Boats wrote me this morning to beat me up, saying: “I am a bit bewildered by your basic attitude towards pasturage. You’re paying thousands for, and hundreds in maintenance coasts for basically a mechanical small sheep or goat herd.”

“To the non-urban mind, pasturage is not a big lawn, but a productive asset.”

“You can plow it up for crops or leave it to grow tall for fall hay, or use it to feed livestock. Especially sheep. That doesn’t mean that every gentry farm under ten acres has to have sheep and goats or even a crop out in the field that you gentry farmers have to tend yourself.”

Boats is right, of course, and I take no umbrage in his point. At the moment I am a dilettante, and still splitting my time between here and there, and the animals would require supervision as much as I do.

I became enamored of the idea of a country property in the time after 9/11. Professionally, I was engaged in the establishment of alternate locations for the Government to continue operations in the event of some catastrophe in the National Capital Region, and concluded my government career attempting to deal with some of the more horrifying possibilities.

I looked west, to Loudoun, and Clark County, though all those properties seemed to contain decimal points in the asking price. I looked for several years until I finally got down to Culpeper. The real estate market had tanked, the price was right, and the place was reachable even on foot from Washington, if you had a couple days and were fairly determined.

I liked the farm for a variety of reasons, but one of them was the existence of the bunker dedicated to the Federal Reserve’s continued existence- there was rumored to be a stash of small bills on pallets in the range of $6 billion- to restart commerce after the nuclear exchange with the Soviets.

Anyway, the farm was intended to be a safety valve against the unthinkable, and now it is something else, and likely to be my version of the Alpine Redoubt.

Boats comes at this from a real country perspective, and he said that “My Uncle Mel lived on 88 acres of seriously farmed and ranched land in St. Tammany Parish an area of suburbs, mini farms, golf resorts, decorative plant nurseries, and a few remaining and deeply entrenched “farmers” who were really agribusiness men. Uncle Mel ran Black Angus Beef on his property, kept about three fish ponds, and put about 20 acres each in various crops each year.

“As a farm unit those acres put his five kids through college in style by selling off each kid’s Back Angus herd (each kid received a breeding pair at birth). The 20 ACRES of crops were pretty much a wash since he owned his own tractors, plows, combines, and other harvesting machinery. However he never expected to make any money out of the farm. He borrowed against it to buy the machinery, which he turned into a business servicing farmers with more acreage but no investment in equipment.”

“With parts of the larger farm and forest holdings being converted into suburbs in the 1950s-80s he bought two bulldozers as well and created a business doing site prep for the incoming suburban sprawl. For the remaining serious farmers in the Parish, he opened a feed store way out in the country where the gentry didn’t usually tread.”

“It did well. When the gentry began to get a bit closer he opened a tack-and-saddle shop for the horsey set, who were moving beyond the 10 acre mini farms and buying some of the outer acreage of the big farms in 100 acre increments to erect barns, pasture horses and have their own bridal paths and riding rings. And indoor arenas, of course.”

“When the thoroughbred horse industry arrived, he partnered up with agribusiness farms doing mechanized support to their giant holdings for raising feed grains, and things unique to Louisiana like indigo as cash crops on what would have otherwise been surplus acreage.”

“Uncle Mel would describe himself as a “dirt farmer and sometimes contractor”. His “poor losing farm” was an endless source of tax deductions and security for capital loans for his “hair brained” small business ideas like a store in the “middle of nowhere.” “

“His business case was to leverage his farm to purchase more agra machinery than would be necessary on his little spread, and “share crop” with big time race horse owners and the industrial farms. The bank always wanted those 88 acres because they were only six miles from the Parish seat of Covington on high rolling ground with big oaks and pecan trees and right in the path of McMansion type suburban development.”

“That’s why they never held Uncle Mel to business plans and other MBA-like stuff before agreeing to lend him croaker sacks of money.”

“They never got it. Uncle Mel just continued to observe and fill the needs of the new city escapees, and the old farm families that remained. He died a multi millionaire but rarely paid the IRS a dime, legally. I shudder to think what he’d say about spending serious money on a giant lawn mower absent a hay baler.”

“How did all these people in the parish get to know Uncle Mel when he wasn’t much for country clubs, cocktail parties, or socializing generally? The County (Parish) Agent, every country in American has one. Everybody from the old farmers to new suburban developers would contact the county agent at one time or another with a problem that Uncle Mel could solve for a reasonable price. You couldn’t buy better advertising, hell, the county agent was like an advertising service and better business bureau endorsement warped into one. Your county agent can help you find the “Uncle Mels” in your county who can help you turn those idle acres into something productive without you actually having to get behind the plow.”

“All “share cropping” arrangements are not between patron and peasant, or between and among the poor. All those participating in modern day gentry farm “share cropping” arrangements” are not struggling and many are not only profitable but provide wonderful tax shelters as well. If you find the “Uncle Mels” and pay close attention you can become an “Uncle Mel”….though you’ll probably never wear a Stetson, roll your own, light your match for your “smoke” off your grizzled face, or sit a horse as well.”

“But just because you’ll always look like gentry doesn’t mean you can’t think like an arga business / exurban developer. The first step is to get to know your county agent and get him to lead you to the local “Uncle Mels.””

“Really, mowing real pastures as if they were a lawn. If I, or one of my cousins did that when Uncle Mel was still above ground he would have shot us “in the tail with a pack of tacks” his favored threatened form of ultimate discipline. A mechanical goat……you were too long inside the Beltway!”

I took the point. I looked up the Virginia Cooperative Extension System and identified the office in downtown historic Culpeper, conveniently located near my go-to java house The Raven’s Nest.

I drove into town, thinking about the bent shaft on the tractor- the mechanical goat, as Boats calls it- and decided to stop for a big cup of Dead Man’s Reach coffee. It is the 100th anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act, which officially established the National Cooperative Extension System. It is going to be a heck of a centennial; of which I intend to participate with the staff of nine at the office.

Here is part of what I learned already:

Top quality dairy and horse hay, large square bales, good grade at $146/ton, alfalfa orchard grass large square bales, good grade at $141/ton, orchard grass large square bales, premium grade, $154 – 164 per ton. If you buy small square bales of these good and premium grades just mentioned, expect to pay another $100 per ton.

So, there is that, and what comes out of the ground all by itself can be turned to good advantage. Country stuff is good for you, if you stop by the Extension office. My Shenandoah correspondent recommends some simple solutions for dilettantes like me with too many vehicles on the property and a lot of insects to deal with:

We found that when a vehicle sits for a while, the local field mice love to chew wire and set up housekeeping. They especially love the air filter for food storage.

Kryptonite for Kritters

Get essential mint or peppermint oil (health food store – must be all natural).

Liberally apply to pieces of cotton rag or cotton balls.

get some of those 2-3 oz lunch box containers to put the soaked rags/cotton balls.

Punch holes in the lid and fill.

Put several in the engine, trunk and interior of the stored vehicle.

Or, old fashioned moth balls do the trick too. They just don’t smell as good as mint.

Organic Weed Killer

One gallon white vinegar – heat up on stove – do not let it boil, just good and hot

Pour 2 cups Epsom salt in to the pan – make sure salt dissolves completely after mixing it up

Remove pan from stove and let cool to room temperature

After it cools, pour into sprayer

Add 1/4 cup liquid dish detergent

NOTE:

The only thing I don’t like is that you really have to spray a lot, but it does kill the weeds and makes the ground so acidic nothing grows for quite some time. Next year, I’m going to try a watering can instead of a sprayer! May even resort to straight white vinegar.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303