I wish we had this law. It's from Quebec.

chapter A-4.1
ACT RESPECTING THE ACQUISITION OF FARM LAND BY NON-RESIDENTS
DIVISION I
INTERPRETATION
1. In this Act, unless the context indicates otherwise,
“acquisition” means the act of becoming the owner of property by conveyance of ownership, including sale with a right of redemption, emphyteusis, alienation for rent, forced sale within the meaning of article 1758 of the Civil Code and sale for unpaid taxes, except by
(1)  transmission owing to death;
(2)  the exercise of the right of redemption following a sale for unpaid taxes and any conveyance resulting from the Expropriation Act (chapter E‐24);
(3)  transfer of a right contemplated in section 8 of the Mining Act (chapter M‐13.1) or section 15 of the Petroleum Resources Act (chapter H-4.2);
(4)  transfer of cutting rights or timber limits under the Lands and Forests Act (chapter T‐9);
“agriculture” , “public road” , “commission” and “lot” have the same meaning as in the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities (chapter P‐41.1);
“farm land” means land used for agricultural purposes having an area of not less than four hectares, consisting of one lot or several contiguous lots or several lots that would be contiguous were they not separated by a public road.
1979, c. 65, s. 1; 1987, c. 64, s. 328; 1996, c. 26, s. 85; 1999, c. 40, s. 6; 2016, c. 35, s. 23.
The reference pursuant to section 97 of chapter 23 of the statutes of 1987 in respect of the Lands and Forests Act (chapter T‐9) could not be effected in this section because all timber limits leased on the domain of the State were cancelled on 1 April 1987. (1986, c. 108, s. 213; 1999, c. 40, s. 140).
2. For the purposes of this Act, a natural person is resident in Québec if the person is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident within the meaning of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C. 2001, c. 27) and has lived in Québec for not less than 1,095 days during the 48 months immediately preceding the date of acquisition of farm land.
1979, c. 65, s. 2; 2013, c. 24, s. 1.
3. Notwithstanding section 2, a natural person is deemed to be resident in Québec if he or she lived in Québec for not less than 1,095 days during the 48 months immediately before leaving, and
(1)  is a member of the Canadian Armed Forces;
(2)  is an ambassador, minister, commissioner, civil servant or agent of Québec or of Canada;
(3)  holds an office within the framework of a program sponsored by the Government of Canada or of Québec, or an agency of one of these;
(4)  is pursuing a course of studies or a training program;
(5)  is the married or civil union spouse or the minor child of a person contemplated in paragraph 1, 2, 3 or 4.
1979, c. 65, s. 3; 2002, c. 6, s. 77; 2013, c. 24, s. 2.
4. For the purposes of this Act, a legal person is resident in Québec if it is validly constituted, regardless of the manner or place of its constitution and
(1)  in the case of a legal person with share capital, more than 50% of the voting shares of its capital stock are owned by one or more persons resident in Québec and more than one-half of its directors are natural persons resident in Québec;
(2)  in the case of a legal person without share capital, more than one-half of its members are resident in Québec; and
(3)  it is not directly or indirectly controlled by one or more non-residents.
1979, c. 65, s. 4; 1999, c. 40, s. 6.
DIVISION II
TERRITORIAL APPLICATION
5. This Act applies to that part of the territory of Québec situated south of the Fiftieth Parallel of North Latitude.
1979, c. 65, s. 5.
6. Notwithstanding section 5, in a territory under a designated agricultural region decree passed under the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities (chapter P-41.1), this Act applies only to farm land situated in a reserved area or in an agricultural zone.
However, subject to sections 21 to 24, this Act does not apply to the acquisition of an area of farm land which, by virtue of sections 101 to 105 of the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities, may be used for a purpose other than agriculture without the authorization of the commission.
1979, c. 65, s. 6; 1996, c. 26, s. 85.
7. In a territory not subject to a designated agricultural region decree passed under the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities (chapter P‐41.1), this Act does not, subject to sections 21 to 24, apply to the acquisition of farm land if, at the time of its acquisition by a non‐resident, authorization has already been given by order of the Government or a municipal by‐law for its use or acquisition for public utility by the Government, a government minister, an agency within the meaning of paragraph 12 of section 1 of the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities, or an authorized expropriator.
The same rule applies in respect of farm land which,
(1)  before its acquisition by a non‐resident, had been acquired under the Act respecting municipal industrial immovables (chapter I‐0.1);
(2)  at the time of its acquisition by a non-resident, is adjacent to a public road on which water and sewer services were authorized by a municipal by-law passed before the date of the acquisition and lawfully approved.
The right set forth in subparagraph 2 of the second paragraph does not extend, however, beyond the bounds described in the third paragraph of section 105 of the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities.
1979, c. 65, s. 7; 1996, c. 26, s. 85.
DIVISION III
CONTROL OF THE ACQUISITION OF FARM LAND
8. Non-residents shall not, directly or indirectly, make an acquisition of farm land except with the authorization of the commission.
1979, c. 65, s. 8.
9. The acquisition of any lot causing a non-resident to become the owner of farm land is deemed to be an acquisition of farm land.
1979, c. 65, s. 9.
10. A non-resident is deemed to make an acquisition of farm land if he acquires shares in a business corporation whose principal asset is farm land and if, through that transfer of shares, that business corporation becomes a non-resident legal person.
1979, c. 65, s. 10; 1999, c. 40, s. 6; 2009, c. 52, s. 714.
11. A person resident in Québec shall not make an acquisition of farm land in the name or on behalf of a non-resident, except with the authorization of the commission.
1979, c. 65, s. 11.
