Leaves and Contemplating the Ego Generation.
“Every generation blames the one before. And all of their frustrations come beating on your door.” - B. A. Robertson and Mike Rutherford (sung by Mike and the Mechanics)
At this time of year, there is no need to ask what am I going to do each morning after my ritual of cleaning the wood burner and setting the fire. Sweep leaves. The priority is leaves and more leaves.
“The pleasure of having trees in your garden is the unwanted yet attractive falling Autumn leaves. No wonder before Autumn this season was called Fall.” - Peter McSporran
Naturally, the bloody things do not fall all at once. In our garden, it starts with the walnuts shedding in September and finally now, as Christmas fast approaches, the last cherry leaf is falling. We did have a blower to clear them but we got rid of that as it was both noisy and very dusty. With my low energy level before my treatment, the motorised tool was far too heavy for extended use. Mind you, even a flight of stairs with more than eight steps was a challenge then, never mind a couple of hours spent raking and wheeling a barrow to and fro to the compost heap. Being able to sweep the leaves is a pleasant reminder of how lucky I am.
I have reverted to a metal sprung rake, much more effective on our gravel than the blower. At Keil School, our misdemeanour punishment meted out by prefects was called Natural History (NH) a total misnomer. Ninety percent of this punishment time was spent sweeping leaves off our extensive driveways. Brushing leaves up under the trees while in the spring weeding and cutting grass. With about forty acres of land including playing fields, gardens and buildings there was plenty of Natural History to be done. I often wondered why you would brush leaves up under trees? Similar to painting stones white in basic training in the army.
Most of my physical exercise and mental relaxation is when I sweep leaves and weed the garden. At school, I hated this task which I considered both pointless and onerous. A harsh form of punishment at the time. Now the same punishment has become an enjoyable part of my day. Of course, the Scottish weather is much more inclement than here in Portugal. I now find leaf raking and gardening therapeutic allowing me to listen to music by making use of my repaired hearing aids unused for nearly three years. This is annoying for anyone trying to get my attention, especially my wife, believing I am ignoring her as she is unaware I am immersed in a musical world of my own.
“Many tasks only become onerous when you are instructed to carry them out.” - Peter McSporran
While I am listening to my music, mostly from the sixties through to the eighties containing lyrics that can actually be heard, are understandable and have a meaning, I contemplate the state of the world. On hearing the lyrics to ‘The Living Years’ it got me thinking about the criticism of my generation the ‘Baby Boomers’ by Generation X (Born 1965–1980) and the Millennial Generation (Born 1981–1996). Both seem to have joined forces against mine placing the ills of the world on us. Personally, I think a better name for the Milliennial Generation sould be the ‘Ego Generation.’ My generation, the Boomers, I am proud to say by broad consensus were seen to have had a strong work ethic, self-assured, maybe too much so, and were competitive. We all wanted work to enable us to save for a car and hopefully eventually own our own house. We often worked six days a week while equally playing hard mostly restricted to a Saturday night. Gap years and overseas trips were certainly not in vogue. Travel abroad was in search of work and opportunity as I did. We did challenge social norms and anyone who was around in the sixties will know we were the generation that brought around liberation in gender, sex and social structures. I am inclined to think our subsequent generations are busy destroying many of these freedoms which are now taken for granted. Not least the freedom of speech. The right to have a contrary view.
“It may well be the old Chinese myth that the first generation makes it, the second generation either builds on it or spends it while the third generation inevitably loses it may be true. Especially in regard to free speech and choice.” - Peter McSporran
The Baby Boomers, unlike our proceeding ‘silent’ generation did not have to fight in a world war for our freedom. Our parents, from their experience, were able to instil in us the appreciation of living in peace. Most of our fathers fought in the war while our mothers kept the country going at home in extremely hard circumstances. Our houses were heated by open coal or wood fires probably only in one room and we went to bed with hot water bottles keeping warm under layers of blankets.
We knew, through the very visible smog over our cities, that we had to clean up our air while in the meantime totally unaware of the long-term harm we were doing to our planet. Of course, industrial pollution was limited to the developed world before the industrial giants such as China and India joined the industrial and manufacturing world. By 2021 the whole of Europe only produced 6.4% of world's emissions unlike in the 20th century when America and Europe were the main polluters.
