This article is preview of the July of the Amazing Grazing Column in the Carolina Cattle Connection..
Many of the readers will remember my dad, Dr. Henry Poore. He was a great general practitioner, surgeon, farmer, storyteller, and writer. He passed the Henry name on to me, and told me there has been a Henry Poore in our family for at least 5 generations. This put a lot of pressure on me, and as I ended up not having kids the line could have ended there.
Fortunately, my brother Sam had a son whom he named Silas Henry Poore. Silas is much younger than the rest of my nephews so he had never spent much time at the farm. This spring Silas came and did an internship with us. He really learned a lot and had many experiences he could not have had anywhere else but Triple Creek. During the time he was here, several of his friends; Benji from England, Jayland from the Bronx, and Mali from Zimbabwe visited him, and they all left together for Wisconsin last week.
One thing about having new visitors at the farm is that I get to retell the very many stories that have been born at the farm. There are several good ones involving nearly everyone who has ever spent much time on Triple Creek. One thing I always mention when we are in the back moving cows is the “Walk of Shame” which is what happens to you when you do something dumb and end up stranded in the back of the farm, up to a two mile walk from headquarters.
I have made that walk many times when I got stuck, blew a tire, or ran out of gas. The worst one was when I let the Farmall Super M run away with no driver down the face of Gill Mountain.
I had carelessly left the old tractor running at the top of the hill while I jumped off to do a quick task. Somehow the parking brake got knocked off. I have a vivid slow motion memory of the tractor running straight down the hill and heading for the creek and the forest on the other side. The tractor jumped off the bank of the creek and slammed into the other bank. The front wheel assembly hit first and folded up under it, stripping out 4 – ¾ inch fine thread bolts. When I got to the tractor it was still running and the only damage was a crumpled grill, those stripped bolts and the oil pan which was crushed by the wheel assembly. I turned it off and headed off on the Walk of Shame.
When I arrived at the barn Dad was standing watching me as I came up the hill, and he asked “what happened now”? I recounted the story, and he just looked at me sternly and didn’t say a word. He went and got a chain and the big John Deere, and we went to see what was left of our old friend the Super M. He helped me pull it out and we bolted the front wheels back under it, and then we were able to pull it to the barn. In the end I was lucky. The only significant damage was the oil pan and the grill, with a few other dings that keeps the story alive. The tractor was bought new to our farm in the 1950s and it is still my favorite of all time.
Like always, despite my carelessness my Dad didn’t lecture or scold me. He knew that the Walk of Shame was enough to teach me what I needed to know. On that walk I thought a lot about safety and not taking shortcuts that can turn disastrous. Every time I get on the M I think about that experience.
I told the Silas and his friends that mishap story and many others about Sam, Blake, Mitch, Korey, Steven, Noah, Barry, my Mom and Dad, and almost anyone else who has spent significant time at the farm. I warned them in jest that if they stayed around long enough they were bound to be part of one story or another.
About two weeks before Silas and the Boys departed we were making hay and Silas was running a rake. Tina was also raking with the red Suzuki, Brandon was running the baler and I was tedding with the Super M. Benji and Jayden wanted something to do for the afternoon so they went back to finish cleaning up the cemetery that is on our place from several of the early families on that land.
Benji and Jayden left the cemetery after a shift clearing brush and drove past the field where I was tedding, and then they turned up the road to the house. They didn’t get far when I saw a cloud of dust and the white Suzuki sitting at an odd angle in the road. I didn’t think much of it, but on the next round I saw them walking my way. I stopped to see what was up, and Benji said they went around that corner too fast, lost control and hit a cedar tree! Benji broke the windshield with his head and Jayden cut his lip pretty bad when he hit the steering wheel (he later got stitches at the urgent care).
I could tell they weren’t hurt too bad, so channeling my Dad, I said I was thankful that they were not hurt, and that machines can be fixed. I then just pointed to the house and said “it is your turn for the Walk of Shame”. I finished my work and headed up to the house where I got the truck and came back to find them. I picked them up and they were really embarrassed and sorry to have damaged our favorite little car.
The moral of the story is that this kind of thing can happen to anyone, and sometimes you just have to learn from your mistakes. A farm is a great place to learn this kind of lesson. An old vehicle on a farm road maybe the best place to learn the hard lesson about safety. Those many stories about the “Walk of Shame” turned out to be really great learning experiences for those involved, and the telling and retelling is an important part of our farm culture.
~ Matt Poore, NC State and the Alliance for Grassland Renewal
The Alliance for Grassland Renewal is a national organization focused on enhancing the appropriate adoption of novel endophyte tall fescue technology through education, incentives, self-regulation and promotion. For more resources or to learn more about the Alliance for Grassland Renewal, go to www.grasslandrenewal.org
The Alliance for Grassland Renewal 