Chapter 51 – Book 2

Who Grows My Food?

The door of a discrete loan company in a southeast Minnesota city closed with a smooth hiss behind William Vine. He stepped across the early afternoon sidewalk with a narrow-eyed smile.

Lottie Thompson watched the man she had seen somewhere before climb into a red SUV bulging with unused accessories. She half-expected a roof gunner to appear atop the vehicle to cover his retreat south. The Ioway woman climbed out of her old pickup, opened the topper door in back to fetch her canvas bags of cleaned and packaged native herbs, and walked toward the whole foods co-op to make her delivery.

There, circles of local farmers closed around samples of bread squares and cheese, their working hands deftly manipulating toothpicks and dollops of salsa, happily sampling their own products, and those of their neighbors. Farmer Appreciation Day was alway festive this close to Thanksgiving.

"Hello, Lottie! How ya been?" they greeted her. She smiled and waved, and headed for the co-op's buyer near the back of the store.

About that same time, Laura Paruzzi and Alexander Murphy exchanged marital vows, rehearsing their wedding ceremony with Father Norbert Marquette, and family and friends, at Saint Patrick of the Prairie Catholic Church.

Out on the land, other upper Midwestern farmers, mostly hired hands paid a minimum wage, shoved the throttles of corporate tractors up to a proper rpm that would power chisel plows deep into remaining rich prairie topsoil, to open it again to wind and water over winter. The "leave your soybean stubble alone in the fall" message was getting around to farmers and corporate farm offices; many even heeded it. But harvested corn ground was still fair game to the plow-it-black crowd, eager for a jump on next year's battle for farm profits with the earth and the elements.

Dun brown stubble, rippling over empty, ragged corn rows stretched wide across the horizon, alternating everywhere with smooth, nearly gray-brown swathes of bean duff, all left by the vanished combines, balers, and chisel plows. Less frequent rows, but just as distinct, marked the November sky in gray cloud -- low, wet, and cold -- beginning the months-long march southeast before Arctic winds that would drive people inside and any animals left out to turn backsides to windward with long suffering patience.

In her St. Louis office, Edna Parker opened a letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The remote prose informed her of an impending inspection of her manufacturing property in response to citizen’s complaint on illegal disposal of hazardous waste there from 1998 to the present. Edna reached for the telephone.

Earlier in the day, before the wedding rehearsal, Grandma Teresa Murphy, Rose, and little Lucy buried tulip and crocus bulbs all over the still fresh mound of Owen Murphy’s grave. The damp earth had some heat in it under a melting light frost . Teresa hummed the old hymn, “How Can I Keep From Singing?” as she worked. Three year-old Lucy dug with her little shovel, too.

“Grandma,” asked Rose, "who grows my food?"

"Why, we do, honey, and others, many farmers grow our food," her grandmother answered.

"Does all our food come from the ground, then?" queried the child.

"Yes, in a manner of speaking, it does, or from the water, if it's fish or seafood, but all from the earth, yes," said the old woman.

"Then, if Grandpa Owen is in the ground, and our food comes from the ground, does Grandpa become part of our food?" Rose asked.

"You ask so many lively questions, young lady. Yes, in time your Grandfather's body becomes dust and the dust becomes earth, and the earth grows our food. Is that what you mean?"

"Gum-pa Own" said Lucy, pointing with to the grave with her little shovel.

Teresa leaned back on her heels and hugged a child to herself with each arm. "You are both very precious," she said, "and I am blessed to have you with me."

"I want to be a farmer when I grow up, like Grandpa Owen, and like Dad, and Delbert," said Rose.

"You will be a good one, too, girl. I have no doubt," replied her grandmother, patting the last of the bulbs into place.

"Help me up now, we have to get cleaned up for the wedding rehearsal. Make sure those two lovebirds behave! We'll be back, dear Owen," she said.

Rose pulled her grandmother to her feet, and took little Lucy by the hand.

A couple of hours after that, Lottie Thompson, the Ioway woman from Oklahoma, a 27 year-old graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in ethnobotany at Northeast Iowa University, the traveler of the driftless region who carefully nurtured and harvested medicinal forbs and native herbs, deposited the co-op check into her bank account. From there she drove to the post office and mailed a letter with her own check inside. The letter carried her offer to buy a small southeast Minnesota farm that bordered the north bank of the South Fork of the Root River.

Lottie Thompson felt very thankful.

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Next... Chapter 52.

Thanks for these resources:

The Land Stewardship Project

balmm currents, September 15, 2003 edition of the newsletter of the Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota, "NO FALL TILLAGE OF SOYBEAN STUBBLE" CAMPAIGN UNDERWAY"

LocalHarvest, where to find sustainably-grown, organic food near you.

USDA Women in Agriculture website

Committee on Women in Agricultural Economics, a sub-committee of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA)

Bluff Country Co-op, A Full-Service Grocery Store, Winona, MN

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Water Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (WECA)

Baxoje Ukich'e: The Ioway Nation, the Ioway Cultural Institute

Indian Country Today, Native American Indian News Source

John Gabbert writes and edits The Upper Basin Chronicles.

Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholder Network and The Upper Basin Chronicles © 2003 Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.

Your comments are invaluable. Please email feedback to the author via (mailto link) The Upper Basin Chronicles, Chapter 51.

The characters presented here are purely fictional, and neither bear resemblance to persons living or dead, nor represent the views or opinions of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.