Across the fence

When I chose 'Across the Fence' as the by-line for this column I envisioned neighbors casually leaning against a shared fence, spending a little time just visiting. Maybe the talk would be about the weather (my dad's favorite) or family history, perhaps comments on world news or local scuttlebutt. Whatever the topic, I hoped it would be something worthwhile, interesting, maybe a bit humorous or perhaps a little more somber and reflective, but generally of some merit. My dad and I used to have those kinds of talks. Sometimes we would be leaning against a fence watching the horses or sometimes we would be on the back porch where I'd be finishing a cup of coffee while he pulled on his boots before we headed out the door. Now days it's mostly across the airwaves as I drive between Bushnell and Gering with my cell phone pressed against my ear.

"I'm gonna lose ya Dad," I say as I climb the south slope of the Wildcat Hills. We say our goodbyes and I shake off the lonesome feeling of being 600 miles away.

Our phone conversations are enjoyable but the best stories seemed to only come out when we were face-to-face, one foot resting on the bottom rail and an elbow hooked over the top rail as we leaned across the fence and gazed into the past.

"I was born in twenty-two so I was only twelve or thirteen" Dad began, "we didn't have the big dust storms here like your mom did living in Downs, but we had the drought. I remember, the wheat was about ready to harvest and the corn was up four, maybe five feet, already tassled out. They came up from the south like a big, dark storm cloud but as it got closer you could see it wasn't a storm cloud and you could hear the buzz. Grasshoppers, big yellow ones, three, four inches long. They came in on the south side of the cornfield, across the road there and started in on the whole 80 acres. There were thousands and thousands of them. You could hear them chewing and they ate every single bit of green, right down to the dirt. Leaves, ears, stocks, roots, every little bit, 'till there was nothin' left but smooth, dry dirt."

"Your grandpa turned the chickens out of the chicken house," Dad continued, "300 laying hens and they ran across the road eating as many grasshoppers as they could but they couldn't keep up. The grasshoppers cleaned that whole 80 acres down to the dust. They ate leaves and bark off the trees, cleaned the pastures of every blade of grass. They ate wooden handles off of pitchforks, clothes off the clothesline. They even ate the clothes pins."

"The government went around and paid up to $20.00 a head for cattle, and something less for hogs and we were glad to get it. We didn't have anything left to feed them and they'd have just starved. That was also during the Depression, and I guess nobody had any money to buy cattle. Hog cholera was going around then too. You didn't know when that might hit and there weren't any vaccinations then like there are now. Your grandpa had separated out a pen full of healthy hogs, had them ready to ship, and the next morning, we went out to load 'em and they were all dead."

"What did the government do with the cattle?" I asked Dad.

"Guess they shipped them to St. Joe or Kansas City for slaughter."

"Who would have bought them?

"Don't know," Dad said.

Curious to find out what the government did with all the livestock they bought I had to do a little digging. The book 'Dust Bowl' by Donald Worster provided most of the information that I found about that government program of buying up cattle during those hard years.

In 1934, with cattle feed depleted due to the drought and because of the economic depression, there was no market for beef. So, the government formed the DRS, (Drought Relief Service) and bought thousands of starving cattle, employed sharpshooters to destroy the animals and buried the carcasses, with dozers, in giant earthen pits. Additionally, six million pigs were destroyed. Fortunately, shortly after the program began, it was recognized that people were literally starving to death as a result of the combined drought and depression and so healthy animals were processed and made available to those in need. In Oklahoma, 18 percent of all the cattle bought were unfit for market and had to be destroyed. In Kansas it was only 3 percent. And it is said that in Nebraska 470,000 head of cattle had to be destroyed.

For the rancher, the subsidy was $4.00 to $5.00 for a calf, depending on their condition; yearlings brought $10 to $15 and cattle two years old or older brought $12 to $20. The numbers of cattle across the southern plains decreased by more than half during 1934 and 1935. By the end of that time, Washington had become the biggest cattle outfit in the world, the nations poor had plenty of canned meat on their dinner tables and nobody knew what to do with the 2 million cowhides lying in slaughter house storage rooms.

Destructive farming practices and lack of rain had caused the dust bowl conditions and the US Department of agriculture proposed that only ranching, no farming, be allowed on the southern plains. Natural prairie grasses had held the land in place better than the weaker wheat grown by farmers. Of course, this proposal was quickly embraced by cattlemen in the region but resourceful immigrant farmers stubbornly held on. As we now know, farming practices improved, conservation methods were employed and both farming and ranching continued to prosper. Well, sort of. There are still government subsidies, the natural order of supply and demand really isn't, and the independent nature of both the cowman and the farmer seem to preclude any real, working cooperative. However, we are still the largest producing nation of both meat and grain and we increase our production every year.

But, we still have to import beef from other beef producing countries to meet our U.S. consumer demands while continuing to export U.S. beef to countries that have no beef production. Sadly, the current price of beef on the hoof, what the rancher is paid for his cattle, is not enough to cover the cost of operations and many of our ranching families are finding themselves on the edge of a dilemma; sell off now to cover expenses and rebuild later or tighten the old belt another notch or two and wait and see. And there's always hope expressed in that all too common mantra: "Maybe next year".

Guess I'll never understand why grandpa held to the notion that gambling was a sin and yet he was a cowman. But I'll always remember how he'd take a plug of Tinsley out of his back pocket, cut off a chunk with his Barlow knife and nibble it off the blade, work it around a bit until it was well placed, spit, check the position of the sun, adjust his hat accordingly and begin:

"Did I ever tell you about..."

Volume 1 of "101 Yesterdays", containing 50 selected columns from the past six years is now available. To order contact Tim at [email protected] or send $17.00 plus $3.00 postage and handling to M. Timothy Nolting P.O. Box 68 Bushnell, NE 69128