Hardware

Back in the day...before Lowe’s or Home Depot or Costco or Overstock.com...or LampsPlus or FaucetsDirect...or a whole laundry list of online suppliers catered to the persnickety or bargain oriented home renovator….there was Vic’s...and Friendly Boys….and Curfman’s.   

Yes, back in the day, you couldn’t sit in line at the elevator, or watch the auger, pull up a website, and pick out a gift for your wife’s birthday…. which happened to fall smack dab in the middle of harvest.  No, the opportunities to shop ranged from null to void...unless something broke down and you had to run to John Deere for parts. And then, your options were….Vic’s…. or Friendly Boys….or Curfman’s.

Many a year I received something practical for my birthday from the hardware store.  Even more likely was a Christmas present from Curfman’s especially if their Daddy took the kids shopping a day or so before Christmas. Ann remembers being particularly partial to kitchen items. Nearly every Christmas there was a cheese slicer in my pile of gifts, the perfect item to replace the previous cheese slicer, which had met an untimely demise sometime earlier in the year.  I’ve often wondered if Cathy ever noticed all those cheese slicers, or perhaps, whether....with a sly smile... she was the one who suggested them year after year!

Curfman’s almost always had what we needed...if I plopped down a bolt or tap, they found it, slipped it into a brown paper sack, and you were on your way. Paint supplies, brooms, buckets, rope, chain, shovels, batteries, fuses, extension cords, various plumbing parts or electrical parts for whatever was ‘broke’ at that time.  Cathy or Ivan knew the place for everything, even the contents of the shelves that towered into the dim reaches near the tin ceiling. Lord only knew what amazements were hidden on the upper floors or in storage in the basement. After all, there was a Curfman Hardware before there was a town of Tarkio…

Alas, after some years, Cathy retired from small business and took her pleasant demeanor and even temperament to the halls of the Tarkio school system.  Sure enough, a century of rural history emerged from the bowels and storerooms of the old brick building, a time capsule, a snapshot of what a farming community used, broke, fixed, and finally, replaced decade by decade.  

The most amazing artifact was the brand new full sized windmill top complete with vanes. It was enormous.  I don’t remember the manufacturer..perhaps it was Aermotor, but it might well have been a Dempster, hometown Beatrice, Nebraska.  I pined for that windmill, every time I stopped by and still wonder what lucky soul got the opportunity to top their tower with a “never been out of the box” windmill.

After Curfman’s closed, we had to move down the street with our hardware needs.  We bought a dryer at Vic’s and lumber and nails for all kinds of repairs in the twilight zone that was Friendly Boys.  I’ve asked Blake how long the lumberyard had been “Friendly Boys”, recollecting the personality of its longtime proprietor, but the answer seems to be lost in the past.  Vic’s is a derelict building now but the former site of Friendly Boys is a bright and shiny new grain facility, built out of the reach of the occasional soaking by the Tarkio River that used to warp the bottom boards at Friendly Boys.  

And, never fear, we still get the wherewithal for our myriad repairs and quixotic projects large and small at a place with the same “yeah we have it here somewhere...let me look” attitude of the hometown hardware stores of yore….we just have to drive a little farther.  As a matter of fact, the phrase “going to Burke’s” has become something of a family catchphrase, and the result of any trip there is almost always “something we can make work” or at least a good story.

Wonder if they’ve got a windmill stashed away somewhere?

Clothes Make the Man

There are funny ha-ha stories and there are funny humiliating stories.   And every once in a while ha-ha and uh-oh come together to make the kind of tale that bears repeating year after year......

Blake got his first real writing gig back in the '90s, in a column called In Real Life , a title so broad it allowed musings on golf, cherry red pickups, Decoration Day, and the various travails of the small businessman as well as forays into farm policy, energy policy, and the overreaching authority wielded by the Endangered Species Act.  One consequence of this dream job was a beautifully engraved invitation on embossed cardstock requesting our presence at the Frances Boyer Lecture at the Washington Hilton on December 6, 1995.AEI

We were thrilled.  Sure, it was on our dime, but the honoree that year was George Will, one of our heroes and besides...reception!  Dinner!  Dancing! What did we have to lose?? It would be a grand outing, a splurge, a tiny little peek through a crack in the fence by us hoi polloi into the rarefied world of punditry and think tanks.

