In my last diary a poster explained they didn’t know how to talk to farmers. This person was a precinct Captain with three “turfs”. Two of the turfs were urban and they had no trouble canvassing there but one was rural and they couldn’t figure out how to canvas there. In part because they didn’t know how to talk to farmers. I can’t remember their handle (if you are reading maybe you can repost the entire post) but the question lingered in my head.
I am going to try to explain how you talk to a farmer. But I decided it might help if we went to one of the most Republican places in America and met an actual American farm family. Just keep in mind there are multiple twists in this tale.
Come with me to northern Montana and meet Morn, Joe and their family. They farm and ranch between Eureka, Montana and Grasmere, British Columbia. Morn, Joe, and Joe’s eldest two children all voted for Trump in 2016. They raise pretty much everything they eat. They hunt to supplement that. They get extra cash by making whiskey just across the border in B.C. where micro distilling is legal. And Joe works a side gig.
The first thing you are going to notice as you approach their farm is that there are people of colour working in the gardens, brutal work. The gardens are Morn’s domain. It is, after they eat, most of Morn’s income, a classic market garden. Cheap labour is critical to her having any income at all. We will becoming back to the people working in the field in just a bit.
The next thing you are going to realize is they aren’t very friendly. They greet strangers with a shotgun in their hands. I tease Morn about sleeping with her shotgun. “Shotgun is more reliable than a man and more useful,” is her standard response.
And now you will try to talk to them. That isn’t going to be easy. They don’t speak your kind of English. What you are hearing is Appalachian.
I can’t help myself. I love Appalachia. The people are great. The country is spectacularly beautiful. I have said elsewhere the white part of my ancestory is in part Ulster Scots and I have relatives (close and remote) all over Appalachia. America really doesn’t seem to understand Appalachia at all. The link below says it better than I ever could. (All these links are related. And are the key to talking to farmers. This particular link has some stunning photographs by the way.)
www.theguardian.com/…
So how did Appalachians end up in Montana?
Morn was born in BuckHorn Hollow and Joe was born between Buckhorn Hollow and Buckhorn Fork. This is Appalachian Kentucky undiluted by modernization.
Another great article.
This one is from Solar Power World about transitioning coal miners to solar technicians.
www.solarpowerworldonline.com/…
There are two defining moments in Morn and Joe’s life. The first was when Morn’s boyfriend ran off and left her pregnant with Joe never to be seen again. The second is the day Joe came down off the mountain to check the mail.
It took him a long time to make the trip. As a mixed colour youth he got beat up a lot. By both whites and blacks. So Joe had gotten really good at creeping down off the mountain.
The closest Post Office to Buckhorn Mountain is on 979 about halfway between the Old Primitive Baptist Church and Church of God of Prophecy. Joe walked into the Post Office to see if anything had come for him in the mail. He had a package. He was checking through the contents when a man walks in the door of the Post Office.
Joe likes to say, “there was a man who sucks all the air out of a room. I started raising my squirrel gun. Nervous reaction. Then he says, ‘I love Ray Bradbury’.”
As impossible as it sounds on a swelteringly hot day in July of 1991 Joe met a man who loved science fiction even more than he did. In a post office. At the base of a mountain. In rural Kentucky. Joe’s package included a copy of The Illustrated Man. It was on top.
The man picked it up. “First collection of short stories I ever read. About 25 years ago. I can still remember all the man’s tatoos coming alive and telling their own stories.”
They got to talking in the manner of sci-fi nerds the world over. Soon they were deep in conversation, you might say argument over the Dune series. This conversation was interrupted by ever more persistent horn honking.
“My daughters,” the man said. “I better be going.”
They walked out together. Joe noticed the old Army Jeep first. Then the two girls leaning against it. His eyes passed over one girl raptourously and then he started looking at the next. At her crotch actually.
The first words she ever said to him were, “My eyes are up here, asshole.”
He looked up, embarrassed. Their eyes met. Next week Joe and Patty will be celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary.
But that wouldn’t have happened without some help. Joe was tongue tied. Then Patty’s father leaned over and whispered, “invite us home for supper.”
Poor Joe managed to stutter out the words.
So here is a tip for talking to farmers. If they invite you to share food with them it is incredibly rude to say no. In Appalachia it may be a shooting offence. They ain’t asking to be polite. They really want you to come. And despite movies like Deliverance they don’t sodomize or eat guests. Or hunt city folk for sport.
