# Are We Ready for this Conversation



## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

I wrote the following a few weeks back in a moment of reflection. Things have improved since then, but through some hard choices. Selling equipment and clear-cutting forest. Still it will enable us to be in a better position financially down the road and keep everything. Still it is a difficult discussions that I am not sure we are ready for. I sent this to both my pastor and my wife with little response sadly enough. Still the statistics are sobering; I called the semi-article: *Black Thumb*.

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The snow squeaks under my snow boots as I step upon it on my way to a tree that stands majestically before me. Snow only squeaks if it is below ten degrees, and this morning the digital numbers on the thermometer of my house have a negative sign before them. The thermometer is not the only thing that tells me it is twelve degrees below zero here, and that is Fahrenheit and not Celsius, but almost everything.

I had to beat the gate latch with the back of an axe to get the gate to open, had a battery charger on the battery bank of my bulldozer all night, and used almost a full can of starting fluid getting the diesel engine to start. Even then I am not sure if the copious amount of starting fluid proved too much for the metal rings on one of the pistons because at such cold temperatures, metal loses its strength, and the engine now has a skip to it. I do the math in my head for a rebuild, easily a thousand dollars, not to mention the lack of production that will result from all the downtime. It almost is not even worth it to have started the lumbering machine up, as at best a day of intensive logging will net me five hundred dollars for the day, and that is when things go well. When it is this cold, experience has proven that everything takes longer, resulting in lower production and less money made.

Sadly, it is all about the money because if I had a choice I would not even be out here. Property taxes alone mean I must be just where I am, and despite the damage to moving equipment at such temperatures, at four o clock when my day started, I saw the dreaded email from my banker, demanding a response, and more importantly a payment for a back-owed loan that is two months behind. The words were coarse and haunting, yet typed while he sat in a cushioned office chair, probably a supplemental heater under his desk because his thin argyle socks hardly help from the overnight chill of the office building as it dips slightly from seventy-two degrees down to sixty-eight. All this helps to form a tear in my eye from the cold, anger, resentment and jealousy that wells, and just as quickly freezes.

"I made the commitment, I gotta make the payment", I say to myself, as I talk to myself, which is something I do a lot, and yes, I even answer myself. I spend ninety percent of my time alone, and with the exception of Ole Buck, who has become a friend these last two years; following me around with his big fourteen point rack since my skidder, bulldozer and chainsaw keep the deer hunters away in November, and the limbs and tops from the trees I cut, provide feed on which he can dine in the winter; I live a solitary life. Yet the statement I make to myself is the heart of all farmers; we pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, and try to soldier on, even though no one can predict the future, and for us the odds are stacked against us. Agriculture policy, government bureaucracy, and the fickle taste of American's palettes all play a role in creating an environment in which we tread, yet have little control over it.

I wish I could talk to my wife about such things, but with four young daughters, she is forever preoccupied. Monday is grocery day at all costs, and when the kids are not in school, parent teacher conferences, school pick-ups, and church events all take up her time and concerns, so what is there to say? I hint, but even she misses the dire signs; "I am so tired", "What about you getting a job?" "Is there anything we could save money on?" The pressure to pay bills is mounting, made worse by the fact that we are already frugal. With no vices to blame, like cigarettes, drinking or smoking; emotionally there is nothing to fall back upon either. There is nothing to numb the pain of guilt for not working hard enough, and the incredible amount of fatigue.

The latter is not from depression, but rather from cancer that is confirmed within my body. It was discovered six months before when my chainsaw cut through a sapling that was bent over by a felled tree. When it whipped up, it sent my chainsaw flying into my face leaving me knocked out and a gash between my forehead. With no cell phone&#8230;a needless cost since I have no one to talk too anyway&#8230;I looked at my skidder for a second, saw it was hitched to too many trees for a fast getaway, and instead starting to run, the snow at my feet covered in spraying blood. I made it just past the stream, just past the halfway point to my home and passed out from exhaustion. Coming too, I saw the pool of blood in the snow and knew if I did not get up and run, I might never get up. Again, that solitary life, where it could be hours before anyone even suspects something is amiss, let alone that I might be out in the woods and in trouble. However, I did make it home, made a call to 911, and ultimately to a hospital where twenty stitches and four days in the hospital allowed me to recover. It was there, in getting my CAT Scan for my concussion, that cancer was found.

A few months later it was removed, but the bank does not care if a farmer had surgery and could not work, or that the cancer depletes all energy levels. Every part of me is sore, and this includes the soles of my feet that are now feeling like blocks of ice in the deep freeze Maine is now in. I try to shake it off, to clear my head, of bills to pay, a sputtering bulldozer engine, snow up to my waist and absolutely no energy. The doctor's think blood tests show signs of my cancer spreading, but I already know it has; not because I am negative in nature, but because no one knows my body better than me, and I can just feel its affects.

And yet in some ways I feel fortunate because I have good insurance, a benefit of years of working for unions that provide benefits after retirement. In regards to health insurance, that is great, but in terms of the life insurance it is more of a curse. That is because I know I financially I am better off dead than alive.

As I step up to the tree and begin to bore my way through the first cut, what would have normally taken just a few seconds to power my way through, takes an agonizing amount of time despite the sharpness of the saw due to the frozen wood. Still it is that same saw that can give my family what they deserve, not from the felling of trees that can be sold to a paper mill for money, but the taking of my life. Secretly I wish it would, and looking deep into the photos of me logging, a person can see it; not so much what is seen, but what is not. There is no safety gear, for if I make a mistake and my saw makes contact with flesh, what is it to the world? It has already happened three times, and it is not because I am too dumb to learn from my mistakes, but rather because I do not care if the next cut is fatal. I am just a dumb sheep farmer who misjudged income levels, cannot seem to work hard enough to pay my bills, and could relieve my wife of her vows of matrimony for life so that she could find someone better, someone with more energy, and whose dreams did not involve little white woolen balls, eating green grass, pooing out black pellets, that somehow makes red meat.

