My wife says I need to downsize my farming operation because, according to her, “You’re getting too danged old and too stuck in the last century to keep doing what you’re trying to do.” So, last week, I met with an amiable realtor and her client to show them around one of my farms that I have had listed. The prospective buyer was a very nice, middle-aged gentleman from Georgia.
Given my own background, I usually hit it off quite well with southerners and this guy was no exception. We both spoke with the same dialect, I knew the area from which he hailed, and we seemed to have a very comparable world view. But, it was the man’s first visit to the Ozarks and he had numerous questions about agriculture in this part of the country. He queried me about the soil (or, more precisely, the lack of), annual rainfall (or, again, lack of), and this funny looking grass called fescue (he had heard some not-so-kind comments concerning the plant).
The Georgia man was also very inquisitive as to the quality of the well that is on the farm that supplies water to both the house and to automatic livestock waterers. “How deep is it?” he asked with a hint of concern.
I confessed that I did not know the depth because the well was there when I purchased the farm some 20 years ago. I assured him that there had never been an issue concerning the availability of water since it had never been weak in those 20 years, many of which had been extremely dry. Then I happened to remember something, and told him about an old, hand-dug well located about a 100 feet south of the drilled well that had water in it year-round, and was only about 25 feet deep. He was intrigued.
“Wow, I’ve read about those in old books,” he stated in awed excitement. “How did they get the water out of it?”
“With a bucket, a rope and a pulley,” I answered. I then went on to explain that when I was growing up, we had a drilled well, and I had drawn a long, slender, galvanized bucket from the bottom of the well for far more times than I care to remember.
“You drew water by hand for the animals?” he asked incredulously.
“Not just for the animals, but for our home, as well.”
Dumbfounded, he continued. “Well, how did your bathroom work?”
“By walking the 50 yards from the back door of the house, opening the wooden door and sitting on a board with a hole cut out of the center.”
The guy looked as if he had just gone from talking to a regular farmer, to trying to converse with some time-traveling person from the 1800s.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” he began, speaking very sheepishly, “just how old are you?”
My wife is right. I am too danged old.
