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My life, both personally and professionally, has revolved around agriculture. I grew up on a family farm in North Dakota and remained active in it as an adult. And I spent most of my career as an agricultural journalist, primarily at Agweek, before cancer forced me into early retirement.

Inevitably, all those years of experience left a few negative memories.

Personally, I remember bad weather, poor prices and mechanical breakdowns, among other things. The strongest bad memory involves the unexpected death of a strapping newborn bull calf from a bred heifer I'd bought. First calf of my own and it dies for no apparent reason. At least it gave me greater insight into ag.

Professionally, I remember a few stories that failed to come together and a handful of profanity-filled phone calls from readers angered by something I'd written.

But the overwhelming majority of my ag memories are positive. Now, during the extended holiday season, I'll share a few of the most vivid. It's no coincidence that some involve Agweek.

Life doesn't get any better
I was eight or nine years old, and late fall and early winter were exceptionally cold. The Sheyenne River, from which our family beef cattle needed to drink, was frozen hard. So every day my father chopped holes in the ice with an ax; on a Saturday morning (no school) I went along, carrying a spare ax.

Naturally, I began chopping a hole of my own. My father didn't like it for safety reasons, but after an admonition to be careful he allowed me to keep going. My actual "help" was minimal, of course. But to be an 8- or 9-year-old boy chopping a hole in the frozen river with an ax, well, life doesn't get any better.

Rite of passage
This memory isn't strictly ag-related, but many upper Midwest agriculturalists can relate to it.

I was 12 or 13 and for the first time was old enough to go with my family and family friends to hunt deer on Knutson family land. I had two long but makeable shorts at a nice doe. My 30-30 rifle went boom twice; I missed both times. Part of the reason was that the classic-design Winchester lever-action rifle, despite its strengths, was not good for long-distance shooting, especially without a scope. The main reason was that despite being a safe, careful hunter, I was a terrible shot. Sadly, I never improved much, though I did shoot a fair number of deer over the next 50 years with that same rifle,

But an hour or so after missing that doe, I had another crack. A deer was moving slowly through heavy brush, close enough for even me to have an easy shot. I hesitated, double-checking that no hunter would be endangered by me shooting. Then I pulled the trigger, the rifle went boom and the deer dropped, mortally wounded. It was just a mid-sized doe, but I'd completed a rite of passage nonetheless.

Years later, a caller — furious over my — denounced me as a "big-city liberal" who among many other perceived failings was "anti-gun." As mildly as possible, I recounted the story of shooting my first deer. He swore at me and hung up.

Bales on the ground
My parents were off one fall weekend at some family event, and I filled in to feed our family cattle with small hay bales from the back of a pickup. On Monday morning I dropped off the bales at the fall pasture where our cattle were. It was about 6 a.m., still utterly dark, and the cattle seemed a little surprised to be fed in darkness.

Then I went home, showered and drove the 65 miles to Agweek's Grand Forks, N.D., office, arriving in plenty of time to start work there. I remember thinking that any day involving feeding cattle and working at Agweek was a good day.

Nice email
I was covering an out-of-town story for Agweek on a Saturday morning. It was a good story, and I didn't mind working on Saturday.

Then I received a totally unexpected email from a member of the executive committee of North American Agricultural Journalists, the professional organization for ag journalists in Canada and the U.S. At the time, I was the organization's Midwest regional vice president. The email said the committee had selected me for a two-year leadership track; the first year as national vice president, the second as national president. The executive committee member asked in the email if I accepted. After approximately two seconds of thought, I emailed back my acceptance.

That email made a good day even better. And it wouldn't have happened without me working at Agweek.

Long day, good day
I left Grand Forks, North Dakota, at 5:45 a.m. on a fine summer morning to interview and take photos of three agriculturalists in central North Dakota for three separate Agweek stories. Combining the stories on one trip saved a lot of time and gas money — a practice that former Agweek colleague Mikkel Pates and I both implemented when appropriate.

The interviews and photo-taking went well that day, and, as I'd hoped, I arrived home in Grand Forks about 9:15 p.m.

A long day, yes, but definitely a good one. There are a lot of good days in ag; a lot of good memories, too.

Jonathan Knutson is a former Agweek reporter. He grew up on a farm and spent his career covering agriculture. He can be reached at packerfanknutson@gmail.com.