I have told her this, at least in my own way, telling her through tears that it sucks when your dreams die. She did not understand the gravity of the situation, and while she was sad and teared up, she has no idea how many times suicide runs through my head.

Even now, as a stream of sawdust spews from my saw; the thought invades&#8230;a shotgun blast to the head or the chest&#8230;which would be a faster death? I have thought of it so many times it does not even bring me to tears anymore, just a dark somber though of the details of it. I really do ponder which technique would be better. Just from this alone I know today will be a bad day as I know mulling suicide will beseech me all day&#8230;will bombard me a dozen times or more as I freeze out in the cold and ponder, 'why do I do this?'

The truth is I know I am hardly alone, in fact, statistically speaking, I have the highest probability of actually following through with my thoughts. That is because I am a middle aged, ninth generation, full-time farmer. Despite the vast amount of media coverage regarding veterans and suicide, farmers have twice the suicide rate than veteran's. This is a sad statistic as it is often stated, "armies travel upon their bellies." This was pointed out one day when at age eighteen, and army recruiter who would not take no for an answer, took me to a restaurant and asked, "don't you want to do something for your country?" Without saying a word, I gripped his plate of food and slid it towards me. He just looked down, then at me, then back at the removed plate of food and saw the point I was making, and later took me home and never asked again if I was going to join the army. The point was poignant; without farmers the country stops, even the greatest army in the world.

One reason the statistics are so murky on farmer suicides is that we have an ample amount of ways to carry it out. If I cut myself with a chainsaw and bleed to death, no one would be the wiser that it was self-inflicted, and not that of an accident. We also have access to massive equipment, so being driven over by a bulldozer is just as likely from and accident as from suicide, considering the high fatality rates associated with farming. All that and more means the statistics that are often cited for farmer suicides are probably low; very low. Self-inflicted gun-shot wounds are far easier to decipher, but considering the free access we have to them, it is no wonder they are often employed.

With the changes to the tax code, it is more than likely that farmer suicides will increase. This has been one of my most stressful years, and yet because of changes that were not in place just a few years ago, while I cannot even buy stuff to put in the Christmas stocking for my wife, on paper it looks as if this is the best year I have ever had financially. That says nothing about the payments my banker is so adamant about receiving, yet I cannot even deduct that cost, making the stress even more pronounced. The reality is, I must work through flesh numbing cold, to make money that I cannot keep, and pay even more money for making that money again on April 14th. For the farmer this all seems so wrong.

"How patient will my bank be: is the real question, and one I am not sure I know the answer too?

I have a history of always paying our bills, and love the feeling of paying off loans and being current on payments even if it means my family goes without, but there is a limit to trees that have grown to enormous size that makes valuable logs. Even now I am not logging to supplement my logging income, but rather to clear forest into fields so we can raise more sheep. Maine has lost most of its paper mills, and saw mills are failing as their own supplemental markets file for bankruptcy as well. In two years' time, our forest, part of the American Tree Farm System has lost one-third of its value, and I am scrambling to convert forest into field while I can still get rid of the wood. This was not the way it was supposed to be, family forests such as mine, managed for sustainability were supposed to have its forest products purchased in difficult times as a reward for doing the right thing. Instead, the paper mills chose to not honor that agreement, leaving our well managed forests worthless. For me, this is forest that has been selectively harvested for nine generations. The pressure of losing such a long-standing farm is tremendous, and I would rather face the bite of one hundred shotgun balls to my chest or face then to be at the helm when all is lost.

My faith in God is pronounced, and so far, it has kept me from toting my shotgun to a far-off field and ending it all. It says in the bible that God will not give you more than you can handle, so how can I thwart his plan for my life by ending it via my own hand? Yet I have known many Christians who have lost everything too, and that includes farmers like me. For many I see their nine-hundred crosses dotted across in the mid-west from back in the 1980's when they could not make their payments. Inevitably many of those farmers had faith in God as well, so how could they have taken their own lives? So far, the answer lies somewhere in the middle, keeping my shotgun resting on the rifle rack, but my chainsaw safety gear on a nail in the garage; should a logging accident end my life, so be it, it would be the ultimate relief from it all.

And so, I as I continue through the cold, notch out my tree, and make my back cut; skill allows the tree to start leaning over on its fateful arch to the earth. Somewhere along the way its branches hit a widow-maker and send a large branch crashing down. I see the movement out of the corner of my eye and dart out of the way at the last second, and yet as it crashes into the frozen ground, I curse myself for instinctually bolting.

"Darn", I say, knowing sadly I am not under it, and all my problems as a farmer are gone.

Death, a final loving gift to my wife and four daughters.


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## RuttedField (Apr 24, 2016)

Again, I am in a better spot now, and not as saddened as I am when I wrote this a few weeks ago, but the question still remains: are we as farmers ready to admit that many farmers never do pull out of the slump?


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

RuttedField, I made the mistake of reading this during a work break and it brought tears to my eyes. I live in New Brunswick close the Maine border (near AV Nackawic mill). We share the same forest that runs through the east. I've logged on my own property working alone at times, I've been knocked senseless by a spring pole.

