Timberwolves basketball. Are there any words in the Twin Cities sports market that have inspired more “meh?” Well, I decided it was time to get out of that mindset and try to look for positive things to talk about. Granted, Minnesota sports teams don’t make it easy to find optimism, but it’s got to be worth trying, right?
One of the most positive things I can think of off the floor is Glen Taylor has a sale agreement in place for the team. Reports says Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore are taking a little bit more of a hands-on approach to running Timberwolves basketball. Even though Taylor is said to still have the final say, it’s good to know that new ideas are forthcoming for the franchise.
I’m actually paying a little attention this year to the upcoming Timberwolves basketball season. Enjoying a bit of optimism.
The new schedule is out, and as I look at the returning players from last year, I’m finding a little more interest than I have in years. The starting five next year might actually be pretty decent. Look, I’m not predicting a march to the NBA finals, nor am I even predicting a playoff spot. I’d be happy with a legitimate run at a .500 win-loss mark. That’s how low my expectations are for Minnesota basketball after the last 20-plus years.
When the Timberwolves run this lineup next season it’s gonna be spooky
D’Angelo Russell Patrick Beverley Malik Beasley Anthony Edwards Karl-Anthony Towns
This starting lineup has a little more promise than we’ve seen in years.
I haven’t had much chance to research the young man the Wolves drafted out of Europe last year, but I am interested to see what the kid can bring to Timberwolves basketball. Of course, this is the one kid that I’m really excited to watch play ball next season.
I wasn’t happy they drafted Anthony Edwards at number one overall. Couldn’t be happier to admit I was wrong and am starting to love this kid.
So, to find out more about the upcoming season, I tracked down Evan with The Daily Wolves fan page on Twitter. We had a lot of basketball notes to get through.
“Fished All Fifty.” – the trek is over. A couple young men from the East Coast had quite the pre-college adventure. They’re two people who can say they’ve done something no one else has.
A couple of Virginia men coming through the Midwest recently had a lofty goal of “Fishing All Fifty.” Luke Konson and Daniel Balserak wanted to catch the state fish of every state in the U.S. They recently caught Brook Trout in their home state of Virginia, the 50th and final fish on their list.
Luke Konson (left) and Daniel Balserak recently finished up their goal of catching the state fish of all 50 states. The two men are freshmen at Clemson University this fall. (Contributed photo)
Luke Konson talked about the accomplishment during a phone call from Clemson University in South Carolina. The two Virginia men are both freshmen at the school after completing their fishing plans in less than a calendar year.
“It’s unreal,’ he said with a laugh. “We still can’t believe how quickly we Fished All Fifty. Dan and I had great luck in the last 20 states we had to fish in. While we had to deal with runoff in a couple of places, the trip was mostly full of great weather and helpful people in each location. We weren’t sure we could make quick work of the western states, but we did.”
Being residents of the east coast, they’d never caught any state fish out west, so there was a knowledge gap to overcome in order to Fish All Fifty. Some of the fish they had no experience with included Cutthroat Trout, Golden Trout, Steelhead, and King Salmon.
“In the Dakotas, we were a little more familiar with the Northern Pike and Walleye,” he said. “It’s a little more difficult because many of the fish out there are at least somewhat endangered. But the hardest thing is you have to travel to some very remote locations to catch these fish, which means a lot of driving and hiking to get where you need to go.”
At one point on their trip, they fished in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California in five days. Needless to say, that’s a lot of driving all night and fishing all day. After coming so far in their Fish All Fifty attempt, they didn’t want to fall short.
Canadian agriculture has something big in common with U.S. producers this year.
In fact, Canada and the U.S. have more in common than just a border. The two countries are also sharing a lot of hot, dry weather. Shaun Haney of RealAg is an agricultural journalist and broadcaster in Canada who says the longtime trading partners are in the same boat.
Shaun Haney of RealAg is an agricultural journalist and writer covering Canadian agriculture, which has been hit hard by drought. (Photo from YouTube.com)
“Absolutely yes,” he said on the phone from his office. “The drought of 2021 in Northern Ontario and the Western Canadian Prairies has been compared to the drought in 1988. This summer has been extremely hot and dry.
“It’s obviously hurt the crop conditions,” Haney added. “In some ways, it’s even more urgently impacted the grasslands and pastures, which is forcing producer discussions on the future of the Canadian cow herd after this fall, depending on what the level of cow cull will be.”
The drought isn’t just confined to 2021. As with many dry areas in the States, the drought stretches back to last fall. Haney noted that many Canadians were saying that “you don’t lose the crop in March.” However, they could have used moisture at that time, which they didn’t get.
