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ust when I think it can’t get any weirder,
something comes along that makes me shake my head and check my ticket for a
stop at Silly Town. Today it was a
column in the local paper by Reg Henry, a columnist known for his political
rants. But there was nothing political
about it. He was so taken aback by what he had seen that he wandered off the
beaten path and into the realm of “Is This
the New Normal”.
What he’d seen and shared was an AP
report about a drug bust in the outskirts of Washington, DC. The cops had been sure they’d find drugs on
the premises, and they did. Cocaine,
they found, and lots of it. But
alongside the coke was a stash of 20 or so large jugs of Tide liquid
detergent. In a drug dealer’s
house. In plain sight.
I will admit to a fleeting, gleeful image of drugged-up fun seekers, speeding their butts off and washing everything in sight...but, I digress.
I will admit to a fleeting, gleeful image of drugged-up fun seekers, speeding their butts off and washing everything in sight...but, I digress.
The story, it seems, is that Tide
liquid, at about $20 a jug, is the current cash equivalent of Grandma’s diamond
ring. It’s fair trade for drugs. Druggies are stealing the stuff and trading
it for cocaine and other goodies. The
drug dealers turn around and resell the detergent to locals for less than the
going rate would be at convenience stores, and everyone goes home happy and
clean.
That got me thinking about the current
Horse World economy and how we can make use of the concept of bartering goods
and services we have for goods and services we want. It made me think about the neighbor who, in
exchange for a load of firewood, brought me a garden’s worth of flowering
plants with more to come. She didn’t
steal them. They came from her
garden. The rest of my payback will
follow during appropriate dividing-and-planting season.
This same neighbor gets delirious over
bucketfuls of composted manure (“the gut
schtuff”, she declares in a thick German accent), and I started thinking about
how it might be possible for down-on-their-luck horse owners to come by
(legally) the stuff they need to bring their luck back into line with their
desire to own a horse.
Cliff and Zip dig up...uh...treasure in the pasture. Guess we all have to dig in together on this issue! |
Manure is a biggie. It’s hard to imagine that it’s regulated, but
to a certain extent it is, so you have to check your local jurisdiction if you
intend to sell it in bulk and advertise the fact publicly. New Jersey has laws (figures, right?) that
prohibit farmers from selling it as a farm product (where the hell else does it come from?) and begs the
question of what constitutes composting.
A whole industry has evolved from this in my fork of the twigs. But if you keep it on the down low, you can
harvest and distribute your brown gold to friends and neighbors in exchange for….what?
Farm help, for
one thing. I give you my poop; you come
help me put back the fence that keeps my horses from making home deliveries to
your front lawn. Garden-grown produce, for another. I’ll happily take those Amazonian zucchini
off your hands in exchange for five gallons of natural fertilizer.
What else do we have to offer? Try talking an artsy friend into weaving
jewelry out of horse hair from your
rare-but-efficient grooming efforts. If
you can get her to share the profit, you can feed your horse for a day or so,
gratis. Used baler twine turns out to be perfect in length for bundling cardboard
and newspapers for recycling. If you can’t
get anything in trade for the twine, maybe you can get the barn kids to go
door-to-door and bundle up neighbor’s stuff for a small price or a head of
lettuce.
How about photo ops? Kid next door is
turning six? Offer to let the whole
party stand next to your horse for pics and petting, and charge a nominal
fee.
Of course we could go over to the dark
side and hit the blackmail angle. I
could promise to keep my horses off your begonias if you bring me whatever you’ve
got on the table for dinner. Not pretty,
but in a pinch….
The most obvious, of course, is the use
of your farm equipment and your
know-how. My neighbors are fond of
having their overgrown weedy patches mowed down with my big, blue Ford tractor
and it’s clanging and clattering flail mower.
And boy, do they love to see me coming with the front-end loader when
they’ve had a delivery of something too heavy to shovel and in the wrong spot
in the yard. A few minutes’ time, and I
can easily make the price of a bag of grain or four bales of hay.
Think about it. There must be better ideas than mine floating
around out there. Maybe we need to stop
wondering and start bartering.
Meanwhile, here's a little something to think about. Can't get any stranger, huh? Try this: The Earth is FULL!
Meanwhile, here's a little something to think about. Can't get any stranger, huh? Try this: The Earth is FULL!
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