Category Archives: Farming

Where a farmer finds beauty

November 3, 2020Columns, Farming, Memoriessusanmanzke

I wrote this column for Thanksgiving forty years ago. The size of the tractors have gotten larger, but most of the rest has stayed the same.

Farmers find beauty in the barn, in the field, and standing next to a cow. It’s all there for them to appreciate. I hope you enjoy my musings from November 1980.

Hoping you too find beauty in different places.

Maybe it’s a sparkly rock, or a child’s toothless grin, or a kitten getting into trouble again, there’s beauty and fun found in the oddest places.

Another farmer prayer

October 28, 2020Columns, Farming, Weathersusanmanzke

Prayers on farms never seem to end. I’ve written about praying before and probably will again.

This one is from October 1983.

Weather wishes don’t change much. We farmers would love a perfect weather year, but that’s hard to come by. Still, we keep praying for one.

As I’ve said before, more prayers are sent heavenward from the seat of a tractor, combine, or in a barn than in a church. We pray where the action is, or isn’t. There’s no time to stop work and run to a church. A silent prayer anywhere gets to God just the same.

Bob’s odd sense of humor

October 27, 2020Bob, Columns, Farmingsusanmanzke

My husband looked at the world a bit cockeyed. His humor showed by the way he laughed at odd happenings.

When I wrote this column, we had been married 9 years. I was still learning about life with Bob.

Bob really cracked me up. He was quiet but if you listened to what he mumbled you’d end up laughing.

In sharing these posts, I keep Bob close to me.

Still watching crops grow

June 4, 2020Farmingsusanmanzke

Last spring, Bob sat by the kitchen table like I am today. His view was of our field across the street. For the first time in his life he wasn’t farming those acres, renters were, but even if Bob wasn’t out there he was riding along virtually.

The last couple of years that Bob farmed he had trouble with his planter. Either a row was missing or crooked. Those errors always showed up right next to the road where every other farmer could judge his farming. This ticked Bob off.

This year, like last spring, the renters’ rows look nice and straight. That is except that two rows were unusually close right next to the road.

I figure the acres aren’t exactly square and rows will never exactly match up for anyone.

That’s the exact spot where Bob had problems. Maybe this was done on purpose in memory of Bob.

No matter, I’ll be thinking of my husband every time I look at those two close rows.

Looking out the window

May 12, 2020Bob, Farming, Sunnybook Farmsusanmanzke

About this time last year, Bob was starting to feel better. It was the first year in his life that he didn’t farm. Instead, he watched our renters working the Sunnybook Farm fields he had traveled since 1978.

Yesterday, I watched the same family working in the same fields.

The renter working up the soil for planting.

As I watched them, I thought about Bob.

I felt him looking out the window with me.

Big changes have come to our farm, none of them easy.

Bob’s spirit is still here. He planted a bit of himself into the soil each year, as did his dad, and other farmers before them.

I continue on today with Bob in spirit, even if others are doing the farming.

Such is life.

Susan Manzke

Writer, Speaker, All-Around Good Person