From past discussions I know we have different beliefs/faith and political stripes but we definitely share the same love for our families.

I have friends who have lost their family farms that had been in their family since the 1700's and I had not fully considered the mental strain of the generational responsibility or burden. A good friend of mine is in the process of clearcutting the remaining portion of the farm woodlot to make the payments this winter after a crop failure. People don't understand the financial pressure farmers are under, the constant burden.

I also have a wife who has struggled with suicidal thoughts for many years, I think its incredibly brave for you to have shared what are incredibly personal feelings and fears with us as peers. I don't have any amazing advice, despite feeling disconnected from your wife during this, I can guarantee your are more valuable to her alive than dead. If you can't talk to her, talk to someone on here. There are people willing to listen. All of us on here are willing to offer support to you on this.


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## NewBerlinBaler (May 30, 2011)

Rutted - I'm sorry you are struggling but I can't help but notice that you're are an extremely gifted writer. I guess it's true what they say about artists - suffering is their motivation. I wish I could write like you.

Let me make a suggestion. I see a way for you to earn some income - sell your story to a magazine. I'm sure several would be interested enough to publish this anonymously. Could bring enough to get you back on your financial feet.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

You sir are one heck of an author. I can assure you that you aren't the only one who has those thoughts from time to time. Not many can articulate the situation with as much poignancy as you just did. You bring the reader right there with you as you are cutting down the trees.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

I don't very often keep my mouth shut when I should...

This time I'm speechless and yes I do have tears running down my face..

You are a powerful person in many ways, God will take you home one day, just let it be in his time and not yours....


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

What a post!. I for one am glad you are still here to post that for us to read. I might say your pastor just might not be equipped professionally or personally to be able to respond to your letter. My pastor really wasn't when I had cancer. But then he wasn't equipped to handle most anything LOL. But another one was, friends, other family were as well. My cancer thawed a tense relationship I had with my cousin for the last few years when he had been my best friend.

Maybe your wife is being busy as a defense mechanism for everything you are going through right now. She doesn't want to even think about losing you so she keeps herself so busy that she won't have to face up to it now. Maybe not. I don't know her. Just a thought.

I remember when a friend of mine was dying of cancer. I didn't go visit him like I should have. At the time I didn't think he would have wanted to be bothered. The few times I visited him I felt awkward and didn't have much to say. I still regret not visiting him or his family more before he died. Possibly your pastor and even wife feel similar.

But if an accident happens in the woods it will be much worse for your family I think then any other way out.

I can't help but think that your accident that caused them to find the cancer might be a miracle in itself somehow. I'm not sure how, but it might be.

I'm praying for your health, safety and family.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

I don't know what to say... I've been there, when I was younger... had great-grandpa Howard's pearl handled .38 revolver with the bull head and red ruby eyes carved into the grips to my head... crying my eyes out and cursing myself because I didn't have the guts to pull the trigger...

I've had days when I just collapsed on the ground and sobbed... It's all I COULD do. Nothing else worked, and I was just at the end of my rope.

God doesn't give us more than we can handle, but HOO-BOY does it SURE seem that way sometimes!

I don't take "stupid chances" but I don't go out of my way to be "uber-safe" either... figure if it's meant to happen it'll happen anyway. Cest les vis... (such is life). I've had some close calls and wonder why I'm still here at times... nearly struck by lightning two times in a week harvesting cotton; lightning hit close enough to electrify the picker one day while I was working on it, and then struck close enough to electrify the trailer's metal wire mesh sides while I was reaching through to pull down a tarp blowing off the load in the rain... zapped the fire out of me both times! Took a gas line loose on the picker one time to blow it out and the wrench hit the battery post and the whole mess started arcing... how it didn't go up with me with it I'll never know.

Life isn't easy. Never has been, never will be. I guess we all have our "crosses to bear", though sometimes it doesn't seem that way... even Mr. Argyle Socks in his warm bank building. Even if it's not NOW, it WILL be, sooner or later. Very VERY few people go through life untouched by tragedy or unsurmountable burdens at some point.

Grandma used to tell me how it was when my Dad's sister was born... they had 38 cents to their name and spent 16 cents of it for a bottle of rubbing alcohol to dry up her navel... Grandpa Leon was out of work, no money coming in. He heard about "jobs in California" (read plenty of histories and seems no matter where you were, everybody in every place always said there were "jobs *somewhere else*". He got paid to drive a car to California for a guy. The cops were stopping cars and checking the drivers to see if they chauffeur's licenses (predecessor to the CDL) and making them leave the cars if they didn't... which he didn't. He found out they were waiting up ahead and slipped past them by driving the car down the railroad tracks to the next road... Got to California, no jobs; about to starve to death. He was walking along the road at night and got tired so he went off the road a bit and laid down under a tree, to go to sleep. He'd been something of a hell raiser growing up in the rough-n-tumble cattle towns of Orange Grove and Beeville in South Texas during the early 20th century... his Dad had owned a ranch til he lost it-- cattle fever ticks and screw worms-- oh, not the vermin did him in-- the screw worm eradication program, where the gubmint force ranchers to dip their cattle weekly... the cost bankrupted him, and he lost the ranch, so he worked for other ranchers, and became a meat cutter in a butcher shop. Grandpa played football back before pads, before helmets, unless you count those little leather skull caps they used to wear to keep your brains in when you got hit in the head... Grandpa Leon was at the end of his rope that dark California night by the side of a lonesome road... he thought about his life, about the life he'd lived, and he knew he had done things he was ashamed of. He spoke to God in prayer that night... repented for the things he'd done, and made God a promise-- If God would help him through the spot he was in, he'd live the rest of his life for God, according to His Word, to the best of his ability. Then he drifted off to sleep, there under some tree beside some dark stretch of road in the middle of who knows where California. He awoke the next morning when an orange fell down on his head. In the dark he walked off the road into the edge of an orange orchard, and slept under one of the trees. He ate some oranges-- first food he'd had in days. Did some work and someone gave him a sandwich in payment. Then he hopped a freight train back to Texas. That was around the time my aunt was born.