“It was so dry that we’d used up a lot of our subsoil moisture last year,” he recalled. “We needed to replenish that moisture through the winter, and it didn’t happen. As we made our way into the growing season and the weeks passed, the rain just didn’t come.”
Severe drought is making things tough on Canadian agriculture. (Photo from globalnews.ca)
As the rain continued to hold off, the area listed on the Drought Monitor began to expand. Early in the year, the drought ran in a tight band along the U.S.-Canada border, especially in the Southern Prairies of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. At the same time, that drought also affected North Dakota and Montana early on in the U.S.
“As the weeks went by, the drought-impacted area continued to make its way further and further north,” Haney recalled. “It created a situation where the yields became more questionable on an increasing number of acres. The frustrating thing is some of those same fields started 2021 in great condition.”
The crops didn’t get the rain they needed for any consistent grain fill. Haney is located in Lethbridge, Alberta, and said a lot of the dryland in Canadian agriculture never had a chance. He described the 2021 Canadian growing season in one word: heartbreaking.
Crops hit by this year’s drought run the entire spectrum in Canada. Some crops handle adversity better than others, including chickpeas and lentils. However, Canadian farmers are especially concerned about the wheat and canola crops.
“I would say it’s even more so with canola,” Haney said. “From what I’ve heard, there are a lot of people harvesting some pretty light barley. But canola is the one where people are concerned they won’t have the yield. Canola is a fairly small seed, but it shouldn’t look like pepper.”
Canadian farmers do grow some soybean in Manitoba, where farmers may harvest bushels worth as little as $15. Producers also grow a little grain corn in Manitoba, as well as some in southern Alberta, that’s fed to livestock. Almost all of that corn is irrigated.
“There are some irrigated sugar beets in Alberta that are looking good as well,” he adds. “However, the list of struggling dryland crops is a long one.”
Haney says the one possible saving grace is good commodity prices. If prices were low during a drought like this, that would be the mother of all discouraging situations. He notes that if canola is around 20 dollars and you have ten bushels in the field, that’s 200 dollars an acre.
“It’s not a moneymaker on dry land, but it’s a lot better than a market with nine dollars,” he added. “This boils down to Mother Nature not cooperating with us, and it’s one of the variables that are out of our control.
“I can’t even imagine what it would have been like going through a drought like this in the 1930s and ‘40s when we weren’t in a minimum-till situation,” Haney said. “Thankfully, most of our fields are minimum or zero-tillage, which helps to conserve as much moisture as possible. It’s a good reminder of why we change our practices in Canadian agriculture out here on the prairies.”
Southern border farmers are afraid of being overwhelmed. The wide-open southern border of the United States has been a political hot potato for some time. Ag reporters found out how serious the problem is during a press conference called by the American Farm Bureau. Zippy Duvall, the organization’s president, took a tour of farms along the southern border and was appalled at what he saw there.
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall toured the southern border of the U.S., where farmers fear for their safety. (Photo from fb.org)
The tour came about because the American Farm Bureau got alerted by some of their state Farm Bureau organizations that sit on the border, including Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, about the challenges farmers are facing. They wrote to the national headquarters asking for help because the situation is quickly getting out of control.
“A couple of months ago, the state Farm Bureaus reached out to me expressing the need for some help with the issues they’re facing along the border,” Duvall said during a recent press conference. “Because of that, we put together a letter to President Biden about our concerns.”
It shows how seriously Farm Bureau is taking the problem when all 50 state Farm Bureaus and the Puerto Rican Farm Bureau quickly signed on to the letter. The letter resulted in a phone call between the Farm Bureau state presidents and representatives from the administration to talk about the problems.
Once that phone call ended, Duvall decided the next step was to get a look at what was happening there. He’s always enjoyed getting out at the grassroots level and hear what’s happening on the nation’s farms. Duvall says emphatically that he’s “seen how serious the situation is for American farmers” along the border, calling it heartbreaking.
“Of course, they’ve experienced people coming across our border for decades,” he said. “But it’s never been at the level we see today. Our farmers and ranchers are worried about their safety, as well as the safety of their families and employees. They’re worried about the security of their property, including their farm machinery and equipment.”
Several farmers along the border have had their homes looted, their fences torn down numerous times, which costs a lot of money to fix, and their water sources have been tampered with and compromised. He says it’s a humanitarian crisis that needs attention immediately.
“The serious problem isn’t just affecting the lives of our farmers and ranchers: it’s also hurting many people coming across the border,” Duvall said. “We’ve heard discussions about farmers and ranchers who found dead bodies on their operations. Not everyone who comes over the border survives the journey.
