The Farming Families of Lyon County (IA)—April 2021 by The Farming Families Magazine

April 2021 | www.AgeMedia.pub

Faith / Family / Friends / Farming

Meet the

DIETERS Family The Dieters family: Carrie holding Brooke; Mark, Carlee and Jake. In front is their beloved dog Jade who recently passed away. Story on page 6. Photo by Ashley DeJager, DJ Designs of Rock Valley.

of Lyon County

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of Sioux County PUBLISHERS Garrett and Mindy Gross, AGE Media EDITOR & IOWA MANAGER Bob Fitch, AGE Media Direct advertising inquiries, story submissions and other correspondence to: 712-551-4123 bob@agemedia.pub © The Farming Families, Age Media & Promotion The Farming Families is distributed free exclusively to the farmers, ranchers and producers in rural Sioux, Plymouth and Lyon Counties. All rights reserved. Content in this magazine should not be copied in any way without the written permission of the publisher. The Farming Families assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Content in articles, editorial and advertisements are not necessarily endorsed by The Farming Families and Age Media & Promotion.

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LYON COUNTY FAMILY

SOMEHOW, THROUGH IT ALL, JAKE STILL SMILES by Bob Fitch

Just like any other seven-year-old Iowa farm boy, Jake enjoys driving the fourwheeler and helping with the calves. “He gets very excited to come to the farm,” said Jake’s dad, Mark Dieters. “He likes to help do chores. I’ve got him trained now to open the gates, so I don’t have to get out of the tractor. I got him a little trailer for the 4-wheeler and he knows how to back that up now. We’ll go to the farm and you give him a task and he perseveres until he gets it.” Mark and Carrie recently bought a small 1816 skid loader. Can a sevenyear-old really handle driving a skid steer? Jake’s response was: “Want to see the video? It’s pretty cool.” His dad said, “I let him drive it around the yard last week and he was just as proud as a peacock.” Jake said he also likes to clean the cow trailer. He doesn’t care that it’s full of cow droppings – he likes his dad’s semi-trailer to be neat. “I would clean anything.” But Jake doesn’t get to help with the farm and truck-cleaning chores very often, just like he doesn’t make it to school much. What gets in the way? “Dialysis, that’s for sure,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.

Carlee standing in front of Mark; Jake in back; and Carrie holding Brooke. 6

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | April 2021

Jake had his left kidney removed in January, the day after his seventh birthday. His right kidney had been removed about three years ago. He also had a portion of his colon removed during the second kidney removal surgery. On the day of this

Carlee, Brooke and Jake Dieters with the late, great Jade. Photo by Ashley DeJager, DJ Designs of Rock Valley.

interview, you wouldn’t have known it to look at him, but Wilms’ tumors have ravaged and will continue to ravage Jake’s body. But not his spirit. “Jake has had to understand and cope with more emotions at his age than most of us adults do in our whole lifetime. And somehow, through it all, he still smiles,” Carrie wrote in a post on CaringBridge.org. According to The Mayo Clinic, Wilms' tumor is a rare kidney cancer that primarily affects children. Also known as nephroblastoma, it's the most common cancer of the kidneys in children. Only about 650 cases are diagnosed annually in the U.S. Typically, Wilms’ tumor is highly responsive to treatment with nine out of 10 children being cured. However, it appears Jake is the one in 10. Carrie said the trouble started in the spring of 2018 with a stomach ache and a lingering fever. A CT scan found a tumor on Jake’s right kidney. Doctor’s removed the kidney and Jake went through treatment for about six months. Then he was in remission for about six months. Even though a spot on his left kidney was shrunk by chemotherapy, doctors decided the spot had to be removed. More cancer treatment followed, leading to a year-long remission before his most recent diagnosis.

