last windrow

If they'd had reality TV shows when I was growing up, I'd have made a million dollars. Well, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars; well, maybe they'd have paid me my mileage to the studio. I and many others lived a reality TV farm life. My wife and I were recently viewing...

I didn't think much about holding public office as I was pulling cockleburrs up by their roots in those Iowa cornfields of my youth. There wasn't a thought about taxes, budgets, zoning issues or citizen complaints as I was dispatching sunflower roots from the soil. I lived a relatively...

This is the winter of a Minnesota sports lover's discontent. There are no more bright horizons on our screen. We have slumped into the depths of January with only a faint glimmer of hope for the coming year. Why do I no longer get upset when a Minnesota sports team bites the dust?...

The following Last Windrow "Classic" column was written in 1990 when my daughter was 5 years old.

Adolf was going to get a bull for Christmas. Jack and Tom were brothers who lived in the creases of the western Iowaloess hills. They had settled in a valley surrounded by high hills during the early 1900s. They worked together to clear the flat bottom land and pasture the steep...

Christmas trees were few and far between on the slopes and valleys of northwestern Iowa, where I grew up. The trees I was familiar with were cottonwoods, ash, box elder and Chinese elm trees, for the most part. None of them would make much of a Christmas tree, although I'd bet they...

No venison roast will be adorning our table this Thanksgiving Day. No deer with antlers ever entered my rifle scope during the three-weekend season in my part of the world. Not that anyone would really complain about not having venison roast for Thanksgiving. Some of my beloved relatives...

October 20, 1908 - Sold Herman Lang 105 pounds of beef at .06 a pound, total $6.30. October 21, 1908 - Sold Frank Luksan 95 pounds of beef at .07 cents a pound, total $6.65. December 1908 - got 25 cents worth of Christmas candy and 50 cents worth of apples from George Young,...

If you were looking for a nice, warm Minnesota deer hunting opener, you didn't get it this year. The oak leaves shook above my head at 9 a.m. Saturday morning, opening day of the Minnesota deer season. It was not from a squirrel looking for a nut; it was because my stand was partially...

There is a holiday in these parts that causes hearts to palpitate, palms to sweat, eyes to bulge and unceasing pacing on the floor. It is a time when money spent is secondary to anything else. No amount spent is considered ill spent. All purchases are justified. The holiday...

Where have all the old tractors gone? I don't mean to paraphrase Pete Seger's famous song from my college years, but that question came to mind as I and my wife were traveling south to northwest Iowa a few weeks ago to a family reunion. It is harvest season, now in full swing with...

I heard over the radio a few weeks ago that a man has two ages that are rated the best of his life - age 29 and age 69. I don't usually listen to such drivel, but this week I turned 68, just one year from my ideal age. I think I might make it. I've reasoned that there are reasons...

Some things just live a good, long life and then they disappear. The deep woods is losing its summerwear and fall is at the doorstep. The sweet, pungent aroma of decaying leaves permeates your sinuses as you enter and the scent makes you woozy with the fragrance. Tall grass that...

I'm not going to make any cracks about a certain community event anymore. I've learned my lesson the hard way. This is the season of community harvest dinners. All across America, small communities, churches and townships are hosting dinners that invite whatever rural residents we...

Excuse me while I wipe the egg off the face of my 2014 Minnesota Twins baseball forecast. There, I've hit the corners of my mouth and got a bit of egg out of my right ear. I really don't know what to say. What started out as a hopeful season went down the tube faster than blue wing...