It was the one time that I can ever remember good weather for harvest, a Thursday no less, that we weren’t planning on working in the fields.  Funerals, weddings, even a couple of births occurred near harvest in our family, and yet the work of the farm would continue, especially during harvest, especially during a stretch of good weather during the beginning of August when the barley, wheat, and oats were waving golden in the sun, waiting for harvest, especially when the straw was ready and fit to be baled, especially when the third cutting of alfalfa was looming before Dad’s labor force had to go back to school.But the work stopped on that Thursday.  Why?

Roots.

For the first time in our families ninety plus years in this country, we were having visitors from the home country coming to see us, and coming to see our farm on the edge of the upper Great Plains.

As children, we all learned the story of our great grandfather Stolka, taking his family of five and leaving the home country of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and leaving for a new life in America.  We knew of the hail storm that had knocked out their dreams in the old country, of the family they had left behind, of the break in contact during World War II - of the silence.

The link had been restored in the 1980’s with one of my Dad’s cousins making contact with a trip to the still communist Czechoslovakia.  The family was still alive and well and happy to know that their family in the United States was still alive and well too.

Soon after the Velvet revolution, two members of the family, Emmon and Ludmilla Stolka, planned a trip to visit their long lost relatives.

While they were only planning one day on our farm, the farm that John Stolka and his son Charles had hewn from the trees, Mom and Dad were determined to make it a full Minnesota welcome.

The grass was cut, the broken combine forgotten, the grass the mowed, the trees trimmed around, the cars washed.  In the kitchen, all manners of delicacies were being turned out in the August heat.  A roast simmered in the oven, wild rice casserole slowly cooked in the crock pot, koblaha’s and kolaches cooled on the counter, fresh vegetables were cleaned and ready to be cooked, or put in the relish trays.

The final touch, the American flag that normally proudly waved from our front porch was replaced with the Czech flag that was stored up in my parent’s closet.  For one day it would fly in honor of our guests.

What a wonderful visit it was too.  My Grandmother, born in Bohemia and an immigrant at six months fell right back into speaking Bohemian.  My father who has learned to speak Czech as a boy from the lips of his grandfather also spoke without missing a beat.  Dad proudly lead them around the farm, letting them peak at the machinery and the livestock as Mom and us kids worked to put the final touches on the meal.

 As strange as it sounds, harvest started at least two weeks before harvest.  Usually by the last week of July, in the heart of what was once small grain country, we would pull the combine and the swather out of the shed.

Both of them usually required a little bit of work.

First, to be clear, a swather, (pronounced “swat-her” in our lexicon) is a machine used for cutting and windrowing the small grains to allow them to dry down before combining - separating the stocks, straw, husks from the grain.

Usually, the swather, though the simpler of the two machines, was the bigger job, mainly because that old Wisconsin Engine was a bit temperamental, and partly because of the history.

The swather we used was an old International, well, to be more precise, TWO old International swathers.  Our swather was on its last leg, so Dad bought a scraped one at an auction - between the two he reckoned, he could build one good functioning one that could last him another fifteen years or so.

Sure enough, with a little primping and priming, the old Wisconsin Engine on the back of the scraped swather was purring like a kitten on the body of the swather Dad had used for the previous fifteen years.  The swather was an interesting contraption, wide in the front, with a narrow wheel in back; it could turn on a dime.  The accuracy was necessary to make a clean cut field with precise end rows and straight cuts through the field.

Once the engine was running, it was simply a matter of checking all of the sickle sections on the cutter bar, rivet in new ones where necessary, replace any of the thick metal guards, grease the thing over good, chance the oil, make sure there was air in the tires, and ensure that the belts were good - and also make sure that the tool box on the far back of the machine was filled for in the field repairs.  It seemed like one of the proudest moments of the year when Dad would fire the old girl up, rev the ol’ Wisconsin, and turn on the cutter bar and the big reel that would gently bend the grain towards the cutter bar - raising it up in the air and spinning around the yard was a yearly right of passage and sign that harvest would soon be there.

The combine was usually the lesser of the two machines to get ready, even though it was the bigger and more complex of the machines.

The Massey Ferguson 510 was a solid, reliable combine.  She would rumble to life with hardly a shot of ether every summer and lumber out of the machine shed.  We would carefully go over her every summer - replacing teeth in the pick-up head, carefully checking the fluids and greasing her up.

Prior to the 510, our farm had run two old Massey Harris 90’s - which meant every year rebuilding an engine or tearing one down to build it back up to nurse it through another harvest - it was a relief to all of us to get the old 510….and park the 90’s on machinery hill for permanent retirement.

