Author: Nuttygrass

I'm a nut and grass farmer, EMT, Firefighter, and world traveler. I love a good laugh and a great adventure!

She talks like a Farmer, and looks like a Farmer…but what about when she doesn’t?

I was listening to the radio today and the DJ was talking about what clothes look the worst on women. Apparently one of the worst offenders is the women’s overalls! And she was so annoyed because she said that she loves her gardening overalls, they make her feel more “farmer-ish”. So I got to thinking about if what we wear truly makes a difference to how “farmer-ish” we act or feel or even how other people perceive us? Personally I don’t wear overalls, although I’ve been seen in many pairs of coveralls, carharts, and my most recent favorite farmer clothing piece a Stormy Kromer. But I wonder if that makes me a better farmer, like when people wear suits to work to feel more professional and keep their attitude in the work place not as casual? I remember the first week I came back to the farm as the newly hired “Intern”. Dad looked at what I had on, one layer under a nice jacket with tennis shoes, and told me “Get in the pick-up Brenda, we need to take you to the farmer’s Nordstroms.” He took me to the feed & supply, bought me carharts to my heart’s content, layering shirts and work boots.

Well the most obvious reason we wear what we wear is because farming is dirty! I take after my dad in the fact that I can be out in the shop for about 35 seconds before I have grease somewhere on my face and dirt on my jeans. Secondly as an industry we are usually very active, so wearing something that is comfortable enough to jump on and off of trucks, climb in and around engines, and walk acres of fields is very necessary.  Practicality seems to be the best answer for many reasons why we farmers wear what we wear.

This girl looks like a farmer!

These reasons seem obvious; but are farmers concerned about their image as well? I think that yes definitely! Although every male farmer might disagree, I feel like we are more likely to trust someone who is wearing a plaid shirt than a plaid tie! If your shoes are shined we’re probably less likely to trust you right off the bat. I don’t know if this is good or bad, just making observations here and laughing at the fact that when I go into a bank people usually look at my dirty jeans, and muddy boots and aren’t too excited to have my tromping around their territory either.

At a wedding…not a chance she works in the dirt!

On the other hand I also think that my credibility sometimes goes down when I’m not dressed like a farmer, especially because I’m a female.  Because at first glance it’s usually not the guess that people give when they ask what I do, so when I answer, if I have heels on, they never believe me.  I’ve had people want to feel my hands to see if they are callused.  I had one person look at me and reply back, “Yeah and I’m an inventor!”  It’s very funny to me to see people’s reactions.  I think that I was more concerned about it at the start because I felt like I had to prove  I was serious about this job, but now I don’t really care.  I’m not going anywhere and dang it if I feel like I can pull off a nice shirt for work one day I’m going to do it, although I have to do it with the knowledge that now in 35 seconds it will be ruined!! But practicality always wins when it comes to wearing heels at work!

Death Taxes…How will they Impact our Farm?

I was in an article last week in the Oregonian about passing down the farm and how my family is planning for that transition. After the article posted online I was very amazed by how many comments were made going on and on about how the death tax in Oregon isn’t going to inhibit our family’s ability to farm or pass the farm along to the next generation. To be fair there were comments going both ways, but I would still like to set a few things straight. First of all I’m writing this on my blog and not on the actual comments because I felt the need to defend my support of getting rid of the death tax over and over again, so I’m just doing it once here and those that want to read it, great, those that don’t, that’s fine too. Plus I was told a few months ago after I expressed my exhaustion of trying to convince people of certain things that I believe in, and finding that they are closed off to new suggestions or new ideas, that maybe my plan shouldn’t be to change the minds of the 5% that are adamant of certain things in life, I should focus on trying to inform the other 95% that don’t quite have their minds made up or have a more neutral attitude.

So here goes. I would first like to say that in our family, my generation hasn’t had to deal with estate taxes, since my mom and dad haven’t passed away yet. So it’s not fair to say that it won’t be a hindrance to us when that does happen someday (hopefully a faraway someday). We just recently met with their attorney and we were shown that even with lots of careful estate planning, and lots of money to attorneys and accountants we will still have to pay significant taxes when that day does come. Taxes that hopefully will be covered by life insurance, which in itself is not cheap and has to be paid for until their death!