Thus Patty’s Father and Joe’s Mother met. Morn says her first impulse was to start raising her shotgun. Then she saw Joe in the line of fire.
“He’s good people. I’m fixin to marry that one.” Joe said and pointed to Patty.
What followed was a string of racial slurs, obscenities, and reflections on how stupid Joe was, since birth. All in Appalachian. The gist was Joe’s father was black as coal but when Morn burnt him he didn’t heat the room worth shit and now Joe was fixing on marrying an “injun”. Was he moron, trading down like that would make her grandkids something you’d want to drown in a burlap sack.
Patty’s Father waited until Morn (which is short for Morning Glory) was finished. Then he said, “Their mother is Chinese.” At which point he fired off a long string of invective, racial slurs, obscenities, etc. All in Appalachian. It came down to you have to admit Asian is a big upgrade for your son.
“What are they doing?” Bett, the other daughter asked. Neither she or Patty spoke Appalachian so they were only getting some of the more common swear words.
“They are negotiating the terms of the Wedding, dowry and so on,” Joe said.
The day of Joe and Patty’s wedding Patty’s mother gave them some of her land along the border and a hundred Aberdeen Angus cows. “So you won’t ever starve.” There were also some horses and a pregnant Border Collie.
But lets return to your farm visit. Long before you get to the house you will have seen the solar panels. They are everywhere there isn’t garden. This is your in. Republicans love alternative energy. For a bunch of reasons.
psmag.com/…
www.sciencedaily.com/…
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/…
www.washingtonexaminer.com/...
In Morn and Joe’s case you should ask what they are doing with all that power. Most times you don’t want to ask that on the American side of the border unless Pot Growing is legal and you don’t look like any sort of nark. In Canada it is fair game.
Joe might take you to his “workshop”. This is his side gig. He makes stained glass art, restores stained glass, and does stained glass for large projects. He and his Father-in-Law have travelled the world looking at stained glass. Joe also blows industrial glass. It eats power, and his furnaces are electric, thus the solar. Joe is a pioneer in using electric furnaces, basically he built them himself. Appalachian to the core.
www.eurotherm.com/...
And while you are there you might want to talk with the farm labourers. Yes, I know, most farm labourers are illegal immigrants. But on small farms farm labour is often done by members of the family, And divergent political views particularly along generational lines are common.
Joe and Patty are typical in that all the workers are relatives. The labour is mostly done by Patty, her kids, and now grandkids. And by Patty’s sisters, their kids, and grandkids. If you want to share in the food you share in the work.
Young people on farms are really easily to talk with these days. They live in the same digital world as the rest of us. And Ray Bradbury’s “Zero Hour”, one of the stories in Bradbury’s Illustrated Man still applies. In the story Earth is invaded by Aliens. The Aliens discover a logical ally. Human children.
Dems need to realize in farm country you are the Alien and children (young people) are your logical allies.
But more than anything else you need to stop thinking of people who vote Republican as all the same and all unchangeable. Farmers in particular are pragmatic enough to change if it looks like making their life or their children’s lives better. They work in an industry that is changing at stunning rates and where being successful requires very smart decisions. And each farmer and each farm has its own story. Let them tell you their story and the land’s story and you are well on your way to being friends.
Trump’s tariffs have opened the door. Hell Trump has opened the door. Alternative energy has opened the door. Farmers are ready to talk. All you have to is listen.
Morn retired two years ago, kind of, she still watches over the garden like a mother bear with a cub. Right now she is volunteering on the Warren campaign. Got talked into by some woman from Eureka who came to the farm, repeatedly. Now they are best friends.
Joe was supporting Inslee, now he is all in on Booker. Last night we were messaging in real time during the Climate Debate. We think Warren won and Booker was a close second.
When we all get together Patty teases Joe and Morn unmercifully about how they are like recent ex-smokers. Determined to convert everyone. I don’t think either of them understands that Patty spent decades slowly undoing their brain washing. Her sisters and their husbands helped.
But probably the biggest factor of all was Patty and Joe’s daughter Joan. Joan is what my Mom called a pistol. She is a vegan, radical environmentalist, activist, organizer who worships Greta Thunberg.
Right now Joan is staying with me. And learning to do regenerative agriculture. Patty and Joe begged me to take her. She was driving them crazy.
“Just don’t let her get pregnant,” Patty ordered me.
Joan is almost 18. My response was simple. “I was the same age as Joan when I had you.”
“And you were such a great parent you let me marry a hillbilly from the hollers when I was just a kid.”
I just laughed.