the far side of the world…

Category: Uncategorized

  • Hobbitown…and Hilaire

    In my teens, I remember one of my older brothers reading a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” and telling me how much he enjoyed it. This was probably around 1976 before the book became such a household staple, then films, then an industry! I was then, and am now, enamored by the simple, collective, rural farm life that was displayed by Hobbitown and all the other villages of the Shire. They were to me, based off the very foundation of rural England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the colorful traditions could be traced to a village pub, an annual festival, to the grinding of grain along a small stream. These images have always inspired me, excited me, and built my dreams. I actually read the Hobbit and the entire Ring trilogy every year – it is like an old friend that I meet each fall, when the weather has turned cold, and we chat by the fire, enjoying the familiar company.

    What is it about that book that really hooked me in? As an adult, reading more from Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis, lead me to other writers such as George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton leads you down so many roads that the rest of my life will likely be spent reading from oblique or obvious sources he mentions. One of his essay’s that I enjoyed, dealt with the concept of Distributism. Written at a time when the prevailing global Capitalism was under siege by Collectivism – more familiarly Communism/Socialism, and by the form of Collectivism labeled Fascism, it was an attempt to understand how Capitalism failed the majority, and how any form of Collectivism was bound to fail the majority. While Chesterton wrote from an almost nostalgic appeal to a better time – a Medieval time (and you have to read Chesterton to know how positive the word Medieval is) – his close friend and fellow writer, Hilaire Belloc did not. He wrote from the perspective of his modern world, where the enslavement of man was very real. For him, it was the Servile State, and I won’t go into that in a short post. What I will go into, follows!

    The entire “Back to the Earth” movement of Regenerative Agricultural fans – Homesteaders, and such – even those that are preparing for societies crash, harkens back to Belloc and Chesterton and a couple of Roman Catholic Pope’s, that believe man is best served with “three acres and a cow.” That the means of production of your food, your clothes, your implements, is best in your hands, and the hands of a like-minded community of owners of their own land and time, and not doled out by an overreaching government or by the monopolistic powers of Capitalism. And these arguments, in short, lead me back to Bilbo Baggins and Hobbitown.

    As most of us spend our lives trapped in traffic, encased in a cubicle, and dreaming of that far off day where we can “retire,” and maybe enjoy a few golden years, the reality is, you’ll never really find that nirvana. By the time you spend 30 or 40 years working for a wage, and hoping the retirement package or the 401K will really be enough, you’ve been beat down into a former shell of what you were when you first signed that contract of employment. Think about that, and then reflect on what you can do to change that paradigm. Might be scary. Might seem insane. But walking outside your small, but cozy home, to pick an apple off your tree in September, while your chickens run around your feet is actually closer than you know. Like Bilbo – the adventure begins when you do the unexpected.

  • What In The World?

    Quite a few years ago, I decided that hovering over social media feeds, was probably not a healthy habit to cultivate. I went off Facebook…or, what I have called for years, the new “MySpace” for adults…Snapchat, Instagram, etc. There were three main reasons for this:

    1. Obnoxious political banter and the very weird assocciated behaviors by what I had assumed were normal people.
    2. A plethora of absolutely insane posts that purported to be little factoids. I had an associate once – a former Eastern European communist security force guy – who once told me, “David, I do tell you the truth! I am just selective about what part of the truth I tell you.” These factoids have enough truth to seem credible, and if you don’t have a skeptical – prove it to me – I’m from Missouri mindset, you fall for some real unhealthy gibberish.
    3. It is a sinkhole. It is the most anti-social, anti-human, anti-friendship, anti-know thy neighbor tool ever. It is an addiction of narcissism of a dimension that simply staggers my mind. Flip through feeds and reels, and if that doesn’t jump out at you, then you’re probably already sucked in.

