People often ask me, “Chris, you are extremely smart and attractive, what’s the one thing Haida Gwaii could use a lot more of — besides cloned copies of yourself?”
To which I reply, “None of your darn business, Mr. Nosey McNosey!” But seriously, it’s a good question, and having thought about it, I would say the one thing Haida Gwaii needs more of is… hay! Yes, hay! Which is why I was so relieved when someone suggested we should grow hay in the field at the Masset Airport.
This is a fantastic idea. The only problem that could be an issue is the harvesting of said hay, which is why I think putting massive scythes on the airplane wings is an even better idea (hay or no hay, this would be very cool).
Right now, the field is used to produce clods of dirt. But the last time I checked, clods of dirt were not great for feeding to farm animals. Which begs the question: “Whose idea was it to start feeding our farm animals clods of dirt, and should that person really be responsible for farming on Haida Gwaii?”
The answer to this question is obviously yes, as clods of dirt tend to be cheaper than hay. But for all you cynics out there who may question this wisdom, I have personally taken it upon myself to test this theory.
My experiment ran thusly:
I placed one bowl of dirt, one bowl of hay, and one bowl of Froot Loops (my favourite cereal) in front of each of our farm animals. These animals were: one cat, five chickens, four ducks, three sheep, one squirrel, 18 mosquito, one goshawk, 11 seagulls, and half a potato.
At first, none of the animals seemed interested. But after several weeks, the Froot Loops were missing, and although I have to admit I ate most of the bowls of Froot Loops myself, I didn’t eat them all. The bowls of dirt were all untouched except for the bowl of dirt in front of the potato, which was half eaten. All the bowls of hay were sent back to the kitchen for being undercooked.
Conclusion:
Apart from being extremely picky about how their hay is cooked, farm animals apparently like to do some sort of detox-fast right before they gorge themselves on slightly stale Froot Loops. It’s a weird conclusion I agree, but then, science doesn’t lie. Sure, it can “massage the truth,” but it can’t lie.
What can we learn from this experiment? Obviously the most important lesson here is that if we are going to grow anything in that field, it will most definitely have to be Froot Loops because I just can’t get enough of those things. We are still going to need those aircraft with the massive scythe wings to take care of all those farm animals who will undoubtedly break into the airport field to steal my Froot Loops.
As for the hay, as long as it doesn’t interfere with what is shaping up to be a bumper Froot Loop year, then I guess I am fine with planting a little bit of that, too.