Breakfast: granola with Iowa raspberries (remains of my Iowa City – Madison provisions), homemade bread and strawberry jam, coffee. All milk from the cows down the road.“You ever baled hay?”At Joel’s suggestion, his dad let me ride along while he square-baled the cut hay in Joel’s sister’s field. Another thing I’m not sure why I’ve never done, given the extensive haying around my childhood home.I was just along for the ride and didn’t do a damn thing (and my shirt definitely doesn’t match Allis Chalmers orange), but this makes it look like maybe I contributed in some way to the operation.According to Joel’s dad, downtown Kendall, WI, used to have two car dealerships, five gas stations, two grocery stories, restaurants, five taverns, a drug store, a meat processor, a lumber yard… Now there’s not much more than a smoke shop, a gun shop, and a couple of bars. As farms consolidate, rural towns die out.The feed mill still runs, but not like it used to. 50 years ago, it ran 7am – 6pm six days a week. I’m not sure I’ve seen it running any of the times I’ve driven by.But at least they’ve got all their important bases covered.The milk truck I followed most of the way home.
Not photographed: A long talk with Joel’s sister and a 4-wheeler tour of her hillside beginning farm with four kids in a wagon in back; pie and rhubarb crumble from Joel’s sister and mom; a great interview with Joel’s dad about how farming has changed; and dinner back at Jim and Rebecca’s including two varieties of cheese curds, burgers, Madison farmers’ market vegetables of many kinds, and cherry pie.
Siena Chrisman 