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John Barleycorn Must Die

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I struggled with the question of “why” this week. Since I broke the brush mower last week, (did I mention I broke it? I talked about it rattling, and the bolts coming loose, and then… I don’t know what happened, but it started to shake itself apart. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, and I just parked it and walked away. I gotta deal with other stuff for a while and then I’ll come back to it.)

Consequently I was mowing weeds with the lawnmower and was asking myself why I felt the need to mow these weeds. There are some places I can justify, like in the oat fields the waterways are full of tall grass and weeds and they make it a problem for swathing, they’re a problem for combining, and they are a problem for baling, so it makes sense to mow them. But then I get off in the pastures or field roads and yeah, there’s some weeds that it’s good to take down like thistles, buttonweeds, (velvet leaf), ragweed, and wild parsnip, but if it’s just grass, why am I mowing it?

The larger question of “why“ can be applied to illness, sicknesses, the political party of your choice, or any host of things. 

So that’s what’s been on my mind.

Daughter and I also talked about making decisions and why that’s so hard sometimes. It’s a learned skill, isn’t it? 

Earlier this week, I was a bit anxious because I should have already been cutting oats. I was anxious about how the swather was going to run, I was anxious about the weather, I was anxious about how the Oats would do, and how to get it hauled to the place in Iowa. 

And let’s face it, I was scared. Scared the swather would break down, scared I wouldn’t be able to fix it, scared of just the whole thing. But eventually I put on my big boy pants, and started cutting oats. And yep, it quits after an hour and a half. It’s like it got a vapor lock or something. An hour later I can start it again and cut some more. And I’m working on a trucker, so we still just wait to see on the weather and how the oats does and it will all be OK, won’t it? 

 A few of the ducks were out one morning and having a good time in the taller grass, so the next morning we opened the fence and let them all out. Generally, that’s kind of how it works; They get out themselves and then we decide it’s OK to let them go.   And they are having a really good time in the deep grass and finding bugs and they look very very happy. I know I counted 26 ducks one day and then there only seemed to be 24, and the next day I counted 26 again. I don’t know how that works.

The dogs cornered a raccoon up in a tree for the third time in about two weeks. They appear to be fairly small raccoons so they must be young. I suppose along the same lines of me wondering where the ducks go when they get freedom, some raccoon mother somewhere is wondering what becomes of her children when they venture out on their own someplace.

The show in Chatfield that I’m lighting is “SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical”.

You’re probably not familiar with SpongeBob, we are all too old to have seen it as kids, you might be aware of it from Mall of America, or grandchildren, or neighbors, and it’s just silly fun. I haven’t looked too hard for a message in this musical. (turns out there are some!) I’m just making big bright colors. The woman who is designing some of the scenery, Vicky, did some really cool things with pool noodles and expandable spray foam. The guys who built the structure run a welding and machine shop and they can build just about anything. (They can fix my brush mower too!) It’s not done the way I would do it as a “theater professional” but it is certainly good enough for a show.

Driving to Chatfield gives me 20 miles of country roads to see how the crops are doing. There are a couple different ways I take to get there but generally, I take the straight shot back home on Hwy 52. Especially when it’s dark.

I started working in Chatfield’s Potter Auditorium in 1987 and I built the sets there for about three years, then took a break for a long time before coming back to light a few more shows. I feel a deep connection to this place. The people are great to work with. It is a true community theater in every sense of the word. There will be a big potluck lunch on Sunday before we have our first dress rehearsal.

WHAT MESSAGE OR STORY FROM A SONG HAS ALWAYS STAYED WITH YOU?  

57 thoughts on “John Barleycorn Must Die”

  2. Ah, nice to hear John Barleycorn – I had that album after my sister turned me on to it.

    Songs from way back just pop up unexpectedly, and sometimes stay with me for days. Lately it’s been a couple of Joni Mitchell – Urge for Going, The Last Time I Saw Richard… I try and figure out if I’m supposed to be paying attention to something in the lyrics. : }

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  4. Rise and Shine,Baboons, from Northern MN,

    We are headed out to the Ely Blueberry Festival. Gonna be hot. At first all I could think of was singing along in Water Aerobics with the music. The big favorite is “Polka Dot Bikini” which has no meaning at all, but it sure is fun.

