A Salute to Dad Rote

He taught me how to tie my shoes.

How to work with a positive mindset.

How to embrace excellence in my work ethic.

How to run.

How to ride a bike.

How to throw a football.

How to keep my head up through adversity.

How to be humble.

How to do mental math.

How to play pretty much every sport I ever learned how to play.

How to cast a fishing line.

How to take a joke.

He taught me a lot of things that require instruction. He,  being my dad. Dad's teach us a ton of really important life skills in life, like the ones I mentioned above. But I want to call my Dad out. Not for something bad though. Usually, when someone calls someone else out, it's for a transgression.Today, it's for exemplary behavior. While my father taught me many good things, it's what he showed me that's more important. He showed me how to be a man.

Many times, when you read about fathers and sons, you hear about a father teaching his son how to be a man. Like it's a step by step process.  But I don't think that's how it works. Or how it's supposed to at least. The best Dad's, the ones like mine, show how to be a man. They don't point to where the path of manhood is, and instruct their sons to walk along that path. They walk the path of manhood themselves, and ask their sons to follow.  That's what dad did for me.

He tied his shoes, and showed me how to do the same.

He worked beside me, and showed me how to stay positive in the middle of a job.

He performed excellently in everything he did, and gave me the tools to do the same if I chose to.

He ran, and asked me to follow him.

He threw a football, and showed me how to do the same.

He experienced adversity, and became my example for how to survive it.

Showed me active humility.

Did insane amounts of multiplication tables in his head, and demanded I do the same. I hated him for it then, but LOVE him for it now, and my employers, past and present are, at the very least, subconsciously grateful to him for my skills and many other things.

Point is, my dad is a hero to me. Not some superhero, superman character, either.


He's the kind of man I want to grow up to be. Smart, knowledgeable, wise, proficient in mathematical skills, kind to a fault, and most of all, faithful to his family and loved ones.

I know I don't show it often enough, but if I grew up and turned out exactly like my Dad, I wouldn't be disappointed, because he's a pretty swell guy.

Dad, if you are reading this, I love you. Happy father's day. I can't thank you enough for being such a great role model. I wish I could give you more than this silly post, but 'till I make my million's, or at least my thousands, this will have to do.

How your CSA came into the world.

I remember when I was a kid, and it was my birthday, my mom would come into my room, and always tell me the same story. My birth story. It always started, "8 (or however many it happened to be at the time) years ago today. . . "  It always finished with her telling the story about how they counted my fingers and toes, " and we counted five fingers on your right hand, and five fingers on your left hand, and five tiny toes on your right foot, and five tiny toes on your left, and you were a beautiful baby boy, and we named you Ben." It always reinforced who I was. I knew where I came from. I knew how I came to be, or at least knew all I cared to about the subject. I knew that I was Ben, and the son of Kyle and Mary Lynne. It made me appreciate life, and my parents more. It helped form my identity. 

Every now and then, Delta Sol is lucky enough to have volunteers come out and help. They are genuinely selfless with their donation of time and energy and in turn get to live a day in the life. But with a few exceptions, not many people who we see around town know really what they do. They see the muddy truck, and sunburnt face, and frayed straw cap, and register farmer,  but they don't know how it is that Brandon and I turn seeds into food. Today, I hope you'll read a little about how we do what we do. I think it will give you an appreciation for the food you get this week, and hopefully give that chard in your CSA bag a bit of a backstory. Along the way, you'll find a lot to be thankful for, and a lot of people to be thankful for beyond just Brandon, Lauren, our volunteers, and me. Enjoy. 

Last year, probably around May, seed farmers across the world were watching as their chard, spinach, lettuce, and collards bolted, or in common vernacular, went to flower and seed.  As those plants flowered and put out their seeds, those farmers collected the seeds carefully over a period of days and weeks. After collection, they sent those seeds to a larger company that they are likely under contract with, like "Johnny's Selected Seeds," or "High Mowing Seed Co."   In order for those farmers to get their plants to seed, don't forget that they too have to have good luck in eluding drought conditions, and pest problems. Without those seed farmers, there would be no vegetable farmers. Be thankful for seed farmers. 

Don't think that those farmers hand deliver the seeds either. They stick them in the post just like any other company. So, if a delivery man along the way forgets to turn on the A/C in his truck's trailer, and those seeds spend half a week baking away at 145 degrees fahrenheit, the seeds might have a much lower germination rate than they would otherwise, ruining the farmer's potential crop. However, if things go as planned, the trucker remembers to plug in his A/C, and the seeds come to the doorstep of some large seed company to be sorted out, packaged, and then sent to small farms like Delta Sol. Be thankful for good delivery men. 

