RURAL LIFE

Here's hoping that the 'storm of a lifetime' lives up to its label

Jenny Schlecht — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 10:30:00 GMT

Of all the odd things that I saw on the morning of June 21, the one that will stick in my mind the longest is probably the free-standing panel twisted around a fence in our feedlot.

I stared at it several times that day, trying to figure out how it got where it was, halfway through the corral panel and somehow twisted both upward and downward, flapping in the breeze. It will be, forever in my mind, the symbol of the power and unpredictability of the weather. Looking at it, it was hard to believe that the evening before, we'd thought maybe the predicted storms would fizzle before it got to us.

On the evening of June 20, my husband and I were sorting heifers when my youngest daughter started sending me messages from the old decommissioned iPhone she can use in the house: "Are you coming in?" "Mom mom mom mom." "I'm scared."

I'd instructed her to leave the TV on in case there were any weather warnings, knowing that meteorologists had been calling for strong storms in the evening. She'd worked herself into a frenzy before my husband and I returned to the house. We told her the storms she was hearing about to our west likely would calm down before they got to us. After cleaning up, I started making a quick, extremely late supper of grilled cheese.

But before the sandwiches were even half done, our phones and TV went off, alerting us we were in a tornado warning. A quick look at where the spotted cloud was and where it was headed told us we might be in the path. We spent a little more than half an hour in the basement before reemerging. The power had gone out. But we thought the wind would start to taper off before too long.

Instead, it picked up, suddenly and severely. We could hear debris smacking against the siding and made the quick decision to go back downstairs. We all huddled into our spare bedroom for the night.

In the morning, my older daughter and I could no longer sleep and went outside to check things over. While we had known one barn had lost some tin and her basketball hoop had fallen over, what we found went far beyond what we could have imagined. Every building on the farm has some sort of damage, including our house, with a partially ruined roof and deep dents in the siding where debris flew. The two barns in the yard — filled right now with bottle calves and 4-H animals but very vital in calving season — both were missing much of their roofs, and rafters and tin were scattered throughout the yard. Our multipurpose working building — where we park machinery, work cows and store a variety of necessities — strangely had a garage door up that definitely had been down when we left it the evening before. The strong winds had blown through and damaged the opposite wall, leaving piles of insulation to clean up.

There were corrals demolished, panels twisted, trees uprooted or broken off. Everywhere we looked, we saw problems, many we could never explain. That panel in the feedlot, twisted and broken, was the hardest to explain. The National Weather Service, using our photos and those of a neighbor, ruled that a tornado had gone through our farm.

But everywhere we looked, we saw blessings. We were all safe, as were our neighbors, who also had severe damage. We learned quickly, not everyone was so lucky in the storms that had stretched from eastern Montana all the way to Minnesota. The storms were deadly for three people in Enderlin, North Dakota, and multiple families in the region lost their homes. Our house was very much still standing and livable. Our barns, while likely damaged beyond repair, were in no immediate danger of collapsing, and the animals inside were only concerned with how long it had taken us to feed them. My husband's sister and her husband rushed three hours to bring us supplies to patch our roof and help clean up trees and other debris, and their children helped raise our spirits, just by being themselves.

I saw a meteorologist call the storms that blew through multiple states in the region a "once in a lifetime" event. I sure hope he's right. We don't need to experience anything like that ever again.

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The role of 'Family Keeper' can mean pointing the family toward the future

Ann Bailey — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 10:30:00 GMT

I’ve unofficially declared myself the “Family Keeper.”

It’s a title that I made for myself because I am the fourth consecutive generation of my family to live in our farmhouse and my children are the fifth. The attic of the house is large, which offers both an opportunity and a challenge.

The opportunity is the ability to store a wealth of family history in the form of household items, letters and books, including farm records, dating back to the late 1800s. The challenge is deciding what to store and what to keep.

Over the 31 years we’ve lived in our house my husband, Brian, and I and our children have “cleaned out” the attic several times, but within a few years of the purging and sorting of items we added more of our stuff so we were back to square one.

Now in our 60s and retired, Brian and I decided we had to be ruthless in our endeavor to clean out the generations of items that were in the attic, including our adult children’s grade school and high school report cards, awards and drawings.

I had been keeping all of the latter for sentimental reasons and, after cleaning out my parents’ about a decade ago after my parents died, I realized that if my own three children felt the same way about the things my mom and dad had kept for me, they may not want them.

I was right. They scanned a few things and the rest went in the trash.

