Changes in rural America

I left the farm exactly 50 years ago. Having grown up in rural Iowa, I've not lived on and have rarely visited a farm since heading off to college in the big city of Iowa City in September of 1970.

So I am always amazed in the ways in which farming and life in small towns here in the Midwest has changed. On a road trip (primarily to hike state parks in west central Minnesota), it was fascinating to take in not just the beautiful foliage of the area, but the harvest as well. Farmers, or perhaps "agricultural workers", were busy combining soybeans and corn. We saw a few loads of sugar beets as well, but we were a bit south of sugar beet country, I think. Our trip took us through Willmar, Ortonville, Pelican Rapids, Alexandria, Morris, and innumerable small towns inbetween.

When I was a kid in 50s and 60s, my dad had a corn picker that only separated the corn from the stock. The whole corn ear was then stored in a corn crib. Just before going to market, he would hire someone with a sheller to come to the farm where the kernels would be brushed from the cobs. My sister and I gloried in those days since thousands of mice escaped from the corn crib where until that time they had been living fat and happy lives. An often repeated family tale is when my sister came to the house and said in disgusted voice, "Dad says if I'm going to stomp on mice, I gotta wear shoes." We fed our harvest of mice to somewhat ungrateful cats.

Today's farmer uses a combine to harvest corn. A combine is a "combination" of tractor, corn picker, and sheller. Only corn kernels are now stored. I don't know what farm kids do for fun anymore without mice to catch. This equipment is gigantic, as are the tractors, wagons, planters, discs, sprayers, and other farm implements, having increased in capacity from four rows to a dozen that are turned in a single pass. Had one of these monsters suddenly become a Transformer, I would have been in the least surprised.

Hay baling for me was having a neighborhood gathering in which my Uncle Pete who owned the baler would circulate to four or five different adjoining farms, where his machine would produce 40-50 pound rectangular shaped bale of hay. These were loaded on to a hay wagon and pulled back to the barn, where a pulley system with large forks on one end and small tractor on the other, pulled the bales, four at time up into the haymow. With a trip of a rope, the forks would release and bales drop, where workers (usually high school boys since the temps were often over 100 in the mow), would stack them for storage. The haymow made a great place for us kids to play as well. I suppose I was nine or ten, when given the job of driving the small tractor back and forth that pulled the hay rope. The pride of eating at the "men's table" at lunch was payment.

Today, hay is formed into giant rolls - and I have no idea how it is stored. But I do love the look of the round giant rolls of hay as they form patterns in the fields.

My dad farmed an average 320 acres back in the day - one half of one square mile. My cousin, last I knew, farmed over 2000 acres - over three square miles. And the fields in western Minnesota often seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, with trucks generating great clouds of dust far out in the fields. Not the endless prairie, but close to it.

My traveling companion who is a city girl asked a lot of questions about the farming we saw. Questions like "What's the difference between hay and straw?" I could still answer. But too many of them I simply could not.

These economies of scale have impacted the small towns through we drove as well. (Johnson, Minnesota, Population 29.) Some towns like Pelican Rapids which has a large community of lake cabin owners nearby seemed to be doing OK. In others, the grain elevator and a few scattered old houses were about all that was left. Nearly every town had a Mexican restaurant and often a supermercado as well - I did not eat Mexican food until moving to Colorado during college. I often wonder what the critical mass of a town needs to be to support a water and sewer system. My hometown of Sac City, Iowa, has dropped in population from a high of 3300 in 1960 to only about 2000 today. About three fourths of farmsteads I remember from my youth are now gone, simply plowed under. I believe I read that less than three percent of all Americans are now directly working in agriculture.

I was surprised to see quite a number of Biden/Harris political signs on both rural roads and in small towns. Although far outnumbered by Trump/Pence banners, it indicates to me that the Democrats may do better in these red counties than one might assume. When I was a kid my dad was a staunch Democrat; my mom an Eisenhower Republican, having grown up the daughter of small town businessman. The tide turned sometime. Interesting thing about tides, they do change fairly often...

Rural America, I'm sure, will continue to evolve. And I am guessing it may become even less recognizable before it is time to "plant" me.

Wikipedia is still controversial?

