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One of my earliest memories was listening to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. I was in the backseat of a pickup truck, forehead pressed against the cold glass and listening to stories of alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings and government conspiracy theories.

Earlier this year, I spent a week in the Sunshine State visiting with ranchers and farmers and gawking at the landscape that was vastly different than my Idaho home. As I asked each one what was the biggest challenge to production agriculture in Florida, the answer was always the same: urban sprawl.

’Twas a bright sunshiny day, so this happened sometime between the snow seasons. I-84, westbound a few miles east of Biggs Junction, which is about a hundred miles east of Portland, Oregon, Leo and I were on our way to the Portland area, each driving a truck and trailer loaded with hay.

I haven’t had time to do very much farming this summer, but I have spent a lot of time on a zero-turn mower trimming and maintaining the farm. Here at the house, I decided to take a different approach to taking care of the yard this year instead of the twenty-plus-year-old Craftsman 50-inch-cut riding mower.

Bart has a lot going on. He grows barley, wheat, sugarbeets and hay on his southern Idaho farm. He’s got a little feedlot where he finishes a couple hundred head each year. He buys, sells and hauls about a gazillion loads of hay annually. He’s as conscientious a neighbor as you’ll ever find.

When I was 13, my dad bought a farm. It was a little over 100 acres and was mainly watered with the use of handlines and flood irrigation.