Brief by Central Staff
Rural Life – June 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Rural life provides an abundance of hard, dirty work, such as shoveling stalls or splitting cordwood. Even so, some people will pay to help with certain of those chores, like driving cattle.
And in Kansas, you can add “spring burning” to that list. On the eastern side of the Sunflower State, many ranchers burn their waist-high prairie grass every spring. The nutrients remain in the ash, weeds die in the conflagration, and the resulting new grass is healthier.
Until recently, it was a dirty, dangerous job performed by the rancher and a couple of hired hands.
Then Jan Jantzen, who ranches near Emporia, got an idea: A lot of people like to play with fire, and if he made an all-day event of his annual chore – barbecue, cash bar, bluegrass band – people might pay to participate.
That was three years ago. This year, 42 people paid $100 apiece to participate in “Flames in the Flint Hills” with matches and rakes.
Around here, one of the worst jobs is digging post holes in our rocky soil. But now we can spin that by pointing out that operating clamshells and a spud bar provides a wholesome, upper-body workout. Furthermore, fence-building was a vital component to the Winning of the West in the 19th century.
With that in mind, we’ll accept bids: How much are you willing to pay for the excitement and pleasure of our next post-hole digging job?