12. A non-resident who wishes to obtain an authorization under this Act must submit an application to the commission together with all the documents and information prescribed by government regulation and, where applicable, payment of the duties prescribed for that application.
1979, c. 65, s. 12.
13. The application must be accompanied with an affidavit declaring the reasons for the acquisition of the farm land, the intended use of the land, and, where such is the case, that the applicant intends to settle in Québec.
1979, c. 65, s. 13.
14. The commission must give the applicant and every interested person the opportunity to present observations.
It may, furthermore, require from these persons, who must comply with this requirement, all such information and documents as it may consider relevant to the examination of the application.
It shall, before rendering an unfavourable decision, notify the applicant in writing as prescribed by section 5 of the Act respecting administrative justice (chapter J-3) and allow the interested person at least 10 days to present observations.
1979, c. 65, s. 14; 1986, c. 95, s. 11; 1997, c. 43, s. 14.
15. The commission, taking into consideration the biophysical conditions of the soil and of the environment, shall determine whether the farm land that is the subject of an application is suitable for the cultivation of the soil or the raising of livestock.
1979, c. 65, s. 15; 1996, c. 2, s. 14; 2013, c. 24, s. 3.
15.1. An authorization is to be granted in all cases where the land concerned is not suitable for the cultivation of the soil or the raising of livestock.
2013, c. 24, s. 3.
15.2. An authorization to acquire farm land suitable for the cultivation of the soil or the raising of livestock is to be granted to any natural person who intends to settle in Québec on the condition that the person live in Québec for not less than 1,095 days during the 48 months following the date of acquisition and that on the expiry of such time the person be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident within the meaning of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (S.C. 2001, c. 27).
2013, c. 24, s. 3.
15.3. Except for areas of land in respect of which an authorization is granted to natural persons who intend to settle in Québec, no more than 1,000 ha of farm land suitable for the cultivation of the soil or the raising of livestock may be added in a year to the total of such areas that any other persons have already been authorized to acquire.
An application filed by a legal person or by a natural person who does not intend to settle in Québec that would ultimately bring the total area added in the year beyond the 1,000-ha limit may nevertheless be examined by the commission.
2013, c. 24, s. 3.
16. In examining an application, the commission shall take into consideration
(1)  the intended use, in particular the applicant’s intention to cultivate the soil or raise livestock on the farm land that is the subject of the application;
(2)  the impact of the acquisition on the price of farm land in the region;
(3)  the effects of the acquisition or projected use on the economic development of the region;
(4)  the development of agricultural products and the development of underutilized farm land; and
(5)  the impact on land occupancy.
1979, c. 65, s. 16; 2013, c. 24, s. 3.
16.1. A natural person referred to in section 15.2 may prove to the commission that the prescribed conditions have been fulfilled and request a certificate attesting that the person is resident in Québec. Such a certificate confirms the acquisition for all legal purposes.
2013, c. 24, s. 3.
17. The commission shall render a substantiated decision and send it by registered mail to the non-resident, to the owner of the immovable concerned and to every other interested person.
1979, c. 65, s. 17.
18. Subject to the review or proceeding referred to in section 34, the decisions of the commission are final and without appeal.
1979, c. 65, s. 18; 1997, c. 43, s. 15.
19. The commission’s decisions shall be filed in its head office in conformity with section 15 of the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities (chapter P-41.1).
1979, c. 65, s. 19; 1996, c. 26, s. 85; 1997, c. 43, s. 16.
20. The Government may, by a written notice to the commission, withdraw any non-resident’s application from its jurisdiction and take it up itself.
Where the Government avails itself of the powers conferred on it by this section, the secretary of the commission must transmit to it a copy of the record and notify the interested persons in writing that the application has been withdrawn from the commission’s jurisdiction. The Government shall then decide the application, after obtaining the commission’s advice.
The decision of the Government shall be filed in the head office of the commission, which shall notify the interested persons in writing.
1979, c. 65, s. 20; 1997, c. 43, s. 17.
DIVISION IV
APPLICATION FOR REGISTRATION OF AN ACQUISITION
1995, c. 33, s. 11.
21. The application for registration of the acquisition of farm land by a non-resident must contain
(1)  the declaration of the acquirer that he is not resident in Québec;
(2)  the name of the local municipality in whose territory, or of the unorganized territory in which, the land is situated;
(3)  the area of the farm land so acquired;
(4)  the authorization granted by the commission or, in the cases provided for in the second paragraph of section 6 and in section 7, the ground on which it is not required.
1979, c. 65, s. 21; 1995, c. 33, s. 12; 1996, c. 2, s. 15.
22. (Repealed).
1979, c. 65, s. 22; 1995, c. 33, s. 13; 2000, c. 42, s. 96.
23. The registrar shall notify the commission of the acquisition of farm land by a person who is not a resident of Québec by transmitting to the commission a copy of the application for registration and, where the application is in the form of a summary, a copy of the accompanying document, not later than the fifteenth day of the month following the month of the registration of the acquisition.
1979, c. 65, s. 23; 1995, c. 33, s. 13; 2000, c. 42, s. 97.
24. The registrar must refuse to register the acquisition of farm land by a person who is not a resident of Québec if he ascertains that the application for registration does not contain the information required by section 21.
1979, c. 65, s. 24; 1995, c. 33, s. 13; 2000, c. 42, s. 98.
DIVISION V
PENALTIES
