Some Thoughts on Farming and Family

   For part of their summer vacation Heidi brought the kids out to the farm today. We checked almonds and looked at cotton. Of course, the highlight of the morning was a ride on the tractor. No trip to the farm is complete one. You should have seen Rowen's eyes bug out when the GPS steering kicked in. (You can relax, by the way, we put in a jump seat for visitors. The kids were safe and buttoned in the cab.) Heidi and the kids' visit reminded me of a couple of radio pieces I did last winter. I hope you like them.

You Can Take the Kids Out of the Country…

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright January 2013

               I am proud of my kids. Neither one wants to farm and that’s OK. We raised them to be independent and they are good at it. What I have noticed is-you can take a kid out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the kid.

            Our daughter teaches fifth grade. Last summer she finishes a long, hard school year. Does she take a break? Nope. She spends three weeks painting the insides of her new home and then starts her masters program.

            Our son just finished five and a half years in the Army. Two of those five years were extended camping trips in Afghanistan. Not farming, but lots of long days working outdoors.

            Our son-in-law was raised on a turkey ranch. He worked for a food processor a good chunk of last year. He had a lot of ten, twelve and fourteen hour days. No clock punching for him.

            None of them farm, but they took the lessons they learned growing up on the farm and applied them in their work. You can take the kids out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the kids. Fortunately they learned a few good habits growing up on the farm.

Our Families Are Like Your Families

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright January 2013

               Nothing like family when it works. Nothing like families when it doesn’t work either. I have seen both.

            There is a lot of support for family farms and it is appreciated. Most farms are family operated and considering the challenges, and the weather, and the bugs ---it can get a little stressful. There are many farm families where the husband farms and the wife works in town so they have a steady income and health insurance. In many farm families fathers and sons work together. I even know families where the daughters drive tractor also.

            When family works, there is nothing like it. I love the fact that I can count on family when I need them.  Farm families tend to stick together. I have one friend who’s extended family gathers once a week in his home for dinner. That is beautiful.

            Of course, there are farm families that can’t talk to each other. I have seen multi-generational farms disintegrate because they couldn’t figure out how to get along. That’s sad.

Our families are just like your families. When it works, there’s nothing like it. And when it doesn’t, there’s nothing like it either.

I hope you all have a great week.

Are Environmentalists Protecting An Artificial Environment?

Are Environmentalists Protecting an Artificial Environment?

By Paul H. Betancourt

July 2013

            As part of her study of family history Sheryl has been reading the history and journals of 19^th Century pioneer women. These were amazing women. Imagine caring for your family as you cross the country at walking speed. We complain about uncomfortable seats on a five hour flight. At the end of the journey they started new homes from scratch. Amazing.

            But, that’s not what I want to write about. One of the 19^th Century observations these women made was the changing nature of the landscape. That’s right, even over a hundred years ago they could see the natural habitat had already changed. The flora of the San Joaquin Valley started changing in the 18^th Century. The Spaniards brought cattle and horses to California. Old World seeds on the coats of the livestock fell off, took root and spread all over the state. “By 1833 trapper Zenas Leonard observed that the indigenous perennial bunch grass had been almost totally replaced” (Beers 384). California’s habitat has not been ”natural” since the 18^th Century! IT probably wasn’t even “natural” then. Local Yokut Indians practiced burning grasslands, “to encourage earlier sprouting” (Beers 384).

            This confirms the observation of my old soils prof at Fresno State. His extensive study of soil profiles around the Valley confirm that the Valley’s original flora consisted of salt grasses, not the “wild oats, European Foxtail, Bermuda grass and burr clover” we saw a century ago.

            The obvious question is- Are environmentalists protecting an artificial environment?

            There is an old saying about closing the barn door after the horse is gone. In my book, Ten Reasons: Finding Balance on Environmental Issues one point I try to make is, if we are going to make environmental policy, let’s do it right. Protecting an artificial environment in the name of caring for the environment doesn’t even come close.

