It can be scary out there sometimes. I am not talking about the ghosts and goblins of Halloween. I am talking about how events can unfold which are probably mere coincidences yet we can easily put a different spin on them if we want to. In addition to our documented shortages of computer chips, labor and vaccines, I have also heard wild speculation of shortages of gasoline, propane, natural gas, fertilizer, herbicides and certain foods. Are any of these predictions accurate or does merely stating them create a hoarding frenzy that fulfills the prophecy? If that is the case, I predict a severe shortage of common sense and courtesy.
Not soon after I wrote my article that mentioned having livestock glean all the lost grain from a field like our ancestors did decades ago, I found my neighbor’s pigs in my harvested cornfield. They were rooting and eating the spilled and lost ears of corn. About an acre of a 5-acre field suffered terrible wind damage and many ears were lost during harvest. Did those pigs read the paper and escape to help me with my problem?
I knew that another field of 6 acres had about 1/3rd of the field flattened. That storm also severely trimmed the trees at the old farmstead. When I finally got my combine into the cornfields to harvest I discovered that that another field had excellent standing corn on the end rows but the middle of the field was laying down on the job. When I was about ¼th done planting that field this spring I switched to a different corn variety. I will see to it that I never plant that corn variety again.
Mother Nature won again, she gave me plenty of aggravation in those fields. Harvesting that downed corn was very frustrating. It also gave me great pain to know how much corn was being wasted. The deer, geese, turkeys, rabbits and other wildlife will all be enjoying it given my lack of fences and livestock.
I have also included with this week’s article a picture of 3 ears of corn with a soda can for size reference. This will better explain what I wrote about last week. The largest ear would be worth about $.03, the middle ear $.02 and the smallest ear about a penny. In a perfect world, every ear of corn I produce would be as big, if not bigger, than the largest ear and every stalk would hold that ear upright until harvest. Unfortunately, other factors exist to prevent that from always happening.
I will finish this article with my own wild prediction, with some humor thrown in, of course. We will soon see society go on a food hoarding binge fearing that food will become unavailable. Considering the reality that most of our nation is already overweight, a food shortage would be beneficial to encourage us to get to a healthier weight. Perhaps I am talking nonsense.
Is a food shortage even possible in the United States? Could we someday see riots and looting at the grocery stores over food? If so I suspect it would be the first time in history that a populace rioted for food while the majority of the participants were actually overweight. (Full disclosure, my BMI is 25.1, which actually makes me overweight as well.
If there does indeed become a food shortage, I can direct anyone interested to my two fields that have lots of ears of corn still laying in them. They are free!
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