It’s a long list of things that COVID has taken from us, many of them distressing. Seed shopping isn’t on top of the list. But I’m going to miss it.

After harvest, I sit down with Dan Steffl in his pole barn office with a Grain Belt to talk farming and consider Pioneer Seed choices for next spring. Ron Geiger and I look at Channel Seed over pizza and beer at the Ridin High Saloon in Cobden. Bart Kretschmer brings over a 6-pack of craft beer, and we sit at the kitchen table to see what Fertile Crescent Seeds has for options.

I know. There’s a common theme. I like beer.

This year all that’s been replaced by phone and mail, which is functional without the “fun.” Bart did stop over to pick up a check and we talked, loudly, 15 feet apart. We did a condensed version of our usual afternoon-long visit. How’s the wife, where are the kids at, what kind of yields did you get?

I asked about Bart’s mom Irene. Irene and my mom were in Study Club together. Our dads, Hugo and Sylvester, helped each other with corn shelling and silage making. Now Irene is the last of our parents living. She’s at Divine Providence, so that’s been difficult these months with evolving restrictions.

This Christmas will be a challenge for everyone, none more than folks in any sort of assisted living. Bart’s family will try to spend time with Irene in whatever form that takes.

Last year, in case you can remember last year, Bart could pop in on his mom when he was running errands in town. Bart’s wife, Katherine, made a regular Saturday morning cookie stop with whatever kids happened to be around.

The Kretchmer’s son Billy missed most of those. He was finishing up at St. Thomas and then starting a job in the Cities. Trips back to the farm are sparse for Billy, although he tries to get back to help in the fall. Last Christmas, Billy decided to block some time to visit his grandma. She wasn’t going to be around forever. Bart reminded him of that. Sometimes guilt is good incentive.

Billy went there the Saturday before Christmas. After checking at the nurses station, he went down the hall to Irene’s room. On the door was a collage of family pictures, mostly old. There was Billy’s 7th grade photo. He cringed, bemused at his early adolescent look, like most of us.

He knocked lightly and slowly pushed the door open. Irene was sitting in her recliner, silhouetted by morning light coming through the shades. “Grandma?” Billy said, above a whisper.

Irene straightened in her chair, “Oh Bart! Come in, come in.” Irene has bouts of memory lapses, a main reason she’s at the nursing home. It comes and goes. The present blends seamlessly with the past for Irene.

“Grandma, it’s Billy. I’m Bart’s son.”

“Oh, Billy, of course. I know that! Sometimes I get mixed up. I don’t know why I do that.” Irene shook her head slightly. “I’m glad you came to see me. Come in. Do you want a cookie?” She pointed at a small plate of wafers from her last night’s supper.

“No, but thanks.” Billy moved closer for a sideways hug, the kind that young men give their grandmothers. He sat down on the crisply made bed. “I’m home for a couple days, and thought I’d come see you, Grandma. How are you?”

Irene squinted, “Oh, the same. There’s not much on TV. I read some. Sometimes I sit and think about things. That’s what I was doing now.”

Billy smiled at her, “That’s a good thing to do. I sit and think sometimes, too”

“Did you see Hugo when you came? He went out to the barn. I thought he’d be in by now.” Moments like that are tricky for the family. Hugo passed away ten years ago. They’ve decided it’s best to let Irene’s mind spin in place.

“No, I didn’t see Grandpa. Has he been busy?”

“Oh, heavens yes, there’s bedding and scraping out the barn this time of year. I think I should help, but I don’t get around much now. It’s hard going outside for me.”

Now Billy thought he should push back to present time. “Grandma, I’m going to graduate from college this spring. I wish you could come. Right after that I’m going to visit you, so we can have a little graduation party right here.”

“Oh, that would be nice.” Then Irene’s brow furrowed, “Billy, do you have a girl? I think I know that but can’t remember. I wish I could remember things. I don’t know why I don’t.”

“That’s okay Grandma. I’m seeing Jessica a lot. You met her last summer. We came to see you. You liked her.”

Another squint from Irene as she dug in a memory vault that was often locked. “Well, good, Billy. I’m sure I did. I’m glad for you. Are you going to marry her?”

Billy hates those questions. But coming from his grandma they’re harmless. “I don’t know. We talk about it. I’m going to be starting work and Jessica wants to finish school.”

“Good for her, Billy. I wanted to finish school. Ma and pa needed me to come home after country school sixth grade. Ma needed help in the house and pa outside. It was okay. I liked to help them. But I always wondered what school would have been like.” Irene said as she looked out an opening in the shade to what daylight there was. Then her eyes turned back to her grandson. “Billy, are you going to farm after you get married?”

Billy took a second. Another one of “those” questions. “Dad and I talk about it. I don’t know, he and mom have a while to go, and we don’t run that much land. I don’t know, Grandma. Maybe? Some day?”

“Well, Billy, it’s a good life. Hugo and I liked it. We worked hard. We had fun, too. It was a good place to raise your dad and the others.”

Billy saw a chance to mine some memories. “Grandma, remember Christmas then?”

A smile crept on her face, “Oh, Hugo always surprises me with a present from town. Something from the drugstore or McKnight’s. He even went in Anthony’s one year to look at clothes. Can you imagine Hugo going in Anthony’s! A couple times I had to pretend to like his present. I always sewed something for Hugo. I think sometimes he pretended to like it. That’s how it is sometimes when you’re married.”

She nodded to Billy, “Do you have a present for your girl? Darn, I can’t remember her name.”

“Jessica, Grandma, that’s okay. I got her something, some pottery I think she’ll like. Maybe I inherited my present-giving from Grandpa. She might have to pretend she likes it.”

They went back and forth for a while: something remembered, something forgotten, “What was her name?” It was a good visit. Billy was glad his dad guilted him into it. Grandma wasn’t going to be around forever.

Came time to leave, and Billy said he’d be back with his family on Christmas. “Grandma, you be good. Else Santa might bring coal for your stocking.”

Irene smiled at the thought of something she was scared of 90 years ago. “I’ll try to stay out of trouble. Billy, when you go out, could you see when Hugo’s coming in for dinner? He’s down in the barn.”

“Sure, Grandma. I’ll do that.”

