Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
|
The other night I was invited to sit on a panel and talk about modern farming practices in New Hampshire. There was a great crowd, the other presenters were articulate and knowledgeable, the venue was warm and festive and it was a great experience to share the things I’d learned over the past eight years with an audience of attentive and intelligent adults. Our experience has been a very positive one despite the setbacks and losses.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
Farming is an arduous lifestyle both physically and mentally. Financially it can be a struggle because the income, much like the seasons is never consistent. There is no weekly paycheck, some investments in future returns never come to fruition and losses are often tied to factors that are not ours to control; weather, markets, restrictive regulations, etc. However the rewards and payoffs that come in other areas of our lives have exceeded our wildest expectations.
We are healthier, we sleep better, eat better, spend more time together, enjoy more of the meaningful aspects of life and escape the traps of modernity that serve as distractions and time wasters. We improve the world around us, enjoy beauty and sublime moments with regularity, have broadened our community and our contributions to it helping to build a better local environment because of it. We’ve entered into a close relationship with the source of our sustenance that has existed since the beginning of time and which most Americans are completely divorced from in their daily lives.
Although we make only a fraction of the income we once had I can say with complete assurance our family is wealthier today than when our bank accounts and investment portfolios were overflowing. The stresses we feel are tied to something real, not contrived and built around illusory expectations that can never be fulfilled. Each day is new despite having a pattern that repeats itself because Nature is ever changing, even as it remains the same.
I read the article above this morning and was struck by two things- how our current culture does everything in its power to divorce people from the land and from meaningful lives tied to reality and then to act shocked when these same people become demoralized and give up. So many farmers have taken the bait of jumping on the Industrial Agriculture merry-go-round in an attempt to join the rest of the modern world and it’s trappings that they failed to even notice that they too had taken a wrong turn. Farming didn’t kill these people as the article would lead you to believe, it was the radical departure from it while trying to remain on the land that was at the root of their failures.
Most people believe that there is “no going back” to a previous era in life. This has never meant a literal turning back of the clock, of time travel, but that is how they perceive it. But go back we will because our present course is unsustainable. We have become an entire society of specialists so that virtually no one can see the bigger picture. Food comes from the store, the services and care of the medical profession have become a right, income is a guarantee- so much so that those who choose not to participate in life in any meaningful way are fully subsidized and compensated for their very existence. Clearly such a system is doomed to failure. Inputs come from somewhere. The continual use of any resource eventually leads to its depletion. We are going to return to our roots at some point, hopefully we will do it absent a cataclysm, but do it we will.
I have been writing about this for almost a decade, at first to keep some kind of record of what we were up to, but lately to the audience I know can understand what it is I have to say and who sense that they too can retrace their steps from that first false path and hopefully find what it was that was lost along the way.
Wow.
Timely piece.
When I started my business nearly a decade ago I planted it in a major urban center. I knew I would have to in order to make it financially viable. I live an hours drive from it in a small rural community to help keep me sane.
I love my work but feel disconnected from where I live at times. I’d prefer to have the business on my doorstep but financially it would be unwise. Our business is all about volume. If you cannot do volume you cannot buy properly which means you cannot compete. Which means thousands of immediate customers need access to me, easily and physically.
The level/volume of communication with the public required to keep me viable is overwhelming at times. That’s part of the reason I hang out here. This place is social and fun but places no demands on me in terms of attention. I can give it what I want to give it.
The life I lead in meat-space seems unnatural to me at times even though I am sure what I am doing is what the universe or God intended for me to do. It’s a form of public service in this day and age I guess. Yet the day to day of it brings me little peace. Go figure.
Anyways, thanks for writing this. It’s made me think.