Ag exemptions or Natural Resource Exemptions do exists, but they only increase the exemption to $7.5 million, they don’t get rid of the tax. So in reality you’re still paying the taxes and it is still a very real threat to farming families. And you might think that farms could never reach that high of estate value, well you’re very wrong. When land values can sit anywhere from $7,000 to $15,000 per acre in our area, $7.5 million can be reached in a hurry. And even if you don’t end up reaching that threshold, how much money have you already spent in fees to attorney and accountants just to get that exemption and get things all set up so that you don’t have that tax liability? I’ll tell you right now, it’s not cheap!

Plus the estate tax is a double tax! Me, my parents, everyone has been paying taxes their whole life on their business. So why in the event that you die does the state feel like they are entitled to a portion of what you have worked so hard for?! We are only a fraction of states that still have the death tax at a state level; I don’t think it’s a fair tax at all! It also affects small businesses in Oregon and I truly feel that it hurts Oregon’s business economy. There was a study done on the economic impacts that would be made if Oregon got rid of the estate tax, 44,500 jobs it was they found to be the impact. These were jobs that would be created in our state, easily making up the small loss in revenue that the state would take!

There is a proposed initiative to get rid of the Death Tax in Oregon over a 4 year period. Signature cards are being signed right now to try to get this on the ballot this November. You can go to End Oregon Death Tax to get more information and sign a signature card to help us get this on the ballot this coming November and hopefully rid Oregon of this double, non-business friendly tax!

The Awkwardness of Social Media

Like many story tellers I love a good awkward moment and found that at an early age they seemed to find me no matter where I was, so I’ve learned to find all the great humor in it!  Lately though my new found interest in social media has brought about more odd situations to find myself in.  So I’m sitting in a conference, and I see a few faces of people I recognize that I have met through twitter. We’ve all chatted through twitter a few times back and forth on what is going on in the ag community and such, so I go to say hi. I get this awkward look, I introduce my self via my twitter name @ORfarmer and they realize who I am.  From this point on you would think that our easy twitter conversations would naturally lead to an easy face to face chat…nope! It’s almost like we can’t quite wrap our heads around how to talk with the limit of 140 characters; myself included. Our voices are so loud and there is no delete key, how do we control this awful situation?!  I leave feeling completely awkward…what the heck just happened?!

Let’s just say we didn’t talk anymore in person and eventually after the conference we got back to our regular twitter feeds and are keeping up that way, 140 carefully written and hash tagged tweets. This is hard for me to get used to.  I’m a pretty social person but in a way I felt like I was breaking some weird rule about who you can actually approach, maybe there is a precedence that I am not aware of? Then I think “Come on people!” The social media network is a different medium that I’m slowly adjusting to. I got a flyer about twitter pointers the other day and it said on there that you don’t need to know the people that you’re following, or that are following you. This makes total sense now, but at the time I felt like that was so creepy! Now I realize that what you put on twitter is what makes it not so creepy since it’s mostly about farming and interesting things I find and not about how I brushed my teeth a few minutes ago.

So I’m thinking about all of this, trying to not get annoyed at this socially odd situation, when I’m at another event and I see a Facebook friend. We aren’t best friends but I sort of know the person. They even liked something on my page a few days before! I see them, they ignore me, I approach them, and once again it’s awkward. What the heck, maybe I’m just having this kind of luck or maybe I’m the weird one. But really who cares. So here is what I have to say…PEOPLE if you see someone you know say hi, it won’t kill you, and if they say hi first and it’s not (I know this is scary) in typeface and online, get over it and put a dang sentence together…audibly!

I have to say though that awkward moments make for some good stories, so maybe keep it up all you nerdys out there who won’t say hi and just stalk everyone online; because in the end I’m afraid I’m probably one of you 🙂