If all would go well, we would have the swatter and combine both harvest ready in time for the first grain to be cut.  Then, as Dad went to work cutting the ripe grain into windrows, we boys would work to make sure that the gravity boxes were ready to go, the auger was set up and the old Farmall H was ready for the late summer campaign of hauling straw in the morning and running the elevator in the evening.

It was a time of hard work, but of deliberate planning and preparation that, we all hoped and prayed, would lead to a good harvest.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

I was reading about water the other day.  A national columnist was discussing the “cool” water that yuppies and other “cool” people drink.  It was an article about water as a status symbol.

We have that kind of water around here, too.  You can find it at Fareway and at Hy-Vee, and you can even buy it out of the cooler at Quik Trip and Casey’s.  It just goes to show that most people don’t get really, really thirsty anymore.

Oh, sure, we get thirsty.  But not really, really thirsty.  Not baling-hay-thirsty, or combining -oats-thirsty or walking-beans-thirsty.  Not really thirsty at all.

Today’s water tastes good.  Some of it sparkles.  Some of it is naturally carbonated.  Some of it is flavored.  You can drink lemon-, lime-, orange-, or citrus-flavored water.   It’s supposed to be pure and natural and good for you.  W e buy a little bottled water, but it comes from Humbolt right here in Iowa, so it doesn’t seem quite so glamorous.

But it doesn’t taste as good as plain old tap water tastes when you’re really, really thirsty.

I can remember hot July afternoons as a teenager.  I’d climb down from a hot and stuffy hay mow after stacking load after load of hay.  I’d stagger to the hydrant near the feedlot and yank the end of the hose loose from the mud where it has been trampled.  I’d turn the water on and let it wash the dried mud away from the end of the hose.  Sanitary or not, I couldn’t resist taking big long gulps.  It was ice cold and tasted better than any commercially bottles water that i’ve ever tried.

But it still wasn’t as good as water from a dusty jug in the filed.

I can remember hot August afternoons as a tot.  I would ride along in the battered old Ford truck, hauling wheat and barley and oats from the field where dad was harvesting to the red granary.  We would wait in the sun with the doors thrown wide to catch what little breeze there was.  Off in the distance, the combine crawled along through shimmering heat waves.

As it came closer, clouds of dust would drift across to us, coating our sweaty necks and arms and sticking to the corners of our eyes and mouths.

Finally, Uncle Charlie would reach under the seat and pull out a dusty glass bottle of water.  It had a glass ring at the neck for your finger, and originally held Vita-Sun orange drink concentrate.  He’d brush the dust and chaff away from the cap, unscrew it and take a big long drink.  I always worried that there wouldn’t be any left for me, but there always was.

Finally, he would hold the bottle out to me.  “Want a swig?” He’d ask.  The he’d laugh, as I drank huge gulps and as dribbles ran down my chin and dripped onto my dirty T-shirt.

There was always dust and chaff floating in it and it was always warm, but no water ever tasted better.  Not even now.

If you could capture that taste and sell it, you’d make millions.  But then again, I guess it’s pretty hard to bottle water that’s flavored with memories.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

She loves it.  She loves it not.  She loves it. She loves it not.

My wife has a love/hate relationship with my old pickup truck.  Back when we were dating and during the early years of our marriage, she loved it.  The old 1968 Ford pickup was our ticket to independence.  It carried us on some of our most memorable dates.  It drove us away from church when we were married.  It carried us and most of our personal belongings to Iowa when we embarked on our new lives as newlyweds and newly employed.

Those were heady times and the pickup served us well.

Later, things changed.  A new car stole Mary’s heart and the pickup began to develop some symptoms of age.  The truck stranded us in St. Paul one winter night.  “I hate this dumb truck.” Mary said as she slammed the door.

I had the truck towed back to Boone and did the repair work myself,” I really hate that stupid truck,” she growled when I showed her the repair bill.

Her emotions have moderated some since then.  I drive the pickup, leaving “her” car free at all times.  “Your pickup sure comes in handy,” she remarks a few times.

A few weeks ago, my family wanted to swap some furniture with us.  Our only problem was transporting the furniture between central Iowa and northern Minnesota.  Mary reluctantly agreed that we’d have to take the pickup.  As we were preparing to leave, Mary caught me slipping some tools under the seat.  “This dumb truck better not give us any trouble,” she warned.