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Farming is full of life lessons, but nothing in their respective upbringings on family farms prepared Carrie and Mark for the April 2021 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

Jake Dieters running the equipment in his basement farm.

challenge of walking their child through multiple rounds of cancer treatment. Mark grew up near Inwood where his dad raised pigs and farmed until the mid-1990s. “I worked for local farmers throughout high school and for 10 years after,” he said. “Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to farm. I didn’t even want to go to school because all I wanted to do was farm.” But his company, Dieters Trucking, pays a lot of the bills at this point. “Trucking is kind of hereditary. My grandpa and my great uncle trucked from the 1940s until the ‘80s. It’s one of those deals that passes through the genetic lines. In 2016, I was working for a guy from Marion, S.D., driving truck back-andforth from here to there. He needed to upgrade trucks and I talked him into letting me buy the next truck. The trucking business kind of took off from there. “We haul a lot of manure and own a side-dump. We sell compost for 8

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | April 2021

DeJager Custom Manure out of Inwood. We dispatch all the trucking for that. Then, in the off-season, we haul livestock for HLH Farms of Carmel.” However, Mark said, “For us, trucking is a means to an end to get us to the point we can be self-sufficient as farmers. It’s nice to have that extra source of income. The bankers want something steady every month.” Farming is not really a job for him. “It’s more of a passion. For me, being able to be a family man and a Godly man – being a farmer is something that God has called many people to do. It allows me to be here more for my family; and enjoy the outdoors and enjoy life.” He started from scratch by running cow-calf pairs and now, in addition to the cows, he has been able to rent cropland and collaborate his farming with Cody Van De Stroet of Fairview, S.D. Carrie grew up southeast of Hull where her family had a farrow-to-finish hog operation and

finished out Holstein steers from dairies. “I have three other siblings. I was the youngest and there are six years between me and sister. So when they left, it was just me and Dad doing the farm. I think that was when I was in seventh grade when it just became my job to get up at 4:30 and help with the bottle calves and make sure things were fed,” she said. “When you look back at it now, you see how much you learn and build a work ethic. It’s helped me today – it’s helped me be a go-getter. It’s not a choice when you are on a farm, you’ve got to get up and do it whether you want to or not,” she said. Mark and Carrie met in 2012. He said, “I was living in western South Dakota where my older brother managed a ranch. I moved out there to help him for a year. Out there, we were 40 miles from town and our driveway was seven miles long. With places stretched so far apart, it made going anywhere tougher. Carrie and I met on the internet and

April 2021 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

talked for a couple months through FarmersOnly.com before I moved back to Inwood – gospel truth.” They married in 2013 and Jake was born in 2014. Two daughters followed: Carlee, 4, and Brooke, 1½. Mark said, “Jake gets a lot of joy out of being a big brother, especially with his baby sister. He really loves the little one.” When he came home from the hospital in January, Jake was a little scared of his sisters hurting him because he has dialysis lines coming out of his chest, a pic line and a stoma. “But he’s gotten more relaxed. He’s gotten back to his usual bossing around Carlee,” said Carrie. “Big brother duties,” Mark said. Carrie said their son’s perseverance through the cancer battle is helped when he gets the chance to talk to friends and classmates. “Just trying to be a kid and seeing his friends gives him a lot better outlook on life. You can tell those weeks when all we do is go back-and-forth from the hospital are a drag on him. But if he gets to go to school for a Valentine’s party or something like that, he pops right up and is happy. The kids have a soft spot for him. When he went to school for his birthday, his desk was just piled high with

cards and presents. One of the girls in his class made him a very beautiful and soft tractor blanket.” She said, “For me as a parent going through this, that helps me because it is very hard to see him just sleep or get sick or be bored – when he so much wants to be a kid and just run and be an ordinary child growing up. If I can see him smile, or sit in class or giggle or something, it helps me forget a little bit of what’s going on and keeps me moving.” Carrie said life has been an emotional roller coaster of anger, sadness and a few happy times. “Every time he would go through remission and every three months when he had a scan, we just dreaded going in for that next scan. When we found out the third time, I was really angry at everything, especially angry at God – ‘Why again?’ “This disease takes a toll on everything and everyone that is around it. It's hard to watch your child endure the sickness and its effects,” Carrie wrote on CaringBridge.org. Her anger and sadness has been helped by talking about it and through prayer. Discussion and prayer with Mark, their friends, family and their pastor (Rob Horstman of First Reformed Church in Inwood) has helped her reach the point of “His Will will be done.” Mark said, “His plan is different than ours and we’ll never understand it until we’re on the side of the Lord and he can explain it to us.”