Tough times didn't last. Tough people do. He got a job in the refineries near Baytown, TX. It was dangerous work in those days-- lots of fires and explosions, LONG before anything remotely similar to OSHA had been thought of. You did the job you were told, or you were OUT, PERIOD. Don't let the door hit you in the seat, because there's ten more outside the gates ready to take your job if you DON'T want to do it! When World War II came around, he didn't get drafted into the military to face down the Germans or Japanese, because he was in essential war work, refining the aviation gasoline that allowed the Army Air Corps to bomb the Germans and Japanese into submission. After the war, he did other things-- sold cigarettes and life insurance, stocked cigarette vending machines, even ran a "tourist courts" (motor hotel, or what we'd call a "motel" today) for my great-grandfather. He wanted to farm with a burning passion, but couldn't get the chance... Dad was born in '46. Dad got polio at age 2 in '48 and was paralyzed for a time, and underwent experimental therapies where they cut his ankles and installed tubes to pump sulfa drugs into his system... things they THOUGHT might help, but it damaged his blood and didn't do much otherwise. He was in a bed at Warm Springs Hospital-- there was an adolescent girl in the "bed" beside him, confined to an iron lung for the rest of her life... the teenage boy on the other side of his bed was paralyzed and died after a few days. Dad pulled through, but he had to learn to walk again and was fitted with those metal leg braces like in the movie "Forrest Gump" for most of his childhood... He fought through it and was determined, and managed to play football in high school, despite being painfully thin and had to take Iberol pills (iron from dried calf blood) because of his anemic blood. High blood pressure and a fast heart rate scared them enough they wouldn't let him play football his senior year. He thought SO many times growing up, "WHY ME?" and realized there just wasn't an answer to that... the year after he graduated, he got his draft notice. Went to the doc and was 4F'd (rejected) because the polio had left him with one leg an inch and a half shorter than the other. One of his closest friends from high school, who they baled hay for and worked with, went through basic and was shipped over to Vietnam... he was there 2 weeks when his APC went over an anti-tank mine and killed him and 9 other soldiers... he rests in the cemetery on the edge of town, that we passed with every load of cotton we hauled for years. Dad said he'd have ended up there too, but for the polio which saved him from being sent over there...

Grandpa got his chance to farm-- in '55 Grandpa Howard Bushnell allowed him to rent the Needville farm, which he intended to deed to my Grandmother when he passed. Grandma would never let him forget that it was "her" farm, so one day while he was out driving through the country selling life insurance, he came across a farm for sale near Shiner, TX, 90-some miles west of Needville, and bought it. Then he could tell Grandma that was *HIS* farm. They moved up there in '58, and nearly lost the farm trying to grow cotton... One year they made 7 bales on 70 acres. Grandma would never let him forget about the time they only had $9 dollars to their name in his wallet, which fell out of his pocket and he plowed it under... Course he found it the next year when he plowed the field up again.... He and Dad started baling hay to pay for the farm, selling most of it to the Hagen's auction barns in Hallettsville (and they had some other auction barns too). The rest they sold out of the barn. Got up to 40,000 small square bales a year, all done "by hand" with a pair of little Ford tractors-- an NAA and a Golden Jubilee, which they moved back and forth between the two farms on a trailer, and grew cotton at Needville as well. In '65, Dad's senior year, they moved back to Needville, and would go to Shiner when they needed to make and haul hay.

