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July 2018 Profile: John Gosney

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Unconventional Farmer
By Laci Jones

When John Gosney made the transition to becoming a certified organic farmer in the mid- ‘90s, the owner of John’s Farm in Fairview, Okla., did not receive much support.

“The local people here thought I was nuts, so they laughed at me,” he recalled.

While many of the other local farmers did not approve of his methods, Gosney and his wife, Kris (Ratzlaff) Gosney, ultimately decided to become an organic farm to meet the consumer’s growing desire for organic products and perhaps increase the bottom line of his family’s 125-year-old farm.
Gosney’s ancestors homesteaded property in northwestern Oklahoma in the 1893 Oklahoma Land Rush. His grandparents experimented with different crops to learn which would grow in Oklahoma and would have the highest yield. They mostly grew wheat, but also tried growing grapes and corn.

“Grapes and corn were usually failures because it was just too dry out here,” Gosney added.

The homestead was handed down to his parents, where they grew wheat and raised cattle. Born on April 25, 1947 in Fairview, Okla., life on the farm became second nature to Gosney. Like most farm kids, he recalled hand-milking cows at 5 a.m. and helping his family fix fences and other field work.
When asked about stories of his childhood, he recalled driving the family’s four-speed pickup at six years old. He and his father, John Gosney Sr. were on a farm about eight miles from their house.

“We had an old pickup with a load of oats on it,” Gosney recalled. “My dad wanted to get both the pickup and tractor home for night.”

His father told him to drive the pickup without brakes home over one of the Gloss Mountains. As the six-year-old boy climbed in the pickup, he could barely see over the dash.

“Dad said to put the truck in first gear and cruise down the road,” Gosney said.

With his father ahead of him on the tractor, it was a miracle they made it home safely. His mother, Mary Gosney, was not happy when the father-son duo arrived home after the eight-mile journey through Gloss Mountain country.

“I think she was crying when she found out I drove the pickup,” he recalled.

While he enjoyed life on the farm driving pickups with no brakes, Gosney was also active in sports, specifically basketball and baseball.

“I went to a country school, Cheyenne Valley,” he explained.

When the school closed its doors in 1964, Gosney transferred to Fairview High School for his senior year. There, he met Kris Ratzlaff, and they were married a few years later in 1967.

After graduation, John attended Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Okla., pursuing a bachelor’s degree in accounting and business administration.

“[College] was just something to age you I think,” he said with a chuckle. “It was four years to mature.”

Still, the college student knew he would return to the farm, which he did when he graduated in 1969. He returned to the centennial farm, which his father was still managing.

“Most of what I learned about farming was from my mom and dad,” he added. “They used conventional farming practices back then.”

Kris’ family, the Ratzlaffs, were also farmers. Like Gosney, her great-grandfather staked his claim in the Land Run of 1893. That land has been passed from generation-to-generation. Seven generations have resided on the Ratzlaff Oklahoma Centennial Farm.

Together, Gosney and his in-laws started a custom farming business in 1969. They mostly wheat tilled for farmers in the area, he said.

“It was my father-in-law’s idea,” the Fairview, Okla., native explained. “We would contract summer field work for different farmers at a set price.”

A few years later, Gosney began farming part of his father’s land until he officially retired in the mid- ‘70s. Because Gosney took the reins of his family’s operation and rented other land, he quit the custom farming business.

He purchased his own machinery, purchased his own cattle herd and launched a custom harvest business in 1973. Similar to the custom farming business, he harvested wheat for farmers from Texas to Wyoming for a set price, which supplemented his income.

“It wasn’t unusual to have some of the old timers come to me to ask if I’d rent their land,” he explained. “It evolved from a small, couple hundred acres to several thousand. Thankfully it was a gradual growth.”

As every farmer and rancher knows, the agriculture industry is full of highs and lows, and Gosney had his fair share of both. Farmers and ranchers like Gosney were sometimes met with the wrath of Mother Nature.

“Dry weather was a challenge, that’s for sure,” he added. “It was dry, the soil was parched, and we were begging for more much like we are today.”

