"The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living

on a small piece ofland."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THE HEART OF OUR COUNTRY PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAUL MOBLEY TEXT BY KATRINA FRIED PREFACE BY WILLARD SCOTT

INTRODUCTION BY MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHEY

WELCOME BOOKS NEW YORK & SAN FRANCISCO

6 PAGE I; KEITH SU'I'TON, com and soybeans, Jamesport, Missouri. PAGES 2-3: KEITH NELSON with his son.inlaw, BRIAN LACINA, and grandson,

TREY LACINA, cattle, Crawford, Texas. PAGE 4: CHUCK DALLAS, sheep, Wilsall, Montana. ABOVE: MARVIN COLE, grain and livestock, Moscow, Indiana.

PREFACE WILLARD SCOTT

"Agriculture is the Mother of all industry."

FOR THE LAST 212 YEARS, this declaration has appeared on the cover of J. Gruber's Hagerstown Town and Country Farmers Almanack. There were never truer words written. For proof of this, just look around at our great country.

My family settled here in 1759, and as their ancestors had done before them in England, someone from every generation of Scotts has made his living by farming. As a youth, I spent summers on my grandfather's farm in Maryland. It was there that I came to know a whole different world from what I'd experienced living in the city. For one thing, I learned how to milk a cow! I remember so clearly loading the milk cans into an old Model A Ford and delivering them safely to the Sealtest Dairy pickup station. From there, they would go on to Baltimore. It made me feel like I was playing a small but important part in feeding America, and that notion filled me up with pride and excitement.

My grandfather never owned a tractor. He used real "horse power" on his farm. When he cut the fields for hay, I would stomp it down with my feet. There were no tractors back then, just plain old-fashioned manual labor. Today, even with machines, farmers are still the hardest-working people I know.

I also remember the sweet taste of water from the country spring on the farm, the rooster crowing at dawn-nature's best and most trusted alarm clock-and eating those hearty homemade breakfasts with fresh eggs, milk, ham, and just-baked bread made from grain grown right there in our fields. I suppose that's why my favorite meal of the day has always been, and still is, breakfast. And the bigger the better!

The memories of those days on the farm are an important part of who I am, and I consider that heritage to be priceless. Farmers and ranchers are the backbone of our country, indispensable providers of the food, and now energy as well, that has enabled the United States to remain stable and strong throughout history. From the heart of our farmlands have come many of the nation's greatest leaders, inventors, innovators, and caretakers of our natural resources. You know, farmers were "green" before anybody else! They are America's true patriots and pioneers, who stand for the ideals that most all of us hold dear. American Farmer pays glorious tribute to these ordinary heroes, and reminds us of just how extraordinary they are.

God bless America's farmers.

W. S. June 2008

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PRECEDING PAGES: CHARLES and KRIS MALEY with their son, MATnIEW, ranching, Crawford, Texas. IO ABOVE: RUSTY HARRIS, cattle, Fairy, Texas.

INTRODUCTION MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHEY

PHOTOGRAPHER PAUL MOBLEY JOURNEYED INTO AMERICA'S HEARTLAND as a lone artist with a camera, a

seeker of those who live closest to the land, the Keepers of the Keys to our continued survival--ur devoted

farmers and ranchers. Behind him lay a lifetime of commercial and creative success; ahead of him a vast

landscape of forms and faces that challenge verbal description and categorization-the elusive Culture of

Agriculture. He took no crew and rarely an assistant, working as a somewhat disenchanted artist in the

domain of the most overlooked segment of society, those who live and die by the rhythms of Nature. One

man, one camera. Confronting the subjects of his images, one at a time. Questioning, not with words, but with lens, shutter and light.

There comes a time for many artists when this kind of departure becomes necessary in spite of the

considerable professional and personal risks. At a time like this, the artist is not repudiating previous work,

but mustering the courage to stand on the edge of a chasm and vault toward an unknown Other Side. A

photographer who makes this crossing is often startled to confront the images of others who have done the

same thing in their own lives. So it was for Paul Mobley. Farmers and ranchers are members of that shared

brotherhood and sisterhood of Risk. And like those who have taken that spiritual leap before him, Paul was

forever changed to discover his subjects were in fact fellow sojourners, returning his gaze. When I first met Paul Mobley at an annual meeting of the American Farm Bureau Federation, he simply

wanted to take my picture. Not because I'm a known performer, a singing cowboy of the South, but because

I'm a child of Texas and a passionate rancher with a family of cowgirls who work hard every day. I agreed, but when he showed me other pictures he had taken, I knew I'd met much more than a documenter of America's farm culture. I'd met a kindred spirit. I, too, had left behind a career that had become far too wrapped up in commercial formulas, and I knew Paul's path had been, and would continue to be, a lonesome trail-at least at first. It was fortifying to find another artist taking the powerful truth of American farmers and ranchers to the public---delivering a message of honesty, integrity, passion, and daily painstaking labor.

Paul embarked on this project when the Culture of Agriculture was far from the center of the world stage. His travels led him away from a society focused on industrial development and high technology, a

humanity driven by the urban elite and space-age dreams. He went beyond the part of the country where most city dwellers go on vacation-beyond national parks and "wilderness" reserves that are sometimes

revealingly referred to as "recreation areas"-undeveloped land that we want for playgrounds. He went to the "aggie outback" that doesn't show up on Top Ten destination lists-into fields of wheat, corn, and beans;

into orchards and vineyards; into livestock pastures, pens, egg sheds and feed yards. He was far from the

fashionable "country" of bed and breakfasts, scenic turnouts and "eco-tours," among those who toil and sweat

to grow the food found on the tables of the advantaged and the desperate alike.

By the time the first phase of Paul's journey was completed, agriculture had moved from nowhere in the theater of the world's drama to waiting in its wings, poised for a major entrance. Mobs in developed and undeveloped countries were loudly protesting the use ofland for producing distiller's grains in ethanol plants

instead of food. In the early summer of 2008, panic started spreading about high prices for fuel, fertilizer, farm

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machinery, and the soaring costs for the transportation and distribution of fuel. Farmers who had suffered decades ofloss and debt were now in a boomlbust cycle and making headlines. Ranchers were taking a beating on the skyrocketing prices oflivestock feed. Their products and produce hit record retail highs, threatening to become food for the privileged, not for the People. Politicians were suddenly reversing their position on issues such as ethanol price supports, looking for an out that just simply wasn't there. They were dumbfounded by forces they didn't understand, because modern politics mostly addresses urban plight; elected leaders often have no clue when it comes to agricultural policy, failing to realize the most obvious truth: the production of food is not a rural issue, it is an essential human issue.

In the midst of all the mayhem, Paul Mobley's book of arresting images becomes timely and prophetic. American farmers and ranchers are in the spotlight now, and will likely remain there for a very long time. They feed more people than any other agricultural community around the world. Their global counterparts are watching their methods and decisions closely. They know their survival is dependent on American agriculture, in a way that our own urbanites have barely begun to recognize.

Those outside of rural America need to see what is in this book. They need to read the mind-boggling interviews, insightfully conducted and edited by Katrina Fried, of the farmers and ranchers photographed. They'll be astounded to find that those who are close to the land have a startling sense of where they belong in the universe. They love their lives, accept the inherent struggles, and are surprisingly at peace considering that they confront so many daily challenges. Perhaps it is because they know what it is to grow things, have worked to understand and to accept the forces of Nature. It becomes a spiritual quest in the end.

After taking more than 32,000 images of all kinds of farmers and ranchers, from northern Alaska to the Louisiana coast, Paul Mobley's admiration ran so deep that he felt forever changed by the experience. His photographs convey a sense that his journey into the heart of America will never be over. His work will pass on this intuition to others, and perhaps they will be inspired to better understand the sacred connection between the food they consume and those who provide it. Maybe they'll visit a local farm or ranch next time they go on that "country" getaway. Perhaps they'll seek out the farmers and ranchers who sell their products direct to the customer. Hopefully they will never visit a farmers' market again without taking a moment to talk to those who feed them, the caretakers of our land, the Keepers of the Keys.

For the theme song of the public television series America's Heartland, Montana rancher Rob Quist and I wrote these lyrics:

You can see it in the eyes of every woman and man Who spend their whole lives living Close to the Land; There's a love for the country, and pride in the brand, In America's Heartland, Close the Land . ..

As ranchers who are musical artists, on a lone mission to give a voice to our way oflife, our culture, our families and friends out on the land, we reached the same conclusion, on the same kind of voyage of discovery taken by Paul Mobley. It's a dramatic and radical conclusion, but I stand by it, just as Paul does:

Farmers and ranchers are the single most important contributors to the future survival of the human race and the living planet Earth.

M. M. M.

The Murpheys' Rocking 3M Ranch North, June 2008

RAY SNEED, soybeans, Millington, Tennessee. 13

( I

PRECEDING PAGES: JOHN YORK, apples and peaches, Mimbres, New Mexico.

