I am not afraid, but I feel I have to prepare myself. The steel-and-wood beauty of the firearm I hope never to use sits within easy reach of the fingers that write on my computer screen. My son’s weapon provides me some security if in event should require a response to save my life. It is loaded and ready something impossible if there were children a[ home.
Chamber the shell, disengage the safety, point, shoot.
Dairy farmers, like most other farmers, live relatively isolated and sheltered lives. Our doors are unlocked, our lives and livelihoods somewhat dependent on the good will of perfect strangers. Distances to neighbors are measured in fractions of miles, not feet. We give little thought to physically securing our surroundings.
In my trusting nature lies my vulnerability. Farmers are accepting and trusting. But the shotgun murder of a neighbor dairyman in his barn as he was milking and another dairy couple murdered force me to re-examine my safety The entire population of our rural town of 4,000 can talk of nothing else. For many, it’s been a loss of innocence.
My husband and I are second-generation dairy farmers, fairly typical in a town whose only real industry is dairy farming. There are no corporate farms in this region, which is the milkshed for the New Orleans and Gulf Coast area. Of the close to 500 farms. all are family owned and operated. Most milk the black-and-white Holsteins, gentle giants who produce best when content and handled with love and care. Farmers dairy-farm in much the same way their fathers did.
The question of safety for rural residents is new and relatively unexplored. How can we protect our grazing cattle from random acts of violence along a highway? How can we protect ourselves and our families against strangers when the means of our hood-the land-must remain open? Dairying is a job done -alone: milking, plowing and planting are all single-person tasks. Most family farms still manage to “harvest” the milk with a single person in the barn. Every farmer I know has at least one dog, more for company than assistance. The only known danger tip until now has been an accidental injury to a farmer going undiscovered by others and becoming fatal. in one of these recent killings, the farmer was alone in his barn. The assailant knew he would be alone. The killer entered the barn and shot the dairyman with a gun like mine. The cows were mute witnesses to the killing and dying. It was predatory and anticipated solitude.
If I can’t protect my dairy, then my home and my life are gone. I cannot, and will not, lock myself in. our house was built in an era without great concern for break-ins: large Windows on open porches, glass in the exterior doors, double deadlocks secured only at bedtime. My nearest neighbor is more than half a mile away. What good is a Iock except to slow an intruder and give me notice of hostile intent? For that I have my two trusty, alert dogs.
The gun held securely at my waist. Generally directed at close range. Two shots of No. 4.
Farming is a collaborative and inclusive my of life. Gates can be locked: fences cannot. Neighborliness continues to survive because of a stubborn refusal to accept that times have changed. Neighborliness still works, most of the time, so we are reluctant to part with it. On several occasions, strangers have driven to our house past midnight to report that some of the teenage heifers, with their almost human propensity to go where forbidden, have found a chink in the fence and are on the road, where they are a danger to themselves and travelers.
These are fearless people, approaching a dark house at night, announced by two large, noisy dogs bounding from under the house. We are very appreciative of their kindness and take for granted their fearlessness. (Though I’m not sure it’s wise to visit a house. unasked, after dark right now.) When a neighbor lost his hay barn to fire and an entire season’s hay with it, area farmers offered uncut fields for his use to replace as much of the hay as possible. Business arrangements are made over coffee, often absent even a handshake. Trust is integral. earned and expected.
This neighborly tradition carries over into milk marketing. The majority of dairymen have joined together in large cooperatives that move the milk to market. That’s all at risk now. Now I’m inclined to answer only perfunctory questions of anyone entering the unlocked door. I’ll reach for the gun in preparation – I can and I will use this tool. Shutting doors on danger is impossible. Milk inspectors, the feed and supply delivery trucks, semen deliverymen, the tanker driver who picks the milk up for the market. All must have open access to the barns. How to lock out some and not others?
Urban-style violence has, with its irrationality, visited our community. Death over a wallet; the murder of a husband and wife is under investigation. There is uncertainty and a need to feel if not be-prepared for an element of violence. And there sits “my” gun, its barrel leaning near my computer screen. Is it a comfort? It is and it isn’t-it reminds me of what I’ve lost. It’s something others have lost earlier and what we all fear losing: our sense of safety, No one is really safe from the vicissitudes of life, but we sometimes think we are.
As time passes, the gun will find its way again into its case under the guest-room bed. I fear its accidental discharge more than I fear a phantom criminal. This cautionary attitude will pass, partly because that is what I wish. At least I have that hope; I know many others who do not. Losing that sense of personal security is a major deprivation. It makes us less civil and then less civilized. And the failure of civilization is at the heart of the pointless violence that is the greatest of all our fears.