25. Where the commission becomes aware that a person is contravening any provision of this Act, or the conditions of an order or of an authorization to acquire farm land, it may issue an order enjoining that person to cease the alleged contravention within a prescribed time.
The order shall be served on the contravener in accordance with the Code of Civil Procedure (chapter C‐25.01).
1979, c. 65, s. 25; I.N. 2016-01-01 (NCCP).
26. If a person fails to comply with an order of the commission issued under section 25, the Attorney General or the commission may, by an application, obtain an order from a judge of the Superior Court enjoining that person to comply with the order of the commission, and ordering that on his default it may be carried out at his expense.
1979, c. 65, s. 26; I.N. 2016-01-01 (NCCP).
27. Any acquisition of farm land made in contravention of sections 8 to 11 is null.
The Attorney General, the commission or any other interested person may apply to the Superior Court to have such nullity declared.
In such a case, the Superior Court may order the cancellation of all rights and hypothecs created by or resulting from any deed of acquisition effected in contravention of this Act.
However, that nullity shall not be set up against a person resident in Québec who acquired the immovable by a deed of conveyance of ownership.
1979, c. 65, s. 27; 1992, c. 57, s. 427.
28. Where a person has made an acquisition of farm land in contravention of sections 8 to 11, the commission may, by order, to the extent that the right of action contemplated in section 27 is not exercised, enjoin that person to divest himself of that farm land within six months of the service of that order.
If that person fails to comply with the order within the allotted time, the commission may apply to a judge of the Superior Court to obtain authorization to sell the immovable under judicial authority. In such a case, articles 704 and following of the Code of Civil Procedure (chapter C‐25.01) apply, with the necessary modifications.
The proceeds of the sale, after payment of the costs, the claims of the prior and hypothecary creditors, and the fines, if any, due under section 31, shall be remitted to the contravener.
1979, c. 65, s. 28; 1992, c. 57, s. 428; I.N. 2016-01-01 (NCCP).
29. Every person is guilty of an offence who
(1)  contravenes this Act or the regulations;
(2)  knowingly acquires or sells farm land or a lot in contravention of sections 8 to 11;
(3)  knowingly alienates farm land or a lot to a non-resident in contravention of sections 8 to 11;
(4)  knowingly hinders or misleads a person empowered to make an investigation under this Act or gives him false information; or
(5)  hinders the application of this Act, fails to comply with an order of the commission or refuses to comply with one of its decisions.
1979, c. 65, s. 29.
30. Every person who knowingly does or omits to do a thing with the object of aiding a person to commit an offence against this Act, or who knowingly advises, encourages or incites a person to commit an offence, is himself a party to the offence.
1979, c. 65, s. 30.
31. Every person who commits an offence described in paragraph 1, 4 or 5 of section 29 is liable,
(1)  in the case of a natural person, to a fine of not less than $200 nor more than $5,000;
(2)  in the case of a legal person, to a fine of not less than $600 nor more than $30,000.
Every person who commits an offence described in paragraph 2 or 3 of section 29 is liable,
(1)  in the case of a natural person, to a fine of at least 10% of the actual value of the farm land in question;
(2)  in the case of a legal person, to a fine of at least 20% of the actual value of the farm land in question.
1979, c. 65, s. 31; 1990, c. 4, s. 39; 1992, c. 61, s. 40; 1999, c. 40, s. 6.
32. Where a legal person commits an offence against this Act, every director, officer, functionary, employee or agent of that legal person who has prescribed or authorized the commission of the offence or who has consented thereto is deemed to be a party to the offence and is liable to the penalty provided in section 31 for natural persons.
1979, c. 65, s. 32; 1999, c. 40, s. 6.
DIVISION VI
GENERAL PROVISIONS
33. This Act does not apply where a non-resident becomes the owner of farm land by the exercise of a right to take in payment if
(1)  his principal business is making loans on real security;
(2)  (subparagraph repealed);
(3)  the farm land is not repossessed following one or more operations mainly intended to elude the application of this Act.
Similarly, this Act does not apply where a non-resident becomes the owner of farm land under a resolutive clause or by the exercise of a right to take in payment if
(1)  he is the vendor of the land and has not received payment for it; or
(2)  the act or acts granting him the right to become owner under a resolutive clause or by the exercise of a right to take in payment was or were registered according to law before 21 December 1979.
1979, c. 65, s. 33; 1992, c. 57, s. 429.
34. The commission is responsible for overseeing the application of this Act, and, to that end, sections 7, 8, 11, 13, 13.1, 14, 16, 17, 18.5, 18.6, 19 and 21.1 to 21.5 of the Act respecting the preservation of agricultural land and agricultural activities (chapter P-41.1), adapted as required, apply.
1979, c. 65, s. 34; 1989, c. 7, s. 32; 1996, c. 26, s. 64; 1997, c. 43, s. 18.
35. The Government may, by regulation,
(1)  prescribe the inclusion of certain declarations in deeds or other documents contemplated in this Act;
(2)  determine the manner in which the declarations required under this Act and the regulations must be made;
(3)  determine the manner of submitting an application for authorization and the form and content of any document, notice or form required for the application of this Act;
(4)  prescribe the tariff of duties, fees and costs for applications to the commission under this Act;
(5)  (subparagraph repealed).
Regulations made under this Act come into force on their date of publication in the Gazette officielle du Québec or on a later date fixed therein.
1979, c. 65, s. 35; 1995, c. 33, s. 14.
36. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is responsible for the application of this Act.
1979, c. 65, s. 36; 1979, c. 77, s. 21.
37. (Omitted).
1979, c. 65, s. 37.
38. (This section ceased to have effect on 17 April 1987).
1982, c. 21, s. 1; U. K., 1982, c. 11, Sch. B, Part I, s. 33.
REPEAL SCHEDULE