To make coffee in our kitchen on one foot and using a walker, you need to shuttle things to intermediary spots along the way. Between the sink and the coffee maker is a table and a cupboard. You shift the pot with water from one to the other to the other while hopping on your lone leg. You need both hands on the walker to hop-step.

I learned this after Achilles tendon surgery. I partially tore my Achilles last spring but didn’t know till an MRI in September. Then it was a matter of not tearing it completely during harvest, which I was lucky to do. After some time in a splint and a boot, I hope to be healthy by planting.

Besides making coffee, there’s a bunch of activities I took for granted a week ago that I don’t now. It’s a short-term inconvenience. I know I am blessed to: A. have access to health care, B. be in relatively good health, and C. have a home and spouse to make this easier. Not everyone has these.

It does cause me to think about those who struggle every day from annoyances like an ongoing pain to major life-altering disabilities. Now and then I hear of someone suffering one of those, and think, “Oh, that would be tough to live with.” I might spend a minute imagining how difficult life would be in that state, and then move on.

For a few weeks as I hobble on one leg, I’m given the chance to feel a little deeper what life with an affliction would be.

I had time while my injured foot was elevated to think about my dad. When I was twelve, Sylvester lost his right hand to a combine’s straw chopper. I have vivid memories of that day. After that, it was just part of my life to have a dad with a prosthesis where everyone else had a hand. I blame my inattentiveness on the self-absorbed teen years that followed.

I wondered about those days after the accident. At the time, my folks had cows, laying hens, sows, plus crops. There was lots of manual labor, all designed to be done with two hands. Yet there I am a few years later, working with my dad who adjusted to a million different tasks with a hand and a hook.

I’ve thought about the days I don’t remember when my parents learned to deal with their “new normal,” to borrow a current phrase? I learned later there was tremendous stress on the both of them. Older brother Dale helped out as they made hard decisions. This was 1968. Margins in farming were thin and backup plans didn’t exist.

How is to learn to strap on a milking machine with a hand and hook? Or working a shovel and pitchfork? My dad probably used those every day since he barely walked. With two hands. Gathering eggs? A metal hook was useless there; you’ve suddenly lost half your capacity.

As I was thinking these, it occurred to me that I was feeling empathy for my dad. Perhaps I was fifty years late. Some things take time.

Empathy is different from sympathy. Both are valuable but have distinct purposes. Sympathy involves feeling sorry for another. My sister recently passed-away, and my family appreciated sympathy cards and messages. Empathy might lead to sympathy, but not necessarily.

Empathy is putting yourself in someone’s place. It takes imagination and effort. It means stepping in another’s shoes, sandals, or maybe bare feet. In their very place. It’s one thing to say, “Oh, that must hurt.” It’s another to try to feel that hurt. To put that sensation on your skin and have your nerves react. Not just pain, but things like another’s frustrations and anxiety. As I put myself in my father’s long-ago place, there were all those.

Someone said of the songwriter John Prine, “He had the gift and the curse of great empathy.” I suppose that’s right; it is both. Once you put yourself in another’s stead, responsibility comes with that. Empathy is difficult, but it can be core to relationship with another. Caring, humanity, compassion grow from it.

The ability to empathize is always useful. But some things here and now make it more so. As our nation wrestles with historic racism, the ability for enough of us to empathize with someone who is a different color or class or lives in a different place might be our only chance to make things better.

Can a 64-year-old rural white guy know what it’s like to be a young urban black man constantly surrounded by people suspicious of him? What it’s like to walk into a store and have security follow you and white people shift over an aisle? Most people I know have health insurance and as nutritious a diet as they want. What if that wasn’t the case for my relatives and neighbors? The schools around here are good. What if my kids attended a school with decaying walls and corroded pipes?

I can never fully know those sensations and that life. But empathy can move me beyond, “Why don’t they just get a job like everyone else?”

Also, in this time, I think there is value in imagining life in the skin of immigrants and refugees. The “curse” of empathy is you can’t take the easy path. It is easy to see them as a lawless horde of people-not-like-us at the border. It’s becomes difficult if they are human beings.

The smallest amount of investigation reveals that whole other truth. The truth is the immense majority of those seeking asylum and refuge here are good and decent people. People who love their kids and seek a safe and healthy place. Like me. Like you.

What’s it like to live in a place where gangs threaten your wife when she goes out? What does it feel like to have no opportunity to work to support your family? How difficult is it to be compelled to leave the place you know for a place you don’t? Only to be met with something like military force rather than an understanding and helpful border presence that should be that of a great nation?

We hope our leaders have this skill of empathy. Regardless, I need to hone it in me. A couple weeks on one leg helps.

I’ve spent a lot of my time on Earth alone. Farming has meant many hours alone on a tractor or working in the yard. A part-time job in the summer has me walking fields, just me, the crops, and the fenceline. Going back, my older siblings were leaving home when I showed up. Close brother Dean spent school weeks at Braille School in Faribault, so I was alone a lot growing up.

The years we were raising our kids were an exception. There were people around then. A bit of time alone early in the morning felt like a gift. Sometimes the kids had friends over making a great racket, and I was glad to sneak off to a tractor, leaving Pam to enforcement duties.

Then, there are people who live alone for a variety of reasons. These range from young and starting out, to old and everyone else is gone. Some choose to live by themselves; others have it thrust upon them.

It’s partly a factor for each of us whether we are an extrovert or an introvert how we feel about time alone. An extrovert, by definition, craves interaction and is energized by that. The introvert is drained by steady human contact and craves time alone to regroup, reflect, and relax. Most of us are some of each, depending on the day.

I am generally comfortable alone and like keeping company with me. I tend to introvert, although wife Pam would argue that isn’t true. Admittedly I often engage random people in line or at bar rails in conversation. That has led to hearing whole life stories sometimes. I tell Pam these are nervous reactions on my part to situations, like standing next to someone.

I’d like to say I spend all this time by myself in introspection and deep thought. It could even be in prayer. Unfortunately, I am an easily distracted introvert. Often, I have a radio on and a cell phone pinging at me in recent years. These can turn into noise filling my head. I try to spend time in communication with God. But that often ends with, “What were we talking about God?”

Time spent alone does allow me to write these columns in my head before putting them to paper. Well, computer screen. A danger with being by yourself can be the chance to overthink something given enough time. One can think themselves into a funk now and then when you are alone. A friend nearby might tell you, “That doesn’t make any sense,” and save you some agony.

