If you've ever picked your own strawberries, raspberries, blackberries,
blueberries, etc. you *know* where our ink comes from...
TJ
I know where YOU come from, I bet. Northeast.
Have I ever picked my own strawberries? Sure. Wild ones were tiny, the best
came from Mrs. Tripp's garden which we would raid at night.
Have I ever picked my own raspberries? And blackberries? I got a hand full
of holes to prove it. And a red-stained grin.
Have I ever picked my own blueberries? Why sir, I know the best blueberry
patches in the whole North East Kingdom and I will never tell where, even
under pain of death and torture. We used to raise children on blueberries.
If you are what you eat, you are looking at Violet. "Violet, you are
turning violet, Violet!"
Of course, you could be from Washington State where these things are
cultivated and simply do not spring from the land in a great chorus of "I
love you".
For nothing from Washington State tastes as good as what the land provides
as a volunteer. Get fish from Seattle. Get berries and real maple syrup
from the Northeast. And wives. Good wives that can chop wood and carry
water. And fair upon the eyes.
But now I've got us off on discussing agriculture and gender-specifics. OK,
just forget I ever posted this.
But that whole thing about Measekite imagining you to be an ink mogul, that
was pretty funny. Something about that ticked my funny bone at least.
God, I miss the Northeast. Pet a Jersey cow for me or tap a maple in fall.
Drink some vinny. Man, do I miss my forests. And the trees. Maple, Ash,
Birch, Oak, Elm, White Pine and Hemlock. Especially Hemlock with all the
chippers and the nut-freaks bounding around and MAN do I miss our
song-birds. If I could just hear a Chikodee-dee-dee-dee when I wake up.
It'd about make me just cry.
I miss the Marten and the Fisher and the Bobs. I miss the White-tail and the
Moose and the Beavers. I miss the squirrels, brown and grey and red and
black. I miss the Coons and the Black Bear. I miss my canoe and the way the
woods are quiet in the ealy morning. I miss swimming. I am lost in the
Southwest desert, and I do not know any of these people. I miss my mountain
people. None of the trees here have names and the wind doesn't know me.
Never in my life have I been so alone. I don't know if you get where I'm
coming from on that one, but have you ever experienced a day away from THE
LAND? Your land? It left me naked in a way I never thought I could be.
And as far as range management, these people don't know squat. It takes
UPWARDS OF 10 ACRES FOR A SINGLE COW HERE. Want to talk population density?
Anything more than a single cow on 10 acres and you are beating the land to
death. What the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is with that? Beating the land to
death? Who would do such a thing?
I'll tell you what: the Northeasterner owns his land. The Southwest rancher
leases it for a song. Sure, they care about range management, but when you
look out on 40 acres as an Easterner and you know that's all you are ever
going to have, you treat it a bit different than you would as a renter of a
patch the size of Texas.
But that's what's killing ranching in the Southwest. They run 10 head to an
acre in Florida, and they are already fenced. Cost of labor is nill by
comparison. Ranching is dead. End of cowboy story.
If we could just get more of you Easterners to grass-finish instead of
packing them into the pen, corn-feeding and medicating the living hell out
of them, we'd be getting ahead.
Because my poop smells like antibiotic when I eat store-bought beef. I can't
make it any clearer than that. That just ain't right. Think of what it must
be like for our animals. I myself wouldn't raise no cow or no chicken not
to have a decent life as a cow or a chicken before I put them on the block.
Them "Amn Danimals" are a part of my whole "fam damily" if you know what I
mean. I wouldn't suffer my people so. And they taste better. The animals
that is.
Well, that was completely off-topic, but thanks for listening. I think I
just needed to say that. To a farmer.
Teach you to engage me in conversation. Sure's you can get that skiff "oat
of the mash". Which remids me, "found a brdy in the mash, twasit yaws?" (a
Maine joke. Blue coat? Yes. Blue goves? Yes. Well, teren't mine. My coat is
yella and my gloves is too.)...
Hold onto your land, farmer. And if you get a letter from Monsanto telling
you your crops, as they stand, belong to them, you tell me and my brethren
about it and we will come with a quickness.
For we do not hold to the courts on this one. We do not hold onto this law
on our land. Nope. Not by a long-shot. We think it's just plain wrong and
we're not going with it. Period.
Far's we're concerned, Monsanto's seed infiltrated OUR fields and we will
not suffer the seed-stock to be owned by these people. They ain't fermers,
they ain't yarbers and they sure's hell ain't from here. If you know what I
mean.
Which is nothing less and nothing more than the business end of my Remington
Wingmaster with the modified choke. We'll come with a quickness. Maybe I'll
bring along the Savage and the .06 and the Smith/Wessons and the old
Mausers. We'll need some .22s for the kids to practice on.
I can clip a city lawyer at 50. How you folks doing?
-Trevor