DAVID McDANIEL My GREAT-GRANDFATHER PURCHASED THE FIRST PIECE OF LAND

somewhere around 1900. I started farming when I was twenty-one. I went to school for three years, and then woke up one morning and decided I didn't want to go back. That was in I98!. I think that first year I started, I farmed maybe 150 to 200 acres. Now we're working about 3,000.

Our main crop is cotton. We also raise some soybeans and wheat and a little bit of corn. We don't have any livestock. No livestock. Just dogs. Right now we've just got three. That's a slow number for us. Buck, Buddy, and Abby. One of them is a little Jack Russell and he's constantly bringing something up. He killed a groundhog here a while back. It was bigger than him. He brought a catfish up one day last week out of one of the ponds. So he's a tough little dog.

And the other thing I raise, I guess, is sons. I've got three sons. The twins are twenty-two, and my youngest is nineteen. All three are in college, and they're all studying agriculture. In fact, the twins---they graduate in May. One is getting married in June. One is getting married in July. And then they're going to start farming with me.

Me and my wife have been married about twenty-five years. And she does just about as much in the field as I do. And I'll tell you another little odd fact: both the boys, they're both marrying girls who grew up on farms. That's unusual for nowadays. There are so many less farm families. One girl just lived like two miles down the road. And the other one lived about ten miles. One of their fiancees-she helps on the farm. She drives the tractor. And my father helps out. He just turned seventy. Then I've got a friend of his who's his age. He usually comes to the field about 10 A.M. and leaves about 5. I've got another friend who comes about 8 A.M. and leaves at noon. He drives a school bus. And my mother cooks supper and dinner and brings lunch to the field. In between, everybody helps-my nephew, too. And then my sons come in. I mean, with school it's a little harder, but sometimes they'll get a day off in the middle of the week and anyways, we just kind of make due with what we got. I've been working toward them graduating, too. That's one of the reasons I don't carry any full-time help anymore.

My grandmother passed away this past year and one of my sons is going to live in her house and we're going to end up buying a home for the other one a couple miles from here. I live in my house and next door there's my father's house, and then my grandmother's house. We're all in a row. And my brother lives on the other side of me, so we're all here together.

Yeah, we've never left. Nobody's ever left.

THESE PAGES: DAVID McDANIEL (far left) with his twin SODS, JONATHAN and JEFFREY, his father, GERALD, his nephew, PAYSON, and his youngest SOD, JOSEPH, cotton, Brighton, Tennessee. 17

20

IMOGENE YARBOROUGH My HUSBAND EDWARD HAD A SAYING: "God made this country to hold the world together." A lot of our land is in the wetlands-full of swamps. But there is nothing better than when the water goes down after being high on the river. The native grasses come back full of minerals and salt. It'll make a cow get slick and fat quick.

There are only three families left in this county that make a living with cattle, and we're one of them. Our ranch is fifth generation on my husband's side. My mother's people were cattle ranchers on the west side of Florida-we moved here to Geneva when I was twelve. That's when I met Edward. He had just finished high school. I wasn't even interested in boys yet, so he had to wait on me to grow up. But he was patient. We were married in December '954, the year I graduated.

We had two sons and two daughters. The boys did not go off to college-and I pushed, believe me, but I did not win. They stayed, that's what they wanted to do. When Edward died in 2000, it was very, very unexpected. He was only sixty-nine. And it was difficult. We had to pay a very high death tax because of how valuable the land has become. I tell you, it is the most unfair tax that there is. We paid death taxes when grandpa died, when Ed's uncle died, when Ed died-and we're going to pay them again when I die. All on the same property. It makes it very hard for families to keep going.

Right now, if you are in the cow business, you either married it or inherited it-because of the price it takes to buy land and cattle, and to get set up. The value of the dollar is just not there. And the gas prices-oh, my heavens. It takes so much more to live now. You have got to do it within the family. We all work the ranch together-that's why we can keep it this way.

Some women drive tractors, some ride the horses, some don't do anything. I had to learn to do a little bit of everything. But my main job has been to go to seminars and bring that information home to Ed and the boys. Back in '84 and '85, I was president of the Florida Cattlewomen. I traveled all around the West and the Southeast. I got to share thoughts with ladies from other areas and learn about what they had achieved. I was also real heavy into beef education. I helped develop 'Ag in the Class' here in Florida, and I went into the schools teaching kids about all the by-products of the animal-"None of the cow is wasted except the moooooo."

I am seventy-three now, and every day of it. But it is still very gratifying when the cows are loaded in the semi and you see them going off to market. You see a job well done by your children, your land. It is a good feeling to just come in and close the gate behind you. You can sit back and enjoy what God really did create. We've worked very hard. And the people before me, too. We are all stewards of this land.

PRECEDING PAGES: STAN HORTON with his sons, GARRETI, SHAY, and BRENT, alfalfa, Riverston, Wyoming.

THESE PAGES: IMOGENE YARBOROUGH with her sons, BO and J.W., cattle, Geneva, Florida. 21

DOUG MOSEBAR IF YOU'VE EVER SEEN ANY OF THE HAPPY Cow COMMERCIALS, then you've gotten a glimpse of our ranch. For years now we've promoted ourselves as a shooting location for movies and advertisements. It's a beautiful setting, so we've done quite a few, and it's a nice income supplement when it happens.

We're about three hours from Los Angeles, and the ranch covers 1,100 acres of cropland and pasture. That might be a little bigger than average for this area, but it's still a family-owned operation. I manage the ranch for the Gainey family and I've been with them for thirty-five years; I came to work here when I was a pretty young fellow straight out of Cal Poly with a degree in Ag Business Management. The owners knew I would take care of it like it was my own. And I always have.

Maybe one way I'm a little different than some other farm managers is that I'm also the President of the California Farm Bureau Federation. I was elected three years ago, and we have a membership of 90,000 throughout the state. We're a non-governmental agency that basically exists to promote the interests of agriculture and assist family farmers and ranchers to do what they do best, which is to produce. It is both a very demanding and a very rewarding position. I represent what I consider to be the salt-of-the-earth kind of people who would do anything for you. I could travel to any state in the country, and if! found a Farm Bureau member, they would warmly invite me into their home, never having met me before, just because they appreciate what I try to do for them.

I try to energize our members to tell their stories to the public and to our elected officials, to speak from their hands-on experiences and from their hearts. The farther removed we get from our agricultural heritage in this country, the more we lose touch with how important it is to produce fruit and fiber for nourishment and clothing. We lose touch with not just how important it is, but also what it takes to get that job done.

So there's a constant education that needs to go on with our state representatives. We have so much turnover there, and every new politician is usually even more distanced from any agriculturally based thinking than the last one. A lot of effort goes into keeping those people informed, so that they recognize when and why there's a need to pass certain laws and develop regulations, and also understand the impact those changes will have on everybody-not just on the farmers. For me, coming away from a visit to a senatorial or congressional office, and feeling like you made a difference, is just plain satisfying.

We're approaching a tipping point in America, where unless we're very careful we're going to end up relying more on imported food than the food we're producing on our own soil. And I think that's pretty scary. Something's got to give. But I think often times in life things have to get worse before they get better. So as this situation gets worse, I think there will be enough public outcry that it will give politicians enough, I'll say mettle, to do what needs to be done. Because we're all in this together. We tend to, in our culture,

PRECEDING PAGES: DOUG MOSEBAR and THE GAINEY RANCH CREW, livestock and general farming, Santa Ynez, California. ABOVE: Doug Mosebar.

compartmentalize ourselves and act as if one segment doesn't affect the others, but it really does.

When I asked one of my sons, "Why aren't you interested in going into farming?" he said, "Dad, you work too hard and you don't get paid enough for it." There's a lot of hard work involved, and there's no weekends and holidays off. It's not like you can ever say, "Oh this is a special day on the calendar." Too bad. That crop is ready or that livestock has to be fed. It has a huge impact on your life. It really permeates every level.

FOLLOWING PAGES: WAYNE and VERONICA BROST, dairy, Wasilla, Alaska.

I don't think it's in the cards for me to ever have my own farm. The cost of entering into a viable farming unit that has enough acreage, and being capitalized with enough machinery and operating finances-it's just not very realistic. There may have been a time earlier in my career when I had that ambition, but I'm so involved with the work I'm doing now, I haven't really explored it. You know what they say: Life's what happens to you when you're busy making different plam.

CHRIS AND EVA WORDEN WE STARTED FARMING TOGETHER PART TIME WHILE WE WERE BOTH STILL IN GRADUATE SCHOOL. We're in our late thirties now and we've been farming in Florida for the past eight years. We have about fifty-five acres where we grow certified organic vegetables.

This land had been horse pasture when we found it, and we worked for five years to build the right physical infrastructure and also to cultivate relationships within the surrounding community. Fortunately, people here really want local organic produce and the demand for it is high. We had the knowledge and the interest, and when the right opportunity arrived, it all just came together.

