episode 728   STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES—gathering horse manure to grow mushrooms

alan skeoch

Feb.1, 2023

“Alan, this is stupid…really dumb.”

“What?”

“Gathering all that horse manure”

“Need about a ton of horse manure , figure.”

“You are going to wreck our car…how much does that load on the roof weigh?”

“I figure about 400 pounds….8 x 50…roof should be OK”

“And inside the car?”

“Less…lots of room for you and the coonhound”

“If people knew how stupid you can be they must wonder about our marriage.”

“Wait a bit…wait until the spawn arrives.”

“Spawn?”

“We are going to grow mushrooms in the spring and summer….Horse manure and mushroom spawn is all we need.”

“Why?”

“Something to do in the winter while you ride your horse….I will gather up the hoseballs.”

“Wacko!”

“Lorne and Carol will let me have the teams horseballs as well. ‘Road apples’!  Four or five trips to the city

with loads like this should do it…a ton of horseballs dumped in that big box I’ve built at the back of our lot.

No one knows…not much smell. Actually I like the smell of horse manure…better than pigs snd cows.”

“What if the neighbours see the car looking like this…roof loaded with horse manure.”

“Who would believe it?”

NOTE:  I spent the month of February that year (1970’s) hauling horse manure from farm to city.  No one asked what was in

the sacks on the car roof.   Sort of strange as I expected questions.  No police stopped…no neighbour questioned.

It was winter…February…when most people are indoors.   These were great days.   While Lorne forked manure

onto his bob sleigh for the horses to haul it to the back field, I rescued the horse dung.  Somewhere I had read

that horse manure makes great mushrooms.  And that was all I needed.  Recipe?  A ton of horse manure and

a package of mushroom spores from Dominion Seed House.  Dump the stuff in the box and wait for my 

mushroom crop.

Well it did not quite work as planned.  I checked the mushroom coffin regularly….days and days, weeks and

weeks.  No mushrooms.  Then around June…months later …there was one tiny little mushroom.  One goddamn

mushroom!  After all my labour.  Not even sure it was an edible mushroom.  Just like everything else in life,

mushroom growing demands skill.   That was something I did not have.  

Not all was lost.  I loved gathering horse manure in the winter time.  Marjorie would take Spartacus, our estrogen

gelding, up and down the fifth line.  We rescued him from certain death.   Those estrogen mares were chained up

in barns with tubes hooked to their arses to gather their urine.  Why?  For Birth control pills.  Terrible life for those

mares.  Had to be pregnant mares for some reason. Their colts were of no use.  We rescued Sparky.  Called

him Spartacus after the slave in Roman history.

Imagine this wagon filled to the brim with manure destined for the far field.  Imagine

sitting on top of  the load bouncing along to the team’s version of Jingle Bells.

Sweet memories.

On some clear sunny winter days I even got a chance to ride across the snow clad fields with the loads

of manure.   I think Lorne just kept the horses for that purpose.  And he was pleased that we could do the

manure spring together.  He never charged me for the horse manure.  I thought it was free but now realize

it was a money crop that made the fields more productive.

Bottom line?   I was a total failure as a mushroom grower.  That puny little mushroom in the plywood 

coffin was never harvested.   Our car, A Renault 15, did have a special aroma.  Maybe I should have

sent a note to France telling the car company to add a sentence in their brochure.  “This car can

carry 400 pounds of horse manure on its roof without denting.”

Suppose Marjorie had married the Lawyers son in North Bay?  Could he have

given her a better life.  I think not.

Marjorie had many boyfriends.  I met most of them.  One even proposed to her at university.  She refused

gracefully because she liked me better…a bit better.   Now that, I realize, is hard to understand.  Some women

marry with the expectation they can change their husbands.   Marjorie never did this.   Even when

our car, house, clothes  had the faint smell of horse manure.

Was the mushroom failure the only failure in our lives?  Not so.  There were many failures.  I built a

barn on the farm..it collapsed.   I tried to make maple syrup using a Forth line forest.  Some son of a 

bitch shot our pails of the trees.  We accepted a contract to grow cucumbers for Manthew Wells Rose

Brand pickles company of Guelph.  We were laughed at and lost our investment.  The company wanted 

gherkins and we produced crooks and nubs and cucumbers as long as your arm…all of which were

dumped.  Our payment for months of labour was less that $50.   Our investment in a tractor and our

labour was a couple of thousand dollars.  A failure.  Even the tractor, a well used Farmal A, was a disaster

as I forgot to put anti freeze in the radiator and the hard winter cracked the block.  Scrap.  I loved that

tractor.  Lots of failures in my life…in our lives.  You would think I (we) would learn from these failures.

We never did.  That’s what farmers must feel as their glowing expectations turn into broken dreams.

These fine bred horses did not come from Estrogen barns.  They came from fine mares and stallions.  Spartacus was not that lucky.

“Alan, you have given readers we are total failures at everything.”

“Right.  We have had more success raising kids and dogs.    But

readers like failures.  More human.  Everybody fails at one time or

another.  

“If they do not fail.  Have continual success in life.  Guess what happens to them?”

“I do not know.”

“Neither do I.”

alan skeoch

ev. 1, 2023

“Marjorie, there seems to be a funny smell in the car these days”

“Look at the roof.”

alan skeoch

Jan. 31, 2023

A motorized combine harvester does the work of harvesting now.  One man and another couple of drivers

with triple axle trucks and attached trailers do all th harbrding o drbrtsl 100 acre farms in one day.

