“Tsk, tsk, I can’t imagine how hard it is to farm in this drought,” a customer might say as they scan the tables near the end of the market and see very little left. The scarred, the small, the ugly produce that is still fresh-picked from the day before.
We wish you would imagine it.
Imagine that crops have been lost over and over again four-fold in one season. That a farmer invests time, money, thought, and heart and they get nothing in return but parched, deep-veined soil. Imagine that costs for water, and heating or cooling, seeds and feed have gone up so much so that their nest egg for the kid’s college is gone.
But then, also imagine that while it is true this is the worst summer ever for heat in recorded history, and while the drought is securely anchored in our state, and while farmers have experienced great losses – there is still hope, and, there is still farming to be done by these special people we call farmers.
Like the roots that extended themselves deeper and spread themselves in an interlocking web to reach further in the soil to gain moisture to stay alive, the farmers have gathered together their inner resolve of optimism, experience and innovation by way of reaching out to family, faith, courage and a pure pioneer spirit. They draw strength and nourishment for their vocation from those around them, and from their peers. Can you catch a pain in your throat just thinking about how they have come to regard this as a natural condition of their work?
Every farmer has a story to tell about how they have so far made it through this summer and the past year. At Milagro Farm where Kris and Amy Olsen farm near Rockne, they have lost 10% of their egg-laying chickens (from a flock of 800) to heat. Kris lost his first fall planting of a tomato crop, and he was ready to till under the second until he found that there was fruit starting to bear. He normally at this time of year would have his table filled with tomatoes and greens, but just stalwart peppers are present, along his smile, and his multi-colored eggs from his remaining chickens. He had to give up on the well that was pumping only 4 gallons a minute and get a new well dug 450 feet to up the water flow to 60 gallons a minute. He planted barley, oats and rye and paid dearly to get the crop growing with the new well. Now this will actually be less expensive than the organic feed that he might be able to procure for his chicken feed (if he could even get it). Does he regret this past year and his life as a farmer? He might not like it and not welcome it, but Kris takes it in stride, “This has just made me a better farmer.”
At Smith and Smith Farm, Colby Smith explains that this has been a year of stop-gapping, in order to lessen any more losses. To save their huge flock of layers that produce hundreds of dozens of eggs weekly, they invested in $1,000 worth of extension cords to run fans in every possible direction. He also has fortified chicken tractors and fencing because the predators are the worst they’ve ever seen.
Richardson Farm’s Lance Clark says that his mom and step-dad Kay and Jim Richardson are pretty lucky that they believe in a rotational, sustainable method on their 200-acre farm where they graze cattle. Because of January or February rains and their system of not overgrazing, they were able to eek out 20 acres of hay (unheard of!) and now have about 20 to 30 round bales of hay. “We use one bale a day though, so it will last only a month,” says Lance. At $150 per bale, they can spend $4,500 on measures elsewhere to save the pigs, chickens and cattle to the best of their ability. In one day, they lost 60 layers when it reached 112. This tragedy occurred, despite the fact that they spread out several shaded chicken areas, used misters and kept a watchful eye out. So they make up in other ways that to outsiders may seem ludicrous. During the still blistering heat in September, the Richardson’s planted wheat seed. Jim proclaimed that, “you can store the seed in the bag, or you can store it in the ground. It’s got to rain sometime.” It appears that they will have 20 acres of wheat this year after blessings of rain in October.
John Engel of Engel Farm lost more than 90% of his peach crop, he estimates, which include his dad, Armin’s orchard. But demand keeps going up from the customers for locally grown produce. He hopes that they bear in mind that it’s been going “from below normal fruits and vegetables to about normal now, and we can only foresee better quality in the future.”
The Lightsey Farm in Mexia has a wide variety of fruit, best known for the peaches, pears, plums and persimmons that come from the sister-run farm by Mary and Lisa Lightsey. This summer the peach harvest dropped by 70%. This is on 100 acres of peaches that are not irrigated – the trees depend on rain. The outcome on the peaches and other fruit was to concentrate the sweetness in a smaller natural package so that the Lightsey fruit is like jam in a skin. The canners and professional preserve makers were snatching up crates of the stuff for exquisite creations like salted caramel pear butter. “It can only get better,” Mary declares in the consistent concert of positive notes that all of the farmers have.
Even when the long awaited rains did come, they sometimes actually caused as much damage as the drought – yet still they didn’t dampen the courage of the farmers.
Two weeks ago, when it rained three inches in one hour and an accompanying hail storm also dropped pellets that tore up tender greens and “looked like snow,” all that Melody McClary could start doing was, “sit here and order new seeds.” So that she too, could begin again with hope.
So, imagine, and then reward the farmers for all the hard work, risks taken, heartache soothed over, and the optimism that they bring–by buying that last little scarred squash–to give yourself the experience of preciousness that came from so many challenges that were overcome.