After the seeds get to Delta Sol, Brandon and I have to be diligent in taking care of our seeds just like the trucker did. No super high temperatures. No super low temperatures. The humidity can't be too high. And, in some cases, it can't be too low. 

Then, we take plastic trays that are used to incubate our seeds into seedlings. Each of the plastic trays holds either 72, or 128 cells of soil that are about an inch wide, and an inch and a half deep. We take our seeds, and place them carefully inside each of the plastic cells, one at a time. The seeds range in size, from about the size of the ball on the end of the ball-point pen when it comes to flowers like celosia and some leafy vegetables in the brassica family, to about the size of the pencil eraser when dealing with seeds like beets or sunflowers. Keep in mind, to supply 60 people with lettuce, that's going to be a hair under 800 seeds to plant. Every two weeks. And, keep in mind that we don't just sell lettuce. That means that kale, radishes, beets, squash, sunflowers, onions, and tomatoes aren't included within that 800 seed figure. 

After those trays of lettuce (and whatever else) are seeded, they take between 0 and 2 months to completely germinate, and grow to a size that will allow them to survive when transplanted into the field or high tunnel.  In order for those seedlings to survive those first months, they have to be closely monitored in the greenhouse. The soil in their cells can't get too dry, so the greenhouse has to be checked and watered several times daily to ensure they don't dry out and die. Remember, they're planted into cubes of soil not much larger than an ice cube. They can dry out and die quickly. If the soil does dry out and the seedlings do die, the farmers (Brandon and I) are MINIMUM 2 weeks behind the planting schedule, and maybe as much as a month or two behind. 

When the seedlings survive about a month in the greenhouse, they have to survive another test: being brought outside. There, they are accosted my different weather conditions which, depending upon the time of the year, could either be near freezing cold, or near boiling hot. Then, there are pests. Aphids, grasshoppers, caterpillars, nematodes, fungi, and viruses, oh my. Any of them could be the downfall for an entire crop of vegetables. Thats if the weather isn't too rainy, because if it is, we can't plant seeds. And, hopefully the weather won't be too dry, because then we'll be able to plant, but the seedlings we get in the ground won't survive, and somehow the weeds will. 

As soon as we do get the seedlings in the ground, and growing, and irrigated, the pest problem is still there. it doesn't go away until the season ends. It can take half a day for any number of pests to wreak havoc on a single crop. By the time the crop is half destroyed, you have to spend the money on expensive organic pesticides, and spend the time in applying them when you have 27 CSA shares to get ready, and the lambs are out, and it would be great if we could kill that pig this afternoon, because she's at slaughter weight, and each day we put that off costs us money in feed, and each dollar that we spend on feed could go to another high tunnel, or more seeds, or maybe a better fence in the north pasture, and you always have to make sure you have enough to pay those you employ, and enough to buy yourself food, and gas to get to market, and diesel for the tractor. 

Once the seedlings are growing you can take a deep breath, but only half of one. Because then you have to harvest the produce you have that's ready to be picked and sell it to a vendor, or someone at the market, but if you work faster, faster, faster, you can get  enough done today that you can have the time to take the other half of that deep breath tomorrow, and we still haven't slaughtered that pig, so this afternoon, we can either save that kale, or stop bleeding from the pocket book and maybe kill the pig. Then in two weeks, the seedlings you planted a month ago will be ready to go to market, but damn if the nematodes aren't getting the kale, and a fungus is getting the lettuce, and you're left with chard and beets and pea shoots to give the CSA, and you can take some green garlic from the field, but not too much, because you need the rest for full heads of garlic later in the season.  

In the afternoon, you weed the beds in the hi-tunnel after putting the pig in the freezer. Your mind races with plans for the future. Then, you bring yourself back to earth. It's only Monday. There are plenty of things left on the to-do list. But, really now, it wouldn't be THAT bad to have a milk cow...

Whether you believe in Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or Auras, or the alignment of the stars, or beauty of the Cosmos and the flying spaghetti monster, the next time you eat a meal be thankful for, and believe in your local farmer. 

Starting a Farm: A Thought Experiment

One of the many blessings about this internship is that it allows me to be geographically closer to my family. My parents live about 45 minutes away, so that gives me the chance to be able to see them 1 or 2 times a week in between work obligations. During one of those visits, my mom brought up the topic of being able to lease a piece of land from family friends, and it made me realize I didn't have even a rudimentary business plan. Sure, it's nice to be able to spend my days working the land, and hanging out with animals, but if I really want to do that long term, and make money doing that, I have to map ALL of my expenses.