We sent our RSVP; I bought a dress at Dillard's and called the men's shop in Shenandoah to reserve a tux for Blake.  We hurried back home from the Missouri Farm Bureau annual meeting and I rushed up to pick up the tux first thing the next morning.  We traveled light: just a suitbag and carryon with our fancy clothes and something to wear home..one night at the Washington Hilton and the air ticket was as much money as we were willing to swallow for a spree.  There was just time to check in and find the ballroom before we cleaned up the grime of travel and put on our black tie best.

Yep...Blake indeed had a black tie...and studs....and tuxedo pants.  But, horror of horrors, faux pas of faux pas, what was this?  Instead of a black dinner jacket, Blake's tuxedo coat had....TAILS!  In our rush, we hadn't checked the contents of the suitbag.  Through ignorance, or naivete, or perhaps just a mixup at the rental company, Blake was now going to his first Washington DC reception looking like the maitre d'! There was nothing to be done about the situation but brazen it out.  We went to the reception, standing with our backs against walls, or pillars, watching for famous people and hoping no one was really looking out at us.

Not surprisingly, our table...table number 107...was way out on the fringe of the enormous circular ballroom, well away from anyone we could recognize by sight as an influential politician or talking head from the opinion shows we watched back then: This Week with David Brinkley or Washington Week in Review or The McLaughlin Group.  Our dinner partners were folks with vague attachments to the world of agriculture whose way had been paid by someone with better things to do than go to another DC banquet ...definitely not farmers who had flown in to breathe the same air as the elite and hear George Will speak.  At any rate, we spent no time worrying about sartorial miscues while we were seated there.

The lecture was marvelous.  Mr. Will can spin a pithy and acerbic tale.  Later, we happily strolled the perimeter of the ballroom espying celebrities before they departed, having done their duty.  Tails or no tails, we stayed up late to dance to Eric Felten's marvelous big band, figuring those left had partied long enough not to care what anyone was wearing...

....and, after all, the waiters were long gone.........

In case any of you want to read Mr. Will's speech...as relevant in 2018 as in 1995.... here it is:

  George F. Will's Francis Boyer Lecture at AEI Dinner December 1995

P.S.  We solved the tuxedo problem in 2001 when, in short order, Ann got married, we went to another AEI dinner, and Lee got married.  We'd love to dust it off again..... 

The Rally Cat and Other Four Legged Friends

A few nights ago, the small grey cat streaked across center field of Busch Stadium like the proverbial “bat out of h***” into...at the very least….its fifteen minutes of fame.  The crowd was riveted to to the big screen struggle between the young groundskeeper and terrified animal, but after those two actors leaped into the stands and vanished into the maw of the stadium, Yadier Molina created an even bigger sensation when he launched a grand slam homer, putting the Cards ahead in a moment that was Roy Hobbs worthy...in the view of ecstatic Cardinal fans, like us!

Wednesday night, #RallyCat shared the spotlight.  Wednesday night, we were all cat people.

But...in general, that has not been the case.  Dogs have been the critters in our family pictures…Nip and Tuck and Skaggs on one side...Frisky and Silver on the other.  Of course, Millie has always had chickens and my dad had cattle as soon as he had pastures for them.  Laura and I were proud owners of Brownie, but even though she was named, it was strictly a business relationship. Nip and Tuck were the Labs that flung themselves, slobbering and barking, upon our Dodge Dart when we pulled into the driveway at Granny’s house. They greeted us in the same way, tackling us with their giant paws and giant jaws as soon as we stepped out the back door of the car. It was always a terrifying experience.

