April 21, 2000

"I’ve been thankin’...if these fuel prices git any worse, farmers oughta start thankin’ ’bout some alternatives to diesel," Mel grunted.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked. "Molasses?"

Mel ignored my crack and continued. "I’m a cowman myself, but if I wuz a farmer, b’lieve I’d give some serious thought to goin’ back to plowin’ with a team o’ mules."

"If it weren’t for the fact that it’s only April, I would think you’ve been out in the sun too long," I scoffed.

"It’s rilly not all that dumb," my husband rambled on. "I mean, you could do away with all ’at expensive equipment an’ the bank notes an’ repairs that goes with ’em..."

"You couldn’t work enough land like that to stay in business. It’d be ‘Death Valley Days’ sure enough!"

"Simple math’ll tell you it’s not how much money you make that matters. It’s how much of it you git to keep," Mel chirped. "The way I got it figgered, you’d come out ahead with the mules."

For the next two hours, Mel did more "’cipherin’" than Jethro Bodine.

"Mules is cheap and mule fuel is eben cheaper," he said. "Last time I looked, oats wuz about $1.25 a bushel. Now, you git two mules an’ you feed ’em two bushels o’ oats a week. ’At comes to 10 bucks. If you grow yore own oats, it’d be less’n ’at...If you work ’em 10 hours a day, six days a week, you orta be able to plow 60 acres, if yore any man a’tall—fer less’n $10."

"Who in their right mind would walk behind a team of mules all day long? Why, you’d be exhausted!"

"Come to thank of it, you could kill two birds with one stone. You could also cancel yore membership at the gym," he said, grinning.

"What has gotten in to you?"

"Jist thankin’ out loud. To make a profit, you either got to make more or spend less. Don’t seem to be no way to git more fer commodities these days. I’m jist explorin’ ways to cut expenses. Now you git an’ ol’ four-row planter, an’ some corn seed an’ git after it. ’At’s how them Amish do it, an’ they got more money’n Fort Knox."

"It may save money, but isn’t it an awfully time-consuming way to do it?"

"Time ain’t important to mules anyhow. If they ain’t plowin’, what else they gonna be doin’?"

"What about harvesting?"

"You hand pick it.You gitchoo an’ ol’ wagon, git all the kids together, an’ string out a couple on each row..."

"And just what do you plan to use for kids?" I asked.

"I’d drive Ol’ Green to town an’ load up some ’em fellars with the signs that say ‘Will Work for Food’ an’ offer ’em all the corn they kin eat."

"You’re really naive if you think you can find anyone willing to pick corn," I told him.