Macon County Chronicle - Opinion / Blogs

The potatoes are tucked into the soft ground up on the Purcell Hill. We use potatoes to build better soil. This year we planted 1700 pounds of seed potatoes.

The fields were well composted and turned last fall. The land was hard packed, it hadn’t been plowed in a generation or more. A typical ridge, the clay was yellow and the top soil thin; allowing plenty of room for improvement.

Early in the spring we rebroke it with the chisel plow, and I decided it needed more compost. Easter weekend found me spreading another 33 loads and plowing it in, finishing up by headlights.

Wanted: caring people who view fellow humans as having worth, as having been made in the image of God. The sick, the young, the elderly, the handicapped, the dying are too often viewed as a nuisance in our selfish and uncaring society.

Recently a lady by the name of Ellen Delaney-Ball, a native of West Virginia, but living in Nashville, passed away at the Palace in Red Boiling Springs. Her body was carried to the Anderson & Son Funeral Home in RBS, but no relative even claimed it. After a few days, she was laid to rest at the Whitley Cemetery in Red Boiling Springs. Macon Bank & Trust, Citizens Bank and Lafayette Broadcasting cared enough, that each sent a wreath of flowers. Not a single relative came to cry and say goodbye. She died without family and she was buried without family. Sadly enough, this is repeated daily in our country. The uncaring are legion. Wanted: those who will care.

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000181 EndHTML:0000005355 StartFragment:0000002364 EndFragment:0000005319 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/computer/Desktop/obits/barefootfarmer.doc Blueberries grow well in Tennessee. There is a big patch of Hwy 231 before the bridge over the Cumberland River, and one across from the winery in Macon County. We have a small patch for our own use, but just planted another row on the farm.                                                                                                                     

A friend in Summertown invited me over to dig some plugs from an old patch near where he lives. New shoots were coming up everywhere, and in a few hours we had about 50 of them in pots. A few dozen came up bare root with long roots on them, and I am trying to make root cuttings for plants later on.    Agriculture is free. I want to learn how to propagate fruits and berries so folks donít have to pay exhorborant prices to get an orchard started. The apple and pear trees I graft cost me less than a dollar each, but it often costs $10 or $20 for a fruit tree. Iím going to figure out how to start blueberry plants, too.                                                                                                                                                                                  

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I plated a valerian patch yesterday. It felt good to get my hands dirty, cleaning out the chickweed and dead nettle that sprouts up in late winter. I shook the soil off of their thick root systems and loosened the bed deeply with the digging fork.

Sand and compost were then incorporated into the bed. they clay soils we have benefit with the addition of sand, it helps keep them open. Compost goes on everything around here.

A clump of valerian were gently wiggled, and yielded then individual plants. I tucked them into the flower garden about 18” apart. A little water finished the transition to their new home.

When spring fever hits, onions are the first thing on my mind. They can withstand temperatures down to 20°, and need to get well established before warmer weather sets in. we eat onions often, and assume our customers do, too.

Onion varieties are classified according to the length of the day light required for them to bulb. Summer days are longer up North than they are in the South. Northern, or long day varieties, won’t bulb up as well in the south, so we grow short day varieties. There are also intermediate ones, which do well here, too.

Poor old Bugs Bunny, his enemies were forever dangling carrots before him in an effort to trap him. This is what the progressives in D.C. are doing to us. Only they caught Bart Gordon instead.

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It is difficult to believe and hard to swallow, but it is true-the politicians in Washington are seriously considering stopping payments for therapy from Medicare. This is another way of saying, “Let the senior citizens die, they’ve outlived their usefulness.”

Let me share with my readers a true story. Nadine Short, a paralyzed senior citizen, who has for years cared for herself, though confined to a wheelchair, recently admitted herself to the Palace Care and Rehab Center in Red Boiling Springs. Nadine lives near Tompkinsville, Ky. One arm was partially paralyzed from a stroke, but after several weeks of therapy at the Palace, she was able to return to her home, where she is caring for herself from a wheelchair and is costing Medicare not one red cent. Without the therapy, she would have been confined to the nursing home. So which is less expensive-therapy, and return home, or a long stay in the nursing home?

Thomas Jefferson loved gardening. I got a copy of his Garden Book 20 years ago, which details the work at the 2 acre garden plantings and 8 acre orchard at Monticello. Know that democracy could only survive in a nation of small farms and small businesses. Last week I finally visited Monticello.

Hugh Lovel, an agricultural consultant from Australia, accompanied me, so the ride was full of farm talk. I gave a daylong gardening workshop, did a bit of consulting and lecturing the next day. Then we climbed the little mountain and admired the beautiful grounds of Jefferson Home.

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag’s side door! He slammed on the breaks and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown.

I am often asked to recommend books for learning about organic agriculture. I appreciate the many good books put out by Rodale Press, Acres, USA and others over the last few decades, they are not my favorites. Farming is not about double-digging, plastic hoop houses and amendments to buy, it’s about soil. The best books on agriculture that I have found are grade school textbooks written a hundred years ago.

