Ever wonder what it is like to drive a 2 and a half ton army truck while harvesting onions?
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Allow me to formally introduce my dad, 3rd generation onion farmer Richard Pawelski.
My dad is a thinker and a doer. As he often says:
“I have an idea stuck in my head.”
Frequently these ideas come to him in the middle of the night. They percolate and then come to fruition. Frequently.
Sometimes these ideas which get lodged in his head are good things. He’s always on the hunt for scrap lumber or tin and is always building something, or taking something apart. As our good friend Tom Savaglio has remarked, “you are a cobbler Rich, always doing something!”
The piece of property between my house and his, called “The Cemetery,” is filled with incredibly large Rich-made structures all put together with cannibalized wood and other materials. “I only had to pay for the nails” he has often remarked.
As I said, sometimes these projects work out quite well … sometimes, not so much. Sometimes he is not so easily dissuaded from one of the “ideas stuck in his head.” Allow me to share the narrative of one of those ideas.
See this barn on my yard:
That barn years ago used to be on my dad’s yard. here is a vintage photo of it when my brother and I were really young (this pic is from circa 1971 or so):
At some point in our early childhood my dad cut the side of the barn off and moved the primary structure to a different spot in his yard. I don’t recall how exactly he moved it, but I faintly remember him doing it.
Well, he then decided, sometime in the early 80’s, that he was going to move it from his yard to my grandmother’s yard (where I live now and it sits to this day) so all of his primary barns would be in one location. How was he going to move it?
He was going to take this forklift:
He was going to drive into the barn, lift it and have it balanced on the forklift, then he was going to drive it down this 1,000 foot driveway:
And then drive it over 1,500 feet down Pulaski Highway to the other yard:
I am not making any of this up. I remember, distinctly, everyone protesting this idea, me, my brother, my mom, etc …. We thought it was insane, but, as usual, my dad was not to be deterred. He even enlisted our neighbor and his good friend Ed Ratynski to stop traffic along Pulaski Highway as he slowly drove the barn down the highway.
I asked my dad the other day what happened next, and as he recalled, chuckling about it:
“I thought it would work … I had the idea in my head. But then as I started down the driveway, and the driveway wasn’t even, the barn started tilting toward the ditch. Then I decided it wasn’t a good idea and went back up the driveway.”
Another neighbor eventually suggested putting the barn on a wagon and then driving through the black dirt fields between the properties to the new location. And voilà the barn was moved!
In recapping this event with my dad the other day he lamented:
“I should have left the barn where it originally was, before I moved it the first time. The yard would have been more picturesque.”
But, if he hadn’t moved it we wouldn’t have had this story!
After moving it to its current resting place my dad built another side addition with his scraps and “timbers” and it houses a number pieces of equipment, including one of our AC-G’s, our Cat-22 and under the side addition our ditchbank sprayer, fertilizer spreader and Case 350. It is quite useful.
Well, a banner week in the media for me this week!
First, on Tuesday night I, along with Cornell University Professor Margaret Smith, was a guest on WSKG’s “Community Conversation” program, hosted by Crystal Sarakas. The theme of the hour long show was “Genetically Engineered Foods.” It was a blast and Crystal was a spectacular host!
http://www.wskg.org/episode/genetically-engineered-foods
Then on Wednesday I was interviewed by the always wonderful Blasie Gomez for a story on News12 on how the hot weather has been affecting the local crops:
http://hudsonvalley.news12.com/news/orange-co-famers-report-crop-damage-amid-heat-1.5713175
Finally on Thursday I was interviewed by the equally fantastic Meredith Zaritheny for a story on YNN on how farmers have been dealing with the heat:
http://hudsonvalley.ynn.com/content/top_stories/673899/farmers-working-in-the-sweltering-heat/
The highlight? Well for both Blaise and Meredith after the story I got to wash their feet, tho I only have a pic of my rinsing of the feet of Blaise Gomez:
While I didn’t get a pic of my washing Meredith’s feet I did get a pic of Meredith talking to her #1 fan, my dad. The following exchange actually took place:
Dad: “Hey Meredith, want to pull some weeds?” Meredith: “No!”
My dad did get catch a glimpse of Blaise and remarked to our employee Shorty as they watched Blaise walk down the field: “God is good.”
I forgot to post the link to this fantastic article in the Warwick Advertiser about Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt’s proclamation. I am still overwhelmed by it!
Thank you Annie
You may not have noticed but I have an “About My Book” page on my blog. If you haven’t the text for it is below. It is what I wrote to describe it for my failed Kickstarter project (I did that at the wrong time).