Harvesting has not always been that easy.

In the early 1990’s we were able to find older machines and horses at work in Central Ohio on Amish farms.

Today, in 2023 the same early machines will be harvesting much as it was done between 1880 and 1950.

Two binding machines ..  A grain binder nd s corn binder.   Binder?   Both machines did the same

thing.  They cut grain and corn into bundles that were then tied by a length of binder twine although the first 

binders used wire which was not nearly as edible as twine.  Once bound into sheaves there were other

labour intensive steps…stooking to assure the tassels were dried in the sun and then the sheave ere loaded and 

hauled to that dinosaur of the harvest…the threshing mach ior the less well known corn shelling machine.

who said farming was easy?

EPISODE 727     HORSE DRAWN GRAIN BINDER AND CORN BINDER…CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE? (OHIO AMISH FARMS)

Do you remember that line from Oklahoma …”The corn is as high as giraffe’s eye”…or was it an elephant’s eye?

This power driven corn sheller is rare….maybe none left other than this painting

Horses were one ugly clued.  Now there is no place for them in farm labour.  Bath anyone?

Note:  I asked Marjorie if she wanted to proof read this story.  She refused,

“If it is about a dream I do not want to read it.”  Maybe readers might feel

the same way.  Especially Bill Proc.

alan skeoch

Jan. 29, 

I often dream…detailed dreams that are sometimes amusing and often include people i know well.

Last night for instance Bill Proc was the main man.  (I shortened his name to four letters in case someone knows him.)

THE DREAM

Sam and I were jabbering to each other over in the vast Dixie Plaza parking lot when a half ron

truck pulled up beside the garbage container.   Surprised to see Bill Proc getting out of the truck.

He looked a little harassed like he wanted to get back in the truck as fast as possible.  He even

left the drivers’ side door open.  And he had a friend with him.

On the back of the truck was a huge monster steel container.  Really big.  About 8’ x 3’ x 6’.  

Heavy rusted steel plate.  Bigger than a breadbasket.   Way bigger.

“Hi Bill!”

“Jesus!  What the hell are you doing here?”

“What’s up?”

“No time to talk, Al…got to unload this bastard”

And the two of them tipped the monster out of the back of the truck.  It hit with a clatter

as in ‘awoke with a clatter to see what was the matter’;  Then Bill Proc and friend hopped

in the ruck and buggered off.

I guess they did not see the ‘No Dumping’ sign.    

“What in hell’s half acre is Proc doing?”

“I don’t know what he was doing but I do know we should get the hell out of here, Sam.”

So we each drove our separate ways.  All that was left in the parking lot was the behemoth put there

by Bill Proc.    It towered over the parking lot like a dirty iceberg.   Huge.  Open at one end.  Empty.

The phone was ringing when I got home.

“Is Alan Skeoch living at this number?”

“Yes.”

“You get the hell over here then before I call the police.”

“Who is this?”

“Manager of Dixie Plaza.  You were spotted by our security people”

“So what?”

“Smart ass.  You dumped a large steel container beside our garbage drums.  Can’t you read?”

“I did not do it .”

“Lie! Get over here and get the damn thing….now.  No more talk.”

What should I do?  Give Bill Proc a call.  Give Bill Proc’s name to the Plaza manager.   Rat on a

friend?   

Best to call our son Andrew.  He has a couple of big trucks.

“Andy can you help.  I am being charged with illegal dumping over at the Plaza.”’’

“Did you do it?’ 

(Imagine my own son thinking I could be guilty.)

“No.   But I know the guy who did. It was Bill Proc.”

“Get him “

“Can’t.   Not sure where he lives and doubt he could tip the rhino back into his

truck.  He had a hell of a time dumping it out.  You could get help tipping it into

your cube van….electric gate on back.”

“Dad, this sounds stupid.”

“I could get charged…maybe arrested. “

“How big is the thing?”

“Andy,  I think about 8 x 6 x3….all steel, open at one end.  Seemed empty.  You and

Nick could get it loaded.”

“Then what?”

“Then take it to the farm where I keep all those rusted shapes for movie rentals.”

“Dad, you do not need any more of that stuff.”

“Enough lectures…I am in trouble.”

So I Drove over to Dixie

Met Andy and Nick and we loaded the bastard into the cube van.

The manager must have been watching from some peep hole.  Then Andy took it

to the farm.

End of story…end of dream?”

No. Believe it or not a movie company phoned. 

 “Al,  we need a big piece of

rusty crap to cover up a computer station in an old factory.  Really big and rusty

kind of thing.  Got to make the place look like 1945 rather than 2023… Can you help?”

Wonder of wonders.   I rented the bastardly behemoth for $200 same day.

Only one question in my mind now.

“Should I tell Bill Proc?”

THEN I WOKE UP.  LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW IN CASE IT WAS

NOT A DREAM.

alan skeoch

January 2023

alan skeoch

jan. 28,  2023

IN the 1990’s our family was invited to a threshing and straw bailing ‘bee’ at the Stared Rooster Farm near Norwich, Ohio.

No horses but lots of old time tractors and assorted other early 20th century farm machines.

Getting to Central Ohio from Toronto on a Friday evening was a challenge.   

NO need to say more.  You can figure out what’s happening.   TEST: Find the man stooking sheaves of wheat.   Why bother stooking sheaves? Is that the

correct spelling of stooking?