I was equally brutal with the generational items that were stored in the attic. I sorted through about a dozen boxes of photos, keepsakes, daily diaries, calendars, farm records books, religious articles, letters, suitcases and many other things and threw the majority of it. I took the Catholic religious items, such as rosaries and broken crucifixes to our church where they will be properly disposed of. The intact rosaries are in my bedside drawer and a beautiful, old crucifix now is hanging on our hall wall.

I waffled over throwing away some of it, such as unidentified wedding and family photos from the late 1800s and early 1900s, but logic prevailed and they went to the landfill. I have no idea who the people are and couldn’t justify keeping them so my children would have to get rid of them when Brian and I are deceased.

I spent an entire day and another half of the day, going through the boxes in the attic keeping top of mind our Brendan, Thomas and Ellen throughout the whole weeding out process. I asked myself, “Will this mean anything to them when Brian and I are deceased or will it just be a headache for them to sort through it?”

I didn’t throw everything. I put family pictures of identified people in separate plastic storage bags with the names of my children, siblings, parents, cousins, maternal grandparents and my maternal great-grandparents. I am giving each of the bags of the living relatives to each of them and they can do with them what they choose, and if that includes throwing them in our farm’s dumpster before they leave our farmstead, that’s fine. My self-imposed responsibility was to give pictures to the people who were in them, and what they decide to do with them is their choice.

I am putting the bags of pictures of deceased relatives in a single box that will go back up in the attic. When Brian and I are gone our children can decide whether to carry that box to the dumpster or look at its contents. The same goes for the farm record books, day-to-day calendars and diaries.

A note: The calendars, diaries and farm record books contain some good column fodder, so I’ll share some of the things I find in them in the future.

Those and the photos of deceased relatives that are identified total three boxes for our children to keep or dispose of when we are deceased. It’s a good feeling to know that, because as someone who helped clean out her parents’ home, where they had lived for 60 years, I know how difficult that is.

The older I get, the more I realize that, in the end, no matter how precious we think those material things are, it’s only “stuff” and that we can’t take it with us.

I’d rather make memories with our children and grandchildren and have them do the same with each other than hang on to physical things. The former are what definitely are worth keeping.

Ann Bailey lives on a farmstead near Larimore, North Dakota, that has been in her family since 1911. You can reach her at 218-779-8093 or anntbailey58@gmail.com.]]>

From gratitude to grief: Minnesota farm couple mourns loss of dedicated lawmaker

Noah Fish — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 18:51:24 GMT

CANNON FALLS, Minn. — Goodhue County farmers Danny and Mary Lundell had relatives living in Sweden reach out them about the pre-dawn shootings of Minnesota lawmakers.

The couple broke down in tears when they learned that early Saturday morning, June 14, Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed in their Brooklyn Park home, in the second of two reported shootings of state lawmakers that have been labeled “targeted political violence.”

Also shot Saturday were Sen. John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in Champlin. The Hoffmans are recovering from their injuries.

Late Sunday night, authorities arrested 57-year-old Vance Boelter, who is facing six federal charges in addition to state charges.

The shootings happened just several hours after Danny and Mary Lundell, who operate Cherry Valley Farm in Cannon Falls, where they raise corn and soybeans, saw Hortman in person at a Democratic fundraiser in downtown Minneapolis.

Saying thanks

Mary Lundell was waiting in line for the restroom at the annual Minnesota DFL’s Humphrey-Mondale Dinner on Friday — where Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith and others spoke — when a nearby elevator opened.

“And here came Melissa,” Lundell said of the Minnesota House member who served 11 terms. “I got a chance to talk to her right there, give her a hug, thank her for all work she’s done.”

Specifically, she thanked Hortman for her pragmatic leadership that led to passing a state budget during the special legislative session a week prior. The DFL House caucus leader joined Republicans in the House to pass the bill, which rolled back a signature issue for Democrats in the 2023 legislative session, health care for undocumented people in the state.

Hortman gave a press conference outside the Minnesota House afterward, saying she knew people would be hurt by the outcome but she had a job to get done for the people of Minnesota.

The threat of a government shutdown forced her hand to cut a deal with Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, and pass a final budget. It was a hard pill to swallow, Lundell imagined, and she wanted her to feel comfort in the sacrifice.

“I told her, I know how hard that last vote was for you,” Lundell said.

