Chapter 2

All right! I had the land, a foreman and enough cash to get established and hopefully last at least

two years before I was dependent on income. I had no illusions about the cost of setting up a

farming operation and hoped that I'd not forgotten one of the big ones—those little love notes from god that turn around and bite you in the ass.

The properties taken together were a real mish-mash of small fields of arable land, grazing land, lowlands and mature woods. There were roads inter-sped all through the place and that I wanted to get under control right away. Food was going to become quite a bit more valuable soon and I needed controlled access. I had to plan for day labor, resident labor, some sort of cook-house, a sorting, cleaning and storage operation as well as equipment storage and repair. We needed to cut and till over most of the existing roads, establish a perimeter external barrier (hopefully organic so that it wouldn't need much maintenance) and some sort of all-over plan for the land use. I figured that we needed to move a lot of earth fast. A local heavy contractor had some equipment for sale. He was asking sixty thousand for a Caterpillar D6 with a 144 inch blade and the meanest looking 3-tine plow I'd ever seen. It came with a new undercarriage, 3000 hours on the clock and in very good condition. I offered fifty eight thousand cash, delivered. I had a friend for life. He was so happy to get that cash that I knew the IRS would never catch wind of it. I asked him if he had a driver that I could hire to teach me to use it. "No Problem!" I liked that a lot.

After looking over the aerial photography and the plat book I quickly visualized a giant squared-off "U"--one road in, a long back road across the property paralleling the river, then a straight road out, cut deep and filled with large-rock limestone road base then covered with road fines and cement, watered in and compressed. I wanted the road as close to the East and West property lines as was feasible, just leaving room for the fencing. We'd treat that back run as our main street and add a few feeder roads back into the fields and towards the tree line for housing. The barns, sheds and other buildings would be right off the main road. We'd need a turn-around near or across from the machine shed. Each of the six properties had wells of varying depths and flows. We pulled down all the decrepit buildings keeping only the house for our resident ex-owner Mrs. Fredericks until the fall and the best of the rest of the houses for us to live in until we built new. We saved out a couple of metal pole barns and one machine shed. Mr. Benjamin was still running his farm to the very end and had enough equipment to get us started. He had a six-gang plow in pretty good condition, a small Massey Ferguson tractor that had seen better days, a drag, a seeder that needed attention and a bar cutter that must have been his pride and joy. It ran like a Swiss watch and was in perfect shape. I found two boxes of spare cutter blades for it.

(A bar cutter runs a horizontal beam out the side of the rear of the tractor—usually the right but it varies. There's a slot for another bar (the cutter bar) covered in sharp, triangular teeth that oscillates back and forth against fixed brackets above and below the cutter bar so that anything it runs into gets scissored off. They're great for soft stem stuff, no good for woody stem stuff over an inch thick or so.)

His tool bench was pretty well supplied but not well laid out. I'd get some perf-board (lotsa little holes in fiberboard about 1" apart in an edge-to-edge grid. There's lots of pre-made tool hangers designed for it. It's wise to PAINT it before hanging it up and using it unless you want to replace it every three years.) I spotted a fairly new battery-powered electric drill and a power saw in the pile. They'd come in handy soon.

We laid out the road, contracted for the stone and got our Cat driver out there before the ground thawed. It was early March. We needed foundations poured and housing up before everything got too wet to work on.

I called everyone in the phone book that had a tree service and asked if they had large quantities of chipped tree loam. All together I found enough to cover ten acres in two inches of loam. I put down deposits on everything I could find and contracted for twice as much the next year—grass clippings, leaves, brushwood, I didn't care—I needed rotted organic matter to supercharge that land.

We started building a forcing house—the Cat packed down limestone for the floor of a 100 yard long by 15 foot wide by eight foot high greenhouse. We had four levels of flats accessible by two walkways wide enough for a wheelbarrow or inflated-tire cart, 100 yards long with breaks every 20 yards to cross over and access a door to outside. We figured on fastening water hoses to the bottom of each shelf to keep the flats warm. I figured 70 degree water pumped around each of the four rows would do nicely. Sixteen pumps, sixteen heaters. We would staple on a skin of visqueen to the outside walls once the place was up. We'd have to replace it every year, but so what? I knew we had to talk over what to plant—what vegetable and what variant grew well in the area. Tomatoes? Sure—always popular. Radishes, lettuces, onions, potatoes, carrots, yams, cucumbers, turnips, celery, garlic, squash and okra got the go-ahead. We planted sweet and hot peppers. I wanted melons, so we had melons. Cabbage, not so much. There wasn't that much local demand. We set aside a previously-cleared ten acres near the water for fruit trees so we could water them no-fail. I reserved a small sunny bed to try to raise some herbs-- parsley, oregano, basil, dill and lemongrass.