“China's share of global emissions rose to 27 percent of the world's total, while the United States remained the second-largest emitter at 11 percent. India's share came third at 6.6 percent, edging out the 27 nations in the European Union, which accounted for 6.4 percent, the report found.” - Rhodium Group
Our generation, although seekers of freedom, still respected the family unit, generally obeyed the law, and saw things perhaps not quite in black and white but certainly not in the opaque grey of today. Unfortunately, drugs also become available to the common man in the sixties, no longer a recreation restricted to the wealthy and well travelled. In the sixties, the liberating drug, ‘The Pill’, came along which in turn brought the need for improved sex education in schools. Sex education was built around the birds and bees, the eggs and the pollinators. Like many of my generation our parents never mentioned them to me, let alone did I hear about them at school. Being brought up on a farm helped.
So why do I think the Millennium Generation should be changed to the ‘Ego Generation?’ Well, let me have a go at explaining. Please remember my thoughts are a generality of which I am aware there are contradictions. Our generation, unlike our parents, was given a good education with most of us either taking up a trade or specific tertiary education for a planned career. Sadly even here in Portugal, those tradesmen that come around are mostly of our generation, we rarely see a young tradesman. It seems the youth are too busy keeping their hands clean behind computers to fix a drain or mend a roof. Just look at the average age of UK farmers. Similarly, here in Portugal, you will be extremely lucky if you see a young person in the field or vineyards. Just this week we discussed the fact that plots more and more are being left untilled. Will we go hungry in the not-too-distant future?
In offering this education to our children and them to their grandchildren, it seems that all this education we have provided them with has opened their eyes to the fact that all the ills of the world can be laid at our doorstep. We are not politically correct, in fact, bigots. Forgetting the privileges they enjoy and demand as a right because of our endeavours. How do they deal with this unrecognised flaw in their psyche?
They try and break down everything we considered normal, not necessarily for the greater good, rather for their own benefit. That is ‘Ego’. It has got to the stage that they can now ignore biology and self-determine their gender or even genders depending on one's feelings that day. The race problems of the world are because of the slavery and colonialism carried out by our ancestors. To free themselves of the race burden, they blame others and demand retribution be paid to participating parties even more historically guilty than ourselves. In fact, there is slavery throughout the world today. Africa, just as guilty despite slavery adopting a colour stigma. It is not really about the past, it is about cleansing their own perceived guilt inherited from their ancestors who were at best probably serfs, no better than slaves. To do this, they are happy to tamper with history, destroy the reputation of explorers and pioneer industrialists forgetting how important all our ancestors are in making what we are. Why was that lady at the palace so reticent to disclose her roots despite the fact, she appeared to be wearing traditional dress? I did not say tribal. The ‘Ego Generation’ are a bit like that, what they do is not what they are. Of course, this is a generalisation, there are plenty in the young generation that make us proud of their actions and achievements. It is the visible vocal minority that sets off the bees in my head.
‘You cannot change the past. Further, you do not hang the son for your father’s sins. Nor do you expect the son to pay retribution for his father's sins. This would not be justice.” - Peter McSporran
Some of the further ‘Ego Generation’ demands are we want to work from home. Home is much better. After all, I can self-supervise my own work. I can decide my own hours of work despite my customer wanting service or answers now. Who is more important than me anyway? I can have more time to play on my computer rather than walking or sitting on public transport. I can save money by not going to work although my company has a place of work for me. I do not have to face a customer or supervisor face to face so my excuses for non-delivery are not so easily detected as lies. I can even decide what you say to me and what is deemed offensive even if it is the truth. Finally, I can even have my own truth despite this not being an accepted truth by others.
So unlike them blaming past generations I point blame to our proceeding generations for the possible breakdown of our social structures and way of life.
“When fences are removed animals will stray. Will the same be said of social and gender structures?” - Peter McSporran
I believe that the damage being done to normal standards in conducting daily life is going to bite them very badly, unfortunately, not as bad as it will the next generation after them who will have to fix the mess. They will be back in the cycle of blaming their preceding generation for their problems. In fact, the ‘Ego Generation’ think so much of ‘self’ that only settle into a career after an extended tertiary education followed by gap years. In the meantime, they keep complaining that there are too many of us Baby Boomers for them to support in our old age without thinking that many of them have lived off of the state or their parents ten years longer than we did. Obviously, in that time not contributing to taxes which pay pensions and services.
They are so full of ‘Self’ that they would rather keep a dog or a cat than have a child. At least delay having a child as these cannot be put in boarding kennels as they focus on their pursuit of expensive entertainment and leisure. Do they not realise the fact their delaying or not having children will impact on how long they will have to work in later life? As Rozanne reminds me, in their room, there are only three people, “Me, Myself and I.”
“Egos only think of the past for someone to blame, the present for material well-being and leisure, their future in the hope someone will else will take care of it.” - Peter McSporran
The Introduction of Cattle to Diandra.
