Song of the South

“Song, song of the south
Sweet potato pie and I shut my mouth
Gone, gone with the wind
There ain’t nobody lookin’ back again
…
Well, somebody told us Wall Street fell
We were so poor that we couldn’t tell
The cotton was short and the weeds were tall
But Mr. Roosevelt [Obama] gonna save us all”

-Song of the South, Alabama

That is one of my favorite songs. It is just about as old as I am. (Okay, it’s about seven years younger, but still.) It has long been a favorite here in the south. I have made an interesting observation about this song: as the economy has worsened, it has been played more and more often on radio stations, muzak, and I even hear people humming it more and more often. There is a strong sense of resilience down here. And there are an incredible number of people who are like Fine! Close down the plant! I’ll go home to Mama’s and help her with the corn! It will be interesting to see how this changes as the years go forward, and when the anger will start. (And against whom it will be directed.)

My little rented farm is thriving. The only thing in the ground so far is my salad greens, but most of the rest have been started in little pots in my office. This is what I will be growing this year: assorted salad veggies, tomatoes (Cherokee purple, Yellow pear, and Roma), peppers (Cayenne, sweet bell, and Jimmy Nardello’s frying pepper), Wautoma cucumbers, two kinds of pole beans, edamane beans, yellow crookneck squash, black beauty zucchini, patty pan custard squash, acorn winter squash, and moon and stars watermelons. Hopefully, the torrential rainfall we’ve had this afternoon hasn’t drowned my lettuce.

I’ve got an offer on the house. Assuming it passes inspection, it will be sold. I should get a few thousand dollars out of it, but it looks like I’m still going to be about $2,000-$2,500 short of buying the kind of land I’d like to buy. I’m going all in on this; there’s nothing being held back. If you’re going to shoot, aim for the stars, that way you might at least make the moon. Any ideas how I can raise some cash?