There are some things, for instance, that I will only have to buy once, or at worst, every 5 years. Things on this list are electric fencing, some sort of tractor, or very good walk behind tiller, parts for a chicken tractor or three, feeding troughs for goats and chickens and pigs, coolers for storing meat, and many others.

Then there are yearly costs. several tons of locally sourced grain and supplements for the animals. 1-200 cornish cross hen chicks, hay, seeds, some fertilizer, packaging for my produce, market fees, pigs (if I don't breed my own), and lots of other stuff I have written down frenetically and late at night.

It's a very sobering, but fun process, to be able to imagine and create something from scratch in an imaginary reality, and it's very funny how problems pop up in daydreams like they do in life. I can be neck deep in a daydream where I've been enjoying a pastoral life with all of its perks when all the sudden, a potato blight pops up, or my sheep get eaten by coyotes.  Maybe that's a compensatory measure our brains take for us, to prepare us for adverse times ahead.

Either way, it will be fun in the next several months to decide whether I want to pursue other internship opportunities, or just jump in neck deep to see what happens when a greenhorn goes into the business of being green.

Taking an Active Place in the Food Chain

A lot of you who know me well know that I've been farming organically in Proctor, AR for about 3 months now. Those of you who don't now know. 

One of the huge draws about small scale farming, or even farming in general, is that you take an active role in the food chain. In addition to being a draw for me at the beginning of this adventure of mine, it's been a reward. Buying salad mix, beets, turnips, collards, kale, basil, oregano, okra, tomatoes, eggs, and now, pork, has become a thing of the past while those items are in season at Delta Sol (the farm I work at). 

Being an active part of the food chain can be ethically easy at times, and at other times, it can be difficult, or even trying. The easy times are when you wake up early in the morning, and walk out of your house to a frost covered lawn, and then cut rows of lettuce, or chard, or basil, and bring them into the harvest shed to prepare them for members of your CSA or customers of your farmer's market. To the unseasoned farm hand, it can be difficult. My boss, Brandon, had to assure me multiple times that the mustard greens and basil I was so brashly cutting would simply regenerate and produce more food for customers and CSA members. I felt like I was killing the plants. My ethical qualm wasn't killing the plants themselves, though. It was about killing the farm. Calculations ran mad through my head. "Well, lets see, we sell about 20 dollars of basil and mustard greens combined every farmers market. Over a period of about a month, that equates to a bit under $100 a  month I cost the farm with my incompetence. This man is paying me every month to do jobs that I could quite possibly botch up so badly that I cost him about 20% of the cash he pays me each month in addition to paying my rent. Oh no. I should quit before I get fired. I'm going to kill Delta Sol Farm, and every last mustard green on it." 

Yes. This is really the way that my mind works, however sad and twisted it may be. But luckily for me, I was not killing the mustard greens, and Brandon (the bossman, in case you haven't caught on by now) is a very patient man. On one hand, it surprises me on a very deep level that he hasn't beaten me senseless with a rake or shovel, not because that's the kind of person he is, but because very frequently, that can be the reaction I elicit from people. On the other hand, it all makes sense, because I am the resident pig killer at Delta Sol. This leads me to the part of the article where I discuss ethical dilemmas. That last sentence was the transition between this paragraph, and the one I'm about to start. My past writing teachers would be so proud!

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. My weaknesses are varied. I'm terrible at: keeping a clean house, being humble when I should be proud, being proud when I should be humble, working at a fast pace (I'm more of a slow and steady guy), remembering anything on my schedule, not procrastinating when I do remember to do something, etc. One of the strengths I have is the ability to throw myself into uncomfortable situations despite every nerve and brain cell in my body telling me not to do so. 

Brandon's strengths are working quickly, being organized, having the ability to successfully manage a farm, social connections, and many others. To be honest, I haven't found many weaknesses he has. One of the few I have found is slaughtering animals. Pigs, to be exact. Don't get me wrong, it can be really difficult to slaughter and dress an animal. Just this morning I killed a pig, and I admittedly fought a battle against my stomach and it's propensity to turn like it did the first time I killed a pig. I do not necessarily have a strength for killing animals, but I do have the ability to turn my mind off of the fact that my stomach wants to empty itself upon the grass sooner than later, so that makes me the designated trigger man. 