    When I go out for dinner, which isn’t often because I love to cook, it still shocks me to see people of all ages – from Boomers down – out on a “date,” with their partner, and they both spend the whole meal with their face in their respective phone. 45 minutes of sitting, first drink, appetizer, dinner, check…staring and scrolling at a screen. They don’t even look at the forkful they’re shoving in their mouth! I think to myself, “really? you can’t peel off 45 minutes or so of your so ‘busy-busy’ life and have a conversation with someone? Look them in the eye – actually care about what they’re saying – listen, respond, etc? At the end of your life, are you going to be laying there wishing you had had enough thumb strength for just a few more hours of flipping through YouTube reels? By the way people act, you would think they know the days of their lives and feel pretty confident that they’ll be surrounded in the end by everyone they love, or thinks loves them. Go back and refresh on number 3 above…

    As a child, I was part of the beginning of kids who were “babysat” by the TV. My parents kept a single TV in the home most of my time with them, and for my first 10 years or so, it was in their bedroom, and we watched “by invitation.” So I never developed the habit. Also, though both my parents worked during that time, my Mother always had evening work at places like The Broadway, J.C. Penny, Montgomery Ward’s, and she had dinner ready, fed my Dad when he walked in, probably said “I had it, you got it!” and went to work. So, she was home all day for us. We were not “latch key” kids until we were teenagers and could fend for ourselves easy enough and had after-school athletics to keep us occupied most of the day. I grew up reading a lot, talking a lot, and watching T.V. on Sunday evenings in my parents room – all 8 of us – to watch Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, the Disney show, and Lawrence Welk show…although in which order, I don’t recall.

    Today, my own children included, it seems many young parents have defaulted to “Tablet Time.” I see kids, very young, plopped down with an iPad in front of them, scrolling YouTube. Take it away – and the tantrum starts. I don’t see kids reading, I don’t see parents reading to kids, and unless only one kid has the tablet, you don’t even see a lot of siblings playing around together. Is this a good thing? I don’t know. I always thought reading helped create imagination – formed a basis for writing well – and expanded your mental library. I don’t know if your 9 year old son, watching a 35 year old man play MineCraft and act like he is 8, is setting up this generation for the rigors of running the world.

    Time will tell.

  • The Tour de France 2025

    For the past decade and more, the highlight of my summer has always been watching the daily struggle of 170+ cyclists in the most-watched bicycling race in the world, the Tour de France. July is completely calendared around it! If you have never watched this prodigious display of athleticism, it is hard to describe just how arduous the event is. 21 different days – stages – with two “off” days to recuperate. Time trials, sprint stages, the Pyrenees Mountains, the Alps, and finally ending up in Paris on the cobblestones. As exciting as the race is, the panoramic shots of the French (and other countries when it takes that route) countryside, the castles, ruins, cathedrals, and rustic villages is breathtaking. And it has a following of fans that can only be described as “unique.” From city streets to bare mountain tops, folks are there, enthusiastically cheering on the riders. To see a troupe of vikings racing along with the riders up a mountainside road, or the inflatable chickens that some wore around their waists, faux nuns, devils, water bottles, and this year, a hamburger, add an almost carnival-like atmosphere to this race.

    Years ago, my oldest son was involved in this sport and it was while he was staying with me in Tampa, finishing up his PhD, that I got hooked! You could never get me on one of those tiny seats, but my mind allows me to travel the tour with them! Each year, my sons and I plan a Euro trip to witness a stage or two…but each year, household budgets and responsibilities always seem to get in the way of executing on our desire! But someday…

    If you missed it, you have a chance to see one of the other great races – the final for the year, I believe – the Vuelta Espana 2025 that begins at the end of August.

  • A Visual For Yesterday’s Post…

    I was running irrigation lines and black weed barrier and all sorts of “fixes” to handle the drought times that hit here, and nothing worked well. Water lines – the black plastic piping that you pop your drizzler into – tend to attract voles, mice, rats, squirrels, etc. – to chew them when they too are thirsty. The black weed barrier simply overheated the soil and killed roots. All these tricks that work in other environments do NOT work here. So, because I want to grow orchards here – where trees grow just fine once started – I came up with this idea. You can see my 100 gal tank, I haul it around on the side-by-side, I have a “wand” with a 45 degree curve at the very end that easily slips into the 2″ pipe and sits there while I water for 1 minute a tree, each week. It works.