“It’s been heartbreaking to see and experience everything over the last couple of days,” Duvall added.
Duvall went through Texas with Russell Boening, the Texas State President. As a farmer living in a state along the southern border, Boening said they’ve never seen an influx of people like they’re seeing in 2021.
Russell Boening, Texas Farm Bureau President, says officials along the southern border fear being overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants. (Photo from flickr.com)
“We went through McAllen, which is down in the Valley of Texas, and then we went upriver to Del Rio,” Boening said. “Those are two different areas facing different issues because of the same problem.
“The vast majority of people coming into McAllen include family units, unaccompanied minors, all of whom are turning themselves in to Border Patrol Agents and other authorities,” he said. “The number is overwhelming the capability of the Border Patrol to process and keep track of them to service their basic needs. And what do you do when these folks come in with COVID?”
Boening said the local NGOs are trying to set up places for people who have COVID to stay. The problem is they don’t have to stay at those places. They are “encouraged” to stay, but they aren’t required to. Multiple people are carrying COVID into the country unabated.
The situation is a little different in Del Rio, Texas. Some people are coming in seeking asylum. However, many of them are trying not to get caught. Those folks are sneaking through people’s property, including many farms and ranches.
“It’s a different demographic of people coming through the Del Rio area,” Boening said. “They’re in larger numbers and much more aggressive, often carrying backpacks and wearing camouflage.
“There’s the humanitarian issue of some folks who don’t make it where they’re trying to go,” he added. “They often run out of water, or the energy needed to finish the journey. Sometimes they’re found alive, but many times they aren’t.”
The Sheriff in Hidalgo County, where McAllen is located, put it simply: “This is not sustainable.”
Boening says there’s a sense of fear, desperation, and helplessness among the officials trying to deal with the situation along the border.
Craig Ogden, President of the New Mexico Farm Bureau, also says there’s a sense of desperation in New Mexico. Law enforcement officials, including the Border Patrol, are in desperate need of resources.
New Mexico Farm Bureau President Craig Ogden says Border Patrol officials are overwhelmed and afraid of being overwhelmed by immigration. (photo usnews.com)
“Technology is available to put out sensors along the border, but they need funds to make those purchases,” Ogden said. “They need a lot of resources, and you can feel the frustration of these people just trying to do their jobs.
“This is an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed and can’t be kicked down the road anymore,” he added. “Don’t forget this is also a biosecurity concern, including diseases carried by people entering the country and that can go back and forth among humans and livestock.”
So, what is Farm Bureau’s message? Duvall said it’s time for Washington, D.C., to start securing the nation’s border.
“That’s what my message is to Congress and the administration,” Duvall said. “It’s time to uphold the laws of the land. It’s close to getting out of hand.”
Drought to an average person likely means “it’s dry.” And that’s fair. However, what you may not realize is drought, to a farmer, might mean “we’re struggling to stay in business because of something we literally have no control over.” It’s understandably a situation that non-farm folks have a hard time relating to.
In a more typical year, here’s a picture of the Roberts family selling their fresh produce at a farmers market. (Photo from Facebook.com)
The National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s News Service and the American Farm Bureau Federation undertook a project this month to put a human face on the challenges of drought, especially in the Western United States. That area of the country has been clobbered by a long and intense spell of dry weather.
Tyson Roberts is a farmer from Layton, Utah, who’s seen the challenge firsthand because he’s living it right now. I jumped on the phone with him on Tuesday of this week for an interview about what it’s like to face a drought of this magnitude. While drought is a big topic of conversation in 2021, he said the dry spell stretches back to 2021.
“We got started with this last year,” he recalled while on the phone from his Utah farm. “A lot of people may not realize that.”
It wasn’t quite as bad last year as it is in 2021. The water available for Roberts’ crops was below normal levels in 2020, but they still grew “pretty much” all of the crops that they would in a normal year. This year has been markedly different.
“We are a vegetable operation here,” he said, “and we grow fresh market vegetables for farmer’s markets.
“When you think about a tradition row crop farm, the producer plants in the spring and harvests in the fall,” Roberts says. “We work a little differently: we’ll start planting different vegetables in the spring and continue through most of the summer and into August.”
Their typical planting schedule came to a sudden stop. Roberts, the sixth generation of the Roberts family to work the farm in Davis County, Utah, got to the middle of June and figured out they wouldn’t have enough water to sustain the crops they have growing and grow the additional crops they’d be planting through the month of July.