They farmed through the 70's, Dad worked off farm in the winters at tractor dealers, first as a mechanic, then a parts man. Deere, IH, didn't matter, ever fall he'd go get a job for the winter... which was easy to do back then. He told the story how a mechanic friend of his was kinda 'shafted' by the service manager, because something went wrong on a buddy of his lawn tractor and he was going to have to redo it "for free"... so over lunch he went and found a different job... Dad got back from lunch and asked him why he was packing his tools-- "I just quit, I start the new job in an hour" he said... Back before it takes all the background checks and testing and peeing in jars and signing your life away to get a job-- not like NOW... Anyway, Dad and Grandpa farmed together, rented some land, especially from most of his 7 aunts and uncles that Grandpa Howard had left his farms to (Grandma' siblings). But, in the mid-70's, the BTO's were only getting bigger, and hungrier. The age of "Get BIG or GET OUT!" had arrived, and the "poor boy" way of doing things that had prevailed for the preceding decades was becoming a thing of the past... BTO's moved in like vultures and promised bigger yields and higher rents and all that and one by one the aunts and uncles rented the farms out from under him, and he had to compete to get "problem farms" that were weedy or poor soils nobody else wanted. In the fall of '75 he went to work at the nuclear plant... $5 an hour plus benefits and all the overtime you could possibly work. Made more money in a week than he'd ever seen in his life! (This was when most jobs were still paying a buck or two an hour, so $5 an hour isn't even minimum wage now, was like $30 bucks an hour now, at least!) He decided to sell his equipment and quit farming, and go to the nuke plant full time... it'd take them another 20-odd years to complete construction! He helped Grandpa farm the farms on the side. Grandpa fulfilled his vows... he was a lay preacher and worked in the church, and foreswore many of the vices that tend to afflict the rest of us-- drinking, smoking, cussing. He was the model Christian. Not that that always helped. Plenty of people will take advantage of you if they can. One fellow was a church deacon at the time, and a BTO just over the county line. Dad had bought an old Case 900 combine from a guy... it was SO rusted out he spent most of the winter of 73 riveting tin into the bottom of the header... replaced the entire grain pan with a sheet of tin under the straw walkers, to keep grain in the combine. He got custom work with this BTO who promised "great things ahead". When the unloading auger broke one day in 100+ degree heat, Dad dipped the sorghum out of the tank with a five gallon bucket, while the BTO watched from his porch swing... until Dad collapsed from a heat stroke. They put him in the hospital overnight and he was okay, but it put another mark against his health. The BTO said they'd be a lot more productive with an auger cart, so he went and bought a brand new "Big 12" auger cart, one he could run from the air conditioned confines of his big new Deere cab tractor. He ALWAYS hired his harvesting done, because he didn't like to sweat or eat dust in 100+ degree heat of July grain harvest in Texas like everybody else. He told Dad and Grandpa, "yall should buy a new combine, and you can harvest my grain EVERY year!". Dad and Grandpa borrowed the money from the bank and bought a new Ford 640, built by Claas, at the time one of the largest combines you could buy in America... Now they don't make one that small. It had been on the dealer lot a couple years, so they got it for $12,000. They started harvesting for their BTO "friend" and trouble soon followed. First, the friend of Grandpa's, Ernest Grant, who was next to Grandpa one of the most pious and righteous men I have ever known in my entire life, who was hauling grain for them for 25 cents a hundred with what was a pretty nice truck for the time-- an older IH Loadstar tandem axle with a grain box on it, was told by the BTO he was "no longer needed" because "he found cheaper haulers" (that weren't black). Then not long after, he came down to the field one day and told Dad and Grandpa to "pack it in, thanks for your work, here's your check, we're done!" Turns out another BTO up the road contracted WAY more grain than he could deliver, and he was in danger of defaulting on the contract, so he offered to pay their "friend" the going rate at the elevator for all his grain and harvest it and haul it for free, to fulfill his contract. Dad and Grandpa, despite their previous deal with a "fellow Christian", were out of a job, with a big payment due on a $12,000 machine they would never have bought without the promise of that job to pay for it... God helped though... turned out another BTO had jumped into the booming grain sorghum business, and had rented a few thousand acres of fertile river bottom land the other side of Rosenberg... it had been a wet June and July was HOT, and the morningglory vines had come in like GANGBUSTERS and just sewn the crop up solid. He put out the word that anybody who wanted to do custom cutting at the going rate was welcome, and could have all they could do. Dad and Grandpa showed up with the Ford/Claas, and were up against the best Deere, IH, White, Gleaner, Massey, and Oliver could build at the time. By lunchtime, everybody else had quit-- the vines would plug up their combines and take the better part of an hour or two to clear, and then combine another 10-15 minutes and plug up again. Dad plugged a few times, but Claas put a big cast-iron "turning block" on the end of the cylinder shaft over the RH tire-- this kept the cylinder momentum up to pass slugs, but if it DID lock up, it allowed you to turn the WHOLE MACHINE backwards with a long iron bar (this was LONG before "reversers" had been invented or installed on combines), allowing them to bar over the machine and roll a slug back out the feederhouse and pull it out from under the table auger in short time and go back to work. The Claas also had another advantage-- the concave clearance was adjusted under the seat with a lever-- shove it down to the floor and the concave was wide open, and then pull it back up to the third notch and you were threshing again... When Dad saw or felt a slug hitting the cylinder, he'd throw open the concave, roll it through the cylinder which tossed it unthreshed onto the straw walkers, which dumped it out the back... pull the lever right back up and keep right on threshing... They made enough off that one job over the next few weeks to pay for the combine.

It wasn't all that easy, though... Grandpa OFTEN had to borrow money from one bank to pay off another from last year... which was easy to do in the pre-computer days when one bank really didn't know what another was doing. He was always honest about it, and paid his bills. Not like the guy up the road that went to prison because he had his farm mortgaged with seven different banks for the full value when he finally went toe-up... Then in the fall of '80 they dug a gas well on the farm... for the first time money wasn't a crushing concern! He paid a lot of loans off... and bought a new round baler, one of the first in this area of the country. In 81 he even fixed the old "David Brown" after it burned up the wiring for the third time-- he traded it in on a brand new Ford 6600... Labor day of '82, he chose to haul some round bales to Shiner on an old farm trailer equipped with low-boy semi-trailer tires. One blew out, and we think he had a heat stroke trying to fix it by himself, because we'd gone to the river that weekend on a mini-vacation. Dad told him to wait til he got back, but old guys get impatient and "can do it themselves"... He was never right after that. Always exhausted, to the point of keeling over on the truck seat one day when he was supposed to take me to the field to drive the tractor shredding cotton stalks that fall... First he would wander off and got lost in the one-horse town he'd lived in since '65, and within a month he wasn't talking anymore... In and out of the hospital, they could find nothing wrong. CAT scans showed "lesions on the brain" whatever that was, nobody had any idea... He'd technically "died on the table" during a detached retina operation a year or two before in Houston, back when that was a MAJOR surgery-- they'd given him too much anesthetic... but they managed to "bring him back". He rolled up a napkin one day and was trying to eat it like a tortilla, I think he mumbled he thought it was a tortilla, but he barely could speak. By December he was comatose in the hospital, and had to go to the nursing home. Dad would get off work at 6pm, he and my younger brother and sister would pile in the front seat of the pickup with Grandma; I put on a coat and gloves and a hat and piled in back in the bed, and we'd drive 130 miles to Cuero to the nursing home or hospital (depending on where he was) to see him... That was some LONG, COLD nights for this 12 year old, riding in the open bed of a '77 Ford F-100 in the freezing cold! Dad had to hold his eyes open-- he couldn't even open his eyes anymore. In January he was being fed through a tube, and got pneumonia. February 10th we got a call about 9pm... I took the call; they asked for Dad but I sounded older and usually took his calls and said I was him so he could sleep to go to work at 4 am... Grandpa Leon died.