I think we all seek balance between solitary and social time. Ideally, we would get the right amount of interaction with other human beings to allow us to do some good and fill our cup of curiosity each day. We know we have been charged to love our neighbor (and enemy). There are ways to do that even in solitude. Caring for the Earth, nurturing a place that will be passed on, even just not wasting resources that can be used by others. Of course, we can always use spare moments to pray for our fellow travelers.

As Covid Winter descends (that just sounds depressing), whatever our situation in life will be concentrated and intensified. If we live in a house full of people, they are around more than normal, and you might be faced with intense busyness around you. If you live alone, it is the opposite, with less visitors and reduced events out of the home.

Circumstances affect our efforts to balance time alone and time together in normal times. Curveballs can be thrown at us any day. But in this time of quarantine and pandemic, it’s more fastballs up at your head than curveballs.

There are people living alone who are struggling right now. I think of a bachelor farmer or retired guy in town. They might have gone for coffee or a beer with a group every day, and now that is taken away. Maybe worse than being alone, are those who are trapped with an unkind or even abusive other.

It calls to mind the early settlers. There are stories of men and women trying to set up a life on the unforgiving frontier. Women going insane were commonly reported, but there were men, too. According to the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, “driven to madness by the isolation, hardships, and environment of the settlement experience…often buried in unmarked graves, their illnesses became dark family secrets, their individual stories are lost to history.”

Our daughter is employed by the United Nations working in Human Rights. It’s interesting that the UN considers solitary confinement a potential type of torture that is inhumane and illegal according to international law. In a statement issued last year about concerns of excessive use in the United States, the UN said:

“The severe and often irreparable psychological and physical consequences of solitary confinement and social exclusion are well documented and can range from progressively severe forms of anxiety, stress, and depression to cognitive impairment and suicidal tendencies. This deliberate infliction of severe mental pain or suffering may well amount to psychological torture.”

Coming out of this difficult pandemic there are going to be individuals who will need support and healing. All of us should look around and see where we can bring light to someone’s darkness.

A final depressing thought on loneliness. I am sure the saddest piece of music ever written was by Hank Williams. Hank wrote this in 1949, feeling tormented in a relationship at the time:

“Hear that lonesome whippoorwill

He sounds too blue to fly

The midnight train is whining low

I’m so lonesome I could cry.”

If you decide to listen to that song, please, follow it up with something cheery. Maybe a good polka. We need that right now.

I was talking to Dale, a former farm kid.  I was telling him how harvest was going.  Dale tolerated me a while, and then said, “You corn and bean farmers.  You’ve got about as much to do as me mowing my lawn.  You get your machinery out a few times a year like I get my lawn mower out.”

My comeback was, “Yeah, but the government gives us a bunch of money, so this must be important.”  To which, he said he should get a Lawn Support Payment.  I couldn’t argue with that.  It made about as much sense as some farm payments.

Farm kids like Dale and me grew up on diversified farms with day-long and year-round lists of things to do.  With cows, steers, pigs, chickens, corn, soybeans, oats, alfalfa, not to mention kids and a garden, the work literally never ended for our parents.

Now animals are mostly raised in large confinement operations, and a shrinking number of us raise corn and soybeans on the surrounding land.  I admit there are gaps on the calendar for crop farmers.  There’s time to do other things.  Frivolous things.  Like write a newspaper column.

Springs and falls are still intensely busy.  Yes, more than mowing your lawn.  Every harvest, a few days stand out that become stories to share with fellow farmers.  Those are days that don’t go as planned.  Here’s a couple from Harvest 2020.

I was unloading corn in the yard.  Nephew Jay was running the combine.  I got a text, which usually meant a wagon was full.  This time it was a short video with the message, “Is this dust or smoke?”  The video showed wispy white something coming from the side of the corn head.

Oh oh.  There’s a lot of dust around a combine, but not like that.  I jumped in the pickup and raced to the field.  Jay was out of the combine.  There is a panel on the side of the corn head covering the pulleys and chains that propel everything.  Smoke was sifting out around the edges of that.

That cover is held on by six bolts.  I grabbed a wrench, got the first one off, and pulled back on it a bit.  Given a gasp of oxygen, the smoke leapt out as flames.  We ran to get the fire extinguisher on the side of the combine.  We don’t extinguish many fires, and there were a couple frantic seconds figuring that out.

Inside that compartment was a perfect combustible blend of oil, grease, and corn dust.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t spray the fire without getting the panel off.  One by one I removed the bolts on my knees getting a face full of smoke, dust, and extinguisher retardant as Jay sprayed the newly freed fire leaping out into the air

It was briefly exciting.  In seconds that seemed like hours, the flames were out as smoke continued to billow.  If, this a large “if,” we didn’t have that fire extinguisher, I’m not sure how the story ends.  It was windy, and a hundred acres of dead corn plants might have given that fire a mind of its own.

We had several days of Red Flag Warnings this fall.  Those are increasingly common: dry wind and extreme low humidity at the time of year when everything green has turned into potential tinder.  Combine fires are not uncommon, each of them being a combustible vessel of grain dust and petroleum products.

Our situation was not apparently dangerous, although there were enough ingredients to make it so.  It was reminder that there are hazards in working with machines and nature.  Lots of jobs around here, not just farming, are so defined.  An increased emphasis on safety and better equipment during my career make things better.  But danger remains.

We drove the combine to the yard where I took a hose to the smoking parts.  The water was met with hissing and more smoke, and finally just dripping.  Our attention turned to back to the task at hand: harvest.  I called Miller Sellner Implement to let them know we were bringing in our disabled machine.

We were met by Laverne Krzmarzick and Cole Krzmarzick who ascertained that a bearing going out had caused sparks leading to fire.  A half day in the shop would get us going with some repairs to be completed later.  They were joined later by Clint Krzmarzick and Carter Krzmarzick.  Every customer at Miller Sellner gets great service, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to have my surname.

My other story involves less danger and more embarrassment.  Promise not to laugh.

I was racing to finish corn before our October snowstorm, working alone with ten acres to go.  To get done quicker, I was going to haul these last loads to nearby Central Region elevator.  Heavy snow was forecast late in the day, but flakes began falling in the morning as I started combining.