Today, we produce more than sixty different fruits and vegetables to sell at local farmers markets and directly to customers who sign up for our harvest share membership. Several hundred people receive a box of our assorted fresh produce every week in the harvest season. They make a commitment to support the farm, and we make a commitment to feed them. We look at the children coming to the farm from year to year and it's amazing to watch them grow and know that our food is going into the very building of their organs and their bones-and their future.

A connection to food and to the land is just so basic to humanity. We believe everybody ought to have some basic agricultural skills, or at least know where their produce comes from. So we also offer workshops at the farm to help educate the public on how to grow their own food, because we all stand to benefit as a society from becoming more self-reliant. Vegetables are ninety-five percent water, and shipping them across the world, especially in today's environmental and energy crises, just doesn't make sense.

We believe a community-based approach to farming is the best model for the future. What we're doing is somewhat unique in the overall picture of American agriculture, but it's a growing segment and sometimes it's called "Community Agriculture." Every year we accept six college students or graduates as apprentices on the farm who come from all over the world. They learn the necessary skills to become organic community farmers.

We feel extremely fortunate to be able to farm this way successfully because we know how difficult it can be to farm at all. It's definitely enough of a challenge to be interesting, but it doesn't feel like a struggle. We think it also can be challenging for our customers who have totally changed their lifestyle to buy organic on a regular basis. We admire the effort they're making out of concern for their personal health and respect for the environment.

Our children spend their days with us as we work on the farm, and the idea that they'll grow up knowing about their food and where it comes from is so important. When you learn that at a young age, it stays with you all your life. That's one of the reasons why we host field trips for school groups. Our animals are very popular with the kids. We have a small herd of dairy goats, some chickens, a few pigs and cattle-all for our home use. We talk about how in order to have milk come from a goat, the female has to first be bred and then have a baby. It's basically teaching them the facts oflife through the farm experience.

We have a booth at the farmers market a few times a week, and we make a real production out of it. The arrangement of produce we offer is just abundant and delicious, and it's such a sensorial experience that it gets people excited about eating the vegetables. It's also a civilized and neighborly atmosphere that fosters personal interaction, where the buyer can actually talk with the farmers who grow their food. It's very different from what you experience at the grocery store. It's humanizing.

This farm is our dream. As the dream continues to develop, it keeps getting better than we ever dreamed it could be.

CHRIS and EVA WORDEN with their sons, ASA and GRANT, organic vegetables, Punta Gorda, Florida.

ABOVE: CONNOR LEE, farmer's son, Wasilla, Alaska.

30 RlGHT: JULIA VONDRA, dairy, Thompsonville, Michigan.

32

ERNIE RIGHETTI I'M LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE I WAS BORN IN NINETY-ONE YEARS AGO. The original deed shows that when my grandfather bought the ranch in 1890, he paid about ho,ooo for 847 acres. If you look at today's land value, you might say he got a bargain.

Switching from cattle to avocados was just a good guess on my part. In 1966 I scraped together the money to dam a nice stream we had running through the ranch. That allowed us to collect enough water to plant irrigated crops, which we thought would be more economically rewarding than the cattle business. No one was growing avocados commercially in this county at the time, but I'd planted a half dozen trees here on the ranch in 1940 and they'd done very well. So I figured they were a pretty good bet. That first year after the dam was built, we planted seven acres of trees and today we have over two hundred acres. We pioneered the avocado industry in San Luis Obispo. We made about $50,000 a year from the cattle operation back then; now we gross around a million dollars a year growing avocados. So, like I said, it turned out to be a good guess.

My sons grew up on the ranch, and now they each have their own home here. We're very fortunate they chose to dedicate their lives to this business. Of course, we've had our trials, like every family. I've had twenty surgeries in my lifetime, so that's kind of unique. I've had one knee replacement, done twice; a hip replacement, done twice; both shoulders done, the rotator cuffs--one of 'em once, one of 'em twice. I had a heart bypass. I had a mastoid operation when I was only thirteen years of age. I pretty near didn't make it through that one. I got polio at the same time. As a result, my right leg from the knee down is almost useless. I've dragged that foot around my whole life. But I feel pretty lucky to still be around after ninety-one years, and I hope I'll be around a few more.

I'm out there on the ranch every day. I run around on a quad, a little four-wheeler. And once in a while I can lend a hand doing one thing or another. So as long as I'm able to do that I'm satisfied. I think that's helped my health stay as good as it has for so long. I love what I do.

My other real passion has been hunting the wild sheep of the world. I've climbed over quite a few mountain ranges all through Asia, North America, Canada, and Mexico. I shot my first sheep in the Yukon in 1974, a beautiful stone ram. Since then I've hunted sheep in Iran, Mexico, the Northwest Territories, Nepal, Spain, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and Siberia. I took my last hunting trip in 1990. We've got two rooms in the house here filled with life-size mounts of the twenty-two different species I've brought home. I like to go in there sometimes and just admire them.

I still eat a lot of avocados. I never get tired of 'em. My wife fixes me an open-faced avocado sandwich every morning for breakfast. We also make a lot of guacamole. And quite often we'll eat plain slices of fresh avocado. You just cut out wedges of the raw fruit, without any seasoning. It's delicious, right off the farm.

OPPOSITE: ERNIE RIGHETTI, avocados, San Luis Obispo, California. FOLLOWING PAGES: Ernie and his wife, SUSAN, with their sons, CRAIG, DONALD, and DAVID.

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ABOVE; ERNm RIGHETTI, cattle, Santa Maria, Califomia. OPPOSITE: ALLEN KUNGMAN, wheat, Chappell, Nebraska.

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ABOVE: CLARENCE DAVIS, general farming, Honor, Michigan. OPPOSITE: JULIUS and MARGARET VANTHUYNE with their SOD, JULES JR., and daughter-in-law, AMY, row crops, Longmont, Colorado.

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LADENERUTT WHEN SHE WAS PREGNANT WITH ME, my mother read the name "Ladene" in a magazine and then she and one of my aunts sat down and wrote it about as many different ways as they could think of. They thought the prettiest one was with the capital D in the middle. So that's how I got my name.

I am seventy-five. Still working the farm every day. Hey, when you're doing what you want to do, why in the world would you want to retire? We grow wheat and sunflowers. The prices are quite good right now, but our costs are every bit as high. So, the final result is the same. What's costing you more at the supermarket is the rising price of oil, for the transportation. I mean, we only have fifteen cents worth of wheat in a loaf of bread.

This is family land. My first husband, his family moved out here in 1919. We were married for ten years when he died of a heart attack. He had diabetes and he didn't like to stay on his diet. He figured that if I didn't see him eat that candy bar, it didn't count. But it did count, eventually. He always went south every year, took the combine and harvested all the way from northern Texas back on up to here. He died in Kansas. You're never ready for something like that. I think probably the hardest thing was sleeping alone. My boys were five and seven when it happened. It was very hard on the kids. And because it was hard on them, I had to keep going. That's what a mother does. I didn't hire help. I just went ahead. See, I was born and raised on the farm, so there was just no consideration that I wouldn't stay.

I farmed the place by myself for five years before I remarried. I met Larry at a bar. He came over and asked me to dance because I looked so much like his first wife. Now if you don't think that's a pick-up line ... It's been thirty-five years since then, so I guess it worked.

I had never ridden a bike before, but Larry rode, and he thought it would be a good idea if I'd learn so I could ride along with him. As time progressed, I ended up doing most of the riding. He jokes that he has to work too much to ride now, so that I can afford to. I go to meetings and conventions on my bike all summer long. I'm an introvert. I can operate as an extrovert for a limited amount of time-but I enjoy that 300 or 400 miles coming back home all by myself again. Eventually there'll come a point where I'll think, I'm too old for this, but it hasn't happened yet. My mother lived to 100, so I've got another twenty-five years to ride. I love the freedom. The feeling of the wind in your hair and the bugs in your teeth.

All told, we have six boys and sixteen grandkids and four great grand kids. They're scattered all over, from Florida to Canada. Mostly in a straight line. They come home as often as they can on the holidays. It's great fun when we sit around the table all together for our noon meal. I hear all kinds of stories that I never knew happened. It's probably a good thing or I'd have killed someone. I always make orange pudding for dessert, that's a Christmas thing. You peel the oranges and take the white membrane out and put that in the bottom of the bowl and then you put a real rich vanilla pudding on top. And then you cover it with meringue and put that in the oven. Then their favorite salad is what we call "the pink stuff." It's cottage cheese, Cool Whip, pineapple, and raspberry Jell-O. It's very sweet.

I'm president of our local Farm Bureau. It takes time and effort, but it's a good thing. I really enjoy the Women in Ag meetings. I went to the first one and I haven't missed a meeting in twenty-five years. It's a chance for women who are really interested in farming to get together and talk. I never much visit with women here at home; I'm mostly standing with the men, talking farming. There just aren't that many women farmers in my area. Sometimes I have to educate the men, but mostly they're not that hard to get along with.

