Is Farming Tough Only In Thailand?

[Foreverford]

I thought you might like to hear from another farmer who lived in California went to Guatemala for nearly a decade of helping educate local farmers through charity work and then returned to Minnesota in the US with his wife and family to raise hogs and eventually started growing hybrid stock of poplar trees that were to be used for fuel fired energy production. He is working part time with forestry to supplement his farm loses as it seems almost all farmers seem to be doing world-wide these days. This is an alternative to farming here if someone is looking for a change. I hope you enjoy.

In our last episode, our heros, Ana and Dave, had just made it back from

a long weekend of being snow bound in Duluth to a yard full of snow

drifts and a thermometer bottomed out at -22F.....Power steering fluid

was gushing from the bottom of the van....

So bright and early Tuesday morning I went out and started a fire in the

poplar shed to warm up the snow blower, fire in the garage to warm up the

van (specifically the power steering hose), and connected oil pan heater,

tank heater and battery charger to the tractor. Then followed my carbon

footprints back to the house to wait and contemplate my predicament. The

tractor had very little diesel and #2 diesel at that (left over from

summer) which has a nasty habit of gelling at temps below -0F. I

couldn't drive the van into town on a fuel run with the steering hose

hanging down in the snow and grit and couldn't reconnect the hose which

was too stiff to even bend. Decided to try siphoning fuel out of the

heating fuel tank in the basement which is #2 but warm which would get me

started at least, but would eventually cool off and maybe gel... That

moral quandary became a moot point when I failed miserably to get a

siphon started, only succeeding in spilling stinking fuel all over the

basement floor.

Plan C was to try to get the Geo out of the Quonset where, in my wisdom,

I had put it in winter storage to get it out of the way since I never

drive it in the winter. Trouble was, there was a lot of snow drifted up

between here and there. By now it was mid day, the snow blower was warm

and I was stumped for other ideas, so I started blowing a serpentine

route to the Quonset trying to go around the bigger drifts. When I

finally got there and checked the odometer, my route covered about 1/4

mile. Luckily the Geo is not very wide and 4 passes with the blower made

a big enough path and equally lucky, the good little Geo started.

However, I forgot that it was parked forwards and I hadn't blown an area

big enough to turn around, so I had to back all the way through what,

from the point of view from the drivers seat, appeared to be a tunnel

through the snow to the driveway. Only went off the path and got stuck

twice.

Well, to continue with a ridiculously long story, the local gas station,

seeing their opportunity, "ran out" of off-road #1 diesel so I had to buy

with all the road taxes, which didn't improve my attitude, but got home

with fuel and started the tractor which ran on only 2 of 4 cylinders for

the first 1/2 hour until the new fuel got pumped through. By the time I

got the yard pushed out the sun was going down.

But I still had one more job to do. After keeping the fire going in the

garage all day the van was just beginning to thaw so when I crept my

creeper underneath to check on the steering hose, I got a face full of

slimy cold thaw and a eye full of the last drop of power steering fluid

which had hung on all day in ambush. The hose is on, the pump howls like

cat in a radiator fan, spewing an ugly emulsified mix of fluid and air,

but I can turn the wheels and turn up the radio. 6:00pm and a good days

work done. What would I do if I had a job besides this one?

Only -12F this morning.

Just as an after-thought I remember when he decided to give up the hog farming as no matter how much he fed his hogs in the winter they didn't put on any weight at all so he finally said enough is enough on that venture.

I found and will be purchasing the green manure seeds that I wanted to find hopefully on Wednesday and will update on that topic (in that posting) which I posted previously when it's a done deal.

____________________________________________________________

[Maizefarmer]

Great read.......! comforting to know we are not the only ones who have it tough.

Thanx ForeverFord

[bina]

oh come on maizefarmer, just check out the israeli english language news... we are sob storying it every day now as no rain no water water too expensive; most of us ahve pruned down our fruit bearing trees to subsistence and not production level or taken trees out and put in more water saving plants like almonds, grapes, or olives but the return is in a few years if at all ...

no water= no good hay for our milk cow companies also for the chicken farmers who need water for cooling the houses in the summer etc....

even the thai workers here know to tell me that there are water problems now in israel and therefore production is being reduced pay checks with held, less farming done, blablabla...

we arent even allowed to have a veggie or high water use garden over a certain size for private use so that our orchards can get the water. our springs are very low this year which was always our backup for water drip irrigation for the valley orchards... (nectarines/pears/peaches)

more and more people are closing shop; since they borrow money on futures in production, most have huge debts to pay back and are declaring 'natural disaster' and waiting for payment ...

we are entering an agricultural catastrophe here and we are feeling it daily... more and more land that can be sold is being foisted off to housing and factory projects; some of the agricutultural land is being premitted to become 'tourist project' land i.e. small bed and breakfast type housing/ and related businesses...

it is december and it has rained properly only once... so all those that were planning to sow seed for rain watered hays (legumes, winter wheat etc) are stuck which means that all the animals that are fed from hay will be eating older, last years' hay until about june/july instead of may/june which means that the calving/kidding seasons get screwed... pasture will not develop w/o rain so the beduin and others that rely only on pasture grazing will have to buy hay with money they dont have so will go in to debt or sell cheap... will not medicate for diseases and so foot and mouth disease and other types will be more prevalent, also nutritionally poor feed for pregnant goats and sheep so poor birthing and birth weight..

should i go on????????

anybody ever think that farming is romantic should get his/her head examined ....

bina

israel

wainting desparately for rain (all the rabbis are doing their rain prayers / al the fortune teller /predictors are coming out of the woodwork to forecast rain or explain where we have sinned to not have rain...)

even anon noticed yesterday that there should have been rain already and there isnt any... and the thai workers are still doing irrigation in areas that last year they didnt do...