When their prayers were answered, it was sometimes with an excess of rain or snow.

“We had a lot of large range floods 50 to 70 years ago,” the farmer recalled. “I remember the creek banks overflowing; the fields were covered with water and the bridges on county roads washed out.”

Snow storms throughout the mid and late 20th century also proved to be a challenge for Oklahoma farmers and ranchers.

“I remember as a kid, my dad would have to take the tractor, and mom and I would follow him in a pickup,” Gosney added. “Sometimes we shoveled ourselves out to the road and shoveled more when we’d get stuck. It was amazing how much more snow we had when I was a kid. We haven’t had a good snow here in years with a foot of snow that blows 10-foot drifts.”

Read the July issue to learn more about John Gosney!

Country Lifestyle

Western Housewives – April 2024

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I am a mother. I do not know about the rest of you mothers, but the second I became “Mom,” my life became a constant state of wondering if I am doing a good job.

That is especially hard to tell when you choose to homeschool. I have no feedback from anyone that is not family. No teacher conferences telling me the little girl talks too much or the oldest boy can not sit still. Sure, I could ask my husband how he thinks our kids are maturing emotionally and intellectually. Still, he would most likely look out the window and see the aforementioned children running around in the sand with only socks on. He would then look at me and ask me to make him a quesadilla. I would say yes, we would joke about socks, and life would go on. See? Zero feedback to go on here.

So, you start to rely on personal experiences. You come up with little tests throughout your days to rate your kids “ready for society” level.

Example 1: A trip to the big city where the kids treat the grocery store as their personal snack depot. They successfully eat all the grapes and a whole block of cheese in your basket before you can check out. As you leave, they tell the door greeter, “Have a nice day.”

Example 2: Your husband enters an indoor rodeo. You are bouncing the baby and notice your oldest child is eating a bag of dippin dots. First, you smile and then remember that she has no money. Come to think of it, the concession stand is not even open. You have now concluded your firstborn has broken into the closed concession stand with her posse of four-year-old convicts and has helped herself to some ice cream.

Example 3: You are in church. The children have managed to be nice and quiet the entire time. After the message and the closing “Amen” is said, your three-year-old turns to you and says, “Well, that wasn’t so bad.”

After a little while, you start to question your “Ready for Society” tests. Are they productive? Are they accurate? I figure the answer to that question is better left unanswered.

One evening this summer, after I had quit conducting all these tests, I was mourning the loss of my children’s place in society when I looked up and noticed all our horses running down our driveway, headed for the neighboring pastures. For a minute, I just sat there wondering what I should do. I was holding the baby and wearing the ever-practical slip-on loafer and had absolutely no idea what was for supper. That had nothing to do with the horses being out, but that is part of being a housewife, I guess. You always wonder if you left the iron on and what is for supper.

While I sat there stunned, pondering life’s biggest questions, my husband and my daughter yelled at me to get a move on as they were already springing into action. My husband ran to stop them, and my daughter was on her way to the barn for some halters. Meanwhile, I was tripping over my loafers, scaring the horses and making already stressful matters much worse.

My husband finally got the horses cornered at the far end of our neighbor’s pasture and waved at me for some assistance. I handed the baby to my daughter and told her to watch the boys and stay in the house while I headed to help.

Within 30 minutes, we caught the horses and led them back to the corrals. I was in a near state of panic, wondering how long the boys had been crying and what state of mind my daughter was in, having just witnessed her dad nearly sweat to death and her mother make terrible fashion choices.

To my surprise, as I walked up to the house, I saw three happy children on the porch eating a supper of plums and peaches. The boys laughed at their sister as she shuffled little cars and cows around for them to play with. Not only had she fed and entertained her brothers, but she had also cleaned the house and fed the chickens to boot. I just stood there quietly watching for a while, not wanting to disturb the moment.