Farming isn't work. It's what I do. And riding is also what I do. And there's one other thing that I do-I knit. I take my knitting along with me to all of the meetings. If people don't know me by name they can say, "Oh, you know, the one that always knits." I do mostly bright colors. Sweaters and afghans. I give them away as presents to the family and friends. Since 1985, I have averaged at least twenty-five projects a year-so, about 550 sweaters and afghans.

I'm very active in my local Lutheran church-it's a country church. My kids were raised in it and some of them have stayed with that, some of them haven't. The youngest one goes to a church where he can play his bass guitar, and that's fine. Just as long as they go, it doesn't make much difference to me. One thing I always say to the grand kids when they've done something a little off the beaten path, "Weird is good." That's the whole thing. Be your own self and just do the best you can at it.

PRECEDING PAGES: LADENE RUTT and her husband, LARRY, wheat and sunflowers, Chappell, Nebraska. OPPOSITE: LaDene Rutt.

44 BRIAN VEAZEY, cattle, Kaplan, Louisiana.

Brian's father, GLEN VEAZEY, cattle, Kaplan, Lousiana. 45

JIM ROSS My BROTHER JESSE AND I HAVE BEEN MAKING THE SORGHUM SINCE 1993. I came up with the idea. It's just one of them things that hits you in the head, and I told my wife, "I'd like to make sorghum before I die." Jesse had the land so I talked to him, and the next thing you know we were making sorghum.

Sorghum is a syrup made from the sorgo cane plant. Some people liken it to molasses. But molasses comes from sugar cane, and sorghum comes from sorgo cane. The farm we grow it on was in my mother's family going way back to the early 1800s and it's just been kind of handed down on her side, until my brother wound up with it. My grandparents ran it as a dairy farm, and before that their parents did too. Now my grandfather was gored to death by a bull right there on the farm, and my grandmother was left to raise nine kids. One of them died from some kind of disease and one got killed in a gunfight in 1925. And it was in front of a church house, too.

I liked sorghum all my life. I'm sixty-five right now and I been eating sorghum since I been big enough to walk, I reckon. Growing up, we always had sorghum at the house. The way we ate it at home was we'd mix up some sorghum with butter on a plate, and then we'd sop it up with a homemade biscuit. You didn't buy it from the store back then. You went to where people were cooking it. Just like people come to our farm now to buy the sorghum. And we're glad to sell it to them.

Jesse has got two kids-a boy and a girl. The boy likes sorghum and the girl couldn't eat it if she wanted to. I've got two girls from my first marriage and neither of them liked sorghum. Still don't. My wife Margaret, she has three kids, and one boy and one girl don't like sorghum and another boy does. That's just the way it is.

Margaret didn't care much for sorghum until I started making it. But she loves to eat it now. She cooks cakes and baked beans with sorghum. She experiments with pies and cookies and gingerbread. You can use it like sugar and it gives a good flavor to anything. You can put it on pancakes or waffles. It's high in iron and high in potassium and it makes a nice barbeque sauce. Every year we go down to the Kentucky State Fair in our motor house and donate four days of our time to give out free samples of sorghum on a little biscuit. We try to educate people about what sorghum is and how you can use it. Whether you eat it like I do or not, sorghum's good to cook with. It's better than corn syrup, and it's healthier.

We've shipped some to just about every state in the country. If! could get enough of it and bring it to California I think I could become rich. I don't think there's anybody in that state who makes sorghum. I'm not saying they couldn't-we have people in the National Sorghum Organization from thirty states and Mexico. Right now there's a big push to make ethanol out of sorgo juice, and they are experimenting with that. We won't expand to ethanol if it works out, though. Those people will grow 1,000 or 1,500 acres of cane. We grow ten acres. That's a big difference.

Making sorghum is very labor intensive. You've got to squeeze out the juice from the stalks and boil off all the water and impurities until you're left with the syrup. It takes somewhere in the neighborhood of eight gallons of sorgo juice to make a gallon of sorghum syrup. That's a lot of boiling.

Sorgo cane's got a seed on top of it and it looks just like corn in the field when it waves in the wind. I like to talk about sorghum.

JIM ROSS (right) and his brother, JESSE, sorghum, Cadettsburg, Kentucky.

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"A farmer never has a perfect year, but he's always striving for one."

LEFT; ELMER RALPH SCHULTZ, hay and wheat, Elk Rapicb, Michigan. ABOVB: MAR.VlN COLE, grain and livcsto~ Moscow, ludiana. 49

50

THE PETERSON FAMILY, grain and livestock,

Northfield, Minnesota.

LEFT: mLL MANVILLE with his son, NEIL, and son-in-law, MITCH FELDKAMP, com and soybeans, Winchester, Kansas. ABOVE: Bill's grandson, BREIT MANVll..LE. 53

"I was born on this land, and I will die on this land."

54 RALPH GIT..L with his family, cattle, Jackson, Wyoming.

ROYG.DAVIS I AM SEVENTY-FIVE-I HAVE TO ADMIT IT. I got my start in this business by mowing lawns before the power mower was even invented. I was born into a very poor farm family in Georgia. We moved in 1935 to keep from starving to death, and settled in the Tampa area when I was three. My father had been hit by a car and left for dead when we were still in Georgia. He survived, but he was disabled. My mother had to support us on what little she could make. She taught us very high morals and ideals and we made it through.

I got my first job at a nursery in the seventh grade, and I kept it all the way through college. It taught me a lot about the business and I really enjoyed working with my hands. After I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture in Ornamental Horticulture I went straight into the service. Both of my brothers were in the Air Force, but I graduated from ROTC as Infantry. At that time, they were killing second lieutenants in Korea pretty regularly. So I convinced both ROTC commanders to seek permission for me to transfer to the Air Force. This had never been done before. Of course, I couldn't tell these guys: Look, I don't wanna be a dead second lieutenant. So instead I said that both of my brothers were Air Force pilots and it was the family tradition, and, How in the world did I ever wind up in the Infantry? Both of' em really believed my story, and they got it done. I found out later it actually took an act of Congress. So I made some history, but it wasn't intentional-I just didn't want to end up one of those dead second lieutenants.

After four and a half years in the Air Force I decided I'd had enough traveling around the world, and I flew back home to Florida. I was hired to manage the garden shop at Tampa's new Sears store. And I then managed the garden shop at Montgomery Ward for a while. All during that time we were developing a little nursery of our own on a small city lot. Eventually, my wife and I went into business for ourselves. We have two nurseries now and about 120 acres. We grow 225 different species of plants that are used in landscaping here. I believe the right plant for the right place is the right thing to do. Whether it's native to the area should not be the controlling factor. God didn't invent the asphalt parking lot. Therefore he didn't design plants that are native to asphalt parking lots. We go all over the world to find the best plants for any given environment.

My wife and I met when I was stationed in Oklalroma. Leta Joyce Dotson was her name. She was a long-distance operator, and every tinre I'd phone one of my girlfriends, Leta would take the call. I don't know if fate designed it, but by about the tenth time, I began to get acquainted with her and I asked her for a date. She just had such a pretty voice and a beautiful personality. When I got out of the service, she wouldn't marry me. So I came home, and after six months she called and said she wanted to visit. She did, and she never left.

At our wedding I sang "I Love You, Truly" to Leta. I'm a pretty decent singer. Back in high school, I was in a gospel quartet that performed on the radio. I also sang at funerals, dances, just about anyplace that wanted me. I still do, occasionally-but not too many of the young girls ask a seventy-five-year-old guy to sing at their wedding anymore. I never considered going professional. Maybe if the "American Idol" program had been on when I was that age, I might have given it a shot. Well, those times have gone by.

Both my sons work in the business now. I'm considered retired, but I'm actually still on the farm on a pretty regular basis. Except, of course, when I'm out fishin'.

ROY G. DAVIS and farm workers, woody ornamentals and roses, Dover, Florida.

ALICE WIEMERS I GUESS YOU COULD SAY THAT WHEN I MARRIED MY HUSBAND, I MARRIED THE BEES. He said, "C'mon Alice, help me with the bees!" So that's how I learned about honeybees. I was a total novice. But he'd started as a beekeeper in his teens, helping out a neighbor, and just got hooked. We make our principal income as grain and livestock farmers, but keeping honeybees has been our hobby for the past fifty-eight years.

In the agricultural world, bees are actually considered as livestock. So, just like all of our animals, the bees have management needs. We see to it that they're in the proper location, protected from predators and close to water. And we inspect the hives throughout the year to make sure that they're healthy.

I would say most of the time we have a dozen or two colonies. That's not many compared to the beekeepers who do this as their living-they have thousands of hives. However, we have a nice little local business selling honey, and we consume a lot of honey ourselves. We sweeten our beverages with honey, and I do some baking with it. We have honey for the pancakes, and for the cornbread. No, ma'am, we never get sick of it. And each time you take the honey from the hive it has the unique flavor of the particular flower that the bees were pollinating and visiting for nectar.

