Politically correct practitioners revel in judging historical figures by today’s standards, so why not leave the gardeners alone and go after a dead guy who cannot defend himself? Or, better yet, do the actual hard work of providing quality county government services to the people of Ramsey and stop the virtue signaling.
Karen Tolkkinen’s column about baling hay (“Small square hay bales thing of the past, but they’re my happy place,” July 31) brings back many memories. It also misses key realities of life on small family farms as they once existed. Tolkkinen’s hay baling is recreational; ask anybody who’s baled hay as part of their livelihood if “the physical work ... leaves no time for worry or indecision” and you’ll get a grumpy laugh, or the grump without the laugh. Yes, there’s a rhythm, a music of muscle memory in catching both bristly strands of twine behind the first knuckle of every finger on each hand and slinging bale after bale onto the wagon. But there’s always time for worry or indecision in farm work, especially on small farms where the margins — of time, economics, weather, safety — were always precariously thin. If clouds are coming and the hay looks and feels dry enough to bale, there’s the lingering question, “Can we get it baled before it rains?” You know rain will ruin the hay, render it useless as feed for dairy cattle, and you know, too, that wet hay, compressed into bales, can spontaneously combust and burn a barn down.
Fire is a big worry, but it’s not the worst that can go wrong. A whirring power takeoff shaft can beat you to death if it catches a pant leg, or you can be grievously injured if, when dead tired or unlucky, you slip and fall onto or into any one of the many moving parts of any piece of farm machinery. Yes, as Tolkkinen writes, “you know your job” — but you know enough about it to know there’s always something to be watchful for or worry about, even when things are going well.
I wish, too, that Tolkkinen had devoted more of her column to the cultural aspect of the loss of those “inefficient” farms. It’s much more than a different business model — it’s the loss of a way of life. Those small farms made small towns hum; there were banks and hardware stores and feed mills and restaurants and vibrant schools, and there were even jobs, almost everything you needed to get by. It was rural America in real life rather than Rockwellian images. Those small farms that fed small towns were real places with real people and all their strengths and weaknesses, and now those places are gone, sad husks of what they once were, and more people should take note of that as they marvel at those big round bales towering like ships on a vast green sea.
Steve Schild, Falcon Heights