“We ended up putting all of our planters away around the first of July,” he recalled. “About 20 percent of our property remained unplanted. We fallowed it because there just isn’t enough water to grow the amount of produce we normally plant in a given year.”
Drought is making the lives of farmers miserable in 2021, especially in the Western United States. (Photo from foxnews.com)
As someone who doesn’t live on a farm, imagine having to give up 20 percent of your income due to circumstances you had no control over. I don’t know about you, but a 20 percent drop in income would likely throw me out of my house and into the street.
The drought hasn’t forced Roberts to destroy any crops, but it has forced him to leave some crops in the field because they’re not harvestable quality, which amounts to the same thing. He offered up his sweet corn crop as an example.
“About 2/3 of the top part of our fields are pretty good quality and should get us good yields,” he said. “However, on the bottom end, we haven’t had enough water for all of the other plants. I guess you’d say we couldn’t get the water all the way to the end of the row.
“We’ve lost a lot of yield and in quality,” Roberts added. “In addition to the unplanted ground, there’s also a portion of the planted crops that are unmarketable.”
Crop farmers get paid when they harvest crops. Can you imagine knowing ahead of time that the one check you get for harvesting your crops won’t pay your bills? That’s what farmers face every year. These are the people that grow our food. It’s a rough way to earn a living.
He sums up the situation on his farm rather succinctly: “We’re in survival mode right now,” he said grimly. “With the unplanted acres and the loss of yield, we’re just trying to stay afloat. And I think that’s fair to say for a lot of farmers around us and across the state, as well as throughout the Western U.S.”
So how do farmers like him find a way to keep moving forward and get through this?
“I serve on the Utah Farm Bureau Board of Directors, and we met last week to discuss how we can help keep our farmers in business,” he said. “Every state has received a fair amount of COVID assistance, which is some help. We’re looking at the best ways to help the livestock farmers, the crop farmers, and get them the help they need.
“We’re looking into government programs to help them stay in business,” Roberts added. “I hate to say it, but sometimes a company or a farm may need a little help staying afloat when they face the challenges that we have for nearly two years.”
Roberts and his wife, Danna, have six children who each help on the farm, and Tyson’s parents, Dix and Ruth, also operate the farm with him.
Ag economy. Have two words ever been gloomier in rural America than they’ve been for the last several years? Well, we’ve had a bit of a turnaround, but my assignment was to find out not only the current state but what might be ahead in the future.
Dave Widmar is an agricultural economist with Agricultural Economic Insights in West Lafayette, Indiana. (Photo from www.aei.ag)
So, I gave Dave Widmar of Agricultural Economic Insights in West Lafayette, Indiana, a call to find out more about the ag economy. He has more than enough experience to make a rational judgment. Before launching out on his own, Dave was a researcher in the Economics Department at Purdue University, as well as the economist for the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
The first thing he told me was that the ag economy turned around quickly. “Not only is it a big difference from 2020 to 2021, but the turnaround also took place in a short period of time,” he said on the phone from his Indiana office. “Last summer, the outlook was very bleak, and it was hard to put together a list of positive things going on.
“Now, just past the midpoint of 2021, we have a very strong outlook with a long list of positive things going for us,” he added. “The biggest piece is higher commodity prices, which have really turned around.”
That turnaround didn’t start until last September, and it has played out quickly over the past several months. That rise in commodity prices has been especially good for corn and soybean producers.
While it’s not as true as it was earlier in 2021, another thing the ag economy and farmers were benefitting from was a low-cost environment. “Over the last six months, fertilizer went from about $9 an acre in the fall of 2020 to between $130 and $140 an acre today,” Widmar says. “Farmland values and cash rental rates have increased as well. But it’s important to recognize that last year and early in 2021, the lower cost structure helped profitability.”
Dairying in Ireland was an irresistible topic to a writer who grew up working at the Gerhold Brother’s Dairy of Castlewood, South Dakota. While on vacation in Ireland, Frank Costello, the gentleman that rented a beautiful cottage to us, put me in touch with a local dairy farmer named Tom Clesham. One phone call and a couple of texts later, I was on my way to visit the Clesham Farm in County Mayo, near Cong.
It was so much fun to talk to Tom Clesham, a dairy farmer from Cong, Ireland. I hadn’t been on a dairy farm in years. He was very kind and easygoing to visit with and had a lot to be proud of at his farm. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
The 96-acre dairy farm stretches back several generations through his family tree. However, Toms’ father, Tim, and the rest of the Clesham family milked cows until 1990, when Tim switched to beef cattle. Over the next several years, the father-son farmers bred pedigree Limousine cattle alongside their commercial beef herd after leaving dairying.