[Foreverford]

oh come on maizefarmer, just check out the israeli english language news... we are sob storying it every day now as no rain no water water too expensive; most of us ahve pruned down our fruit bearing trees to subsistence and not production level or taken trees out and put in more water saving plants like almonds, grapes, or olives but the return is in a few years if at all ...

no water= no good hay for our milk cow companies also for the chicken farmers who need water for cooling the houses in the summer etc....

even the thai workers here know to tell me that there are water problems now in israel and therefore production is being reduced pay checks with held, less farming done, blablabla...

we arent even allowed to have a veggie or high water use garden over a certain size for private use so that our orchards can get the water. our springs are very low this year which was always our backup for water drip irrigation for the valley orchards... (nectarines/pears/peaches)

more and more people are closing shop; since they borrow money on futures in production, most have huge debts to pay back and are declaring 'natural disaster' and waiting for payment ...

we are entering an agricultural catastrophe here and we are feeling it daily... more and more land that can be sold is being foisted off to housing and factory projects; some of the agricutultural land is being premitted to become 'tourist project' land i.e. small bed and breakfast type housing/ and related businesses...

it is december and it has rained properly only once... so all those that were planning to sow seed for rain watered hays (legumes, winter wheat etc) are stuck which means that all the animals that are fed from hay will be eating older, last years' hay until about june/july instead of may/june which means that the calving/kidding seasons get screwed... pasture will not develop w/o rain so the beduin and others that rely only on pasture grazing will have to buy hay with money they dont have so will go in to debt or sell cheap... will not medicate for diseases and so foot and mouth disease and other types will be more prevalent, also nutritionally poor feed for pregnant goats and sheep so poor birthing and birth weight..

should i go on????????

anybody ever think that farming is romantic should get his/her head examined ....

bina

israel

wainting desparately for rain (all the rabbis are doing their rain prayers / al the fortune teller /predictors are coming out of the woodwork to forecast rain or explain where we have sinned to not have rain...)

even anon noticed yesterday that there should have been rain already and there isnt any... and the thai workers are still doing irrigation in areas that last year they didnt do...

hel_l even Dave in sub-sub-freezing weather ain't complaining if you read this right, it's old friends sharing experiences and I'd thought to pass it on to relieve a little bit of pressure that all farmers have to go through. Obviously it didn't work for you and sorry I'm sure it was appreciated by some. At this point, with me being such a novice at this finger work, I'd start to cuss and say things like "dam_n-it and bloody hel_l" and such, but they don't want us to write that kind of stuff as we're supposed to keep this civil. So let me say this, why don't you just cool out a bit, grab Ken Kesey's great book "Demon Box" read it through, get some insights from another farmer before you respond with another vituperous (I wished I knew what it meant but it seemed right for you) response, similar to your last one.

[bina]

to above poster;

obviously u dont know me... the others do know me...

wasnt being nasty ... just being realistic... since i actually farm (ed)...

and maizefarmer et al know me and my commentary...

so no need to curse on the keyboard, it will cause tunnel carpal syndrome....

defenitely not vituperous, i avoid keyboard confrontation like the plague.. just add my own commenatary from somewhere other then the states, keeps things exiting on the farming forum dont u think,

since iw as one of the original active posters on this forum... u can read up all my other posts about farming (goats mostly)...

ignore the spelling i have dog sitting on my lap helping me type...

and english lang. books here are super expensive so i dont do much off net reading... whatever boook it is u are talking about...

jai yen.

bina

israel

sorry maize u can read thru the lines cant u??

[Foreverford]

to above poster;

obviously u dont know me... the others do know me...

wasnt being nasty ... just being realistic... since i actually farm (ed)...

and maizefarmer et al know me and my commentary...

so no need to curse on the keyboard, it will cause tunnel carpal syndrome....

defenitely not vituperous, i avoid keyboard confrontation like the plague.. just add my own commenatary from somewhere other then the states, keeps things exiting on the farming forum dont u think,

since iw as one of the original active posters on this forum... u can read up all my other posts about farming (goats mostly)...

ignore the spelling i have dog sitting on my lap helping me type...

and english lang. books here are super expensive so i dont do much off net reading... whatever boook it is u are talking about...

jai yen.

bina

israel

sorry maize u can read thru the lines cant u??

Got it, that's the life of a neophyte but no more time for apologies 8 hours on the road now to get some bean seeds and then start fixing flood blown out roads and plant beans hope the newly busted up body can get it going. love them gosats and all me