After the kids passed their first ever Ready for Society test, I realized that society’s standards versus my own were probably quite different. Society tells me that my kids need to be clean and quiet. Seen but not heard. Able to recite the ABCs on command but have no opinion on political matters. To be kind to everyone but never bring up God’s name and what He has to do with it. Society says my kids should fall into the assembly line and attend a good college someday to get a good minimum-wage job.

Why would I want my kids to fit into society when I do not even fit into society? No, I think I will keep my dirty little misfits all to myself. I think I will continue raising them to know how to care for themselves and each other. I will continue to show them how to serve God and work hard. I will continue to raise them never to wear slip-on shoes in the pasture and that plums and peaches are a totally acceptable supper on a warm summer evening.

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Country Lifestyle

Poinsettia Partnerships Will Make Your Holidays Beautiful

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By

Norman Winter

Horticulturist, Author and Speaker

National Poinsettia Day just passed, December 12 to be exact. While I am sure the powers to be wanted a celebratory type day, from what I have been seeing this year is this may have been a deadline day. This most likely applies to poinsettia partners too! If you are asking what a poinsettia partner is then put on your thinking cap and gather around.

Proven Winners got most of us to thinking partners when they introduced the concept of combining poinsettias with Diamond Frost euphorbias. This is one of the best ideas ever and we now actually have three choices, Diamond Frost, Diamond Snow with double flowers and Diamond Mountain that is the taller of the three.

To a horticulturist like myself this combination is so special because both the Poinsettia and the Diamond Frost are Euphorbias. That’s right, they are cousins. Just like Christmas, families visiting and long-lost cousins getting together. Of course, the main reason we like this idea is that the red, pink, or variegated poinsettia looks incredible, it’s as though it is sitting on a bed of snow or frost. I have found these to be more available at fine florists.

But if you are going to create your own and go plant shopping then keep in mind some other options you might want to-try. For instance, a couple of years ago Jenny Simpson of Creekside Nursery in Dallas North Carolina introduced us to not only using caladiums at Christmas but even in combinations with poinsettias. She used the Heart to Heart White Snowdrift caladiums which turned out to be a perfect partner with red poinsettias.

My time as Executive Director at the Coastal Georgia Botanical Gardens in Savannah GA taught me there are opportunities for outside use with poinsettias, particularly if you are astute at long range weather forecasting. First consider that Savannah is technically zone 8B with a proclivity to lean into zone 9. We used poinsettias in large planters surrounded by Silver Bullet Dusty Miller or artemisia.

A similar application gave me the opportunity of photographing pink poinsettias mass planted in an atrium-like setting and surrounded by gray leaved Icicles helichrysum. But the most obvious and perhaps easiest if you are getting a late start is to combine your poinsettias with another Christmas plant like cyclamen. White cyclamen around a red poinsettia can be simply breathtaking.

This year I have also been watching what I call the professional garden club ladies walking out of both florists and floral departments with holly berries. We all think of hollies on swags above the fireplace or front door, but two or three preserved branches loaded with red berries stuck in a pot of white poinsettias is quick, easy and unbeatable.

Red berries for Christmas, landscape beauty, and of course feeding the birds is a prime reason to grow winterberry hollies like the compact Berry Poppins. Consider also growing Berry Heavy Gold winterberry holly. Cutting branches of the gold berries to be used with red poinsettias makes a stunning partnership. Go to Proven Winners site, Winterberry Holly: The Ultimate Guide to Getting Colorful Berries. If you don’t have poinsettias yet make today your shopping day! Follow me on Facebook @NormanWinterTheGardenGuy for more photos and garden inspiration.

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Country Lifestyle

Homesteading Skills: The Essentials for Self-Sufficiency and Sustainable Living

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Homesteading, once a way of life for our ancestors, is experiencing a resurgence in today’s world. As people seek greater self-sufficiency, a deeper connection with the land, and more sustainable lifestyles, homesteading skills have become not only practical but also deeply rewarding. In this article, we’ll explore the essential homesteading skills that can empower individuals and families to live more self-reliant and sustainable lives.