Sincerely,
A. Hamster Onaweel
Nice comment FM
I think farming’s definition depends on where you are. On the northern plains, I have many farmer friends – farmer suicide isn’t even heard of. They have generational wealth and it’s highly mechanized. It’s become a cerebral game and most, as in in 99% are no smarter than the average engaged professional. They live well, bitch about having no cash, then retire and live like kings. Along the way they have big families, new vehicles, lake homes, toys, trips…..all of it. They know they’ve got a good thing but like the rest of us, are compelled to bitch and whine to let us all know their burdens (which fall on mostly deaf ears). As long as they don’t use more debt than necessary and watch the planting and spraying in particular – the rest is largely beyond their control and NOBODY has more programs and exemptions than AG. Every farmer I know with kids has kids getting into…..farming! Shocker! Run a 2500 acre farm @ $4,000/acre…..the equipment and facilities bring $750,000-$3,000,000 – if they want out after a career of 30 years with programs and taxpayer funding/exemptions/supports, all of it- they’re looking at a payday of around $12,000,000. And that’s not counting the enormous cash they can stash in ‘good years’ in Ag specific investments, or the lake cabin they’ve paid off, and the …….you get the idea. And they vote democrat ALL DAY LONG.
But, farming here ain’t farming there – so maybe there’s something I’m not seeing.
I know a LOT of those types in the central farming region throughout the plains states, especially the alluvial floodplains of the Missouri and the Mississippi. My cousins retired early, selling his half of the family farm for $2million.
But the life of a farmer isn’t quite so dependent on weather now that subsidies are in concrete.
If farmers run into economic woes, John Cougar Mellencamp and Willie Nelson show up and sing songs for them. If some schlepp’s plumbing company goes out of business, there’s no Plumbing Aid to raise money.
I was reading the blog of a modern ‘farmer’ who branched out into navigation systems for agriculture. I only learned that because his blog was really about his purchase of and cruising on his 76 foot Nordhavn motor yacht! He was from Missouri and didn’t know much about yachting but at age 60 or so he and his wife decided to spend the $ 5 million or so for the boat and retire. He put about 15,000 miles on the boat over a couple of years going to Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska but after a few months in Hawaii he got call to become president of a then Calgary based company that helps farmers accurately till, fertilize and plant their crops so he parked his yacht in Seattle and back to work he went.
I looked up the company because I was curious as to the source of his wealth. Farming isn’t Jeb plowing the fields on his IH tractor these days. Did you know that they use GPS systems that keep their tractors within a 8 cm deviation and thats the cheap system. The deluxe system reduces the deviation to 3 cm!
Thats what my yachting acquaintance business does and its important to farmers because it reduces the amount of seed, fertilizer and fuel farmer need to grow their crops. So farming is a high tech business these days that requires lots of capital and know how. It isn’t something one can take up on a whim like buying a $5 million dollar yacht, take a few weeks to learn about the boat and then head down to Mexico on it!
No kidding. If I get the chance, I’ll take a few photos of some of a friends farm “equipment.” It is almost like being on a Star Wars set for me, being in their barn. We had a John Deere tractor circa 1960s and a 57 Combine and a squarebale Haybaler. Seeing the amazing tools of farming now is like being on a foreign car sales lot with a dollar rent-a-car budget.
Here’s the kicker, they usually have tractor-trailers, excavators, and other heavy equipment. They use these for any number of farm oriented tasks but THEN, they’ll put their hired man in the excavator for example, and go bid on jobs against for hire excavators that have to pay silly shit like, overtime, fuel tax, road use taxes, equipment inspections, workmen’s comp (fuck me is this one brutal), sales tax on parts, real estate tax on their homes, and on, and on……
We bought this little piece of ground from a lady who’d picked it up in a bankruptcy sale a good twenty years ago. It has been used for pasture and fescue hay, with about half of it wooded. Two creeks and a decent pond. No chemical use here in decades and the soil is wonderful for herbs.
Most farmers in the hills raise a few cattle and perhaps put in a small cash crop… twenty or thirty acres might be a big field in the hills. And, the farmer probably has a day job, at least part time. But, in the low flatlands around the river? Thousand acre fields without a break in miles and miles and miles is common. One must have half million dollar big rigs to farm that kind of ground. And it never ends with the money changing hands.
We had two 30’s era Farmall tractors, one with steel wheels, and various non-hydraulic implements. No combine or bailer, we had to rent that service. Dad wound up breaking the rear axle on his ’47 Ford 1 ton by loading up too much hay. Did I mention we lived in 4 rooms and a path? I treasure those humid days and freezing nights on the prairie.
Great article: Joel S and Wendell B would be proud 🙂
I hope I have the guts to make the leap before I am too old!