Corruption and immorality are twins whose destructive power has spread like wildfire in recent years thoughout America’s towns and communities. In an effort explains the havoc caused by these twin demons, men have laid the blame at the feet of town and community leadership. The truth is, bad leadership is the result of poor choices by voters. As long as the citizens of the community choose their leaders based upon social, religious, and clique ties, just that long will our towns and communities suffer at the hands of ignorant and greedy leaders. Poor leaders are the result of unwise voting. The citizens of a community are to blame for the corruption and immorality in their community when they cast their vote for one who lacks character and is destitute of leadership traits.

A definition of intelligence is the ability to respond successfully to a new situation. This type of intelligence resides in a humus-rich soil which is permeated with beneficial micro organisms. The new situation would be a new crop, and a response is the colonization of the new roots with the specific microbes that create maximum production and crop health.

Normally we think of the downtrodden as individuals who are forced by those in power to live in poverty. Many children today have been born into downtrodden families. If their parents are downtrodden, then can they expect to rise above the economics, educational and social levels of their family? Some do and some don’t. What usually happens is that the children of a downtrodden family become underdogs. Guess what? Society expects them to lose.

In the fall of 1999, my friend Dan asked me why I didn’t use the community supported agriculture model to distribute our produce, I explained that we tried in the late 1980’s, but the folks didn’t want to drive out to the farm. His immediate response was “I’ll drive it to them,” and our present CSA was born.

I charged $25.00 per week for a share. Our shares were too many vegetables for many people, so eventually we sold half shares for $15.00 per week. We have grown together for 10 years now and have not raised our prices. As our costs rise, we just got more members and grew more acres.

A report from Jim Petty, a preacher in South Africa, arrived recently. It said, “One of the former graduates from Umtali Bible School, Douglas Dabangana, was killed by the terrorists where he was preaching in Southwest Rhodesia, the last part of June. A group of terrorists tried to force him to drink beer, but he refused, saying he was a Christian and couldn’t. So they shot him right then, killing him.”

Snowed in and snuggled up, I’m studying several summertime snapshots, searching and selecting sufficient seed for sowing this soon-to-come spring. I must be on every seeds company’s list of who to send a catalog to. so, while winter weather wrecks her havoc, I’m safe and sound by a warm fire, envisioning rows and rows of picture perfect vegetables.

Blue Lake, Roma and Cherokee Wax beans are our green, Italian and Yellow beans respectively. Will try Forkhook and Henderson’s Lima beans this year. A hundred years ago, butter beans, as Lima’s are affectionately called, were second only to potatoes as the most common vegetable people grew. In my effort to grow old timey crops, I ordered five pounds of White Half Runners, too.

Detroit Dark Red is our standard beet, and we also grow an Italian heirloom called Chioggia and another old one called Cosby’s Egyptian. I’m going to try a yellow beet called Touchstone Gold. For carrots we stick with good old Danvers Half Long and Scarlet Nantes.

“So I returned and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforters; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforters” (Ecclesiastes 4:1). Do me a favor and read this passage again. Are you surprised to find this in the Bible? Sounds like today, doesn’t it? it is about the oppressed and the oppressor. Human nature hasn’t changed much. The world has always had its oppressors. And where there are oppressors there will be the oppressed. What are the oppressed doing in the above verse? They are shedding tears. Why? They had no comforters, but on the side of the oppressors there was power. Still the same.

The policies of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) have had a tremendous affect on farming in our country. Their funding go to further the research at land grant colleges (like UT), and the advice is disseminated through the county extension programs. The way most farms are run is a direct result of this information.

Agriculture before the 20^th century depended upon healthy soil. Farmers knew how to keep their soils light and fluffy, rich in humus and capable of long-term production. All farms had animals for power and food, and the waste products were composted to keep the land fertile.

The Tennesseean carried on its front page Friday this headline; “Tenn. approves Bible curriculum.” The state says it has developed a Bible curriculum that it hopes will avoid legal pitfalls. Beginning next fall, Tennessee high schools that want to offer “Bible for an elective social study credit will have a state approved guideline to do so. As expected, Hedy Weinberg, director of ACLU in Tennessee responded in somewhat of a suspicious and negative manner.

Some high schools in Tennessee already offer Bible as an elective and have their own curriculum. The problem I see with this new state curriculum comes from Kent Richards, Old Testament professor at Emory University, who assisted in developing Tennessee’s Bible guidelines, and who says that the teachers must not take the position “That the Bible is the only road to take.” Is Mr. Richards taking the position that the Islamic Koran is as good as the Bible? The Bible is the guide-the only guide for Christianity. The Koran rejects the Bible and Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Any teacher of the Bible is just one several guides to Christianity would be taking a false position. It doesn’t make sense to teach students the Bible, then turn around and tell them that there are many other reads to Christianity.