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Browsing Tag: #agriculture
There were no sunglasses in evidence Wednesday morning, April 3rd, 2024, when a group of students from the Culinary Arts Division of Walters State Community College met and traveled to a local beef producer’s farm just outside of Sevierville, Tennessee. The spring day was overcast, blustery, and thirty degrees cooler than it had been the two previous days. The old timers would label it “airish” but to the rest of us, it was strictly cold. But a cold day out in the field is still better than a warm day behind a desk, and we were all thankful it wasn’t raining. The landowner, Lynn McMahan, had taken the day off from trucking to host the group of students, together with organizer Mike Sharp, TN Beef Industry Council & Cattlemen’s Association; Dr. Katie Mason, a professor with the University of Tennessee; Mallory Fancher, a recent graduate student of ruminant nutrition; Sevier County Ag Extension director Adam Hopkins; and Amy Johnson, secretary for Sevier County Soil & Water Conservation District and Natural Resource Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS). Students were here to see firsthand where the beef they prepare comes from, starting with the calves born on site in October. We drove up the graveled lane to the large barn. We gathered inside, hunkered in clothes that proved inadequate against the wind that howled around the corners. From the front of the barn, the mountain was clearly visible and beginning to fill with vibrant greens as…
I hope that my words never seem disrespectful. I usually feel the need to purge and sometimes it’s about sensitive subjects. I have been labeled a sensitive soul, because I tend to cry at the drop of a hat. But in the meantime, my smart mouth is forever earning me the label of…well, you know. You’ve heard. I AM strong-willed, I have no lies to tell. I say all this because I didn’t take a picture today. It would have been disrespectful to take out my phone and snap one, no matter how badly I wanted to remember the beauty of it. I have only my words. I go to a ton of funerals. I don’t see it as morbid. I was raised up in funeral homes like some kids are raised in church. Seems like somebody all the time was dying. Holly Hills, Berry’s, Atchley’s, Rawlings, McCammon-Ammons were the ones locally that we frequented. Once I started working at the Co-op, we occasionally branched out to Newport and Morristown. College friends laying their parents to rest were sometimes surprised to see me turn up, not understanding that I was raised to comfortably attend these events. It doesn’t matter if it’s Greeneville or Cookeville or Murfreesboro. I will come. People don’t seem to understand that you don’t have to know the person who passed, you…
A year ago, when I took my new job, I began working in conjunction with a girl who’s about my age. I suppose “girl” would be a stretch, as we’re much closer to 40 than 16. Much, much closer. We also have the same last name, and almost the same first name. It could be very confusing to people who have never met us. While we maybe even favor each other a little bit, she and I could not be further apart when it comes to personalities. While she plays close to the vest (I still don’t feel like I know her that well, despite all the talking we do), and follows the rules to the letter, y’all know me–if it goes through my head it generally comes out of my mouth. Or at least onto this screen. And rules? Who needs them? I’ll read them after the fact if I need to. One thing we do have in common is being particular. Although she hems and haws about speaking up about the way she prefers things are done, I say “do it like this, or just let me do it”. She’s an excellent, patient teacher. I would really be up a creek without a paddle if she weren’t around to explain things and show me how to navigate. She has a decent sense of humor, which is uncommon in…
I got a little emotional the other day. Sometimes you have those moments where you just know you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. An epiphany, if you will. About a month ago, my friend Rhonda, the director of the library (don’t tell her I idolize her job just a little bit), called me up in the wee hours of the day. Obviously, she was trying to catch me while my guard was down so I would agree to her little plan. I hadn’t had my coffee. Something about a Seed Swap, that wasn’t on the National Holiday, but it was close enough, and could I say a little something about soil? Why sure because CLEARLY I’m qualified after seven months at a job. But I agreed because namely, it just sounds like a day we’d have snow. January 19th. When I went to write on my old school blotter, I discovered it was a Saturday. That sly wench! Nonetheless, I assembled 27 folders full of valuable literature, soil sample boxes and forms, several posters, and my ever-present blue board. I loaded up Maggie for my presentation. Presentation. Snort. We’ll see about that. I didn’t want to get in over my head, so I just printed some Fun Facts About Dirt off the NRCS website. Fortunately, she had me paired up with my good friend Jim from the City, and he…
