Gathering nuts was both easy and fun. Like Harvey had envisioned, we youngsters did the bending and the picking, while our elders aided by moving the buckets from tree to tree and carrying the full ones to the wagon. To get started, we used Brutus to pull the wagon full of empty buckets and nut-pickers. A carefully thought out route was followed, dropping off people and buckets at predetermined nut-infested areas of the farms. I stayed with Brutus to the last stop, where we only had seven empty buckets and five people remaining. While Brutus was resting in the shade and munching early fall grass, Jake, who drove the wagon, Uncle Bruce, Aunt Kristen, Dean and I filled the seven buckets with nuts and loaded them onto the wagon.
We then retraced our steps, picking up people and loading buckets of nuts all the way back to the farm. It quickly got to the point where there were more nuts than people on the wagon; though Harvey commented once that it was hard for him to tell which were the nuts. Soon every square inch of the wagon floor had a bucket of nuts on it, so everyone was walking back to the farm. Some of the kids, Robbie, of course, clung precariously onto the sides of the wagon as Brutus plodded along. He’s such a show off.
We unloaded the nuts into Poppop’s basement in time for lunch, and then repeated the whole process by another route in the afternoon. They yielded well; we must have gathered over 100 buckets. But the pile of nuts in Poppop’s basement wasn’t the only evidence of our toil. The juice in black walnut hulls possess the powerful ability to stain. Depending on the maturity of the nut or how long it lay on the ground, the stain was either a light greenish-yellow brown or a deeper brownish black. Practically everyone had come across a black walnut tree that day, so Wednesday morning when we started the corn harvest, we all had yellow-green-brownish stained hands. It wouldn’t wash off so I figured we’d have to work it off. The corn harvest gave us just that opportunity.
Prior to the collapse, Harvey and Larry’s corn was harvested by two methods. One was to use a machine called a forage harvester to chop into fine pieces the whole stalk and ear while there was still a fair amount of moisture in it. Then the chopped material was packed into oxygen limiting, tube-like plastic bags where the material would ferment similar to sauerkraut and thus be preserved as what is known as silage. The second was to use the combine to shell the kernels of corn off of the ear, leaving the rest of the stalk, cob and husk in the field. If the right moisture, the shelled corn could be ground into the plastic tubes as well, or if it contained less moisture, could be dried with artificial heat and stored in a grain bin. Neither of these methods could be used this year – we did not have the fuel to spare, nor were there any bags available.
Fortunately there are ways to harvest corn by hand and we had the tools, the know-how, and the manpower to do so. The three ways that we employed were harvesting the whole stalk, the ear with the husk on, and a husked ear. The method we used was determined by the field’s location and the intended use of the corn. There was much discussion about how we should use the corn.
“I recall,” Mel said during that discussion, “a chart I saw in school in an environmental biology class, that compared the amount of grain consumption by various animals to the amount of product produced.”
“I bet dairy cows were the most efficient,” Larry declared.
“I think it’s hogs,” Dad offered.
“Has to be chickens,” Mom chimed in. “What did the chart say?”
“I don’t remember exact figures, or the exact order,” Mel responded. “But I remember their groupings. Raising cattle and sheep for their meat took the most: five to six pounds of grain for every pound of meat produced. Hogs took less, three or four pounds. Producing milk took around three pounds of grain per pound of milk, while egg production took two and a half, I think. And chickens for their meat use two pounds of grain.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Dad commented, “that a six pound chicken only ate twelve pounds of grain in its short lifetime.”
“I don’t believe the figure on milk production either,” Larry complained. “A cow giving 100 pounds of milk per day doesn’t eat 300 pounds of grain.”
“That’s very true,” Mel replied. “I thought about that at the time. I think the two keys were that it measured the grain consumption of the animal over its whole lactation and lifetime and that the figure was a grain equivalent. Think of all the days you feed a heifer before you even get one drop of milk and also the grain a cow eats while it’s dry. All that grain was figured in.”
“That makes sense,” Harvey said. “But what did you mean by ‘grain equivalent’?”
“I concluded that the study was conducted as part of the ecology revolution,” Mel answered.
“You mean the environmentalist whackos?” Joe asked.
“I suppose you could say that,” Mel chuckled. “The study’s purpose was to show that we should be feeding people with the grain instead of feeding it to animals – to show it was an ecological, financial, and moral obligation to not feed animals the grain that starving people could eat.”
“You buy that?” Josh asked.
