Breaking Ground: 100 Posts Later
A Hundred Posts of Grit, Grief, and Growing Something True
A hundred posts ago, this was just a seed—an idea I wasn’t sure would take root.
Now? It’s a whole field of stories. Untamed. Honest. Alive.
When I launched this thing in July 2023, I didn’t expect much—maybe a handful of curious readers, perhaps a few polite replies.
But here we are—1,100 strong—and getting louder every week.
And this isn’t just my story anymore.
It’s ours.
Every comment, every message, every quiet ‘keep going’ turned this newsletter into something bigger—a home for truth-tellers and beautiful bastards who still give a damn.
Like the reader who told me, one post helped them open up about their own struggles with burnout—that’s when I realized this wasn’t just about farming; it was about connection.
I’ve always said I’m one of the most unemployable guys on the street—and when the pressure’s on, I usually bolt the other way.
But something keeps pulling me back.
Maybe it’s the slow drip of validation. Or the catharsis of bleeding my guts onto the page. Or this strange, stubborn hope that if I keep saying the hard stuff out loud, someone else might feel a little less alone.
Some folks don’t like it. Makes ’em uncomfortable.
But I think we’re onto something.
What I never expected was how much you’d teach me. Every “this hit home,” every “man, I needed this today”—those little echoes have become a compass pointing me toward what matters.
You’ve shown me that the most personal stories are often the most universal.
That the stuff I’ve been most afraid to publish? It’s exactly what needed to be said. And that there’s a whole community out here hungry for something real—not just another sanitized press release about record yields and perfect harvests, but the messy, complicated truth of loving this life while sometimes wanting to set fire to the whole damn thing.
Your stories have become part of mine.
Your questions have become my next post.
And every time I’ve thought about quitting, one of you shows up to remind me why I started.
I’ve even seen other ag writers lift the veil on their mental health struggles—maybe not entirely, but enough to reveal a glimmer of light.
So here’s to cracking it open a little wider over the next hundred posts.
To celebrate, I’m sharing ten of our favorite pieces—yours and mine—the ones that landed hard, stirred something real, and made folks reach out, stick around, or send it to someone who needed it.
Along the way, I’ll add a few reflections—what I was feeling, what I was afraid of, what I didn’t say.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for staying.
Here’s to the next 100. 🌱
1.) Lunch Break Liturgies
Post number six—one of the first where I felt like I actually said something.
The voice started showing up here: a little nostalgia, a little grief, and some jokes about cassette tapes and chicken bones. I hadn’t yet learned how to land a point without a scenic detour through all five counties—but it still hits.
Read 'Lunch Break Liturgies' Here
2.) Meditation on Machinery
Lucky post 13. Calm. Unbothered. Even when things broke down, I wasn’t spiraling.
Looking back, I can feel the patience in the writing. I let the words breathe. This one’s a reminder that good stories come easier when you stop clenching the wheel.
Read 'Meditation on Machinery' Here
3.) Final Furrows—Meditations from the Combine Cab
Harvest was rolling. Grief showed up.
The first person from my high school class passed unexpectedly—and this is where I tried to make sense of it from the cab. The tone’s uneven. It rambles. But it’s real.
Read 'Meditations from the Combine Cab' Here
4.) Less is More—Meditations on Fertilizer, Rainfall, and Rumple Minze
Started as a PSA about walking fields too soon after a rain. Turned into a deeper piece on curiosity, fertilizer reduction, mindset—and yeah, karaoke regrets.
5.) 40 Lessons from a 40-Year-Old—What the Road Taught Me
This one just showed up one day—kind of like forty itself.
A list of hard-won, weirdly specific truths from a guy who’s been broke, bruised, barnstormed, and somehow still laughing.
It’s not about tractors or tillage. It’s about what sticks after the storms pass.
Read '40 Lessons from a 40-Year-Old' Here
6.) Weathering the Storm
This one cracked everything wide open.
Raw. Chaotic. Loud. It didn’t care about the proper order—and neither did I.
It hit a nerve. Got picked up by The Farmer. Opened some doors… until they realized I don’t do soft-focus fluff or sanitized soundbites. That’s fine.