Steve Tetreault in Making a case for Wikipedia, Knowledge Quest, September 30, 2020, writes:

I spent quite a while in the camp of educators who believed Wikipedia was a source that students should avoid at all costs. But over the years, my stance has changed a bit. And now, with students spending more time than ever online, I think it’s important to consider all the free resources at hand that could prove useful. 

Steve goes on to thoughtully list some pros and cons of the tool.

I am obviously out of the loop. I had assumed that Wikipedia was an accepted tool all researchers (or just information seekers) used. With some caution, perhaps, but mostly with a sense of surety that the entries are reliable. I am such an optimist!

Fifteen years ago when Wikipedia was still new to many librarians and classroom teachers, I defended it in a nationally published article so I thought I should review what I concluded at the time. I think it's held up pretty good. Find it below (not updated) and let me know what you think...

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Doug Johnson, Wikipedia - Ban It or Boost It? ISTE's Leadng and Learning with Technology, October 2006

“Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence” headline from The Onion, July 26, 2006

A collective gasp and shudder went palpably through the entire room of library media specialists when I first heard a conference presenter describe how Wikipedia <http://wikipedia.org/> entries are written – by anyone, at anytime, on nearly any topic. No editors or editorial process. Instantaneous changes. Faith that the “lay” viewer of the entry will correct any inaccurate information found. Wikipedia flaunts every rule our library schools taught us about the “authority” of a reference source. 

Wikipedia, that growing, user-created online encyclopedia, is the poster child for Web 2.0 and is fostering a sea change in ideas about the credibility and value of information, products and services.  The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Since it emerged on the scene in 2001, Wikipedia seems to have already gone through Schopenhauer’s “stages of truth” in the general public’s mind. More than a million people a day visit the site.

The thought of a reference source that anyone can edit seems on its face at first ridiculous to those of us who have been taught to identify the reliability of a resource using traditional criteria. And indeed there have been highly publicized cases of deliberately false, even malicious, content placed in Wikipedia entries. But when Nature magazine reported a study late in 2005 that showed Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia were comparatively accurate in their respective science entries, the theory of “self-correcting” information seemed to be validated. Historian Roy Rosensweig defends the accuracy of Wikipedia entries as well: “Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events in U.S. history. In the 25 biographies I read closely, I found clear-cut factual errors in only 4. Most were small and inconsequential.”

And on May 8, 2006, respected New York Times columnist Paul Krugman quoted from Wikipedia to define “conspiracy theory.”

Ridicule, opposition, self-evidence. Where are you? How many of you already turn to the Wikipedia for a quick understanding of a topic? How many of your students do? And how do you counsel them when asked about accuracy? Should Wikipedia be an accepted source for a research assignment?

While it is difficult to give a blanket endorsement to Wikipedia, it can be a valuable resource for students and staff alike.  Why turn to Wikipedia instead of the Encyclopedia Britannica?

1. It has a wider scope. As of August 2006, Wikipedia contained over a million articles in its English-language version; Encyclopedia Britannica had 65,000 articles in its 2005 print edition and 120,000 in its the online edition. In her delightful New Yorker article, Stacy Schiff writes:

Apparently, no traditional encyclopedia has ever suspected that someone might wonder about Sudoku or about prostitution in China. Or, for that matter, about Capgras delusion (the unnerving sensation that an impostor is sitting in for a close relative), the Boston molasses disaster, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada, Bill Gates’s house, the forty-five-minute Anglo-Zanzibar War, or Islam in Iceland. Wikipedia includes fine entries on Kafka and the War of the Spanish Succession, and also a complete guide to the ships of the U.S. Navy, a definition of Philadelphia cheesesteak, a masterly page on Scrabble, a list of historical cats (celebrity cats, a cat millionaire, the first feline to circumnavigate Australia), a survey of invented expletives in fiction (“bippie,” “cakesniffer,” “furgle”), instructions for curing hiccups, and an article that describes, with schematic diagrams, how to build a stove from a discarded soda can.