The 20-hour round trip took us to Rochester and through rush-hour traffic in the Twin Cities and then on up to Detroit Lakes and Mahnomen.  The pickup performed flawlessly.  The engine hummed along smoothly.  The needles on the temperature, oil pressure and amperes gauges hovered comfortably in the “normal” zone. 
Six hours into the trip Mary noted, “Your truck is running pretty good.”  By the time we reached northern Minnesota, Mary was actually bragging about the old Ford. “It runs perfectly.” I heard her tell her Dad.

By the time we rolled back into Boone she was spouting superlatives.  “It ran GREAT,” she told a co-worker, “I think it runs better than my car.”  She was back in love with the pickup, just like the old days.

Last weekend, we zipped down to Des Moines to do a little shopping.  As we were pulling out of a parking lot, the pickup chugga-chuggaed to a halt. I turned the key.  The starter went “Rura-rura-rura-buzzzzzzz.  Rura-rura-rura-buzzzzzz.  The engine refused to start.  Stranded again.

We climbed out and Mary slammed the door in anger.  She shook an angry finger at me and said through clenched teeth,” I have always hated this stupid, dumb truck.”

 It was a big adventure for us.  For both of us, it was the first time out of the state - at least outside of North Dakota - without Mom or Dad, or a school group.  My brother Jaime and I were hitting the road together in his Geo Prism, driving from our known landscape of Northern Minnesota and heading for the tall corn country of Iowa and Southern Minnesota to visit our two older brothers.

Mom and Dad dropped me off in Alexandria, where brother Jaime was in school, and we headed out west on the interstate.

That isn’t a typo, we did in fact head west on I-94 before we realized that this grand adventure of ours was heading decidedly in the wrong direction.  I believe the conversation went something like this:

“We don’t go through Fargo to get to Iowa from here do we?”  I asked.

“Shucks.” Jaime responded, looking for the next off ramp.  This provided us something to fight over for the next two hundred miles…it was my responsibility as the passenger to make sure that we were heading in the right direction after all.

We managed to navigate through Minneapolis-St. Paul without getting killed, or killing each other.  Each holding our tongues and each clasping our hands - Jaime around the steering wheel and mine in prayer - “Lord, deliver us from traffic.”

Soon we were south of the cities, in a world that neither of us in our 18 and 20 years (respectively) had seen before.  There was corn and soybeans everywhere.  On each side of the road, the corn and soybeans stretched for miles on either side of the road.

Turning east on US 14 out of Owatonna, it got even worse, the fields of corn waved in the wind almost right up the roadside like a giant sea.  Reaching Byron, the town outside of Rochester where brother John worked, we followed him up to his home in Genoa (not at all like the Italian town, Genoa, MN has a dog as the elected mayor…”Nothing for the mayor to do, but you can’t be a town without a mayor.” brother John explained).

Eating a fine meal at the oldest restaurant in Minnesota (the famed Hubble house, where presidents, governors, and occasionally some wide-eyed farm boys from Northern Minnesota have dined), we slept on the floor of Jack’s trailer house on the outskirts of Genoa, then proceeded to Iowa.

Crossing the border was a big deal for us.  Seeing that Iowa welcome center and noticing that the color of the pavement changed as we crossed the border, it was a big step for both of us…we weren’t in Kansas…er…Minnesota any more.

We made it to Boone and our brother Tom’s house without incident.  Staring at the vast fields of corn and beans as we drove and drinking in the ripe smell of hogs in the summertime.  It was breathtaking (both the scenes AND the smell).

Driving home, we stopped at the Minnesota welcome center just across the border.  Partly because we were thankful to be back in the home state, partly because we each needed a good Minnesota map for our cars, Jaime went in first and was greeted by the kind lady working the counter - just looking for a map he explained.

I followed, with the same excuse - just looking for a map.

‘Where are you heading?” the lady asked.

“Northern Minnesota, up by Detroit Lakes.” I confessed.

“Oh!  There was just a young man in here going to Alexandria!  You two should car pool!” She exclaimed.

Yup, between us, we might even know what direction to turn onto the interstate. 

 We milked cows.  Every morning, every evening, we milked cows.  During the time when the cows were “dry” - close to calving and using most of their energy to nourish the calf growing inside, we were sometimes milking many less then our normal thirty head of cattle.  During those times, the big truck would rumble down the road less - sometimes only once every four days.  During the best times, when we would milk more then thirty cows - when our best cows were at their yearly peak and our twenty-eight cow barn had to switch some cows out at every milking to make sure there was stall space for all of them, the big stainless steel tank in the milk room (the area where we kept all of the milking equipment, along with the big tank that cooled and stored the milk - ie the “bulk tank) would have to be drained every two days.

