Life on the Delta

One of my first orders of business in Mississippi was to wash the sheets, pillowcases and the cover for the comforter on my bed. Once they were all clean, the yurt felt much more welcoming.

The farm here is run by Jon, a divorcee in his mid-40’s. Jon lives in a small house with his aging mother and has a 5-year-old daughter who spends half her time here. He’s super friendly and works part-time as a substitute science teacher when he’s not tending farm. Here on his property, about four acres, he grows a few gardens of cabbages, strawberries, peppers and kale. His main business, however, is livestock. He raises chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese (the latter two mostly for pets), but his primary income comes from breeding goats.

Right now Jon has about 10 goats, and all of them are pregnant except for the single male. One of them, Daisy May, is almost ready to pop, so I may witness a goat birthing in the next few days (keep your fingers crossed—not only that I get to see it, but that I handle it better than that birthing video from 9th grade). Sometimes Jon milks them, but not often. His income comes from selling the kids at livestock auctions.

A very pregnant goat.

My work here so far has been to uproot three gardens overrun by tall, grassy weeds. That occupies most of my 5-hour work days, and I have one day off each week. The weeds look horrendous, but pulling them out is surprisingly easy—partly because I don’t have to be careful about what I pull up (except for a few obvious cabbage plants) and partly because the dry clay soil here lets them go without much effort. I usually have company, either from the turkeys that eagerly dive into the upturned soil in search of bugs or from a gigantic black snake that wanders from garden to garden. I jumped about ten feet the first time I saw that snake. Only moments earlier, Jon told me to watch my step because poisonous snakes are common here. Before it slithered away, I called Jon to come and take a look at it. He assured me it was a non-poisonous king snake, adding that they’re good to have around because they eat the poisonous snakes.

Weeding, before & after.

Everyone in the area here is a big football fan, especially with Ole Miss (U of Mississippi) right up the road. On my second day, it was declared that the college was changing its mascot from the Rebel Colonel to the Rebel Black Bear, the idea being that the colonel had too many ties to Mississippi’s confederate past. Personally, I’m not so sure the black bear is the best choice to eliminate any racial connotations.

That same day, Jon asked me if I wanted to go to a bar with him to watch an Ole Miss game against Alabama. I’m not much of a football fan, but then he warned me there would be some hardcore rednecks there. How could I resist? He chose a bar in Water Valley as opposed to the larger and closer town of Oxford for the sake of avoiding the drunk college crowd. It turned out to be a tame evening, but there was definitely no lack of rednecks. Sorry to say, Ole Miss got slaughtered.

So far, I’m liking Mississippi. The work isn’t difficult and the people couldn’t be nicer. And Jon’s mother makes sure I eat well. She is also insistent that Jon gives me enough time off to see Oxford’s many historic sights. My biggest perk so far was tagging along with Jon when he drove to a feed store in Tupelo. That happens to be Elvis’ hometown. When Jon found out that I’m an Elvis fan(atic), he took a detour to show me the shack where he was born.

It kicked ass.

Birthplace of a king... THE king.