The Maze and the Desert

It is the pregnant time of year here. In a week the corn has gone from the barest speck upon the deep brown Central Illinois dirt to almost two inches tall and undeniable. Soon the corn will be so tall you can’t see anything but a wall of green and the blacktop directly in front of you as you drive down the road. A maze of maize. We got modest rain at the end of last week and there is possibly more on the way in a few days. Every year at this time a quiet wish crosses my mind: that I never fail to be astonished by this process.

We have visitors out at the farm. Something odd often happens the third or fourth day of their visits. As they gaze out the car window they will initially be stunned at the scale of the agriculture here – mile after mile of planted fields and not much else. But around the third or fourth day they become aware that, in many respects, this is a desert. There are few birds flying about because there are no worms in the fields; injecting anhydrous ammonia into the soil to fertilize the corn and soybeans kills all the worms and bugs the birds depend upon for food. There are few wetlands; the waterways have all been straightened and the wetlands drained to optimize the transport of grains down the Mississippi and minimize the danger of floods. When you look in those waterways, you do not see fish or frogs; fertilizer and pesticide runoff have killed them off. You would see more deer, raccoons and possums in the suburbs of New Jersey than you would see here, because there is no ground cover or trees for them to hide in and they have moved on to places they feel safer. It is thought that humans themselves need to see trees in the distance in order to feel at ease. It is thought to be a deeply buried remnant of our origins on the African plain -- trees meant shelter and safety, game and fruits for food, fuel for fires and warmth. All those things are just south of breathable air in the hierarchy of needs. The visitors see that we don’t have many trees and that stirs an unease within them they can barely articulate. They gaze out the window with an inchoate anxiety that there should be trees here, and birds and fauna and the rest of it, but there are not.

And why is it this way? So we can have cheap food. We have mortgaged our environment, our children’s future and our own health so that the big bag of Doritos costs less than two dollars at the convenience store.

The Business Process
Went into town last week to retrieve my baby chicks. We ordered 100 and we only got 50 in the first box, so I had to make another trip. Here’s one for you cityfolk: the chicks get sent FedEx. Fifty of them arrive in a box you could use to ship ladies’ boots in, but this one has air holes and there are pathetic little chirps arising from it. The rooster chicks are mixed in, marked with a smear of green magic marker on their heads. There is a metaphor in that, but I am way too much of a man to waste time trying to find it. Chickens are a vital part of the farm ecosystem because they are great for controlling flies. As the summer heat builds, the fly population explodes and that can stress the cattle, making them gain weight more slowly. Add a few hungry chickens into the mix and they diligently peck at the flies and the fly larvae they find in the ubiquitous cow pies, thereby spreading the fertilizer while controlling the pests. And of course chickens fed on their natural food of bugs produce highly nutritious eggs with yolks that are hazmat orange, not those pale yellow things we get at the store. And they are huge – Bryan weighed a couple of them and they came in at four ounces each. Makes me wonder if they snuck a couple of ostriches in the FedEx box.

The Human Process
Drove up to Arthur to the Amish music store to get my newest guitar fixed. It needed a new saddle, the thing that focuses the strings’ vibration into the acoustic body of the guitar to make the sound clear and balanced. The elderly store owner took the guitar from my hands and started about the task with an obvious fluidity and craft that were a wonder to behold. His wife, with pretty eyes and one of those embroidered bonnets made from sheer, translucent fabric, sat behind the register with her gaze cast shyly upon the floorboards – we attempted to chat and quickly realized it was inappropriate, so we stopped. Watching the gentleman fix my guit reminded me of a movie I saw years ago where a woman was talking to her friend about a man she was attracted to: “Men don’t understand how much we like to watch them work.” The Amish music guy charged me ten dollars and the guitar sounded great.