When It's Round Up Time Again

It's that time of year again, when the farmer behind me waits for the wind to blow onto my property so he can spray chemicals onto my yard. This year it wasn't as bad as many of the past years but a guy really shouldn't have to be concerned about poisons being sprayed onto his rhubarb, fruit trees and all the rest of the foliage. It's a little hard to tell from the photos but in the top one you can see the top of the pine tree all withered up and curled over. Likewise the oak tree in the bottom photo suffering the effects from the spray. Most everything this year will bounce back, it wasn't blasted too hard, but wouldn't it be nice if the jackass would be a little more responsible?

The farmer does no-till farming, which basically means blast it with nasty-ass chemicals to kill the weeds, wait a couple of weeks and then plant, followed by more chemicals to control the weeds as necessary. I'm not sure what the first spray contains but it's some nasty stuff. The guy who farms my property chop stalks and chisel plows, and the weeds are not near the problem they are on the no-till field. He too uses chemicals but he's very responsible with them. Never so much as a blade of grass killed when he farms. I did a Google search on no-till for those of you unfamiliar with no-till farming practice and came across this. Seems it's not what it's been cracked up to be anyway. It's kind of ironic that I just re-read Gene Logsdon's The Contrary Farmer and here he is again - a voice of reason for sustainable agriculture as opposed to chemical farming. I think the guy behind me probably just does the no-till because he's too lazy to do anything else. This is the same guy who picks his beans in November and corn in December.

As I've mentioned before, my goal after retiring was to become pretty much self-sufficient. The vegan diet rules out animals as a protein source and I'm not going to have any rice paddies out front but I should be able to grow most of my own vegetables and a variety of tree and bramble crops. It would be nice if I could do that without worrying about some irresponsible doofus spraying Agent Orange or whatever the hell it is every spring.