“We are going to return to our roots at some point, hopefully we will do it absent a cataclysm, but do it we will.”
Hardscrabble is right: we will go back to older ways of doing things sooner or later. My grandfather told me much the same back in the fifties when we were just starting to use chemicals in a big way. We used to rotate crops with pasture land. We raised corn, soy beans, wheat, oats. We made hay and stored it in barns (don’t miss that). We raised and fed beef cattle, hogs and some sheep. Farming was a year round business, a way of life that scrabble is attempting on a small scale. When I was forced out of farming in 1983, I had a little over 600 acres in corn and beans and no grass or pasture. We had taken out all the fences and torn down all the old barns as Purdue U. Ag had recommended and the government basically forced you into doing with allotments and all the programs. We were starting to become just a money pass through to the seed, chemical, and farm equipment companies. And the tax man. Property taxes and taxes in general could eat you up if you managed to have a good year. Farms consolidated as owners died off; get big or get out was cry. The survivors did and a combine now costs half a million.
The soil has been killed by decades of farm chemical use. (And whatever shit settles out of the chemtrails being daily sprayed everywhere). All manner of species are dying off and they can’t figure out why. The air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat is all contaminated and they can’t figure out why the epidemic of diabetes and obesity. I read there are over 60k chemicals in our environment that were invented since 1950s.
I’ll be eighty soon. I think the human race is on a fast track to oblivion if it doesn’t change its ways. I’m pretty sure it won’t. I’m very sure I can’t change a damned thing about it. And Tommy above is correct about the plains farmers.
Glad I found this blog a few months ago. A lot more wheat than chaff here.
” I think the human race is on a fast track to oblivion if it doesn’t change its ways. I’m pretty sure it won’t.”
It will be one or the other. We will either change our ways or perish. But we will not change our ways en masse until we are forced to–until our very survival as individuals and as a species is at stake. Such is human nature.
Excellent comment robert. I agree one hundred per cent.
Part of my studies have been and are, in the area of demographics, energy, inventive technology, human population and how each are intertwined throughout history.
Its a big ball of wax to unravel, but put in a nutshell goes like this;
From the dawn of mankind, humans existed in an equilibrium with nature. Depending upon the earth and its bio-mass for support and sustenance. Utilizing human manpower, animal (horse, oxen, etc.) power, domesticated food animals, cereals, and to a small extent, water power.
The closely estimated worldwide human population for thousands of years, during this period of equilibrium is between 1.8 and 2.4 billion people. The most the earths bio-mass could comfortably support. With one farmer able to support (feed) a maximum of ten others.
Then just a short 200 years ago, along came the industrial revolution. Utilizing coal and steam power at first, but quickly morphing into the use of petroleum, with the advent of wide spread use of the internal combustion engine.
Not only farming was revolutionized with one farmer now able to feed multitudes, mankind could fly! Go to the moon! Wonder of wonders kept (and keep) falling into mankind’s lap. The human population of space ship earth now numbers about 8 billion people. Except most have forgotten that what is finite is NOT infinite. Oil will run out someday. Used up. As is the earths bio-mass, as it is continually degraded at the hands of mankind.
The writing is on the wall, for all who want to see and read.
The human population has skyrocketed from 2 billion to over 8 billion, in just the last 200 years. Compliments of the petroleum industry, internal combustion engine, and mankind’s penchant for screwing around with mother nature and the environment. Once the oil has been used up, with no other energy source to fill the void, many, many people, will be “going” away.
When I get to read comments and posts from guys & gals like HSF, Robert here, Maggie, Francis, I.S., Doug 7-Up, Llpoh, Stuck, EC, RiNS, and Admin, Muck & his minutes…I know I’m tapping into the collective wisdom of some seasoned folks who have been around. Coupled w the wit & humor of Dutch, Grog, Iska, Nkit…this truly is the wheat, and the chafe gets separated out regularly. It’s become my go to addictive source for accurate info & opinion. Helluva group. Entertaining and educational all in one place. What’s not to love? Focus. Zero in on reality, as projected by those who recognize and face it. Hurt feelings be damned.
To those regs I missed, no offense. Most who contribute here usually have something good to offer.