‘She was gone’

On Sunday evening, Lundell was still processing how it felt to open up to Hortman the last time she was seen publicly. It was still a few more hours before the accused killer crawled his way out of the woods in Sibley County to be placed under arrest by a team of federal, state and local law enforcement officers.

“Today was better, but yesterday was really kind of tough,” Lundell said Sunday evening. “All I could think of was that like eight hours after I gave her a hug, she was gone. She was in her own home, and she was gunned down. It’s just unbelievable.”

Lundell finds solace in the fact that she had the opportunity to thank Hortman in their last interaction.

“To see her and talk with her, yeah, but then to thank her. I actually thanked her. That's one I will always think about,” she said. “People have regrets about things they don’t say, and I’m just grateful that I thanked her when I had that opportunity to thank her.”

Danny Lundell didn’t speak to Hortman at the dinner, but the image of her smiling and visiting with people within a few feet of him keeps going through his mind in the days following her killing.

“She always carried that smile,” he said.

Rural advocate

The Lundells only knew Hortman through her work as a Democratic legislator and by her interactions at various events where she showed a genuine concern for the needs of people across the state and not just from her district.

“She cared about issues that are important for rural people, even if they don’t think of her that way because she was from a suburb,” Mary Lundell said. “She cares about health care so much because she cares genuinely about people and their issues.”

The Minnesota Milk Producers Association named Hortman as its 2019 Legislator of the Year, saying she was an integral part in securing the 2019 Agriculture, Rural Development, and Housing budget that included investing $8 million for the Dairy Assistance Investment, and Relief Initiative, as well as funding for mental health programming and high-speed broadband internet service in Minnesota’s rural communities.

Danny Lundell said what made Hortman special was her ability to navigate through conflict between opposing sides.

“She did not have an ego,” he said. “She makes me think back to Hubert H. Humphrey, who was known as the Happy Warrior.”

Mary Lundell said Hortman’s approach to the democratic process reminded her of the tortoise and the hare.

“She was slow and steady, very thoughtful and thought things through, and she could listen to people that didn’t agree with her, and work with them,” she said. “Melissa was really good at listening to the other side and figuring out the little things that were in common.”

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Things go right more often than it seems

Jenny Schlecht — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 10:30:00 GMT

We planted the garden a touch late, delayed by rain and abnormally cool weather in May, followed by about a week’s wait while we acquired a new tiller.

I planted green beans and potatoes Memorial Day weekend, and I’ve been wandering over to look for signs of life ever since. Everything I planted earlier was in old lick tubs, and everything came up nicely — save for a spot where a cat may have played in the soil where I planted carrots.

But the beans and potatoes in the ground seemed slow to emerge. In reality, I saw the first signs of both about a week and a half after planting — not outside the normal realm of emergence — but I was impatient.

My daily inspection of the ground reminded me of a scene in one of my favorite books, "Anne of Avonlea," the first sequel to "Anne of Green Gables."

Anne had given little garden plots to two orphans in her charge. One, Dora, planted in an orderly fashion and patiently waited for her seeds to emerge in neat rows. The second, Davy, planted haphazardly and constantly dug up the seeds to see if anything was happening and came up with all sorts of reasons why his sister’s plot was growing and his wasn’t — ignoring that his own impatience and constant messing with things had been his problem all along.

I didn’t get all the way to digging up seeds to see if they were sprouting, but I did think about doing it. I hadn’t watered them enough, I thought. Or it wasn’t warm enough — which likely was the reason they took a bit longer than I expected to emerge, but I hadn’t really given them enough time to show that. Or what if there was something wrong with the seeds or the seed potatoes?

But of course, they started to come up, just like they do pretty much every year.

I think sometimes in agriculture — whether in a field of hundreds of acres or in a tiny garden plot hidden next to the tree rows — we give ourselves more credit than we deserve. We think we have to do everything a certain way or things won't work out. But oftentimes, nature takes care of what needs to be taken care of.

For example, last summer, I noticed some unexpected plants in the tall grass bordering our lawn. I watched them for the next few weeks and eventually realized that one patch was yellow summer squash and another patch was pumpkins. The yellow summer squash apparently came up from seeds out of discarded squash from the year prior, while the pumpkins had to have sprouted from discarded Halloween pumpkins.

No one ever planted the seeds; nature just found a way. They weren’t watered beyond rain or cared for in any manner. But we got a few side dishes off of the squash plant and a little pumpkin for the front step.

I think about it from time to time when we’re stressed about how things are going on the farm. Things go wrong frequently. We lose calves and even cows to disease and injury, despite taking precautions. The weather can destroy crops and can sometimes keep things from growing.