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Mark said Jake has a very, very strong faith for being a seven year old. Carrie added, “We’ve been really trying to work with Jake, telling him: ‘If you’re scared, if you’re mad, talk to us and pray about it.’ He’s really good about praying on his own, too.” There has been an outpouring of support for the Dieters from the Inwood and West Lyon communities and beyond. As a new person in town, Carrie didn’t know anyone in Inwood. “But since Jake was diagnosed in 2018, they’ve been amazing. People were just coming out of the woodwork: ‘Hey, can we bring a meal? Hey, my cousin went through this, if you need any help, let me know.’ And it’s just gotten stronger and stronger every year with people making sure Jake is ok, making sure we have our bills paid, asking if we needed help getting Carlee to school or Jake to his appointments. It’s overwhelming – but overwhelming in a good way,” Carrie said. The community delivered joy to the Dieter family in a belated January birthday celebration for Jake. “It was pretty cool on my birthday,” Jake said. “I think there were about 10 fire trucks, and there were two police cars and three ambulances. One truck came over and gave me a present and a balloon and let me honk the horn.” For a few minutes, Jake is distracted from his challenges since he has the undivided attention of a magazine writer who is getting down on the floor to eagerly see the boy’s trucks, tractors and feedlot at his farm in the basement. Then the boy’s attention jumped back to the real farm. “The cows did have three babies. One of them belonged to our neighbor Ethan.” Mark said, “He’s spent a lot of his life around adults, being in and out of the hospital so much. There’s a lot of time when he’s very grown up about things. Other times he’s still a seven-year-old little boy.” Tomorrow includes the adult world of pain with a dialysis treatment. Today, with a big smile, Jake chooses to be a sevenyear-old carpet farmer as he rolls out his new equipment.

Jake at the controls of the 8016 skid steer with sisters Carlee and Brooke in the bucket.

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SIOUX COUNTY FAMILY

Lyle and Denny Hulshof farm near Ireton.

FAITH, FAMILY, FARMING IS JUST THE RIGHT ORDER Every day, Ireton area farmers Denny and Lyle Hulshof strive to live the values taught to them by their parents, Melvin and Dorothy Hulshof.

“Both Mom and Dad taught us that church is important. The old saying – faith, family and farming – that’s just the right order,” said Denny. “When Mom had dementia and went into the nursing home, Dad sat there every day with her, holding her hand. Until they put her to bed and he kissed her good night, he was there with her. I applaud my dad. He taught us what’s important.” Dorothy passed away in 2017. “Dad and Mom made sure we knew making time for our family is important, whether it’s going to church, or making it to ballgames or band concerts to see your kids play,” Denny said. “Work is important, it’s got to get done, but making time for family is essential. For us, it’s our church and our families –

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | April 2021

and the good Lord will take care of us here at the farm.” Melvin lives at Mica Hills Estates in Hawarden. Denny said, “Dad just turned 90, but he’s still on the payroll, he gets a management fee. The only reason we’re here is because of dad. There is not much we do that we still don’t run by him. It’s not that we couldn’t make the decision – and not that when he says ‘no,’ we don’t sometimes still do it – but he’s still sharp as a tack and we appreciate his insight.” Lyle said, “Dad taught us conservative values. We don’t buy a whole lot without being able to pay for it. If we bought a piece of ground, we didn’t buy another one until we had the first one paid for. We don’t farm with the newest equipment, but with what gets it done.

