An unclear picture of what down on the farm means…

How are things down on the farm? Well, I don’t know. I don’t live down on the farm. But I ask this because something caught my ear while hearing part of an interview with Willie Nelson who is going to put on another Farm Aid concert.

Willie says the folks are “hurtin’” down on the farm.

The first problem is that “the farm” or “farmers” is a kind of generic term that conjures up some type of bucolic existence with a hay barn, cows and pigs, and maybe some sheep and goats, and chickens running around in the yard, and maybe a garden plot.

But farming in the real world includes everything from giant corporate-run institutions with much heavy equipment and probably no chickens running around in the yard, to large family operations with again a lot of heavy equipment and run much like a corporation, to what I described in the previous paragraph.

And these days some people farm as only a supplement to a regular job or visa versa and some people do it for hobby only.

But I’ll get back to that later.

What caught my ear was that farmers are “hurtin’”.

Just a year or so ago many farmers, such as mid western corn farmers, had hit a bonanza with rising prices due to export demand and the ethanol market.

But the economic downturn has hit nearly everyone, farmers included, and now price projections are not so good in many sectors.

The dairy industry has been hit hard because of the recession and again the drop off of the milk export market, but at the same time rising feed and fertilizer and other production costs.

But farmers are not a homogenous group. There are all kinds of farms and farmers involved in raising all types of crops and animals and there are all kinds of business arrangements.

In addition, a large part of the nation’s farm economy is subsidized in various manners by the government through farm programs usually included in something that is passed from time to time called the omnibus farm bill.

I’m not an expert in all of this but I know that as an example mid western corn farmers take advantage or can take advantage of things such as federally-subsidized crop insurance (get paid if your crop is ruined in a hail storm or something like that), subsidized loans, and price supports. In many cases the government will buy a crop from the farmer if market prices are not high enough.

Nelson’s Farm Aid concert thing began back in the late 1970s. What had happened is that the farm economy in general was flush in the early 70s and the government was urging farmers to plant as much as they could and banks were falling all over themselves to loan money. Farmers did plant all they could and new people or corporations entered the market.

Well, of course that created a surplus, and the market went south, so to speak. A lot of farmers could not pay off their loans and lost their farms.

There is good logic to having government farm programs in that they are supposedly designed to create stability in the production of food and fiber. Farm commodity prices are so volatile that it would be difficult for the average farmer to invest year to year in land and equipment and seed and fertilizer and so forth without some backup that farm programs provide.

Unfortunately there is much abuse, such as so-called farmers who operate out of the skyscrapers of New York and collect vast amounts of farm subsidies.

And on a much smaller scale you run into something like this: Once while working as a farm reporter I attended a meeting of a local Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Committee – local farmers appointed via a federal agency. A farmer submitted a claim for crop damage. He had a field of what is called “volunteer oats”. That is the oats originated from a previously-planted crop and came up again from left over seed. So here is a field he did not plant. The oats came up on their own. But they were subsequently damaged, by rain at the wrong time, or hail or something, I don’t recall. The committee voted to pay his claim out of your federal tax dollars. Maybe there is some logic in that – I did not see it. But that claim was small potatoes when compared to the billions paid in subsidies to corporate farms and many family farmers who have large spreads and quite frankly do not need the help.

Personally, I am a big supporter of what is generically called the farm economy. And I have reason to believe that family farms or owner-operated farms are a more efficient and a better model for our society than corporate farms. Family farmers tend to be more dedicated to their land and are more likely to be conservation oriented. They also actually may operate their farms more efficiently. I had a corporate farm manager tell me once that family farmers have an advantage in decision making. He said he could, for example, eyeball a field and tell when it needs irrigation and how much. But in the corporate structure things such as irrigation schedules are worked out by a committee and have little flexibility and decisions cannot be made on the spot.

Family farmers also have a better chance of being diversified. Corporate farms tend to milk something (cows if they are into dairying) for all it’s worth and then move on.

And diversity is important when it can be done in agriculture. To use a farmy metaphor, putting all your eggs in one basket can lead to trouble.

And that may be part of the problem for the dairy industry. I know that in California, despite that ad campaign that shows happy cows living in pastoral paradise, the average dairy here is more like a factory with thousands of cows and shifts of workers, and the animals lying down in their own waste. In the typical California model milking cows are usually not pastured. They eat at the trough while they are being milked and then go back out into a pen. There are variations in this model.

