hoping the other knew what to do.

  Back to the house and the Internet to read up on sheep. Then back to the field to grab the lambs, still wet and bawling. Show momma her babies and she will follow you all the way to the barn. We put her in a stall with fresh straw to ensure the lambs were warm and nursing properly. Heads down at the spigot and tails up and wagging—sure signs all’s right in the world. A few days of bonding and then back to the herd—well, after another call to the farmer’s wife and some much needed assistance with weighing lambs, giving shots, docking tails, tagging, and (since they were our first) naming—Rosy and Rudy. Welcome to the world.

  We could just as well have said to ourselves, “Welcome to farming.” We too were lambs being initiated into a new world. Over the course of the morning we had gone from a goal and a plan to get there, to frustration, to infuriation, to surprise, to helplessness, to improvisations, and finally to the bliss of new life and a profound feeling of accomplishment. And our reward? Back to the chores. Welcome to farming.

  By evening Greg had finished the repairs to the fence in one pasture. With the use of a phone, I was able to find two young men to deliver the appliances and a local, retired electrician to hook them up. Things were falling into place, and to celebrate, we had our first home-cooked meal. My parents were arriving tomorrow and I was beginning to feel ready for them. I knew they were worried for me and I wanted to dissipate as much of that anxiety as I could. I wanted them to like the farm, the way we liked it when we bought it. Up until this moment, it had seemed the chaos of the past few days made that unlikely. So, for the first night since leaving Phoenix, I headed to bed with a feeling that things might work out.

  A piercing scream ended that thought. My daughter, emerging from a steamy shower, saw eyes pressed up against the window of our second story bathroom. By the time I got there, they were gone. She was too startled to give a clear description except they were “dark.” The window was filled with empty blackness and beyond was dense, brooding forest. We were alone, the nearest neighbor too far to be of practical help against an intruder. I tried to calm my daughter, but peeping into a second floor window scores pretty high on the creep meter. Just as she regained composure, a shaft of bright light shot across the window and we both screamed.

  Greg began calling to us from outside. Caught in the beam of his flashlight were three masked interlopers perched in the mulberry tree. We looked at them and they looked at us until the mama raccoon called her little delinquents up the tree and out of harm’s way. Slowly they lumbered further up into the leafy darkness. My daughter, wrapped in her bath robe, was cooing, “How cute!” In that moment, the mood had shifted from the terror of the unknown to the wonderment of nature. We were witnessing the same phenomena, just through a different frame for viewing it—well, that and a good flashlight.

  We all headed back to bed, but I began to realize, that feeling that “things will work out”—it was short lived.

  THE THIRD LAW

  The second law of thermodynamics states that “everything turns to chaos.” Okay, that may not be exactly the second law of thermodynamics, but it is the Third Law of Farming. The first two being: nothing is convenient, and you can’t afford the expert so improvise.

  Nowhere does the Third Law apply more appropriately than to irrigation. There’s something about moving parts and water under extreme pressure that destines irrigation systems toward chaos. Factor in small farmers on tight budgets buying used equipment from different manufacturers (that don’t actually fit together) and you get the picture.

  Our farm, with its different pasture configurations, uses two systems of irrigation: a long row of thirty-foot pipes, each with two-foot risers, and a rain gun that shoots a lethal spray of water one hundred feet in a circle. Both systems have to be disconnected, moved, and reassembled daily. This was Greg’s first chore in the morning. On the third day, he dropped the rain gun, creating a slight bend in the rocker arm of the spray head. That’s all it took to hit chaos.

  We didn’t know it quite yet because we were distracted by the arrival of my parents. They were easy to spot—the only Volvo driving a gravel road where Dodge Ram trucks with Cummins engines were de rigeur. My father wore breezy lemon-colored slacks with a plaid shirt and a fly-fishing cap while my mother sported the latest L.L. Bean country couture. After visiting and a tour of the farm, we parceled out chores. My mother is an avid gardener, so we headed to the nursery to begin my instruction in the cultivation of botanicals. Dad accompanied Greg to the Merc for irrigation parts.

  The logging hamlet of Elsie is little more than gas station, post office, library, school, diner, and the Merc. Short for mercantile, the Merc was more than a country store—it was the beating heart of Elsie. The one place everyone in town would visit at least once a week and therefore guaranteed to have the latest news updates. Almost any life necessity could be found in its two thousand square feet of clutter, including: food, clothing, ammunition, chain saw oil, pinot noir wine, fishing licenses, lumber, oil lamps, rubber boots, hardware, cooking utensils, hand-made furniture, chicken feed, and, yes, irrigation supplies. Stocking a country store is an art that requires intimate knowledge of the needs and desires of the community it serves. That rare gift for intuitive assessment resided with a burly, mohawk-sporting, square-jawed ex-Marine named Nate.