The Hulshof farm in 2020.

Age Media Qtr Page Color 1-8-20.pdf 1 1/8/2020 11:21:34 AM

“Dad wasn’t a big farmer when we came out of high school, but he found room for us and gave us a chance. We’ve expanded things a little bit since then. And the Lord has been good to us,” Lyle said. “More than good,” Denny agreed. “We didn’t build it by ourselves, that’s for sure,” Lyle concluded. Melvin said, “My grandpa bought this farm in 1907. He started a guy farming who broke the prairie. Then my dad moved here when he got married in 1920.” Melvin’s grandfather was large landowner in the early 1900s, but when the Great Depression came along, he couldn’t hold on to all of his land. Melvin has the letter (written in Dutch) where his grandfather told his father that the Ireton quarter section farm was his if he could pay the $1,200 in back taxes on it. Melvin farmed with his brother, Everett, for many years. “He had 240 acres and I had 240. Today, you could farm that after supper.” He remembers picking corn by hand when he was young. The Hulshofs didn’t get their first one-row corn picker until about 1946. “The machinery is a whole lot different now than it was then. I was listening to RFD a little while back and they were talking about the new John Deere combine that will do 24 rows, 6 miles an hour and 200 bushel corn. When we picked corn by hand, 100 bushels per day was a pretty good picker. If you count the kernels on those 100 bushels versus this combine, the new combine will harvest the same amount of bushels in 58 seconds,” Melvin said. Denny added, “Dad has said numerous times … ‘Oh, if Pop could see what you guys are doing now,’” referring to Melvin’s father, Herman. Even with the advances in machinery and technology, some things on the farm don’t change. “The biggest thing about

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Denny and Mindy’s daughter, Molly Hulshof, at an FFA sheep show competition. She missed the family photo on the cover because she was at another FFA event.

growing up on a farm, you learn a work ethic,” Denny said. “You know you have chores in the morning, you know you have chores at night. You know before you go to church Sunday, you have to do chores even if it means getting up earlier. Or if you go to a state football game, you know you’ll have to get up at 4 to get chores done; and when you get home, you’ll have chores that night.”

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Lyle said their father and grandfather fed a lot of sheep in the 1930s and ‘40s. “But then Dad got out of it. He had a lot of cattle and hogs instead. Then, in 1981, Denny needed an FFA project, so we got a few ewes. And we’ve had ewes ever since.” Denny added, “I was a freshman in high school and I started with 45 ewes.” Denny graduated from West Sioux High School in 1983 and Lyle graduated in 1986. The brothers also have a small cow herd and custom-feed some hogs. “Crops (corn, soybeans, alfalfa) are our major enterprise now. Sheep is kind of a sideline in the wintertime – it keeps us out of the pool hall,” Lyle joked. “Ewes are something you’re never going to get filthy rich on, but we’ve never had to put a dime into them to make ends meet at the end of the year.” Denny added, “There’s never been a year since 1981 that we’ve lost money on the sheep we raised ourselves.” Lyle said, “We’ve always had a decent packer who’s maintained a good relationship with the producer.” The sheep used to be processed at Iowa Lamb, although now they’re shipped out of Hawarden bound for processing by Superior Farms in Colorado. Lyle’s two sons both work on the farm. “My oldest boy, Mitch, started farming with us in 2013. In 2018, our second boy Zach went to Morningside for a year. He got a national championship ring with the football team, but decided college wasn’t as much fun as he expected, so now he’s back farming with