I commissioned two large pole barns built –one barn with a floor we'd dig and pack in like the roadbed and a high ceiling for equipment and another barn with a concrete floor and a human-height ceiling for sorting and packaging the produce. I ordered 500 NSF buss tubs with our farm name on them—Faxon Farms—and the wheeled racks to work with them. We could use the tubs to carry the seedlings out as well as bring the harvest in. I ordered flats for the seedlings, a dozen plastic wheelbarrows with huge tires, six balloon-tire carts and two water sprayers with twelve inch balloon tires to keep the seedlings watered. We'd need hand tools too. I ordered ten each of pulaskis, long handled shovels, garden rakes, hoes and potato forks.

I went into town to register the farm name as a LLC—limited liability corporation--and went to talk to the nearest implement dealer. He sold Massey Ferguson, so that's what I bought.

I needed a good tractor. I purchased a 5470 mid-range tractor with an air-conditioned/heated cab and a hydraulic front-end bucket.

We had a 6-gang plow and a toothed drag.

I bought a post hole digger, a big brush chipper, a rotary flex mower (ditch witch), a manure spreader and a rotary tiller, like a giant 8-foot wide garden tiller that sinks 8 to 12 inches into the ground. I asked him if anyone around could build a custom gravity-fed drip waterer to mount behind the tractor, with a hundred gallon tank, and a wide platform to mount behind the tractor five feet deep, twenty feet wide.

"What the hell for?"

"No stoop labor. The people lay on the platform and drop in seedlings. The waterer gives them a dose as the tractor pulls ahead. For harvesting, the same thing goes but without the water. Say, two three-inch I beams and a center pillar eight feet high with steel cables supporting the wings by tying to the center pillar. A three-foot tall pylon at each end to terminate the cable gives someone enough room to work at the ends. After seeding we'll water the field with it twice or three times a week."

He stood there looking out at the barren field outside, thinking. "Where the hell did you get THAT idea?"

"How do you think they planted trees all over Nebraska? Horseback?"

He had a big gasoline log splitter in stock. I ordered that, too.

"You take cash?"

He looked at me like I was stupid. "I ALWAYS take cash!"

"Good. Banks suck."

He'd deliver the goods in a week and throw in six cases of lithium grease at dealer cost. I found out that his shop could fix that seeder sitting in the pole barn. I asked him to come and get it as well as the tractor and get them both in good shape. I had to get that machine shed up and the road in, fast. I made a couple of phone calls to rush the big pole barn. It didn't have to wait on a big pad of concrete to set, just the pole footings. (A pole barn is built thus: It has something like telephone poles set into concrete footings, a wooden framework attached to the poles and corrugated hot-dipped steel sheets screwed or nailed to the outside as a shell They have a standard pitched roof, about 2:1. They're everywhere these days.)

The hardware store got me fence posts, a hundred feet of six-foot pig wire, two chainsaws with 14 inch bars, a sharpener, chainsaw oil and a couple pre-mix plastic gas cans to take into the field with the saws. I also picked up a big Weber grill and 80 pounds of charcoal. I wandered through their kitchen section and bought a few Calphalon heavy-duty covered fry pans and covered pots. Their stuff is anodized aluminum—tougher than hell. I spotted eight big counter-top turkey cookers. I figured what the hell—we could use them for canning if nothing else, and we'd have to feed the people that planted and harvested our crops out of something. I was buying while the prices were (comparatively) low.

(Pig wire is heavy-weight fencing, the squares smaller at the bottom than the top. It's made of 1/8 inch welded or twisted wire stock and will usually keep an angry porker where you want him. I wanted a 10' by 40' chipped compost pile. We'd turn it with the tractor-mounted fence post drill!

The post office got me registered under Carpenter's old address and set me up with a post office box to receive mail until I got my rural box in place. With that I went to the DMV and got my license changed to that of a Tennessee resident. From there I headed to a sporting goods store. I bought a couple of pop-up hunting blinds, two Savage 30-06 bolt action rifles with 3-9 power low-light scopes, a couple .410 shotguns and ammo for both. I had a Marlin 22 magnum rifle but I wasn't happy with it—it was gas-operated and I liked a bolt action. The gas-operated rifles always seemed to score up the rounds in small calibers making them shoot unreliably and even jam. I picked out a couple of nice Savage all-weather 22magnum (WMR) rifles with four power low-light scopes over iron sights. No damned critter was going to cherry-pick my fields! I made that man very happy with all the hardware and ammunition I bought. On the way out I spotted some all-weather camo coveralls. I picked out two—one for me, one for Josh.

