7 November 2011
	Farm Life.
	I've been working at the Maldorf corn farm in Iowa and for the past several days at Mister Maldorf's requests I've been investigating random tunnels dug into some of Mister Maldorf's 2000 acres. "Norman we've got a tunnel on the northeast tract of land over by the Simpson fence," Mister Maldorf says into the walkie-talkie. Every year after Maldorf's corn is harvested small game hunters show up wanting to bag pheasants and quail and grouse.  Liberally peppered across his 2000 acres lie hardened individual kernels of corn.  The birds love 'em as do deer, rabbits and other small animals.  Mister Maldorf doesn't allow hunting on his land and for the most part these unwelcome hunters are unlicensed and according to Mister Maldorf they're dangerous, too.   "When it's time to reseed in April there's gonna be thousands of empty shotgun shells lying all over the place," says my boss.  "Beer bottles, pie plates, used condoms, too." According to Mister Maldorf the discarded shotgun shells can get caught up in the combine blades and if a combine moves over a tunnel the tunnel can collapse and injure the operator. His mouth is always too close to the microphone of the walkie-talkie and when he talks it's often hard to make out what he's saying but luckily the things Mister Maldorf says to me are always pretty much the same: "Norman, we've got a tunnel." "Norman, we got another chemical toilet." "Norman, get yourself in a tree stand." The poachers that come to Maldorf's farm aren't sport hunting, most of them have families to feed and their desperation drives them underground. Literally. The poachers hunting birds at Maldorf's establish base camps ten and fifteen feet below the surface of Maldorf's corn field.  These tunnels are reminiscent of the tunnels dug by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war.     I am Maldorf's handsome tunnel rat. Armed with an LED flashlight, pepper spray and a walkie-talkie I slither down hidden hand dug entrances.  As of late, while slithering random thoughts like artificial silver Christmas trees and women that I've titty fucked just pop into my head.    Narrow tight passageways often lead into large impressive underground rooms.  A week ago Mister Maldorf himself extracted a refrigerator (with a 17.8 cubic foot onboard freezer), a loveseat, a brass bed with a memory foam mattress, a chest of drawers, a gasoline powered generator and a fly fishing kit from one of the underground catacombs using his model 410J John Deere backhoe loader.       Said Mrs. Maldorf: "The freezer Willy pulled out of the hole was full of frozen Ringneck pheasants hundreds of them stacked one on top of the other." Said Mister Maldorf:: "The chest of drawers looked like somethin' Norm Abrams made and the bed was better than anything I've ever slept on."  Said Mrs. Maldorf: "I always wanted a loveseat." Sometimes Mister Maldorf and his other farmhands surprise the poachers/squatters using four-wheel drive John Deere all-terrain vehicles. "Norman, we got another chemical toilet," says Mister Maldorf into the microphone of the Motorola walkie-talkie. When the poachers/squatters make a run for it they leave everything behind and it's my job to clean up their mess.  Quite often I find myself spooning out massive amounts of smelly shit bubbling in a stew of toxic chemicals lying dormant in the plastic bowl of an abandoned chemical toilet.  Chemical toilets are used when there is no real toilet nearby.  Real toilets require plumbing and running water.  Working toilets aren't available anywhere on Mister Maldorf's 2000 acres and it would look silly to install a toilet on each acre that would be 2000 toilets sitting out in the open and that is ridiculous.  There are two toilets inside Mister Maldorf's historic two-story home located in Dike, Iowa. As of late, Mister Maldorf has me sitting atop a tree stand.  Tree stands are traditionally used by hunters.  A tree stand is basically a seat that you strap to a tree.  Hunters sit on the seat and look down and they wait for an animal to walk past them and when the right animal walks past them they shoot it.  Mister Maldorf uses a three wheeled machine called an Orkin 381 Hydraulic Mobile Driver.  The Orkin 381 Mobile holds onto a long pole similar to a telephone pole (but the pole is skinnier and shorter) and when the pole is in position a lever is pulled and a heavy steel weight hammers the pole deep into the soil.  Once the pole is in position a farmhand attaches a board to the top of the freshly planted pole.  They're very much like tree stands only they're not actually seats strapped to trees they're pieces of plywood hammered to the top of a pressure treated wooden pole.     I do my best to sit atop these poles waiting and watching for poachers walkie-talkie in hand but the dark Iowa sky and the big bright stars make it very difficult for me to stay awake and more than once I have fallen off my watch tower and lucky for me the freshly tilled earth has again and again broken my fall.   At three in the morning from the comfort of his bed broadcasting live from his historic two-story Dike Iowa home where the Christmas tree has already been erected Mister Maldorf says into his fully charged Motorola radio: "You alright Norman?  Glady's said she thought she heard you say something?" Says Norman: "I'm fine sir.  Nothing to report.  Over and out." NOTE:  On one occasion I did see something big and black and it flew right over me while I was perched atop the tree stand.  The best I can describe it is to say it looked like a witch riding a broom.  All black, a pointy hat too, her hands firmly wrapped around the wooden pole of the broomstick.  I swear I even felt a gush of wind as the flying object moved past me.    EXTRA:  I helped to cut down the Maldorf Christmas tree.  When the tree wouldn't fall Mister Maldorf handed me a hand saw and told me to crawl under the tree and finish it off.  Because his good to look at daughter Cathy Maldorf was watching I complied however when the tree began to fall a shit load of mice came running out of a rotted out cavern at the base of the tree trunk and I screamed like a woman being raped.  It was embarrassing and even with my powerful quick mind I wasn't able to come up with anything that could get me out of the sound I had made.  "They're just mice, Norman," said Mrs. Maldorf.  Cathy Maldorf just stood there shaking her beautiful head and Mister Maldorf turned around and walked away.            BONUS:   There are no set hours when working at a 2000 acre established corn farm.  One works from sunup to sundown and even then sometimes portable lights run by gasoline generators are brought out.      EXTRA BONUS: Poachers/squatters fuck a lot.  I've found lots of used rubbers filled with jism.  What kind of woman would live in a tunnel on property they don't own just so their man can bag a pheasant or two? SPECIAL NOTE: Cathy Maldorf sells first-rate bird houses to the world famous Vermont Country Store.  The Vermont Country Store marks the bird houses up and puts them in their mail order catalog.  On my third day at the Maldorf's I was using a backhoe (practicing) and I stupidly dropped the backhoe bucket crushing about a dozen of her really awesome birdhouses.  Another farmhand got blamed and that was okay with me. PRIVATE MESSAGE WITH REGARDS TO ANOTHER MATTER NOT RELATED TO THIS STORY: The inflamed vein just below my penis head is all better now.  I swear.  Please don't blame yourself for letting me bang your hole while I was in Georgia for so many hours which is probably what caused the vein inflammation in the first place.         PREVIOUS   HOME   NEXT Tweet Click Here To Subscribe To Norm's Essays