The mind tends to wander when much is on your mind and so my mind is wandering as I try to write. I wanted to write more about the raw milk legislation in Topeka but Presidential Candidate Bloomberg’s comments that anyone could put a seed in the ground and make it grow set my teeth on edge and then there was that educated idiot with a PhD in Philosophy who showed how idiotic he was. Yeah, that was Jackson Kernion, PhD. who teaches at UC Berkley, that said, “I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans, they, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions. Some, I assume, are good people. But this nostaglia for some imagined pastoral way of life is stupid and we should shame people who aren’t pro-city.” Is it just me or are these two men totally ignorant?
How ignorant and arrogant they are, looking down upon the agricultural and rural community, as if they know more than we! They wouldn’t know the difference between a corn or wheat plant as it breaks through the soil. They certainly have no clue how wonderful our life is out in the country as they would be frightened by the wide open spaces, the distance between towns and what would they do if they heard a coyote or an owl? God forbid if they were to step in cow poop! But that is okay, they can keep thinking the way they do and they can miss out on what is best and beautiful with rural living.
They can miss out on the beauty of the sunrises and sunsets, seen without the haze of pollution. They can miss the quiet of the morning as nature and the farm animals wake up from their sleep to start another day. The song birds and the smells of the morning dew kiss the morning air. In the distance a tractor starts and the farmer is off to feed the cattle or work a field as the hired hands move cattle from one pasture to another. There is no time clock in agriculture, just seasons to get work done. Some days are 18-23 hours long and others are cut short due to rain or snow. We are flexible like that in rural America, it is a different beat of the drum than what the east and west coast are accustom to and we like it that way.
The vastness of the Tallgrass Prairie and the Montana skies will scare a city slicker when they are by themselves. They can’t handle that vastness, it is too open for their liking and like the Pioneer women who traveled west and lost their minds when the Kansas wind blew for days on end, these city slickers aren’t tough enough to endure it. I have often said that a country kid could go to the city and survive but a city slicker coming to the country wouldn’t be able to tough it out. We know how to survive and we are proud that we have those skills.
Rural America is more than a lifestyle, it is family. When someone falls ill, gets hurt or dies right before planting time or harvest, we all come together as one to take care of the needs of the one, knowing that one day, if we are in need, our brothers and sisters in Rural America will come to help us, no strings attached. It is community at its best and while it is shocking to some, it is almost an unwritten law of the land, we do what needs to be done.
Rural America feeds the country and the world with our ever increasing scientific improvements and productivity to produce meat and grains that fill the bellies of those arrogant candidates and Philosophy PhD’s. We in rural America and in Agriculture have found better ways to make the land more productive whilst protecting it from erosion, no-till and rotational grazing have reduced carbon emissions while cities still spew the carbon. Just one city in one day can send enough carbon in the air that it would take a 100, 000 head feed lot months to equal. And we are ignorant and make bad choices?
The biggest secret in rural America is the freedom we have that city slickers don’t have. We aren’t restricted by the pavement and traffic lights or buildings that hide the sky from us, we can step out and feel the cool of the grass as we walk barefoot in the yard or as we soak our feet in the cool of a stream or pond. We can enjoy our slower pace of life and see the little things that matter. Simple isn’t stupid, it is without strings attached. We are able to enjoy a life without fear of drive-by shootings or muggings. We gather together for sheep and calf fries and beer or a picnic in the park with the community churches while we listen to the Fort Riley Army Band. Rural America is a Norman Rockwell painting that has come to life.
We in rural America laugh easily. We can laugh when the calf we worked hard to pull and thought was dead, gasps for air and struggles to its feet. We know the joy of watching a foal trying out his legs for his first run and we smile with pride as we watch those first year 4-H kids lead their bucket calf into the show ring for the first time.
Much of what the city slickers know about Rural America and Agriculture is from watching television re-runs of Green Acres. We are manufacturers of tools and equipment to make our work easier. We think of better ways to do things with bale wire and duct tape if we have to. We can take an old pickup and string barbed wire up and down steep hills and then go skinny dipping in the pond after hauling hay all day.
If city slickers really understood the philosophy of rural living, they would all want to be like us. Thank God they can’t get their pea-brains to understand the secrets of rural life.
Educated Cowpuncher 