I'd spent several months doodling around drawing out a building that I'd like to live in. It wasn't fancy but it was spacious. First, pour a 48 foot by 30 foot pad. Use the center for a living room/kitchen 24 feet wide by 18 feet deep with a 12 foot wide by 18 foot deep bedroom off each side. Place the bathrooms off the back of each bedroom at 12 foot by 12 foot with a 6x6 walk-in closet cut out of the bathroom's footprint, all doors facing the bedroom. Put doors in the front and back walls of the main room with the kitchen looking out onto the concrete patio. Add a full covered front porch, a mudroom in the back and an elevated fireplace in the back wall convenient to roast and grill on. I'd want it built out of filled concrete block with threaded rod run through every two feet to bolt down the cap rail and keep the roof from blowing off. A twinned electrical system of 110 volt and 12 volt DC would support daily use and low voltage use during power outages caused by ice storms—notorious for the area. If every interior surface was covered in tongue-and-groove wood I think it would be quite a livable place to have. I took my rough drawing to an architect, told him what I wanted and started him on the project, specifying 3 foot wide doors and thermo-pane windows. I wanted a 6 foot by 6 foot tub/shower in each bathroom, a powered vent to outside and a center floor drain in a tile floor. I wanted to be able to look outside while soaking after a rough day. I specified a nice, big gas stove and oven with a 1000 pound tank outside. I was adamant in specifying 100 gallon water heaters. I required that all the houses face south, towards our "main street". I got the rough specs to an architect that I found in the phone book. He knew our contractor and could work with him.

Jesus, what a week.

I took the weekend off. I deserved it. No I didn't take it off, dammit. I'd moved out of the motel and into the house the previous Friday. So did Josh. He was grinning thirteen to the dozen to get back into a house to live. He'd been living kind of raw—a friend's couch, his truck, wherever. He paid a visit to Costco and got some new clothes as his were pretty ratty. He got new underwear and boots, too.

Living just twenty miles outside of Knoxville we'd be able to get high-speed internet with a 1600 dollar up front charge to get the wire to the house, then forty a month. I OK'd it and signed off. The house was a four-bedroom place that had been fairly nice in its day but had gone to seed. The single-pane windows rattled, the plumbing moaned and belched, the wiring was un-grounded and couldn't take much load. The kitchen was dated but was good enough for now. The roof didn't leak and the heater worked—kinda. The water heater was fairly new which was a blessing. I wanted to keep up on what was happening in the rest of the states and around the world without the interference of the big news agencies. The answer was short-wave radio. I bought a new multi-band transceiver for about 700 bucks from a big multi-state operation with a huge showroom in northern Florida. I'd been to their place in Milwaukee years ago and liked the people. I bought an antenna tuner, a regulated power supply, a temporary antenna that I could drop anchor to an attic window and tie out into the yard while we were in the old farm house. Later I'd put up two crank-up towers with tethered guy lines and a couple of tuned antennas between them, cut to resonate at certain frequencies used for short-wave work. I was going to put in a couple of high-band antenna as well to talk on 10 meter (50 MHz) and 2 meter (144 MHz). They were short-range and would allow me to talk to Jim at his farm. They were using licensed band radios on his farm back when we were in college. One was mounted in his ranger.

Kris, the cat operator we'd hired came by to show us what he'd accomplished in a week. He'd cut up

and destroyed all the old roads except for a temporary one to where we were living in one of the houses, later scheduled for demolition and the road to Mrs. Fredericks' house. He'd made the first cut, almost a mile long, down the west edge of the property. It was ten feet wide and fourteen inches deep. He'd had to pull out not a few trees doing it. I asked him then to drag any timber to a site that I showed him so that we could chip it up for next year's compost. I also asked him to dig 20x20 pads eighteen inches deep near each of the existing well-heads so that we could put in concrete to support water tanks and to put in the floor for our new machine shed just like the road, and add the connecting bit to the road. I wanted the tanks because we'd need to slowly pump the water for when we'd really need it in the summer. That project was for next week. He projected that in a little over a week he'd have the rest of the main road prepared—most of the tree work was done, now it was just digging and leveling—filling in the low spots and skimming off the high spots, making sure any rain wouldn't wash out the new road because it was in an un-relieved cut. I'm glad that man had done road construction work. Real glad. The stone was scheduled to begin delivery in a week and a half—at least we'd arrange it that way. Kris would level and compact it, then we'd buy the cement, scatter it in and wait for the spring rains to do the job for us.