On the grand scale of history, though, the crops come up and yield what they need to yield more often than not. The cows calve and raise their calves more often than not without much intervention.

We most certainly should keep learning about best practices and the most effective ways to grow and raise our crops and livestock. But perhaps the best thing we can do after that is just sit back and let nature do its thing.

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Stopping soil erosion will be less costly now than later

Ann Bailey — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 10:30:00 GMT

One of the mental images from narratives I’ve read about the Dust Bowl years that vividly sticks in my mind is descriptions of the heaps of dirt in farmhouse window sills. Topsoil blown propelled by the wind not only piled up in the sills, but also permeated through cracks of the houses, and farm women continuously were cleaning and dusting to remove the layers of dust covering inside surfaces.

During the winter of 2024-25 I got a real feel for how the must have felt when they dusted one day only to have get up and do it again the next day. The winds that blew soil from bare fields made little drifts in our windowsills and the dust that came through the cracks in our house covered the interior surfaces, including the kitchen table, which we had to wipe off every night before supper.

Outside, of course, there was more stark evidence of the amount of soil that had blown off of the fields in the form of soil that collected in the roadside ditches.

But the effects of the wind erosion are much more than an irritation because they require extra housework or cosmetics because they make the landscape less appealing to view. The displaced and airborne soil is the result of wind erosion that is damaging — and there’s evidence it has destroyed — the topsoil.

Lack of residue on the fields after harvest, removal of shelterbelts and monoculture have contributed to wind erosion in eastern North Dakota, where I live. The fields on what was tall-grass prairie less than 150 years — four generations — ago now are depleted or nearly depleted of the topsoil layer.

I come from a family that began tilling the ground near Larimore, North Dakota, 139 years ago, so I know that it’s a balance to make farming economically viable and, at the same time, be a steward of the land. The federal farm program, federal crop insurance and commodity markets are among the factors that must all be weighed into the decision of what crops to plant and how to plant them.

I do know, though, that it’s possible to achieve that balance because my dad and brother did that when they were farming from the 1970s to the late 1990s.

I recognize that they planted their last crops nearly 30 years ago and farming radically has changed since then — fields and equipment have grown exponentially while factors affecting commodity prices also have become greater in an increasingly global market.

However, technology also has made extensive strides and that, combined with the concept of old-fashioned soil stewardship, should reduce soil erosion.

It’s the latter, that, from my observance as an agricultural reporter and farmers’ daughter and sister, is missing from a significant number of producers’ operations in 2025. It appears to me that they only see the land from the perspective of how it can be used to make money. While they might say they take care of it, their farming practices indicate otherwise.

I recognize that not everyone has the same farming philosophy that I grew up with, embracing the practice of land stewardship, which was a driving force in the generations of farmers before me.

Their philosophy is evident in the handwork copy of the “Rural Life Prayer Book,” published in 1956. That prayer, book, one of many that we found in our house when my husband, Brian, and I moved there, begins with a proclamation for “Country People” that in part says, “We will regard our land as God’s land; as stewards of His bounty we will conserve and improve it so that it will increasingly continue to give glory to Him.”

Obviously not everyone does, nor do I expect them to, share my family's farming philosophy. But it seems to me that, if not for philosophical reasons, farmers need to do everything within their power to reduce soil erosion for economic reasons. Research shows that in one place in eastern North Dakota topsoil was reduced by 55% between 1960 and 2014. Eleven years later, it's likely that the percentage is even higher.

That should alarm every farmer because that percentage probably is nearly as high or higher in other places, not only in eastern North Dakota but across the Midwest.

I know that some farmers reading this column will say that they need financial incentives to do practices such as planting cover crops to reduce soil erosion and that funding for the programs is in jeopardy.

I recognize that, but the reality is that if farmers don’t start reducing soil erosion, not only will crop production suffer, but there will be an outcry from the general public which will result in lawmakers drafting legislation that may very well be punitive.

One only needs to look at the public’s current conventional wisdom as far as “chemicals” that farmers put on their crops and the red dye that food companies use.

Producers should figure out how to reduce soil erosion now before people who don’t farm do it for them.

Ann Bailey lives on a farmstead near Larimore, North Dakota, that has been in her family since 1911. You can reach her at 218-779-8093 or anntbailey58@gmail.com.]]>

Minnesota to host Farm Aid in September

Noah Fish — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 13:00:00 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS — The Land of 10,000 Lakes will be home to the country’s most well-known benefit concert — Farm Aid, a nonprofit that helps support farmers in need — this fall.