But Tom became frustrated with the volatility of the Irish beef sector, something American beef farmers know all too well. So, looking at the books, Tom felt it wasn’t financially doable to keep raising beef animals. After 23 years, it was time to go back to dairying, and the work began in 2013.
“The process wasn’t too bad because a lot of the milking facility was still here,” Clesham recalled as the milk truck pulled into the yard. “Originally, when we took the equipment out, we filled the pit with clay, put plastic over it, and then covered that with cement. When we went back to dairying, I just undid that process.”
He runs a six-unit parlor that Clesham would like to make larger as he plans to expand his herd. When he redid the milking parlor, Clesham planned ahead by leaving room for a total of eight units. Once the cows are inside the parlor, Clesham hits a button to dispense feed into the automatic feeders to keep the cows busy while they give their milk.
“Every time I hit the button, I know they’re getting .6 kilos of ‘nuts,’” he said. “It’s a dairy pellet ration, or a ‘nut,’ as I like to call it, with a load of different ingredients. The cows are currently getting a 14 percent protein nut called ‘Grass Match,’ and is for feeding at lower levels while still giving a higher level of minerals and things for when they’re out on the grass.”
Tom Clesham’s six-unit milking parlor can be converted into an eight-unit stall when he’s ready to make the move. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
“At the end of the year, I’ll start giving a little more protein in their pellets because they won’t be out on the grass as much,” Clesham added.
Cows get wiped pre-milking with a paper towel, and he’ll pre-draw them to check the cows, milk them, and then he applies teat dip from a spray bottle. “It’s also got a peppermint smell to it, and I think that helps with the flies,” he added.
As American dairy farmers know firsthand, expanding a parlor is a big undertaking. Clesham bought secondhand Pyrex parlor equipment over 20 years ago. The steelwork in the parlor will stay, but he plans on replacing everything else, including his milk pump, which is a diaphragm, in favor of an electric pump.
“It really wouldn’t be a difficult process, but it will be an expensive one,” the 40-year-old farmer said with a grin. “I got the equipment you see here off a well-known online platform in Ireland called ‘Done Deals.’”
From the first discussion about returning to dairying to the first milking, Clesham estimates it took two years to complete that particular journey. He spent a lot of time in meetings with the local milk cooperative on the way to running a full-time dairy and is quick to credit his father Tim’s knowledge of the business in getting it running.
“I also have a neighbor down the road named Martin Jennings who’s about the same age as I am and was a great help to me,” he added. “He’s a great friend of mine and is always at the end of the phone to ring him up and ask him about things I didn’t understand. Mark was a great help in that regard.”
During the conversation with Tom Clesham, the local milkman showed up to drain his bulk tank. Clesham has won national awards over the past couple of years due to low Somatic Cell Count in his milk production. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
It was at this point in the conversation that the milk truck was backing into the yard to hook up to the bulk tank. For the last few years, the milk coming out of the Clesham’s bulk tank won awards from Animal Health Ireland for its low Somatic Cell Count. “It doesn’t make you any more money,” he said with a smile, “but the cows stay healthy, and that’s important in dairying.”
Clesham credits that success to the cleaning routine and the drying-off process he uses for the cows. “Last year, I started doing a few culture tests on the cows,” he recalled. “That’s going along with my veterinarian and knowing what sort of bacteria we may be fighting by getting the right antibiotics.
“I’ve also been fairly strict when it comes to drying off cows,” Clesham says. “I won’t do too many at a time. I also never dry off cows in the evening; I dry them off in the morning. They’re standing up for a bit longer in the day and seal up. We treat them with dry cow therapy and teat sealers. If we do it in the evening, they’re probably laying down for the night soon afterward.”
Irish dairy farmer Tom Clesham has put in eight years of hard work to return to dairy farming after he and his father, Tim, left the beef industry due to price volatility. (Photo by Chad Smith)
With a big smile, Clesham added, ”Some people may say you’re daft, but it’s just the silly things I do.” Each of his dairy cows has a minimum of eight weeks when they’re dried off, not milked, and can recover to put on condition to calve again.
Calving season on the Clesham farm usually begins around the first of February. He gets the bull out to the cows and aims for them to calve in a six-week period. “I generally try to have the cows dried off by December,” he added, “and they’re off in January and hopefully calving by the first of February.
“I breed all my replacement cows,” Clesham said. “The only calves I keep for myself are Friesian females. All the rest of the calves will get sold.
