Farming in Mason "Fucking" City, Iowa

Farming is an art and best done by people born and raised on a farm. Not by this Jew from the Bronx, living in a small town where the people there hated me for my loud, aggressive, abrasive, belligerent voice and personality. But it was a fair trade, I didn't think a whole hell of a lot of them either.

In Mason Fucking City, Iowa the Catholics went with the Catholics, the Methodists with the Methodists, and the Jews with the Jews, etc. That was then broken down with the rich going with the rich, and the poor going with the poor. And never those lines to be crossed. As a result, you were relegated to a very small social circle. The only good thing about it was that I was able to piss everyone off but we were stuck with one another.

Sitting on a tractor going up an down rows plowing corn, milking cows, having chickens (those filthy little things), vaccinating hogs, driving a dyeing bull to Ames, going to livestock auctions where every one smelled as I did of horse shit and other farm smells, was both boring and annoying. Losing my ass was really boring, but it did keep me on edge. The only things that kept me going were my kids, my liquid protection (booze) and the growing white hot bond of anger between my wife and myself. My wife and I became so pissed off at one another that we got a ton of mileage out of the mutual anger. Additionally, I enjoyed telling the residents of that arm pit of America to suck eggs, fuck off and generally drop dead which allowed me to act like a New Yorker and enjoy myself. Between my wife making me take a shower before I could come into the house (she complained that I smelled really bad. Sadly it was true) and telling my father-in-law to stick his money up his ass, I was at least able to keep my blood boiling day and night and get some enjoyment out of life.

Ah, but the weather! Iowa is a place for weather masochists. In our first winter there, we never saw the sun from early November into February. The farmers say that "It makes for a long winter when the snow never leaves the ground"...every winter in Iowa was very long. Geez, I can't believe that I spent four tortuous long years there.

Pigs, Hogs, Stupidity, Few Giggles

So there I was, sitting in the hog house on a below zero night in Iowa on the ready in case one of my sows had trouble "coming in" (giving birth). The next thing this Bronx Jew knew, my hand was inside the sow helping extract baby pigs. When it was over, I was sick to my stomach and almost heaved my guts out. Lesson? You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and making a hog farmer out of a street guy from the Bronx is damn near impossible.

And then...
There was the time I bought 100 feeder pigs from a farmer out of Missouri. By then I was certain that I knew what I was doing, and I insisted on a vaccination certificate from the farmer for a deadly virus. I did not stop to consider that the "honest Missouri farmer" might be giving me a phony certificate, which he did. The hogs by then weighed 100 plus pounds and started to die. The rendering works truck came by every day to pick up the dead hogs, and we had to vaccinate the remainder. Grabbing and holding on to 100 pound hog by a hind leg while another guy gave him the shot was some kind of a work out. The hogs eventually stopping dying, and I lost my ass.

One year I purchased a bunch of Red Duroc pigs to feed out. I fed them on an enclosed concrete slab. No exercise. When they reached 200 pounds a few of them laid down and died. I called the vet who came out to the farm, examined the dead hogs and told me that the hogs had died of heart attacks brought on by too much fat and no exercise. The pay off was when I sold the hogs to Hormel in Austin and was docked because the hogs were too fat.

And when there was wet hay or wet corn to be bought, I was the mullett (a fish that's easy to catch) with my mouth wide open ready to be reeled in. When my four year sentence was up, I happily left Iowa to the cheers of all who knew me.

Feeding Cattle, Milking Cows, Speculating in Futures, Losing My Ass

If you want living proof that farming is an art not a science look at me. Any pseudo intellectual Jew (that's me) would always try to sincerely prove that education, reading and intellect can overcome can any genetic generated ignorance. Bronx Jews, milking cows, breeding and feeding hogs and cattle plus buying hay and corn just doesn't work.
So I read everything known to men, women, dogs and children about farming. The Department of Agriculture printed a yearly volume describing procedures to doing everything and anything relating to farming short of having sex with sheep (not my thing). So I scoured years of those volumes.

The net result was that I was a walking disaster as a farmer and as a Mid Westerner. I lost my ass with everything except sheep where I had an expert counseling me. I had 84 Purebred Holstein milk cows and something was happening every day. I bought 25 Black Angus calves at the St. Paul livestock sale. I fed them out and made money. The next year I bought 50 and made money again. Ah, now I was a genius! I bought 200 white face calves for feeding. But I couldn't understand why my feed lot was the only feed lot in the neighborhood with animals in it. Prices went to hell and every day that those animals put on a pound or two, I was losing money per pound. You couldn't move them because they would lose too much weight so I couldn't sell them until they reached 1,100 pounds (from 300). Lost my ass!!!

I bought corn futures for $1.50/bushel and watched the price go to $2.50. But then Eisenhower gets elected and appoints Ezra Taft Benson as Secretary of Agriculture who says that he only believes in price supports in times of disaster and thereby causes a commodity disaster. Corn went off the limit every day, and I barely got out with my 10% margin money. I was the ultimate mullet (a fish that's easy to catch) for those "honest" Iowa farmers who unloaded wet corn (purchased to feed the feeder cattle), wet hay and falsely documented feeder pigs that grew to die on a daily basis. The rendering works loved me.

But I "got even". I had purchased yet another horse (I hate horses. They are for me big, dumb dangerous animals whose latest best friend is anyone that feeds them an apple). This horse was a big black beauty who got into the high protein hog feed. He foundered...hooves and arteries expand to where the horse is immobile and "on fire". We dug a ditch around the son of a bitch and ran a cold water hose on his hooves for a week whereupon he could move pretty well until he stumbled, and he always did. When I had my sale to get out of that awful business, I became an "honest" Iowa farmer and sold him to another schmuck farmer. My next blog will be on how breeding and feeding hogs was a disaster for me to the point where I had 200 pound Red Durocs dying of heart attacks.