Grandma paid off the last of the farm loans the following spring. When we got home from the bank, she said, "We finally paid it all off-- now if we EVER have to borrow money again to farm, that's the day we'll QUIT FARMING". We've never borrowed a penny since-- the gas wells petered out by the late 80's and were gone by the early 90's, lest anyone think that was the only reason... I took Grandpa's place doing his work on the farm, with Dad's assistance for the first couple years, but by the time I was 15 I had it pretty much to myself-- Dad would run a tractor or picker during harvest or spring land work before planting and at planting, but most of the work I did myself. He worked 60 hours a week, sometimes 70 or 80 hours a week, at the nuclear plant... so he didn't have time to mess with it. I ran it for Grandma, even when she had to do the driving because I still didn't have a license! Somehow we made it... but by the late 90's the handwriting was on the wall-- prices for everything we had to buy were through the roof, but cotton was still the same lousy 70 cents a pound it had been since I was a toddler, riding standing up on the front seat of Dad's '72 Chevy pickup between him and Mom... didn't take a rocket scientist to see it was time for a change... So we went all cows and parked the row crop machinery in 2003. It was hard... and VERY hard to convince Grandma, but a cold hard honest look at the prospects and the books told the tale... we were making the same amount of money off calves that cost us maybe 1/10 as much to produce as a cotton crop or grain sorghum.

Dad started having problems in about '08. He was having severe back pain. Working in the nuke plant's warehouse on a stand-up forklift that took you up 40 feet to the top of the bins didn't help. He was in such pain he was making mistakes, and that will get you 3 write-ups and your fired. Docs couldn't tell him anything but 'lose weight". He got a second write up and the union steward told him, "if you're in too much pain to do your job, get on disability! Don't let them fire you, because then we can't help you!" So he put in for it... and was rejected, but put in again and got it. His health continued to deteriorate. He had put on a lot of weight, but it wasn't just that... his heart was having problems, his blood, which had finally sorta "normalized" when he was in his 30's, was going wonky again from the sulfa infusions when he had polio. He increasingly had trouble walking and was only getting worse. Thanks to good insurance through the electrician's union, he went to doctor after doctor, nobody could tell him anything. It got so bad he had to get a scooter chair because he couldn't walk for more than about 10-15 seconds at a time, then he couldn't stand for more than that. After nearly four years of the doctors, I drove him to Houston one day for one of his appointments. I took him through the rat maze of parking garages, hospitals, skyways, elevators and more elevators, and winding narrow hallways of the clinic to this doc, and I settled in the waiting room with my latest space history book, expecting a couple hour wait. To my surprise, 20 minutes later he's coming out with his paperwork. We thread our way back out through the rat maze they make sick people navigate to do anything, to the van. We hit the road and he tells me about his test-- the doc ran long thin needles up his arms into the muscles and turned knobs, passing current through his body and taking readings. He did this several times, looked it over, and said, "Well, you have post-polio syndrome-- there is nothing we can do for you. It will eventually kill you, so go home and enjoy life. It will only get worse. Don't think you can "beat it back" by exercise-- the more you exercise, the faster it will make you deteriorate. Just sit back and enjoy what time you have left". He decided to move back to Shiner in '13-- he always liked it better up there, where he grew up (for the most part). He was frustrated at being basically confined to a power-lift chair and a scooter chair-- it got to where he could barely stand long enough to transfer from one to the other. He wanted to do things, but couldn't. He didn't give up, though, and did all he could do. Then in the spring of '14, he got sick and was in the hospital for awhile. He was jaundiced and had gall stones. When they removed them, they found cancer in the bile duct between the liver and intestine. I started taking him to Houston for treatments, but it was a nightmare. They started him on chemo pills and wanted to put in a porta-cath under the skin to do IV chemo as well. He couldn't lay down for the surgery because of his congestive heart failure. He had slept in a chair for years because of it. So, pills only. They said they'd see how he did and then probably do radiation treatments, but that means living in a motel near the medical center for a couple months getting daily treatments, and he had learned enough about radiation over the years at the nuke plant he didn't want to do that. He made it a year and half on the chemo pills, with no spread of the cancer. He decided after several FUBAR's at the Houston hospital leading to wasted trips down there to just switch to a doctor closer to Shiner, in Victoria, an hour away, instead of 2.5 hours away in Houston... and easier to get to. I drove him down there most of the time. Then in the fall of '16, the doc told him "it's growing again-- the pills aren't working-- we've got to start IV chemo". He started taking infusion treatments in Victoria. He handled the first one pretty good-- he was less nauseous and less diarrhea than with the pills! The second treatment knocked him for a loop... and the third one two weeks later, put him in the hospital in days. His BP bottomed out at 40/20, and they didn't know how he ws even conscious. He was in ICU and called me in and told me to get the county sheriff and county judge to get him out, because they wouldn't let him leave and the male nurse was trying to kill him... he was on meds to keep his blood pressure up enough to keep him alive, but those meds only work for a few days to a week at most, then they quit working. They eased him back on it til he got his wits, and the docs told him and us "we've done all we can do-- you can stay here or go home and have hospice". He chose to go home. They had to wean him off the drugs over a couple days. He went back to the house Saturday afternoon. Sunday we talked and everything was fine; I cooked a pot of soup and mashed some up to paste for him because he had trouble swallowing, and he ate some. We even had a church service at the house for him that evening-- we sang some hymns and I read a few chapters from the Bible, and we prayed. Monday morning, he woke up and said, "Everything is new! Brand new-- brand new... brand new, brand new, brand new; Everything is brand new!" We asked him what he was talking about, but he just said, "it's all brand new... that's good, brand new!" By that afternoon he wasn't talking anymore... the nurses came and bathed him and changed his bedding, and it was tough for him. Tuesday morning he just slept. He got weaker and weaker as the day progressed, he was comatose. The doctor that morning said it wouldn't be long. By a little after 4, he was gone. Then I had to do the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life... the funeral home was having trouble getting help and asked my brother and I to help, or we could wait several hours til he could round some guys up, because Dad was a big man and he couldn't do it alone. Jay and I helped move Dad from his bed into the bag on the gurney, and I had to zip it up over him. God even now typing this is like a raw wound... but at least I know he was handled gently for his last trip out of the house... Mom's mom, Ma-ma, they handled like an old sack of potatoes so Mom said... I rolled the back end of the gurney down the handicap ramp I built for him at Shiner, while the funeral director guided the front end into his waiting hearse, and I closed the door after a brief farewell. Dad left the farm for the last time.

