Where did time go?

I slipped down home to Illinois before the Easter/spring planting rush to host a dual bridal shower for my two nieces. As I was counting up the number of trips I’ll be making this year for showers, weddings and a class reunion, I realized it was payback for not making any trips home in 2024.

It just seems harder to slip away from our dairy farm now that I’m taking care of all the calves and I’m an emergency relief milker. When Mark and I were milking together and much younger, my absence didn’t make a dent in the chores, so I could leave with very little guilt. That guiltless feeling didn’t last long into the 900-plus-mile round trip with four children under the age of 8. It feels like yesterday. Where did the time go?

What has really gotten me to looking back over the years are all the major milestones we seem to be hitting. Last year, Mark planted his 51st corn crop. He was only 14 when he hooked up his dad’s four-row-wide planter to the John Deere 530 narrow front tractor with no cab. That spring, more than corn seeds were planted. A desire to farm was reinforced every day as the crops grew. Mark was hooked. He knew he wanted to farm, but he now knew he could farm.

The drive to have the next generation farm spurred Mark’s dad to build a new tiestall dairy barn to keep the boys interested. When I first started coming around to the farm, it was always called the “new” dairy barn, even though it was 15 years old. Next year, the “new” barn will be 55 years old, but it still seems like it was just built a few years ago.

When someone starts talking about the ‘70s, it feels like it was 15–20 years ago, not 50. Even the 1990s are 30 years ago, a fact I’m reminded of every year as our children enter their third decade. Does that mean I’m getting older too, or are we just getting closer to the same age?

As I was driving back home from the bridal shower weekend, I was struck by the date, April 14. I was making this same northbound trip a few years earlier.

Sherry Newell had just hired me to join her farm broadcasting team in St. Cloud, Minnesota. I packed everything I owned (which wasn’t much) into my ‘77 T-bird and started zigzagging from the corner of southeast Iowa to catch I-35 north to Minnesota. That was 40 years ago. Where did the time go?

My route has never changed, but the roads and surrounding view sure have. My first trip north took 10 hours driving through every small Iowa town on 2-lane roads until I could open it up on the interstate. The speed limit there was 60 (a remnant of the gas shortage crisis). I talked on my citizen band radio with truckers on tips for sneaky bears and greasy spoons. It was also great companionship over all those miles. I always felt safe traveling in a convoy, the lingering effects of “Smokey and the Bandit.”

Over the years, I have been able to reduce the trip to eight hours. Google says I could do it in seven, but my bladder has changed over time and says otherwise. The new speed limit of 70 mph has helped, but I was driving over the limit back then, so that may just be a wash. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Sam Walton of Walmart was negotiating the Highway of Saints between St. Louis, Missouri, and St. Paul, Minnesota, to facilitate his new distribution center in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, the point of my route where I shift from heading west to north. He wanted 4-lane highways between the two cities to help move his products.

Today, there are only 10 miles of 2-lane roads on my 483-mile trip: five from our farm in Rice and five to my farm in Stronghurst. When I dreaded driving through all those small towns, I didn’t realize what a great treat they were in breaking up my long travels. On a 4-lane highway, you just drive with very little to see; thank goodness for cruise control. However, the way things are changing, I may be able to sleep at the wheel and still arrive safely with artificial intelligence smart cars.

Probably the biggest change has been around the Twin Cities on I-494. When I first drove up here, I felt like I was in the wilderness. Where was the city, let alone the Twin Cities? There were swampy areas, tamarack trees and no buildings lining the interstate. Today, that area seems to have been swallowed up by the metropolitan area. The only sign of green grass is the manicured corporate campuses. Everything else has been covered with concrete and asphalt. There is no longer a sense of northern wilderness. It seems like these buildings have always been here. Where did the time go?

Now, Austin is starting to take on the spring planting job at our farm. He has been busy finding new equipment to fit his production goals. Mark eventually grew to a 6-row planter and a tractor with a cab. His biggest leap was to liquid fertilizer instead of using a bushel basket to manually fill the fertilizer boxes. He literally moved every ton of fertilizer from a gravity box to his planter. Austin has expanded to a 12-row planter and a front-wheel assist tractor with a cab to drive through the fields. We’re just waiting for a couple of warm spring rains to set the stage for a great growing season to come.

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark Schmitt started an adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.

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