I’ll keep trying to add to it all, when & where good additions can be submitted.
Ass kissing works best with Stucky and EC. Llpoh, IS, Admin and Muck like the sarcastic compliment best. “Sure, I liked what you wrote, but you could have cleaned up some of your flowery rhetoric, Asswipe.” See? It tempers the praise with faint damning.
Other regulars? Some take sarcasm well, others not so much. Me? I’m all about the “bass.” Whatever that means.
Ahh, yeah, I figured some would see that as trying too hard. But, my nature is to compliment. If that’s seen as too soft & brown nosing, I can see that as a reasonable interpretation. But it’s coming more as an expression of appreciation. Nevertheless, I’ll dial it down a bit. Guess I gotta go back to the attempts at funny shit, vs. blowing sunshine up asses around here, as accused. Some pretty LARGE asses, at that.
Exactly. The afterthought of “LARGE” asses is just the perfect hint of SNARK to admit you admire someone’s life experience and wisdom without seeming too eager. Perfect.
I declare this one “trainable” EC. Unlike that fish you hauled in that turned out to be almost completely Untrainable.
Shh, he’s a Stucky disciple. He claims he’s following Stuck’s program; 10 rules for noobs. Stuck conveniently neglected to mention, there are no rules.
First rule of TBP. No nipples. Second rule. No rules.
Got it.
Chaff
Lager, it’s very democratic of you to mix the lesser lights with the stars of the operation; the big dogs are and always will be LLPOH, Stucky and Muck. Doug-Up is a new big dog as is Magita. You can’t credit nkit without mentioning his significant other, Yohimbo; they are two of a kind. Dutchman is the Ace of Spades. Iska is the Joker and razzle is Batman. You didn’t mention the Death Nurse, I don’t know if that’s good or bad but we love T4C dearly.
I can’t correct your list since the kaleidoscope of commenters changes daily. Lurkers will weigh in with a brilliant comment and they’re gone in a twinkle. Others, like Hollywood Rob come to show their ass like Laura Aguilar hoping somebody will consider it art . Like a bad penny, we can’t get rid of him and we can’t keep the good ones like Beth. I was hoping she’d be back in a couple of days. Oh Beth, where is thy sting?
T4C…forgive me. Agree wholeheartedly EC. Yes, there are many. And the hierarchy is something quite real. Experience and seniority should be honored & respected, Senior. Alas, I had little way of knowing how long the BDRs have been running here. Little yappers can, and will err from T2T. But some still love to run, when the pack gets going.
Cheers.
https://youtu.be/kHkojuUSDO8
We do love the death nurse. I am working on my annual Christmas prank. I am calling it bunny in a jar. Putting a red ribbon and a few cranberries in the jar and suggesting your child train it or slaughter it before Easter.
No, “They” are not killing the soil. A major concern of the modern farmer is dealing with all the residue left over from the previous crop. Farmers call it trash. In warmer climes the trash can be left on top and left to break down in a no-till method. In northern climates with shorter seasons, most of the trash has to be incorporated or the sun has no access and the soil warms too slowly in the spring and delays planting. Regulations of the farm program determine how much trash has to be left on the surface. Soil is made of sand, clay, silt and organic material called humus. In this soil soup live bacteria, nematodes and critters of all description. On average, yield curve rises each year. Mother nature dictates outcome, but farmers push their best strategy forward. The soil is not dead or dying, that is myth. Erosion, loss of soil, due to wind and flooding is a concern, but regulations regarding trash are combating soil loss also. Maybe the cotton farmers of old “killed” their soil by adding no nutrient back, but soil is not dead, and the repeating over and over that it is will not make it so. Long live dirt.
The best description is that the soils lack tilth.
If you are a monoculture operation you strip the soil of certain nutrients that are kept in place with rotational plantings. In virtually every other agricultural system the soil has been amended with manure from livestock, but in the era of specialization a hog farming operation maintains lagoons for the manure slurry, ditto big poultry ops, cattle CAFO’s, etc and the waste, rather than going back into the soil to feed the microbial life found in it becomes, quite literally a waste product rather than a nutrient. By pounding 30/60/90 day crops with NPK and suppressing weeds with Round-up and keeping insects off your crops with chemicals you render the soil tilth-less. It isn’t the same living, breathing eco-system Nature designed, but a polluted, weakened, microbial desert.
