Whenever the subject of turnips comes up I always think of Burris Rearden. Burris was the University of Kentucky agricultural extension agent for the county where my little farm was located, We had decided to raise some sheep for both wool and meat, and Burris was of immense help in working or way through learning to do that. One of the best bits of husbandry he taught us was that turnips are a marvelous food for sheep in the winter time. Based on his advice we broadcast planted an acre of turnips and let them mature. When winter came we boxed off small sections with portable electric fencing and turned the flock into them. They ate the turnips right in the ground, hollowing them out completely, leaving only the skin in the ground.. And they thrived.
When the turnips first matured in late fall Burris came to take a look and give us advice about what came next. When he was ready to leave he said he thought he might need to take a few turnips for testing, to make certain they were OK for the sheep. I told him to take a couple. He said, no, I didn’t understand, he needed to take some home for him and his family to test at supper time. I laughed and told him there’s an acre, take what you need, but leave some for the sheep. My son gave him a brown paper grocery sack and Burris left to collect his test material. In only a few minutes he was back, looking disheveled and with mud on his hands and the knees of his pants. He had been bent over at the waist pulling turnips from the ground when our big old ram Bubba butted him full-force in the rump and sent him sprawling. We said that couldn’t be, the ram had been a bit sick and was locked is the treatment shed, no way he could get out. Of course we were wrong, here came the ram prancing across the yard. After Burris limped home we put the ram back in the shed and watched him through a window. The door was latched with a plain hook-and-loop screen door type latch. That sheep went right to the door, used his nose to lift the latch and walked out pretty as you please. Burris, my son and I had many a good laugh over the years remembering Burris’s turnip test. Burris was always a bit shy of Bubba after that, don’t know why.
Spence