This one wasn’t meant to be palatable. It was meant to matter.
If you’ve ever felt like you were hanging by a thread—or lost a farm, a family, or yourself in the dust and the spreadsheets—this one’s for you.
It made people uncomfortable. That means I did my job.
Read 'Weathering the Storm' Here
7.) Last Dance on Section 17
My love letter to the land. And my Uncle David. And Arby’s. And Sturgill Simpson.
What started as a simple update—Sturgill concert, family land changing hands—spiraled into something much bigger. It's one of the most personal, tangled, emotional stories I’ve ever written. And one of your favorites, too.
I cried writing it. Cried at the concert. Cried in the Arby’s parking lot afterward.
It’s about farming—but not the kind that shows up in crop reports.
It’s about farming your life.
And figuring out how to keep planting something, even after the old field’s gone.
Read 'Last Dance on Section 17' Here
8.) Operation Ground Truth
I wrote this during a strange stretch—when everything on the outside looked like it was going right, but my brain kept screaming it was all wrong. Impostor syndrome hit like a freight train. I second-guessed every sentence. But I hit publish anyway.
It started as a simple push for an ag category on Substack.
It turned into a gonzo exposé of farming’s identity crisis in the digital age—suicide stats, Nazis, Waffle House fights, and a digital battlefield where truth scrolls faster than we can speak it.
It’s unkempt. It’s disorganized. It’s unfiltered.
And yeah—I’m proud of it.
Read 'Operation Ground Truth' Here
9.) The Invisible Harvest
This is the one that blew the barn doors off.
Still my most-read piece to date. It wasn’t meant to go viral. It wasn’t written to call anyone out—though some folks took it that way. It was never about names. It was about pain. About exposing the rot. About telling the truth of what happens when a system stops serving the people who built it.
Some readers wanted charts and diagrams on how to game the insurance system.
That wasn’t the point.
The point was that in modern agriculture, the most profitable crop isn’t corn or soy—it’s failure. And if that doesn’t gut you, you’re not paying attention.
This one’s for Puppy. For every rural kid who saw the collapse coming and still couldn’t stop it.
For anyone stuck in a system that rewards survival over soul.
This is where the gloves came off.
Read 'The Invisible Harvest' Here
10.) Beautiful Bastards
This one hit differently.
I didn’t know it then, but this was a turning point—not just in my writing but in my life.
It started as a story about ghosting a persistent sales rep. But it became something more profound—about purpose, friendship, and finding my people.
Dan Leffelman didn’t just read the posts—he read me. And instead of pushing the product, he pulled up a chair.
The piece got shared with Sound Ag’s board. It landed me a seat on their Dealer Advisory Council. But more than that, it reminded me I wasn’t as alone in this fight as I’d started to believe.
If The Invisible Harvest was the cry for help, this was the answer.
And yeah—it made a few grown men cry.
Myself included.
Read 'Beautiful Bastards' Here
A hundred posts in, and I still don’t know exactly what this thing is.
A newsletter?
A journal?
A survival instinct with a Wi-Fi signal?
All I know is—it’s genuine. And it’s ours.
These stories weren’t just written. They were lived—scrawled in tractor cabs and motel rooms, between breakdowns and breakthroughs, burnout and belief.
What started as a solo dispatch from the edge has grown into something bigger—a gathering place, a quiet revolt, a community rooted in raw truth.
And we’re just getting warmed up.
The next hundred? Bolder. Maybe rougher around the edges. Definitely louder. We’re building something grounded in honesty, curiosity, and the kind of grit that doesn’t flinch when the wind shifts.
More field reports that tell it like it is. More late-night rants that cut through the noise. More moments that remind us why this life—and this land—still matter.
So here’s to the farmers. The weirdos. The thinkers. The ones who stayed.
Here’s to the next hundred.
Let’s raise some hell.
And plant something true. 🌱
What’s been your favorite post so far?
What do you want to see in the next hundred?
Let me know—hit reply or drop a comment below.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
As a farmer’s daughter, I really relate to your experiences. Looking forward to next 100.
What I appreciate, your posts are gritty and honest. A crack into the unlocked door that lets anyone into the conversation.