Small Farm Epitaph

Act 1, Scene 2

(With Wendell Berry at his Kentucky farm. Quotations in the following fictional play are from Wendell Berry’s writings.)

Act 1, Scene 2

(The stage is split roughly into thirds: right side is the Berry farmhouse porch; center stage is the Berry dining and kitchen area; left stage is the cheese house (obscured from audience view). There are two dividing walls, such that the audience is viewing the Berry homestead in cross-section. Two doors lead out of the home to the left. One door enters the cheese house (furthest from audience); one leads to the barn and milking area.)

Vermont Wendell Berry (WB) (sitting on the porch):

“The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,

whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,

to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death

yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down

in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.

His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.

What miraculous seed has he swallowed

that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth

like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water

descending in the dark?”

All my life I have tended this plot of rugged Vermont mountainside, as my parents and their parents did, and I would have spent it no other way. But people have lost their understanding of what farming is, and so they’ve left it behind without even knowing what they’ve lost. And that loss is enormous.

Americans today act “…as if dependence on imported goods and labor can be consistent with political independence and self-determination…. The economic independence of families, communities, and even regions has now been almost completely destroyed.

Far from caring for our land and our rural people, as we would do if we understood our dependence on them, we have not, as a nation, given them so much as a serious thought for half a century.” “What a tragic evolution has taken place….”

But many of us old timers stick to the clay like stubborn land-barnacles, partly I guess ‘cause we have no idea what else to do, ‘specially so late in life. But also we won’t quit because we just know deep down that we shouldn’t quit, like in a war or a revolution -- because doin’ what we do is just plain the right thing to do. “To defend the small farm is to defend a large part, and the best part, of our cultural inheritance.” “No matter how sophisticated and powerful our institutions, we are still exactly as dependent on the earth as earthworms. To cease to know this, and to fail to act upon the knowledge, is to begin to die the death of a broken machine.” I’d rather compost my way into these fields than rust like a discarded haybine that’s been “upgraded” and turned into somethin’ that never mattered.

Times have always seemed good for farmin’ -- only just around the corner that never comes. Tanya and I been doin’ this forty-some years, just slowly treading mud. My horses had to go when I got my knees replaced, and the hogs and sheep hardly cover taxes -- boy don’t those just go up and up! Praise the Lord those rich people will pay such good dollar for Tanya’s smelly cheese (aside: though don’t tell her I called it smelly). If only we could’a always sold cheese to flatlanders we’d a had a’ easier life all along. Well, it’s just great we got some income for once…

(enter Tanya Berry)

TB: Good morning, Wendell.

WB: And good morning to you, my bride. After you milk Gwen, and I do chores, I thought maybe we’d take a walk down by the river. It’s such a lovely day, and I’m sure I heard a Pileated woodpecker a bit earlier.

TB: Did you now! Well I’ve got to turn some cheeses first, but then I’d love to. And Gwen’s stool has been a bit soft, so I think I’ll grab a sample just to keep an eye….

WB: I was just thinkin’ how blessed we are to make ends meet with the cheese from just one cow. What’re you gettin’, ‘bout sixty-five pounds a day out of that old Guernsey?

TB: Yup, pretty much. Creamy yellow rich it is, too!

WB: And that’s about ten pounds of cheese when all is said and done?

TB: Yup, pretty much.

WB: And we’re gettin’ fifteen dollars a pound for that sme…. -- that stuff you grow in a cave?

TB: A cheese cave. Yes, Wendell -- it’s called value added. Artisanal. Like an artist.

WB: Oh you’re an artist alright -- makin’ $150 a day off one saggy cow is like making gold out of lead. You’re an artist all right. More like a mad chemist! You and that top secret laboratory are like the Coca-Cola recipe or sumthin’!

TB: I’ve told you, Wendell -- even the slightest bacterial contamination can destroy a whole cheese house. Just a thimble full of blue mold could shut down an entire factory -- don’t mess with Mother Nature! So you stay out of my top secret lab!

WB: Oh, I hear you honey. I will stick with my pigs and such, don’t you worry. I don’t understand all that bacteria you dump in there from a calf’s gut and all that anyway.

TB: It’s called rennet, and it has been used to make cheese for thousands of years. And the bacteria are added from dried cultures from France, not from calves….

WB: Whatever, Tanya. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’…. The pigs sure love the whey!

TB: I’m doing a batch of cheese again tomorrow -- that’ll keep ‘em happy! Gotta’ go milk Gwen….

(exit TB)

WB: Love you too! Have fun! … (chin in hand, pondering)

That’s just more money than a man coulda’ ever made on a cow in past. Even today sixty-five pounds of milk isn’t worth much more than fifteen dollars. I guess that’s what they call “value added.”