In accordance with section 17 of the Act respecting the consolidation of the statutes and regulations (chapter R-3), chapter 65 of the statutes of 1979, in force on 1 November 1980, is repealed, except section 37, effective from the coming into force of chapter A-4.1 of the Revised Statutes.

Good for them.

Lex Anteinternet: I think our governments will remain virtuous for m...

Lex Anteinternet: I think our governments will remain virtuous for m...:

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural. . .

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

Thomas Jefferson

Lex Anteinternet: Where have all the farmers gone?

Lex Anteinternet: Where have all the farmers gone?:

Where have all the farmers gone?

Recently we posted an item about a conference in Wyoming seeking to address the increasingly high age of farmers and ranchers. Naturally, in this day and age, the conference seems to be focused on technology as the solution.

It isn't.

Land prices are the big problem. Technology, oddly enough, is also a problem. But land is the huge one, with prices driven up and up by various conspiring factors in our economy, improvements in transportation, the concentration of wealth, and the enormous increase in population over the decades. I.e., in 1916 a person still needed a pretty substantial investment to get into agriculture, but it wasn't impossible and you could still homestead. Now, you might be able to scrape and invest for the tools of the trade, but land is priced so high, there's no earthly way in much of the country you can actually make a living at it, if you have to buy land. This is certainly the case for ranching anyhow. You can't buy a ranch, if you want to be a real rancher, and ever pay the land off or even make a living on it.

That's what agricultural conferences address.

Wringing hands over youth not entering agriculture won't solve any problems at all. How can they, really? Unless their family has land, and the family is already dedicated to staying in agriculture or at least not selling the land, their task is daunting and they have to accept never being able to own what they are working.

Not that the golden alternatives are all that great, they're just more obvious. Those "good" "town jobs" that are so often the alternative have plenty of their own problems. In the ones where you actually own things, there are all sorts of problems associated with them, they're just less obvious and you have to really be a part of them to know what their downsides are. Your dentist, doctor, lawyer, accountant, or whatever, isn't going to really tell you the bad sides of what he's doing. His incentive is completely in the opposite direction.

Not that it has to be this way. This actually can be addressed, we just won't do it. Land prices for agricultural land could be depressed overnight by restricting the ownership of it to people who make a living from it. That would change it, as most of your out of state executives that fly in to "their ranch" aren't going to walk out of their offices for ever to take up the life of a real agriculturalist.

The problem with that, however, is that doing this is deeply contrary to the American concept of "I can do anything I want" and "I can own anything I want". Those values made a lot of sense, quite frankly, in the world of 1916 for the US. They're pretty obviously false in the world of 2016.

Lex Anteinternet: Ranch Wife:. "There's just one mistake"

Lex Anteinternet: Ranch Wife:. "There's just one mistake":

Ranch Wife:. "There's just one mistake"

Laramie range homestead, circa 1910.

Lawyer: "What is that?"

Ranch Wife. "On page 5 it says the date is 1918."

Lawyer: "Oh gee, I'm sorry"

Ranch Wife: "That's okay, that's the year we wish it was."

Lawyer: "I know what you mean."

Lex Anteinternet: Foothill Agrarian: The Emblem on the Wall.

Lex Anteinternet: Foothill Agrarian: The Emblem on the Wall.:

Foothill Agrarian: The Emblem on the Wall.

This entry from one of the blogs we follow here is well worth reading:

Foothill Agrarian: The Emblem on the Wall: On the wall of the FFA classroom at Placer High School hangs an FFA emblem, made entirely of vegetable seeds. It’s a remarkable piece of w...

I just started following this blog, but in reading it, while there are certainly some differences between my experience and his, and my world and his, there are a remarkable number of similarities and many of the sentiments expressed on it find reflection in various posts here.

And here's one.

I've split the rural/town divide my entire life. I'm a rural person, but I've always had a town address. Had it been possible to simply become a rancher in the early 1980s, when I graduated from high school, I would have done that, no matter what it meant. I.e., while a friend of mine claims that I'm so intellectual I could only have found a career as a lawyer or a priest, in his German view, that's not really so. I would happily have spent my days around cattle, horses, cats and dogs if I could have. Being born in 1963 meant that wasn't possible, just as it would have been impossible had I been born in 53, 43, or probably even 33. Realistically, it's probably only my grandparents who last lived in a world where that was a realistic option, i.e., to go from a city street to full-time employment in agriculture. I've made it part way there however, and indeed but for the more realistic economic concerns of my spouse, maybe I would be full time there.

Anyhow, my father was the first member of his family to go to university, let alone obtain an advance degree. Of his three siblings, two more attended university, but I think he's the only one that obtained a degree. An uncle ended up in the Army before he completed his studies and then had a long career as a fireman, a job he loved. One sister was married fairly early after high school and another did attend university, but I don't think she graduated, although I don't know.

They were all highly intelligent. Indeed, their father, who left school at age 13, helped them with their calculus homework when they were in high school. I didn't take calculus until I was in university and I found it extremely difficult. I can't imagine how smart you have to be to pick it up on your own.

My mother was not a high school graduate, or the Quebec equivalent of it, but she did obtain an associates degree in the 1970s. Her schooling was cut short by the Great Depression. Both of her parents, however, were university graduates, with that status being very unusual for a woman such as her mother at the time.

The point, well I'm not sure if there is one other than to note that all of these people were really sharp. On my father's side, they were very sharp people associated with the cattle and sheep industry, which my father was to until that was cut short by my grandfather's death.

I guess that's all background to something noted in the linked in article.