With the purchase of the farm and taking over grazing from my father-in-law, we started to build our own livestock enterprise in the form of a cattle herd. Livestock had always been my favourite having been brought up on a livestock estate which made working for the Smith family in my early days in Rhodesia such a pleasure as Hamish Smith’s first love was always cattle. If you had asked me at college if I would be a crop farmer, it would have been a firm no. Especially following my time at Doune Estate working for the Earl of Murray where I saw his extensive barley crops being destroyed at harvest by the continuous wet Scottish weather. As I have written earlier, we failed to purchase a large neighbouring farm for grazing and cropping but continued in our search with my father-in-law reducing his cattle numbers on Diandra as we increased ours.
Most of the cows he owned on Diandra were Africander-cross-Hereford cows back to the Hereford bull. This was a terrific cross but unfortunately purebred Africander bulls were hard to source in the late seventies, early eighties. The few breeders of this breed who were left in the country seemed to concentrate on the size and angle of the horns rather than the economic traits such as confirmation and muscle. Unlike those, I was surprised to see ten years later in Namibia, gosh, were they even the same breed?
I started our herd, I say our as my wife Diane and I were fifty-fifty partners, by taking over some heifers from my father-in-law and purchasing some cross-bred cows. I felt my father-in-laws herd had not enough ear in it by then, too much Bos taurus not enough Bos indicus. There were a number of breeds that could supply this being the local Tuli, a well muscled breed, but also scarce, the Mashona, very fertile, but small or the exotic imported large framed Brahman which was gaining popularity with high profile breeders both in Mashonaland and Matabeleland.
Roger Beale, of RB Ranches, was at the forefront both in importing good Braham genetics from America while also in promoting the breed. A marketeer of note. There is little doubt he did the breed well but as the years went by, there was soon better genetics to be had, more beefier than pretty cattle with long floppy faces and narrow frames. His annual sales on the farm were a regional event not a national one. I decided on Brahams, the first I bought were a group of six bulls from Gullivers, mainly due to price as he was giving up farming. These were out of a grey RB Ranches bred bull. Some were good cattle, some were better at jumping fences. They did the job and I soon settled into a crisscross breeding program aiming for a breeding cow of about 450 to 500kgs. Small by today's standards, but easy to keep through the dry winters using only licks as supplement feeding. Ideally, the cows wanted between a quarter and an eighth Brahman at most. In those days in Zimbabwe, the Brahmans were not quite as docile as those seen today. The F1s were especially lively. Maybe it was our management. Once in the handling pens, they were easy to get into the race and the dip, to stop them was the challenge. Many a day, our herdsmen and myself made a quick exit through the rails to safety, especially if a calf was involved.
The steers and cull heifers we produced, we now finished on the farm using homegrown grain supplying the CSC (Cold Storage Commission). The better grades were exported, as we were in what was known as a Green Zone, Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) free. To allow exports, we had three zones the Red being vaccinated with wild buffalo and other vectors of FMD present or adjacent to, Orange, the vaccinated buffer zone. Green unvaccinated FMD free, the export zone. Movement of cattle was restricted between these zones with a premium paid to Green zone producers selling a dressed carcass of one eighty to two twenty kilograms for the European markets. This caused much agitation between the Red and Green, the Red producers claiming if it was not for them, the Green Zone would not exist. For me, it meant my purchases of breeding, rearing and fattening stock could only be done in the Green Zone restricting my purchasing venues of choice being Lions Den, Banket, Harare South and Mount Hampden.
Bulls were bought at farm production sales or the annual all-breed bull sale. My Herefords were mostly bought from the Belinsky, Bell-Inn herd, while my favoured Brahman breeder latterly was Rueben Pilosshof from Bulawayo. I am not sure how we managed to buy their bulls, perhaps this was only after restrictions were lifted with the cessation of exports due to poor veterinary control of FMD.
I loved attending cattle sales and much to the disgust of my managers, it was not unknown for truckloads of cattle to arrive on the farm unannounced while I was still enjoying the hospitality of the vendors in Banket or Harare South. Cattle Co-op was the main cattle auctioneer by that time having originated as H Shapiro and Son. Credit for those known was easily obtained from the auctioneers and it was not uncommon for me to come home with a couple of hundred head despite my bank account being empty. A handshake or even a nod was good enough in those days. My cattle became my walking collateral. Throughout my time farming, I never borrowed more than the worth of my cattle for working capital.
We eventually got up to over four hundred and fifty breeding cows and fattened a thousand head annually. This towards the end dropped back a bit mainly because of my time constraints or laziness. By then I had Lady Daphne Powell looking after them. A dedicated and proficient lady. Cattle sales and agricultural shows are where farmers could meet. Important social and business events on my calendar. Next week, I will chat about shows.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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