Since I wrote it I now have a fantastic editor, Penny Steyer, who has actually read the entire 100K word draft and made a number of initial edits. Eve and I are going over it and will be meeting with her shortly to move forward.
But, we still are looking for a publisher. It is an odd book in that it doesn’t fit certain or typical farming related topics. For example, the newbie who lives in the city and moves to the country and becomes a farmer. My book is about both conventional farming as well as the nuts and bolts details of dealing with the legislative process, working with the media and accomplishing really good from the grassroots or ground level.
A lot of people complain about the system, but how many understand how it works, and how you can actually accomplish good? My book details that. It’s funny, sometimes irreverent, and mostly entertaining and informative. I wrote it with the idea of it becoming eventually a film or tv project. I think it has that potential.
So, if you are a publisher looking to take a chance on something just a wee bit different but very provocative and entertaining … well, you know how to reach me!
Here is a link to an excellent local news piece that talked about my project:
Here is the description found on my “About My Book” page:
I’ve written a memoir about my experiences on our 4th generation family onion farm and my very active volunteer public policy/advocacy experiences over the years (http://bit.ly/SGwZb8). I’m an outstanding researcher, a fantastic first draft writer but not a very good editor. My wife typically edits my work but this memoir is just too long (over 106K words) and personally too painful for her to tackle. Remember “The Farmer’s Wife” documentary that ran on PBS a few years ago (http://to.pbs.org/aUdsi)? The shared experiences and similar pain made it too hard for my wife to watch (see: http://bit.ly/WcHTrM). So, since my memoir details some painful memories my wife can’t do it. I need to hire an editor and being over $250K in the hole makes hiring an editor impossible without help (http://bit.ly/wpxL5z).
Once my first draft is edited it will be far more likely a book publisher or a literary agent will take it on. Now, obviously there are no guarantees that it will be published, but, I can assure you I’m a very good writer and I have had numerous unique experiences over the years, including securing a $10 million dollar special earmark that was part of the 2002 Farm Bill, testifying before the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee, meeting and working with dozens of elected officials, including former Senator Hillary Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, current Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, amongst many others. I’ve also appeared in the media hundreds of times over the years, from the national press like CNN and the CBS Evening News and the NY Times to various trade publications and local press, to recently The Hindu and the BBC. I’ve even been quoted in Vogue (http://bit.ly/OqeFeJ). Now, come on, how many farmers do you know quoted in Vogue? Just google my name to see how often I’ve appeared in the media.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, in a speech delivered back in December of 2012, said:
“It isn’t just the differences of policy. It’s the fact that rural America with a shrinking population is becoming less and less relevant to the politics of this country, and we had better recognize that and we better begin to reverse it.” http://yhoo.it/VTM2fJ
I think he’s dead wrong, and it is exactly the opposite of what I relate in my book. We in rural America have been and continue to be relevant.
And my book is a positive story, because if you watch the cable talk shows and read people like Matt Taibbi (who I like very much) you walk away with the impression that the average citizen like you and I can never cause positive change, not without spending a lot of money. Well, no one has ever paid me, I have never donated anything to any politician. Not once have we ever been asked to do a fund raiser or donate, or even vote for the public official we work with. Hard to believe, but true. My story is in the end a positive, uplifting narrative.
Further, farmers and farming stories are really under-represented in the general media. I explain what is involved to grow and sell an onion, and how much, or rather, how little we make. It’s an inside story, one that chain stores don’t want the average consumer to know. I want to tell that story, to an even wider audience, hence why I have written the book and look to make it a commercial success.
I have a story that needs to be told. I’ve done the hard part in terms of the research and writing the first draft. That’s done. I’m almost to the finish line. Can you help me cross it by helping me edit and complete the work, making it more marketable to a literary agent or publishing house?
A few weeks ago it rained 6 inches over a roughly 4 day period. It was an extended “soaking rain,” not a fast downpour that ran off into the drainage ditches. Over the past month or so we have gotten close to 10 inches of rain, including nearly 2 early last week.
That is not good for crops. Many fields do not have proper drainage, for whatever reason, and you have subsequent sections and spots where the plants (in my case, onions) literally start to drown and suffocate from a lack of oxygen being available to the roots.
See this CCE newsletter, pages 2-3 for details: 
So, what can you do?
First, on June 28th I applied nitrogen to my most damaged fields.
Then, on Saturday and Sunday I went in with my Ac-G and duck hooks and hooked all of my wet spots, in an attempt to aerate the soil and dry the ground out.