The first time I killed a pig and threw up, it was, to be completely honest, a terribly embarrassing affair. I threw up in front of my boss, an old man who has killed more pigs than I have lived years in my life by a factor of two or three, and my girlfriend. These are three people I don't like vomiting in front of more than anybody.  To my boss, and the old man, it conveyed weakness. To my girlfriend, I imagine it conveyed a distinct image of unsexiness. But Mr. Reynolds (the old man) found it funny, Brandon did as well, and reminds me of it from time to time to keep me humble, and Meagan (the ladyfriend) still has an evident desire to kiss me, so I suppose all isn't lost. 

In my life, I have killed one squirrel, two deer, and three pigs.  I am not terribly well aquainted with death, but I have had some contact with it, and I can tell you it is never pretty. Whenever Brandon announces that we are going to kill a pig on the farm, it comes with a mix of excitement and trepidation.  I am excited because I get the chance to quit relying on corporations like Tyson to provide me my daily bread (or meat as it is). I am excited because the pigs we kill get passed on to individuals who genuinely appreciate our products, and the fact that they have never seen the inside of a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.  

I am also nervous. I am nervous because we have spent the last three to months breaking our backs to respect the sanctity of the animals we raise. They are animals, and as a result have a right to live as animals do. We give them forested areas of the land we farm on because pigs have evolved to live in forested areas of our earth. We dislike the fact that so many animals are solely fed grain to fatten them up, so we limit the amount of the grain they eat, and leave the pigs to eat the vegetation they live around  for the most part. 

The cumulation of this work resolves itself, or forever ends in dissonance, as I, the resident executioner, rest my pointer finger on the trigger of a 20 gauge shotgun. If I f*ck up, and shoot the pig in the wrong place, it has a longer, more painful death than it deserves to have. At the end of the day, what does it matter that we put the pigs in the forest rather than confined feeding stalls if I miss the brain stem by an inch and the beast I have so lovingly fed, petted, and fostered dies a painfully prolonged death?? In my mind, if I do that, I'm only slightly better than the monsters who end up feeding the majority of the American populace. It all boils down to the quarter of a quarter of an eighth of a second in between the moment when the firing pin strikes the primer behind the 20 gauge shotgun slug, and that same slug finds an unwelcome home in the skull of the pig we happen to be slaughtering that day. 

I apologize for the graphic nature of my explanation, but I should point out now that if all goes according to plan, the pig doesn't feel the slightest bit of pain. Because of the fact that the slug travels faster than the speed of sound, the pig doesn't even have a moment to consider or register the boom of the shotgun. One moment it is happily eating away, and the next we pass the pig along to customers who, in turn, eat away at that pig. An entire life, and not even one bad day. Just a quick, painless, mediocre moment passing between this life, and the next, depending on where you stand on the issue of god letting pigs into heaven, or reincarnation. Although humans tend to anthropomorphize animals, they aren't like humans. Every time we've killed a pig, I've seen other pigs in the pen nudge it out of the way because it was laying on food that they wanted, and just moments after the killing, the remaining pigs in the pen come up to the fence line for a scratch on the ear. They truly do not register emotional pain in the same way that humans do. Would you nudge your brother or sister out of the way for food only 15 seconds after their death?? Would you seek physical affection from someone you knew to be a killer? If not, it's because you are a human, and not a pig. I truly cannot stress the difference between animalian and human psychology. I have a true heart for animals. If I thought that I was causing the animal true misery or pain, I would resign myself to a life of vegetarianism. That moment, however, has not yet come, and I don't expect it to. All animals at Delta Sol, from the chickens in my backyard, to the cows, and the pigs are treated with respect from the moment they enter the bounds of our property, and continue to be respected until the moment they leave the property on the way to the meat processor.




It's a philosophically difficult job. My adrenaline spikes every time that I make the decision to pull the trigger. I say that it's a philosophically difficult job, but really the difficulty is all in my gut( and in this instance I don't mean physically). Not because I have a gut instinct that killing animals is wrong, but because I have a gut instinct about killing an animal being an important event for a human life. I always thank the pigs before and after they die, and I always eat pork the night after I've killed a pig. I do this for a lot of reasons, but chiefly among them is to remind myself of why I do what I do. I remind myself that pork is tasty. I remind myself that I cared for the animal sitting on my plate, and gave it a damned good life, and an easier death than most humans are afforded. I remind myself that the pork I eat will give me energy to keep on feeding myself and customers of Delta Sol Farm.

Now, I must leave you all to cook some pork steak, seasoned in New Mexico red chile that my wonderful woman (pictured below) sent me. Thanks Meagan.