A lifetime ago, I was the new girl at the Co-op. I was continually dazzled and awed by the celebrities that darkened our doors. I’ve seen Phil Fulmer, Bill Landry, countless local politicians, loads of Partons (my favorite is Bobby), and the mule man from Silver Dollar City. Seems like everybody needs the Co-op at one time or another. But some of the ones I remember the fondest are the ones who aren’t famous at all. There was an old gentleman, always neat, always precise, always cordial, that came in regularly. And to be honest, I was terrified to wait on him. I didn’t want to mess up. He frequently had one or two sons with him, and their presence just added to my nervousness. More witnesses to see me mess up. One afternoon I didn’t have a choice but to wait on him and his five pound bag of bolts. Gary wasn’t there to bail me out and I had to look up every single size in “The Book”. That’s not the good book, but it is the Co-op Bible. Before the internet, it’s what we had for information. It was like a condensed farming encyclopedia with item numbers, descriptions, pictures, and prices because plenty of Co-ops still wrote hand tickets in the early 2000’s. Anyway, there were several pages of tables for pricing bolts. First you…
I used to wonder who would come to my funeral. I’ve attended many, many funerals myself, and wondered who would return the respect when it came time. I was born an only child, and have remained that way for 39 years. I think it prepared me in many ways for the life I was destined to live. I never recall being lonely. I suppose I would call myself self-motivated, because if I wanted to do something, I did it myself. I vacationed alone before getting married, because I wanted to see places, and I wanted to see certain things in those places, so I didn’t want to be encumbered by someone who didn’t. Still, to this day, if I want to dine in a certain restaurant, or watch a particular movie, I’ll just go and do it alone if I know it’s something Shug or my assorted friends aren’t interested in, or have the time to go and do. My very good friend Megan and I founded an “Environmental Club” around fifth grade or so to raise awareness about the effects of Champion Papermill’s pollution into our local water sources. We sent a petition and collected water samples and the whole nine yards. Bookish would be a polite way of saying I was a nerd, but nerd fits the bill accurately. I stayed out of trouble through my younger years, never “smoked…
Deep breath. Where do I begin? “Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” ~Lewis Carrol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I will apologize in advance to my long time readers, for I will have to repeat stories most of you all have heard before to get this all told. So let me begin by introducing you to Joe Woods. This is a little piece I wrote on him a couple of years ago for the store’s Facebook page. It paints a more descriptive picture than his concise obituary (not that there’s anything wrong with his obituary, the family is grieving and has their hands full) MEET YOUR CO-OP!! This week is the 3rd edition, & we couldn’t pick a more iconic figure than Joe Woods. I sat down with Joe around 10:30 this morning. Well, “cornered” would be a more appropriate term. He is always in high demand. I was able to extract some facts about his life over the next 45 minutes, between customers stopping by to chat and tell him how good it is to see him. Joe was born & raised in West Tennessee, not the land of milk & honey, but of cotton & pit barbeque. Joe has never been satisfied with what passes for barbeque on this end of the state. He graduated high school in 1944, and was…
I have a friend who is married to a farmer. They are raising their boys among the cows & corn. The boys have calves they bottle feed & sell, they have horses they check fences astride. They enjoy the day to day life of being outside, helping their daddy tend to the newly born, the ailing, the healthy. One day, I was disheartened to read on Facebook about how one of their sons was being ridiculed at school. A schoolmate called him poor because he lives on a farm. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Trust me, farmers aren’t poor. They meet struggle every day of their life. They are up against it at least fifty percent of the time. Imagine if your livelihood was dependent upon the weather. If it doesn’t rain one day & the sun shine the next, you might be looking for a job in town. And then when hay is ready to cut to feed the cows all winter, you pray for three straight days hot & clear. To get your hay to grow, it must be fertilized. Fertilizer runs around $500 a ton. One ton will fertilize roughly seven acres. If your fields yield well, seven acres of hay will produce maybe 100 rolls of hay. A cow will eat half a roll a day in the wintertime if their pasture is thin. You figure four months of winter, which is 120 days. If you have thirty cows, that…