If dairies were smaller and if the farmers were more diversified, raising other commodities, they might have an option when milk prices declined. As it is many of the big dairies are going out of business, as I understand it, and that even despite government price supports.

But I do not have it out for agriculture. I am a big supporter. When I think back on it, I have made much of my income over the years indirectly and almost directly from agriculture. As a teenager I worked as an irrigator and later I worked for a number of years as a farm reporter and I worked for many years as a truck driver hauling predominantly farm products. And I know it’s important because I eat food and wear clothes. Even if we don’t make much clothing in this country anymore, we still grow a lot of cotton, and do produce some wool.

Agriculture policy is a complex issue. I just have a suspicion that some use the image of the old woman and man and pitch fork, ala American Gothic, as a promotion for help down on the farm. Money is tight. A lot of people need help. I do believe in family farms. But let’s make sure who we are talking about when we support the various farm subsidies and make sure we are helping a good cause and not just serving as a cash cow for a farmer headquartered in a skyscraper in New York.

P.s.

Interestingly, virtually all nations subsidize their agriculture.

Mulling over the libertarian option…

(Copyright 2009)

During our recent presidential election we chose between the two major parties, but there was a third way, libertarianism. Maybe we should have elected Ron Paul president, but of course we would not have done that because as most libertarians he came across as kind of cranky and he has that kind of whiny and raspy voice and he’s totally out of the mainstream.

What made me think about this is an article I read a few hours ago by libertarian economist Jeffrey Miron of Harvard University.

I was also mulling over an opinion piece written by President Obama and published in the Washington Post. And I caught a few minutes of Republican right wing radio.

As we know, Obama wants to push through an ever-expanding “stimulus” bill – it started out at $800 billion the first time I heard about it and now the new reports put it at $900 Billion. It has been heavily criticized for containing all kinds of pet projects, often called “pork”, to include things that seemingly have nothing or nothing directly to do with immediately stimulating the economy, such as family planning and health care.

The Republicans are calling for more tax cuts, their idea being that the economy can be stimulated better by cutting taxes than increasing government spending. By a little legerdemain, Obama proposes to increase taxes and cut spending (by borrowing money).

Obama wrote in his opinion piece that cutting taxes alone as an approach to stimulate the economy is part of the “failed theories” from the previous administration that have been resoundingly rejected by the electorate.

My view of what the traditional Democrats and Republicans want is unchanged. Despite what they claim, they are basically both in support of huge, overbearing government because it is the status quo with which they are accustom.

The Democrats want that big government to use its resources to do all kinds of things for a wide range of people. The Republicans want to use the resources of government to help the business class (there may be somewhat of a split between Wall Street and Main Street).

So anyway, even though I mentioned Ron Paul, I’m really thinking of what Mr. Miron wrote.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of what he wrote, but I think he made some good points. So I thought I might list some of them and give my response:

REPEAL THE CORPORATE INCOME TAX: I’m rather sure the Republicans would agree with this one. Miron thinks this would free up more money for more corporate investment, thus stimulating the economy. Also some argue that corporate income taxes are double taxation since shareholders must also pay income taxes on their dividends. I think this is worth consideration (taxes do have to be collected somewhere, though, and corporations benefit from the services and protections government affords).

INCREASE CARBON TAXES WHILE LOWERING MARGINAL TAX RATES: Miron opines that upping carbon taxes would be a more efficient way of going green because it would give industry an incentive to clean up its act without risking the likely boondoggles of so-called government green programs. It would also reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. I like it.  As far as lowering tax rates, I don’t know. Everyone wants to have their own tax rate cut, but someone has to pay the bills. Perhaps a flat tax or a consumption tax is a better way to go. A lot of resources are wasted and and a lot of taxable income is hidden under the present hodgepodge.

MODERATE GROWTH OF ENTITLEMENTS: Our libertarian friend suggests raising the retirement age and putting a hold on increases in various social programs. For my part, I am sure those who have no need for the entitlements (and I don’t like that term) programs don’t mind cutting back. Social Security does need a stable and equitable funding system that is secure from raiding for other uses. Unlike libertarians and Republicans, I think government ought to be able to provide the citizenry with some protections as long as we all pay for it on an equitable basis. But it is true that while all industrialized nations provide social protections, they all face the problem of ever increasing costs. So entitlement spending does have to be kept in check. It could indeed bankrupt the nation. And I want to add that I don’t think raising the Social Security retirement age again is a good idea. We already have too big of a labor pool with too few jobs, and why do we want to work all of our life?