I filled my two wagons and jumped from the combine to the tractor.  I drove the first wagon to the elevator in increasing snow.  As I unloaded, I heard other farmers were quitting.  Snow on corn plants can plug up a combine’s innards.

Getting home with the empty wagon, I jumped in the combine to drive it home and into the shed.  Then I ran to cover things up by the bins.  Now it was full-out snowing, and I ran back to the field to take the other wagon to the elevator.  That was the plan.

When I pulled off the scale, Jay (a different Jay) waved me to the number two pit, which wasn’t normal.  I climbed off the tractor and Jay said the sample came out weird and we would have to recheck it.  He turned to unload my wagon.

My empty wagon.  My mind spun briefly, wondering where my corn had gone.  OH!  It hit me.  I forgot to switch wagons back in the field and hauled the empty wagon back into town.

“Um, that’s imaginary corn,” I said cringing.  “I heard the price for imaginary corn was up today.”  I was scrambling to not look dumb.  At this age, I regularly misplace things like phone and wrenches.  But not 400 bushels of corn.  It was a senior moment, writ large.

Oh well, any time you can get out of harvest with the people and the machines mostly intact, you have to be thankful.  Thanksgiving Day is timed perfectly in that way.

I’ve spent a lot of days on a tractor.  Most are forgotten.  Those are ones where the biggest concerns were picking a radio station and trying not to eat my 3:00 snack at 1:00.  Days I remember are ones when I got stuck or broke down.

Saturday was different.  I was trying to finish up tillage after winter came in October.  Now we were having summer in November.

A few issues with equipment meant I was cutting it close to finish before the rain, so some tension there.  The kids and Pam had various stresses in their lives which become my stresses; that’s the way fathering and husbanding work.  Beyond my field, the pandemic was growing more local than global.  Plus, an election fog lay across America, the race for president undecided.

Then there was my sister Judy.  Judy is 16 years older than me.  She is severely disabled, has been from birth.  Judy is non-verbal and deaf.  She left the farm when I was a toddler.  There are stories about us teaming up together to get in some trouble.  Judy went to live part of her life in institutions such as they were at the time.  For thirty years she has been at Ridgewood, a group home in Worthington where she received gracious and generous care.

Despite her handicaps, Judy was always warm-hearted and smiled readily. It was beautiful to see a person locked in a body that didn’t work as well as most share joy the way she did.   In her innocence, our family often said her place in heaven was certain.  She was always happy to see me.  I joked with Pam that I wish other people were half as happy to see me.

Nobles County has had high numbers for Covid.  About ten days ago, we got word that a couple of the staff at Judy’s home tested positive.  A few days after that Judy had it.  It began with a slight cough but got worse.  A couple days later, she was hospitalized with what they called Covid pneumonia.

All these things were in my head Friday night, and I tossed and turned more than slept.  Sleep being futile, I got up several hours before the sun did.  Just as I settled at the table with coffee, my phone rang.  I don’t get many calls at 4:30 AM.

The call was to let me know that Judy was dying.

The 4:30 call wasn’t unexpected.  Still, it was hard to hear.  I waited a couple hours to call my sister JoAnn and to tell Pam.  The hospital was not allowing visitors, a sign of these times.  There wasn’t much to do, so as the sun began lighting the farm, I headed to the tractor.

I was coffee-ed up and tired at the same time.  Emotions were knocking around in my head, running into each other.  I started listening to news and music, flipping back and forth in my anxiousness.

I can talk on my phone in our tillage tractor.  As it turned to day, I had a series of calls with Judy’s guardian, her doctor, and my sister.  Judy’s doctor in Worthington was exceptionally thoughtful and considerate, which meant a lot right then.  He sounded beat down.  The doctor had treated nearly a thousand Covid cases since spring.

We found out the hospital was permitting one visitor for someone who was near death.  Another round of calls followed.  In the end, with our ages and surgery I’m having after harvest, we decided it was too risky for JoAnn or me to go.  Judy’s doctor and guardian concurred that was the correct thing to do.  Judy was not conscious and would not have recognized us.

Still, if this were anything like a normal time, we would of course have gone to spend some final moments with our sister.   That would have seemed so right.  This felt so wrong

None of this was handled lightly.  I stopped the tractor for this last set of calls.  When I hung up, I put my head down on the steering wheel.  I confess to tearing up in that moment, my throat constricting.  It just seemed like too much.

Right then, two things happened.  As I lifted my head, a deer bound across the field a couple hundred feet in front of me, a young doe.  Maybe she was spooked by hunters somewhere.  My eyes followed her beautiful lope as she bound to the east.  It seemed like that meant something.  Only, I didn’t know what.  Regardless, it was a gift from nature, one that was appreciated.

Then I got couple pings on my cell phone, texts from friends.  The presidential race was being called.  I allowed myself a brief space in time to feel relief.

None of our country’s problems was solved by that announcement.  But maybe, sometime in a few months, we can go one day without a Tweet insulting someone, attacking our allies, finding another way to mistreat destitute asylum seekers, or announcing a policy to benefit the rich or hurt the environment.  One day, I just want one day.  We haven’t had that in four years.

Animosity and enmity have been growing in our country for years.  But it is not a coincidence that when the very top person is proudly obnoxious to everyone who does not adore him, things declined precipitously.  I said to a friend, I was nostalgic for the hatred and acrimony of the Bush/Obama years.  That was manageable.

Into this toxic culture, comes a health threat like none seen in a century.  It is clear that it could have been handled better.  It has been in most other countries.  Decent well-intentioned people who care about others, looking to scientists and medical experts, with intelligent leaders to organize our response, that should have been us.

No.  Our nation’s leader attacked scientists and spoke “untruths,” which is a nice way of saying “lies.”  We didn’t knit together; we frayed.  It is like winter came, and half of us refused to admit it’s winter and won’t wear coats just to prove it.

Thinking about this makes me angry.  I’m tired of being angry.  But my sister is dying of a virus that we were told is a hoax, under control, or will magically disappear.

I put the tractor back in 8^th gear and dropped the disc ripper behind me.  I will try to spend the rest of the day praying as much as possible and being angry as little as I can.

