Sundown in the Digital Prairie
When Jason Aldean Makes You Cry and Other Truths We Don't Talk About
Editor's note: Not long after lighting the fuse on Operation Ground Truth, reality keeps adding its own chapters.
If you’re new here and wondering why a farmer is quoting Canadian rock bands while grappling with the digital revolution, start with last week’s opening salvo:
If these stories hit you like a forgotten receiver hitch — if you believe agriculture deserves voices as raw as dawn breaking over abandoned bins — consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Growing something real takes more than hope — it takes a community willing to nurture truth through every season. Together, we can plant seeds of truth that grow wild, no matter the weather.
“Sundown in the Paris of the prairies.”
Gord Downie1 sang it for Saskatoon, but that line paints any evening in farm country.
Wheat Kings crooned through my airpods amidst the dust and disarray of farm life, and for a moment, I let The Tragically Hip carry me away.
That’s when it hit me — like bumping into a forgotten receiver hitch, the sort of pain that takes a bite out of you and leaves a bruise that lasts longer than a viral blog post.
I was somewhere between defending farm mental health and dodging angry truckers who “didn’t give a shit about my important meeting,” when the weight of modern farming hit me full force.
It wasn’t just the logistics of juggling deliveries and podcast appearances; it was the gnawing realization of how fragile the whole damn system has become.
The delivery driver’s frustration cast a shadow over the afternoon while
waited patiently on Zoom — her decades of food freedom activism temporarily sidelined, reduced to another delayed calendar event.My first podcast with Liz Reitzig on Nourishing Liberty captured the essence of Operation Ground Truth.
I realized that some battles for agriculture’s soul must wait for the seeds to settle in the bin.
Patience, Adam. Practice what you preach…
I wiped the dust off my face with my sleeve and double-checked the mirror for boogers (because Mr. Clausen, my high school shop teacher, always told me to measure twice and cut once) before bumbling into the Zoom meeting.
When the Raw Milk Mama asked what I wanted Operation Ground Truth to accomplish, my answer floundered like a combine choking on lodged grain.
How do you summarize the fight to tell an industry’s truth when it feels like the cynical world’s too busy numbing and scrolling to give a shit?
How do you awaken people to the idea that it’s about giving voice to the unspoken weight — settling in your gut like rotten wet grain — when you sign another land contract, equipment lease, or operating loan, knowing one lousy season could unravel generations of work?
Chronicles of the Forgotten Fields
Consider what Gord Downie did for Canada — he wasn't just babbling about the hundredth meridian and spittin’ from bridges — he masterfully weaved a nation's soul through its stories.
When the Hip sang about David Milgaard2 or Bill Barilko3, they gave voice to truths that demanded to be told, making Canadians feel seen in a world that only noticed them when the maple syrup ran low.
That's what farmers need.
Not another PR campaign or corporate spokesperson.
Not flags or crosswalks or special months.
We need someone to tell our stories — the midnights spent with our knees in the gumbo, the desperate prayers for rain, the way your heart stops when the combine makes that sound that means you're about to miss your kid's football game.
It’s like that Hip lyric, "Besides, no one's interested in something you didn't do."
How many farmers carry that weight?
We let our heartaches settle into the soil along with our hopes, bearing the invisible burden of crops we couldn't save, the land we couldn't keep and promises to past generations we couldn't quite fulfill.
The land takes it all — our tears, our triumphs, the weight of feeding a world that barely knows we exist until something goes sideways, and the people need a scapegoat.
Truth in the Trenches
Try explaining to non-farmers why you had to reschedule a podcast because of a trucking delay.
They look at you like you’re speaking Martian, while every farmer reading this is nodding their cap off, recalling every piano recital missed because the weather granted just one good day to get the crop off — or because the elevator declared it was now or never to deliver that barley.
The truth about farming doesn't fit between Super Bowl ads and Betaseed sponsorships. It lives in 4 AM market checks, wondering if this year's prices will cover last year's operating loan — if the banker will even let you fucking farm next year.
It's in your father's hands, quivering as he signs another FSA loan, betting everything on moisture that may never come and that some big-time operation (BTO) won't bid his rented land up by a hundred bucks an acre and knock him out of the game altogether.