Farm Aid will celebrate its 40th anniversary with an 11-hour festival Saturday, Sept. 20, at Huntington Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota.

The all-star marathon concert will feature Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Margo Price, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Waxahatchee, Trampled by Turtles, Jesse Welles and more.

“For 40 years, Farm Aid and our partners have stood with farmers, supporting them to stay on their land even when corporate power, bad policies and broken promises make it harder to keep going,” Willie Nelson said in a statement. “This year, we’re proud to bring Farm Aid to Minnesota to celebrate the farmers who sustain us and to fight for a food system that works for all of us. Family farmers aren’t backing down, and neither are we.”

Jennifer Fahy, co-executive director of Farm Aid, said the organization’s choice to hold its show in Minnesota is significant for many reasons.

“We are celebrating our 40th anniversary, and we’re doing it in a state that we have long wanted to come to, and have not yet, so we’re really excited to be in Minnesota,” Fahy said. “The roots of agriculture are so deep, and the roots of farm advocacy are so deep in the state as well, and there’s there is much we will be highlighting.”

It was Minnesotan Bob Dylan who raised the idea to begin Farm Aid during the Live Aid concert in 1985 held in Philadelphia. Dylan, after performing “Ballad of Hollis Brown” with Ron Wood and Keith Richards with a lit cigarette in his mouth, thanked the crowd before saying some of the money raised at the event to help fight famine in Africa could go to helping those struggling in rural U.S., too.

“Maybe they could just take a little bit (of money), maybe 1 or 2 million, and use it to say, pay the mortgages on some of the farms that the farmers here owe to the banks,” Dylan said.

A couple months later, the first Farm Aid was held at the University of Illinois, and was meant to be a one-off until Willie Nelson took it by the reins and has continued the annual event ever since. Over 39 years, Farm Aid has raised more than $85 million to help family farmers through its benefit concerts, Fahy said.

Minnesota excitement

Farm Aid is partnering with ag organizations in the state including the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, as well as the University of Minnesota.

“We’re really excited to be in a stadium that offers an opportunity for us to really expand the number of people who can come to the festival,” Fahy said of Huntington Bank Stadium, which holds double the capacity of a usual Farm Aid concert.

Fahy said she’s hearing from Minnesotans from across the state about Farm Aid coming to them.

“I heard from one farmer who actually drove his tractor from Minnesota to Washington, D.C., in the tractorcade of 1979, and he’s already written to inquire if he can bring that tractor to Farm Aid,” Fahy said.

Minnesota’s Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said he’s personally “very excited” for Farm Aid to come to the Gopher State.

“To highlight many of the things that we have for agriculture in Minnesota, and not just all the things that Minnesota ranks in the top 10 and all of the agriculture that we have,” Petersen said. “All the family farm programs that we have in the state, and our water quality programs, our beginning farmer programs.”

Petersen said Farm Aid’s work is crucial to supporting farmers in crisis in the state and throughout the country. He said the work of the organization goes hand-in-hand with the state’s mental health advocates, Farmers’ Legal Action Group and farmer-lender mediation.

“These are all programs that came in the 1980s farm crisis and endured and thrived in Minnesota,” Petersen said. “We need all our farmers, and Farm Aid and their support that they’ve given over the years ensures that farmers who are in distress, whether it’s from the disaster or financial crisis, has that assistance and that resource that they need.”

Money raised from Farm Aid concerts goes to support the organization’s activities, as well as a grant-making program that Fahy said gives about $1 million annually to farm organizations all across the country.

“Many of those are grassroots groups, and many of them are responding and working directly with farmers,” Fahy said. “They might be providing technical assistance, business assistance, mental health and stress assistance, legal advice, and also farmer training programs. So it really supports a wide range of work, going out into the countryside, all over the country.”

What to expect

Those going to Farm Aid can expect a full day of experiences.

“We open our doors at noon, and the music starts just a little bit thereafter and goes until 11 p.m., so it’s a full day of music,” Fahy said.

In addition to the music, Farm Aid will have its signature Homegrown Village, where festivalgoers can explore interactive exhibits and activities that engage all of their senses.

“We invite everyone to get out of their seats, come down, meet farmers, hear from them, and artists on our farm yard stage, dig into interactive activities that teach folks about food, farming, composting, climate change, soil health, you name it,” Fahy said.