  On the day I met Nate, he was crouched behind the counter. He had rigged a cardboard grizzly (advertising beer or chewing tobacco, I forget which) to pop up whenever he pulled on a string. This would send small children screaming down the aisle until they felt safely out of b
ear reach. Then, they would begin their creep back to the mysterious paper bear. Nate winked at me to keep his secret as he tugged on the line again to another wave of exhilarated screams. All commercial transactions were on hold until the last scream had been milked from the last waif.

  One overworked mother tried to clue me in. “We’re waiting for our children to catch on. Some never do.” Her head nodded to the large man with a mohawk crouching behind the counter, still chuckling after the children had caught the bear and exposed its string.

  So, when the irrigation broke, Greg’s first stop was the Merc. Nate was a seasoned problem solver, but he took one look at the rocker arm and referred Greg to a professional. Greg was too naive to know it yet, but any problem beyond Nate’s expertise was clearly in the realm of the Third Law. The good news—there actually was a store that specialized in irrigation. The bad news—you had to drive to the next town to find it. Remember the First Law—nothing is convenient.

  In the city, retail is a fairly simple matter of selecting the product you want, paying for it, and leaving. In and out, as quickly as possible. In the country, retail is a much richer experience. Unfortunately, Greg was still expecting the efficiency of the city when he entered Doug’s irrigation shop.

  Doug, possessing a big frame with powerful arms accustomed to bending pipe, stood behind the counter with glasses perched on his deeply lined forehead. He was a serious man in a profession that required the deep analytical skills of an engineer.

  Two customers preceded Greg. The first was giving Doug a fishing update. This led to recollections of great fishing events in the past, which led to discussion of the best river access points, which led to land use laws and excesses of government regulations, which led to critiques on the conduct of politics (both local and national), which led to broad observations on the status and direction of American culture, which brought the discussion back to the problem at hand: “We need a part, do you have it?” Each topic broached much opining from all parties present. The second customer repeated the format but selected elk hunting as his entry point. Greg kept hoping an employee would magically appear to open another register.

  When it was finally Greg’s turn, he dropped the rocker arm on the counter and asked boorishly, “Can you fix this?” Doug looked at him to size up what kind of a rube he was dealing with, then looked at the arm and asked, “Where do you live?” After the long wait for service, this question did not reassure my husband that he was transacting with a competent professional. The relationship was off to a rocky start.

  The little dent in the rocker arm was a big problem—largely because the manufacturer had gone belly-up over twenty years before. So, the first question was, “Could the bend be straightened or could an obsolete part be found in some farmer’s field?” The customers weighed in. A farmer in Linn County used that type of rain gun. He might have a part. Another thought a repair might work. Doug was doubtful. The alignment had to be perfect. He would take it under advisement, make a few calls, and get back to us in three days.

  Three days without irrigation—without graze for our livestock! Now Greg understood, we were officially in chaos. Fortunately, Doug knew what that meant for his customers. He suggested we supplement with hay from the farmer down the road. He even placed a call to the farmer to confirm.

  Doug did not know us, but he knew our farm in all of its complexity. And he knew the farms around us. Those long fishing stories are how people stay connected. Farming is a complex business with complex problems, and having access to a wealth of resources is key. Staying connected is key. People are drawn to farming by the allure of independence. “Grow your own food, no one to tell you what to do.” People survive farming by mastering the art of interdependence.

  Fourth Law: Farming involves nurturing ever greater levels of interdependence.

  And so Greg left Doug’s shop not with a part but with a connection to a neighbor. Now, if he had a map, he could have spent less time searching for that neighbor.

  Will Ridout, a craggy man, tall in stature, severe in nature, and short on words, met Greg and my dad at his barn. He said nothing of my father dressed in his lemon trousers, just directed them to pull the truck around so they could start loading hay bales into it. Then, they drove to our barn, where the craggy man lobbed fifty-pound bales from the bed of the truck to our second story loft while Greg and my father stacked them. At fifty-five, Greg was the youngest man on the buck line, something of a testament to the aging of farmers in America (farmers over age sixty-five outnumber farmers under thirty-five by a ratio of seven to one; 32 percent of beginning farmers are fifty-five or older).