Used to be a few sheep would pay the taxes every year. With wool and lamb down in price, and taxes never headed anywhere but up, a well-tended flock pretty much breaks even at best. And the price of grain keeps climbing, while the price of pork in the grocery store gets lower and lower, so no one wants to pay for good quality home-raised pork anymore -- it’s hard to even justify keepin’ ‘em. Maybe we should get another cow, and sell the hogs…

(enter Rodger Pion) RP: Hey Wendell, how’s the agrarian life treatin’ ya?

WB: Good morning Rodger. And how is Mr. Pion today?

RP: Oh just usual: runnin’ tractor, makin’ hay.

WB: That’s all?

RP: And growin’ some hemp. It is an American’s patriotic duty to grow hemp you know, Wendell. Washington and Jefferson grew hemp, you know, Wendell.

WB: I don’t really need to know about your hemp, Rodger. From what I hear you’re like my old grandfather, Milburn, anyway.

RP: How’s that?

WB: Well, Milburn had a still over the ridge through the Great Depression. I asked my grandmother once if he ever made any income for the family from the effort. “No,” she reflected, “as I recall, he always drank it all before it was ready!” I’ve heard that you harvest your hemp before its ready, and smoke it in a water bong thingy.

RP: I’m still developing my strain. A new strain. Better than anything else.

WB: Yeah that’s what Monsanto said about its “Terminator” corn that can’t reproduce. You sound like a mad scientist who tried out his product on himself…. And it’s made you an addict to Ben & Jerry’s….

RP: I love Ben & Jerry’s!

WB: It’s not like homemade.

RP: Who cares, man? It tastes like awesome!

WB: Well I’m very glad you like your ice cream, Rodger. How’s your Dad, Bones?

RP: Oh, Bones is good. You know as good as farmin’ will treat ya’. The manure pit needs work, and the price of milk is weak as ever! But that’s farmin’ I guess…

WB: Well it’s just not right. It seems there should at least be some up-years for farmin’ folk. But farmin’ isn’t just about money.

RP (orating): Thomas Jefferson said: “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.”

WB: Yes, but “The number of US farmers dropped by 300,000 between 1979 and 1998.”

RP: Replaced by factory farms. But “I dislike the thought that some animal has been made miserable in order to feed me. If I am going to eat meat, I want it to be from an animal that has lived a pleasant, un-crowded life outdoors, on bountiful pasture, with good water nearby and trees for shade.”

WB: That seems basic enough, but people today don‘t seem to know or care where their meat -- or any other food -- comes from. “[O]ne remembers uneasily that there has been a public clamor in defense of the family farm throughout all the years of its decline…. If many people do not own the usable property, then they must submit to the few who do own it. They cannot eat or be sheltered or clothed except in submission. They will find themselves entirely dependent on money; they will find costs always higher, and money always harder to get.”

RP: That’s why growing hemp is a revolutionary act, Wendell! We can take back the farms!

WB: You’ve been talking to Willy Nelson again, haven’t you, Rodger?

RP (orating again): “To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart….”

WB: That’s no reason to grow pot. Perhaps you are instead mad in a sane time, which is always bad for both heart and brain.

RP: But it’s insane to put people in jail for smoking pot!

WB: Unless they’re insane from smoking it….

RP: But that’s reefer madness! People don’t go insane from smoking pot! What are you talking about -- are you absolutely nuts?

WB: I don’t know, Rodger, you seem to be getting quite worked up… Ha ha ha.

RP (getting it): Oh very funny Wendell… You had me, I admit it. OK. OK.

(enter TB)

TB: Another milkin’ done. Animals look good. Hey Rodge.

RP: Hey Tanya, how’s the cheese business? (winks)

TB: Oh, grand! I’m making a new petite tomme that will be unique, if it comes out OK…. There is no end to the different cheeses that can be made right here in Vermont.

RP: Yeah but why don’t Cabot or some big corporation grab your business and just start makin’ little cheeses? That’s what the beer companies did with small breweries when Americans grew taste buds for beer.

TB: That’s just it, Rodger -- they can’t. Only small farms can make small cheeses. And the thing that’s best is that all the things which make it hard to produce milk in Vermont -- the mountains, bitter cold, long winters, and rocky clay soil -- are exactly the things that make our milk special and rich for cheese making.

RP: No way!

TB: Yeah way! Like the Swiss Alps make a rich orange butter, unlike any in the world. The bodies of the animals in Vermont work harder to make a milk that no other animals in the world can make. It will always be that way. Vermont could support two hundred small-farm cheese-makers, no problem.

WB: Let’s hope so. Lord knows without your income from the cheese we’d be quits already. And of course, small farmers take better care of their animals, and return their manure to the earth instead of turning it into toxic waste. As long as small farmers have a production niche like small cheeses, local vegetables or grass-fed meat, there will be at least some remnant of a farming economy. The big corporations would control those too, if they could.