us. Denny’s son is ready to farm with us, too.” However, Denny said, “Kenny is only in the fifth grade. He’d quit tomorrow if I’d let him work at the farm full-time.” In addition to son Kenny, Denny and his wife Mindi have a daughter, Molly, who is a high school freshman. Mindi works at the Farmers Cooperative Society. In addition to their sons Mitch and Zach, Lyle and his wife Steph also have a daughter, Emily, who is a senior at West Sioux High School. Steph is a stay-at-home mom. “Steph drove the grain cart and helped in the fall back when our boys were in school,” Lyle said. “Both our wives have been very good to us – very understanding.” Both families are active at First Reformed Church in Ireton. They supply the donkeys and sheep that are needed for the church’s everyother-year live nativity. In addition to church, family members are involved in a number of volunteer jobs in Ireton and at West Sioux schools. Both Denny and Mindy have been on the Ireton Rescue Squad for more than 20 years. Denny is on the Hawarden Regional Healthcare board of directors and Lyle is on the hospital’s foundation board. Both families helps set up the flags recognizing veterans at the cemetery. “Our community is very important to us. We help out where we can, when we can. For a small community like this, if you’re not involved, the community dies,” Denny said. Lyle added, “If you’re part of the community, the community will be part of you. People will step up and help you in a time of need.” Looking ahead, the Hulshof brothers are always looking to grow if the right opportunity comes around. Lyle said, “We were fortunate enough to buy some land base before the market took off.”

Denny added, “We do rent some ground and have some awful good landlords who we have a good relationship with.” Just as their dad and grandfather worked the land trying to make a better life their families, that’s what Denny and Lyle are working for, too. “We haven’t had to work as hard as our dad did, nor did he probably work as hard as his dad did,” Lyle said. “Things have gotten easier with bigger equipment. You kind of hope your sons won’t have to work quite as hard you did either.”

Melvin Hulshof and his late wife, Dorothy.

Front: Melvin Hulshof. Standing: Kenny, Denny and Mindi Hulshof; Zach, Lyle, Emily, Mitch and Steph Hulshof. Not pictured is Molly Hulshof.

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A LONELY CORN CRIB AND A LAST LOOK AT WINTER. PHOTO BY BRETT DAVELAAR, BD PHOTOGRAPHY.

April 2021 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine

KEEPING LOCAL HISTORY ALIVE

Bob Locker, a native of George, Iowa, is in the Iowa State University Hall of Fame.

FARM BOY MADE IT BIG IN THE BIG LEAGUES Excerpts from Keith Scherer, Society for American Baseball Research, and Wikipedia

Lyon County native Bob Locker pitched for five different Major League Baseball teams from 19651975. The first child of Henry and Northa Locker, Robert Autry Locker was born on March 15, 1938, in George, Iowa. The Lockers grazed cattle and grew corn on land they owned at the edge of town. Today, the industrial park in George is known as Locker Park and is named in honor of him and his family. Locker graduated from George High School in 1956, where he played baseball and basketball. He enrolled at Iowa State University, and made the varsity team in both sports. He graduated from ISU in 1960 with a degree in geology. Locker credited ISU coach Cap Timm as the person 18

The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | April 2021

who taught him the most about baseball. In high school, Locker said he was “a typical farmboy, trying to throw the ball through a brick wall. I had very little science and finesse. I was trying to impress myself, throwing harder and harder.” Under Timm’s guidance, Locker worked hard on his mechanics and grips, shortened his stride, and learned to hang onto the ball longer before releasing a pitch. When he finally put it all together, Locker developed a major-league-caliber sinker described as “explosive.” After graduation, he signed with the Chicago White Sox and played minor league ball in 1960, ’61 and ’64, missing 1962-63 due to military service. At age 27, the