We have an old cat in our house.  Our children have come and gone and come and gone.  But Taffy the cat has been here most of two decades.

Daughter Abby was always befriending farm cats and bringing them in the house for extended visits when she was young.  Kittens born in a closet were a high point and a brief invasion by fleas were a low point in those years.

When Abby was twelve, she was playing over at Dan and Lisa Steffl’s farm.  There was a kitten in a puddle which had somehow lost its mother.  Abby asked the Steffl kids if she could take it home.  Abby has long been a defender of the downtrodden of all species.  Pam and I assumed this kitty she named Taffy was another short-term visitor.

Eventually Abby left, and Taffy stayed.  She’s still here, seventeen years on.  As Abby went to University, moved to the West Coast, and then Europe, I had a running joke where Taffy wanted Abby to look for her mother.  Abby recently moved to Guatemala City.  Perhaps Taffy’s mother is there.

Now, Taffy looks to be in her twilight.  Aging is different from injury and illness.  It is a long slow gradual slide.  Taffy doesn’t bat the string around anymore that hung on the stair railing.  She doesn’t sit on the chair across from me when I’m having my morning coffee.

For many of these columns, Taffy jumped up on our computer desk and laid next to the keyboard when I was writing.  It was a little annoying, I had to maneuver the mouse between her paws.  But she was social in that way, so I left her.  I said she was my editor.  A few months ago, she couldn’t make that jump anymore.

The gradual decline has become steeper lately: not eating much, barely getting up the stairs, even looking tippy sometimes.  Just to be sure there wasn’t any simple thing to help, I took Taffy to the vet’s.  Christina from Riverside Vet Clinic concurred that Taffy’s condition was a natural state of being near the end.  Death is, after all, natural, even if I don’t like to think about it.

I called the kids to let them know Taffy was on palliative care, hospice provided by Pam and me.  And they should prepare for bad news.

The thing about pets is you see their whole lives play out, from kittenhood to old cat or puppyhood to old dog.  It is a life spanned within our own life’s span.  I didn’t think about that till becoming an older human.  But right there in front of us is a metaphor for our own life.  Depressing as it may be, watching Taffy’s decline presages my last chapters.  Loss of acuity, susceptibility to various ailments, lessening energy are things common to cats and us as we age.

I hope to be running around for a while.  But I know how this fall, climbing on top of bins and crawling underneath equipment were done with less friskiness than in the past.  Achiness after a hard day was a little more pronounced.  Running for twelve or fourteen hours has gotten more challenging.

As I describe those phenomena, I’m not glum about that.  No way did I anticipate any of it when I was thirty.  But now that I’m twice that plus four, I understand that’s the script.  I remember my dad moving slower and grunting to climb up on tractors when he was this age.

I was thinking about this while I was combining corn.  Six rows of tall, browned stalks were being whipped down by the snapping rolls, the ears drawn in by the gathering chains.  It’s all incredibly fast, almost violent.  There’s standing corn in front of you and bits of leaves, stalks, and cobs behind you.

Hours of this becomes hypnotizing, and your mind has space to wander.  It occurred to me that my corn plants were another life spanned.  In this case, all within a growing season rather than the unpredictable lifetime of cat or human.

Six months ago, I gently poured seeds into my planter hoppers.  A lot of planning and effort went in to giving each one of those the best seedbed and conditions possible.  When the shoots poked out of the ground, there is always a tiny excitement for the farmer.

After that comes days of green stalks growing skyward, leaves rolling out.  Corn standing tall and straight in late summer is impressive and not to be taken for granted.  There’s everything we do as farmers and then about 90 per cent what nature does that gives us a crop to put in the bin.

Cat, corn, farmer.  There are seasons for all: a time to be young, a time to grow, and a time to die.  Ecclesiastes says it well.

With some of my own physical ebbing, there comes understanding that I couldn’t have had when I was younger.  Understanding and appreciation.  These days are gifts given more than earned.

Taffy looks tireder and tireder.  If I am lucky to grow old, observation tells me that will come for me.  In the way that the corn plant turns from green to brown, I think we grow tired of this life, exhausted as our bodies wear out.

The kitten Abby found in a puddle might have had a short life if it hadn’t moved in with us.  The life of a farm cat can be tough.  The luckiest live in a warm dairy barn with spilled milk for an occasional treat.  The less fortunate wander from farm to farm avoiding coyotes, scrounging food to survive.

I sometimes wonder, would Taffy have chosen that and the chance to bear a couple of litters of kittens over her comfortable but neutered life?  The urge to procreate is after all large in nature.  She didn’t get that choice, and I appreciate that she gave seventeen years of companionship to our family.

Taffy is dying of old age.  And that is a gift not given to all.  If I die of old age, I’m not sure how much I’ll be aware of things.  But I hope I can appreciate that.  Maybe even celebrate it with whoever might be there at my end.

(After this was completed, Taffy passed on.  I was able to be there at her end, her on a blanket, me on my knees.  It felt like a small grace.  Burial to follow in the grove.)

Dean Brinkman filling in for Randy during harvest season

I went to visit an old friend the other day. It was the beginning of the end. We go back as far as I can remember. You might think I’m getting to be a sentimental old cuss, but I’ve been a sentimental cuss my whole life. This one literally “hits home” with me.

Towns are made up of houses that become homes. Many houses have character, and many homes have characters. Multiply this by all the friends that grow up under the tutelage of the other moms and dads in your life, and maybe you can “go home” with me for a moment.

If you’ve moved away from your “hometown,” you can appreciate when I describe a couple of Sleepy Eye’s storied dwellings that I spent time in as a kid.

The Heymans’ “mid-century modern” house was designed by John Randal McDonald, a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. It rests along Highway 4 and is home to breathtaking picturesque sunsets over Sleepy Eye Lake. It was family built and owned for 57 years by Phil and Betty, home to their eight children.

Next, the tan English Tudor stucco house where the six Woessner boys grew up. Picture a few decades worth of “neighbor-hoodlums” shooting hoops at the alley side basketball court adorned with a parking lot of bicycles. Dad, F. George Woessner was another WW II veteran who brought his dental practice to town.

Small towns, country roads and big city neighborhoods are littered with these places and stories.

