Down on my farm

SolitaryRoad.com

Website owner:  James Miller

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Down on my farm

I am currently down on a farm we own where my wife and I are sheltering from Coronavirus (there are currently almost no cases in this part of the country). Yesterday (June 27) I finished a big project — a project that has taken me nearly three months of hard work. (I started on it last October and then continued in May and June of this year). The project consisted of clearing some extensive storm damage from the winter before last. Pictures of the farm taken after the storm show trees toppled over, or broken off in the middle with the top halves lying on the ground, everywhere. One big tree would fall on others, which would fall on others, bringing many down in a falling domino effect. Large areas looked like a tornado had passed through but actually the damage was all done by a couple feet of a very wet, heavy snow that came down very rapidly over a couple of hours. The snow built up in the branches and the trees (mostly red cedar) just couldn’t take the weight. What tools did I employ in the cleanup? Simply a Stihl chain saw. Huge piles of tree trunks, limbs, branches, and brush stacked up everywhere testify to all my work. There are probably 50 piles. The final result was a substantial thinning and a lot of relatively clear areas in my woods.

Over forty years ago my wife and I purchased this 100 acre Appalachian farm on which we later built a 16 foot by 24 foot cabin on top of a high ridge. The farm is remotely located — isolated, at the end of a road that fades into a barely decipherable lane — a big positive for me (I like isolation). It has some old buildings on it, including an old house, barn, and sheds, and although it was once a mountain farm it has grown over and become mostly woods. It has very little tillable land. Most of the land would only be good for pasture. However, the reason the farm appealed to me was all of its many interesting rock outcroppings and rugged features. The southern half of the farm, which borders a river, is really rugged with deep ravines, long rock ridges, and lots of large, impressive rock formations everywhere. It is populated by mostly eastern red cedar but also with some hardwood including a lot of black walnut, oak, and yellow poplar. A lot of these hardwood trees, especially the yellow poplar, tower really high. The northern half of the farm consists of steep mountain sides containing mostly mature hardwood with a lot of oak. I love this farm. For me just walking about on it is a real spiritual experience. It puts me into another world. I think it would be a real spiritual experience for anyone (especially someone who had lived their life in the city). The animals here include deer, bear, racoon, fox, coyote, skunk, woodchuck, opossum, rabbit, and squirrel. (Some people even claim to have seen mountain lion.) My wife and I have been spending five weeks every spring and another five weeks every fall here for many years now. When we come down I typically spend essentially all of my time working — spraying, clearing brush, building trails, etc. I will spend six or eight hours in hard manual labor every day and love doing it. I work with energy and enthusiasm on my farm. I take pride in my work. Now let me ask this question: Would I get any pleasure or enjoyment from working on someone else’s farm? Answer: No. I wouldn’t get one bit of pleasure from working on someone else’s farm. The only way you could get me to work on someone else’s farm is to pay me very well for doing it. There would be no pleasure in it. The pleasure that I get from this work is connected with the fact that I own the farm. Suppose I co-owned the farm with some other people? Would I then get pleasure from working on it? No. To get the pleasure I must be sole owner. Am I unique in this regard? I don’t think so. I think we are talking about simple human nature. I take a real interest in my farm and I am willing to put a lot of work into it because I own it.

Let me now suggest something. The phenomenon I have just described is exactly why capitalism works so much better than socialism. This example shows why personal ownership of property is so important. There is magic in personal ownership of property. For people to really work with energy and enthusiasm they need to own. I think mankind discovered this important universal fact thousands of years ago. I think it is something that proponents of Marxism/ Leninism just don’t understand.

June 2020