Impressions

Traveling across mid Wisconsin this week on our way to Canada via Detroit I got the same feeling as driving through mid Minnesota, or southeastern Minnesota.  The fields are poorly maintained, as they are at home, open to erosion both wind and water.  Family dairy has been pretty much shut down and the pastures and hayfields are gone.  There is nothing prettier than a grazing farm in spring, and we passed several areas that featured several grazing operations based close together and mostly dairy, which provided a welcome relief from a depressing picture.  Generally the Amish areas looked better as they featured more grass and hay. 

The occasional machinery dealer displayed huge thirty and forty foot wide planters, completely inappropriate to the small irregular fields.  These machine lots at least featured the occasional manure spreader or feed mill, something nearly impossible to find close to home.  Progress overcoming logic.  Cargill and Monsanto are enforcing their will, ensuring their profits.
 
We are considerably in a bad direction and still headed the wrong way.

Jim