The food served at Farm Aid is called Homegrown Concessions for a reason.

“We’re sourcing the ingredients for those concessions from family farmers. We guarantee those farmers are paid a fair price, and the products are raised with ecological standards,” Fahy said. “After you have a tremendous meal, you also have an opportunity to possibly meet the farmer who grew it, and also learn about those various ways that farmers are growing our food.”

Lineup

The top of the lineup for Farm Aid features some of the most recognizable names in American music history, but deeper down the list are some hidden gems that Fahy recommends paying attention to just as much.

“I think one of the special things about Farm Aid is that people often come and discover a new artist that they weren’t aware of,” she said.

First-time Farm Aid artists that Fahy said attendees should look forward to this year are Duluth-based Trampled by Turtles, Billy Strings and Waxahatchee.

Waxahatchee is the band led by singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield, whose sound has evolved from “lo-fi folk to lush alt-tinged country,” according to music critic Ashleigh Bryant Phillips. After releasing six critically acclaimed albums, including the most recent “Tigers Blood,” this will be Waxahatchee’s first Farm Aid.

Fahy said a lot of Crutchfield’s songwriting comes from living in Kansas.

“She writes about that rural, beautiful landscape, where she still lives, and I just think she’s so tremendously talented. Her voice is so unique, and I think a lot of folks will come away being entranced by her and the band as well,” Fahy said. “A key thing with many of these artists is that they come from rural communities. They come from farm families, and so they have that connection, and it's really meaningful for them.”

Tickets for Farm Aid — which are expected to sell out — are available now at the organization’s website.

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Can we stop demonizing ‘chemicals’ or is it too late?

Jenny Schlecht — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 10:30:00 GMT

Almost a decade ago, I spent marathon nursing sessions with my second daughter watching reruns of “Parks and Recreation.” The sitcom satirizes local government and the people it serves. But the situations and characters in the show seem less absurd with each passing day.

One episode, called “Fluoride,” centers on the effort of main character and city council member Leslie Knope to add fluoride to her town’s drinking water. Fellow council member Jeremy Jamm, a cartoonishly evil orthodontist (or dentist — it’s fuzzy to me), opposed the effort on the basis of wanting people to have dental problems. But instead of saying that in public, he scares people about “chemicals.”

An exchange between Jamm and a deadpan, overly literal reporter character named Perd Hapley goes like this:

“Councilwoman Leslie Knope wants to put fluoride — which is a chemical — into your drinking water. You know what else is a chemical? Strychnine and cyanide,” Jamm said.

“And dirt and rust and even broken glass,” Hapley said.

“Exactly. You definitely understand what chemicals are, Perd,” Jamm replied.

The show is supposed to be ridiculous but also close to reality. Some real people are concerned about fluoride, despite its benefits in improving dental health. And some people are concerned with any “chemical.”

So what’s a chemical? No, dirt, rust and broken glass aren’t chemicals, but like everything, those are made up of chemicals. Chemicals are everywhere — our water, our bodies, everything around us. Not all chemicals are dangerous. Typically safe chemicals can be unsafe in certain dosages or under certain conditions. Some unsafe chemicals — think radioactive substances — have important purposes when controlled.

Sound complicated? Sure — that’s why science is important.

Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report called “Make Our Children Healthy Again.” The report underplayed strides made through history to make the population healthier — like improved nutrition, vaccines to prevent harmful and deadly diseases, and environmental improvements. And it placed some blame for a less-than-healthy populace on, in part, “The Cumulative Load of Chemicals in our Environment.” It lists fluoride and glyphosate in particular as things the organizers just don’t believe are safe, and they listed studies supporting their positions while ignoring more numerous studies that counter their beliefs.

The report says “chemicals are important tools that are inextricably linked to economic growth and innovations.” That’s very true in the agriculture industry, which did not agree, on the whole, with a lot of the conclusions reached in the report.

Most people in conventional agriculture know we need herbicides, fungicides and insecticides to overcome challenges that can devastate the industry and the food supply. Most of us also know we need to carefully study and consider the delicate balance that can be upset by using those substances and make sure we’re solving problems without creating new ones.

But to do that, we need to fund and support science, and we need to understand how science works. We don’t need pundits and bureaucrats cherry-picking the science they believe and trying to provoke fear.

We can’t keep demonizing “chemicals” at large. Some synthetic chemicals can be dangerous. So can some organic chemicals (meaning chemicals containing carbon). Combining some or using too much could certainly be dangerous. Instead of spending time and money on reports written by people who have only surface-level knowledge of the issues, we need to fund — not cut — science to continue studying them.