ELIMINATE WASTEFUL SPENDING: And who could argue with this? Problem is that one person’s wasteful spending is another’s much needed project. But included in Mr. Miron’s examples of wasteful spending are fixing levees in New Orleans, thus encouraging folks to live below sea level, farm subsidies, Amtrak, when, according to Miron, buses are more efficient, and the U.S. Postal Service when Fed Ex is more efficient (and I would add e-mail). I could actually write in defense of some farm subsidies because of the stability in agriculture that benefits all, but the problem is that a large portion of those subsidies unfairly go to the super rich (who are super rich due primarily to the subsidies) and also to people not involved in farming. As to the other examples, truly food for thought.

WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: And this is true libertarian doctrine. To my knowledge libertarians believe in using our military for direct defense of our country only. During the Cold War era, which included some hot wars (Korea and Vietnam, for example) we were locked into a military spending competition with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union finally and essentially went bankrupt. What we do about our present engagements in the Middle East is a question. But I for one would hope we resist being suckered into war here and there and everywhere. Our present military adventures are a major drain on our failing economy and threaten the immediate defense of our own country by stretching us too thin. And then there are the moral considerations.

LIMIT UNION POWER: The big issue nowadays is card check. It is a system that circumvents the secret ballots workers use to vote a union in. Under card check, union organizers can bully workers into signing cards (and there is no protection of secrecy) in order to push through a union. I am against card check. I am neutral on unions themselves. But workers should not be required to belong to unions. In some cases businesses might find it advantageous to employ workers who belong to unions that stress professionalism. In my own working experience I have witnessed both the good and bad of unionism. The good: excellent wages and benefits and job security (except possibly in this economy). The bad: Work slow downs, refusals to work at a related job when the help is needed, indifference to the needs of the employer. (My experience primarily is from working as a non-union truck driver, who at one point did nonetheless benefit from a wage scale related to union contracts).

People who are paid well indeed help the economy.

EXPANDING LEGAL IMMIGRATION: The libertarian here calls for making it even easier for employers to hire foreign workers with specialized skills. I am not against this if it can be proved that U.S. citizens with the needed skills are not available, but I am against companies using the special visa program to undercut wages, and I think it is highly unpatriotic for them to do so. If we do have a dearth of skilled workers, industry should sponsor education programs to rectify the situation. And needed skill training should get more attention in public education as well.

RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO FREE TRADE: This is a tricky one. We know from experience that during the Great Depression (the last one) raising tariffs brought on reprisals from other countries and exacerbated the economic woes. Right now, like it or not, we are a consumer nation and our whole economy is structured around free trade. While I think it might not be a good idea to raise tariffs or otherwise officially discourage imports, I do think we need to expand or rebuild our own industry and become more competitive on the world market.

STOP BAILING OUT BUSINESSES THAT TOOK ON TOO MUCH RISK: Nothing more I can say on this other than I agree. As the bailout billions (to become trillions) multiply and the nation goes deeper and deeper into debt and as the economy spirals downwards it may become all too apparent that bankruptcy was the answer the whole time. Bailouts, which have been done in times past, send the message to the marketplace that risk can be hedged at the cost of the taxpayers – wrong message.

Separate from all of the preceding, and of libertarian thought, I personally suggest an expansion of or creation of federal job corps type programs that put people to work doing things that the private sector never gets around to doing but are needed nonetheless.

Also, reinstating the military draft could help relieve our stressed armed forces and provide relief in the ever-shrinking job sector. It would also make our presidents and the electorate itself become more circumspect in ordering or supporting military interventions. Just an idea.

We’ve done this before, but what’s the answer?

(Copyright 2009)

We’ve been here before, but I don’t know exactly what we did or what we did that really worked to get out of this mess. That’s partly because I wasn’t born yet. But I also think that history almost does repeat itself.

Doesn’t anyone read our own American history?

Capitalism unchecked and human greed causes great problems every time.

I’ve been reading a book by the late historian Samuel Eliot Morison called the Oxford History of the American People, and it seems that nearly everything that we face now in the current financial crisis was played out in the 1920s and 1930s.