When I was growing up, the rural/town divide was there, but the lines were very blurred compared to what they now are. Many of us kinds in town were quite feral, so to speak. I.e, being a town kid meant, if you were male, that you were probably at least somewhat of a hunter and/or fisherman. But things worked the other way around too. Of my father's friends, quite a few of the men were ranchers or had come from ranches and farms before they went into professional jobs in town. A doctor or lawyer was as likely to have grown up on a farm or ranch than in a city, and to retain rural interests.

Ranchers in my region have always been pretty conservative. They haven't always been 100% Republican. Part of that has to do with the way that the parties have evolved, but as an example, a ranching member of my wife's family was such a Democrat that he always voted a straight Democratic ticket, no matter what. The point is that as late as the 80s, at least, a diversity of views existed beyond the city limits. For that matter, a diversity of views existed within the city limits.

Political party diversity has all but died in my state, starting for some reason with the Clinton Administration. Up until that time the Democratic Party here was a minority party, but a strong one. At one point in the 70s our Senator and Congressman were Democrats. We had an entire string of Democratic Governors, having had one up until fairly recently. Something started to fall apart during the Clinton Administration, however.

Anyhow, conservatism has always been strong in the rural areas outside of town. And its expressed itself a couple of times in huge divides between agriculturalist and everyone else, including other people, that resulted in near political uprisings by the regular folks. All of these have involved efforts by ranchers and farmers to take over, in some fashion, the public lands or wildlife. This is massively unpopular with average Wyomingites and it's been put down, as noted, a couple of times, but that hasn't stopped our Congressman from supporting it or Sen. Barrasso from getting it inserted into the 2016 GOP Platform.

What's become really remarkable, however, is the absolute elimination of diversity of views in the countryside.

Now, in fairness, diversity of views has been much reduced inside of town as well. It's still there, but it's much more likely to show up in the break room or in closed door office conversations than openly. It does occur, however. Indeed, one of the things I've noted about Rep. Harshman's recent off color remarks about Rep. Gray is how many people, if they know you, will now say "he said what we were all thinking". I'm really pretty surprised by it.

We vaccinate cattle.

Eh?

Now, that's not a sudden non sequitur.

I note that as the resistance towards COVID 19 vaccination was an epic level out in the prairie. Not so much anymore, but it took some people dying in order to change that. And even now, at a recent gathering, I was hesitant to mention that yes, I'm vaccinated.

Now, in town there are people who will subject you to a blistering lecture about being vaccinated. But they're a minority. Most of the people who are avoiding vaccination on a whatever basis will at least cite individual rights as part of their view and that people shouldn't be required to get vaccinated on that basis. That's an entirely separate topic, but in some rural quarters the opposition to vaccination was really so strong that you just avoided the topic if you could.

As noted, that changed when people started getting really sick and some died. A lot of the hold outs started getting vaccinated at that time. It baffles me a bit, however, as we vaccinate our cattle and horses, and nobody seems to think it inconsistent to vaccinate them, and not ourselves.

But then there's politics.

Ever since the election of President Obama there's been a turn towards polarization in politics that's had a disturbing corrupted aspect to it. And coming up with it there started to be a set of beliefs that oddly you had to subscribe to. Indeed, the one real sharp distinction, I think, at this point between conservationist who are sportsmen, and agriculturalist, is that conservationist have adopted the mantra that "you are entitled to your own beliefs, but nobody is entitled to their own facts".

Like it or not, you really aren't entitled to your own beliefs. That's an American bromide, but it's completely false. The truth, and much truth can be objectively determined, dictates what you are entitled to believe. This is true of the physical and the metaphysical, and therefore it not only dictates what you have to believe about physics and science, but religion and philosophy.

Now, as Shakespeare noted, human knowledge is quite limited, and can be much in error, which provided the basis for the quote from Hamlet that:

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

In that quote, it should be noted, the bard was referencing "philosophy" as science, the two being a combined discipline at the time. And what it also doesn't mean is the left wing position that somehow science and religion are diametrically opposed to one another. They are not. Indeed, I'm a Mass attending, Confession going, Catholic, and I have a degree in the hard sciences and there's no conflict at all, something that every Catholic agreed upon until very recently.

So what's my point?

Somehow, in the last twenty years or so, people went from being in camps to nearly being in cults, politically. That is usually the end stage for a democracy. When members of the opposite party become the enemy, in your mind, you become the enemy of democracy yourself. And we're darned near there.

There are now those in the local GOP, and more than a few, who are at the point where the only thing they can see is whether or not you agree with Trump populism or not. Whenever a Republican legislature shows an inclination to ponder or debate, if he's not right in line with Trump populism, he's criticized simply on that basis alone on a basis that shows no inclination to thought. To depart from the line is to question, apparently, something held to be dogma. One Republican figure at the time of the last election seriously backed a proposal to boot Republicans who didn't unyieldingly adhere to the official platform out of the party. The leadership of the party more or less officially takes the position that the January 6 insurrection didn't happen and is pretty close to maintaining that the election was stolen, which is simply untrue.

That's not the point of this post. But this is. Nobody, in any occupation, should take their beliefs from a political party unthinkingly. But people out in the sticks should do that least of all. The political parties didn't come up with their platforms at a branding or at a lunch break during the harvest.

What everyone should do is to have reality inform their political beliefs. You can believe what you want to, in other words, as long as it isn't contrary to nature, science and reality.

And, we might add, as long as it isn't contrary to the true principals of your Faith. Faith is supposed to inform your world view. Your politics doesn't inform your faith.

But, for a lot of people, it seems like it does.

Anyhow, some points to ponder.

For those out in the sticks, there's a lot more of them, than us. When people tell us that the election was stolen, we ought to consider that we're a tiny minority and that what natural and obvious in our political views probably doesn't seem that way at all to most people. The amazing thing isn't that so many liberal politicians are elected the US. . . the amazing thing is that any conservative ones are.

