Views from the Back Forty

By James P. Jackson

"Views From the Back forty" is the author's first person story aboutrural life on what had once been the back forty acreage of a family farm. When the author and his wife purchased the land, partly for benefit of two growing sons, it gave the impression of being worn-out acreage. But after 30 years of living there and experiencing its inherent values, the authorfoundit to be much more: a trove of geology and natural history, a repository of human history, and one family's revelationsabout the enduring qualities of being home on America's rural landscape.

After a short introduction, this booktakes the reader through23 chapters that comprise 15% personal memoir, 15% regional history, plus 70% natural historyand ecology that extend well beyond the back forty's geographical location in east-central Missouri.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 5, 2007
• ISBN: 9781467088428

James P. Jackson

James P. Jackson has enjoyed a wide range of experiences.  Born in Paris, France, of American parents, he was reared in Missouri, served two years in Uncle Sam’s Navy, and earned two degrees from the University of Missouri.  An avid naturalist, he has worked in various fields of resource conservation, taught high school biology and led students on summer excursions into western wilderness areas.  As a freelance writer/photographer he is credited with numerous photo illustrated features in national magazines and has authored three books:  The Biography of a Tree; Pulse of the Forest; and Passages of a Stream-- Chronicles of the Meramec.      Jackson and his wife, Charlene, have two sons, Keith and Glenn. The back forty has served as the family’s home base since 1979.

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© 2009 James P. Jackson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 8/31/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4343-3438-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-8842-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007906595

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

To Charlene

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While journeying through time on limited acreage, this writer has been riding around on the capable shoulders of numerous teachers, mentors, and friends who have inspired me to learn what I could about nature’s world. Though neither space nor memory permit me to identify all my sources of inspiration, I am indebted to many people out of my past. Meanwhile, I wish to express my thanks to contemporary friends, all experts in their fields, who have read portions of my text and offered constructive criticism. They are: Ralph Gregory, Donald R. Hays, Phillip E. Koenig, Doug Ladd, Norman Stuckey, James C. Trager, Ph.D., and H. Patrick Woolley, Ph.D. I am also indebted to Tom Hays, capable young artist who did the illustrations. Finally, I give thanks to Charlene, loving wife and partner on the back forty, for her thoughtful suggestions and her abiding patience whenever I became preoccupied with the writing process.

INTRODUCTION

Ownership of land is not feasible for everyone, yet city people often yearn for it and the impoverished risk dying for it. Meanwhile the wealthy buy up ranches, farms, mountain properties, and gated retreats that guard latter-day Walden Ponds. Regardless of size considerations, ownership of land frequently trumps monetary assets.

How different it must have been during the lifetime of Thomas Jefferson, when family farmers and village artisans were the bulwarks of America’s emerging democracy. Back in those nearly forgotten horse and buggy times, families considered land their most valuable asset. Yet even now, in our urban-dominated world, ownership of land is still a coveted possession.

This book describes how a small-town family sought to become established in the rural lifestyle by purchasing a family farmer’s back forty. For readers who might not be versed in agrarian lingo, a good question now might be: What, exactly, is a back forty?

It is that portion of a family farm, usually about forty acres, not accessible by road from the farmhouse and various outbuildings. It is often the least productive and most expendable acreage on the farm. It might be deficient in soil fertility, too steep for cultivation, vulnerable to erosion, or else so swampy and lacking in drainage as to better qualify as wetland.

Compared with Wall Street−type securities, back forties probably do not merit much interest, yet do not deserve to be judged rummage-sale real estate. Farmers often treasure them as family homesteads or for natural features such as woods, relict prairies, wildlife habitats, or simply for recreation. But these and other values had to be sacrificed when a Missouri farmer, tired of toiling on the land for his family, decided it was time to sell his back forty.

My wife Charlene and I, with eager young sons Keith and Glenn, bought the place, and though the boys are now men and have found their own niches, all of us as family still value it as our home. This book views the back forty (actually 44 acres) through a prism of three facets. The first focuses on how it became our home, the second hearkens back to its history, and the third is intended to shed light on its natural features and ecology.

From the outset, thanks to my basic knowledge of ecology, I became fascinated with the back forty’s varied topography, flora, fauna, and possibilities for their study. On the other hand, I had plans for the land which suffered the following degradations from dirt farming: a cow pasture scarred by erosion; woodland soil impacted by cattle grazing; invasions of aggressive non-native plants. But Charlene and I did not purchase the land for farming, nor with any hope of ultimately selling it for quick profit. We were not speculators. We bought the land to make it our home, to establish roots, to enjoy its native flora and fauna, to get immersed in its seasonal cycles. And to our good fortune it would prove that long-term values can be derived from relatively small, secondhand pieces of the American landscape.

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Chapter One

THE BECKONING LAND

Simply stated, what Charlene and I wanted was a piece of the American land. We were not weekend farmers, did not covet acreage for breeding cattle or horses, nor to emulate rich plantation owners. But neither did we envision some bucolic return to backwoods frontier living. What we wanted for ourselves and two young sons was enough land to exercise our bodies, stimulate our minds, and establish roots within nature’s world; how many acres that might require, we had no idea.

