I Didn't See That One Coming.

Dear Blog Reader.

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. We have finally had two cold mornings back to back and the insect world has taken it on the chin. The one cold morning in October damaged the little buggers but the subsequent mild temperatures let them up off of the mat. These were evolved insects. Their stupider brethren had died off long ago. They knew that the respite from the cold was temporary. They along with the mice were headed indoors. How did they know that indoors was the only place to come in from the outside? I do not know. But there they were loitering around the front and back door waiting for that opening, letting them buzz into that constant 70 degree weather. Or so they thought.

Actually, they were actively seeking their own demise. Once inside, they had to dodge the fly swatter. Yes, we are old school in the Sharritt household; no toxic chemicals for us. The lovely Miss Beverly and I arm ourselves, with the trusty swatter, against the winged invaders.  As with all great athletic feats, the secret is in the wrist. You have to keep it limber. Poise the swatter above the fly, cock the wrist, take a deep breath, let it out slowly and pull the trigger firmly and decisively. The goal is to stop the swing just as you reach the surface. Any more is over kill, and is going to leave a greasy mess on the table. No, kill the fly and wipe it to the ground.

This extended run of glorious weather has made the perfect setting for the harvest and bike riding. I have a favorite road. It is narrow and winding and some up and down. During the fall, the overhanging foliage is a cave of red, gold and stubborn greens holding on to their photosynthetic lifeline. I find it soothing to ride through this cave. It is interesting that while I get comfort from riding down this road, I have a cousin close in age and, during our formative years, close in geography. He found this road absolutely horrifying. He always thought that snakes wandered the branches above and at any second one would drop out of a tree onto the tractor that he was driving an kill him. To each their own.

I have to admit to a guilty pleasure of fall riding. That is squishing wooly worms. I know that I said I wanted to stop squishing them a couple of years ago in the pages of this very blog. That year while riding in the Hilly Hundred, I must have squished 50 of them in Southern Indiana. The superstitious part of me started to believe that the cold weather later that winter was nature’s retribution. So I glibly promised to stop the wanton killing. But this fall once again, they were crawling across the road. They were trying to get to greener pastures after their current field had been harvested. While their legs are many, they are also very short. If they just had two longer legs, they would be able to see that the field on the other side of the road was just as bear. With that foreknowledge, they would not have been out in the road while I rode by. However, that is not the way of the world. They do have short legs. The did not have foreknowledge of harvested fields across the road. They did slink out to the middle of the road, and . . . Squish, squish, squish, let it snow, snow, snow.

We are down to the last few fields to harvest. In our area, they are mostly part time farmers who can’t afford to keep the mechanical miracle of a combine running with any reliability. In this new age of agriculture, you would be hard pressed to find a combine more than three years old on any farm. I just got on the internet and found that I could buy a used 2014 John Deere for $330,000. They do throw in a hat with it for no extra charge. So this machine has been through the 2014 and 2015 harvest. There is a farmer out there who crunched the numbers and determined that it was cheaper to buy a new one rather than take the time and expense to replace the hundreds of bearings chains and belts all with no guarantee that sometime in 2016 a bearing will go out leaving him stranded in the middle of the field. Yes, in today’s agriculture, time is money.

The small farmer cannot afford that kind of capital outlay to afford even a slightly used combine. It would take them about a million years to pay off a $330,000 combine harvesting 200 acres of corn. So often they wait and then approach one of the big farmers who isn’t tired of riding around in his combine yet, and they custom combine the small farmer’s crops for a few dollars an acre. A good deal for everyone involved.

Please don’t think that the big farmers have it made, riding around in their $400,000 rigs. First, they have to push those rigs around a lot of acres to make the payment on that much green. Which brings me to a question that I have been pondering for a few years. How in the world do big farmers remember where their farms are? There are over a thousand farmers in Indiana farming acreage of more than 2000 acres. These farms are not in one big field. No they are spread out hither and yon; across several counties in many cases. I would just lose track. I know that they use GPS and have maps. But I know that I would lose track around acre 1756 and just quit for the year. What’s 46 acres between friends?

This loop hole makes me wonder if there isn’t an opportunity for the aspiring farmer wanna be. We need to come up with a date in November when once it expires all fields become public domain. Sure it can change, just like the deer hunting season can change. If there are a lot of deer in a year, the DNR extends the season some. An extended season means more deer taken from the woods. I am sorry for the digression but a week ago during my early morning bike ride, I came around the corner near my house only to find an 8 point buck standing in the middle of the road loitering under a street lamp. Obviously, the assassin deer are feeling frisky this year. I aggressively pedaled toward him and he scampered off like the coward we all know him to be.

See I told you they were out there.

The dates would work in reverse. Some years the harvest proceeds more smoothly than other years. The weather is the determining factor usually. Dry years the harvest is done earlier. You could make the free for all as early as election day. Other, wetter years the harvest is delayed and so should the harvest free day. Let’s push it back to Thanksgiving. Then release the hounds. That way you would not have those unsightly fields of forlorn corn all broken off; a sanctuary for hundreds of assassin deer. Nor would there be rank upon rank of stubby soybeans standing defiantly against the rising snow. Although you don’t have to worry assassin deer being sustained in the bean field. They would never be caught dead eating tofu.

Once we get the day of “free for all” established then the real fun can begin. The biggest current challenge that I see is farmers know which fields they have to harvest because they logged the planting of those acres with a GPS and computer combo way back in the spring. A system so precise that once they have driven over the ground, a farmer can replant or harvest it by pushing a button, taking their hands off of the steering wheel and relaxing and reading the paper or taking a nap. Self-driving vehicles have been here for a few years. Google is way behind John Deere. Although to be fair, the challenges for Google are much more daunting. If you were to set a car or a baby stroller in the middle of the field, the combine would run right over it. Its technology is simply following a line on a map and there is no detection of boundaries or obstacles. If the field got 100 feet shorter because you built a house in the corner during the summer, the combine would be harvesting in your living room that fall.

Yes, the GPS - computer combination is simple, and elegant, but stupid. Utilizing that stupidity is where my ingenious plan comes to fruition. We simple give the North Koreans a few hundred bucks and have them hack the John Deere computer system. You could easily wipe out 10% of the memory of farm fields from the farmer’s database. The “Free for All” date would be established. The calendar would turn, and viola, we can all be thieving rotten scoundrels.

Wow, I didn’t see that one coming. What I thought was a great plan for taking a little bit of corn, still standing in the field, away from the assassin deer suddenly turned dark at the end; thieving rotten scoundrels. I did not see that one coming.

Isn’t that the way with the world? Not having the height or proper perspective leaves us blind to the other side of the road, so we go crawling inch by inch toward that greener place only to find it just as desolate, if we are lucky or squished if that idiot on his bike rides by.

Take care

Roger