In other words, you might not have wanted Biden to be elected, but the fact of the matter is that Trump only was President in the first place because of the Electoral College. He lost the popular vote twice. Most Americans don't want him as President. The surprising thing was that he ever was, not that he lost, and he did lose, in 2020.

Most politicians aren't ranchers or farmers and there's a lot of money in politics and it didn't come from us. People don't invest money in something and not expect to get a return. Being a member of a conservative political party, therefore, is one thing, but buying off on everything it says about everything else, including science and industry, is something a person shouldn't do without really thinking it over.

Neither political party is the Agricultural Party, or the Rural Party, or the Agrarian Party, and frankly they don't really have that much interest in the topic at the national level.

Just because agriculture is an industry doesn't mean that what's good for other industries is good for it. Far from it.

Science is science and you can't ignore science as you don't like what it means for you personally. You don't get, for example, to smoke cancer free because you like smoking.

Agriculture has much more in common with conservationist movements than any other movement out in the wider American landscape. The two should be allied, not at each others throats.

We should be adaptable, and there are a lot of things we may have to be adapting too. Ironically, unless you are Amish or eccentric, almost everything you are doing today features some sort of adaption that your grandparents or even parents made in the first place.

Moving forward sometimes means moving back.

Lex Anteinternet: Some feral threads in the fabric.

Lex Anteinternet: Some feral threads in the fabric.:

Some feral threads in the fabric.

I'm not going to take this too far, and you definitely could, but a couple of odds and ends I've run across recently.

One is this Agrarian blog I recently located:

Foothill Agrarian

There are only handful of really worthwhile agrarian blogs around. That's at least better than the situation with the distributist situation, where there's nothing worthwhile whatsoever. Of the handful that are out there, the two best ones are linked in here. A third one that is also worthwhile (which is a successor to two prior blogs, just as this blog also is), is also linked in, but it's not quite as good. I'll do a thread on them some other time, or on all of these together. A fourth one would get a link for its actual agrarian posts, but it descends into "Southern Agrarianism" of the Lost Cause variety, and we're not going there. Nope, no way.

Anyhow, I thought that this entry by an agrarian California sheep rancher, who is an adult entrant into hunting, really interesting. He's also a self professed agrarian.

Persistence

We've posted a lot about hunting here, from the prospective of the nearly feral agrarian who has been a hunter his entire life. It's interesting to see some similar views come about from the thoughtful agrarian adult who came to it late.

I haven't made it all the way through the back entries on Foothill Agrarian. Not by a long shot, but I was also struck by this entry:

Coming to Terms with Being Part-Time

This is a little like reading my own thoughts. Indeed, this guy is just about the same age as me (I'm a little older), and he's a rancher, not a "homesteader", which anymore conveys something else, and frankly something less serious, or perhaps less realistic. I'll be looking forward to perusing his prior entries.

I'm glad I found his blog.

Here's the other thing that caught my eye.

Helsinki says no meat will be served, single-use cutlery used at its events

This quite frankly is a deceptive headline, but that's how it generally reads, even in English language editions of Finnish newspapers. What it really means is that the City of Helsinki will be changing what it serves at official state and municipal functions, and venues it owns, and it actually still will be serving meat.

What it will serve is local fish and also local game. We don't see wild game as a restaurant item much in the US, and indeed its subject to very strict statutory provisions everywhere. Why peole make the distinction between fish and "meat" baffles me, but they have here.

This is being done, maybe, by Helsinki (its drawing a lot of criticism) to reduce, it claims, its carbon footprint. There's a certain "m'eh" quality to this as frankly the concept that bovines are farting the plant into a climate crisis is not really well thought out. Humans are omnivores and meat is part of our diet, including meat that is raised by farmers and ranchers.

Having said that, I've long been an advocate for getting your own meat directly, and therefore I'm somewhat applauding Helsinki here, probably surprisingly to those who might know me. They're emphasizing local fish, which is something that people of that city probably mostly subsisted on until the mid 20th Century. And hunting wild game has always been a big part of Finnish culture, and still is.

Now, I'm not advocating for what Helsinki did, and I suspect that the Woke city counsel of the city, or whatever its administering body is, won't have this in place long. I'm a stockman and I'm hugely skeptical of the cow fart accusations on the climate. Depending upon how cattle are fed, this is not the problem its made out to be, and so to the extent its a problem, and there's always been ungulates around all over, it can be addressed. But I find it really surprising that in 2021 I'll occasionally find even ranchers and farmers who don't hunt.

People should get their meat locally if they can, and included in that, is getting it directly from the field. Its healthy, and honest, and connects you with reality in a way that going to the stocked shelves at Sam's Club doesn't.

Lex Anteinternet: Momento mori.

Lex Anteinternet: Momento mori.:

Momento mori.

I can't recall exactly when it was, but it was some point while I was in university. As I don't remember it being right when I first went down to UW, I suspect it was when I went to law school, which I would have started in the fall of 1987. I was supposed to start in the fall of 1986, but I had reservations about it, so I held off for a year, and my mother was also deathly ill as well, so I had reason to return home.

I'll leave that story for some other time, but what I recall is that I went back down to UW and at the start of law school I was under the impression that it was going to be really hard. Truth be known, law school, and I suspect any law school, is an incredibly easy course of study. Indeed, one of the first deflating things about becoming a lawyer, at least for me, was to realize how easy law school was. ^[1] I'd just gone through an undergraduate course of study in geology, and that was very hard. Law school involved readsing cases and knowing what they held. Any idiot can do that.

