Modern Farming

Maybe what I live in the midst of is modern farming, maybe not. I guess a definition of modern farming depends on what part of the country you are from, what you grow, and how commercial you are. The only thing I know about is what we do, or what our farmer does. And I suppose I’d better qualify that statement as I really don’t know very much; I know very little and consider myself fortunate that MH and our farmer are quite capable, so this is a big burden off of me. When my father was alive, he did his own farming. Now we rent our land to a farmer who has a lot of land of his own but also rents ground from others. MH decided when he was growing up and working in the cotton fields that there had to be an easier way to make a living. He did not enjoy farming one bit, and I am sure I would not have liked it either. Our farm was a much more sophisticated operation during my father’s lifetime, even though he passed away 20 years ago. He raised registered Black Angus cattle, grew all kinds of crops, had an orchard, grew grapes, had an enormous garden, and you name it - he did it, if our climate allowed it. He was an Anheuser Busch wholesaler, but he distributed beer so he could farm. His heart was on this farm. It even had a name back then. He called it Hilltop Angus Farm. We dropped that name because we weren’t able to keep the cattle operation going after his death. We tried for a few years, but we didn’t have the expertise to raise cattle and it was not enjoyable to us. Cows are beautiful to look at while they are grazing out in your pasture, but they don’t look so hot when you are responsible for taking care of them and you don't know what you are doing - and I sure didn't know what I was doing!

Now to address a couple of questions Kris had about the cotton..... The weather allowed us to plant the cotton real early this year. It is usually mid-September before the cotton starts opening up but MH says there are 2 factors that have caused the cotton to open so early, one of them being that the crop went in early. The other factor (that we had not counted on) is endless days of intense heat. The heat is one thing, but the heat index is another thing entirely. With many days in a row of heat indices reaching temperatures between 110 and 116 degrees, the cotton opened prematurely. MH has really begun to worry about it. We have been thinking that this was a near perfect year, but now his thinking is that the quality of the cotton will be inferior. MH likens it to a premature baby - the cotton won’t weigh enough. It does hurt for the cotton to sit in the fields all opened up and unpicked so the farmers will begin the defoliation process via crop dusters very soon. Then all of the bolls will go ahead and open and once the foliage is off, the farmers will get into the fields with their huge cotton pickers and get it harvested. Until recent years, they often picked the fields twice. Because of the expense involved, farmers have started waiting until the entire crop is ready and then pick only once. I’m guessing that our fields may be picked mid to late September this year, but this is a guess. Again, I have a great farmer who makes these decisions. I watch from my back porch and thank my lucky stars that I have someone capable of farming my ground.

Now on to the boll weevils.... You can google and find out more about the Boll Weevil Eradication program. Bolls Weevils are almost a thing of the past because of this program. When we were plagued with boll weevils, they attacked the bolls when they started forming. I guess I describe a boll weevil as looking a bit like a tick with a rounded behind. A couple of our children worked in the Boll Weevil Eradication program in the summers during their high school years. Baited boll weevil traps are placed along the edges of the cotton fields, although there aren’t as many traps now as there were when the program started. The traps are checked periodically, usually by an Ag student (like our kids were) employed for the summer, and if boll weevils are seen in the traps, the field is sprayed.



This is a boll weevil trap on the edge of my neighbor's cotton field. The same farmer works her land that farms for me. Notice that the trap has a number on it.



The next consecutive number can barely be seen on this trap. It is on my farm. Whoever set up the trap tied the slim rod it is mounted on to the fence post with a red cloth strap.








Notice the orange squares in this close-up of the top of the trap? This is the bait. There are a few bugs that look like ants in the trap, but thankfully, no boll weevils. Can't help it, but I hate that spraying.





Well, I haven't mentioned soybeans. In case you haven't seen them before, here you go. There is a soybean field butting right up to the cotton field where the previously pictured boll weevil trap is. These fields are near the Pond Creek bottoms. They are also near what we call the "lost" farm. We have a farm - only 15 acres - but we can't get to it. It has timber growing on it, but we can't get to it for Pond Creek, a tributary of the Forked Deer River. The cotton near this farm was planted much later as this land flooded in May. You could see the flood water from my back door, although I live high enough that my home was never in danger.






















I could not resist this last picture. If I named it, it would be "How Farmers Fix Things". If they have a can of WD-40, some barbed wire, and a pair of pliers, they are often good to go.