The most important thing the honeybee does is to pollinate the flowers so they can bear fruit. They are responsible for almost eighty percent of the produce in our markets: melons, vegetables that grow on vines, fruits and berries. Beekeepers are paid by the farmers and the growers to pollinate their crops. Just as the spring flowers emerge, they start with pollinating whatever produce is in season in the south and then they move north. In February all of the big beekeepers head to California for the pollination of the almonds. From there they disperse to the apple orchards and all the rest.

But we're not in the pollinating business. We just want the honey. We like to keep the colonies near our home so if we have an hour or two we can say, "Let's go look at the bees, see how the bees are getting along." We watch to see how they're flying, how they're bringing in pollen, and things like that. You can learn a whole lot about the condition of the bees by observing them come and go.

Most people don't know that honey has natural healing properties. It has such a heavy viscosity that germs can't live in it, so it can be used as a topical dressing for wounds. Occasionally I also gather the pollen just for personal use. You can take a teaspoon of pollen like a food supplement. It helps your immune system. People with multiple sclerosis actually buy bees to sting them in the critical areas. They've found that the toxin in the bee venom helps give some relief. There are some more unusual things that come from the hives too, like royal jelly. It's what the queen bee larvae feed on, and it's highly nutritious. They sell that in capsules or freeze-dried, and it's supposed to give you lots of energy.

We're about at the retirement age. When you get older and you can't lift the honey-filled supers so easily anymore, then it's not that great to be a beekeeper. But we sure do love it. We'll keep doing it as long as we can.

ALICE WIEMERS, grain, livestock, and bees, Hondo, Texas. 59

60 RAYMOND HARVEY, general farming and antique farm equipment, Dover, Maine.

MARY JANE STRAND, cows, calves, and sheep, Casper, Wyoming. FOLLOWING PAGES: Mary Jane with her son, HERMAN STRAND.

PAT HARDY I HAVE AN ALARM CLOCK BUT I'M USUALLY AWAKE BEFORE IT GOES OFF. It's nothing to be up at six in the morning-the three boys, they're kind of the same way. We like to smell the air before somebody else breathes it.

This is my life. Yeah, nothing else. And it's just a great life. I grew up on this farm. There were nine of us kids in our family. And I was the

black sheep. The other eight all have teaching degrees. Eight teachers. Except for Pat. If! had went on to college I probably would've turned around and come right back to the farm. I just took to it. My dad had a heart attack at forty-six and I was thirteen or fourteen. By sixteen, I kind of took over the farming and never left.

My dad always said he loved it when all us kids showed up together, and I found out what he was talking about after I had my own. We started kind of a tradition after my oldest son got married. Every Sunday after church the three boys and their families come over for a meal. I get to just sit there and listen to them talking about whatever's going on-I don't have to say anything-and it makes me feel good to see how close they are and know that when I'm gone they'll take care of each other. And those boys enjoy it as much as I do--I get a big kick out of that, too. I think it just started off with some fried chicken and it went from there.

Sometimes if we're running late in the fields, we'll do something real easy and all get together and eat out there. It's like a big picnic. The grandkids just love that. It's a fun time for all of us. Well, it's a joy-I just love being with them.

PAT HARDY with his SODS, BRETT and BRAD, and grandson, JACOB, soybeans, Grant City, Missouri.

"There's a story behind each parcel of this ground."

66 ABOVE: TREY LACINA, Crawford, Tens. OPPOSITE: Trey's grandfather, KEI1H NELSON, cattle, Crawford, Texas.

TOM STEVENSON IT WAS JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS, I had to get away to realize what was here, you know?

Growing up, I hated working on the farm. I have two brothers, and of the three of US, I was definitely the least likely to come back. I've always been much more laid back, joking around a lot. I was usually the one screwing off when we were kids rather than really doing my job.

It was a real strange turn of events that took place. When I got out of college I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I came home and started helping Dad out a little bit. He's been growing strawberries here for over thirty years. I worked at this local farm stand, and just by chance they happened to buy a restaurant, so they leased me the stand. I started growing an assortment of vegetables. And I thought, Well, geez, this isn't too bad. Now, as things have progressed, I've gotten into greenhouse tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers,

zucchini, and some small fruits, too. So we're still in "expansion mode."

Being so young in this business can be a little weird. I'm under thirty and I go to all these meetings and I'll be the only one there who's near my age. You end up becoming fairly tight with the older growers, and they can teach you a lot. But it gets a little frustrating not to have anybody around who's your peer. There is one young guy I've gotten to know and I'll call him up sometimes-it's just nice to talk to someone else who's working their ass off.

It's definitely harder to socialize up here. Wayne is a small town-there's only !,Joo permanent residents. And the scary thing is, young people don't stick around. Shoot, I hang out with my parents more than anyone else. I know my relationship is definitely better with my dad now than it was when I was a kid. The first year back was kind of rough,

because I didn't really know what I was doing and we would butt heads sometimes. But we managed to work through it. I appreciate the farm in a way I never did before. Things like doing chores, I don't even call them chores now, it's just the routine. And I'll tell you, it's not something you can be halfway into. You're either all there or you're not there at all. A lot of people get stuck thinking of this as work. You just can't think of it that way-it's not work, it's your life.

I'm the fifth generation to farm this land and ever since I came back, it's been kind of a dream of mine to own my own farm stand. We're in the process of building it right now, and it's a really cool little building. The new stand will be called "Stevenson" and that's real exciting. After that, I'm not sure what's coming next-the sky's the limit, you know?

OPPOSITE: TOM STEVENSON, vegetables, Wayne, Maine. ABOVE: Tom's father, FORD STEVENSON, strawberries, Wayne, Maine. FOLLOWING PAGES: THE SCHMITT FAMILY and farm worken, vegetables and sunflowers, Riverhead, New York.

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RODNEY ANDERSON My FAMILY NICKNAME IS P,P. That's short for pipsqueak. I'm the youngest of five, and there's only eight years between me and the oldest. We all grew up working on my parents' farm, but I'm the only one still doing it full time. We go under the term "fresh vegetables" and we have a roadside farm stand as well as a wholesale business. We've always been a very close-knit family. Not only were we in the same house when we were kids, many days we were in the same truck, in the same field. I think being raised on a farm builds character and it builds drive. I played football in high school and Saturdays were game days. Well, it wasn't uncommon for me to put in a couple hours of work in the morning before the game. And a lot of my friends were like, "What, are you nuts?" But, no, it's who I am.

With any family business like ours, when you're living and working together, of course it can be difficult sometimes. A lot of it is the fact that the true workday never ends. I finish up on the farm at six o'clock, but an issue that came up that morning is still sitting across from me that night at the dinner table-telling me about it. So there's never any separation.

Some people say that agriculture is a "dying craft." It isn't dying-it's just changing. But it has to be given that opportunity to grow and adjust to what's going on around it. For example, people come out here because they say they want to live in the country. But they don't want to see a tractor, or hear engine noise, or deal with dust-well that's what the country is. It's still an agricultural community at its base. People have to keep in mind that agriculture still has to be profitable to persist. If we let it get it to the point where the farmer can't make a living anymore, he'll have no choice but to sell his land, and the person buying it is going to be someone who wants to build on it. And pretty soon, that isn't the country anymore.

It's a global economy today-with the Internet and new technology, and it's affected how business is done. Like a lot of products have longer shelflives now, so they can be shipped longer distances. That means more price competition, which is tough for a small farm like ours. So we gear ourselves more toward the local market, where people tend to appreciate having fresh produce straight from the farm and they're willing to pay for that. It can be challenging, but the trick is to educate people about the difference between what we sell and what they might find in the supermarket.

Quite honestly, farming is not a "get rich" job. It is long hours, it is a lot of work, it is a lot of commitment. Just about anybody you find in the business does it because they love to do it. But it's got its perks: the commute is the backyard-you can make it to work in under a minute, you know, if the dog doesn't tackle you on the way out the door.

There's a lot of things I enjoy besides farming. I travel and like to cook-I just don't get an opportunity to do it so much. I don't have my own kitchen for starters-unless you count the barbeque grill in the garage. I actually like to watch the Food Network and I've taken some cooking classes at the local college, too. I wanted to learn how to make babka and I did pretty good with that. Cherry-cheese is my favorite. I tried to take the sushi class this year but it filled up fast-I took Creme Brulee and Frozen Desserts instead.

I'm not sure what the future will bring. Where things will go. I don't know ifI will stay and take over the farm eventually. There are a lot of factors involved. So it is with any family business. But I really love what I do.

RODNEY ANDERSON with his mother, FAYE, vegetables, Riverhead, New York.

"You have to take what the ground gives you, and that's all you can take."

OPPOSITE: ROBERT THOM, cabbage, Palmer, Alaska. ABOVE: DAVE and ROSE RUHLIG, produce and bedding plants, Carleton, Michigan. 75

SARAH BEAN WHEN WE STARTED OUT FARMING, WE HAD $200 IN CREDIT CARD DEBT. No inheritance.

No savings. It was one big juggling act. Neither one of us came from farm families. River's from the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota; I'm from San Francisco. I first came to Alaska when I was nineteen, looking for an adventure. River had already been living here for five years. Alaska definitely had an allure. There's a lot of opportunity and it's different enough socially and personally from the rest of the United States.