“There’s a push now in Ireland that emphasizes the welfare of dairy-born calves that will be finished and put into beef,” he says. “The push says that that the animals are worth something even if they won’t bring you a lot of money. Family farmers in Ireland will still call the vet for a sick bull calf even if that might cost more than what he’s worth.”
Ireland has new regulations in place to ensure proper animal care for its 1.55 million dairy cows, including one that prohibits farmers from selling calves until they’re at least 10 days old. “It’s just to make sure the navel is dry, the calf is reasonably hardy, and it keeps two-and-three-day-old calves from going into the market, which is a good thing,” Clesham said.
Clesham milks a herd mostly made up of Holstein-Friesian cross cattle, although he will throw other breeds in from time-to-time to improve the protein and butterfat content of his milk, which Irish cooperatives are now paying premiums for. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
Most, if not all of the milk produced in Ireland, comes from grass-fed cows. Clesham, one of more than 18,000 dairy farmers in the country, says that’s the most profitable way to do dairying in Ireland. In fact, the Irish dairy industry markets itself as selling “grass-produced milk from small family farms.” He said that is what makes Ireland dairying unique.
The temperate Irish climate allows farmers to grow large quantities of grass over a long season, so the 40-year-old farmer rotates his 80-cattle herd through a handful of different pastures, called “paddocks.” It’s going to get a little trickier over the next several weeks as the grass “slows down a bit come July” when grass gets a little “stemmy.”
“During this rotation through the paddocks, I’m going behind the cows and mowing the paddocks, which I call ‘topping,’ and trying to cut back any stringy grass that they won’t eat at this stage,” he said. “I think it allows the grass to come back a little better when I mow after the cows eat all they can get to.
“Some guys think it’s better to mow the grass before the cows come into a paddock,” Clesham added. “Other guys say it’s better to skip paddocks entirely and make baled silage out of it. We do cut some silage here in addition to running them out on paddocks.”
As with most American dairy farms, the milk goes to a local cooperative for processing. Clesham says Irish co-ops are now paying bonuses from dairy farmers for higher-quality milk, so the higher the protein and butterfat content, the higher the check. Clesham works on what’s called an “A, B, C Milk Payment System.”
While walking on the road running between different paddocks, Clesham stops in front of a new building to house the cows before they head into the barn for milking something American farmers might refer to as “stanchion barns.” The cows lay on rubber mats in each of their cubicles. While some Irish dairymen may put down chopped straw or sawdust, he puts down lime in each cubicle.
“The manure pit is down below where the cows walk,” Tom said. “We spread it out on our land here. It’s mixed around and stirred before it goes into vacuum tanker vehicles that put it down on the land.”
Speaking of caring for the land, an American Farm Bureau survey in November 2020 showed that Americans trust their farmers to do the right things when it comes to sustainability and the environment. Clesham feels the Irish hold their dairy farmers in equally high regard.
“What we produce is grass-based, and I suppose, is more environmentally friendly than big barn systems that feed a lot of grain,” he said.
Clesham’s beautiful Springer-mix hunting dog Ivy was more than happy to join us as we walked down the gravel road between the paddocks. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Carbon emissions Is another topic that American farmers understand, and the conversation has also begun in Ireland. The dairyman says there’s “been a little bit of flak” when it comes to farming and carbon emissions.
“I’m not an expert on the topic, but I do think some folks have been led a bit astray on what it is,” Clesham said thoughtfully. “There are some cattle on lands across Ireland, but there are also huge plots of land that absorb carbon too. On my farm, I can easily say I have more trees than cows.”
That in no way means Clesham isn’t concerned about caring for the environment. After all, if he doesn’t take care of his land, he won’t be able to continue dairying into the future, something he clearly loves doing. “As we talk here, you can see I’ve planted a long row of flowers I call my ‘Bee Bank,’ he said. “That’s to help the bees in my area stay healthy.”
Clesham planted a row of flowers he calls a “Bee Bank,” something he put in just to keep the pollinators around his field happy and healthy. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Clesham is currently milking 47 cows and looking at more. He has visited with a government-run advisory service (Teagasc) that helps farmers with their dairying plans. At one point, they discussed not having any heifers and just having milking cows on the acreage.
“I might be able to milk over 70 cows then, but that would lead to other troubles,” he said. “I’d have to find a source for heifers. I’m definitely going to milk a few more next year as I have 16 in-calf heifers that will add on to the milking herd.”
Dairying is not the only thing keeping him busy: He’s working at the Falconry School on the grounds of Ashford Castle near Cong, Ireland, and raises pheasants for future hunting opportunities.