And through it all, the armchair agrarians and policy wonks keep telling you how you should do your job — like backseat drivers who've never felt their palms sweat on a steering wheel.
While keyboard warriors suggest farmers should spend their days performing for TikTok, we're out here wrestling with a reality that hits harder than any algorithm could compute.
These same warriors have never felt their guts quiver while signing an operating note, never watched their crops wither under drought, and never had to take out a government grain loan to pay back the damn operating loan that keeps them awake at 3 AM.
But hell, they've got screenshots full of opinions about regenerative this and sustainable that — preaching from their high-rise apartments, posting hot takes about glyphosate from the comfort of their disease-free urban gardens, their knowledge as deep as a sidewalk crack and twice as brittle.
Truth has a way of finding you when you least expect it — like a forgotten receiver hitch to the shin or a Jason Aldean song in a small-town bar.
Sitting at Judy's, I realized we're all carrying truths we're unsure where to set down — like seed bags too heavy to shoulder alone.
There I was, a grown man tearing up over Texas Was You, a pop-country song I'd typically mock, my future wife quietly watching me process memories of who I used to be — on her birthday of all days.
The truth is, it wasn't just any country song that broke me. It was that one that used to play on every damn radio station back when my ex and I first hit the road together before farming settled into my bones like a permanent ache.
Back when The Hip still toured, before Downie's diagnosis, when everything felt as wide open as Saskatchewan sky.
Strange how a voice through tinny bar speakers can transport you — not to make you miss what was, but to make you recognize who you aren't anymore.
Like watching The Hip evolve from raw energy to something deeper, slower, more intentional. The progression hits you like watching your reflection age in a truck's mirror — almost like being reborn in some twisted way.
When the bartender said, " Have a seat, hun; serving's not your job," it hit me harder than I expected.
Maybe that's what we've lost in agriculture — how to let others help carry the load.
We've spent so much time being stoic, the backbone of America's food supply, that we've forgotten it's okay to sit down sometimes and let the truth puncture us like hailstones to a mature soybean crop.
Something clicked between Judy's Tavern revelations and Harry's Bar4 reality checks.
The connections happen when we stop trying to serve ourselves and find the courage to admit that we need each other.
Harvest of Hard Truths
While many are doom-scrolling commodity futures and predicting agriculture's apocalypse, Shark Farmer5 reminds us that the darkest times birth the brightest innovations.
Shark has lived through enough downturns to know — that's when the real farmers, the ones with fire in their bellies, find ways to grow something new from scorched earth.
Not because some corporate consultant suggested "pivoting to opportunity" but because that's what farmers do.
We look at broken ground and see next season's possibilities.
While Jake, the Harry’s bartender, talked about his unwritten parenting book, I thought about all the stories buried beneath not just the weight of work but the heavier weight of our fears.
How many of us are sitting on stories that could change everything if only we believed they deserved telling?
How many solutions are trapped in tractor cabs because we've been told our voices don't fit the format?
Jake's parenting book lives in the same space as every farmer's unspoken truth — that liminal territory between what we dream and what we dare.
Maybe that's what Liz has been fighting for all these years in the dairy world — not just policy changes but a space where human moments in farming can breathe — where we can admit that even the strongest backs sometimes need help carrying the weight.
But maybe it's time we learned to carry it differently — not alone in midnight tractor cabs or pre-dawn bill-pay sessions, but together in small-town restaurants, watering holes, and digital communities.
Whether Shark Farmer turns hard times into opportunity, Liz the Raw Milk Mama fights for dairy freedom, or Jake dreams of helping fathers navigate parenthood, we’re all just trying to grow something real in an increasingly artificial world.
Growing Wild in Digital Fields
Sometimes, you need a moment of weakness to find your most potent truth.
Maybe that's why I blubbered up at Judy's — not because of cliche country lyrics, but because sometimes it takes a bubble-gum country song in a small-town bar to remind you who you were before sales projections, missed ballgames, and endless debates about glyphosate.
Gord knew it when he sang, "You can't be fond of living in the past, cause if you are, then there's no way that you're gonna last."