My “old friend” and I shared many birthdays and holidays together. My friend kept me warm and safe. I loved to just hang with my 125-year old friend.

Norwegian immigrant and bank President Hans Mo built the three-story grand Victorian structure in 1895 at 110 Burnside SW. Structurally, it is part of Sleepy Eye’s historic pride.

The stone wall foundation supports its ten-foot basement ceilings. From the outside it stands tall, stately and castle-like to a child. Everything about this old friend of mine is vast. Inside it is adorned with spindle design entryways and ornate dove-tailed wooden floors. Craftsmanship caresses every corner and decorates its aging beauty. It is inadequate to describe it as “majestic.” Board for board, stone by stone it would be extremely difficult to reproduce today.

In 1964, Rex and Judy Beech purchased this mansion and moved in with their newborn Greg and three-year old Jay. A few years later, daughter Linda was born. In the early Seventies, they adopted daughter Young Sil and “that’s the way they became the Rex and Judy Bunch.” Their foundation was built on laughter, song, tears, love, and strong Christian family values.

I never lived there, but I spent many nights. The Beech house was my first “home away from home”. Greg and I were best of friends by age three.

Waking up from a sleepover meant completely different things. “Cap’n Crunch!Are you kidding me? I don’t get that at home?” Meals were preceded by a Lutheran blessing of grace.

The movie “Toy Story” must have been watching us to steal ideas. Hot Wheels and Matchbox got along better than Ford and Chevy. Mattel and Hasbro would be proud to see how Malibu Barbie, GI Joe and Big Jim lived in one big diverse toy city there.

We used to “play house” in the Beech home. The toy chest full of outfits dressed our imaginations. Baseball cards were traded and played with on the floor. We cleared out the living room, using the furniture and walls to recreate sports stadiums.

Our air guitar band, The Psychedelic Bugs, entertained Rex and Judy with supper time concert performances. As grade school rock star wannabees, we lip synced groovy hit records from The Monkees in those cavernous basement confines.

In the winter, rosy cheeks and icicled noses came inside to unwrap and thaw out over the cast iron floor heat grates as the warmth blew upwards from toe to head. Minutes later being replaced by our ice stiffened mittens, scarves, stocking caps and boots. The warmth of hot chocolate sliding from throat to stomach felt like coal being stoked in the furnace of a youthful digestive tract while our skin returned to normal color and temperatures.

Outside were our stadiums and a driveway basketball court. They had the “south side’s” biggest sand box and swing set. Strategic game planning occupied the front yard and was “home base” for “ditch,” our version of hide-and-seek. They had a three-level metal “Ranger” tower for climbing, jumping, and falling from. It was equipped with sliding pole and a chain ladder for climbing and slicing fingers on.

I returned to say goodbye to my old friend. The house was sold after being the Beech house for 56 years.

Jay and I walked through every level and bare room. I pictured everything where it used to be, seeing the events that shaped and molded my growing years. I closed my eyes and inhaled the unique fragrance, a redolence of my youth. I wasn’t aware that I was smiling until I noticed a mirror.

Before walking out of my old friend, I couldn’t help but think of Rex and Judy now in their eternal home. Oregon, Iowa, and the Twin Cities now house the Beech siblings.

Here is the sad part. The surnames of the aforementioned houses, Beech, Heymans, Woessner, and Haug are all gone from Sleepy Eye. The Beech family name settled in Sleepy Eye around 1908. Gone after 112 years.

These names were the heart and soul of our town’s businesses, civic, church, social, sports and educational organizations of the past. They made up our town’s fabric. The names may be gone, but their impact on our community remains, part of our foundation.

On his final trip home to finish up last projects and sign the paperwork, Jay said to me. “I felt like I was driving home for a funeral.”Linda cried for a long time before she walked out for the last time.

After all, “Home is where the heart is.”

I found that I was not only saying goodbye to the rich history and beauty of the grand old house but more importantly to the home it had become. The wonderful souls, memories, and friends had shaped and molded my structure and foundation, the fabric of my life.

Perhaps the best idiom for last. It is an expression of pleasure upon returning to one’s home, especially after an extended period away from it. “Ah, home sweet home.”

You can sell the house, but you cannot sell the home.

Back in my running-around days, there would sometimes be a guy at the bar who was mad about something.  Mad at the bartender, mad at a girl, mad at another guy, mad at the world.  I remember telling friends that I don’t understand Angry People.  Drinking beer is supposed to be a happy thing.

Now we have a whole nation of Angry People.  And we can’t even blame alcohol.

A set of concurrent stresses has us on edge.  Some tension is to be expected as we work through a pandemic, race issues, natural disasters, etc.  As a nation, we’ve been through a lot in 244 years.  But it seems like 2020 is guilty of piling on.

We can’t be blamed for feeling under some pressure.  But, oh, the anger.

People at rallies, people at protests, commenters on-line, someone at a store in town.  Everyone has an opinion and a lot of them want to hit you over the head with it.  Passion can be a good thing, propelling us to necessary change.  But when passion becomes clothed in hatred, sometimes with tints of violence, “good” becomes a victim along with civility and decency.

It is dispiriting to behold and wears one down.  I find myself increasingly sad, sad for me, sad for us.  So many things make me cringe.  If you aren’t worried about the state of the country we’re turning over to our children, you have more optimism than I can muster.  The loudest voices are getting more attention than they deserve.  That is always true but, man, are they loud.

Anger is all around.  Thankfully, most of us live lives that are separate from our political selves.  I am lucky to be able to have a home and job where I can escape the constant negativity.  But not all of us do.  Arguments are turning up in the workplace and within families.  For some, there is no relief.

Here we are in the richest country on Earth, blessed with resources and wealth that would be unimaginable in most times and places in history.  One might expect the anger boiling over would be coming from the poorest, those struggling to pay rent and feed their children.  But most of this daily rage comes from people who have it better than most people who have ever lived.  That doesn’t even make sense.

Earlier in the summer I read about little Appleton, Minnesota.  Every Thursday at 4:30, a group called the Appleton Community Diversity Coalition planted American flags near City Hall.  Then they would hold a small rally for “Our America” to support inclusion and oppose racism.

Another group began showing up at the same time and setting up nearby.   Under a giant “Trump 2020” banner, they held their own rally protesting the protesters.  This went on for weeks.  For a regularly scheduled hour a few dozen otherwise normal human beings got together to yell at each other.  How depressing it that?