Things really lined up in our favor when we were looking for land to farm. We just happened to see a little "For Sale" sign nailed to a tree by the road, so we called the number, and luckily the owner of the property was willing to finance it. Within six months we'd built our house on credit cards---about $,6,ooo---and twenty years later, it's still not finished! We started the CSA right away. That stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It's a style of selling produce whereby the customer actually pays for the whole season ahead of time, and then we grow produce that we deliver once a week. So there's a real relationship, a bond between the eater and the grower. We had just eight customers our first year---and right now we've capped it at '50.

This is Zone Two, which is colder than anywhere else in the country. So the growing season is really short-May to October. But we have the advantage oflots of daylight. We're heading toward the summer solstice right now, so it's light out when I go to sleep, and it's light out when I open my eyes in the morning. The plants grow more hours of the day than they would in, say, California, and we can produce crops much quicker.

It's all organic, what we grow. I don't know how to do it any other way. But it bas been a long road. Back in the beginning, people thought organic was just dirty-it had blemishes, it wasn't supersized. Fortunately, now it's in demand. We made the choice not to become federally certified "organic" out of principle. When the National Standards for Organic Farming were up for debate, the certification bad lobbyists behind it. Those people are hired by big corporations, not by small farmers. Suddenly chain stores like Wal-Mart were selling "organic" produce. Well, our food is way higher quality, and it's what people believe they're getting when they read the word "organic" on a package---but it's not organic when it's the big companies doing it. The standards that we were adhering to before were far higher. So to be certified, you're paying extra for something that tells the public that you're doing less. It just doesn't make sense. We just decided, "Okay, that's fine. By now we have made our name in the community and everyone trusts us." And we haven't changed a thing.

We have two sons---one's twenty and one's thirteen, and they were both home-schooled. We've also traveled with them a lot. I think they want the farm to persist, but I'm not sure they'll be farmers. The younger one still thinks he wants to live here and the older one has just seen so much of the world, I don't know what he'll end up doing. And we're the ones who've encouraged and facilitated that. We're way up here in this little corner of world and the last thing we wanted to do was isolate them and keep them sheltered.

Alaska is the land of extremes, just like they say. It can stay below zero degrees for a couple of months, if not longer. But when it gets nice in the wintertime, it's beautiful. The Northern Lights can be seen six months of the year-not every single night-you have to be looking for them. You turn off all the lights, and watch them through the windows. You can never see too many, there's just no way. They're absolutely awe inspiring.

SARAH and RIVER BEAN, organic specialty salads and vegetables, Palmer, Alaska.

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OPPOSITE: CHARLIE RAINWATER, cattle, Homer, Alaska. ABOVE: Charlie's son CHRIS RAINWATER, cattle, Homer, Alaska. FOLLOWING PAGES: Chris with his wife, JAN FLORA. 79

ABOVE: BIT.L WOOD, tractor operator, Wasilla, Alaska. OPPOSITE: GREG PARIS, farm mechanic, Wasilla, Alaska.

DON BUSTOS NATIVE AMERICANS HAVE A SAYING: "When you make a decision about the land, you look seven generations into the future and seven generations into the past, and then you make your decision." How would the ancestors have made it and how will it affect the next generation forward? My parents instilled that belief in me. I think that kind of instinctual sustainability is inherent to an agricultural population. It's about having enough to eat and to grow and not abusing it because you realize that you have to use that land for future generations.

We farm three and a half acres in the Espanola Valley about twenty-two miles from Santa Fe. We do seventy-two different varieties of produce, twelve months a year. In the winter we use nothing but solar energy to grow produce. We started doing that about seven years ago. Before that I had been growing bedding plants to sell and one month I got a fuel bill for $700 and I go, man, that ain't going to work. So I started to think of other ways I might be able to heat that greenhouse and solar came to mind. We got a small grant from a USDA program called SARE-Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education Program-and I put it to the test. It seems to be working pretty well. Right now, the solar energy is applicable only to the greenhouses, but we'd like to get the whole farm off the grid. That would be our ultimate goal.

I made the decision to become certified organic in the 1980s because I wanted to assure my customers of the credibility of the product they were getting. We can't get better at it than we have, so now we've gone vegan to distinguish ourselves. We're actually also a vegan organic learning center. I do workshops and hold forums and lectures to try to get the word out.

Our farm is called Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses after the Santa Cruz church and the Santa Cruz de la Canada Land Grant. 44,600 acres were deeded by the king to sixteen families who settled here in the late 159os. I still farm the same land my ancestors farmed and use many of the same rituals and traditions, mixed in with a little new technology.

The whole sustainable system is more a matter of survival, I would say. We grew up on the farm and have continued the tradition. We're not rich, but we've been able to raise our families and live the life that we choose. Our farm itself is a model of sustainability. For the last four years I have been fortunate enough to work for an organization called American Friends Service Committee and I've traveled a lot, replicating this model in four different communities in New Mexico. We're getting quite a lot of countrywide recognition now. I sit on several other national boards, as well, and we do policy initiatives and carry them all the way to the federal level. For instance, I worked on the farm bill this year for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. I really enjoy having that kind of involvement.

Mostly my daughter is running the farm at this point. And that is part of the sustainable model: it doesn't depend on any one person. It is the way the system is built. Looking ahead, we'd like to create sustainable communities where people are living on the brown belts-where there is no water or irrigation to make farming a possibility-and growing food on the green belts to support their communities. It will just become more and more important for us to be self-sufficient and dependent on our own bioregions in the future.

The land that I'm farming now was from my mother's side, and it was passed down from women to women, but my mom didn't have any daughters-she had four sons. I turned fifty last year. My kids are here helping me daily and we're hoping my daughter can take over when I retire. I'll be happy if it returns to the women and they're back in charge again. That would be pretty neat. It's been that way for close to 400 years and I hope it can continue for another 400 years. That's the ultimate goal.

You know, it was a real simple life. It was relaxed and it was pleasant. I look back on it and I think that I was blessed and I still am. I enjoy what I do. I'm really fortunate. It doesn't feel like work, it's like my calling-what I was meant to do--developing this sustainable agricultural practice and sharing that information with my neighbors and friends.

DON BUSTOS, organic vegatables, Espanola, New Mexico.

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Ll!.PT: SOPHIA HEMMING, cherry farmer's daughter, Traverse City, Michigan. ABOVE: DELLA HUGHES, hay, Terry, Mississippi.

88

GENE VELIQUETTE CHERRIES ARE OUR SPECIALTY. We grow light sweet cherries, dark sweet cherries, and pie cherries, the red tart ones. It's just like you can't be too sexy-you just can't have too many cherries.

We're up in northern Michigan, about twenty miles from Trevor City, which calls itself the cherry capital of the world-in fact, the airport is called Cherry Capital Airport. They say that the density of cherry orchards in this area is the highest in the world. Ourselves, we have about 3,000 acres overlooking some of the prettiest lakes up here. That's a lot of cherries. To give you some idea, a well-grown cherry orchard will produce five tons of cherries per acre. That's 10,000 pounds, and each pound has 140 cherries. So you get 1.4 million cherries per acre.

We're a family farm. I have a twin, my brother Dean, and eight of our other ten siblings are in the business. We all grew up right here on our parents' dairy. So, the apples did not fall far from the tree. My dad came back from World War II after serving in the "CBs"-that's slang for a construction battalion in the Navy-with a "can do" attitude. That was their motto. We learned a work ethic from him that has given us a terrific advantage. We all work hard. And we've been innovative, as my dad was. So, I think it was our good fortune to have picked our parents the way we did.

Dad always kept three acres of cherry trees on the farm, so we grew up picking cherries every summer. Because we had a reputation for being good workers and good pickers, one of our neighbors invited us to work on a crew operating the first cherry shaker in the county. That was a real defining moment, because we realized this machine was going to change the entire cherry industry. A five-man crew could now do the same work it used to take 500 to do. So while we were still in college, Dean, my older brother, and I formed a partnership and we borrowed a whole bunch of money from the bank, bought a cherry shaker, and started leasing orchards. And it grew from there.

Now Dad's passed on, but we have four generations of stockholders. Dean's three boys all help out, and my son is involved in the business, too. In fact, he's running for township trustee because as busy as we are, we still have to be involved in the local politics. We live in an area that is very desirable. There has been a lot of growth, but there's a strong constituency to stop it. I tell people all the time that we can put up with frost, wind, hail, and drought-but we may not survive the agenda of the local township board! Our son is twenty-eight, and my grandchildren range from one to thirteen-I don't want to be the one that sits back and does nothing while they take away our property rights. You know, not on my watch.

Just recently, the board tried to pass an ordinance saying "scenic vistas" must remain unblocked. Well, what exactly defines a scenic vista? They don't say. And driving by our farm, you could argue that everything is a scenic vista. They actually proposed this amendment and declared that it enhances the property rights of the people driving by our farm-that their right to see that picturesque view is more important than our right to use our own property. Well, I helped make a lot of noise to raise the public's awareness, and when they put it to a referendum, it was defeated.

