farming community

One of the wonderful things about a farming community is the commonality of interest.  When excessive and constant rain keeps farmers from their fields as it has this year, we hear all around us expressions of concern for problems with the crops.  But we in the country have this wrong.  Crop insurance provides support for crop failures.  But the gullies running down between even small hills and sometimes also on what the soil survey calls non-highly-erodible land, both planted and not, represent a cost not covered and one borne by our children and grandchildren.  We will never get that soil back.  That is the real concern, not the annual financial statement.  Right now it is possible to take some real satisfaction in thinking about our permanent pastures with their tight water and soil holding sod.