But maybe it’s not about living in the past—it’s about reconnecting with why we started this journey in the first place, before farming’s weight fused into our bones and drained the spirit from it.
The Revolution Refuses to Be Categorized
You catch glimpses of why all this matters between the chaos and criticism, between angry truckers and delayed deliveries.
Not in the polished corporate videos or viral posts, but in those quiet moments when morning light hits the corn stubble and makes you believe in something bigger than yourself.
That's what Operation Ground Truth was always about.
Like Downie chronicling Canada's forgotten histories, someone needs to document these farm truths — not in statistics or corporate reports, but in the raw language of people who live it.
Stories about seed drivers who don't give a damn about your podcast, about small farms auctioning off their dreams, about hope growing back despite all the garbage life stacks on your plate.
Maybe it's grandiose to compare agricultural truth-telling to The Tragically Hip's cultural impact.
Perhaps I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.
But after forty years of searching, I finally found my purpose: farmers aren't just growing food. We’re carrying generations of knowledge, fighting invisible battles, and feeding a world that forgets us until the shelves go bare.
With all the bullshit that gets tossed around these days, there’s one universal truth I think we can all rally around:
Nobody wants to see what a world without farmers looks like.
So here’s to the truth-tellers and the ass-kickers, to everyone working to bridge the gap between agricultural reality and digital expectations. Because every time a farmer sits alone in a tractor cab, wondering how they’ll make it another season, they need to know there’s not just a voice out there telling their truth — but that someone is truly listening.
Not for glory.
Not for recognition.
Not even for a dedicated category.
But because every time a farmer stands alone in their field, questioning if it’s worth it, these stories might be the seeds that keep them going.
Because somewhere between corporate PowerPoints and keyboard crusaders, between missed ballgames and midnight repairs, there’s a truth about farming that demands to be told.
Like Downie sang, "It's been a long time running... it's well worth the wait."
From Wikipedia: Gordon Edgar Downie CM (February 6, 1964 – October 17, 2017) was a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, musician, writer, poet, and activist. He was the singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, which he fronted from its formation in 1984 until he died in 2017. Many revered him as an inspiring and influential artist in Canada's music history.[1]
David Milgaard (July 7, 1952 – May 15, 2022) was a Canadian man who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing student Gail Miller in Saskatoon and imprisoned for 23 years. He was eventually released and exonerated. Up until his death, he lived in Alberta and was employed as a community support worker. Milgaard was also a public speaker who advocated for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights.
William "Bashin' Bill" Barilko (March 25, 1927 – c. August 26, 1951) was a Canadian ice hockey player who played his entire National Hockey League career for the Toronto Maple Leafs.[1][2] Over five seasons, Barilko won the Stanley Cup four times in 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1951. Barilko died in August 1951 in a floatplane crash during a fishing trip to Quebec. Barilko's #5 was retired by the Leafs. He was the subject of the 1993 single "Fifty Mission Cap" by The Tragically Hip.
Harry’s Steakhouse is often hailed as the most overrated restaurant in Grand Forks—possibly in both Dakotas — but its bar remains one of the Tundra’s best-kept secrets, a paradox not even ChatGPT has learned to comprehend.
Rob Sharkey is a risk-taker and out-of-the-box thinker. Better known by his digital alias, The SharkFarmer, Rob is an Illinois grain farmer, owner of a whitetail deer hunting outfitter, podcast & radio show host, and multiple TV shows on RFD-TV and PBS.
Today is my first time reading (listening) to one of your articles. It's really hard to describe how your words painted such vivid pictures of your personal experiences, other small farmer's personal experiences and experiences of all who work hard in making far less than easy life choices to access high quality locally produced healthy foods in America.
You very eloquently share in a raw and gritty manner tragic and romantic glimpses into the realities of the few people (less than 1%) that selflessly and greatly sacrifice to feed our nation’s families.
As I am about to get on the road and travel to consult two struggling small farmers today, I look forward to listening to your recent podcast with the Raw Milk Mama, Liz Reitzig. I feel like a child anticipating the opening of an early Christmas present!
Thank you.
Beautiful Adam! So many poignant moments in that. Great voiceover!