To the Extreme!

I don’t believe I’ve ever sought the advice of someone I perceive to be average.

It’s part of the human condition known as more.  We don’t look up to competent people.  Instead, we seek out and pursue the extreme, perceiving it to be better than good because extremes are highly visible while good is nearly invisible.

I’ve fallen victim to more more times than I care to admit.  Following are a few agricultural examples of more traps.

I can’t say how many conferences I’ve sat through and listened to a speaker discuss the vital importance of subdividing pastures into such small portions that livestock need moved 10-15 times daily.  Read that again: fifteen times every day.  They tell this to people who want to start managing their cattle more effectively, and all they’re doing is setting newcomers up for failure.  I drank the kool-aid and told myself I’d work up to such effective management as ten moves daily.  Monumental effort yielded absolute physical exhaustion and marital distress that was nearly catastrophic.

Here is the truth: 15 paddock changes daily is weird.  It does not correlate with a normal lifestyle.  Moving cattle is of vital importance; one or two moves daily does a great job and will not kill you.  Why would anyone highlight this reality, though, when there is someone else out there doing more?  People are misled to the extreme.

Not long ago I listened to an official explain rain-collecting calculations to a crowd.  Based on average rainfall in our region, and this many square feet of roof, and blah-blah-blah, a rain barrel can collect for a family 250,000 gallons of water in a season!  Consider the environmental, financial, and social effects on our little village if everyone would just embrace rain barrels!  The crowd nodded as one.

Unfortunately, unless you have storage and a use for 250,000 gallons of water, you’re not saving that much.  You’re saving 55 gallons of water.  If it keeps raining after your 55 gallon tank is full, the excess water overflows.  If it stops raining, you use your 55 gallons and the tank sits dry until the next rain event, at which time the barrel fills and starts overflowing again.

Rain barrels are awesome.  We have several, and they’re my favorite household feature.  But who wants to say they’re saving 55 gallons when someone else says they’re saving 250,000?  People are misled to the extreme.

A highly respected farm writer recently suggested a loop hole so that farmers can sell uninspected meat to multiple people.  Here’s how it goes:

Craig the farmer estimates how many 10 pound portions are on Billy the steer, and Craig sells those portions to the appropriate number of people – let’s say 120 - while Billy the steer is still living.  Now Billy has 120 owners – no problem.  The chosen butcher also needs to buy a 10 pound portion of living Billy because, as part owner, he can do the butchering work with no inspection.  But he can’t be paid for his work because then he’s doing uninspected work for others.  So to pay the butcher, he needs to live stream the whole process on the internet, and the other 119 owners pay to watch the live stream as part of an educational experience.  The butcher gets the money from the live stream as his fee.

Ok, this is a really cool way to outsmart the government, I get it.  But can you imagine explaining this process to a new customer?

“Hi!  I heard about your farm and I’d like to buy some steaks.”

“Ok, let’s get started!  First we have to wait for 118 more people to want different cuts than you want.  Once assembled, you folks can pass the hat around to collect your money and buy the live cow, just as she stands right now!  Then my cousin Eustace is going to live stream himself blasting Bessie with the .30-06 out behind the shed – you’ll have to watch, of course, and there’s a fee for that – and he’ll get her all cut up and everything, then, once all that’s done, you can come and pick up your meat from my garage any day between 2-5pm, because that’s when my wife has the car out.”

This is weird.  It does not correlate with a normal purchasing experience, and most customers will reject the process immediately.  Yet it’s being recommended to producers as a method to encourage local economies.  I’m all about circumventing bureaucracy, but this is extreme to the point of cumbersome.

So much agony would be avoided if we stopped looking for more than what’s right in front of us.  That sounds un-human to suggest, doesn’t it?  It’s not.  Eventually, the effort of sustaining weird will exhaust all resources, causing collapse.  The smart person hears the extremes and ignores them.  In a world of more, the pinnacle of human intelligence is self-restraint over blundering pursuit.  Society is exhausted from the chase, as am I.  Maybe it’s time to let the rest run off over the horizon after a scheme while we take a rest and absorb the normalcy of our regular life.