In the end, Leslie Knope won her battle to get fluoride into her beloved town’s drinking water. But she didn’t win by using logic and facts. She won with slick marketing and playing her opponents’ own games of misinformation against them.

Back here in the real world, I’m not sure logic and facts can win anymore. We have too many people sure that their opinions equal someone else’s facts. I’m not sure what the way forward is, but if we continue on this path, I can’t imagine it will be good for anyone.

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Sometimes life experience matters more than the forecast

Ann Bailey — Mon, 26 May 2025 10:30:00 GMT

Spring — or maybe it could even be called summer — sprung with lightning speed on our farm this year, propelled by unseasonably hot temperatures during the second week in May.

When I mowed for the first time on May 9, I noticed that nestled among the tiny leaves on the lilac bushes were clusters of blossoms about the size of my thumb.

By May 15, after five consecutive days of high temperatures in the mid-to upper 90s, the lilacs were blooming. The bushes’ crabtree neighbor also was near full bloom, and across the yard, the plum and apple trees were heavy with blossoms.

Meanwhile, the green grass along the roadsides covered up the brown grass from last year, and grain and row crops were peaking up in early-planted fields. Our lawns, too, bolted during the week, and the seeds of our “cold season" garden crops of carrots, parsnips and lettuce had pushed through the soil.

But the northern Plains, after all, is the land of extremes, and after the week of extremely hot weather, a cold front came through and temperatures dropped like a rock, prompting the National Weather Service to issue frost warnings.

I was glad then that I had resisted the urge to go full-tilt into gardening.

My parents and grandparents, seasoned gardeners, always waited until Memorial Day to plant “warm season” crops like green and yellow wax beans, cucumbers and watermelon, and plants like tomatoes, bell peppers and flowers that were tender and could be killed by frost.

Sure, I could have saved them by covering them to protect them from the cold temperatures, but I prefer not to do extra work, and I think listening to the advice of my parents and grandparents who were farmers, besides being gardeners, is wise. That advice prevented me from having to do extra work not only this year but many others that had similar wild swings in temperatures.

I’ve found that life experience and paying attention to nature’s signals can be more reliable than sophisticated weather forecasts.

On a hot, humid day, in the summer, for example, even if there are no thunderstorms forecast, I don’t plan to do outside work because it’s likely that the combination of the hot temperature and humidity will brew up a storm.

Similarly, in the winter, when the snow is falling so hard I can’t see the buildings across the farmyard, I don’t travel even though the forecast says the snow will end in X amount of time. The snow isn’t listening to the forecast predictions for amounts and times it will cease coming down.

I don’t know what the weather holds for the second half of this month, but whatever it is, I’ll follow the cues it’s giving me, not what the forecast says. If Memorial Day comes in the midst of a cold spell, I’ll hold off on planting the rest of the garden until the weather warms. I will wait, too, if the soil is wet because “mudding in” the garden crops works no better than doing that with field crops.

I am blessed to have lived on farms for most of my life where I’ve had the opportunity to listen to the advice of those who tilled the soil, hearken to the natural world, and to plant and harvest in the fields growing up and in the garden now.

That all makes it worth it, no matter the capriciousness of the weather in the northern Plains.

Ann Bailey lives on a farmstead near Larimore, North Dakota, that has been in her family since 1911. You can reach her at 218-779-8093 or anntbailey58@gmail.com.]]>

Closure of four northwest Minnesota newspapers feels like 'a death in the family,' said Dick Richards

Delaney Otto — Sat, 24 May 2025 11:55:00 GMT

GONVICK, Minn. — The end has come for four newspapers in northwest Minnesota, but not for the commercial printing side of the publishing business associated with them.

Dick Richards, who in 1972 founded Richards Publishing alongside his wife, Corrine, said the age of social media is a hard time for newspapers, especially those on the smaller side.

“I think we all realized what’s happening, and that it’s going to social media,” he said. “Everybody’s got their thumbs on their phones and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

The Leader Record (which covers Clearbrook, Gonvick and nearby small communities), Grygla Eagle, Red Lake County Herald and McIntosh Times all will be closing at the end of May, with final issues coming out May 28. The announcement of the closure was written by Kari Sundberg, editor of the Grygla Eagle. It was a decision made after taking a hard look at revenue vs. expenses. Richards said the commercial printing part of his company makes up 80% of the business, and the newspapers 20%. However, the newspapers make up much more than 20% of the costs. Part of the issue has been fewer subscribers and especially fewer advertisers, he said.