I’ve had farmer customers that only farmed because they felt they must. They inherited the farm or bought it from dad. They’re third generation or more and feel they can never sell. These sons and daughters dare not be responsible for ending the dynasty, if you will. The responsibility seemed to crush their soul and sap their energy. I don’t know HF’s whole operation, but it sounds in his writing as though he appreciates those things that a rural life offers. He talks of sunshine, blue skies, maple trees and beef cattle. Some farmers lose sight of the good things, others should have never farmed. Farming is a job for those with multi-talents, very few can do it well and still appreciate all that it offers.
Eco system. Yes, I agree, everything is connected. It is difficult if not impossible to do anything better than the Mother has done. Yet, things, some seen and some unseen drive change. Our own congress is responsible for not supporting the small grower, but capitalism has not been kind either. Tilth and smell and feel are real. Stones marked planting times once, our very life depended on real things. Going back does not seem possible, at least for all of us. Less of us living better, is not a catchy sales line. Hoping for a reset is also futile. HF your tone has changed some, gotten harder in the short time I’ve been here. The winter is for rejuvenation, healing and preparing for Spring. Chin up, they used to say. Chin up.
Scrabble,
Thank you for correcting Penforce. I generalized but am not wrong. When’s the last time anyone saw a tumble bug (dung beetle)?
Who knows what a Doodle Bug is? I do. I remember in the grain barn, the combine sat over a cool shaded area which was almost sandy. We learned how to call the doodle bugs to the surface… must have been where the Sandworm idea came from, huh?
Enzymes and trace minerals matter. Is why H2O tastes flat while my pure mountain water from 400 feet down is exquisite.
Welcome aboard, Robert. Good comment. That’s exactly what Hardscrabble Farmer was talking about.
Every year we throw more and more sludge into the axle of this spinning blue marble. When it finally grinds to a halt there’s going to be a lot of folks who “didn’t see that coming”.
Get out of the cities and back to the land.
Invest in Tesla? More like mules…
On the bright side, there are a lot of younger folks getting into small, specialty farming and making it without the huge outlays of Big-Ag. My son left scholarships behind and switched to Horticulture, and is just about to start cropping on my 40 acres, doing specialty crops and greenhouses. His buddy is just starting his first mushroom house, and they are lending each other a hand.
I am in total agreement with HSF that the disconnect of urban dwellers from their food supply is not only problematic but also a tragic loss of connection to the planet. My city home has the constant whine and commotion of the freeway as background 24/7. My farm has coyotes, owls, bobcats and our critters – along with the wind and those stars going all the way to the ground.
I tend to think it’s a matter of where one’s heart belongs. For many years now we have leased less than two hundred acres and focused more on bringing locally grown farm-fresh produce and other products to urbanity by way of farmer’s markets, restaurants, and regional groceries. The married with children farmers I know are of the most intelligent, hard-working, and business savvy folks on God’s green earth. But, it seems today, most of their kids go to college and choose urban life after graduating.
That is not always the case, though.
Some relatives on my wife’s side who I have gotten to know more since last spring, farm several thousand acres at over four separate locations, with 1200 head of cattle, a rock quarry, woods, rivers, and streams. The son of the living patriarch maintains their own dryer units not far from the quarry, the grandson works in conjunction with a state university regarding dual cropping techniques, and the grandson’s fiancé works at the local extension office and researches innovative ways to raise cattle. With that family, I would say their heritage is secure, at least for the next generation.
Not long ago, I sold a 1980 jeep CJ-7 to a family farmer four hours west of me who farms over 5,000 acres. He was one of the shrewdest negotiators I’ve ever come across. More recently, I was enjoying social hour in a golf course pub and speaking to one of my high-school friend’s wife when another friend came up and asked her: “So does your husband still jack-off cows for a living?” (he sells bull semen). And without any hesitation, she quipped right back: “He sure does and smiles when he does it…! All the way to the bank!”. Pretty funny, but not the kind of work a snowflake would brag about.