Renovation is usually one of my favorite topics. It involves retrofitting old structures to make them new again. Those assignments involve me talking about and photographing old structures, something the urban explorer in me really enjoys.
The Harmony, Minnesota, Historical Society is kicking off a fund drive to renovate the old McGlaughlin Elevator, first built in 1879. They’ll host open house events July 3 and 4 from 11-2 each day. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The past and future stand guard at the entrance to Main Street in Harmony, Minnesota. The McMichael Grain Elevator was built in 1879 and stands on the west side of Main Street, where it meets the curve of State Highway 52. On the east side of the street is the much newer and more modern Harmony Agri-Services. A group of Harmony citizens is working to make sure the past and future of grain handling in the area watch over Main Street for many years to come.
Harmony sits smack dab in the middle of Minnesota farm country, so they needed elevators near railroads to process and store harvested grain, as well as move it into large freight cars for transportation. The A. & T. McMichael Grain Company of McGregor, Iowa, built the original elevator structure, one of several facilities they owned and operated in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota. It included the elevators in Preston, Mabel, and Canton, Minnesota.
Farmers drove in here and dumped their grain for storage down through the floor grate in the old Harmony Elevator. The town’s Historical Society is kicking off a fund drive to raise money for renovations and turning it into a historical landmark. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Joel Wolsted bought the facility in 1914, and his family would hang on to it for a long time. He passed on the operation to his son, Ron Wolsted, who ran it as “Harmony Feed and Fuel.” As the new Harmony Agri-Services facility went up on the other side of the road, the old structure was gifted to the City of Harmony and the Harmony Area Historical Society by Jeff and Barb (Wolsted) Soma of Harmony Agri-Services in 2019.
Understandably, the then 140-year-old facility was in rough shape when the historical society first opened the doors. Ralph Beastrom is one of the historical society’s elevator committee chairs. With a laugh, he said the place was “full of stuff” when they looked inside it.
“We had a crew come in and clean the bins,” he recalled. “They went down inside the bins (which are long gone) and shoveled them all out. We also had a soda blaster come in and clean everything up inside the building. There were cobwebs, bird droppings, and dirt everywhere you looked in here.”
One of the leftover shovels that Harmony Elevator employees had to use to unload train cars by hand in the late 1800s when the elevator was built. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The local Falk Foundation gave the project a grant to help pay for the soda blasting. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like sandblasting, but workers use what’s essentially baking soda.
He said there are a few pieces of equipment left behind, including what are called “fanning mills” that sort the grain. Once the mills and other left-behind equipment get cleaned up, they will become part of the historical site.
Machinery left behind at the old elevator in Harmony, Minnesota. The local Historical Society is raising funds to renovate it and make it a historical landmark the town can be proud of. (Photo by Chad Smith)
“Our overall renovation plan is to work on the outside first,” Beastrom said. “We’ll do the siding and fix up the doors, so they work smoothly again. At some point, the inside will get renovated with some new lighting and some interpretive information. Whether we’ll do anything electronically, I’m not sure yet.
“We also need to get the windows taken care of, which will probably be our next high-dollar item,” he said. “Then, it’ll be time to work on the doors and close any openings that the swallows are using to get in and build their nests.”
The Harmony Historical Society is working with a preservationist in Spring Grove to do the work necessary to get the site into the Historical Registry. “We’ve already determined it’s eligible for the Registry, we just need to get the paperwork finished up,” he added. “That should be completed this year. It should open some doors for extra funding to get the renovation work done.
“Preservation architects have already told us the building is solid,” Beastrom added.
Beastrom, who also serves as Treasurer for the Harmony Historical Society, says the goal isn’t necessarily to restore it to the original condition. The goal is to preserve the building and make it look good because it “sits right at the entrance to our Main Street, and we want it to look good in that spot.”
Ralph Beastrom gave me a tour on a very windy and rainy day in Harmony. He’s helping to lead the effort to restore the old McGlaughlin Elevator and make it a historical landmark. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The Harmony Historical Society will host a couple of Open House Events over July third and Fourth from 11 am-2 pm each day. They’ll have the interior on display for the public, including some of the old machines and signage as well. The Open Houses will be a kickoff to a major fundraising push for the renovation project.
“We lost an entire year to COVID-19,” he added. “Nobody could come to meetings or get any work done. We hope that the Fourth of July will really get this project going in the right direction again.”
The total cost of the renvoatioon is estimated at $200,000, so the Historical Society needs help from the public. For more information, you can contact them at hahs@harmonytel.net. Feel free to reach out to the elevator renovation chairs, including Ralph Beastrom, Richard Kiehne, or Vicky Tribon.