“No,” Mel answered, “I immediately recognized the results as propaganda and missing a very key element.”
“What element?” Uncle Bruce asked.
“The study didn’t take into account the whole ration the cow, sheep or hog ate. To answer Harvey’s question, the grain equivalent was the amount of grain the animal would eat if you replaced every other ingredient in the animal’s diet with grain.”
“You can’t do that!” Larry exclaimed. “It’s not healthy for the cow.”
“We know that,” Mel agreed. “But they had to compare apples to apples. Chickens eat very little grass or other plant matter, while cattle and sheep can be on all forage diets.”
“So I might have guessed wrong,” Mom interjected. “Almost 100% of a chicken’s diet, at least commercially, is grain. They would eat the most grain compared to what you get from them.”
“True, maybe,” Jean offered, “but I’d rather eat two scrambled eggs or a drumstick than a half pound of corn.”
“Agreed,” Mom replied, “So I guess in our operation, it’s advantage cows – we shouldn’t waste so much corn on the chickens.”
“I don’t know if I would reach the same conclusion,” Dad said. “With your chickens not being cooped up and running free range around the farm, they eat insects, weed seeds and pick at the garbage. As they don’t eat much grain, we can spare some for them. Besides, eggs and chicken are a valuable source of protein in our diets. The cows on the other hand, are producing more milk than we can use without additional grain to their ration. They can grow and produce milk on grass, hay, vegetable stalks and pods, cornstalks and husks, at least this time of year.”
“When it gets colder,” Larry added, “both the cows and young stock will need more energy to grow. You see now, they’re getting some grain in the corn silage we have leftover from last fall. That supply might last until late winter at best. Then they will need more grain to grow, at least until new, rich spring grass is available for them to forage. You think about it: cows, sheep and goats might be our saviors through the next few years. We can’t eat all those forages you mentioned like grass and stalks. They can, and in turn produce food that we can eat. They didn’t mention that in the study did they Mel?”
“Of course not,” she replied.
“Bet they didn’t think of the manure either,” Poppop added. “It’s a valuable fertilizer for us to grow more feed for the livestock and food for us. Our yields would drop dramatically without it. Livestock are indeed a blessing to our operation and a solution to our predicament. Heck, goats will even eat bushes and weeds and poison ivy to give us meat and milk.”
Thinking back on that, we later learned that the several goat farms in the neighborhood had continued to prosper and provide food and work for many guests. It made me think how the Israelites survived and even thrived in the virtual deserts of Midian and Sinai and other arid areas of Palestine. Their goats and sheep could convert any scrubby growth into food, not to mention the value of their skins and wool.
“Yes,” Harvey concluded, “our cattle will keep us going. I look at some of the neighbors’ land that was placed in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. In essence, rented to the government to take it out of production in order to stabilize prices and create cover for wildlife. Almost all those acres are seeded in wild grasses that we can’t eat, but our livestock can. When those agreements were still in effect, harvesting those fields was prohibited; there’s lush growth there. Now with the government inoperative and not fulfilling their side of the contract, that is paying the rent, that makes the contract void. That grass may now be grazed and will become a valuable forage, especially as winter progresses.”
“Bottom line is,” Larry said, “even with all the available forage around, when it becomes harder for the livestock to find it and the temperatures get lower, we should feed some corn to our cattle, and use some for the chickens. What about the hogs?”
“I would say,” Joe answered, “only if we have some to spare. They can grow without it, but when you go to butcher a hog fed milk only, the pork isn’t firm at all and annoyingly difficult to cut. So it would be better if we can spare some.”
“I’m sure we can,” Dad replied. “Fortunately, when we run our hogs with the cattle, the hogs can root through the manure for undigested pieces of grain. And they also find roots and tubers in the fields as well. Hogs around here aren’t totally dependent on us feeding them milk and corn; they convert some inedible materials to food for us, too.”
“OK,” Jean said, “corn for cows, chickens and hogs, and don’t forget us!”
“That’s right,” Poppop agreed, “don’t forget us. But there is one group of animals we didn’t mention yet that needs corn, too.”
“Brutus!” I exclaimed, “the horses.”
“Right,” Poppop replied, “Brutus and the horses at Butch’s. They are going to be doing some hard work and need the energy. Our oat supply is limited, so they need corn. Also when our oxen get to working age, they’ll need more grain as well.”
“And lastly,” Larry added, “we have to save some corn for seed.”
To be continued…… Mort
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