I don't know what to tell you. All I can say is, I've been at the threshold of suicide myself, several times. I've wanted to give up and crawl in a hole-- a lot of days I think how much easier it would be... But then I remember seeing my daughter for the first time, or I marvel at the beauty of a simple thing like a sunset or moonrise, like tonight... Or watch silly calves playing in a field. Look at little shoots of wheat, sorghum, or corn pushing through the cold, damp earth, up towards the light, toward the promise of a fruitful life. I've stared with sadness seeing crops burn up in the blistering heat of drought or drown in endless deluges of water, watched cows happy and healthy one day sick and dying the next, or slowly dying from torn up guts from having a calf... and all I can do is end suffering. At those times it seems life is nothing but suffering, no point other than suffering, but then the sun sets and after the long night it rises again, and all things are "brand new", like Dad said. Maybe that's what he was trying to tell me, but couldn't find the words to say. I don't know.

What I DO know is, life goes on. It goes on with us, and it goes on without us, whether we're here, or whether we're gone. What I ALSO know is, life is a very precious thing. We come into the world naked and with nothing, and we leave this world the same way. It's what we do, who we are, who's lives we touch, and how we're touched, what we learn, what we experience, and what we teach and pass on that ultimately matters. it's not land, or farms, or a shed full of equipment, or full barns or business empires that matter. Those things are transient-- they're here today, gone tomorrow. Dreams and hopes are good, but not everything. Dreams and hopes come and go, like the rising and setting of the sun. They shine upon our lives as they rise to fullness over the distant horizon, they shine brightly through the beautiful day, and then they wane and dim as they sink over the horizon-- either when they've come to an end, or we've come to our end, for whatever reason, and can no longer pursue them.... due to health, or downturn in business fortunes, or just change. The wind blows, we know not where. So is change... it blows whether we want it to or not, and we know not where, only that it keeps blowing.

Dad and I had a moment, in the hospital, when he was making his decision on whether to go home or stay in the hospital... I took his hand, palm to palm, thumbs locked together like I was gonna pull him up, if only I could have... pull him out of the mess he was in... and I told him, as we both had tears in our eyes, "Whatever you decide, we'll get through this, TOGETHER, just like we always have..." We didn't always see eye to eye, and he could drive me to distraction at times, and sometimes I'd get angry and think he wasn't doing much to help me, or he'd say or do something I thought was galactically stupid... but then he'd turn around and say something that was the most wise and profound thing I'd ever heard... or he'd do something totally unexpected that was SO terrific or smart. Or i'd stumble or screw up or just be at the end of my rope and ready to jump off the nearest bridge, and he'd say, "Oh, don't worry about it, it'll be all right... it'll work out in the end."

In all that, and a thousand more stories I could tell, Dad and Grandpa and Grandma never gave up. They might have laid face down in the mud where they'd gotten knocked down by the winds of fate or change, might have cried like a baby while their heart broke over things, but they NEVER GAVE UP. They got back up, raked the mud off, and continued on, whatever the hand they were dealt. My goal in life, my dream, is to be as successful as they were. To keep putting one foot ahead of another for one more day, even when that's the best level of "success' you can hope for or see on the horizon, and the biggest battle you face that day and into the foreseeable future. Because, sometimes, just getting through another day is a great victory and tremendous success in itself. We have no guarantees. None offered and certainly none given. That's life. it's a chance, not a guarantee. Success is a choice; sometimes as small as not allowing yourself to be broken or defeated. We don't win every battle; a lot of times we lose more than we win, but if we can just win one battle, no matter HOW SMALL, *TODAY*, then things will get better tomorrow. Some things WILL be better tomorrow, and yes, some things will be WORSE. That's life. But having the courage to face it, knowing the odds, plodding ahead even when we can't see the way out, having faith, THAT is the first, greatest, and most essential victory of all.