Water is a touchy subject, especially when it comes to our agriculture and environmental discussions these days. I have to admit that I was worried about this from day one. The Environmental Protection Agency announced it intends to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.
Zippy Duvall, first elected president of the American Farm Bureau Federation in 2016, is very concerned about the EPA decision to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Act. (Photo from fb.org)
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall his organization is very concerned about the idea and its potential impact on the nation’s farmers.
“The American Farm Bureau Federation is extremely disappointed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement that it intends to reverse the environmentally conscious Navigable Waters Protection Rule,” Duvall says, “which finally brought clarity and certainty to clean water efforts. Farmers and ranchers care about clean water and preserving the land, and they support the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.
“Administrator Regan recently recognized the flaws in the 2015 ‘Waters of the U.S. Rule’ and pledged not to return to those overreaching regulations,” he added. “We are deeply concerned that the EPA plans to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which puts the future of responsible protections at risk. We expected extensive outreach, but today’s announcement fails to recognize the concerns of farmers and ranchers.”
Duvall, a third-generation Georgia farmer, says this is an important moment for EPA Administrator Michael Regan and will be pivotal to his ability to earn the trust of farmers on this and other administration priorities. Duvall says the EPA boss must “keep his word” to recognize the efforts of agriculture and not return to flawed, overly-complicated and excessive regulations.
EPA Chief Michael Regan announced that his agency is planning to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule put in place by the Trump Administration. (Photo from eenews.com)
“We call on the EPA to respect the statute, recognize the burden that overreaching regulation places on farmers and ranchers, and not write the term ‘navigable’ out of the Clean Water Act” Duvall says. “On this issue, and particularly prior converted croplands and ephemerals, we also urge Secretary Vilsack to ensure that we don’t return to the regulatory land grab that was the 2015 ‘WOTUS’ Rule.
Duvall adds that clean water and clarity are paramount, which is why farmers shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and consultants to farm.
From a personal perspective, why can’t we meet in the middle here? You do realize that farmers don’t get to stay in business and pass on the operation to their kids if they don’t take care of their environment?
Am I anti-environment by being concerned about farmers? I’m not. I’m saying there has to be a way to preserve the environment and still allow farmers to make money. After all, they do feed us, remember? Food doesn’t just show up at Safeway.
Here’s a walking tour of the Graves Farm at Bend in the River Park near Rice, Minnesota.
Abandoned farm. Two words guaranteed to get my attention. I was doing some Googling (still one of the dumbest words in our dictionary) and came across the Bend in the River Park, home to the refurbished Graves Farm that dates to the late 1800s. It’s about 60ish miles north of the Twin Cities near Rice and so worth the drive.
The outbuildings at the Graves Farm, located in the Bend of the River Park near Rice, Minnesota. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Here’s the link to my complete Facebook photo album:
This is the part of the article where I run through the history of a particular site. However, I just can’t find much in the way of available information.
The Park map says, “Little is known of the individuals who acquired territorial lands grants for this property before Minnesota’s statehood in 1858, but by the 1800’s it was a working farm owned by George Wolhart. Its most recent caretakers, the Graves Family that gives the site its name, bought the place in 1912.
The Graves family then maintained it through many decades, with the property sold to Benton County in 2002.
The Graves House was built in the Queen Anne style but much thinner, such as the houses you’d more likely see in urban locations. (Photo by Chad Smith)
According to the sign on the refurbished Graves House, the structure replaced a log house that was first built on the property. The house still contains the original doors, molding, tongue-and-groove flooring.
By the way, the place wasn’t just a working farm. Carlton Graves used the entire basement for his veterinary practice. Do you think the guy was a busy person?
The house might have been a little different than what some people expected to see in the country back then. According to the description on the sign, the two-story, lap-sided house was slimmer and more vertical, such as those placed tightly together on urban housing lots. The house was built in the Queen Anne style, a long-popular style commonly seen on Minnesota farms of the period.
The back of the barn and the silo at the Graves Farm. (Photo by Chad Smith)
There are so many interesting buildings to see on the old site. I’d encourage you to hit the road this summer and make it one of your adventure stops!
A peek inside the machinery shed… is this a rake or a tiller of some kind? (Photo by Chad Smith)
The interior of the corn crib, built in the early 1900’s. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The front of the barn and silo at the Graves Farm. (photo by Chad Smith)
Bend in the River Park… a great place to visit! (Photo by Chad Smith)