There was a lack of regulation and there was wild speculation in which a large part of the population (including those not at all market savvy) got caught up in the frenzy to get rich quick, and there was market manipulation and then the bubble burst and eventually market controls had to be instated or reinstated.

And fast forward to the 1980s and 1990s and 2001 or so and controls were lifted and here we go again.

What is so hard about that to understand?

I just read through the part about the Great Depression. I’m still not sure what got us out of it, except that it does seem — and no big news here — that the production of war materials for World War II (even before we got involved directly as combatants) certainly helped matters.

Trouble is, we don’t want to have World War III to jumpstart the economy. And history probably would not exactly repeat itself. The rules and methods of war are always changing.

Right now, I think, we are spending a lot more every week for the war effort in the Middle East that we did for all of World War II, but far from helping our economy, it is primarily a drag on it.

And I think it would be immoral to fight a war to improve our economy, although I have to admit that most wars in some way or another involve economies. They are usually a contest for power and resources.

At any rate, we seem to be financing our current military efforts largely by issuing bonds that are bought up by China and Japan.

The history book that I am reading says that we financed about 40 percent of World War II through taxation and the other 60 percent by issuing bonds. I’ve seen the 1940s era news reels urging patriotic citizens to “Buy War Bonds”. I haven’t seen any war bond drives aimed at the general public in my lifetime, and in fact, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a public service announcement urging the public to buy U.S. Savings Bonds. I did read recently that desperate investors were parking their bucks in government bonds at zero or near zero interest just to avoid losing money.

Our current military spending in some way may help our economy, but it is not like that in World War II where we had to start from near scratch and build up a modernly-equipped military to fight a massive land and sea war. We had to produce one heck of a lot of goods and put a lot of civilian men and women to work in the war production effort, beginning a year of two before Pearl Harbor and then four years afterward. And a large percentage of  young men were drafted or volunteered for the military (and women volunteered in large numbers too), thus instantly becoming employed. Unemployment went from double digits to nothing.

Pre-war efforts such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and other so-called make-work programs put huge numbers of the population back to work, helped put food on their tables and restored their dignity. Most people simply wanted work, not a handout, although the latter was sometimes necessary to ward of disaster.

Even with the government programs unemployment remained high for most of the 30s, with the war finally coming along to lift the economy and put everyone to work.

The boom continued even after the war because servicemen came home and were able to use the GI Bill and go to college and get good jobs and there was a pent up consumer demand from war time privations (something we have not had this time around, except that,again, I think the billions we have spent in the Middle East have drug down our economy), and we became the leader of the free world and spread our economic tentacles all over the globe.

But the rest of the world caught up or is catching up and so we are no longer playing the same game.

And a theme I can’t let go is that we have to our detriment become a nation primarily of consumers rather than producers (a generalization that of course does not fit everyone, but the majority of the nation nonetheless).

Our new president talks of promoting new green industry. A good thing, no doubt. I think the Republicans if they are smart will co-opt him and pretend it was their idea all along. It would make good political and business sense.

But green or conventional, we need to revitalize our industry and make use of our natural material resources, such as coal and oil and natural gas, and lumber, and minerals, and agriculture and put people back to work in well paying jobs and forget this service economy.

Services are vital, but they are a supporting role; you can’t make a living out of just servicing services. I agree with poor disgraced former Democratic House Speaker James Wright who complained during the Reagan presidency: “we can’t all deliver pizzas to one another”.

I’ve used that line before, and we as a nation have been here before, and perhaps we are doomed to repeating our actions over and over again like the Groundhog Day movie.

P.s.  We knew former President George W. Bush was not a good student, so we can understand him saying things such as the “fundamentals of our economy are strong” as it fell apart around us, thus looking like he was doing a Herbert Hoover impersonation. But unsuccessful presidential candidate John McCain who professed to be a fan of Republican reformer President Teddy Roosevelt seemed to indicate he knew a little history. But Teddy was early 20th Century — McCain should have read further. “The fundamental strength of the nation’s economy is unimpaired,” said President Hoover, and nine days later what had been until recently the biggest bank failure of  the nation’s history occurred. Last Fall, McCain was using the phrase “”the fundamentals of our economy are strong” as major banks fell. 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience and persistence and chucking evidence

(Copyright 2009)

After 45 years I finally destroyed or at least ditched the evidence that proves I am not someone meant to work with my hands, at least not in a craftsman-like way.