Compared to Nip and Tuck of memory, Juno, our first dog, was as gentle as she was large and calm despite her Doberman/German Shepherd heritage.  She loved Blake and became the consummate farm dog companion when she was transplanted from the duplex we lived in the last year of college to a life of pickup seats, wide open windows, and standing on the tool box in the back with her ears streaming behind her.  As far as I know, she only fell off once and climbed out of the ditch and jumped back into the truck with more damage to her dignity than injury from the tumble.  

Juno’s great doggy friend was Barney, Nancy’s beagle.  He was a wanderer, traveling from farm to farm to visit and staying until Nancy physically hauled him back to their house.  Even after they were both old and gray, Barney would find his way the six or seven miles through the country to our farm to visit his friend. He would stay for weeks while we enjoyed the sight of the two old dogs napping companionably under the shade of the elms.  

When the girls were old enough to be enamored with pets, we tended to acquire puppies in pairs.  Tommy and Holly, two black and white mutts with mirror image personalities: Tommy never knew a stranger and would roll over for a scratching before he was introduced, but Holly, who had been hit by a pickup early in life, was cautious, aloof, with sad black eyes. Tommy and Holly and I had a love hate relationship during their puppyhood.  Every time I planted something in the yard...a tree, a shrub, a rose, a perennial of any kind, they found it and dug it up.  We made our peace, but I spent an intense and angry spring chasing them through the yard, screaming imprecations that they couldn’t understand, and attempting to flail them around the ears with whatever desiccated plant carcass they had literally unearthed.

During these full house years, word evidently went out on the doggie grapevine that we were soft touches when it came to canines.  Every dog dumped heartlessly along our gravel road made its way to our dog dish. And some lovable scamps they were:  Frisky, a beautiful black puppy with a penchant for pulling clothes off the line; Mister, a raggedy long haired black and white critter with a desire to dance; and Bob, an enormous well mannered giant with a passion for fetching fireworks.  All three passed through giving us at one time or another, a population of five dogs on the farmstead along with the unnumbered unnamed cats; no wonder any stranger to our farm tended to wait in the car.

The very last stray appeared, like Mary mother of Jesus, pregnant in the deep of winter.  She was a cautious quiet nervous black dog, that we found hiding in the straw in our old shed very near Christmas time.  And, sure enough, she delivered her puppies in the barn….eight of them...and thus she became Mama Dog for all the rest of her life.  The puppies ranged from cocoa to chocolate to black and were cute as could be.  Ann and Matt fell in love with a chocolate male, and Ike was their faithful, loving, though finicky, family member before Aaron, before Lizzie and before Josh.  Peanut wound up staying at the farm, spooky, gargantuan presence under the front porch; like her siblings, she had personality quirks and a thyroid problem to boot.   Mama Dog was a good friend, following us out to the greenhouses to work, though she was far too nervous to nap inside.  During the summer hours though, she would come down to the mum patches and and rest in the clover nearby, keeping watch over her people as long as we were out of doors.

Like the lyrics from a Lyle Lovett song, these are but a few of the furry friends that spent time with us.  Chickens from Grandma Millie.  Fish that lasted longer than anyone had a right to expect after their people decided cleaning the tank was too gross. Bubbles, the head butting bottle calf. Cats like Magnum, PI, the only pet Blake ever brought home, and Pumpkin, an enormous...yes, you guessed it...orange tabby.  Finally, Baby, the last named and most loving cat ever, who would climb upon my shoulder and curl herself around my neck, giving me both a purring massage and a fur stole.

“And there are more I remember

And more I could mention

Than words I could write in a song..”

