A Farmer's Holiday

Let’s call a Farmers’ Holiday

A Holiday let’s hold

We’ll eat our wheat and ham and eggs

And let them eat their gold.

Dad held out and wouldn’t sell to the real estate developers. He had stubborn pride in his lifestyle and his heritage. He wasn’t about to abandon it all in the name of some quick money. The new wolves in the area killed almost half of our cow-calf operation. The ones that did survive wandered out on to some BLM ground where they wasn’t supposed to be. The BLM sent dad a $70,000 fine for trespass cattle. He called them and tried to explain that we live in a fence out state and the law says they need to build a fence to close off that ground if they don’t want cows there. They told him the interest rate on the unpaid fine is 8%. The BLM is better than the Forest Service, though. Paul Whitlock burned a fire break around his place a few years ago when a lightning strike turned his grazing allotment into a wildfire. He said he was just protecting his property. The government said he was committing arson. It's considered terrorism to destroy property that belongs to the government. Even if the government is supposed to belong to us.

Dad put the family’s ground up for sale, too. But everyone’s put their family ground up for sale, so it aint gonna to sell any time soon. He does get a couple dollars for a dozen eggs from the hens that he kept. They just sell off the front porch in bit of a stand that he made to peddle garden vegetables, fruit, and berries. He, also, shares a milk cow with the neighbors. Just to drink, though. He don’t sell any of it on account of the State sending him a fine for it being unpasteurized. He’s been building rocking chairs out of culled lumber and trinkets out of barn wood to sell in the newspaper classifieds. In the little town of about 5,000 residents, there are three banks. The whole of the county can’t find two nickels to rub together, but the bank managers take their bailout money out to eat at about three times a week, own their houses outright, and wear their clean Stetsons while they drive their new pick-ups. The Forest Service and BLM  men drive new pick-ups, too. We defaulted on the operating loan Dad took out to buy seed. The environmentalists found a threatened minnow in the river and they cut off about half our ditch water in order to preserve it. We had enough rain to get things sprouted then we had to let it go fallow.  The grain died. Can’t sell it if you can’t grow it. The only reason we had to buy seed, anyhow, is because the neighbor went genetically modified. The outfit that designed that genetically modified seed sued dad for cleaning and saving his own. Dad says that even if he had built a block wall in between his field and the neighbors’ to keep out the pollen, he couldn’t afford to go to court and prove it. Dad settled and agreed to not save his own any longer. The only way a guy can afford to buy seed is by going to the bank. The banks don’t care about minnows in the water, though. Dad says that a lot of the folks in the corridors of power worked for the banks or the seed company at one point, so going to anyone at the state for justice is just clutching at straws. To boot, Dad spent a week in the hooskal, too, when he got pulled over with an unregistered ranch rifle in his truck. The magazine in that old ranch rifle held too many rounds. He tried to explain that coyotes travel in packs. He got lucky, though. Old Fred spent a year locked up for putting a sick, starving mustang that wandered into his field out of its misery. I was taught that the folks who work for government are supposed to work for us, but they keep going after the good guys.

A new farm is foreclosed on every week. Folks in town talk about Atlas and middle class. They talk about “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and the aristocracy. The bank men’s kids wear new shoes and Abercrombie clothes to school. I was happy as a damn lark to get a pair of socks for Christmas. My uncle is out of work, too. He used to run a loader in the mine down the road. The government didn't renew the mining lease. He would sit me on his lap and let me drive when I was a kid. He sits at home now on the unemployment extension. Uncle plays the violin. He plays day in and day out. They’ve formed a string quartet in town and they play shows at the social hall. The bank managers are all fat and sassy while Dad and Uncle’s families only eat the sack beans from the cellar and homemade bread from the food storage flour. Some of that ground elk and gravy on mom’s home made bread aint bad, though. For Christmas this year, we’re doing home made caramels and popcorn balls with our fresh milk and some sugar from the food storage. We do it on the heating stove rather than in the kitchen because the wood is free for the cutting if you've got a permit. Mom’s picked up a full week’s worth of sewing jobs because there’s no more stock to sell and Dad can’t find a side job. My older sister and her husband moved in with us when she was with child. Their baby boy was born a few months ago and they’ve got a wolf carrying hospital bills at the door. The state says that our family has too much land to get on the Medicaid. Dad says that we should exchange produce for the doctor’s bills. The doctor takes pity and agrees to it, but the hospital don’t have any need for it. I was to go to college next year after I graduate. But there’s to be no money for that, either. And the government, they say we’ve got too much land to get an grant for tuition. 

“Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. ...and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” – John Steinbeck