Horses, Hookers and Grab Ass

Horses

When I brought the white face cows back home, I knew I needed a horse so I could check up on them. That night I went to a B'nai B'rith meeting in Mason, Never Live There, City. Max, a Jewish horse dealer, was at the meeting, and I told him of my need. He then described this great horse he owned which he would sell to me for $250 (1952 dollars). I bought the horse sight unseen, and Max delivered it. Most evenings I saddled him up (a chore which I hated) and played cowboy (no cowboy hat or cowboy boots) and went out to check on those animals.

I noticed that the horse had a peculiarity. He seemed to want to join another horse on an adjoining farm whenever that other horse neighed. One day (no kidding) the cows literally got into the corn. I saddled up that damn animal and went out to get the cows back into the pasture. Once I was in the corn, the neighbor horse neighed and my horse became uncontrollable as he wanted to join that other horse. I had an unbelievably scary struggle to bring that SOB under control and get the cows back where they belonged. That night I went to another B'nai B'rith meeting and there was Max. I proposed that I would pay him another $250 if he would get that horse off of my place by 6:00 AM the following morning. Lesson? Jews, horses and cattle don't mix too well if at all.

Hookers

In the old days, before herpes and AIDS you could if you so chose get a great hooker for a few hundred dollars. You could "fall in love" for a half hour at a time, never have to make conversation, you had no burden of proof and when it was over she was gone. No cuddling required.

Grab Ass
My first ex-wife was a freak for associating with the Stanford Faculty folks. Because of her, we had become very friendly with a Nobel Prize winner and his wife. My ex-wife and the wife of the Professor played varicose veins doubles together. We were invited to their home for dinner quite often. There were additional Stanford Faculty members at these dinners including another (would you believe it?) Nobel Prize winner.

First it was the booze, then it was the wine followed by those vomit producing after dinner drinks (the vomit came much later). Then it was pushing the furniture back and dancing. Then playing grab ass and grab a boob or two with everyone else's wife became the pleasure of the evening. Me? I couldn't care less. I was happy as a clam in mud getting and staying loaded and then taking everyone on the road's life in my hands by driving home.

More on Charley Pippert

Charley, who I blamed for that purebred bull staying alive while the bull's schlong died, was in my stream of consciousness on a daily basis. Naturally, blaming Charley for the bull's impotence was nonsense but being pissed off at Charley became a soul satisfying project. I really hated farming and Mason Never Live There City, Iowa plus I had very low regard for the population of River City (aka Mason etc) so why not take it out on Charley?

One day, after the bull was long gone, I had to go to see Charley. While driving in my pickup truck those forty unbelievably awful miles over gravel roads with the radio blaring I got to thinking about what I was going to say to Charley and what his response to me would be. 40 miles of this fantasy conversation where I imagined my part of the conversation and then conjuring up his responses really got me in mental motion, and I became increasingly angry with Charley. In fact I became absolutely wild with his fantasy irresponsibility.

As I pulled into the farm yard, Charley and his wife came down the farm house steps. I got out of the truck, strode around the front of it and shouted "Charley, you dirty son of a bitch!" and hit him. His wife screamed and threatened to call the sheriff but I felt that no one was going to "talk" to me that way, and he had it coming. I then got back into the pick up, drove home and had a few pops to calm down. Booze always calmed me down until it got me wired. The lesson? Beware of bulls with broken tools.

A Broken Tool and Urinary Tract Infection

So, I bought a set of 25 White Faced Herefords to breed, out of Jackson Hole,Wyoming. Table top backs: wonderful looking animals. I needed a bull to breed them so I bought a purebred Hereford bull from a neighbor (Lesson #1- Beware of farm neighbors/friends offering you "good deals"). I put the bull with the cows in a pasture of a farm I was managing (A Bronx Jew as a farm manager is stuff comedies are made of. One big joke). Charlie Pippert was the farmer's name. Strong as an ox he was...every week I would drive my pickup truck on those gravel, country roads to Charlie's place with the radio blaring (about 40 miles).

One week I showed up and Charlie told me that the bull wasn't doing his thing which absolutely wired me for sound. Naturally the messenger caught my fury and I brought the herd back to the home place. I then bought a purebred Black Angus bull to help the Hereford bull out. Soon after I received a phone call from the hired man who told me that the black bull was stretched out in one end of the pasture while the cows and the Hereford cows were grazing in another part of the pasture. Not natural!!!! So, I called the vet who came out, looked at the black bull and said that he had a urinary tract infection (couldn't piss) that had resulted in one eye being infected and the bull was blind in that eye. The vet said that I should take the bull down to Ames SAP.

While out on the pasture I had the vet look at the Hereford bull. The vet said that in is 15 years of experience he had never examined a bull with a broken tool and that son of a bitch was the vet's first. I went back to the farm house, called a trucker to haul the other bull to Ames. In the meantime the hired man and I went out on a tractor and literally dragged the black bull to the farm yard to await the truck. We finally got the bull to stand up. He took a few steps, stumbled into a well pit (honest) and poke his good eye out. We finally got him down to Ames (120 miles) and as we entered the gates of Iowa State A&M the bull died. The payoffs were that I had to pay the trucker for hauling a dyeing and then dead bull and the White Face Bull was sold for the lowest category price(pennies on prime beef's dollars). Incidentally, I bought the black bull from a very wealthy prominent, church going business man who I thought was my friend.