That's what Dad and Grandpa and Grandma taught me... and you know, little eyes are watching us, all around us. They see what we do and are touched by our example by what we do in their hearts and minds more than we can ever know. Hug your kids. Tell them you love them. Call an old friend, heck, call an old enemy and make peace-- it's amazing how liberating that can be! The rest, it comes and goes, like the wind... those are the important things... the things that will last beyond us... whether that's today or tomorrow or next year or 20 years or 70 years from now, it doesn't matter. Whether we leave behind empires or bills, it ultimately doesn't matter. What matters is how we treated others, how we helped, or taught, or touched others hearts and minds... and the example we left for our children. That we gave them all the love they could ever possibly want, even when they'd rather have a "toy" instead... and the example we showed them, not just in success, but often more importantly, in distress... Show them how to get up and keep going, no matter what comes. That is the ultimate and most important success.

Best wishes to you and God bless.

Jeff


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

There is so much I wanted to say, as Life Insurance Agent of 31 years know money does not take the place of a loved one. It can help with loss of income, it can provide shelter but a person is so much more. As a Christian I know we also have time of doubt, we wonder why me and how do I face this or that. Yet I know our Lord is faithful and while he does not lift us out of a situation we may wish he would, his Holy Spirit will travel with us each second of the way. So often as we exit those times we then learn to appreciate them which seems strange to some. Some are our own doing while others are not yet God uses those times to help us grow into men and women of "FAITH" who can lead others in their times of doubt.

There has been some very good lessons shared here and it is true as Cain asked God am I my brother's keeper, the answer is yes. As trees can stand in hurricane winds if they have other trees to lean on so can we with the shoulder of God. He loves his Children and he invites all to his house. A land that can not be lost due to health, weather nor debt! Amen


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Rutted field hasn't logged in since this post as far as I can tell. Does anyone know how to get ahold of him in person?


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## RockyHill (Apr 24, 2013)

Hope someone does, I've been wondering about him too.

Shelia


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

I’ve been wondering too.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I have not communicated with Travis in about two months, but the last time he said things were going a little better. I sure hope so as he was having health and financial stress at the same time. I keep waiting for him to make an appearance.

Regards, Mike


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

He sure has been on my heart also. I do pray he is doing better. His words spoke many hearts, including mine.


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

Are any of your on tractorbynet.com also? I am right sure he posted there today. A person there post what I think is same story on the logging accident. It was posted at 7:45 this morning. Below is first part of the post. Even if not a member you should be able to read it.

Okay not able to copy from tractorbynet to here. So he is enough info to find the thread.

BrokenTrack is who posted to thread named "Best Logging Accident Ever".


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## Farmerbrown2 (Sep 25, 2018)

Sure seems to be him but then I’m no Perry Mason.


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

I’ve been praying for him and his family as well as a good family friend going through a similar situation. It’s a sad situation all around and hope it improves for everyone.


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

Think it was a question on needle on hay baler in which he bragged on the help and support of you all here. No doubt he respects and needs the support of all. We certainly need to be praying for him and his family.


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## SCtrailrider (May 1, 2016)

Anyone have any updates from him ??


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## valley ranch (Jul 13, 2018)

The folks use to say: The farmer dies ~ they open the farmers stomach ~ and inside they find ~ "Next Year "


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## woodland (May 23, 2016)

valley ranch said:


> The folks use to say: The farmer dies ~ they open the farmers stomach ~ and inside they find ~ "Next Year "


Never heard that before..........


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## sdcowboy (Jul 17, 2017)

Statistics show that the suicide rate among farmers is kinda high. Shortage of money, not being able to provide for the families lowers their hope. Lack of faith doesn't help.

God put opportunity in front of people everyday. Too many miss it.

Diversify, think outside of the box. The network marketing industry is offering hope for many people. Work from home with a computer or smart phone and over time build a residual income.

I have paid for my farm, improvements and doubled my cow herd using this tool. I'm not promoting any specific program here, But I am involved with several good companies. I have an continue to help people gain that hope.

Is it easy? No, Is farming easy? No

Anything new, you have to put in the time to learn and if you never stop learning you will become successful.

Don't give up, search. There is a lot of money out there for the earning. Just look for it.

My dad a farmer taught me to diversify. I diversified into online marketing. I work from home on my computer. when i want, How many hrs i want and if the fish are biting I can go fishing when I want. All that read this are online. Hope might be online for you too. Teach yourself something new.

sdcowboy


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## Aaroncboo (Sep 21, 2014)

I always say life's a bitch. But it's my job to make it MY bitch. Not the other way around.... I'm not religious at all but I'll be damned if I'm not going to fight like hell to make my heaven on earth... If anyone ever needs anything I'm always willing to do whatever I can to help.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

sdcowboy said:


> Statistics show that the suicide rate among farmers is kinda high. Shortage of money, not being able to provide for the families lowers their hope. Lack of faith doesn't help.
> 
> God put opportunity in front of people everyday. Too many miss it.
> 
> ...


I find this interesting. With work, I'm always outside in the elements, hot/cold, wet, snow, etc. My last "side" job was truck driving. I liked it, but the guy who ran the company downsized (its too bad because that Pete triaxle I drove was really nice).

Have NO intention of leaving farming, but with age creeping up, wouldn't mind having an "indoor" side gig to make a few bucks extra when theres down time. Bills seem to be getting bigger, not smaller. College is main culprit.


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