2. It has up-to-date information on timely topics. Wikipedia may be one’s only reference source on recent technologies and events. For current popular social concepts such as “the long tail,” technology terms such “GNU,” or up-to-date information on political groups such as ‘Hezbollah,” print or traditionally edited sources can’t keep up. (As I write this at about 10AM CDT, dozens of updates have been made to the Hezbollah entry already today.)

3. Web 2.0 sources may state values closer to that of the reader. The voice of the common man, vox populi, is being heard, and heeded as a source of authentic, reliable information. My own view of the reliability of information has changed. In selecting hotels, I now use TripAdvisor.com, with its multiple, recent and personal reviews of lodging rather than Fodors or Frommers. Why? It’s more accurate, timely and allows me to read a variety of opinions. And this has become my habit with almost any consumer-type purchase. What do “real” people have to say? 

4. Controversial/undocumented information is noted as such. David Weinberger writes, “There's one more sign of credibility of a Wikipedia page: If it contains a warning about the reliability of the page, we'll trust it more. This is only superficially contradictory.” Wikipedia entries are flagged with readily visible warnings such as “The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. See the relevant discussion on the talk page.” The user who reads the “talk page” will glean an understanding of the controversies about the topic.

5. Hey, it’s only an encyclopedia for heaven sakes! Basic references sources – whether Wikipedia or World Book – should be used to get a general overview of a topic or put a topic in context, not be used as a sole and final authoritative source.

But we also need to teach our students strategies for evaluating Wikipedia entries – indeed any information source online or in print.

Even very young students can and should be learning to consider the accuracy and potential bias of information sources. Since junior high students often make websites that often look better than those of college professors, we need to teach students to look:

• For the same information from multiple sources.
• At the age of the page.
• At the credentials and affiliation of the author.
• For both stated and unstated biases by the page author or sponsor.

Kathy Schrock has a useful comprehensive approach to website evaluation, listing 13 questions students might ask to determine the reliability of resource.

As students use research to solve problems about controversial social and ethical issues, the ability to evaluate and defend one’s choice of information source becomes as important as finding an answer to the research itself. As the Internet (and especially Web 2.0) allows a cacophony of voices to rise, expressing a increasing range of views, a conclusion without defensible sources in its support will not be of value. 

Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls…er, Wikipedia.

Sources cited:

Schiff, Stacy “Know it all: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?” New Yorker, July 31, 2006. <http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact>

Schrock, Kathy “The ABC’s of Website Evaluation,” <http://schrockguide.org/abceval>

Rosenzweig, Roy “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past” (Originally published in The Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006) <http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/d/42>

Weinberger, David “Why believe Wikipedia?” JOHO: Journal of Hyperlinked Organization, July 23, 2006 <http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jul23-06.html#wikipedia>

Image source

The reassurance of the blue blaze and other reflections

Look closely on the tree in the photo above and you will see a faint blue vertical line painted on the bark. The line is a blaze - a mark indicating that one is on the Superior Hiking Trail in northern Minnesota. I like to joke that this mark is where the expression "Where in the blue blazes are we?" originated.

It's always a comfort to see one of these signs. Despite maps, despite GPS phone apps, despite familiarity with the region, the blue brings one comfort. Often however the marks come where they are not really needed (no fork in the path) or are missing where they might be helpful (where there is a fork in the path). Since I don't do any volunteer work for the SHT Association, I don't have any right to complain.

Does life come with its own "blue blazes" which might indicate if one is on the right path? Good grades in school and good performance reviews at work. Satisfactory completion of projects large and small. Contentment in loving relationships with family and friends. Economic security. Sense of making a difference in the world. All indicators of a sort, I suppose. Wouldn't it be nice if they came when needed?

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Both leaves and hiker a bit past prime.

A message went our a couple months ago from a new member of an outdoor group. He was looking for others with whom to do a hike on the SHT in the fall. Although experienced in canoeing and camping in the Boundary Waters, he was new to backpacking. Ron (name changed to protect the innocent) and I meet for lunch a couple times to get acquainted and plan the trip. 

Ron is a fit 78-year-old widower with three kids and eight grandchildren. He is a former marathon runner and still a regular walker. Extremely lonely, he admits, after the death of his wife 18 months ago, he feels his grandchildren are now of an age when they have little time for him as well. The first sentence out of his mouth when we met F2F, was an apology for talking too much - a (correctly) recognized tendency he attributed to living with only his dog for company.