EDIT: Earlier in the essay, I regrettably referred to people who work for concentrated animal feeding operations as "monsters." I need to revoke that statement. I have a fierce feeling of opposition towards those who continue to propagate monoculture within the agricultural world, and feel that all farms should have a variety of plants and animals regardless of their specialty. When it comes down to it, though, all farmers, whether they are farmers for Tyson, or a large pork/beef/soybean/rice operation are simply trying to feed themselves and their families. They are human, and ultimately, whether I agree with their farming methodologies or not, end up feeding many many mouths both in America, and the rest of the world, and they work their butts off to do it.

Welcome!

Hello future loyal readers!!

A bit of introduction to this blog. I'm writing this for a lot of reasons. First, I'm living in Proctor, Arkansas right now. In case you were wondering, Proctor is incredibly flat. So flat that you could watch your dog run away for two days, and write a song about him before he went over the horizon. In addition to Proctor's simply ravishing topographical features, theres another issue. I have lived here for three and a half months now, and I don't know if Proctor is a town. To be more clear, I have not witnessed an old-south style square with a courthouse, and bookstore, and malt-shop (did I just use the phrase "malt-shop?"), and small scale compounding pharmacy. There is a post office about three minutes away from my trailer, which my sister, Josie refuses to call a trailer, and insists upon calling it the cabin. I love her anyway. But, as far as I can ascertain, Proctor is inhabited by roughly 200 people, and many thousands of acres of the richest agricultural land in these fifty states. Seriously, you can grow the crap out of anything here as long as it isn't coffee, coconuts, or pineapple.

Why am I residing in such a flat, agriculturally rich, non-populous area of the American south, you ask?? Small scale organic farming. I could get into why I think that the small scale farm is the way of the future right now, but we have plenty of time for that later. The point is, I'm here to learn how to make things grow, whether those things are okra plants, lettuces, beets, cows, chickens, or pigs. And if you want to, you can listen to me ramble about all of these things and more. Here in my own little corner of the blogosphere. I just used the word 'blogosphere.' Oh no. I need not to do that.

I'll also be talking about things that interest me on a daily basis. These can be projects like taking care of my backyard chickens, or making wood carvings, or cooking, or growing facial hair, or smoking cigars, or motorcycles. I'm incredibly obsessed with motorcycles at the moment even though I don't own one. I really really want to though. This is normal for me. I go through cycles of really wanting a motorcycle, and then I get worried about the dangers of motorcycling, blah blah blah, and ultimately decide I won't ever get a motorcycle. Then it all starts over again. Complete with watching hundreds of crash videos (partly to get a real idea of the risk, and partly to learn from the mistakes of others)  The thing is, the more I research riding a motorcycle, the more I learn that a lot of stupid people, or people who aren't riding vigilantly make things seem more dangerous than they actually are. It seems like most of the time I'm on the highway, or driving through the city, I see some young guy about my age riding around on an ultra high performance bike in a t-shirt, some lightweight jeans, and a baseball cap. Don't get me wrong, he has the right to expose himself to whatever level of risk he wants to, but I can't be convinced that a great deal of motorcycle fatalities are guys like this who don't have any amount of respect for the machinery they have in their command. If they had been wearing proper gear, I suspect mortality rates among motorcyclists would be substantially lower.

Then, there are other statistics floating around. Nearly half of all deaths in 2007 involving a motorcycle and another vehicle precipitated out of conditions in which a left turning vehicle did not see an oncoming motorcyclist and give him/her the right of way. The way it seems to me, if you are extra, extra, extra vigilant about approaching intersections, you negate quite a bit of risk (almost half) when it comes to two vehicle collisions. Of the one vehicle collisions that resulted in a motorcyclist fatality, 48% were speeding, and 42% had a BAC over 0.08%. Don't drink before you ride, and don't speed. That's another huge chunk taken out of your risk factors. Also, if you wear a helmet, you are 40% less likely to die in a motorcycle accident.

Don't get me wrong. Driving a motorcycle is dangerous. But, if you keep your head on your shoulders, wear protective gear, and don't drive after you've been drinking, it could turn into a relatively safe-ish hobby in comparison the the bad rap I think it gets. It's all risk mitigation. And, for my purposes, waffling in between wanting to get one and not wanting to get one, I should put my worries aside for now. Because when you worry, you pay interest on a debt you don't owe.

Long story short, I think I might have an itch that I can't cure until I get one. Sorry Mom.

I'll leave you all with a pretty amazing Alan Watts video/speech I found not too long ago. Hopefully it works. I don't fully understand how to work this blog thing yet. But if it works, please try and watch it. It takes 3 minutes, and might change the way you look at your life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN64kLei0Ac