Paperwork procrastinator

The 2007 Census of Agriculture was delivered to our farm, just as it arrived in the mailboxes of thousands of other farmers in the United States.  But, unlike some farmsteads where owners immediately completed the official document that tracks the well-being of our nation’s agricultural industry, ours was put in an ever-growing pile of paperwork for safe-keeping until we could give it the special attention it deserved.  I had seen the deadline date of February 4^th on the cover letter from the Department of Agriculture chief, along with the not-so-subtle warning that there would be penalties if I forgot to complete the twenty-four page document on time.  No problem, I thought, as I mentally added this task to my “to-do” list.

How could so many other things have come in between my good intentions of filling in the blanks with all the pertinent answers to the government’s questions about my farms?  As I sat down last Saturday morning, having checked off countless days and chores from the time I opened that big brown envelope and its unquestionable deadline, the reality of its due date being only 48 hours away was all too apparent.  I calculated the hours before our rural delivery postal person would be dropping off and picking up our mail.  I had four hours to get the paperwork done.

I suppose I should be flattered that federal officials at USDA care so much about our farm operations.  Their five-year cycle of caring forces me to analyze where we are in our progress to succeed as farmers every half decade.  I just wish I could remember where I filed the last progress report in order to compare answers.  I know its somewhere in my office, tucked in between tax returns and cattle records.

With no time to lose, I piled last year’s planting and harvesting papers, and our calf-crop record books on the kitchen table.  I turned to the first page of the questionnaire and began to write.  How many acres do we own?  How many acres do we rent?  Where are our farms located?  Easy!  At this rate, I predicted I would be finished with this exercise in a half hour or less.

With each turn of the page, the questions took more research of records.  Counting on recall was not going to cut it.  Maps, bills, receipts, and piles of paperwork surrounded me as I kept checking off the answers and completing the blocks.  I began to look forward to those questions where I answered “no” and was given the go ahead to skip to the next section.

On the way through the document, I have to admit I enjoyed the mini-agronomy lesson as I read down the list of possible field crops.  It made me think about the farmers who raise peppermint and spearmint in enough quantity to be reported in pounds of oil?  I had never heard of proso millet, emmer and spelt, or triticale.  If I had a bit more time, I would look them up and further my education, but the deadline was looming.  I checked off our corn and hay crops, and broke down the records between silage and grain, and hay and pasture, respectively.  As I poured through the pages, I was glad that our farms were not extremely diversified.  Beef cattle and their feed dominate our efforts on the farms.

I found myself daydreaming of spring time on this Groundhog’s Day Saturday in the winter month of February once I reached the Section on vegetables, potatoes and melons.  Visions of a garden filled with fresh delicacies filled my thoughts as I read down the list of possibilities that would fill a cornucopia.  I wondered whether I would have time to plant a garden this year.  I began hoping our mailbox would hold this year’s latest seed catalogue to peruse and plan rows of tomatoes, beans, carrots, pumpkins, and more.  The section on berries took me totally away from the task at hand as fond memories of picking black raspberries by the pail-full along old fencerows and woodlot edges on our farms took precedence in my mind.

It was a warm summer day in the late 1980s and my mom and dad were spending the day helping Mike and me tackle the many chores that we faced on our first farm.  While Dad and Mike worked on building the barns, Mom and I took Emilie to old fields where brambles had grown up over the years.  We were determined to gather enough mouth-watering berries to bake pies later.

 As we moved from thicket to thicket, Emilie raced ahead to find the next bush that was brimming with fruit.  Suddenly, a rush of brown and white dashed out from practically under our feet, startling all of us. My first thought was that a Hereford calf had gotten under the wire fence.  Then I realized the blur was actually a spotted fawn that we disturbed from its quiet resting spot.  I was sure its watchful mother was keeping a close eye on the intruding human trio.

I looked around for my Mom, and she was no where to be seen.  In a few moments, I spotted her nearby as she gathered herself and her berry bucket up from the grassy patch where they both had landed during the excitement.  Unscathed, Mom dusted off and began to laugh as we realized this tiny deer had scared the wits out of us, just as we had probably scared the spots right off its back.

Coming back to the task at hand, I began the task of counting cows.  How many had calved?  How many were steers, bulls, heifers, calves?  How many did we sell, and what did they weigh?  Trying not to count any animal twice, I used calculator, fingers, hatch marks, and finally filled in the facts.  I could skip over sheep and lambs because the only ovines to ever take up residence on our farms were Emilie’s 4-H Market Lamb projects.  And they exited in 2002.  No poultry have strutted around our place since the last of the layers we had gotten at a long-ago chick day found themselves in a pot of chicken soup.  Wild turkeys are the only ones that freely range through our farms’ pastures, and roost in our woods.  They are joined by the deer and bees that claim squatter’s rights on our farms, but are of no interest to the government unless “domesticated.”

The income and expenses sections reminded me that April 15^th and its income tax reporting date would be sneaking up on me just as quickly as February 4^th’s census deadline.  I made myself a promise to quit procrastinating and get busy on that financial exercise just as soon as I put this one in the mail.  And then it hit me.  No way was this census paperwork going to make it from PA to Indiana on time if I mailed it Saturday and it had to arrive on Monday.

I suppose it was because of procrastinators like me that USDA has given us a Computer Age option.  I fired up my PC and reported my farm’s progress on line.  In just a few more minutes, our farms will be part of the total picture of agriculture in the United States.  Blended with everyone else’s stories, these facts will paint the future of farm programs and policies for the next five years.  It was time well spent if it helps to keep agriculture strong and supported by policy makers in every state.

I will be especially interested in the outcome of the question on historic barns built before 1960.  That inventory may help generate programs to keep them standing.  As a woman farmer, I was pleased to see the female side of farming represented in this census survey, giving us equal status as farm operators.  Its great to be a statistic worth counting since the future of farming is counting on us.

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