Farmer Delusional Syndrome Strikes Again!
And no, I'll never learn
The daylight hours are fewer and the dark hours are longer. But, the transitions from light to dark and dark to light are frequently full of color and drama. These moments of sunrise and sunset are enough to even lift the spirits of a farmer who has grown tired of thinking about the growing season that was. Instead, it is time to turn our eyes and our attentions to the growing season that may be.
And, depending on the farmer, it may even lead to a bout of optimism that might be less healthy than you think it is.
Yes, I'm talking about……..
Farmer Delusional Syndrome
Typically, Farmer Delusional Syndrome starts the moment seed catalogs begin appearing in the mailbox. It ends whenever it becomes clear to the farmer that they are already behind and their well-considered plans for the year are already requiring improvisation. This is usually April for me, but I am sure some growers might argue for an earlier date.
Perhaps I hold onto my delusions more firmly than most.
Is it possible that you, too, suffer from Farmer Delusional Syndrome (FDS)? Let's review the symptoms together, shall we?
1. Do you circle forty new varieties and three to five completely new vegetable types to 'trial' for the coming season in the first catalog you see?
If the answer is yes, you might simply suffer from Gardener Delusional Syndrome (GDS), a closely related malady. The main difference has to do with volume. A person with GDS might be thinking about growing a couple of plants of each thing. We're talking about FDS when the individual already has a list of oh... say... one hundred vegetable varieties that are on the "must grow" list and a "trial of a few plants" is typically “just a few hundred row feet."
A person who suffers from FDS thinks they can squeeze all of these crops into their system somehow. Or, even if they don't believe that, they at least believe they'll be able to set aside more time to investigate these options in order to make the "best" choice before seed trays need to be started.
2. The farmer forgets that pictures like this one don't show the ENTIRE field.
And they forget the field doesn't STAY this way.
Every grower who records a season's progress with photos falls prey to exactly the same thing I do each season. I just cannot help but immortalize those moments when everything actually manages to look the way I dreamt them up to be. It may only happen a few times each year. But, by golly! I'm going to get a photo of it so I can blow it up and hang it in my brain to remind me that it CAN be done.
Unfortunately for the sufferer of FDS, images like this only feed the insanity. Suddenly, the farmer believes every field WILL look like this in the coming year. And, it will look like that all the time!
And...um.... that back corner that didn't get cleaned up just prior to the photo won't be there either.
3. It's cold outside right now. Like most people in Iowa, the sufferer of FDS idealizes warm June, July and/or August days.
Yes, those days. The ones where I have often gone through three, four, five and even SIX t-shirts as they get soaked by sweat. These are days where Tammy and I have been known to go see a movie we didn't want to see just to get into air conditioning for a little while at the end of the day.
As a matter of fact, it’s on those hot, sultry days that we suffer from a reverse sort of Farmer Delusional Syndrome. As sweat drips off our collective noses and onto the soil we tend on a July afternoon, we might find ourselves reflecting fondly on early sunsets, soft, white snow, and time indoors sipping hot chocolate.
We conveniently forget the times the moisture on our eyelashes sealed our eyes shut as we walked out to deal with frozen waterers and unhappy laying hens.
4. The farmer sees nothing wrong with a calendar that includes five or more good-sized projects in April and May.
After all, getting plants started, handling sales, planting a majority of the crops and dealing with poultry chicks only take "a couple of hours a day." For us, it only gets worse as Tammy's time is pretty much monopolized by her work at Wartburg and we usually don't have anyone working on the farm with us during those months.
And, now that I work with Pesticide Action Network, it all becomes more complex.
But that’s ok. We’re good at our jobs and they only take a few hours to complete. That leaves us with LOTS of time! Right?
Right?!?
The months targeted for these projects may be slightly different depending on the grower and their situations. But everyone with FDS conveniently forgets the tasks that are on EVERY growing season’s to-do list. Suddenly there are no labor costs associated with all of the work we do every day. In our heads, they always get done, to completion, with no issues and minimal fuss.
As soon as we convince ourselves that all of the regular work will be magically completed , it's pretty easy to decide to add a small task or two.
Small tasks like - oh - building a new greenhouse or maybe tearing the old farmhouse down and building a new one using just matchsticks and bubblegum.
Yeah, little things like that.
5. Every row is straight.
Straight as an arr....oh.
The photo above was a moment when I fully realized that other people do not have the same sense of straight lines that I do. It's a good thing that drip tape is flexible, that's all I can say.
