Luck of the…
It may be the week of Saint Patrick’s Day, but the luck doesn’t only belong to the Irish. It belongs to the farmer, specifically Rob Young of Young Harvests. He doesn’t have to wear green because he lives green, specifically greens. But what do Rob’s kind of greens have to do with driving snakes out of Ireland, drinking green beer or Jameson’s? Not much, but this week he was one lucky guy finding gold in his greenhouse...literally. As he worked the soil where he’d been adding vermiculture compost, Rob spotted something round and shiny in the soil.
Ask any farmer and they’ll tell you about their collection of crap they’ve pulled from the dirt, especially anyone who has taken over a long-time homestead. In the days before commercial garbage collection there was usually an on-site dump. It might be in an unused wooded area, a ravine or ditch. Limestone karst topography are pocked drainage sinks that double as spots to dump old cars, machinery, appliances, and anything else that doesn’t burn. Over time these areas get covered with vegetation. Decades, even centuries of seasons break down into earth covering the past. On an old farm I once rehabilitated I found an old mail Jeep in the barnyard when installing water lines. There’s always a bucket of detritus with old fence staples, insulators, broken hinges, and unidentified parts that have been uncovered over time. We can add archaeologist to the many hats farmers get to wear.
Errant bits of metal aren’t something farmers want laying about. They get caught in machinery, sharp and rusty pieces can slice into flesh, and cause hardware disease in livestock, especially cows. Here’s some farm life trivia – farmers actually feed rumen magnets to cows to collect any metal objects in their stomachs.
While Rob doesn’t have cows to worry about, he still wanted to pick up what he thought was an old washer because metal didn’t belong in his soil.
“When I picked it up I thought no way!” said Rob as he showed off his gold wedding band he’d lost fifteen years earlier when working on a bed of arugula. He’d only been married for six months when the token of his matrimonial commitment slipped off his finger. Fortunately, that loss was not a bad omen as he and his wife have been together over twenty years now.
Even more ironic, fifteen years ago there wasn’t even a low tunnel greenhouse in the spot where the ring was ultimately found.
The couple had replaced the lost gold band with another, but it was thicker and not as comfortable for someone who is constantly working with his hands. Recently the replacement band was traded in for a more comfortable and safer silicon ring. “But it just wasn’t the same,” lamented Rob.
Lots of farmers and anyone else who works in an environment where wearing jewelry is a safety hazard have been opting for silicon rings that will break when caught on something or bounce back into shape fingers get pinched.
Let those leprechauns have their proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow while Farmer Rob is finding his precious in the greenhouse.