It was a wooden tool box I made in the freshman farm shop class at my high school. Nothing was done right on that little project. The ends were not cut correctly and the inside blocks used to separate the box into compartments were not cut squarely and the handle, although solid and workable, was not done correctly either.

And yet my dad, who learned about the rudiments of carpentry growing up on a farm, and who perfected his own skills for his own use around home over the years, used that tool box from 1963 when it was made till he died in 1990 at the age of 85.

Somehow it wound up back with me and has sat out in various garages holding some things of mine and some tools dad left behind.

The poorly constructed but nonetheless serviceable tool box has always been kind of an embarrassment to me, but fortunately it has not been on display anywhere and my name is not on it.

But we have had to downsize our living arrangements, so I, with only a little twinge of nostalgia, chucked the old tool box in the garbage.

Most of my dad’s tools were already gone. Some had gone to one of my now late uncles. I still do have some, but will probably have to get rid of them, tools that is.

Most all of my dad’s tools were of the hand-powered variety. He had few power tools.

One of those old hand tools I still have, and may keep for memory’s sake, is what is called a brace and bit, a kind of hand drill with a u-shaped grip. Such a thing was already nearly out of style when I was in farm shop. But dad used that contraption over and over again for a vast array of projects. One of the first I saw him use it on was a grape arbor he made at our home when I was a little kid.

He used it on a myriad of other projects, including a remodel of our kitchen. One thing he often used it for was to what I think you would call drilling holes to counter sink bolts – makes a nice neat job, with the fastener not protruding above the surface of the wood.

Actually, though, now that I think of it, my earliest memory of my dad doing handy work is of him using a power tool – a table saw. He used that table saw a lot. In later years, living out in the country once more, he used it to cut small pieces of firewood into stove lengths.

At some point he finally broke down and got an electric hand-held circular saw for carpentry projects and also got a small gas operated chain saw to cut up that fire wood.

I always looked at my dad’s carpentry work as a hobby, but he refused to view it as such. He simply claimed he had things that needed to be done, so he did them. He did not claim to be, nor was he, a jack of all trades, but he certainly was good at carpentry, house wiring, and plumbing.

By his own admission, dad was too slow to have made a good living at those trades, but he did insist upon himself that work had to be done correctly in a workman-like manner, and he did not take shortcuts. He was a journalist most of his life, and that certainly applied to his work in that field.

As much as I watched my dad or helped him in his projects – as in, would you hold the other end of that tape measure Tony? – I never became a hand at any of those crafts myself. My mind had a hard time going there, and I would often get frustrated.

But through the years, at various times I have been forced to delve into at least the edges of some of those activities and have profited from tips and advice dad gave me.

Probably the one piece of advice I did not get down as well as I should have is: “you have to be patient”.

At this juncture in life, I think people have natural aptitudes for things, and it is hard to work against that grain. But for the things one might be good at, in general, patience and persistence is the key.

Drive to get ahead, luck, being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, all can be important.

But being good at what you do trumps everything.

——————-

P.s. But on this patience thing – with my personality, I never felt I had time to be patient.

Bankers down on the farm…

(Copyright)

The WALTHER REPORT

By Tony Walther

Those young bankers were right the day they came out to see my beef project. They suggested that what I really should be doing was raising vegetables, operating a kind of truck farm, as they used to say.

My half-hearted goal at the time was to be a cattle rancher and I didn’t care for their attitude.

There I was with my cowboy hat, T-shirt, jeans and boots, with my three head of cattle, and these two young guys in their suits were trying to tell me, a Future Farmers of America member and high school agriculture student, what I really should be doing.

Now don’t misunderstand. I had nothing against vegetables. In fact, I enjoyed vegetable gardening, I just never had the full appreciation of its potential, or maybe I was just mesmerized with thoughts of the days of the old west and vast expanses of cattle range and how grand it would be to ride around on horseback to check out my spread.

But here’s the deal. I was trying to get this beef thing going on a little less than three acres, most of which was planted in young almond trees, several of which were dying off from some mysterious disease. There was a dry creek bed in the back. Actually it all started when I got a free pig, but we’ll get back to that later.