Regardless the time of year, our family of five made a pretty big dent in the old tank four hundred gallon tank of milk.

When all five of us kids were home in the summer, when the heat and hard work of the farm would cause us to drink even more milk then normal, it was not uncommon for us to bring up two gallons of milk after the morning milking.  This milk would get us through breakfast, noon dinner, and the afternoon lunch…if we were lucky.  After the evening milking, two more gallons of milk would be brought up from the milk room.  This would get us through supper, pre-bedtime snack, and a quick shot of milk in the morning to get us out there milking again.

“It’s a good thing that I milk cows, we couldn’t afford to buy milk for all of you calves.” Dad would say in mock disgust.

But this wasn’t ordinary milk.  This stuff was super powered.

This wasn’t some mamby-pamby store bought skim milk, or even store bought whole milk.  This was the real deal.  Straight from the udder via the milk machine through the pipeline, into the bulk tank and chilled (sometimes barely by the time it hit the table).  This was non pasteurized, non homogenized, cream floating to the top, lip smacking milk.

This was the stuff that you needed to shake before serving or risk the first glass to be nothing but cream (hence the saying: “The cream rises to the top.”)

This stuff was sometimes so think, so rich, so darn good, you had to chew it to get the full flavor.

As my older brothers moved away, our consumption of milk started waning.  When Tom moved away, we were down to two gallons in the morning, one in the evening.  When Jack went off to college and got summer jobs, we averaged slightly less then three gallons a day.  When Jaime went off to college, and it was just Margaret and I left at home, we were down to about two gallons a day.

When the sad day came and the cows were hauled off to market, and the last gallon of milk had been drank, it was the end of an era on our farm.  More then just the empty barn, it meant that the days of think, rich, milk from the bulk tank sitting in our refridgearator had come to an end.  Soon, with only my sister at home, sometimes milk would actually spoil, pushed past its expiration date.

It was the end of an era, but the legacy still lives on.  We children of a Midwestern dairy farmer still have strong bones and healthy teeth, and to this day, whenever one of us pulls a carton or jug of milk out the refridgerator, we still give is a healthy shake, “to mix in the cream.”

One of my nieces watching my brother shake up a gallon of store bought, pasteurized, homogenized, skim milk asked, “why do you shake the milk daddy?”

We could only just smile that knowing smile…with our healthy white teeth aglow.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

The wife and I had a little tiff last week.

It wasn’t all that serious.  I crabbed at her.  She crabbed at me. I growled.  She growled.

And then there was silence.  The silence lasted for two days.

That was unusual, usually, we bark and growl at each other until we get everything hashed out.  We’re usually noisy and sometimes nasty, but usually it doesn’t last too long.  We can whip through a good fight, including arguing, slamming doors, brooding and making up, in less than an hour.

This time it was different.  Mary was convinced that she could stay steamed longer than I could.  I was determined not to let her win that contest.  So we lived in icy silence.  When she came into the kitchen, I moved into the living room.  When she came in the living room, I moved into the den.  We were both relaying on the same strategy:  silence and avoidance.

About half way through day two, she asked,” Are you still mad?”

I wasn’t going to fall for that.  “What do you think? ” I snapped.  Then I asked, “Are you?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” she fumed.  I wasn’t sure, but I guessed it meant we were still feuding.

A couple of times I almost broke down.  I wanted to tell her the joke I heard at work.  Luckily, I remembered that I was still angry before I said anything.  Later, I almost asked her what we needed from the store.  I remembered again, just in time.  On the morning of day two, before I was fully awake, I almost gave her a kiss.   That was a close call.

But I found that staying mad stuff is tough.  You have to constantly stay on your toes or you’ll slip up.  The stress from trying to stay angry creates plenty of nervous energy.  I spent mine catching up on work from the office.  Mary spent hers cleaning the house.  At least when we’re mad, we’re productive.

Finally, after two days, I couldn’t take it any more.  I called the florist and sent flowers with a sappy message.  Mary called and thanked me for the flowers.  “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?” She asked.

“No, I’m not mad anymore,” I replied.

“Why did you change your mind?” She asked.

“Staying mad is just too much work,” I explained.  “I kept thinking of stuff I wanted to tell you..”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.  I have about an hour’s worth of stuff to tell you too,” she said.  “I love you.”

“I love you too.” I said.

Rats.  I bet if I’d have held out until supper, she would have cracked first.