Raising Tobacco

When I was born, my family lived in the country on Mud Creek Road. At the age of about four, we moved to the little village of Rodney. We had a few acres of land and at various times had hogs, chickens, a horse, a milk cow, and a couple of ponies.

Dad had a regular job, but enjoyed the animals and gardening. Like many people at that time, he grew tobacco as a cash crop. This was before the related health issues were a concern. Actually you would find smokers just about everywhere.

I remember, several years ago, making a reservation with an airline and specifying non-smoking. They gave me non-smoking alright, but the row behind me was smoking! I don’t remember where I was going, but I remember smelling (and smelling like) smoke long after the flight.

Back to the farm:  I well remember checking every leaf of the tobacco plants for the suckers that grew at the base of the leaves. We rubbed dirt on our hands to keep the sticky residue from building up.

For even more fun, we had to pull off the tobacco worms that somehow found our plants. These florescent green worms were about three inches long and about three-fourths inch in diameter. We had to toss them to the ground and step on them to keep them from returning to the leaves. An older boy came to help us work one time as we were suckering and worming. He said the best way to kill the worms was to bite their heads off. He never could talk us into trying it though.

When the plants grew to about five to six feet high and started to yellow, we would chop them down and split the stalk in order to place four or five stalks on a wooden stick. The sticks were then hung in a barn. Nearly every trip to the barn resulted in a battle with angry bumblebees. My brother kept an old license plate handy to fight off the attackers. You can see the yellowed plants hanging in the barn pictured above. I photographed this barn in WV, on Route 2 between Point Pleasant and Huntington.

When the leaves dried sufficiently, usually November or early December, we would strip off the leaves, grade them by quality, and tie them into what we called hands. Several of the hands were then placed back on the stick and stacked, waiting to be trucked to the tobacco market in Huntington.

It was a big day when the truck driver stopped by with the check he brought from the market. My Dad once told me that without the tobacco money, there would be no Christmas gifts. Many farmers depended on the money from growing tobacco to pay the bills and many farm kids have had their college tuition paid by tobacco money.

Don’t get me wrong, tobacco is a nasty, harmful habit. My grandfather is the only one in my close family who used tobacco as far as I know. We would save a small quantity of leaves and my Dad would tightly knot the leaves into what they called “twists.” I remember my Grandpa cutting off a small part of the twist and placing it into his mouth and then cutting off a small piece of Brown’s Mule and chewing it along with the homegrown. He told me this added flavor. Brown’s Mule was a small square of chopped and compressed tobacco treated with molasses and other things.

I just had to try that once, and once was all it took. I have no problem now keeping my distance form what many Old-timers call “that vile weed.”

Bob Evans Farm – Windmill

When friends and family from out-of-town visit, one of the must-see landmarks is Bob Evans Farm. We live less than five miles from the 1100 acre farm. There are many things to see, including a log cabin village, a Revolutionary War graveyard, a coal mine, an Indian mound, the Homestead Museum, and a windmill, pictured below.

 The windmill was reconstructed on the farm in 1971.  It was built by James Beam, of Mount Vernon, Ohio, and is a replica of windmills found in Holland.  It originally housed French burr stones that were powered by the wind to grind grain for livestock.  The 20-foot blades were imported from Holland.

(info from: http://www.bobevans.com/ourfarms/bobevansfarm/farmhistory.aspx)

While in high school I worked at the Bob Evans restaurant on the farm. I enjoyed working there and made many friends during that time. It was a sad day last fall when they knocked down the original restaurant and opened its modern replacement. I’ve not been to the new restaurant yet, but I hear many good comments about it.

Come visit, and Becky and I will let you take us “Down on the Farm” for lunch! We have many more unique things to see in our neck of the woods. I’ll eventually get around to writing about them.

It Doesn't Pay to Be a Greedy Dog

When you have several dogs as we do, it’s fun to watch how they operate. Scamper is a real cutie with a great personality and he has developed a method by which he thinks he can get an extra treat. I came home this evening from stocking up on their favorite bones. They seem to know when I drive in that treats are aboard. Five of our eight dogs were patiently waiting for me to exit the car.

I say patiently, but actually Scamper wasn’t as patient as the others. He likes to stand on his hind legs and tap me with one of his front paws. He will also stand and push the other dogs away so he can be the first to get his treat. There is a method to his desire to be first. Scamper is pictured below.

 

Scamper runs and hides his treat and comes back to get in line for another. If I don’t give him another treat, and I don’t, he runs to see if he can steal one from the other dogs. He won’t usually take the entire treat, just the pieces that are not presently being chewed.