There is a difference between sustenance-and-then-some farming with running large operations. Equipment cost, weather, time-commitments of raising livestock, fluctuating prices, etc. is enough to make anyone go insane and I’ve seen it happen. When corn prices are high the pricing for near everything else required to bring it to harvest goes up as well. The same with livestock. Then, when prices drop, everything else stays high. This is why farmers are a cautious bunch and rarely are they not concerned about something. Too much rain. Not enough. Getting crops planted. Harvesting before snow flies. You name it. Lots to worry over. And this is why they are so thrifty. Why do farmer’s wear hats, you ask? Well, to shield their eyes from the sun and because the seed companies give them away for free.
I have also seen younger male farmers struggle to find a bride. They can lead a lonely existence because most women nowadays prefer the suburbs.
Life is heavy and can be overwhelming at times. Some occupations carry more risk; and there are never any guarantees.
Un delivers the correct insight on modern farming. Although he did fail to mention the role that the bankers have played in the whole scheme. But he’s increasingly real close to ‘getting it’.
I’m impressed.
Yeah, and also not mentioned were the kids who stay on the farm when their hearts are not there. They do so carrying the weight of generations on their shoulders. And pride can be a heavy load in small towns where people love to talk; where main streets crumble and brand new, sprawling banks gleam like shining glass cathedrals.
You obviously ‘get it’. I have 5 kids. Two have graduated college, one still in college, one in high school and then a middle schooler. The oldest boy took over the farm. Your description of the youth is accurate.
Uncalloused, do you mean the bankers that drove the Okies off the land have not changed their ways?
Same as it ever was. Miss a few payments, lose your hair and gain new heirs.
[img[/img]
An interesting character I met when taking cheese-making classes in rural Oklahoma.
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Very_Small_Farm.html?id=Bd5co_qQc5IC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Very_Small_Farm.html?id=Bd5co_qQc5IC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false
[img[/img]
This guy, from north of Tulsa, and HSF may be twinsies. Really.
“Most people believe that there is “no going back” to a previous era in life. This has never meant a literal turning back of the clock, of time travel, but that is how they perceive it. But go back we will because our present course is unsustainable.”
Or we could go forward to the UN’s Agenda 21/30 / Technocracy’s definition of sustainable which, I’m sure, is quite different from the definition you’re thinking of. With sustainable development they mean to remove all humans from most of the land while reducing the human population to their desired goals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMeXSlGJZYc&t=3055s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGcvkAGCwFM&t=32s
Most people have never heard of the United Nations’ Agenda 21 which supposedly is an agenda of sustainable development which can only be achieved by the mass extermination of billions of people, the loss of freedom and the concentration of people into concrete and glass crowded ant hills, better known as high rise apartments. This is about commercial farming on a massive scale but the animals are not cows or pigs or chickens but human beings. Those funding and promoting Agenda 2, which is closely connected to the AGW fraud, form part of a satanic cult and include people like Maurice Strong, Al Gore, David Rockefeller, Bill Gates and most banking, corporate and political leaders of the western world.
I greatly admire HSFs lifestyle and am planning to do some hobby farming in my retirement, I love vegetable gardening/seed saving and plan to get several kinds of fowl at the very least and maybe even a few goats. We have a little over 50 acres in the hinterboonies which we have been using for hunting and firewood (I live in suburbia) and Id be happy to cut a few extra bushcords if a neighbor wants to barter. Dont know if Ill ever make it but you cant win if you dont play. I spend a lot of time thinking about small scale firewood processors, small mills and other pieces of the puzzle. I never worry about the weather and other things far beyond my control but the Agenda 21/30 crowd can take a long walk off a short pier 🙂
HSF – farmers are among the holy. I have always believd that. These are the holy in my book, as they create things or build things or provide things: farmers, miners, manufacturers, fishermen. Most everyone else owes their very existence to that small group. I know we need those other folks, too, but these core are the ones that provide everything.
Thank you.
Interesting you put fishermen and farmers together. Came from farm country and now living in a fishing village. The two are small businessmen and alike indeed. Both keep their eye to the weather and make hay when the sun shines.
Enjoyed this, Hardscrabble. Wonderful writing. I completely agree with your viewpoints.