There is a Time

I haven't learned much about the bigger world lately, except it's still in the throes of Covid and prices are going up, inflation is on the rise, politics is the same ole same ole. I worries me, but I've lived long enough to know things will change...for the better.

My wife and I did get a window of opportunity to travel in June and July. I taught at Allegheny Echoes for a week in June, and we traveled up to  Western Maryland and the WV Panhandle to visit some folks and play some tunes.

While taking that much needed break this summer, I did a lot of porch sitting in Maryland on one of my favorite Victorian porches looking at the mountains and cogitating. What to do with me, us, and the farm. What has to be done to make the transition from a very active life to one that is slowing down..

It takes a great deal of physical energy to keep up 20 acres. Baling hay, planting and caring for a garden, filling the woodshed, mowing grass, doing tractor jobs on the side, and keeping track of the little things. I'm fighting a losing battle it seems.

Education is the sum total of a person's  experiences. I'm learning a bit more about my own little part of Madison County, Ga. It's beginning to get to be a bigger than the 20 acres I first acquired. 

I watched well kept farms in my life go from big to smaller and smaller as the owners aged. Their kids grew up and went do what they have to do. That left the one man trying to take care of what he used to do with family help. Fence lines begin to grow up, brush begins to creep out of the woods into the fields. Machinery helps, but it can't replace hands. Pretty soon they were taking care of what they could see. that's where I am. I have gotten to the point I see more and more of less and less.

 I remember what it was like on the West Virginia 120 acres. I was in my early thirties then; 10 feet tall and bullet proof. That was 50 years ago. Work wears the body out. My 80 year old bones are beginning to feel the pangs of the Itis brothers, Burr and Arthur and the want to comes with procrastination.. I've gotten to the point I really have got to think about the future. You just can't quit cold Turkey.

Example: Garlic Planting 2021. No way I could do it all alone. I planted one 250 ft row and was stiff all over.  A friend offered to help.

The 20,000 or so garlic cloves were planted in October this year with the help of the cutest bunch of kids you ever saw. I call them the Garlic Patch Kids. There were 6 of them, ranging in age from 5 to 13. That's 12 little hands built low to the ground!  The kids have grown up working, and love it. How Bryon and Beth take care of cows, kids and work full time is beyond me. The kids were a Godsend!

I think I'll resign my commission and accept the duties of a gentleman farmer, whatever that entails. Suppose I'll piddle around like ole Zeb Walton of the Walton's with whatever I take a notion to do...dispensing sage advice, mostly tall tales of my past adventures.

See, the glass is still half full!