We brought the harvest home on Friday. 600 acres of beans and 250 acres of corn in the bin, and 125 acres of wheat in the ground for next year.
Zumbrun Farms has been in the same place since 1916 when my great-grandfather purchased the 140 acres we call the ‘home farm’.
I’d been out of the farming business since 1982 when I left to try something different and ended up writing software for 25 years. But I returned to the farm this fall. My younger brother Dave had been running the farm since my father retired. Dave died unexpectedly and suddenly this summer, the result of a blood clot from a torn muscle of all things. One of the most robust people I’ve ever known, felled by a torn muscle. It makes no sense and 4 months later we’re stll in shock.
My sister-in-law talked of renting the farms. Grain prices are strong, and the competition for land is heavy around here. She could’ve rented it all out and been financially comfortable just cashing the rental checks. Or she could’ve sold the farms and been wealthy. But she didn’t like the idea of turning the farm over to someone outside the family, so she and I talked it over and decided she and I would do the farming.
So yesterday, racing yet another episode of bad weather in one of the wettest falls anyone can remember, we brought the harvest home.
Written in memory of my brother Dave, a farmer.
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