Of NFTs and Furbelows

Furbelow

1: A pleated or gathered piece of material: ruffle; specif: a flounce on woman’s clothing. 2: something that suggests a furbelow esp. in being showy or superfluous

Important Historical illustration of a Furbelow

 

On our farm we embrace technological poverty.

It’s part of our commitment to invest in each other and to be content to be attentive stewards on our scrap of land.

I still find it an endless source of amusement to hear how portions of the rest of the world fare in the whole- hearted embrace of tech as the new messiah of our lives, which will make all things new, and make our yokes easy and burdens light.

The new L.F.F. Nubian herd sampling Fall kale beds

According to Fortune.com, last year a bored teenager named Jaiden Stipp made a piece of digital artwork.

He listed it online. It sold for 20 Ethereum. At first his father was incredulous. Then the $30,000 hit his son’s bank account.

Today he employs a few artists. His mother has quit her job to work as his manager. His art sales are now valued at over 1 million dollars. His dad no longer scoffs.

I listened to this story on the radio, trying to grasp what exactly a NFT was. To no real avail.

A google search at the library revealed crummy electronic images of dogs with sun glasses, pictures of grinning excited millennials, and a Ven diagram of the properties of NFTs (indivisible, unique, and provably scarce.) Sounds like the traditional family, I thought cheekily, as I scrolled down to find the other things that people who searched for NFTS were also interested in. One of them caught my eye:

2021 Hogs on Harvest Day

HYDROPONICS.

Ah. The ever-present attraction of the almighty machine which does work for us while we avoid getting our cuffed sweatpants dirty.

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Tokens. Non exchangeable. Tokens. That make millions.

The word Fungible takes up its space in the dictionary just after “funeral” and is closely followed by fungicide and fun house. As I tried to wrap my mind around what fungibility is and how non fungibility could possibly result in something agreed upon to have value, and be bought and paid for with an electronic currency which is then converted into the very fungible heap-big-pile-o-cash, I found my eyes and mind wandering to the next page of the dictionary where the equally interesting word “furbelow” resides…and the story I remember loving as a child: “The Emperor Has No Clothes.”

In her book “On Pilgrimage” Dorothy Day tells of a Jewish law she had heard of, in which, if a Father does not teach his son a trade, the son’s obligation to take care of his father in old age is waived.

It is chilling to realize that even as we sit our children down in front of television sets as baby sitters, and give them the hand held screens of our smartphones to occupy them during any kind of wait in the Doctor’s office, or dining out during a family dinner, instead of teaching them the superpowers of patience, industry, and human connection and conversation, we are building for our generation the future we will inhabit in the nursing homes of the next generation: completely machine managed, in which medications are dispensed by robots, families say goodbye to dying loved ones via zoom, and the tasks which bring people in direct contact with bodies and their bodily fluids are managed by low-paid over worked vulnerable immigrants and teenagers. Oh wait. The future is now.

“Yes, we will have more time with modern conveniences, but we will not have more love”

-Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day with her grandchildren (cjd.org)

A fellow I know who works in H.R. and “knows a lot about farming because of all his connections with farmers through his work” told me that I wouldn’t believe how high-tech dairy farming has gotten. He said to me: “It’s amazing! Gone are the old days of the dumb hick farmer figuring out a ration for his cows. Now they’ve got these computers hooked up to the feed troughs. They can ascertain all the right vitamins and minerals for each individual cow, and send the feed needed without the farmer. Hundreds and Hundreds of cows kept track of like that!”

I tried to scale the lofty heights of his splendorous awe, but kept getting hung up on the image of hundreds and hundreds of grain-fed dairy cows in stanchions on cement-looking out over lagoons of manure pit slurry.

Would it have been any use to mention that the “dumb hick farmers of the old days” knew that the cow is a ruminant, and as such, thrives on grass and not on grain? Funny how “dumb” is really dog whistling for “content with a financial situation which is now deemed socially unfashionable, foolish, and unacceptable.”

“Cold and hunger and hard lodging, humble offices and mean appearance are considered serious evils. All things harsh and austere are carefully put aside. We shrink from the rude lap of earth and embrace of the elements, and we build ourselves houses in which the flesh may enjoy its lust and the eye its pride”

John Cardinal Henry Newman’s Lenten sermons

 

Resident Goatherd#2

A small farmer’s profit margin these days might be slim. Always sobering this time of year is the filing of schedule F. But he might manage to invest his time, money, sweat equity and love into a piece of land and into the human beings that make up his family. His chest freezer might be filled with meat and veggies. His pantry stocked with dried apples, pickles, maple syrup, his counter- top crowded with fresh eggs, his fridge filled with fresh milk. The arms of his daughters may be strong and sturdy for all the daily chores of carrying water, mucking out, and pitching hay.

But his bank account will likely not suddenly swell with the likes of 30K.

His constant and quixotic investments in invisible realties like soil health and family unity and the souls of his children will be scoffed at.

Perhaps worst of all, and the most unpardonable: he will have dirt on his furbelows.

 

Resident Goatherd #1

But one day when he is old and gray, finding it hard to remember where he stored last year’s tree taps for this year’s sap collecting, there will be the sound of a drawer scraping open and the lusty shout of woman’s voice in the kitchen. “I found them!” Busy boots will track mud through the house as the growing season is birthed and underway. The children that grew up drawing February Valentines in pencil; pictures of vegetable gardens and bird feeders, and who danced on their toes in glee at the prospect of filling flats again with germination mix, those children with the strong arms will grip our aging elbows and say:

“Don’t worry Papa. I know what to do.”