Tamarack River Ghost: A Novel

12. Big Hog Farm Coming

72 Big Hog Farm Coming 12 Large Hog Operation Planned Farm Country News, October 20 NathanWestIndustries(NWI)ofDubuque,Iowa,thisweekhasannounced its plans to build a major hog production center in Ames County. This third-largest agribusiness firm in the United States has purchased the former Tamarack River Golf Course for its operation. The land has stood vacant since the golf course and condominium development recently declared bankruptcy. NWI has worked out a favorable purchase agreement with the bank, which held the mortgage. NWI plans to build a complex of buildings and operate a farrow-tofinish operation, which means pigs will be born and not leave the facility until they are shipped to NWI’s slaughterhouse in Dubuque. NWI plans to house 3,000 sows at this state-of-the-art facility, and farrow some 75,000 hogs a year. The operation will be similar to other farrow-to-finish outfits the company owns and operates in Iowa and North Carolina. Oscar Anderson and Fred Russo sat at a table in the back corner of Christo’s in Tamarack Corners, a small village about fifteen miles from Willow River, on the banks of the Tamarack River. The building housing Christo’s, once known as the River View Supper Club, was built in the 1930s for the tourists pouring into the area from Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, and other major cities. It had done well until the early 2000s. A fellow from Milwaukee, a chef by training, name of Alexis Christo, and his 73 Big Hog Farm Coming wife, Costandina, bought out the place in 2010, renamed it Christo’s, and completely remodeled it. The tourist crowds began finding the place once more, and so did the locals who had driven by without stopping in recent years. Alexis left the old bar part of the supper club mostly the way it was. Here one could find pickled eggs floating in brine, pickled pork hocks, enormous dill pickles, and a tray of fresh cheese curds—fresh most of the time. Since Wisconsin passed its smoking ban, the smells inside the saloon had changed from secondhand smoke and stale beer to a subtle tangle of the stale beer and the various pickled things on the bar. Fred and Oscar liked to meet at Christo’s for their regular Wednesdaymorning coffee. They had refused to join the old-timers’ group, largely made up of retired valley farmers and other retired guys who’d moved back to the valley in recent years. The group met every morning at 8:30 and drank coffee and lied to each other until noon. Oscar said one time, “If that’s all I got to do, drink coffee every morning, you might as well stuff me in a coffin. Besides, those guys are as old as dirt.” Truth be known, both Fred and Oscar were older than but one or two of the guys in the old-timers’ group. These two old friends enjoyed coffee once a week; that was enough. Fishing took up much of their other free time. Costandina took care of the coffee crowd each morning, and she had even made a little wooden “reserved” sign that she placed on Fred and Oscar’s table every Wednesday morning. When she saw the two come through the door, she knew to pour two cups of coffee, black, and put a fresh morning bun on a little plate in front of each of them. “How are you this morning, boys?” she asked. “Fair to middlin’,” Oscar would say. “Still walkin’ around,” said Fred. She asked the same question every Wednesday morning, and she received the exact same replies each time she asked. No surprises, no break in a long-established routine. Fred and Oscar liked it that way. One of the advantages of country life was its predictability, from the seasons changing, to coffee and morning buns on Wednesday mornings. Change disrupted the quiet predictability no matter where you lived these days, though, and change was coming to Ames County, dramatic change. 74 Big Hog Farm Coming “Fred, did you see the Farm Country News this week?” “’Course I saw it; carried it from the mailbox to the house.” “I mean, did you read it?” asked Oscar. “You didn’t ask if I read it.” “Well, I’m asking now. Did you read it?” “Read some of it—always read some of it. Sometimes I read all of...