We cooked a nice chicken and rice dinner for all three of us before I settled down with my trusty phone book. I found a somewhat-close Methodist church that I planned to attend in the morning. Kris begged off, but Josh wanted to go with me after I said that's where the chicks hang out—eligible chicks, not bar trash.

I remembered to pick up my wild turkey consignment, but it was too late in the day. Monday. Yeah, Monday, if I remembered!

In the middle of the night I sat up straight in bed. United States Government Printing Office. They had pamphlets and books for cheap that would tell you how to grow and preserve damned near anything. I quickly wrote it down and went back to sleep, comforted that I may have just saved my bacon.

The church service was pleasant. The minister wasn't a firebrand but that wasn't what I was after—I wanted networking. I mentioned to him that we were starting a big truck garden just outside of town.

I was looking for someone that came from a farming background and knew how to deal with chickens, rabbits, pigs and milk cows--preferably a middle-aged woman that wouldn't mind marrying a similarly inclined guy. I mentioned that my friend Josh was in the same market and he was my farm supervisor, and had a steady income now, doing what he liked. He got a little smile, tapped his nose and we shook hands. I left a Benjamin in his palm. ($100.00 US) After all, a Yenta gets paid too, eh? I walked out of the church whistling "If I were a rich man". I grabbed Josh. We grabbed Kris and headed for Judy's, hopefully for a few of their breaded pork cutlet sandwiches and garlic mashed potatoes. They came through unfailingly. I asked for a little jellied cranberry on the side and got it. Yum.

We spent the rest of the day drinking beer and playing cutthroat euchre. It's not a bad way to pass a Sunday afternoon. I asked Josh to keep working on the greenhouse while I got other things done come Monday. Kris moved into a spare bedroom for the time he'd work for me.

I'd made a list of places to visit Monday morning. I'd get my liquor first so that I wouldn't forget.

I visited with the sheriff for a while letting him know what was going on. I asked him about the taking of nuisance animals on local farms. He said that opossum, rabbit, chipmunk, raccoon, fox and crow were fair game. I asked about deer trying to cherry-pick my seedlings or mature crops. His answer was "If I didn't see it, it didn't happen." Good enough for me. I needed to build a smokehouse. With all the woods around there were bound to be a healthy deer population. I knew we'd need to protect our seedlings and couldn't be there 24x7 to shoot the critters so an alternative method was needed. I put a 'wanted' add in the local and Knoxville papers for fiberglass wands connecting sleeves in bulk. If I could find 'em I'd cover 'em in chicken wire and just drop 'em over the rows. I also planned to raise lots and lots of potatoes that season, so I wanted old tires to make potato hills with. I filed another add for the tires, six hundred of 'em. At three tires per hill times two hundred potato hills you get six hundred tires. I'd want to grow both Burbank (baking) potatoes and reds. They're both good sturdy, disease-resistant variants.

I could get enough humus to cover 10 acres. If I farmed 8 acres and put 5 in potato hills and concentrated the humus in the hills I'd be covered. I wanted to plant another 10 acres in clover and between all the potato hills for nitrogen fixation. There was a bacterium that had to be deposited with the seed to promote nitrogen-bearing nodule formation.

Hmm. Fence. I remembered an article about live fences, involving barberry and a type of locust tree—thornapple? I thought we could do pretty well with one of the newer cottonwood variants that would grow over four feet a year. I did a little online research at the library. I had four plants that I wanted to ask about at a local nursery. Mentor barberry is a nasty little bastard that likes to spread. We'd probably have to plant it between buried rows of cinder blocks.

Hardy orange is planted around prisons and looks positively vicious. It reportedly grows 12" a year. Perfect.

Honeylocust isn't much better but doesn't spread as much.

Rosa Rugosa (wild red rose) ties everything together. I might add raspberry canes to the mix just for the hell of it. I'd have to get started on this quick as it would have to have time to mature. We'd flatten a path just inside the property line with the cat, turn it over with the cat's plow, trench each side 24" deep with a backhoe, drop in concrete blocks and backfill now, before the thaw. We could plant the barberry, hardy orange and Rosa Rugosa just as soon as the ground dried up later in the spring. We'd have to keep a path clear on each side of the fence to go through periodically and kill anything creeping over the line. The barberry and hardy orange both liked to spread. I don't think even a raccoon could get through that once it's filled in. That's what I thought. Then I did the calculations. Oh. My. God. It would take approximately 47,500 concrete blocks TIMES TWO to border that fenceline on both sides and the frontage, two feet down. That's 980 acres, about 1.4 square miles on three sides. No fucking way! We'll pour boiling water on the edges of the damned thing every year!