What would your grade be?

[Kay/NC]

All of us in farming work ourselves and our families hard, doing the best we can to produce adequate supplies of high-quality food and fiber. It is thankless, dirty, endless work, at least in spells like planting and harvest, calving season, getting a grower house ready for a new flock of chicks or poults, or a fresh herd of weaned piglets.

In our swine contract growing business, the weekly serviceperson's visit ( for the first time in almost 30 years, we have a woman coming now, and she is wonderful to work with) sometimes incldes a farm andvperformance assessment...a report card, if you will. It lets us know if something needs more attention, or if we have missed a repair.

Last winter, she noted a repair that had been delayed a while, and that gave us a 98. Honestly, it was one of those things that didn't matter as long as the heat was on, but it did need doing by spring. We went through a couple of repairmen letting us down, so the 98 lingered a while longer than expected. Finall our SIL figured put part of the problem, and proceeded to fix that on his days off. Mike and the hired man did the rest.

The serviceperson proceeded to give us a 100, but Mike told her tht would draw attention, make her supervisors think she wasn't looking hard enough for "opportunities for improvement" (the ompany's touchy-feely phrase for deficiencies). He told her to find omethng else minor, mark it as an " opportunity", and give us a 99.

I am happy enough with almost perfect, especially given his thought process, and its relation to the small minds of midfle management. We get graded on our manure management by the state inspector, too. That is pretty much pass/fail, and failing is not an option, if one wishes to stay in business. Mostly documentation, if the truth be told, but tons of thst, of course.

Made me think about things a little this mornng. i know some of you run dairies thatbliterally get a USDA grade, which determines the end uses of your milk, right? Eggs get graded, too. When we raised tobacco, it got graded at market, and sold at auction or received support price accordingly.

If not for these external rating systems, would we let things slide? If you had to give your farm an overall grade today, what would hat grade be?

Secondary question: Does appearance of the farm " matter" to your grading scale, or would you accept that beautiful crops can come from unkempt farms, too? I know the one I grew on would never have won a Farm Beautiful prize, but the yields and crop quality were unsurpassed.

If you factored in prettiness, along with performance, would you also average in safety? We did a formal safety assessment last year, and wound up with a B. For specific reasons that are sort of unique to our farm, I wouldn't change some thngs pn the assessment, just to raise the grade...we don't farm in fields at nighttime, so headlights on tractors aren't needed, for example.

So, figure in whatever would make snse to you -for me, it is productivity and safety, with bonus points for neatness! If not downright beauty, and give your farm a grade today....

[turkey feather]

We have had women servicepeople here for several years although I sometimes wonder how they do the lifting and dirty dusty work. We have always thought they had to find something wrong or they would be seen as not doing a good job.

We feel appearance is important around the barns and especially from the road. And it makes for good PR. Several years ago I saw an article about how farmers where perceived.  Non-rural people saw the dirty work clothes and hats the farmers wore to the bank and 'to town' and stereotyped all farmers this way.  This article urged men to think about their appearance when in public. It is much different now. But the public still sees farmers in dirty overalls and straw hats.

[Kay/NC]

We have always thought they had to find something wrong or they would be seen as not doing a good job.

That was precisely why Mike told our sirviceperson to mark us down for at least one thing, so they wouldn't think she was slouching or letting us slide. 

I am sure we have always been conscientious about not going out dirty and smelly.  Maybe to the farm supply, but not anywhere else. 

[linda/IL]

I always try to watch how I appear but have to get on DS about appearance sometimes.  I think his is a lot of how much energy it takes as he's been really pooped lately.  Checkups this month.

I think particularly on food product farms, dairy in particular, should be graded on not only the parlor, lots, etc. but also on general appearance.  Maybe that's why we got marked that one year for a dandelion growing near the door of the barn.  I think things should be prioritize on importance.  There have been several farms I've gone by & think

"yuck, I sure wouldn't want to drink their milk".  I think any farm that looks nice gives a better impression of farming but dealing with a direct food product is high priority.

Being a small operation, we don't have a slury for manure and still spread with a spreader on the fields.  So right now DH has been piling it while cleaning out buildings.  Can't get it on the field fast enough between rains so our lots don't look so great and we'd get marked for that.  Unless you put some electric fence posts & wire around it.

So maybe a B right now.  Need to pressure the parlor walls too.  

[Suey73]

I'm afraid I'd only give us an average grade of C.   This farm had both cows and hogs outside.   It takes a long time to get all the "stuff"  from hogs and cattle dealt with.   We currently have about and acre of junk parked that needs to be hauled away to the scrap metal place.   And last summer we hauled over $2,000 worth.  Of course a big part of that was crates and floors from the farrowing house.  We hauled in an old used feed grinder and got  almost as much as we paid for it 5 years ago!   We can only get so much done each year between spring, fall and still taking care of wean to finish pigs.  

There are no weeds here,  My DH is OCD about weeds.   And I've been mowing more and more to make the place look nicer.  I've now got it so I can mow 1 time all the way around all confinement buildings.... plus they all have at least 2ft of gravel up next to each of them too.    Since we feed for farmers  there is no big protocol like Kay has to  put up with.  

I sure seem to have a lot to say tonight don't I? 

[turkey feather]

I understand where you at...maybe I can talk DH into taking grinder in for the metal.