Anyhow, the first year I didn't come home much to my old hunting haunts as I thought the finals as the end of the semester were going to be really hard and I couldn't afford the time off. M'eh, they were not. That did establish a course of conduct, however, in that throughout law school I didn't come home for Thanksgiving. It was right before finals and I always used it to study for finals. I didn't go home for Spring Break either.

Somewhere in there, I came home and found to my surprise that my father hadn't gotten his antelope. He had gone out after I had come home and got mine, but he didn't get one that time and didn't get one at all. It was a shock. Even my mother, who was quite ill, remarked on it, and she'd gone out with him, whihc was also very surprising.

More surprising is that he hadn't hunted waterfowl at all.

It concerned me as it didn't seem like him.

When I returned from law school, he was much his old self, but slowed down. He still fished regularly when the streams opened back up. He went with me when I hunted antelope and sometimes deer (he never took weekdays off to do these things ever, but back then I would). He helped, and by that I mean did almost all the work, butcher a moose and an elk I shot back then. But he also was getting a little absent minded, enough that I noticed.

The year he turned 62 he was too sick to go antelope hunting with me and my good friend Tom. I knew he must be really sick, as he'd never cancelled on anything like that ever. He died the following April, never recovering from what started off like a cold.

This has been on my mind.

It's not on my mind as I'm missing hunting season. I'm not. But it has occured to me that I've become so busy in recent years that I'm now like my father. I don't take weekdays off to go, unlike when I what I did when I was younger. At some point my father went from a schedule that was six days a week, with half a day off on Wednesday and half a day off on Saturday, to all of Saturday off, and retaining the half day off on Wednesday, but he still started work incredibly early. For my part, over the years I've reached the point where I work six days a week nearly every week and sometimes seven days a week.

The past year, or indeed ever since the onset of COVID, I've been really busy. Things may have slowed down for oether people, but they sure didn't for me. So I've had my whithers to the yoke the entire time. So I'm a bit tired right now.

Which is what my wife tells me is going on here.

Well, during the really busy run up to a trial I started waking up early, as in 4:00 a.m. Recently that retreated back to 3:00 a.m, then a couple of times after that, it started crowing 2:00 a.m. At that point you have to do something and so I'm not back to sleeping into 5:00 a.m., thank goodness. But I'm just back to that.

Deer season has been wrapping up.

I didn't make the weekend before last out, as I had to work one of the days (I ended up working on Sunday) and we shipped cattle on Saturday.

No problems there, up at 3:00 a.m., worked all day, came home, ate out, and then up for Mass the following morning. And off to work after that.

That meant that I didn't go out for deer that weekend, but I met my son in a new area that we tried the following weekend. And that went fine. Up at 3:00, drove to Medicine Bow, met him there and hunted all day, without luck.

That takes me to this past weekend.

It was a frustrating week for a lot of reasons, some of which I'll not go into detail with but which make me feel a lot like John Daly, the saddle maker, in the 1920s. Anyhow, I had to work again on Saturday, which I did until a little after 2:00 p.m. About that time I knocked off and stopped by Our Lady of Fatima for confession. That took a little longer than I'd anticipated as the pastor was ill and a substitute priest came from downtown, but he was a bit late. I stopped at the sporting goods store after that, thinking about getting a replacement 15 watt gmrs radio for the Jeep to replace one I'd recently bought which was defective. I went home after that, getting home a little after 3:30.

I'd thought about going to Mass that night, and asked Long Suffering Spouse about going, but in the end we went to the across town sporting goods store instead. I was just pretty fatigued by that point for some reason, with the suspect being that I"d bee up since about 2:00 a.m. I'd have been better if I went that night, as that would have given me all the next day to go deer hunting, but I was simply worn out. I ddin't even get ready to go the following day.

The next morning I slept in to about 4:00 a.m., much later than I'd bee doing, and felt pretty good. While I was tempted to skip breakfast (I think eatinng three meals a day has contributed to my earlier rising for reasons I'll skip going into), I intead made two breakfast sandwiches with eggs, Canadian bacon and cheese, which is a gigantic breakfast for me. I don't really know what I was thinking, quite frankly.

I continued to feel fine until about halfway through Mass.

About that time, I was hit by a wave of fatigue that's difficult to describe. I attributed it to eating a big breakfast, but about the same time I began to feel odd. By the time I left Mass I was definitely feeling odd. At home, I briefly considered staying home for the day or switching to nearby duck hunting, but that was conceding I didn't want to, so I loaded up and got ready to go. By that time, I didn't just feel sleepy, I had a toothache where my one remaining wisdom tooth is located.

Now that might require a little explanation.

I was born with wisdom teeth, having a full set of four. When I was a teenager they started to "erupt", and my father pulled out the top two when it was convenient to do so. We always think of oral surgeons doing that work, but he did it for me as a result dentist. And both of them were removed without pain or inconvenience. I amazed at the time when people complained about how painful this process was, as it wasn't for me.

But he didn't get to the bottom two before he died. For the most part this hasn't been much of a problem. They'd erupt from time to time, but generally that would pass with there being only a little pain while they were erupting.

Once I was in my fifties, however, I began to break molars. And I broke one that was near my back left wisdom tooth. When that one was pulled by the oral surgeon (it was cracked right to the base in three pieces), the wisdom tooth in that area was removed as well.

That left just one.

This wasn't a problem until just the other day. I cracked the molar over there, and it was crowned, just like its opposite on the other side, leaving one molar between it and the wisdom tooth. The crown came in just last week.

All of a sudden, on Sunday morning, the wisdom tooth made its presence very much known.