On a larger and scarier scale, my son is currently working a security job in Portland, Oregon.  For months, large gatherings of groups sympathetic to Black Lives Matter have held marches.  Groups of right-wing nationalists began coming to hold their own marches.  It sounds like it was the same thing as Appleton only with a threat of violence hanging over.  The right-wing guys really like carrying guns.  It’s a frightening brew of volatile ingredients.  Do we worry about our son near that?  Yes.

We know social media plays a sizeable part in escalating the anger.  Less and less people read a newspaper.  In a newspaper, professional, committed journalists are vetted and edited by other professionals and transparently separated from the opinion section.  Instead, people want to believe something they saw on Facebook that came from who knows where?

I have a couple friends who I wouldn’t have considered especially partisan before.  Now they send me memes and video clips.  They are getting regular doses of things that emanate from the direction of Fox News and sources righter and weirder than that.  These messages share a notion that the “other side” is not only wrong, but stupid and immoral.

Certainly, the current state of vitriol and constant temper has blame on all sides.  But it can’t help that for four years the White House has been occupied by a man whose primary skills are being angry and attacking others.  The Office of the Presidency should be teaching young people dignity and honor.  George Will wrote, “Most Donald Trump utterances resemble turbid creeks that are silty at their sources and trickle away into mud.”

That last paragraph means that on the Journal website, this column will be met with disapproval by Jimmy Joe.  Jimmy is a regular commenter there.  In the past, if I have written anything mildly critical of the President, Jimmy would assert that I am wrong with some link to a far-right group to prove it.

Jimmy Joe posts from an anonymous Facebook account.  Anonymity is common in the e- world.  Apparently, he is not committed enough to his beliefs to use his real identity.  Hey, Jimmy Joe, there’s my name at the top of this.  What’s yours?

When I started school, we received a grade for “deportment.”  That was the teacher’s way to let parents know how their child was behaving and whether they were acting decently to others.  Right now, our nation grades a D at best in deportment.

We know is that there are countries that are more than glad to see us act this way.  Russian and Chinese bots amplify ugly messages on all sides and propel them farer and wider.  Bad intentioned people in distant places aren’t even interested in taking a side.  They just want to see us continue to tear our country apart.  That’s proof right there that there are no winners in our ongoing squabbles.

I am not claiming innocence here.  I got into a heated debate with a buddy over a topic we both feel strongly about.  At some point, it crossed over from debate to good old-fashioned argument.  The next day I called my friend to offer an olive branch.  I said that once we raised our voices, neither of us was listening.  It became a total waste of our time.

I want to close with saying we can do better.  So many of the issues we are facing demand good, reasoned discussion among people of good will, sharing a goal of making this a better place.  But I’m not sure we can do better.  As we face the election and the winter, I’m not feeling hopeful.

In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, we are told, “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments. You know they cause quarrels. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel. Instead, he must be kind to everyone.”

That’s two thousand years old.  Still sounds about right.

They’re gone.

The swallows have left the farm.  It’s not quite as predictable as San Juan Capistrano, but it’s close.  They were lining up on an overhead wire. taking turns dive bombing for bugs the night before.  The next morning, they weren’t here.  They left in the dark, beginning a journey to Central or even South America.  They don’t tell me where they’re going.

It is one of those acts of nature that is remarkable if you think about it.  Small birds, less than ounce, flying a couple thousand miles twice a year.  For those hatched in our sheds this summer, it’s all new.  Yet they know the way.  GPS?  God’s Perfect System?

Day to day, we don’t think about this amazing planet we live on and the universe that surrounds it.  We wouldn’t get much done if we sat around dwelling on it.  Maybe we should.  We seem to have ample time to argue and disagree and put down others lately in this country.  Maybe a little more time focused on nature might help.  Regardless, a low level and constant sense of awe at Creation is warranted.

Our barn swallows are companions as I work outside long summer evenings.  I’m on the ground and they’re not, but otherwise we share the same farmyard.  They’re entertaining to watch, darting here and there, light reflecting off their shimmer-blue backs.  Plus, they eat mosquitoes!  What more can you ask?

A couple days before they left, I was on top of a bin doing some work.  One of the swallows was out on a mission and rose slightly to go up over the bin.  He came face to face with me.  His look said, “What the?” as he veered suddenly.

Barn swallows are among most common birds around the globe.  The ancestors of our seasonal guests nested along riverbanks and caves.  They adapted rapidly and readily to human structures.  They were likely attaching their mud and grass nests to Indian shelters before Europeans came with their farm buildings.  Here, that’s the old granary and pig house.  Sheds with metal roofs don’t seem to interest them.

Not every farmer is fond of them.  They do leave a mess below their nests.  As the famous children’s book teaches us, “Everything Poops.”  Swallows aren’t an exception.  There is a bit of cleanup when they migrate away.

We learned in history class that human immigration occurs due to pulls and pushes.  Swallows are no different.  The pull to these summer homes is the abundance of food.  This is their breeding home.  The abundance of flying insects to pluck out of the air gives them nutrition to raise up several generations in a summer.   The push is to escape predators that prowl and fly nearer the equator.  Farm cats aren’t much of a threat.  The swallows seem to enjoy harassing them.

I came in the house to tell Pam the morning they were gone, and she noticed a melancholy in my voice.  “I don’t have that many friends; I don’t like it when some of them leave.”  I told her we need to put in the will that whoever is here after us has to leave the granary door open in spring.

The swallows’ leave-taking is a marker of the change of seasons which is here.  Summer turns to fall, and there are signs everywhere of a downward slide in temperature and day light.  Most of the signs are gradual: slow turning of the leaves, slight change to the air, angle of the sun.  But the swallow disappearance is a sudden and striking message: winter is coming!

There is much to do before we farmers turn our fields over to winter.  But it will happen fast.  I love the harvest with its challenges and demanding pace.  I need to remind myself in the midst of it to live in that moment and remember how much I enjoy this.  Even if a fuel line is leaking or the combine is making a noise.

On the other end of the fall is winter.  Besides the swallows, I have more and more human friends who migrate south for the winter.  I’m finding myself a bit jealous as I watch their taillights disappear over the southern horizon.