[Ruby Lou]

My DH took a load to the scrap yard and got $900.  he was pretty proud of it!  We try to keep things picked up around.  We need to be better at trimming, but with my shoulder surgeries, I am no good at long term trimming anymore.  I am lucky if I can take the pushing of the handlebars on my mom's zero turn.  My brother (actually two of them) are "farm hoarders".  They think they need to keep everything.  I think the one brother that farms my mom's place has feed sacks from two years ago yet.  My DH and I kept saying that we wished the brother would clean up the end of this shed we have our cows in.  One day, we both got tired of it and had our skid loader up ther and just started cleaning it up and burning what could be burnt. wish we could get rid of more on the farm, but my mom is pretty touchy about what gets thrown away.  And I feel my brother is too! Suey,  oh,,,,I was gonna ask you if you had any tractors out in the junk pile, but I sure they would have had green paint on them at one time...not our color, but my DH and DS, love farm junkyards cause there is always a diamond in the rough!

[Kay/NC]

We have one more old NH hannermill at Mike's place to recycle...lots of steel there, for sure.  I asked him to get wiht a hauler up there before things get grown up around it so bad this sumer, or to spray Roundup, so he can get to it easily if time gets away from him.  That is the limit of my involvement there. 

We got a ton of things off th eto-do at Jenna's yesterday.  It was off and on rainy, so Mike wasn't up to much outdoors...so,  a few unaddressed indoorish things got done. The men got under the house and ran the water line to the foundation at the rose bed where her memorial bench is going to be set.  Thank goodness I had reminded him to pick up the fittings and masonry bit on Monday, and we pulled enough pipe of storage to use there. 

They moved a few heavy old iron items up out of the basement, so the shower head down there could be started up to see if repairs were needed before we start re-doing the bathtub surround upstairs.  It worked fine, and Mike and I hung a shower curtain there, so as not to soak the storage shelves' contents.  I still have to clean the shower floor (it is just the low point of the sloped concrete in the while basement, with the drain right under the shower head, so the short hose we keep to drain things down there will suffice to spray it down), then lay a mat to give us better footing. 

I got the whole closet in the spare bedroom cleared of family left-behinds, mostly Mike's mother's stuff.  Assembled a shellf for in there, and stashed his beer and our cases of water, juice, G2, etc, from the back porch.  Now, there is actually a nice small area out there, besides the laundry.   About another hour of ferrying sutff from the basement to the garage, and then all of that will be at an A level. 

The men need to clean broken storm windows out of the smokehouse, straighten Mike's axes and such up in there for the summer.  After tha, they need to prime and paint the two old chicken house roofs, and fix a post in one of them, clean them both out of firewood, and the yard there will be an A, too.  The old hog houses, his shop, and the really old farm building sindividually rate from about a B to an F.  (If there was a grade lower than F, some would get that, too!) 

It will take us years to cle;an up everything there.  The one item I woudl really love to move and work on is his father's 1952 Dodge farm truck.  It needs a lot of TLC< but our SIL is a pro at restoration, and I have always thougtht it would make a cool family project...Mike says he will do it when Winn is a bit older. 

We don't have as many protocols as you think here, Suey.  The sheep graze around our hog houses and support structures, and the shop and composter shed, and that is about all the grooming that part of the farm receives. 

Here at this house, we are about a B- right now, because the pool deck still needs sealing, which cannot be done until the cover is pulled for the summer.  I have a teenager to do that, and paint some doors that didn't get finished last year, plus re-paint the ones we did get done, because the dogs shredded the paint on most of them. 

We have spent SO much time working on rental houses, and Jenna's yard and house, we have to catch back up here over the summer.  I have a short list for later on today.  Winn just left, so I am checking email, then getting it in gear.  Mike just asked at lunch what we have on tap for Jenna's tomorrow...he's getting with the program!

[linda/IL]

Not sure the money you get for junk is such a great trade off.  DH takes at least one load, sometimes two of old gates, feeders, etc. and gets good price.  But when I got my new dryer, which they had to bring in through the front door, DH told the fella to leave the old one on the front porch and he'd take to the junk yard.  Laughingly he replied that maybe we should get an old  sofa out there too.  Well, I'm patiently waiting for the dryer to be moved.  Thank goodness the back of it is to the road & it's kinda behind the porch post by the bushes.  You really barely see it unless you look, which I always do!

[Kay/NC]

Oh, the furnishings on the front porch! That is a real cultural thing here in the South. There is appropriate porch furniture, like painted rockers, wicker ( almost always white), and plant tables.

Nothing that has been an indoor piece usually qualifies for porch presentation. Really older houses may have what was called a " sleeping porch". Cots were set there on summer for cooling off enough to bear the hear and humidity.

We use our big screened-in front porch to hold furniture while we remodel and paint,or as a ot for something tosit until it makes the trip to storage. Even that bothers me....

The appliance outdoors is the kiss of death culturally. If it is a refrigerator, and you ever open it ti store something inside, you have completely crossed over to the Dark Side.

I found my last defunct dishwasher thrown out behind a barn not too long ago, and threw a minor hissyfit over that. My family runs regular recycling trips, and it could have caught a ride 20 times over. Suffice it to say it is gone now.

Mike and I have agreed to take the free delivery and haul off option on appliances from here on out. Many of them are so much more plastic than metal, the recycler hardly wants newer models anyway. Lessens the temptation....