Farm Country News, October 20
Nathan West Industries (NWI) of Dubuque, Iowa, this week has announced its plans to build a major hog production center in Ames County. This third-largest agribusiness firm in the United States has purchased the former Tamarack River Golf Course for its operation. The land has stood vacant since the golf course and condominium development recently declared bankruptcy. NWI has worked out a favorable purchase agreement with the bank, which held the mortgage.
NWI plans to build a complex of buildings and operate a farrow-to-finish operation, which means pigs will be born and not leave the facility until they are shipped to NWI’s slaughterhouse in Dubuque. NWI plans to house 3,000 sows at this state-of-the-art facility, and farrow some 75,000 hogs a year. The operation will be similar to other farrow-to-finish outfits the company owns and operates in Iowa and North Carolina.
Oscar Anderson and Fred Russo sat at a table in the back corner of Christo’s in Tamarack Corners, a small village about fifteen miles from Willow River, on the banks of the Tamarack River. The building housing Christo’s, once known as the River View Supper Club, was built in the 1930s for the tourists pouring into the area from Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, and other major cities. It had done well until the early 2000s. A fellow from Milwaukee, a chef by training, name of Alexis Christo, and his wife, Costandina, bought out the place in 2010, renamed it Christo’s, and completely remodeled it. The tourist crowds began finding the place once more, and so did the locals who had driven by without stopping in recent years. Alexis left the old bar part of the supper club mostly the way it was. Here one could find pickled eggs floating in brine, pickled pork hocks, enormous dill pickles, and a tray of fresh cheese curds—fresh most of the time. Since Wisconsin passed its smoking ban, the smells inside the saloon had changed from secondhand smoke and stale beer to a subtle tangle of the stale beer and the various pickled things on the bar.
Fred and Oscar liked to meet at Christo’s for their regular Wednesday-morning coffee. They had refused to join the old-timers’ group, largely made up of retired valley farmers and other retired guys who’d moved back to the valley in recent years. The group met every morning at 8:30 and drank coffee and lied to each other until noon. Oscar said one time, “If that’s all I got to do, drink coffee every morning, you might as well stuff me in a coffin. Besides, those guys are as old as dirt.”
Truth be known, both Fred and Oscar were older than but one or two of the guys in the old-timers’ group. These two old friends enjoyed coffee once a week; that was enough. Fishing took up much of their other free time.
Costandina took care of the coffee crowd each morning, and she had even made a little wooden “reserved” sign that she placed on Fred and Oscar’s table every Wednesday morning. When she saw the two come through the door, she knew to pour two cups of coffee, black, and put a fresh morning bun on a little plate in front of each of them.
“How are you this morning, boys?” she asked.
“Fair to middlin’,” Oscar would say. “Still walkin’ around,” said Fred.
She asked the same question every Wednesday morning, and she received the exact same replies each time she asked. No surprises, no break in a long-established routine. Fred and Oscar liked it that way. One of the advantages of country life was its predictability, from the seasons changing, to coffee and morning buns on Wednesday mornings. Change disrupted the quiet predictability no matter where you lived these days, though, and change was coming to Ames County, dramatic change.
“Fred, did you see the Farm Country News this week?”
“’Course I saw it; carried it from the mailbox to the house.”
“I mean, did you read it?” asked Oscar.
“You didn’t ask if I read it.”
“Well, I’m asking now. Did you read it?”
“Read some of it—always read some of it. Sometimes I read all of it. Depends on how much time I got. I’m a pretty busy guy, you know.”
“Fred, you’re just about as busy as I am, and that ain’t busy at all. We’re just about the laziest old coots livin’ in the Tamarack River Valley.”
“I rescind that comment,” said Fred.
“Resent, Fred, resent. Not rescind.”
“What?” Fred had a perplexed look on his face. “I did read about this big hog company buying the defunct golf course with all those fancy log condoms.”
