Category Archives: Farming

Hayloft-Part I

At the beginning of the winter season, the summer stacking of a few thousand sixty-pound bales of alfalfa nearly filled the space of the hayloft in the stock barn on our Todd County dairy farm. Continue reading

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Autumn Geldings

They lift their heads at the same time, small streams of water draining from their lips, silver in the sunlight, diamonds rippling through the air toward earth, drawn back to their source. Continue reading

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September Blessing

On this day of sky so blue the least, thin cloud seems but a thought, may the Lord’s own hand bless you with peace that stretches from dawn to dusk and lay you down gentle, ready for your rest. On … Continue reading

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Seasonal

Across the way from the beans, entire fields of corn have already been stripped to harvest. Long rows of stubble contour their way around the terraces, the ditches, the woods. Continue reading

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Key Words

I knew as well as I knew my own name that he meant for me to “bring the cows up into the lot” but I was eager to get back to fishing. So, I did what he said instead of what he meant and hurried back to the pond. Not thirty minutes later I was wishing that I had done otherwise. Continue reading

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A Moment of Cleansing

I am trying to remember this morning what it felt like to walk barefoot along the rambling paths of those childhood pastures in Todd County. Continue reading

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Morning Feeding

The whiteness of the horse shed

shows beneath the spreading pines

silhouetted against the sky

and dwarfed by the eighty-foot cottonwood

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Morning, Oblivious

Black cows graze

in the dim light,

oblivious to fog and bluffs,
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Taking a Stand

I had thought it was a completely rational idea to have the horses keep the grass “mowed” on the state right-of-way. It would save gas, give the horses extra grazing they needed and, in the long run, save me time. So I put up a temporary extension fence down by the highway. Continue reading

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August Morning

Such dews as this

seem to come only in the heat of summer,
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