Yet this much we did know: land gets more expensive and valuable with every passing year, a fact suggested by words attributed to the late famous cowboy philosopher Will Rogers: They’re not making any more land.

On a lovely spring morning, while Keith and Glenn are in school, Charlene and I are to be shown, Missouri fashion, the least profitable and therefore most expendable acreage on a family farm, namely the back forty. We are small-town folks, both wearing jeans and Cardinal baseball caps. The owner, Dennis Backs, is a consummate dirt farmer and wears bib coveralls topped with a straw hat.

We meet him at the barn accompanied by a real estate agent who’s aware we’ve considered moving out of Washington, Missouri. Because he’s already shown us two small plots of land, he reminds Charlene and me of a car salesman who first shows a Chevy, then a Cadillac. But thanks to our admitted interests in rural living, we are vulnerable to his bait and switch.

Charlene grew up on the rural outskirts of Washington, where her father owned a small orchard and dairy farm. She began working in the dairy as a child, first standing on a stool to package butter, later during her teenaged years, driving a pickup truck around town pleading with customers to pay their milk bills. This meant that while she attended Washington High School, the demands of her father’s dairy business aimed her compass away from town.

For me life began a world apart: born in Paris, France, to American parents, I was left in the care of doting French grandparents when my mother died a month after I was born. I remained in Paris until, at the age of eight, a nanny escorted me to St. Louis, Missouri, where I was to live with my father, two older sisters, and an unmarried aunt. As I vaguely remember, the transition from having been spoiled in France to becoming just another American kid was very difficult. But in fourth grade, a perceptive teacher raised me up and out of trouble as if by the scruff of my neck. Miss Mabel Parke, an unabashed nature lover, maintained her classroom as a sort of greenhouse and miniature zoo for the benefit of her students. That year, I evolved from enfant terrible into a precocious nature boy.

The next summer, my father, a consummate urbanite, had me farmed out to a YMCA boys’ camp for two weeks. That was the best thing he ever did for me. For the following three summers, I retained an all-summer job at camp, first as a cabin boy, later advancing to the status of junior counselor. In off-duty hours, generously granted, I learned how to swim, paddle a canoe, bivouac beneath the stars and, as a budding naturalist, to handle snakes, collect insects, and learn the songs of local birds. It seems that the famous ornithologist, Roger Tory Peterson, was on target when once he wrote that naturalists often grow out of urban environments.

But back to a walking tour of the back forty. Charlene and I are guided by Dennis into a pasture where languid cows stare at us while chewing their cuds. Uphill from the pasture, I notice a fringe of evergreen cedars; downhill I see black locust trees skirting the rims of deep, steep-sided gullies. I ask Dennis about the gullies.

They’ve been here ever since I began farming. County extension people told me I could stop the erosion by planting black locust cuttings around the rims. They said the roots would send out runners and hold the dirt.

I’m not impressed, neither by the gullies nor by what Dennis has just told me. We move on, above the pasture, beyond the cedars, and into steeply pitched woodland. There the scene is more promising; I notice sturdy and maturing oaks, hickories, ashes, sugar maples, even high-quality black walnuts. I ask Dennis how come they were not sold and felled by chain saws.

Well, you can see land’s almost too steep, but years ago I managed to sell some good white oaks to a timber cutter who snaked em’ out with a team of mules. He told me they’d make good staves for whiskey barrels.

I spot several rotting stumps but no drag marks from the snaking out of logs; I also notice that pole-sized trees are already closing gaps left by the white oaks. I whisper to Charlene that the pasture and maturing timber seem like an ecological trade-off for the deep gullies. But she doesn’t view things as I do, in ecological terms. She whispers that if we later decide to buy the back forty, it will have to be more for economic reasons.

I became interested in ecology as a student at the University of Missouri, where first I completed courses in such basics as botany, entomology, ichthyology, ornithology, and mammalogy, and also in soil science and forestry. Next it was on to unifying courses in ecology and teachings from the late famous ecologist Aldo Leopold. Why do I mention such academic matters? Because for this student, they seemed to be excellent roadmaps for my future.

But in retrospect, academic roadmaps are not always what they promise to be for college graduates. For me they helped to find work in the field of conservation, but also detoured me into bureaucracy, which I partly escaped by then becoming a biology teacher at Washington High School. It was a career move with few regrets. By then Charlene, fully aware of my naturalist tendencies, was glad to shop for a piece of the American land. So were sons Keith and Glenn, just entering their teens and beginning to search for their own roadmaps.

Now back to the back forty. Charlene and I follow our guides out of the woods, up to a rocky promontory above the Missouri River valley. From that vantage the real estate agent points westward.

Daniel Boone’s grave is over there just a mile away. Then he adds, Wouldn’t this be a great place for a house?

What I see below is swampy woods and, somewhere beyond, corn and soybean fields. The agent, aware of my searching gaze, continues. You can’t see the river over there except in winter when the cottonwood trees are bare. Then he repeats: Wouldn’t this be a great place for a house?

Charlene politely lets him know she doesn’t