Gene Logsdon's Blog, page 5

Does Art Sense Social Change Before Science Does?

From GENE LOGSDON The top photo above of an Iowa farm scene, by New York Times photographer, Tony  Cenicola, was the subject of one of my recent posts here. Responder Rick Oberer graciously posted the photo for us to see. In that essay, I mentioned the similarity the photo bore to a painting that hangs […]

Small Scale Farming Really Isn’t Small

From GENE LOGSDON ​Economists sanctify expansion in agriculture as the way farmers survive but in the very act of saying that, they are also pointing out why farmers don’t survive. If all the land is occupied, for every farm that expands, another ceases to exist. So it would be just as accurate to say that […]

The Kingdom of Corn

From GENE LOGSDON You can find a stunning photo of the kingdom of corn in, of all places, the Sunday New York Times travel section Jan. 7. I stared at that photo on and off for three days, transfixed by what it silently said for all of us who know corn. In the photo, taken […]

Sex Is Such A Botheration

From GENE LOGSDON After food, sex is the most important factor in keeping life going but it causes almost as much sorrow and pain as it does joy and pleasure. I have often joked about how much easier it would be if we could mail order babies like we do baby chicks and I am […]

The Sanctuary of the Barn

From GENE LOGSDON ​A great story going around is about some Amish boys who found a novel way to make a little extra money. Their barn is the traditional kind, of course, with stables and hay mows and even dovecotes. Pigeons or rock doves have from time immemorial been a part of barnyard farming because […]

Contemplation On A Dead Chicken

From GENE LOGSDON A neighbor showed me a neat way to get rid of dead animals which I think we mentioned here some time ago. He buries a dead old hen in a pile of horse manure and in a few months, voila!, it disappears, bones and all. I imagine this works better with horse […]

No Such Thing As “The American Farmer”

From GENE LOGSDON ​Whenever I hear a commenter or politician (or sometimes even myself) refer collectively to “The American Farmer,” I know what follows will contain a lot of hot air. There ain’t no such thing as the American farmer. I don’t know how many farmers are out there at the moment but no two […]

It’s All About Money, Even When It Isn’t

From GENE LOGSDON ​If you follow this blogsite, you know I spend more time that I should predicting the glorious future of small, artisanal farms. I keep trying to define and describe this farm the way it will be when mankind it forced to come to its senses. But my sister pointed out to me […]

Watching the Gardens Go To Sleep

​ From GENE LOGSDON My definition of melancholy is putting the gardens to sleep for the winter. Sometimes I wonder if the whole holiday season came into being because people deep down in their souls felt the year’s life sort of coming to an end in the fall, and needed to be distracted from thinking […]

Toward A New Farming Image

From GENE LOGSDON A Ron Chast cartoon in a recent New Yorker shows a food store scene with a display of vegetables under a sign that reads: “Locally grown by a guy with a Masters Degree in Philosophy.” That’s funny in more than one way but it also suggests one of my fondest dreams. It […]