    These pictures are in my Chinese Chestnut orchard. They seem to enjoy the heat and humidity, and get them going for two years, and they seem to tap into the groundwater and do just fine.

    Chinese Chestnuts, you ask? Think of a good silvopasture tree and chestnuts, mulberry, honey locust all come to mind, and in this particular field, I have planted all 3, with a major emphasis on chestnut. Valuable wood potential, as well as a nut crop. Plus, the shade is the start of planting understory crops and having them succeed here. I have a smaller plot with American/Asian/Hybrid Persimmon, Allegheny Chinquapin, PawPaw, Melon Berry, Blackberry, American Plum – and the shade from the faster growers aids those that need some help from our sun.

    I bought a piece of property that had been used mainly to run cattle, and it was simply acres of bahia grass – this is my way of trying to add some diversity.

  • Summer Heat & Saving Trees

    All I can say, is that Texas knows how to heat up in the summer! And with that heat comes a lot of additional work around here. I learned through much trial and error, that although East Texas may look like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and on…it is truly a unique and challenging environment if you farm. Rain can be sketchy, heat can be withering, and dry winds are pretty normal. This part, where I am situated, used to be cotton way back in the day, but that crop has pretty much moved to the panhandle. When I drive around, I see mostly bahia hay fields and pine plantations. Both now make sense! But, neither of those interest me. One is an imported – and in my opinion – invasive grass that has pushed out native species, the other is part of a “somewhat” normal monoculture for this area…they don’t call it the pineywoods for nothing…but, not my interest. If you try other “native” trees, such as black walnut, persimmon, pawpaw, chinquapin, you have to help them for a few years. Irrigation mainly, but also with tree tubes to protect them from the deer and the winds. Water, which is here in good abundance even in a drought, is to be found below the clay and iron stone, and I feel the water level is high enough for trees to weather it out, if they get down to it. That is the key – their roots.

    It has taken me many trees, much expense in irrigation solutions, and a lot of sweat to figure most of this out. I lost acres of trees before I did! My go to now, and it has given me the best success, is dig the hole for the tree deep enough to slide in a 2′ length of 2″ PVC pipe that I have drilled a few holes in. Plant the tree with the PVC pipe, tree tube for the tree with a rebar-type metal stake. Every week when we have no rain, I drive around in my ATV with a 100 gallon water tank on the back, usually with a mild fertilizer in it, and I give each tree one minute of watering down that tube. It works.

  • Regenerative Agriculture

    For some reason, there is a whole generation of young folks who talk “regenerative agriculture” as if they have either discovered the Holy Grail, or they stumbled upon some suppressed knowledge. I don’t think either are really the case.

    My grandfather’s brother was lucky enough to stumble onto a wonderful woman, who happened to be the only child, of a very successful farmer in the hamlet of Shy Beaver in the middle of Pennsylvania. I think he worked for the railroad, but I could be wrong, and had happened to meet her during a survey/construction project. Either way – love at first sight – marriage, and viola! he was now a dairy farmer. Holstein cattle, Duroc pigs, and crop rotation – corn, wheat or oats, alfalfa. When you run a large dairy, you don’t need to buy commercial fertilizers, you make your own and you use a manure spreader to do that. There was very little in the way of “artificial” on that farm, and they used crop rotation to build up their soil. Worked.

    My grandfather wasn’t that lucky – but he did have a large back yard that became the family supermarket for all of their vegetables, fruit, and poultry/eggs. He also wasn’t going to spend money he didn’t have to buy fertilizers or insecticides/herbicides, and everything they did not eat was either thrown to the chickens or onto the compost pile.

    Frankly, both of these men practiced regenerative agriculture to some degree. As did most of our forefathers and -mothers. It was what it was. Orchards were planted, and often the hogs were pastured in there to “plow it up,” to eat whatever dropped after harvest, and spread their manure. Silvopasture.

    I bring all this up to sort of point to the fact that not every farmer creates a dustbowl, not every farmer is an agri-corporation, and not every farmer is poisoning the world. Normal family farm operations get rolled into the bad rap of industrialized agriculture. Not the time or place to go into the politics/economics of that – we’ll stick with the topic at hand.

