Love Letters to Dirt

Confessions of an Agricultural Obsessive

Self-Aggrandizing Photo Courtesy of Author

For about six months, I’ve publicly shared some of my writing, primarily personal development, and self-help stuff, with a splash of humor. Finding a creative outlet and starting a writing practice changed my life, got me sober, and helped me quit cigarettes.

Speaking of ceasing the cigs, that project is going extremely well on Day twenty-four. After seven hundred and ninety-two quits, I’m confident this one will stick around. I’m now okay to be around current smokers and even have a Miller or six without succumbing to the pressures of nicotine.

Life is good, especially without tobacco and its devil crutch.

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This morning I was out spraying some corn and sugar beet field edges, trying to level a mat of common ragweed with a hot dose of chemy, when I had a thought that didn’t make sense.

I said to myself, “Self, you’ve been writing over half a year and you’ve hardly written anything at all about your longest love, the one who’s stuck by you through all the years. The one you tried to abandon so many times but found its way back to you. The one you constantly talk about to your friends, family, fiance, or anyone who will listen.”

I wondered why the hell I had barely written anything about farming.

Seeing these views don’t get old. Photo courtesy of Sheri Dawn

Since I said my first word (tractor, pronounced track-tee), there’s nothing else I’d instead do with my time. When I couldn’t break into the industry on my own due to lack of land and capital, two critical pieces of the puzzle, I tried pouting and running away from my agriculture obsession on more than one occasion.

I tried everything from truck driving to auto-mechanic-ing, stock trading, and even dabbling in the lucrative drug trafficking trade. Though local gossipers have often speculated, I kid about the last one. Nevertheless, none of the many things I tried stuck for very long.

It doesn’t help that I am virtually unemployable. Unless I have some stake in the ground and feel like what I do matters to my mental health and the company I work for, it doesn’t take long to lose interest and move on to something else. I’ve left several burned bridges in my wake, but the lessons that crossed the river with me have been far more valuable than any of the shit mountains I’ve climbed.

I wouldn’t trade a thing, not the good or the bad. Each experience, each success, and each (perceived) failure brought me to this point, exactly where I sit today, where I can surround myself with good people and pleasing land in God’s Country, doing the things I love to do.

The ability to battle through the difficulties led me to the opportunities I have today, farming (Full Time) and operating a rapidly-growing seed company with, as Forrest Gump would say, one of my best good friends.

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Now I want to share that love and passion for agriculture. Since my social circle has heard enough of my constant, obsessive blabbing for a lifetime, I figure it’s time to expand that circle and share things I’ve learned and the many things I don’t know but would love to understand.

Perhaps I can even help some people along the way.

Join me weekly for Farming Full-Time updates as we progress through the 2023 growing season and beyond. Hopefully, Mother Nature will give us more to discuss than just the drought this year.

Thank you so much for reading, and best of luck with what’s left of the 2023 season!

I hope to see you right back here next week.

Ya’ll come back now…ya hear?