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  6. I can think of plenty of songs with a story or message sung by various recording artists but none of them hold a particular emotional resonance for me. What I remember most vividly are the songs I first heard sung by close friends who are now distant or departed—Melissa with her autoharp singing Cole Younger and Chris, way back in the sixties singing Joshua Gone Barbados. In both cases it was not so much the song but the milieu.

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  7. after seeing the John barleycorn album cover, it made me think of traffic and the song that I was looking forward with the song called. here’s a little song you can all join in with.
    I couldn’t find it but when I opened this album, it’s the first song on the album. The rest of the album is wonderful. Also, there’s a song called dear Mr. fantasy that’s fantastic. I loved traffic and Stevie Windwood. Give it a listen when you get time today one of my favorites from back in the 60s.

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  9. Well, there was the Psychotherapy song by Melanie, who had a dreadful voice, by the way. The tune was the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and the most memorable lyric was “A thing is a phallic symbol if its longer than its wide” which I, as a middle school student, thought was hilarious.

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  14. At age 17, (early 1969)I was sitting at a coffee house in Hollywood, CA and heard someone sing a cover of “Someday Soon” (which may have been written by Judy Collins, I can’t say for sure). When she sang about her beloved who was 21 and just got out of the service, I did the math. I did the math, and went straight to the Army out of high school. Sure, they sent me straight to Vietnam within year of that time in the coffee house, but I came out and went to college, something I otherwise wouldn’t have done.
    Making such a big decision so young is nothing I’d recommend to someone now. But it worked out for me.

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      1. Thank you. As a kid I had assumed that recording artists had written all the stuff they performed. When I updated my understanding, I neglected to go back to what had meant something to me in earlier years and correct my previous misconceptions.

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  16. Ben, I’m glad to hear you talk about the anxiety and uncertainty in your farming endeavors. It’s always seemed to me that this is a job that doesn’t let you relax for long. A lot of your posts make it look easy and bucolic, but I’m sure it isn’t always that way, and it’s good to acknowledge that other side.
    It brings to mind the lyrics from The Field Behind the Plow…
    Poor old Kuzyk down the road,
    The heartache, hail, and choppers brought him down,
    He gave it up and went to town,
    and Emmet Pierce, the other day,
    Took a heart attack and died at forty-two.
    You could see it coming on, ’cause he worked as hard as you.
    Do take care of yourself. You can’t do anything about the weather. Good luck with the swather and the oats.

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    1. What Linda said. I suppose the reason we all muddle through whatever challenges crop up along the way is that we don’t all lose our cool at the same time. For this I’m grateful.

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    4. Yeah, I think of that one often. Thanks.

      Eventually you get used to the routine. Some years are good, some years are not, most years are in between. I was a lot more stressed when I was younger.

      I’ll write more about it next weekend, but I finished swathing the oats. Yay! Check that one off the list. Hope we don’t get rain Sunday night as predicted, (or Monday now) and I get it in a truck.

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  24. I’ve said before I don’t always listen to the lyrics. It’s more about the rhythm and harmonies, just the ‘Music’, but every now and then one gets me. In ‘John Barleycorn’ it was hearing about the “miller grinding him between two stones” that caught my ear.
    Or the band Genesis, and the song ‘Misunderstanding’ about a guy waiting for a date on the weekend and he sings “Jumped in my car, I went round there
    I still don’t believe it
    He was just leaving” and that one always gets me. Reminds me so much of all that teenage angst.

    Pink Floyd and the entire album ‘The Final Cut’ always make me melancholic…

    And Dylans ‘Tangled up in Blues’. Man, I love that song.

    Great songs! Thanks for sharing!

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