But here's my favorite part of the story: According to the Trevor City Record Eagle, our local paper, I'm the "misinformed farmer that confused the majority of the people"! I'm actually kind of proud of myself. You know, that would make a pretty good epitaph.

GENE and DEAN VELIQUElTE, cherries, Kewadin, Michigan.

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MARC ARNUSCH WHEN I WENT OFF TO COLLEGE, MY DAD TRIED TO STEER ME ON A DIFFERENT PATH. We were just coming out of the late eighties and early nineties, when agriculture made for a very tough living. He thought there might be better opportunities for me to work somewhere else, maybe in an associated industry. He wasn't alone in his thinking. At the time, a number of farmers were encouraging their children to go off and pursue other careers. But when I graduated, I decided to come back to the farm. And after a year or two, with his support, I went out on my own. When Dad retired in 2003, I absorbed his operation into mine, and now I farm about 1,800 acres. So he helped me get into the industry, even though he may have had his reservations.

Our small farming community-we're just northeast of Denver-has evolved over time, but it's still centered around family and learning by watching rather than reading out of a textbook or watching a DVD. In some ways we farm very much the same way today as my dad did thirty years ago. Mostly in terms oflearning how to establish that work ethic early on and knowing what it takes to produce a quality crop.

On the surface, farming hasn't changed much since I was a kid, but in practice it now requires so much more capital. My parents used to go through tens of thousands of dollars to operate their acreage. Today we go through hundreds of thousands-if not millions-to produce on the same acreage. So certainly the financial burdens are greater today. But we're making a good living. We've learned from our mistakes. And we tend to take a little bit more risk than our parents did. We have also divested ourselves into more things beyond just the farm: we run a very large, successful corn seed business, and we have a consulting firm that helps large landowners and developers with land-planning issues specific to agriculture, open space, or greener communities. Because when you're looking at the treatment of prime farmland, it's our belief that you should put a steward of the land in place to help assist in that decision-making process.

Right now, for instance, there's this large community that's beginning to take shape just to the west of us where they are basically going to start building a town from scratch, and plunk down 10,000 brand new homes on 10,000 acres in a very agricultural area. And this group has come to us to ask for our assistance on how they should plan for their water use and how farming and urbanization could coexist. We'll be helping them implement a revolutionary irrigation system that is highly energy efficient and reuses the town's water to irrigate the farmland in proximity. They've dedicated 1,440 acres to agriculture, which will be actively irrigated this way, and we've proposed concepts to them such as community-supported farming, where people living in town can have a membership in the farm and actually assist in growing some of the crops. The balance of acreage is pasture grass, and so we're encouraging them to build on the land that's least productive and sustain the land of highest productivity. We believe that's the kind of successful model that allows us not to blacktop prime agricultural farmland.

My son Brett does work on the farm with me. He is also the local president of his 4-H club, so he participates in agricultural environments, and he has a garden and grows field crops. Being twelve, he certainly has a number of different interests besides farming. I'm not going to push him into this business, but I think there's opportunity here for him if he wants it.

We definitely love what we do. But it goes beyond that. It's tradition, and in our case it's a heritage. Farming has been on both sides of my family as far back as we can trace. It's just something that's bred into you. That's why we have such an emotional attachment to the soil. And that's why you see when a farmer retires it's the hardest thing that he can do, because his body simply can't go on, but his mind is still after it. A farmer never has the perfect year and that's something that he's always striving for. When you plant that crop in March and you harvest it in November, no sooner do you get done than you're thinking about the next one. And it's this connection to nature that basically drives us to do what we do.

When my dad retired five years ago he actually came to work for me as my technical advisor. We say part-time, but it actually turns into full-time. Looking back at it now, I think he's glad at how things worked out. There's something to be said for your family following in your footsteps, and I know that makes him feel good. He was trying to do the right thing, to open up the doors of possibility for me. I understand that, but at the end of the day, the farm is really where I wanted to be.

PRECEDING PAGES: ROBERT DOMANN (left), row crops, Winchester, Kansas. ED NA VINSKEY (right), row crops, Cummings, Kansas. OPPOSITE: MARC ARNUSCH (left) with his father, HANS, sugar beets, wheat, and com, Keenesburg, Colorado. 93

MILT and CHARLES FRICKE, grain, Papillion, Nebraska. 95

"We are the stewards of the land."

OPPOSITE: EDGAR LENHART (seated) with his sons, DARRELL and CRAIG, and grandsons, GERAD and TYLER, coUOn and row crops, Tivoli, Texas. ABOVE: CHARLES SCHW ABAUER (standing, center) with his son, DAVID (far left), lemons and avocados, Moorpark, California. JOSEPH TERRY, SR, (second from left) with his sons, JOSEPH JR. (s ....... &ont) and ED (far right), strawberries and row erops, Ventura, California, FOLLOWING PAGES: ALLEN KING (foreground) with his son, JOHN (on tire) and farm workers, cotton and grain, Brownsville, Tennessee. 97

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DEWAYNE JUSTICE RANCHINC IS A DANGEROUS OCCUPATION. People always tell you to watch out for the bulls. But a cow with a calf is far more threatening. I've got 180 head of cattle, and I've got about 170 stitches from one of them. She's a big old longhorn. She hooked me and hung me up by my arm, ripped up my side and hit the rib, shook me around a while and peeled a thin layer of hide off the length of my leg before I could get free. I'll tell you, these ain't pets.

Yeah, it's harder than it used to be. Hell, when I was a kid, when you got bucked off a horse, you just landed in the dirt and bounced back up. The first time I realized that I had gathered a little age, was when I hit that ground and just kind of stuck. I'm sixty-three now. I don't anticipate ever retiring.

I grew up in conditions that would make a lot of people shudder today. There were three of us kids, my parents, my uncle, and my granddad, living together in an old three-room house. It was a different world we lived in. Nobody had a lot of money, but you got the things you needed-and maybe one or two presents at Christmas. I started working for wages when I was eight; 25 cents an hour. I got paid at the end of the week, I got a place to stay, and damn good food-my mom was a helluva cook. She'd go to the grocery store every Friday--ne day, that was it. I can remember sitting around the supper table on a Thursday night, you'd be looking for something else, and Daddy would stare right at you and say, If you don't see it, you don't need it.

Neither of my parents went to college, but they were both readers. I don't think a night went by when my mom didn't read to us kids from the time we were little bitty. She'd bring home books from the library. This was before the age of television and there weren't a whole lot of other things to do. I still love to read. I usually have about four books on my bedside table going at once.

But with farming, you can't get it out of a book. And you can't get it off of a movie. You have to be there, you have to feel it. You can always judge by a man's hands whether he makes his living off the land. There was an old gentleman who worked for me, and he never wore gloves. And when you shook hands with him it was like shaking hands with an old saddle.

There've been times when I wished I had selected another path, but those are usually the times just after that path has branched offfrom the road you're still on. And you can get stuck, mentally, at that crossroads. But you can't go back. If you're going to be in this business, you've got to be a hundred percent dedicated. You can't ranch for a living if you don't love it. It's just too damn hard.

nEWAYNE JUSTICE, citrus and livestock, Waddell, Arizona.

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"You either marry it or inherit it."

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PRECEDING PAGES: (standing) James Teter, Dave Harris, and Roy Gabel; (seated) Leroy Gabel, Joe Mahan, James Stockton, and Bob Halvorson, Montana. ABOVE; LEROY GABEL, malt barley and sugar beets, Huntley, Montana.

OPPOSITE: JOE MAHAN and MIRACLE BROWNING, cattle, HWltley, Montana.

LEFT: BOB HALVORSON, hay, Hundey, Montana. ABOVE: JAMES STOCKTON, ranching, HuntIey, Montana.

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"The cheapest thing about a horse is the price you pay for it."

JAMES and KATHY TETER, horse breeding and livestock, Huntley, Montana.

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DAVE HARRIS I'VE HAD BETWEEN FIFTY AND A HUNDRED CATTLE and five and fifty-five horses for most of my life. I've raised anything that'll eat, it seems like: horses, cows, sheep; even had a goat once.

My family was from the Bull Mountains and I spent most of my youth there, working on different ranches. My folks lived on the edge of town and we had a couple of horses and a milk cow once in a while. But for the most part, in the summers I spent all my youth herding cows, and that's really all I ever wanted to do. Of course, when you don't have much money you can't buy your own ranch, so at twenty-one I went to work for the Billings Fire Department to support my agricultural habit. I retired a year ago, after thirty years as a firefighter, and we moved to this wonderful little place here in Crane, Montana, that's all paid for. My cows are still back in the Bull Mountains-about 300 miles as the crow flies-but they're coming home this fall, and I'm fencing for 'em right now.