All of this was just off of Highway 99E in the northern Sacramento Valley of California. This stretch of road runs through orchard country, primarily walnuts, prunes (that’s what Californian’s call the type of plums that are dried into prunes), almonds, and some peaches. The orchards are grown in a fairly narrow band along the Sacramento River, in some of the richest soil in the world.

On such high value ground it only makes sense to raise high value crops, such as the orchards are. Probably, if there weren’t orchards to grow, it would be planted to high-dollar vegetable crops.

As you go away from the river and into the foothills, the ground is less fertile, and there is little to no irrigation available. That’s cattle country.

Now at the time, the mid 1960s, there was at least one established produce stand on the highway near us with several acres behind it devoted to various vegetable crops, and I am sure they sold local fruit and nuts as well.

But here I was on this just shy of three-acres plot, excellent soil, and irrigated from the mutual water company (kind of like an irrigation district). What would have made sense, would have been to devote it to raising produce (what trees were still alive were not so big that they would shade everything out). In fact, we (my dad and I) did raise some garden there.

The acreage was near the highway, so it would have been easy to draw in local customers as well as those traveling through. Actually, I think I (we) considered such a thing, and then figured, naaa.

At a later time, maybe five or more years, when I was working for the local newspaper, a retired executive from, I don’t know, the Bay Area or LA, bought some property down the road and created a successful fruit stand and vegetable farm business. Some of the established orchardists in the area were jealous of him.

And in more recent years, several more fruit stands have opened up, spurred on by a renewed interest in locally grown and sometimes organically grown food.

I might add, even when I was in high school, I was somewhat interested in the organic thing.

Oh, by the way, those bankers who came out were judging projects for some type of competition and I received an award. I have a suspicion it was one of those everyone is a winner things.

Is there a point in all of this? You must be wondering by now. Well, yes there is. It’s about economics and the principles of business.

What I should have been learning in all of this, was how business works. But the tradition of 4-Hers and FFAers showing and selling livestock at junior livestock auctions runs deep, even in orchard country.

It’s really a silly thing. The young person raises a single animal, feeding it expensive store-bought feed and then sells it at some astronomical price, way above the real world market. What has been learned?

But it’s kind of hard to parade around your ear of corn or crate full of squash or your almond tree in the show ring. And it’s just not as glamorous.

Actually, I never did take part in a junior livestock auction. I once had several pigs that were destined for one, but, wouldn’t you know it? They were overweight. They did taste good, though – sorry little piggies.

I also had two beef steers rejected at two different junior livestock auctions. They didn’t make the grade, so they were shipped off to the real world slaughter market, then at Stockton, Ca. Now that was a real lesson in real world economics. Cattle have to be raised on relatively cheap land with economical feed.

One lesson I failed to learn was make use of any advantage you get, but also remember, if others are not doing it, there may be a reason.

I was the recipient of what was then called a Sears Project. For absolutely no cost, I was given a Berkshire gilt (a little girl pig). The only payment I would owe would be a female from her first litter.

She grew into a sow (a large female pig) and after a visit to the boar (a male pig) at the school farm, she produced a litter (hey, another lesson – the facts of life).

I was on my way to being one heck of a hog farmer. Trouble is, in my neck of the woods, hogs had gone out of style (although once popular). The neighbors didn’t cotton to the idea of living next to Tony’s Hog Farm.

That’s where the almost three acres came into the picture.

I did try to figure out the economics of the thing, how I could obtain relatively cheap feed. And I did get some, to include: cull walnuts, cull peaches, a small amount of bad milk from a local dairy (and don’t ask me to explain the health ramifications of that one), and some spoiled feed from a feed grain mill that I boiled in a big incinerator like container. But there was not enough, and in order to get pigs looking like they need to for a junior show, you really have to buy that expensive pelletized stuff.

So, without going any further with all of this, it did not work out. Sold the sow after she became pregnant with her next litter (swine gestation is three months, three weeks, and three days). The buyer, a ranch kid from up in the northeastern California mountains, got a good deal. As soon as they got home, the sow had her litter (I guess it was the long trip that induced labor).

Yeah, I think I should have raised vegetables.

My wife just left for the local farmers market a few minutes ago.

Postscript:

Even though I didn’t go into ranching, farming, or commercial vegetable growing, I did earn much of my living through agriculture for many years. I spent maybe four years putting out what was called the Farm Page for two different newspapers, and I spent a decade hauling produce over the road.