“Condos, Fred. They’re called condos.” Oscar smiled. He’d made the same mistake himself.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Well, anyway, what do you think about that?”
“About what?”
“About all those pigs coming to our neighborhood?”
“Don’t think I like it much,” said Oscar. “Pigs stink. They stink to beat hell. I raised pigs when I farmed. Had forty or fifty of them around most of the time. Pig manure stinks. Stinks like hell in the summer. Stinks in the winter, too. Stinks all the time. There’s an upside to raising pigs, though. Always made some money selling pork. Yes, I did. ’Specially during the war. Made lots of money on my pigs then. Paid off my mortgage. Yup, that’s what I did. Paid off my mortgage with those fifty hogs I sent to market every year.”
“Well, what should we do about it?” asked Fred.
“About what?”
“About all them pigs coming to our neighborhood. Paper made it sound like the deal was all signed, sealed, and delivered,” said Fred.
“Paper did say that, but we can still raise a little hell, put up a little stink of our own. That is, if we want to. They gotta hold some meetings, tell us their plans. They gotta get permits from the DNR, gotta get the zoning changed. They can’t just come in here willy-nilly and plunk down a bunch of stinkin’ pigs without first jumpin’ through a few hoops,” said Oscar.
“Think it would help if we raised a little ruckus?” asked Fred.
“Won’t hurt. Gotta do something to keep the Tamarack River Valley from going to hell. Been a good place to live. Good place to farm, too. Don’t think we need any of these big operators comin’ in and changing ever’thin’. Don’t believe we do.”
“I agree with you there,” said Fred. Costandina came by with coffee refills as the two old friends munched on their big morning buns.
“Too damn bad we’re still livin’ to see all this stuff goin’ on. Too damn bad,” mused Fred.
“That sure ain’t no way to be thinkin’, Fred. No way at all. We gotta let folks know about this. Put in our two cents’ worth.”
“Don’t think it will help one damn bit.”
“Well, we can still give her a try. Let the big shots know that old codgers don’t just roll over when some big-assed new idea comes floatin’ along. We gotta stand up for what’s right, which means letting them know that this place has a history. Ain’t just some bankrupt golf course on the river,” Oscar said.
“Yeah, lots of history in the valley, that’s for sure. Wonder if these big shots know about the cemetery in the corner of the golf course, the one where the Dunn family is buried? Wonder if they know that?” asked Fred.
“Expect they don’t. And I’ll bet these guys wearing their fancy suits don’t know about the Tamarack River Ghost either. They get their operation up and going, they’ll find out right quick, I’ll bet.”
“That they will. That they will,” said Fred. “I heard that’s why that big fancy golf course with its fancy houses went under. Some of them folks said they heard the ghost dog’s bell tinkling on quiet nights. One fellow, he’d just bought one of the biggest log condos, and was spending his first night there when he heard singing coming from the river. Somebody told him he’d heard the ghost. Scared the hell out of him. He never spent another night there.”
“Wonder who’s gonna tell these fancy hog company people that there’s a ghost hanging around this river. Wonder who that’s gonna be,” pondered Oscar.
“Also kind of wonder what effect a big hog farm is gonna have on Tamarack Corners,” mused Fred. “Just got this old supper club all fixed up and doin’ good. Wonder what that pig smell is gonna do to Christo’s business.”
“Wonder that, too,” said Oscar. “Tamarack Corners ain’t changed a whole lot since we was kids, has it? Always had the Methodist church across the road. Always had the Tamarack Trading Post with the barbershop in back. Barber only works three days a week, but he’s still there. Yup, be a shame to see these places disappear because of the smell of pig manure and hog trucks clogging up the road. Dirty damn shame. Hardly know what folks would do without the Trading Post—they’d have to traipse way off to Willow River to buy a quart of milk or a six-pack of Leinenkugel’s. Same for the barbershop. Who wants to drive fifteen miles for a haircut? Nobody. Not one person.”