Sign Of The Times

Being a farmer, or a part time farmer, gives you a real unique perspective on the world. Out of necessity, most farmers are great observers. What is also interesting is that the things that you observe on the farm are very often evidence of larger problems in our Nation or the world.

As a farmer you need to watch your animals. How are they acting? Are they active? Are they sick? is someone in heat....? Are the eating enough? Do they have clean water? Over time you learn most every animals personality to some extent. If not personality then at least there behavior patterns.

You also need to watch the weather. You plan your day around the weather. If its raining, you try to figure out what you can do inside. Maybe muck the stalls, clean out the chicken coop or worse, maybe do paperwork.

You need to watch your crops. Do they need water? Fertilizer? Are they being invaded by insects?

You need to watch your customers. Are they happy when they are in the farm stand? What do they buy? What do they look at and put down? How do they react to your prices? What are they buying? Is it expensive cuts of meat, or stew beef?

All of these observations lead you to make a judgement. Based on that judgement you make a decision. Based on that decision you plan your day, week or even season. In farming the best laid plans often go astray. There is nothing that will make you alter your schedule like a sick cow or pig.

One of the observations I have made at the farm recently is that the economy where we live is really starting to hurt folks. I make this judgement not just because of my own families struggles to pay bills and make ends meet, but because of a few trends and incidents.

In the area of New England that we live in, most folks are either retirees, contractors, farmers or they are transplants that commute an hour plus to the nearest city. In the summer time, summer folks or lake people swell the population and pump dollars into the local economy. In the fall and winter things slow down dramatically. Its now fall and we are in the slowdown phase of our seasonal economy. Unfortunately this year the summer was slower than most. Even the lake folks were not spending money like the normally do. Our greenhouse sales were down about 25%. Overall our sales were off about 20%. Most of my friends are contractors. Builders, electricians, equipment operators and handymen. Many of them are suffering because of the real estate slow down. Some of them are barely getting by.

So back to my observations...

In front of our barn on the main road we keep a cooler. In the cooler are eggs for sale. The eggs are three dollars a dozen and are sold based on the honor system. We keep a little jar in the cooler filled with miscellaneous change and folks take a dozen or two and drop in their money.We have about 200 laying hens at the farm and the girls pump out about 15 dozen eggs a day. At the end of most days we sell out of eggs. Maybe not in the middle of winter but most days. So using simple math, we should end up with about $45.00 at the end of the day and no eggs.

Historically we have always finished the day with about $40.00. I always figured that was from folks who were short on cash and maybe only through in two bucks instead of three. Occasionally we would get a note with an IOU. Very occasionally we would get an extra five or so. I assumed that was make up money.

Over the last few months we have been ending the day with about $30.00 in the jar. That means that either 1/3 of our customers are short a buck everyday or.....someone has decided to help themselves to the eggs or to the cash. Now we never have more than 5 dollars of cash in the jar, we sweep it a few times a day. So more than likely a few folks are helping themselves to eggs.

In the retail security industry, ( which is where my other career is based), we have what we call shortage. Shortage in retail is unexplained loss. Its typically viewed as a % of sales. The national average in retail has historically been around 2%. My egg business has historically run at about 8-10%. Which is explainable as we are running on the honor system and retailers have cashiers and store detectives and lots of cameras in place to keep their shortage in check.

Over the last few months I have seen my shortage jump to 33%. If that is a national trend retailers could end up with a shortage number of 6% of sales. That number would represent an increase in loss of up to 100 billion dollars in the United States alone. Add that number to the cost passed on to the consumer....Its no wonder our economy is in a slow down.

We had another incident this week at the farm. One of the things we do is process firewood. Every year we selectively log some of the forest land on our farm. We then cut and split the firewood and sell it locally.

A couple of evenings ago, in the middle of the night, someone came on to the farm and helped themselves to a pick up truck of firewood. Now if you really think about it, a pickup truck can hold about a half a cord of wood if it is carefully stacked. We are currently selling wood for $325.oo a cord. That means that someone needed firewood so bad that they risked arrest (or worse if the farmer caught them) to steal $175.00 or so of wood. They did this sometime between 2:00 am and 5:00. It probably took them an hour or so to load the wood. The perpetrator had to be pretty desperate to wake up in the middle of the night, go exert themselves for an hour and risk detection.

As a farmer my observations are that these are really tough times for folks. I have never blocked access to the farm. It is not surrounded by no trespassing signs. We don't have any gates or a surrounding fence. The local folks use the property to horseback ride, hunt and hike. The state snowmobile trail cuts across the back pastures. I am not sure what to do. Should I block access and allow a few to ruin the enjoyment of many? I really can't afford any more losses though. I wonder if this is the same thought process that our government is going through with our wall street and banking meltdown. Is it possible for a few to ruin it for so many? If so how do you regulate it?

For now I think I slap a note on the egg box telling folks about the losses. Maybe that will make the egg thief's think a little. As far as the wood goes, maybe I will spend a couple of nights in near the woodpile with my shotgun on a stake out...Not quite sure.

Where will it end? Who knows. I hope that good will prevail over evil and the few miscreants who cause harm to so many will see the light. I pray that the morals and ethics that help build our great nation prevail. That applies to the folks in Washington, in Wall street and those in the neighborhood of Tumbledown Farms......


Just one Farmers observations.....