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we came within a hair of having another major flooding event with the Wallkill River. If we had gotten 7 or 8 inches of rain versus 6 or if the rain had come down in the form of a heavy downpour that mostly drained off versus slower rains that saturate the soil we probably would have seen an 8th “50 year flood.”
And that is an outrage because a river of that size should be able to handle a 7 or 8 inch rain event over a 4 day period. The reason why it can’t is because it has not been maintained. I and my neighbors cannot afford another flood of the magnitude and timing that occurred in 2011. If it happens again you can kiss most of the farming in the black dirt region goodbye!
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120304/SMALLBIZ/303049975
Here is a new article for this week’s Goshen Indy (7-3-13) on what the Farm Bill is and what it means locally!
How mucky is the muck? Very mucky, very soggy, very boggy, very wet! It just keeps raining and raining and raining and raining. In less than a month we have gotten over 9 inches of rain.
Here is a recent YNN story I was in about the situation:
Here is recent Tracy Baxter story from the Times Herald-Record website:
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=MEDIA09
Here is the video alone:
Every other year since 2005 we have either had a flood of some sort or excessive rains.
In 2005 we had 2 “50 year floods.”
In 2007 we had a “50 year flood.”
In 2009 we had an excessively wet June and July (see my submitted written testimony which you can download via this link for details on the effects of that rains: http://www.ag.senate.gov/hearings/expanding-our-food-and-fiber-supply-through-a-strong-us-farm-policy).
In 2011 we had 2 “50 year floods.”
In 2013 we are excessively wet.
What exactly is happening to my onion crop? Essentially my onions in certain parts of my fields are drowning. They are turning yellow, they are melting down and not only not producing new leaves they are losing old foliage.
I will later today post photos.
What can I do about it? Not much. I can hook my fields in an attempt to try and dry them out. I’ve done that twice already but I can’t even think of doing that again until the ground dries out.
I can add fertilizer, particularly some form of nitrogen. I’ve done that once already.
I can add a foliar feed to my fungicide/insecticide spray package. I’ve done that once already as well.
Apart from that there is not much else I can do.
Welcome to the life of a farmer!
So, I appeared on tv back on May 10th in a story on YNN about the top priorities for the next Farm Bill that Rep. Maloney’s Agriculture Advisory Committee issued in a report.
My fantastic friend Sharon Soons does a fantastic job in the piece!
Somehow last week I hurt my back. How, I don’t know. I somehow strained my lower right side. Not the left, just the right. The pain was severe enough I went once again to my preferred massage therapist Lori at Tranquil Touch Day Spa.
http://tranquiltouch.vpweb.com/Massage-Chiropractic—Facials.html
Four times now when I have been in pretty decent sorts I have gone to her for a 30 minute treatment and she virtually heals me. Shortly after a treatment from her I am able to get back out in the fields and resume abusing my body.
So, this Saturday she treated me and my back felt better. The problem though was the pain migrated into my right hip and down my right leg. It hurts, and it is difficult for me to drive. But, yesterday my father and brother’s transplants needed their second fungicide/insecticide spray, so … I had to spray.
I’m wearing the outfit you see in the picture at the bottom. It is not exactly comfortable to begin with. As I drove the 140A out to the field I then realized the right brake was sticking. Every time I depressed it I had to stick my foot under it and push it back.
And each time I did that the pain was excruciating. To top it off it was hot, my tractor was missing (something was wrong with the motor) and I had limited range of movement.
When you operate this rig you are going at a decent speed and you have to depress the brake or you will go into the ditch. Each time I did it it felt like a knife was going down my leg. Then I felt it again as I got the brake unstuck.
My solution was to depress the clutch a bit early and come to a stop before the ditch without depressing the brake, or depressing it less frequently. This meant that a foot or two of onions were not getting sprayed. Small price to pay versus the pain.
I’m finishing the second field and am about to head back tot he tank truck to get filled up by my dad when I turn and look and see him doing one of his frantic hand signals.
He is always doing hand signals. I am supposed to be able to read his mind and understand them. I just looked at him and thought that maybe he was stretching or something. I pulled up to the tank truck, he attached the quick coupler and started to fill my tanks. He then walked over to the tractor and in a snide voice said:
“You aren’t spraying to the end. You are leaving a couple of feet. You need to spray to the end.”
He knew my side was killing me. But once again “Mr. Id” forgot. It was hot, I was in pain, the tractor wasn’t running right, and I let loose with an expletive filled tirade that dutifully informed him about my leg, hip and back pain and inability to easily apply my brakes. he laughed and said:
“Sorry … I forgot that.”
I immediately calmed down, he finished filling me up, and I eventually finished spraying for the day.
Mucking it up in Muckville 