It started hurting, and that went from annoying to really noticeable. I ignored it however, hoping it would go away. I packed up, and drove off. By the time I left the gas station, I had an incredibly dry mouth, and it was really hurting. This grew worse and worse as I drove out to where I wanted to hunt. I finally reached a place I wanted to check my maps and stopped.

By that time I was incredibly sleepy and in a huge amount of pain. I got out a canteen of water I had with me, checking its appearance (I filled it up about two weeks ago), and took a drink. The drink tasted good and I sat in the truck for a while contemplating the maps. By now it was foggy and wet and had snowed, I was tracking mud, and we still had a very long ways to go.

Normally I would have done that without hesitation.

Well, I hesitated. I felt so sick, I turned around to head back in.

Driving back in quickly became dicey. I was driving much slower than normal just due to the fatigue and the pain. To add to it, my tongue started to swell up on one side, the side that the wisdom tooth was on. I began to worry a little, but just a little, that I wouldn't be able to make it all the way back in, but then I was calmed by the double realities of being in far too much pain to accidentally fall asleep and that I had no other choice. No other choice really focuses a person.

I hit the highway finally, by which time I took the truck out of four-wheel drive as it seemed like the weather had improved. I started coming on in the hour-long highway speed final leg of the trip, still keeping my speed down. I was doing highway speed, but not high speed, which was in part because of the road still being wet. As I crossed the road where the bridge over the Power River is, I realized it was more than wet.

As I approached the accident scene, I knew what had happened. The Dodge truck, just like mine, had slip on black ice, its sudden disaster created in part because it was towing a trailer. It had happened on the bridge. It' had made it over the bridge, by which time the disaster was on. It had gone off the road and the trailer had rolled. One of the truck's windows was out.

I was headed towards the bridge myself of course and I knew that it had black ice, and I was in two-wheel drive. I'll go into four-wheel drive at the drop of a hat, but there was no time to do it now. Normally this would be pretty tense for me, but it wasn't. Just hurt too much. Up the hill I drove through what I knew to be a fatal accident site in bad weather from just a couple of years ago. I stopped in Powder River and went into four-wheel drive.

By the time I got home, I didn't feel so bad, but I didn't feel great. My wife recommended I take some Tylenol, but the tongue swelling had gone way down. About 4:00 I drank a glass of Irish whiskey, very slowly. I had a second over dinner, very slowly, and started to feel a lot better. I stayed up as long as I could, but when it was obvious that no Trick or Treaters were going to common in the 20F weather, I went and took a shower and hung on for bed.

On Monday I mostly felt a lot better. The mouth pain still comes and goes. I probably ought to call the dentist. I recall my father telling me that oral infections have the risk of being fatal, simply due to their location. The plan was, after all, to take that tooth out.

So, what of this experience, and those leading up to it? When I was a kid in the 70s I recall watching in math class in junior high, for some inexplicable reason, a Disney cartoon that was filmed in the 40s, probably for industrial workers, reminding them to stay home if they were sick. The film took the position that a cold was nature's way of making you take a day off.

Maybe.

Or maybe it's an opportunist predators chance to take something out, as it's worn down. Slow moving member of the herd so to speak. Or, more accurately, somebody who have worn themselves down through long hours and stress has a bit of a weakened immune system, maybe.

Still, maybe that means take some time off. That's hard to do, however, with things rolling on by. Or at least so I imagine. Perhaps it's often we imagine things that way. Not like a month or anything, but a day or two.

World War Two Office of Defense Transporation poster. Vacationing at home was no doubt easier prior to the cell phone and all of its electronic intrusions.

So perhaps none of this is as ominous as a person might suspect. At 58, I'm in a lot better shape than many, probably most, my age. But other than trying not to pack on too much weight (something I've always tried not to do, but I've always had to be careful about it), and being the beneficiary of my father's strong genes and my mother's athletic ones, I haven't been as active in any fashion as I used to be. I don't have a regular exercise routine like I once did, which was based simply on the 1980s Army Physical Fitness Test and walking or riding my bicycle to work. ^[2] And that's not really good. For some time, I've thought I should get back at it, but that's difficult when there are reasons you need your car at work and that you don't feel like doing much when you get home.

Still, as noted in a prior entry, the scene from No Country For Old Men put in above makes more and more sense to me as time goes by, and like Servant of God Black Elk, I agree "“Death? There is no death, only a change of worlds.". That's pretty evident.

And I'll be back out there next weekend. Probably for waterfowl. Deer has closed.

Footnotes.

1. There are a whole series of things like this.

Being a lawyer is really hard work, but you soon find as a lawyer that the field isn't populated by super genious of a Wil E Coyote level. There are huge intellects in the law to be sure, but you also encounter some folks whom you know aren't Albert Einstein or Richard Oppenheimer.

One of the big deflating things is the poor quality of oral argument, I'd note. I've been to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals twice, and when you do that, you sit there waiting for your turn, listening to the prior arguments. As a rule, they aren't great. Indeed, all in all the arguments I've heard at the Wyoming Supreme Court have been much better.

2. I'm not a "gym" guy and simply couldn't bring myself to do that, even though some of the gyms around here have swimming pools.

My mother was a fanatic swimmer and bicyclist which probably helps explain her remarkably physical condition after she recovered from her long illness. She basically went from somebody on death's door to somebody in their high 70s who was incredibly fit. Indeed, her really fit condition helped stave off, in my view, her ultimate mental decline, and when she suddenly quit her physical activities, I knew that something was very badly wrong.

The Agrarian's Lament

Lex Anteinternet: Farmland in Quebec. Ils se souviennent

Farmland in Quebec. Ils se souviennent