Tonight he tried this; while he was trying to steal from Misty, Snoopy ran and took Scamper’s treat. I’m always looking for real-life examples to use in my business classes and I think I have a lesson from Scamper’s actions tonight.

Lehman's Store and Safari at The Wilds

One of our family adventures was to Northeast Ohio Amish country. We visited Lehman’s store in Kidron, Ohio. Their slogan is “Being Old Fashioned is Always in Fashion.” They have many interesting products, including items used by the Amish. After about an hour of exploration, I bought some old fashioned candy and went to the porch to join the old fellas waiting for the ladies of their houses. My wife waits patiently while I visit book stores and camera shows, so I can wait while she shops in stores that she finds interesting.

On the way home we spent the better part of the day at The Wilds. The Wilds is a nature conservatory located on nearly 10,000 acres of land in Muskingum County. The land was once a strip mine and has been reclaimed. The rolling hills are perfect for a variety of wild animals.

We parked our car and took a bus to the welcome center where one can choose a tour, either in a reclaimed school bus or in an open-air vehicle, which turned out to be a reclaimed school bus with the top cut off. We chose the more daring open air tour. 

As we waited I saw a man get off the bus who was totally prepared for safari. He was wearing the khaki shirt and shorts outfit complete with Australian Bush hat, binoculars, and walking stick. I’m not sure what type of daring adventure he was expecting, but I thought it was kind of funny that he was shuffled onto a bus with 50 or so screaming grade school kids.

As we boarded our open-air vehicle, we were informed that if we dropped something over the edge, it would not be retrieved. Inside the gate no one was allowed outside the tour vehicle. I secured my camera neck strap and checked the fasteners. I’ve posted a couple of photos I took that day. 

The driver was very friendly and knowledgeable about the animals. While there were several types of animals roaming freely, and I’m sure many of which could be deadly, there were none that could jump into the bus. We later toured, on foot, several cages that housed the more predatory species. 

I’ve thought several times about the guy who was so prepared for a safari and wondered how he made it through the tour. As his bus pulled out of the visitor’s center, I couldn’t help but think maybe he would have been safer outside the bus.

Some of My Favorite Things

I have several “favorite” things. Among many others, I enjoy tropical weather, hammocks, reading and writing. When several of these come together, I have a great day. 

I am pictured below experiencing several of my favorites. Did I mention I like hats? I’m wearing one my son, Jesse, brought me when he returned from a study abroad semester in Costa Rica. A local artisan weaved it from palm fronds. Jesse actually wore it home to keep it from being smashed and got a lot of attention on his flights and airport transfers.

 

My daughter, Lani, brought me the hat you see in my profile portrait. The hat has llamas carved or embossed around the band and is made of leather. She brought this from Peru. She had it safely tucked away in her luggage. I asked her why she didn’t wear it home and she just smiled.

Give me warm weather, a hammock, a good book, and my computer, and I’m ready for some serious writing and reading. My goals for reading and writing are similar:  I attempt to do a chapter of each. Of course, in that warm breeze, sometimes I just doze off. Did I mention that naps are one of my “favorite” things?

Glove Day

The arrival of seed catalogs, the unseasonably warm weather and my desire to get outside while it’s nice led me to our garden. I was greeted by the standard debris that was left behind from fall harvest. Corn stalks, bean vines and several overlooked bean poles are scattered about. The usual procedure is to scurry about cleaning the area just before plowing begins. 

A few hours later, I’d actually worked up a good sweat – in January! I don’t mind at all. My preference is that the weather stay in the 60 degree range until it warms up! I wouldn’t miss snow if I never experienced it again. I gave my work gloves a good workout. A little mud and other garden debris will brush off nicely when dry. Growing up we rarely used work gloves, and when we did, we wore them until they were totally useless and threw them away. 

I guess when you marry into a family you expect some things to be done differently. One of these “things” was the work glove situation. When working around the Dotson household if the gloves became dirty, they were nowhere to be found the next day. There was always a nice clean pair of gloves waiting. 

I never gave this much thought until I walked around the end of the house one day and there were rows and rows of gloves hanging on the clothesline drying. The dirty gloves had been placed aside to be laundered on “glove day.” I guess this is a pretty good idea.

 When growing up, if our gloves were too dirty to be used for a specific chore, we just “borrowed“ someone else’s. No big deal, we all did it. If you stop by our place for very long, you might get in the mood to help with some of the chores. Don’t worry; we’ve got a nice clean pair of gloves waiting for you.