  When the unloading was done, Will thanked us for buying his hay with a big smile. He may have been short on words, but he was big of heart and generous with his farm wisdom. We didn’t know it yet, but we had just made a valuable contact. I think Doug anticipated that outcome. Like most people in the country, Doug and Will knew the Fourth Law of farming was the answer to the Third Law. And it’s why the correct response to “Do you have a part?” depends on where you live.

  SO THIS IS FARM LIFE

  There’s nothing like farm chores to produce tired muscles and deep sleep. On this night, a little too deep. While we slept, Mrs. Coon took her young ones on a savage killing spree through our hen house. Matching the carnage strewn across the chicken yard that morning with the cute bundles of fur in the mulberry tree of the previous night was too incongruous to believe. Maybe it was a bobcat or a weasel? Maybe, but no bobcat or weasel had been seen, and the coons were a known quantity. Enough circumstantial evidence to convict them in any court of rural experience.

  The surviving chickens were lined up and cackling for their breakfast. When it comes to brains, chickens have neural tubes, which is why there would be a repeat performance tonight if we didn’t fix the holes in the wire fence. Survival instinct is the first thing to go in the evolutionary process toward domestication. Securing the chicken coop had just risen to the top of the chore list.

  Before we could complete our assessment of the repairs, a fluffy white line of grass mulchers ambled across our lawn, nipping every flower in sight. The hen house repair just got bumped down. We heaved a collective sigh as we moved to head them off at the pass. This time, I pledged, I was not going to lose the contest of wits with God’s dumbest creature. I was not going to lose my cool. I lost that pledge by the time I’d driven the sheep to the bottom of the hill.

  At the pasture, we could see the gate was off its hinges. During the night a ewe must have stuck her bony head through the slats of the gate for that greener grass on the other side. When she drew back, it snagged, causing the ewe to jerk her head and lift the gate up and off its hinges. That or she just stuck her head into the slats and lifted it off on purpose—a theory of sheep chicanery espoused by some in my household. Country gates are hung on simple pins with cylinders over the pin to allow the gate to pivot. Pointing one pin down before re-hanging the gate solved that problem. Back to the hen house.

  We were midway through the coop repairs when our daughter informed us the water was out. Again. An inspection of the spigot at the trough eliminated over-watering as a source of the problem. The pump was operational, but the holding tank was empty. Either the tank had sprung a leak or the problem was with our spring. No mud around the tank left us with the most troubling possibility—the spring itself.

  The house water came from a spring flowing out of the side of the hill. The water from the spring was collected in a spring box and then piped to the holding tank. A cave-in had buried the spring box in mud. After a day’s labor, Greg had dug out the box. Next he cleared the pipes, first by blowing and then, when that failed, by sucking the mud out.

  Fifth Law: Farming is a dirty business; at some point you will eat dirt and probably a lot of it.

  The water began flowing back into the tank, but once again it would be a night without running water—without baths. It was too late to finish the hen house so we resorted to a temp
orary fix. That evening, Doug phoned to say the repairs on the rain gun would take a few more days. The Third Law of Farming is as predictable as gravity.

  The next morning arrived with the water running. I was measuring coffee and gazing out the window when a fluffy white ball began mulching its way across the front lawn. Soon it was joined by others until they formed a line that could have been the envy of a marching band. I had one solitary thought—loose the dogs.

  As I continued to stare, a sinking feeling took hold. No matter what we did or how hard we worked, nor how smart, talented, and committed we were, nature would win. It was a dark thought of total capitulation. I decided I needed my coffee and a moment more to regroup. The sheep could wait.

  Greg came in and asked, “What’s that?” I couldn’t bring myself to answer. We sat together sipping coffee and taking in the scene. Finally, Greg put his cup down and said, “Better get at it.” We rose together in stoic syncopation as old as farming itself. American Gothic.

  But part of me resisted. Part of me asked, is this really what I want? I feared we were transforming into the characters in the painting, pinched by a life of hardness, deprivation, narrowness of expression, and menial labor. We were crossing the line from stoic to gothic. That thought now took possession of me.

  It was the last day of my parent’s visit and I promised my father a ride in the back country. The horses, still unaccustomed to the trees, were snorting and side-stepping and trying to turn back most of the way up the old logging road. Frankly, I didn’t blame them. The forest was dark and foreboding, overgrown with green ferns. Moss hanging from the limbs gave the trees a sinister appearance, as if nature herself might drop her green shroud and vanish us into musty oblivion. But when we cleared the summit, we encountered blue sky and a majestic view over the valley.