“I think the trouble started with Walmart coming into our towns and shutting down our main streets, our grocery stores, our hardware stores,” Richards said. “Then COVID was kind of a nail in the coffin when everything shut down and advertising stopped. … (Advertisers) didn’t come back to newspapers — they stayed with social media and that sort of thing. I think you can look at any newspaper and see that.”

Sundberg wrote, “while we explored all possible avenues, including the idea of going fully digital to cut printing and postage costs, the numbers simply couldn’t support the path forward. In 2024 alone, the combined revenue for all four of our newspapers totaled less than our expenses.”

Lisa Hills, executive director of the Minnesota Newspaper Association, said it’s always a sad day when a community loses its newspaper. People need to subscribe to and support their local newspapers, she said.

“That’s really the way the community gets its accurate information,” she said. “They’re the heart and soul of the community, and so news (of closures) is always heartbreaking and sad.”

It’s tough in this day and age to be a community newspaper, she said, considering how the advertising base has changed — there are fewer locally owned businesses — as well as skyrocketing postage rates.

Richards recalls coming back to the area with his wife in 1972 and founding the company, and the 50-some years since. He has been focused on the production in the printing, marketing and sales side, while Corrine has focused on the production of the newspapers. She also does some of the reporting.

The closure of the four papers feels like "a death in the family," Richards said. He hates to lose the papers, but there is a bit of relief from lifting the financial burden off the rest of the business. People are understanding of it, he said. He mentioned a recent school board meeting his wife covered.

“They all knew this was going to be the last report that she’d make for that school board, and they had a gift for her and thanked her for her services over the many years,” Richards said. “That’s kind of the way the community feels about it. They hate to lose the newspapers but they understand the situation.”

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Farming and ranching are gambles, no matter how you look at them

Jenny Schlecht — Mon, 19 May 2025 10:30:00 GMT

As I was editing stories this week, it piqued my attention that two separate, unrelated articles had sources referring to something in agriculture as a gamble.

There is no Vegas Strip running through the northern Plains. But so much of what we do here is a gamble.

Seed goes into the ground. We gamble on whether it’ll rain. Or maybe there’ll be wind, blowing the seed from the ground or sheering off plants that just pushed through the soil. Maybe the conditions will be perfect. Or maybe they’ll be perfect for a while, followed by an early frost in the fall. What are the odds of that?

Cattle go out on pasture. Again, we gamble on whether the rain will keep the grasses lush. On whether the fences will keep the cattle in. On whether the calves will grow or whether foot rot or pneumonia or a score of other diseases or predators will reduce their numbers.

I helped my husband sort yearling heifers recently, a final decision on which ones were to be sold and which ones were to be kept for breeding. Near the end, we had a group of probably five or so animals that we discussed at length. Did those two have too much white on their heads to fit into the rest of the group? Is that one thick enough? Are they more valuable to sell or to keep?

As we agonized over the decision, I reminded him that it might be the closest we ever could have to a win-win situation. Feeder calf prices are at all-time highs, so selling an extra heifer or two certainly wouldn’t hurt us in the short term. And with the U.S. cattle herd still shrinking, it seems likely there will be solid bred heifer prices in the fall or that the heifers will be valuable to keep in our own herd.

But it’s still a gamble. When the animals we sell enter the ring, there’s no controlling how many bidders raise their hands or nod their heads. No matter what the futures market says, all that matters is what happens in one sale barn, one day. It’s a gamble on the past year’s worth of work. And for the heifers we keep, there’s no guarantee they’ll get bred. And if they get bred, there is no guarantee they’ll deliver healthy calves. And if they deliver healthy calves, there’s no guarantee the market will be strong on the day we want to sell it a year or so later.

Every step in the process is its own roulette wheel.

If we weren’t in agriculture, would we be hitting the casinos to get the same rush of adrenaline that comes with these decisions? Or maybe playing the stock market for the long-term game of chance that does rely on some know-how?

While so much of what happens on farms and ranches relies on hard work, knowledge and experience, so much still hinges on things out of anyone’s control. There’s much to be lost, but we hang on because we know that — if everything goes right — there’s also much to be gained. To quote the late comedian Norm Macdonald, “Yeah man, they call gambling a disease, but it’s the only disease where you can win a bunch of money.”

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