1. Gardening

At the heart of homesteading is the ability to grow your own food. Gardening is the foundation of self-sufficiency, and it’s a skill that can be cultivated no matter the size of your property. Key gardening skills include:

Soil preparation and composting

Seed starting and transplanting

Crop rotation and companion planting

Pest and weed management

Harvesting and food preservation techniques like canning, freezing, and drying

2. Animal Husbandry

Raising animals for food, fiber, and companionship is a fundamental aspect of homesteading. The skills related to animal husbandry include:

Care and feeding of livestock, such as chickens, goats, cows, or pigs

Breeding and reproduction management

Livestock housing and pasture management

Animal health and basic veterinary care

Dairy and meat processing if you’re raising animals for consumption

3. Food Preservation

To make the most of your garden’s bounty or the harvest from your livestock, knowing how to preserve food is essential. Food preservation skills include:

Canning fruits and vegetables

Fermentation for foods like sauerkraut and kimchi

Dehydrating fruits, vegetables, and herbs

Making homemade jams, jellies, and pickles

Smoking, curing, and other methods for meat preservation

4. Foraging and Wildcrafting

Homesteading often involves making the most of what nature provides. Learning to identify and use wild edibles and medicinals is a valuable skill:

Identifying edible wild plants and mushrooms

Harvesting herbs for teas, tinctures, and salves

Sustainable foraging practices to protect local ecosystems

Preserving wildcrafted items for later use

5. Beekeeping

Keeping bees not only provides a source of honey but also contributes to pollination on your property. Beekeeping skills include:

Setting up and maintaining beehives

Handling and managing bees safely

Harvesting and processing honey and beeswax

Identifying and addressing common bee health issues

6. Food Self-Sufficiency

Beyond gardening, you can work toward greater food self-sufficiency by learning skills like:

Seed saving to preserve heirloom and open-pollinated varieties

Raising and harvesting small livestock like rabbits or quail

Cultivating perennial food crops like fruit trees and berry bushes

Aquaponics or hydroponics for year-round food production

7. Basic Carpentry and DIY Skills

Homesteaders often find themselves needing to build and repair structures, tools, and equipment. Carpentry and DIY skills include:

Building raised beds, chicken coops, and animal shelters

Basic woodworking for constructing furniture and farm implements

Repairing and maintaining machinery like tractors and generators

Fencing and infrastructure construction for property management

8. Water Management

Managing water resources efficiently is crucial for sustainable living. Key skills include:

Rainwater harvesting and storage

Drip irrigation and water-saving techniques for gardening

Proper well maintenance and water testing

Building and maintaining ponds or water features for livestock and wildlife

9. Energy Independence

To live off the grid or reduce your environmental footprint, consider energy independence skills:

Solar panel installation and maintenance

Wind turbine installation and maintenance

Energy-efficient building design and retrofits

Off-grid living strategies for reduced reliance on public utilities

10. Soap and Candle Making

Homemade soaps and candles can reduce reliance on store-bought products. These skills include:

Making soap using cold or hot process methods

Crafting candles from beeswax, soy, or other materials

Adding scents and colors naturally

11. Herbal Medicine and Remedies

Homesteaders often turn to herbal medicine and remedies for self-sufficiency in healthcare:

Growing and harvesting medicinal herbs

Making tinctures, salves, and herbal teas

Natural remedies for common ailments

Basic first-aid and emergency care skills

12. Sewing and Textile Arts

Basic sewing skills are essential for making and repairing clothing, linens, and more. These skills include:

Hand and machine sewing techniques

Mending and darning clothing

Knitting, crocheting, and other textile arts

Crafting items like blankets, rugs, and quilts

Homesteading is not just a return to simpler times but a way to embrace self-sufficiency, sustainability, and a deeper connection with the land. While mastering all these skills may take time, the journey itself is a rich and rewarding experience. Homesteading is about learning, adapting, and continually improving your ability to live more independently and in harmony with the environment. Whether you have acres of land or a small urban plot, these essential homesteading skills can empower you to live a more self-reliant and sustainable life, fostering a sense of fulfillment and purpose in the process.

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