Lyle Lovett, Family Reserve

Turkey Redux

My ongoing computer education...and labor of love....is the compilation of six years of "The Farmer's Wife", Millie's weekly vignettes of humor, history, reminiscence, and sometimes all three for the Tarkio Avalanche.  It's a dandy occupation for fall nights: sitting on the couch with a baseball game silently playing on the television  and a laptop on my....well, lap.  This week, Blake happens to be hobnobbing with high tech agriculture types at what we common folk might characterize as a "Shark Tank" gathering for agricultural innovation.  As an erstwhile future consumer of what these folks are peddling, his message to them could be paraphrased in the famous, if unsubstantiated, words of Benjamin Franklin upon signing the Declaration of Independence: "If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately." One might assume this message would resonate, perhaps precipitate a rousing 'hooah', but that was not the case.  The participants were "all in" when the subject was the application of technology to seed, machinery, and other inputs for crop production.  But when the subject turned to modern animal production systems, the affirmation could be summarized as 'crickets'.   No surprise to hear that the food served at this gathering was heavy on descriptive terms....and light on substance. It isn't an encouraging scenario: the best and brightest minds toiling on a future for agriculture....that harkens back to mid 20th century for its models of poultry or pork or beef production.

Therein lies a tale....a slice of history, if you will, unadorned, unedited, and without any of the warm feelings modern poultry hobbyists and proponents of the good old days would like to pull over the cold hard facts like a cozy comforter.  

Here's Millie's 2008 article about the rise and fall of pasture turkey production from one Atchison county farmer's  experience back in the 1950s:

 The Farmer's Wife

    THIS PICTURE, TAKEN IN 1956 - Shows 12 acres of turkeys with the same amount on the other side of the hill. Lynn Niemann had sold 6,000 turkeys prior to this picture being taken. He was told that he was one of the largest tur­ key producers at that time.

By this time, many of you have already purchased your turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The size of it depends on how many people there will be gathered around your table on Thanksgiving Day. You had a few things to consider when you purchased it, besides the size of it. What brand would be the best tasting? Would you buy a frozen one or a fresh one? Where would you get the most meat for the cheapest price? Possibly other factors not mentioned here were considered as well. As you took it home, did you ever consider how convenient it was to be able to find a nice fat turkey at your grocery store?

I have visited with Charles Lynn Niemann several different times about his experience with raising turkeys during the 1950's.

Lynn lived north of the Farmers City Store. His father owned 160 acres of which 100 or more he kept in permanent pasture. It was basically unproductive. Looking about for a method to utilize this in a productive manner, Lynn started raising turkeys, ranging them on this pasture land.

The first year he raised 200, then went to 1,000, 3,000, 5,000, and then to 10,000. The first four years in this business were profitable. The last year the market went to pot, thanks to several different companies entering the production, processing, and marketing phase of this business. Consequently, the price in a controlled market did not improve, as well as other factors beyond Lynn's control, and he, as well as many others in the business, absorbed a huge loss and most producers and Lynn quit the business.

One of the hazards in turkey  production on an open range is an unexpected hard rain.  The turkeys drown quite readily if a large or heavy rain is the first exposure to the young turkeys. Lynn witnessed 4,000 drowning the first night  there was  a hard  rain  on  the  range, that  time  a  $12,000  loss, and there was  no way  to prevent  it. There were other factors in the loss of many turkeys due to heat  and predators.

Lynn related to me that during this time of raising these turkeys, it took several truckloads of feed a day. He did not have an adequate supply of water and hired Luke Mather to haul a load of water to the turkeys every day. He eventually had a deep well dug which helped supply water to the turkeys but, again, at a cost.

The year after he stopped raising the turkeys, he planted corn on the acres where the turkeys were raised. There had been so much turkey manure on the land that  the white  corn planted there produced over 170 bushels per acre, a record yield for Atchison  County at that time. 

 When he quit the turkey business, Lynn had suffered  close to a $60,000 loss. That was a lot of money i n the 1950's. , He said, "It was a time in my life not worth remembering."

I believe Millie's piece about Lynn Niemann would resonate with livestock producers attempting to convince the general population and well meaning animal advocates that reinventing the wheel when it comes to animal agriculture will come at a price.  More animals will be injured or killed by predators, weather, and their cohorts in pastures and pens.  Prices will be more volatile and costs will increase.  That is a pattern centuries old.  Only time will tell whether the innovators at Blake's meeting will produce breakthroughs  that change the food system for the better.  But rehashing methods older than our grand and great-grand parents used is surely not the answer....