Pam and I have taken a few short trips to warm places in the cold months.  Having spent 64 winters in the northland, it seems unnatural.  If I call back here and talk to someone who is telling me about miserable weather, I feel like I should be back there pulling people’s cars out of snowbanks and jumping their batteries.

An odd thing the day after the swallows left: I found one dead in the grass just off the yard.  I don’t remember finding a dead swallow before.  I assume their passing is more likely where they spend the greater part of their year near the equator.  Was this one old and not up to the journey?  I think of my swallows as returning every spring.  Of course, in my life there have been lots of generations.  The ones I watched as a boy are long deceased.

I started thinking of another group of my friends who have gone.  Only they won’t be coming back in the spring.  These are folks who have gone to a “better place.”  That is a journey we will all make.  Just as the newly hatched swallow can’t know what is at the end of their migration, we don’t know exactly what we will find.  Will that “better place” be sunny and warm with longer days?  Will we be able to linger with people we love like at the end of a summer day?

There is the great old hymn that suggests we will be like the swallows as we take that final journey.  “I’ll Fly Away” is the most recorded gospel song of all.  It was written about 100 years ago by Albert Brumley, coming into his head as he picked cotton on his father’s farm.

“Some glad morning when this life is over…
To a home on God’s celestial shore…

I’ll fly away, oh, glory
I’ll fly away
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I’ll fly away”

Occasionally someone refers to driving through the Midwest as boring. Corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans. If you’re a farmer, it is definitely not boring. We love looking at fields! It’s like a painter looking at other paintings.

I drive around for a part-time job in the summer, so I gawk at a lot of fields. Four years ago, I started to see soybean fields with telltale signs of chemical damage. It’s not unusual to see a field here or there where something has been sprayed wrongly or on a too-windy day. But it wasn’t a field here or there. It was fields everywhere. Cupped leaves, stunted plants, grayish color – “sickly” would be a good word.

The problem was fields that weren’t planted with Xtend seeds. Thousands of fields across the country sustained damage. Often the injured field wasn’t even next to a field where dicamba had been sprayed. It might be a half section away. I’d never seen that before.

Dicamba has been around a while. It was introduced in 1967 as the corn herbicide Banvel. It was an effective killer of broadleaf weeds. It also had the unwelcome and consistent tendency to drift to nearby fields and damage non-target plants. That limited its use.

Farmers have always been aware of wind speed and direction when spraying. A 20-mph wind out of the north means your chemical goes south. But dicamba moves without a breeze, stealthily, picking up and moving in ways that are wholly unpredictable. Volatilization causes it to slide across the landscape. Air inversions are common summer phenomenon that contribute to that.

It appeared this problem was going to be addressed. Along with the release of dicamba-resistant soybeans, Monsanto was going to sell a dicamba herbicide that was formulated to reduce volatility. XtendiMax dicamba would be the solution. Only if it worked in the lab, it didn’t out in the world. Acres of puckered leaves proved that.

It wasn’t just soybeans that were afflicted. Gardens showed symptoms. Trees weren’t immune. There were horror stories of high-value orchards and vineyards being damaged. It started getting attention in the ag media. Soon, it was in the national news.

As one can imagine, this created tension. Near Leachville, Arkansas, Curtis Jones got into a fight on a country road with Mike Wallace. Jones had sprayed dicamba, damaging hundreds of acres of Wallace’s crops. In the tussle, Jones pulled a gun and killed Wallace. He’s serving 24 years for second degree murder.

The new technology was supposed to be the answer to weeds that were resistant to Roundup herbicide. Soybeans genetically manipulated to be resistant to Roundup came on the market in 1996. Roundup Ready corn soon followed. For a few years, you could drive miles without seeing a weed. For those of us who grew up walking beans on sweaty summer mornings, it was a revelation. But there were warnings that overuse of Roundup would lead to resistant weeds. And farmers overused Roundup which led to resistant weeds.

Scientists were skeptical that Monsanto could create a safer, more controllable dicamba. In the documentary series “Reveal,” Arkansas weed scientist Ford Baldwin said he was surprised when he heard a new version of dicamba was in the pipeline. “I started talking about it in 2011, saying unless the companies know something about dicamba that I don’t, this is going to be the biggest train wreck agriculture’s ever seen.”

Baldwin speculated that Monsanto had in its business strategy the likelihood that all farmers would quickly use Xtend seed. If every field had the technology, there wouldn’t be a problem. “The combination of Roundup spray and Roundup tolerant seeds has been a huge moneymaker for Monsanto. The company understandably wanted the same for dicamba and dicamba tolerant seeds.”

After 2017, states put limits on dicamba. The label for dicamba is 40 pages of nine-point font. A deadline of June 20 was put in place for spraying in Minnesota. There have been fewer complaints in Minnesota since 2017. But that’s largely a factor of late planting the last two years followed by an on-again, off-again court ban this year which lowered use. The proclivity for dicamba to move hasn’t changed.

Not surprisingly, within days of the first use of dicamba in 2017 lawsuits were blanketing corn and soybean country. In court documents released in one lawsuit, internal communications inside Monsanto from as early as 2009 reveal concerns that “off-target movement” was expected, along with “crop loss, lawsuits, and negative press around pesticides.” A 2015 document shows that Monsanto’s own projections were that dicamba damage claims would total more than 10,000 cases.

I’ll mention here a significant trend in agriculture during my career. There used to be seed companies and chemical companies. Around the time that breeders started to genetically modify plants, chemical companies began to buy seed companies. Now most acres are planted to seed sold by Dow, Syngenta, BASF, and Bayer, which bought Monsanto. Control of ag inputs has fallen into fewer and fewer hands.

A lot of money I spend every year goes to these giant multinationals. If one is to farm conventionally in 2020, that is a consequence. The local reps and salesmen are friends of mine, and I don’t mind compensating them for their work. I’m less excited to be contributing to CEOs making millions.

I am not a scientist. I am regularly impressed by advances we take for granted. I can look around and find a hundred ways science has improved my life. Yet, there have been miscalculations. DDT was considered benign, and it took a generation to see the damage it caused.

It seems that good science requires a dose of humility, a sense of limits, and a healthy respect for the natural world. The push for dicamba may not have had those.