Little Bluestem: Stories from Rural America

The first year I was here, I walked out on this field and it was like blacktop. Solid as a rock. The realtor I talked to in town, Dale Erwin, says its mostly true for all the soil in these parts. Said it was due to being farmed. I looked at him like he was nuts but didn’t say nothin’. “That’s not the way it is, Dale!” I would have said. But kept the lip zipped. Just let him rattle on about the long years of farming and about now how none of the land will stand a perk test. Made it sound like farmin’s a crime.

  Of course he’s right. The land is hard as a rock. But it’s not agriculture causing the problem. It’s not the nurturing of the land. It’s the lack of agriculture that’s the whole problem! Lack of care. Guys runnin’ over all these fields in four-wheel drive wonders, always hurrying, trying to get it done (whatever it is) before the next rain. Guys pourin’ all this shit on the fields. Shit that is not shit.Not pig shit or cow shit. Nope, stuff from the big boys. Field tested stuff. Guaranteed, expensive stuff. Stuff to make plants grow quick—and the land get hard.

  I felt like I was walking down an asphalt parking lot. In fact I started looking for storm sewers that first time I walked out on the field. It sloped kind of natural-like down to the Kickapoo River, off in the distance, there, where you can see that glint of flat light. In the middle of the field, where there was a slight dip before a gentle rise, I could see ridges, the washboard of erosion, runnin’ down both sides of the crown. There’s a lot of soil goin’-goin’-gone by the time you see the washboard. Tons of soil flowing on down to the River. Color it brown…

  It was a mess! But what was I to do? Had to have land. Had to have tillable land with the right A-2 zoning. Wanted enough to get started. So I put money down, talked to the local banker, and bought the parking lot.