As it turned out, over the three days of backpacking and camping, Ron's and my differences became quite apparent, and I am sure, mutually annoying. I am an early riser and let's-get-going hiker; Ron was happy to sit and diddle around for a couple hours each morning. I am organized; Ron was not. I am slow, but steady walker; Ron walked fast, but stopped a lot. I took photos with my iPhone kept in my shirt pocket, ready in seconds; Ron used an old digital camera kept in a ziplock baggie in his pack's zippered waist belt pocket, ready in about three minutes with another three minutes to put it back, never being able to rezip the pocket unaided. Ron was a non-stop talker; I did my best to listen, but after several repetitions, the stories were familiar enough that I could tell them. And he never seemed too interested in my thrilling and insightful tales.

My experience with Ron led me to ask myself how my behaviors might annoy others - and do I recognize them. I know Ron did not like me hurrying him up a bit in the mornings. He didn't like my saying "Walk and talk, Ron, walk and talk," when he would come to a dead stop on the trail and turn to relate a story. I know I need more patience with others. I need to be a better listener. I need to keep my tales short and try not to repeat them over and over. I wonder what horror stories Ron is telling his dog about me this morning?

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Leaf covered trails often hide slippery rocks and roots.

The hike itself was quite nice - a 5 mile day, a 7 mile day, and a 2 mile day. The longer day had some elevation challenges (loss and gain of over 3000 feet climbing Moose and Mystery Mountains near Lutsen Resort). Yet the woods and views were as always beautiful and comforting. I was pleased that I carried my 35 pound pack without much difficulty. Since I learned that my grandson trip to the Boy Scout ranch of Philmont was canceled this summer, I had not been practicing with a pack. Ron, BTW, put me to shame, going a great deal faster and with much less effort than I on the flats and downhills.

Oh, the higher the climb, one soon learns, the greater the views....

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The faithful tent and reading chair.

Backpackers run the gamut from minimalist to bring-every-thing-except-the-kitchen-sink types. I try to stay toward the lighter end, but ultralight packers would scoff. My tent, sleeping bag, and pack all weight more than recommended. I take a little camp chair and my Kindle for down time. I carry extra chargers for my phone. 

This trip I was happy to have the solid tent (some rain), the oversized sleeping bag (temps down to the low 30s), and my Kindle (waiting for Ron in the morning). I always do a little inventory when I get home and note those items that went unused, the food that was not eaten. Hopefully that will guide me on my next trip. If that trip is to Philmont next summer, I will definitely need to look at some lighter equipment to handle the challenge of the mountains of northern New Mexico, young, fast Boy Scouts, and an even more chronologically challenged body.

What do we carry with us in life that we should just leave behind? Worry, guilt, regret, envy, sorrow?

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Babbling Rollins Creek near campsite. 

My biggest concern this trip was about finding tent pads at each evening's campsite. The campsites on the SHT are usually a few miles apart and have a limited number of places to pitch one's tent. I was uncertain as to what we would do if we got to our target site, exhausted after hiking all day, to find it full. And given the popularity of the outdoor world during this pandemic, I thought my worries justified. The parking areas along the highways and in the state park visitor centers were jam-packed.

One solution to travels during popular times is to get a headstart on the crowds. I had hoped we would hit our intended campsites by early to mid afternoon each day. With Ron's "start slow and stop often" mentality, that was not to be. We rolled into campsite the first night at 6pm, the other campsite at 4pm.

Luckily each site only had a single tent already pitched so we had room for our tents as well. Those sharing the sites were congenial. The first night at Poplar River West site there seemed to be only slight inclines on which to set up tents, which meant continually readjusting one's sleeping bag throughout night as one slid further and further down into it. But it was nice to have a place to set up camp.

Why does it seem the things we worry about the most rarely happen and the things we should worry about we rarely think about?

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A bounty of color.

I am glad I made this short hiking trip. Despite the annoyances and discomforts, I got fresh air, the solace of nature, and had some experiences that invited reflection and introspection. 

Shouldn't all our days be so well spent?

Other photos from the hike.