    A few weeks back I mentioned to some young people, that I was retired from the rat race, but that I was more busy now than I have been since my kids were little. They were curious what this old Texan was talking about, and I said “I am deep into regenerative agriculture on my piece of property to help the soil, create food forests, and have fun.” Their whole attitude changed – like “he too knows the secret of life…”

    There is nothing new about this – I knew people fully organic, planting food plots, cover crops, scything grain, raising fish in rain water collection tanks, over 50 years ago. Back then, they were usually old hippies and devotee’s of “Mother Earth News.” They were certainly more of a fringe, and they didn’t have social media. Today – the world is at your fingertips and you can use social media to raise awareness – and cash – for your endeavors. So, today’s regenerative farmer/rancher is out there being publicized and marketed in a way we never saw before.

    This is all good stuff. But it isn’t new stuff. However, if it can pull people back to the soil, back to getting their hands dirty, and encouraging everyone to plant a little something here and there – then it is a great thing, because we need more of that.

  • Summer Travel

    Everyone needs to travel around a bit, so why not make it a journey?  

    Just spent 10 days doing a curve through the south and east coast.  Headed to Mississippi to visit my oldest boy and his family, then off to Mayberry, USA – Mt. Airy – home of Andy Griffith and the inspiration for his long-running show, to see an old running mate from my submarine days.  We go back to January, 1990 when I showed up at Commander, Submarine Forces Atlantic, in Norfolk, Virginia. And we have been brothers ever since. Honestly – bubbleheads get older, I don’t think we mature much…neither wife could really appreciate our stories and our jokes. Their loss!

    Then, a dash up to West Virginia to spend Father’s Day with my youngest daughter and her family, before we headed to an AirBnB in Jersey City to watch Borussia Dortmund play in the FIFA World Cup at MetLife Stadium with said daughter and her youngest.  The team played O.K. but not great – a 0-0 game.  The plus side to this leg of the trip – my youngest son came over from Brooklyn to watch the game and spend time.  75% of the kids seen!  After this, we continued north to Kingston, NY to enjoy a Dallas Hot Weiner and some soft serve.  And visit the childhood haunts of my wife.  Visited with some of her family, toured Catskill, to see where she spent summers, and then up to Syracuse for 3 more days of visiting before we flew back.  Every day was fun – and that’s what travel should be.  

    And then back to the ETX.  Where, the grass was tall enough to bale for hay…two days on the tractor and the mower and we’re almost where we need to be!

    Two years ago, I had plans to head to a little coastal town in South Carolina to visit my dearest – and practically only, after 40 years – college friend. Anne was a hoot, and her then husband and my college sweetheart made up a fun foursome that centered around simple times, her two young children, and any adventure Northern California had to offer. We stayed in touch – even if it meant 3 or 5 years of getting lost in all our moves – somehow. She had an infectious laugh, a beautiful smile, and a no-nonsense way of looking at things. She and her husband showed up here about 4 or 5 years ago. Hot as hell. I am dirty, sweaty, and feeding the chickens when some redhead starts shouting “Hey!” at me over the fence. I squinted – and probably had a “Who the F— is that?” look on my face when she said “David Meyers!!” Not a question – a simple fact. She had not seen me in probably 20 years, I am retired – bearded – and not looking like much…but she knew who she was addressing! And I remember the whole change in my attitude! “ANNE!!!” and I actually ran – picture a mastodon pounding the tundra – and we had a great visit. Her and her husband, Charlie, were in Texas visiting his sister and she said “He live’s in this area, somewhere…” and found me. My trip to South Carolina was to return the favor, but it never happened. Anne unexpectedly died. My longest friendship ended, and my grief continues.

    So – don’t ever plan to visit old friends next year or the year after. Go visit NOW. You don’t know if a parent, an uncle, a friend, will be around when you finally decide to interrupt your life. This trip, was to make sure I put ‘eyes on target’ for a few folks that I love and respect. And to tell them that, face to face.