Last Rounds & Lost Friends
When Farming Meets Mortality
“If you ain’t first, you’re last.” - Ricky Bobby
The Last Twelve
It seems like every area has one or two farmers who are consistently last.
The last one to plant and the last to harvest.
When analyzing yields, many seem to need someone nearby as their measuring stick.
Someone to compare their operation to ensure they measure up to the competition.
Rough Riders
Theodore Roosevelt once said that “comparison is the thief of joy.”
Well, I think he did, anyway. The Google tells me the quote was attributed to Teddy Roses and a few others, but they don’t mention anybody else, so The Trust Buster gets the credit today.
Which he should.
Guy took a slug to the chest while delivering a speech and finished the damn thing before obtaining medical attention.
It wasn’t just a few more seconds to complete a line or two.
He went on speaking for eighty-four minutes with a .38 bullet lodged inside his chest cavity.
Eighty-four minutes!
Thankfully, The Rough Rider’s speech was fifty pages long. Those fifty pages inside his chest pocket slowed the bullet and saved his life.
What a tough old bugger.
Just like the Summers SuperChisel, baseball cards, and Chicken McNuggets, they don’t make em’ like they used to.
Pity that Teddy is mainly known for America’s National Parks and the Panama Canal.
Not everybody gets the recognition they deserve.
Anyway, in the words of The Naked Gun’s Frank Drebin, where the hell was I?
Oh yes, the thief of joy.
It doesn’t matter what occupation you’re in. Not comparing yourself to your colleagues or competition is a difficult task.
In farming, comparison gets kicked up to the next level.
“Hey did you see what so and so is doing?”
“Why haven’t they finished this field yet?”
“Can you believe those guys still have corn in the field?”
Blah.
It’s hard not to compare ourselves to others, especially if it’s the nineteenth day of sugarbeet harvest, and you’re one of the last growers digging, and you want to be done and go home and crawl into your warm bed with your lovely lady and a box of Lucky Charms, but you can’t cause you still have these stupid beets to dig so you start cursing the neighbors and their larger equipment and labor force that allowed them to get their Lucky Charms and cuddles before you.
Life be like that sometimes, but you can’t let it get you down.
There will almost always be somebody who concludes before you, someone who seems to have it a little easier, but you shouldn’t focus on those folks.
Remember, you’ve got your farm to worry about.
When a numbskull laughs in your face at a celebration of life for a friend because you wrapped up harvest the day after the usual “last guy,” it’s best to try not to get too wrapped up in it.
After all, it’s just one man’s opinion.
But, talking shit at a funeral. Have you no scruples, man?
Gee cripes.
See what I mean? It’s easy to get lost in this small-town coffee shop nonsense.
Comparing myself to Mister, I’m so insecure I need to poke fun at the corn guys to feel better about myself is robbing me of the joy I normally get from writing this weekly leaflet.
Piss on that noise.
Harvest is complete.
Does it matter that it happened a month later than everybody else and on my Mother’s birthday?
Does it matter that it took 195 days from planting to completion?
Doesn’t matter to me one bit.
As late as it went, I enjoyed the corn harvest.
It’s the first of December, and I sit in the tractor tilling corn trash. I’d much rather have this than six months of snowy winter like last year.
My Happy Place
Admittedly, we got lucky.
On a normal (if there is such a thing) year, we may have been stuck with corn in the field until spring.
Still, I’d do it all over again if given the chance.
The things we learned in our plots and trials far outweigh the negatives of harvesting in the snow or the mockery from the locals.
As a seed and research farm, we aim to know the products and varieties we supply to make proper recommendations to growers who entrust us to help them with their seed and biological purchasing decisions.
We must grow and use the products and varieties ourselves to do that.
You didn’t see Henry Ford cruising around in a Chevrolet. He drove what he built.
There is no other way.
That’s the stuff that matters to us.
To prove it, we raised twenty-four different varieties and hybrids this year.
We experimented with at least a dozen biological trials.
These Things Take Time
Doing things differently takes time.
Research takes time, and it’s not always easy.
If we wanted easy, we’d sell the farm and greet people entering WalMart.
Like Theodore Roosevelt, the occasional pop shot won’t get us to quit.
You do you, boo.
We’ll stick with the Teddy Roses approach and keep doing what we do.
Class of 2002
Twenty years later, all of us still give a shit.
This week, we paid tribute to Brandon, our first fallen classmate.
On Thanksgiving Day, a stroke and brain aneurysm robbed the life of our thirty-nine-year-old friend.
It’s a bunch of bullshit when things like this happen, but they will happen.
It’s unfortunate and frustrating as hell.
But, as my wise Grandfather once said to my Grandmother when she was worried about my young father whipping shitties, “When it’s your time, it’s your time.”
Ain’t nothing we can do about it except be there for one another when the good lord calls a friend’s number.
Click Here if You'd Like to See Brandon's Obituary
What a Crew
The Stephen-Argyle Central Class of 2002 does exactly that.
We show up.
Every one of my classmates donated something to help Brandon’s family.
Every. Single. One.
One hundred percent.
Pert-near half of us showed up to pay our respects to our fallen comrade. More of us attended Brandon’s memorial service than our twenty-year reunion last summer.
Some drove several hours from the Minnesota Metropolis up south and returned home the same night.
Impressive stuff.
As an awkward introvert, I often get the nervous toots when preparing for a gathering with a slew of people I seldom see.
Conversation tends to challenge me.
I usually end up saying something bright and insightful like:
“That’s a nice haircut. Did you do it yourself?”
An awkward pause follows that smooth line while I shimmy back to the bar for another bottle of liquid courage with a palm welded to my forehead.
This is why I prefer writing over chatting. My overthinking brain requires a hot minute to string together the proper words.
The good news is I have the best classmates a fella could ask for.
They pick me up by rehashing stories from our glory days, and before long, I’m as cool as Gwen Stefani, spouting stories of my own.
At least, I think I am…😅
Good people
I wonder why we don’t get together more often for shits and gigs instead of funerals.
Jill likes to organize these things.
Every Class needs a Jill.
Someone to create the Class Facebook group that prompts us to reach into our wallets to help a friend. Someone who appreciates friendships and motivates us to pause our busy lives for a few minutes to catch up with old pals.
So, thank you, Jill—job well done. When ready, you may consider planning the next Class of 2002 outing.
You can bet the farm I’ll be there, even if preparing for it gives me interplanetary gas.
Hey, listen.
I tell ya what.
My Class of 2002 kicks ass.
Housekeeping
Last week’s poll regarding the preferred delivery date of the FFT showed that readers are indifferent to when this hussy lands in their inbox.
Therefore, I’ll continue trying my best for Friday delivery as long as my workload (which should soon lighten) allows.
This week, I discussed the research we’ve been performing on the farm.
Now that the end of the season is near, I will finally get the time to sift through the data and present our findings from the work I’ve been blabbing about all year.
I’m excited to compile and share the results here, so watch for that.
As always, thank you for reading this week’s edition of Farming Full-Time.
I appreciate you all.
Take care of yourselves. I’ll catch up with you next week.
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