Where I grew up was not way out in the country, but it was far enough out that I had horses all my life. They were my first passion, and I was breeding them to sell for a long time. The cheapest thing about a horse is the price you pay for it. They are very labor-intensive, and it's a tremendous amount of work for the money. So I finally had to give up my horse habit. But I had some very fine horses over the years. The last one I've got left right now, his name is Buster's Last Boy.

I'm supposed to be retired, I'm not supposed to be out there from daylight to dark stomping in fence posts, but it's just how it is. This is retirement. But I do it for the peace of mind and the satisfaction and what God gives you back from the earth-the serenity, I guess, and the lack of conflict. To see your alfalfa come up each year and have a bale of your own hay, or to watch a tree grow-I don't think there's anything in the world as exciting as that, I really don't. I planted my first tree when I was twelve. I found this little apple tree about a foot tall over on the edge of my folks' place, and I dug it up, replanted it in our front yard, and it's still got apples on it. It's a good apple tree. Since then I've planted hundreds, maybe thousands of trees, one at a time.

The return is not necessarily in dollars. The return is, I don't know, somehow more spiritual. I mean, I was a firefighter for thirty years and I am very proud of that fact, you know? That's very demanding work and there's a giant reward for helping people and saving lives. But the peace that you get watching a calf being born, watching your trees grow ... that's something else.

We're just a spit from North Dakota, you know, here in eastern Montana. And in Williston-which is fifty miles from us-the last six months were the driest they have ever had since record-keeping began. By the grace of God I have irrigated ground, so there will be enough water for my crops. But my pastures will be less than adequate and that's one of the reasons why right now the livestock end is down to about the minimum. You absolutely have to do what the ground dictates; you can't over-graze. There is no farmer in this country that isn't trying to make their place better, their ground better. The stewardship of the land-be it owned, leased, whatever-is our first concern. You have to take care of that ground. Even if it's not yours, it's God's anyway. It's going to be there when we're gone and I think that if you can't leave it better than when you got it, you shouldn't have it.

The rancher and the farmer have a pretty good idea, after being on their land for a hundred or more years, of what will work and what won't. Somebody that's gone to school in another state and learned some things from books sometimes has a good idea and sometimes needs to listen more. You know, you can have a tomato plant wherever you're at. If you've got sun somewhere, you can hang it out one of your windows and grow your own tomatoes. And if you do that, you can understand what it's like to live on a farm or ranch and see that miracle oflife and the miracle God's given us.

I still have my oldest cow and her calf-that was the first cow that my wife had to help me assist. We had to pull the calf, it couldn't come by itself. We were out in the middle of nowhere and it was a little rough. But they both lived. And so there are some that you kind of keep forever. You're not supposed to be emotionally attached to your livestock, but you are.

Our place is known as Crane Falls Ranch. My wife says it's not a ranch, it's a farm, because we don't have any cows here yet. The cows make the ranch. But I say, "It will be, because my cows are coming!" We're in the most beautiful spot in the world. God gave eastern Montana just enough rain to be perfect. He gave everyplace else in the world too much or too little. He's got a plan for us. I don't know what it is, but I know He's got one.

PRECEDING PAGES AND OPPOSITE: DAVE HARRIS, cattle, Crane, Montana. II3

PRECEDING PAGES: RALPH TE VELDE, dairy, Ontario, Califomia. II6 ABOVE: CLORAL "TINY" BEELER, goats, Beulah, Michigan. OPPOSITE: MAX GINGG, dairy, Buckeye, Arizona.

ANDREA DOCKERY I MET THAD AT A COMMUNITY PICNIC IN JEFFREY CITY and, well, you really notice a single, good-looking cowboy standing there in a town this small. He grew up just a hundred miles from here, and his family has been ranching since the early 19oos. When I told my dad that I wanted to marry him, I said, "He doesn't live from paycheck to paycheck, he already owns his own cattle, and he wants to ranch." We got married in '99, soon as Thad got his cows paid off. We live in a 1973 trailer house with our daughter Laura, about quarter mile from the house I grew up in, where my parents still live. My great-grandfather homesteaded this land along the Sweetwater River, which was passed on down to my mother. I have two brothers, but I was the one with the real passion for ranching, and they both wanted a better living. Running cows and raising beef for the country is not going to make you rich. It's more of a way oflife and a love for the land.

The family property is our winter pasture, but our summer pasture is 80,000 acres of BLM land-Bureau of Land Management. It's federally managed land and we pay to put our cattle out there. They just kinda roam freely. I've seen many times antelope and the cows drinking from the water tank at the same time. There are feral horses, too. They are all in harmony out there.

We run Black Angus cows. We sell about sixty head a year and that's our main source of income. Fortunately, prices have been up lately. A steer that weighs 900 pounds goes for about $900' It's helpful, but then the price of everything else, like gas, has skyrocketed.

We also face challenges with being able to continue using the federal land. Certain environmental groups use the idea of protecting endangered species to try to keep the cows from grazing the land. Like sage chickens-that's a big one. They are gray-and-white-speckled birds that live out in the sagebrush. There's been a movement in parts of Wyoming to restrict livestock grazing out of concern for the sage chickens. They don't consider that there's coyotes and wolves that eat the baby chickens. These people look at the land and they think, well, it should be lush and green-like an irrigated, un-grazed pasture. They just want a pristine place to go and observe how beautiful it is. But it's sagebrush land that people didn't want when they homesteaded, and that's why the government ended up with it.

The mentality of the special interest groups is that we're just raping the land. But if you had to make a living off of the land, wouldn't you do your best to take care of it? Would you turn your cows out if there wasn't any grass? That would be really dumb. My grandfather was instrumental in getting electric water wells out there for the cows. And those are beneficial to all the other wildlife, too. My grandpa, dad, husband, and I, we've all worked to improve the land. So it is angering, because this is our life and our livelihood, you know? Our culture and our heritage. And it's like they don't see that. The real scary thing is they're suing the BLM-and they're winning. And if that happened in our area, we have no place else to go for the summer with our cattle. We'd be put out of business.

I can't even imagine selling and moving somewhere else. So we'll just keep doing everything we can to keep going. People are like, "How do you guys do it? You don't make any money." And I say, "We're not doing it for the money. We're doing it because we love it. We love our land and the way oflife and the cattle and horses and all of it."

LEFT AND FOLLOWING PAGES: TIlAD and ANDREA DOCKERY with their daughter, LAURA, cattle, Jeffrey City, Wyoming.

"Selling a piece of my land would be

122 CASEY MOTI' and REBECCA COLNAR, cattle, Custer, Montana.

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damn near like cutting my arm off."

RICK and SHERRY SAYLOR, row crops, Buckeye, Arizona, 123

OPPOSITE: VIRGINIA "U'ITLE BIT" ANDERSON, ranching and livestock veterinarian, Cranfills Gap, Texas. ABOVE: JESSIE RIDGEL, ranching, Clifton Texas.

126

SHIRLEY SCHOLLENBERG BACK IN 1959, one of my uncles heard about free land in Alaska: you could homestead up to 160 acres and all you had to do was clear a small portion and live on the land for a short time and it was yours. He came here in June to check it out when the green grass was belly deep and he thought it was God's gift to cattlemen. So he went back home and convinced his four sisters that they should all move their families to Alaska-f course, nobody had really researched what the winters were like.

My parents were the only ones who stayed and settled on that original parcel ofland in a small community known as Happy Valley. We're pretty modern nowadays, but we certainly weren't when we first moved up here. I was probably in eighth grade before we got a television and a telephone. We used to do all of our communication with a CB radio. And I can certainly remember when we first got running water. That was a big deal-I was probably already in high school. But in some ways, things haven't changed that much. There were eighteen kids in my graduating class in 1974. My daughter Katie graduated four or five years ago from the same school, and there were still eighteen in her class.

My family always teased me-because this is a fishing village-that I was going to marry a fisherman. And I said, No, I'm gonlla marry a cowboyl Well, sure enough, I married a fisherman. He goes out on the boat around the first of June and is gone all summer. When he leaves, that's about the time I start farming. So it's really nice having Katie around. She's twenty-three now. She has an outside job, but she certainly spends time on the tractor and training horses with me. One of the things that she always does first, after she's been away for a little while, is get on her horse and ride to the beach. There's a smell in the salt water that just makes you feel like you're home.

RIGHT: SlDRLEY SCHOLLENBERG with her daughtu, KATIE, hay and bonel, Ninilchik, Alaaka.

FOLLOWING PAGES: DAVE VAUGHN, cattle, Lander, Wyoming.

U!FT: JOHN MORGAN O'BItIEN, cowa, calves, and ho~ Refugio, Texas. FOLLOWING PAGES: John with his IOns, MORGAN,MICK,andDiCK. 131

ABOVE; JIM CHAPEL, sheep, Ballantine, Montana. 134 OPPOSITE: BUD FISHER, horses, Worden, Montana.

BILLY DOLAND WE ARE DOWN HERE IN GRAND CHENIER, southeast of Lake Charles, right down on the Louisiana coast. It's one of the prettiest places there is. But it wasn't too pret