I took a walk around my small acreage on a recent spring day and took mental inventory of the many messes I need to clean up while I’m still young enough to do them.
As the list grew, I realized it’s probably already too late. Some of them have been waiting for me to grow too old too bother with them.
The multiflora roses in my fence row, for example, the willow trees that blew down some years ago, and the random rolls of old fence wire in various corners of my field, as well as the collection of remnants of cattle panels, chicken fences and busted gates awaiting a trip to the recycling place – they all shout loudly for attention as I walk by.
I’m getting much better at ignoring them. I just keep on walking. I don’t have the time or energy to worry with them today. Maybe next week.
I better understand, now, the subtle signs of decline of Dad’s farm with each passing year. When I and my younger brothers were around to help, it seems keeping up with the mowing, fixing fences, cleaning out the milk barn and hosts of other chores got done like clockwork.
Looking back, don’t know how we did it, or why we didn’t object to all the work. I guess it never occurred to me that I wasn’t a vital part of the operation. We were family, and the main part of what made ours a family farm was our shared responsibilities. That was the old “business model” for small farms.
Though not written in any contract, we intuitively knew those daily chores made the farm as much ours as our parents’. I don’t know that kids growing up in a house on a half-acre city lot could quite grasp that concept.
But, as we left the farm one-by-one, our absence was betrayed by jobs left undone. One of my favorite analogies for the ravages of time on both Dad and the farm is a single image in my mind of the milk barn door as it fell into disrepair.
Built of the same rough-sawn oak boards as the rest of the barn, it once swung freely and shut securely. Over time, though, it did neither. Nails holding the hinges fell out one-by-one, holes were kicked in rotting boards and baling wire replaced the original latch. At my last look the old door was left hanging askew with only one hinge secured by fewer than half its nails or screws.
I know Dad could have fixed it – made it a proper door – but somehow he never got around to it. Neither did it bother him enough to ask me, “Jimmy, next time you’re down can you fix that barn door?”
Baling wire was doing the job just as well.
Any of us could cite dozens of other examples of farms in decline – things that make it obvious an old farmer is on his own after the kids have gone, and he can’t do all he used to, either.
One of my favorites was Dad’s remedy for gaps in the fence. He just cut cedar trees that had overtaken much of the pasture and piled them in the fence row. It looked awful, but for a season or two, it kept his cows off the road. And he didn’t have to stretch a single wire or drive even one fence staple.
He also made the most of those cedars when pasture got short – cut them down in winter and left them lie, then later pulled them aside to reveal patches of green grass.
Now, I look around my few acres – just five, not nigh 40 – and try to imagine creative ways to deal with rose bushes and storm-felled willow trees. In the end, I just tell myself they’re not hurting a thing. Besides, I still have a good fence around the place – one that I paid professionals to build after admitting my own shortcomings.
And, as of now I have nary a single steer to keep off the road. So, if this starts to look more and more like an old man’s place, I can assure you it is.
A former feature writer for Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, Jim Hamilton is a retired newspaper editor/publisher. Hamilton was reared on a small dairy farm in Dallas County, Mo. Contact Jim at [email protected].
