An Outing - February 11, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

It was a partly cloudy cold morning when I pulled the shades up on Sunday. I wasn’t moving too fast after being in the garden on Saturday.

The sky was all stripes before the sun came up. I managed to get a load of dishes done then rested the rest of the morning.

The cat rug in the weak sunshine

My neighbor was taking me to a documentary at Great Falls at 1:15PM. It was Root Hog or Die. The director selected this opening scene because he felt it portrayed farming before 1970.

The link is a library source, the only one I could find. If your library offers Kanopy, you can watch it. It’s a pretty intriguing film. The regional accents are thick, so I used captions, which are available.

It was a portrait of farmers in the area where I grew up.

They decided to make the film just the way it was shot, starting in early spring and running into winter.

This is Louis Black from Leyden, MA. The film starts with him singing a song he learned at a county fair 70 years before.

They also selected farmers who were still working with horses.

I remember going to Grover’s to watch the boiling in the spring.

They shot in black and white because they could get the speed they needed. They used no extra lighting, only what was available.

This is Rawn Fulton, the director. He said he got involved in this project because a developed was trying to buy adjoining farms to create a golf course. The developer not only bought the farms from the farmers, but was required to buy them a new one to move to.

He found the farmers a fascinating group and asked Rawn if he would make a documentary about them and their farms. Rawn spoke extensively about the people and the making of the film. He said he’d like to do an updated one about the farms, but most of the farmers have died.

There was also an art show at Great Falls and some of the paintings were pretty nice.

When I got home at 4PM I got the chores, etc done and just watched M.A.S.H. until bedtime.

On Monday the solar people are supposed to come inspect the inverters and my general helper will be here in the afternoon. We will finally be planning gardens and working up seed orders. There’s no exercise class on Monday as there’s a big Valentine’s Day party that day.