            Recent observations  of the Sacramento/ San Francisco Bay Delta confirm what we found in our grasslands. Enviros have gone to war to protect the Delta Smelt. The Smelt’s #1 predator? Stripped Bass, a non-native species. We could cut off all the water to Southern California and all the farmers south of the Delta and we would still have Stripped Bass eating Delta Smelt. On top of that another non-native species, the Asian Clam, has become so numerous in the Delta they have measurably increased water clarity by the action of filtering the water for their food. ( cite)

            If we are going to care for the environment let’s do it right. Let’s admit California’s environment was unalterably changed two centuries ago. In 1977 botanist Harold Heady write, “alien species should be considered as new and permanent members (of the environment) rather than as aliens” (Heady). The time is long past of thinking we can restore California to its natural state. The question is- how do we care for our state as it is?

Beers, Terry, Unfolding Beauty: Celebrating California’s Landscapes, Santa Clara,
            Santa Clara University Press, 2000.

Heady HF. Barbour MG, Major J., Valley grassland. Terrestrial Vegetation of California,

New York, Wiley, 1977. 

We Are Not the Breadbasket of the World...

We’re Not the Breadbasket of the World…

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright 2013

               We’re not the Breadbasket of the World, we’re the Salad Bowl and Fruit Basket of the World. OK, that’s kind of a free throw when talking about California.

            We leave wheat, soybeans and corn to the American Midwest and the Ukraine. We can grow wheat and corn here. Really good wheat and corn. But, they can’t grow cherries or strawberries and peaches , almonds or lettuce like we do. We are amazing in our diversity. We’ve talked about this before. You can drive through four states in the Midwest and all you will see is corn, wheat and soybeans or wheat, soybeans and corn. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, here you can drive for thirty minutes and see dozens of different crops. We grow over three hundred different crops here in the Valley. Our climate, people and infrastructure allow us to grow an amazing diversity of crops.

            So, we are not the Breadbasket of the World. We are the salad bowl, for all the veggies we grow and the fruit basket, -not for all the crazy people in the Bay Area, but because we an amazing diversity of world-class fruits here in the Valley.

   It has been another warm summer week on the farm. The cotton is doing fine. We are starting another round of water and fertilizer. We are keeping an eye on the bugs. The lygus, a very bad plant bug is showing up again. We are not going to spray quite yet. Like I said, we are going to keep an eye on it. I'll sweep the fields again after the weekend. 

   The warm weather has gotten to some of the trees. The Non-pariels are fine, but the Carmels are looking a little ragged. It looks like the mites are trying to come back.

   We also started working up the wheat ground. We'll disk it and rip it then let it sit fallow for a few weeks. There's always something to do on the farm.

I hope Y'all have a fabulous week.

Sparky

     I don't know about you, but I am glad the heat has backed off. You know it has been hot when 100F seems cooler. I went out on the bike Saturday morning and the air was deliciously cool.

     The crops have survived the heat. We finished the second irrigation of the cotton this past week. So far, so good. We already have bolls the size of my thumb. I pulled petioles and sent them to the lab. IF we need more fertilizer we can put it in the next irrigation. From now until the end of August we just want to keep the cotton happy, watered and fed.
   The trees stressed a bit in the heat. Harvest is less than a month away. We are going to start preparing the fields this week so we are ready when it comes time to shake.
   We got wheat yields back finally. We were off a bit from our average.

     I hope you haven't met Sparky, but I suspect you have. I didn't want you to think you were the only one driven crazy by Sparky and his family.

Sparky

By Paul H. Betancourt

July 2013

               My younger sister, Jesi, introduced me to Sparky. In exasperation one day she sighed, “Really Sparky?”

               You’ve met Sparky, or at least one of his relatives. How about when someone cuts in front of you when driving, goes a few blocks slowly then turns off. Really Sparky? Couldn’t you wait until I had gone by? There was no one behind me.

               A neighbor had a used sofa tossed off by the side of the road next to one of his fields. George didn’t want to be the one to haul this unexpected trash to the dump, so he put a sign on it, “Free sofa.” No one touched it. After a few days he put a new sign on the sofa, “For sale $25.” It was gone the next night. Really Sparky?

               Sparky is that clueless guy who’s lack of common sense or concern for others staggers the imagination. We have all met Sparky at one time or another. The one that gets Sheryl is the guy at Costco who pays for three hundred dollars of goods with single dollar bills while there is a long line behind him. Really Sparky?

               We have all met Sparky at one time or another. If you haven’t met Sparky yet, I’m sure you will soon.

PS-I;m sorry there is no picture this week. I couldn't figure out how to take a picture of Sparky.