But, if you have FDS, every row is perfectly straight (in your mind) UNLESS you don't want it to be straight. This is the time of year where a grower might allow themselves to consider odd field shapes and more complex growing systems. Farmers with this illness actually think they can manage all of this without adding lots of extra time to the effort of maintaining it all.
Yeah! I think I will plant that field in concentric rings this year. What could possibly go wrong?
The reality of the growing season hits when you find yourself adapting to complex shapes and growing systems because THINGS HAPPEN. The off-season, when you have FDS, is the time when you willingly think about DESIGNING those things into your farm so you can deal with them ON PURPOSE.
Have I mentioned that this is an insidious disease?
6. Fields are dry when you want to work in them and rain only falls when and where you want it to.
Ok, maybe we don't believe that one.
If you are really suffering from acute FDS, you will also believe that weather, in general, is a non-factor in your growing season. Never mind that weather conditions may be the most important confounding factor during any given growing season.
7. Taking a weekend or two off in the middle of the growing seems like it shouldn't be all that hard to do.
After our first few growing years at the Genuine Faux Farm, we realized exactly how much the farm dictated what we did with the rest of our lives. We knew that it was important to find ways to balance the daily farm grind with things that helped us to stay healthy and happy. And it is a common Winter exercise for those who suffer from FDS to fervently agree that there WILL BE time off next season.
You can gauge the severity of this symptom based on how far a person actually gets in planning the mythical weekends off.
8. This will be the year that a major, unplanned for project does NOT cause us to re-prioritize.
No Snorts Allowed!
Yes, on our farm, we call large digging tools “snorts.” If you are curious why that is, let me show you a picture by way of explanation.
And, like the snort in the story, the snort on the farm DID eventually put everything back into its place. Mostly. But, that’s another story.
But, getting back to our point. A farmer knows full well that things will break and emergency projects will… um… emerge. But if you are suffering from these delusional tendencies that come with the disease, all bets are off.
In a very real way, FDS makes a grower behave a bit like an ostrich - burying their head in the sand so they don't see the potential for problems. The next season's plan is a place where the sufferer of FDS steadfastly seems to be blissfully unaware of the bumps and the bruises that are most certainly coming!
9. Deer don't eat beets.
Or apple trees, or carrots, or... houseplants.
And, rabbits don't cut down young pepper plants, cucumber beetles don't girdle young vine crops, raccoons don't eat chickens, woodchucks don't graze on trays of broccoli, gnats don't cover your face, neck, and arms in welts, horn worms don't eat every leaf off of a tomato plant, dandelion seeds don't clog up air intakes on the tractors, tools don't break, seedlings won't dry out.
The wind won't be THAT strong, thistles don't hurt that much, my body won't get that sore in April/May, cleaning carrots doesn't take very long and I won't let the pile of receipts get so big before they are recorded this time.
10. A place for everything. And everything in its place.
We like the sentiment and the intent - at the least.
This will be the year that everything on the farm gets organized. No more walking from building to building trying to find the open-ended wrench that is the size you need to get a stubborn bolt loose on one of your farm implements. The harvest bins will be stacked neatly and they'll be clean when you need them so you don't have to stop what you are doing to make them clean.
That space you keep saying you want to set aside so you can more easily do maintenance on the tractors will be ready to go every time you even get an inkling that an oil change is necessary. And, of course, you won't set something down in the grass path for just a second and then be unable to find it later on because you will ALWAYS be mindful of putting things where they belong.
Yes, sufferers of Farmer Delusional Syndrome always think that THIS will be the year that everything will work the way they've always wanted it to.
And the final symptom?
11. The farmer spends time making creative blog posts about fictional syndromes.
Our first reference to Farmer Delusional Syndrome appeared on the blog on February 5, 2014. It is likely that Tammy and I made our own personal reference to this syndrome - even if the name was not yet refined - as early as 2005, when Rob went through the process of creating a business plan for the Genuine Faux Farm.
In other words, it's been around the Genuine Faux Farm for a long time. I think we now have enough experience with FDS that we can tell you that, even though it is not listed as a real syndrome, it probably should qualify as one.
Well, I guess we should get on with the season. Don't mind me while I immerse myself in my own world of farm perfection for a little while. Sometimes, I think Farmer Delusional Syndrome might be the healthiest disorder a grower could have.
Have a fine day everyone!
Ah, yes, Rob, I recognized the FDS symptoms immediately. I'm working on the remedy -- a PAUSE button that stops the whole world while I work like crazy to catch up, then push RESUME.