respect

Our farm shares a 100 acre lake bed with the neighboring farm.  It stands full of water, both sides of the property line.  Since it is low on the drainage, the water will not leave for nearly a week, destroying perhaps 30% of his crop and 30% of our pasture.  Crop insurance will make him whole.  There is nothing to make the land whole.  Our pasture, planted in the first place in view of the unsuitability of that land for a cropping enterprise, will not produce much this year.  Our choice of grasses becomes ever more restricted to the water loving, thick cuticle, unpalatable kinds.  We will take the loss.

The old farmer, who was also an ag instructor in a former life many years ago, tells me that formerly he respected all farmers for what they did.  But anymore, he said, not so many.