Alittlement
If you want to know about heartbreak, ask a farmer. Suicide rates are higher among farmers than among almost any other profession - which is terrible in itself, but moreso because I can think of a few other professions where the ranks really do need thinned a bit, judges on televised talent shows for starters.
There are depressingly many reasons why a farmer might top himself; solitude in an old remote farmhouse with only the howling wind for company, the easy availability of shotguns, or simply the rejection when the object of your affection never ever says ‘I love you’, indeed never says more than ‘moooo’, or ‘bahh’ or occasionally ‘cluck’.
The cultivated area of my allotment is about 15ft by 20ft and, given the amount of dashed hope, frustration and impotent rage it has generated, I can only imagine what it must be like to experience that when scaled up to farm size.
Given that all I’m trying to do is grow some fucking food, you’d think that nature would cut me some slack. But no. First pigeons ate my brussel sprouts. Then something ate my pumpkin. Now my tomato plants have all died. I’ve had success with onions but only I suspect because they have been watered so well by my tears as I knelt in the dirt and cried ‘whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!’.
The other thing it’s changed my opinion of is the animal kingdom or, as I now refer to them, pests. Pigeons? Pests. Rabbits? Pests. Swans? Pests. Minotaurs? Mythical I know but, believe me, pests. There’s only one sure way to deal with a pest and it’s not slug pellets, it’s a water-cooled, quad-barrel, belt-fed machine gun using alternate loads of rock salt, lead, holy water and silver!
So I’m giving up the allotment. To be honest it was never really my passion and I think somebody else will be able to make a better go of it. I will have to get down there in dead of night to remove my vast constructions of canes and netting, then do the walk of shame to return my key.
However…I have a cunning plan. I am finally going to sort out the top bit of the garden, hitherto a haven for slugs, snails, ivy and other minions of the army of darkness. I shall grow veg there in the style of a ‘dig for victory’ garden in WWII, possibly adding to the ambience of the affair by placing an Anderson shelter at some convenient point. That’s where I’m going to keep my pig.
There are depressingly many reasons why a farmer might top himself; solitude in an old remote farmhouse with only the howling wind for company, the easy availability of shotguns, or simply the rejection when the object of your affection never ever says ‘I love you’, indeed never says more than ‘moooo’, or ‘bahh’ or occasionally ‘cluck’.
The cultivated area of my allotment is about 15ft by 20ft and, given the amount of dashed hope, frustration and impotent rage it has generated, I can only imagine what it must be like to experience that when scaled up to farm size.
Given that all I’m trying to do is grow some fucking food, you’d think that nature would cut me some slack. But no. First pigeons ate my brussel sprouts. Then something ate my pumpkin. Now my tomato plants have all died. I’ve had success with onions but only I suspect because they have been watered so well by my tears as I knelt in the dirt and cried ‘whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!’.
The other thing it’s changed my opinion of is the animal kingdom or, as I now refer to them, pests. Pigeons? Pests. Rabbits? Pests. Swans? Pests. Minotaurs? Mythical I know but, believe me, pests. There’s only one sure way to deal with a pest and it’s not slug pellets, it’s a water-cooled, quad-barrel, belt-fed machine gun using alternate loads of rock salt, lead, holy water and silver!
So I’m giving up the allotment. To be honest it was never really my passion and I think somebody else will be able to make a better go of it. I will have to get down there in dead of night to remove my vast constructions of canes and netting, then do the walk of shame to return my key.
However…I have a cunning plan. I am finally going to sort out the top bit of the garden, hitherto a haven for slugs, snails, ivy and other minions of the army of darkness. I shall grow veg there in the style of a ‘dig for victory’ garden in WWII, possibly adding to the ambience of the affair by placing an Anderson shelter at some convenient point. That’s where I’m going to keep my pig.
2 Comments:
Giving up brussel sprouts is nothing in comparison to giving up cable television.
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