(Song: Callous)

Nothing’s as brutal as the forces of nature

There’s no mercy in tornadoes or wildfires.

The tsunami rushes with the soft voice of death,

crushing human hopes, ignoring human cries.

Nothing’s as callous as the swings of the climate;

the cold doesn’t care that it’s aching your bones.

The cows lie dead with the horses from drought,

The flood didn’t care that those houses were homes.

Somebody tell me there’s hope for us humans

That we won’t kill ourselves as we lose our compassion

Somebody give me some hope for us humans

Nothing’s as harsh as the swings of the market

There’s no refund when stock options expire

The Dow Jones and housing are mere lines on charts

Crushing human hopes, ignoring human cries.

Nothing’s as brutal as the market for jobs

There are only so many rooms at the inn….

Those turned away must try again tomorrow

Their shoes like their waists growing thin.

Nothing’s as uncaring as the process of foreclosure

The sheriffs, bankers, and judges are drones.

Who cares where your children were raised -- this is business

The banks didn’t care that those houses were homes.

Capitalism’s callous as cancer

It just grows and consumes and grows

Always demanding more to devour

Even human dreams and human souls.

It doesn’t care that land is poisoned

That small farms and local businesses are doomed

It doesn’t care that air and water

Are toxified as all is consumed.

RP: Growing vegetables is a revolutionary act!

WB: Well, now I’ll agree with you, Rodger -- it is indeed revolutionary to be self-sufficient in a world that is dependent on unhealthy fast food and mega-stores to eat.

RP: And herbs! Growing herbs too!

WB: Rodger….

(enter Michelle Brown)

MB: Hey everybody! Good morning Wendell! What a beautiful morning, huh?

(all) beautiful. Awesome.

RP: Hey Michelle, is your flatlander husband off to his starch-in-the-shirt cubicle job?

WB: Rodger, don’t start.

MB: No, it’s fine Wendell. Rodger’s right. I love my husband, but he really doesn’t like the countryside, and all he thinks about is his “career” at ANTO, and his next pay raise. And no, Rodger, he doesn’t work in a cubicle. (pause) But he does take quite a bit of starch! Ha ha.

TB: Won’t he even help in the garden? Doesn’t he like all the fresh vegetables you work so hard to grow and preserve?

MB: Are you kidding? He might get his slacks dirty. And he gets reflux at the smell of manure.

WB: Composted even?

MB: Yep…. And silage.

RP: No way! Everybody loves the smell of silage! What’s wrong with him? Has he been to a doctor?!! That man’s thick as a fifty-pound mineral block!

WB: On that note, I’m going to go feed the animals….

(exit WB)

MB: I’m pretty sure he was always this way, Rodger. Remember we met in Boston, and there weren’t any farms to reveal my husband’s true colors.

RP: Yeah, but you must’ve known that ANTO was evil.

MB: He was still in graduate school when we got married. And everybody needs to make a living. We didn’t know what he would be doing for ANTO back then either.

TB: It’s nasty, isn’t it?

MB: I am afraid it is, but he doesn’t tell me. Says he doesn’t want to bother me with boring work stuff… But I know that a lot of the things that company does are just plain wrong. “[T]he greed of corporations has grown so elaborate that they wish to patent discoveries before they are discovered….”

RP: Yeah, who doesn’t know that about ANTO? The “Agricultural Nirvana Technologies Organization”. Give me a break, Michelle -- how does your husband sleep at night?

MB: Barack sleeps just fine! (pause) It’s me who can’t sleep. I have asked him to switch jobs or find a new career, but he is obsessed. It’s like he’s in the mafia or the police force or something.

TB: Michelle, you have to do something. I know you’ve talked, but you can’t go on like this. What are you going to do?

MB: What can I do? What is there to do when your husband is destroying the world?

(Song: What Do You Do?)

I fell in love with a man whose eyes

Promised warmth and compassion.

But the true heart of a man lies

In the way his soul was fashioned.

But I was young, I fell like a rock

To gentle eye and smile beguiled;

They said no one could tame Barack

That his ego would always be wild.

Ten years on, he’s a big exec,

In a food company called ANTO

Work is good but home life’s a wreck

Can’t fix it if I want to.

Growing up, becoming aware

Life seems more and more unfair

They never taught me as a girl.

What do you do when your husband’s destroying the world?

At first it was fun, the fame and glitz

The allure of wealth and a man of fine wits

But as time passed, it all lacked worth:

What to do when your husband’s destroying the earth?

Climbing up the corporate ladder

Controlling food to make his wallet fatter

All pollution to the future hurled

What to do when your husband’s destroying the world?

It would be better if I were a peasant

Than with a man I thought good, but who isn’t

I always wondered what the world was about

Barack turned my world inside out.

It really is precarious

When your husband is nefarious….

But it really isn’t funny,

When your beloved honey

Has set out to destroy the world….

TB: Sorry I can’t help you there. I don’t know what I’d do in your shoes, Michelle. Barack is a nice fellow, and educated. But it seems no man with common sense would take a job like his, and that with his education and opportunities, he’d know better!

RP: Like I said, a flatlander!

TB: Well, Rodger, there but for the grace of God go you -- you could have been born in Newark you know…

RP: I was born in Newark!

TB: I mean Newark, N.J. not Newark, Vermont, Rodger.

RP: There’s a Newark in New Jersey? No way!… But if I’d been born on the sidewalk, I’d ‘a crawled up a tree. You can’t get the country out of this blood! I was born to drive tractor!

TB: You’re dreamin’, Rodger, but that’s no surprise. And you think you can solve every problem with a tractor…

RP: Well of course you can. Stumps, tows, trees, cows, snow, mud, grain, manure -- you name it! Tractor will move it.

MB: Oh I’ll bet you’ll find something that a tractor won’t serve for, Rodger. Give it time.

TB: I’m just glad I have Wendell -- he’s like my baby bear: not too hot, not too cold. He’s neither a sterilized, clueless flatlander nor a beer-suckin’, foul-mouthed redneck. He’s kinda’ like a cross: like a mule.

(Song: My Man’s A Mule)

My mom and dad became alarmed

When I told them I loved a man who farmed

For quite a long time they thought me a fool

But gained respect in the end that my man’s a mule.

Like a well-trained mule, he’s never nervous

Always prepared to be pressed into service

Patient and strong, loyal and true

At times he’s a jack-ass, but my man’s a mule.

And though my man may sing in the wrong key

That’s Ok because he’s a donkey

So now most girls in my family drool

At the opportunity missed -- my man’s a mule.

And it seems that it really isn’t fair

That mules like mine are increasingly rare

Because he tills the earth like a human tool

Determined to provide: my man’s a mule

To me it is quite elemental

My mule Wendell is brave but gentle

Without him I’d be a two-legged stool

I’m absolutely joyful that my man is a mule

Sometimes stubborn or quick to start

I’m completely devoted to the thick-headed old fart

He has always pulled harness by the Golden Rule

Together we have been driven: my man’s a mule.

MB: Well I never thought I’d want a mule, but now you got me thinkin’….

(enter WB)

WB: What, you and Barack are gettin’ a mule?

TB: No, Wendell. I think Michelle was just making an analogy.

RP: Hey are you gals goin’ to the Parker Store? I’ll give you a ride on my tractor! You can all fit, if we use the bucket!

TB: I guess we’ll meet you down there, Rodger. Never know what’s been in your bucket before us…. Besides, we’re waitin’ for Shannon…. Oh, here she is now.

(enter Shannon Berry; gives Mom and Dad a kiss)

SB: Mornin’ Mom. Mornin’ Dad. Hey everybody.

(all): Good morning, honey. Mornin’ Shannon.

TB: Michelle, are you going to the store?

MB: Sure, I’d love an organic coffee and a blueberry scone!

RP (aside): (flatlander!)

WB: That sounds nice….

TB: Girl trip, dear.

WB: OK. What about Rodger? He’s goin’?

TB: Well I can’t very well stop him now, can I?

WB: No, I reckon not…

RP: I was at the Parker Country Store one day last year, returning a piece of stovepipe I had left over from helping old man Cosset patch in that used wood furnace he got from Sadie Alexander. Well didn’t I see John Malkovich buying a roll of paper towels ‘cause his dog had puked in his car. Yup I said “that’s John Malkovich,” and he says…

MB: We’ve heard the story, Rodger…

RP: It’s not just a story, Michelle -- it really happened. The stove pipe and everything.

TB: Bye Wendell. Michelle, will you and Shannon help me load the cheeses from the cheese house into the Subaru? See ya Rodger.

MB: Sure.

(Rodger exits right; TB, SB, and MB exit left into cheese house)

WB (orating): Walt Whitman saw the soul of the farmer:

“ ‘Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn, -- ‘mid the joy

Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy.,,,

….A farmer he was; and his house far and near

Was the boast of the country for excellent cheer.

Yet Adam prized little the feast and the bowl, --

The fields better suited the ease of his soul:

He strayed through the fields like an indolent wight

The quiet of nature was Adam‘s delight.”

[Reader’s note. The character of Rodger Pion is based on the real Rodger Pion, notorious in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom — and nationally — for mowing down a row of police cars with his tractor: Vermont man uses tractor to flatten 8 police cars.]