6-foot-3, 200-pound Locker made the big leagues, joining a bullpen that featured knuckleballers Hoyt Wilhelm and Eddie Fisher. He debuted in Baltimore on April 14, 1965. In a 10-appearance stretch from May 30 to June 20, he was unscored upon. During his time in Chicago, Locker was the most oftenused reliever. He appeared in 77 games in 1967 and 70 games in 1968. “I had a smothered sinker, which is a lot like a knuckleball,” Locker said. “It’s hard to predict. I had to fight it every day, every pitch. But when everything was right the ball had some pretty wicked downward movement. It offset my liabilities. You know that if you throw it and the guys get a couple of

singles off it, you keep throwing it and they’ll eventually hit it at someone and you’ll get a double play.” “It was Locker,” said All-Star Eddie Fisher, “who went in to pitch the middle innings and keep the Sox in the game,” a role that would come to define Locker’s career. In 1965, the White Sox bullpen led the league with a 2.54 ERA. Fisher told sportswriter Jerome Holtzman that Locker was the best reliever on the team. Locker had a breakout season in 1967. He didn’t allow a run in 12 of his first 13 games. He led AL relievers with 77 games and 124 2/3 innings and had the most saves (20) and lowest ERA (2.09) of his career. He ended the season with five straight scoreless appearances. In 1968, Locker went 20 straight games without allowing a run. He started off roughly in 1969. The White Sox grew impatient and on June 8 sent Locker to the Seattle Pilots, where he joined Jim Bouton and Mike Marshall in the notorious bullpen described in Bouton’s book Ball Four. Widely regarded as an offbeat, independent thinker, Locker immediately bonded with Bouton and Marshall. They did more than toss baseballs back and forth. They pitched an eight-pound shot to each other. “People thought we were crazy, but it didn’t hurt our arms. In fact, I think it strengthened all three. I think it might have had something to do with the success I had with my sinker that year.” Before the trade, his ERA was 6.55. Afterward, it was 2.18. The Pilots relocated to Milwaukee in 1970. Locker struggled at the outset and was traded to the Oakland Athletics. But the Brewers, like the White Sox, gave up on Locker too soon. With Milwaukee, he allowed 37 hits in 31 2/3 innings. With Oakland, he gave up only 49 hits in 56 1/3 innings. In 1971, he started the season as the A’s right-handed closer, but struggled in April. Manager Dick Williams replaced him with future Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers, who took over as closer. Locker didn’t have a problem with it. “Rollie had great confidence out of the bullpen. He went right at it. He was awesome.” When the A’s were down by one or two runs, Locker’s assignment was to make sure things didn’t get any worse. “My job,” he said, “was to stop the other team’s rally and keep us in the game.” From 1970 to 1972, Locker threw 206 2/3 regular-season innings for the A’s, with an ERA of 2.79. He preserved enough winnable games in 1971 and 1972 to go 13-3; and was a member of the team’s 1972 World Series champion team. As Locker saw it, the A’s bullpen in the early ’70s was the key to their success. “We always had three or four closers on that team,” Locker said. “That’s why we were so good, not because we had guys who could hit the cover off the ball. We were always in the game.” Two months after the A’s won the World Series, the team traded the 34-year-old Locker to the Chicago Cubs for coveted prospect Bill North. Pitching in the National League for the first time, Locker had one of his best seasons, winning 10 games, saving 18 and topping 100 innings pitched for the first time since 1969.

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After the 1973 season, he was traded back to the A’s, but sat out the 1974 season to undergo surgery to remove bone chips from his pitching elbow. Locker moved his family to Oakland and planned to live and work there after his baseball career. Before the 1975 season, he was traded back to the Cubs for his final season. Locker returned with his wife Judy to the Bay Area, where they raised four children. He built a second career in real estate and exterior design. After 40 years in the Bay Area, he retired to Montana in the late 2000s, became an inventor, and taught himself to write. He published two books, Cows Vote Too in 2013 and Esteem Yourself the following year. Keith Scherer, writing for the Society for American Baseball Research, said three organizations gave up on him, and Locker bounced back each time. Consistency, durability and resiliency made him an asset wherever he went. “The reality is that I was never a star, but when I got to the end of a career spent running scared, looking back I had good stats. The reason I was successful is that I avoided slumps. Other than the start of 1969, when I couldn’t find my sinker, I never had a bad year. I never let a bad outing become a bad week, or a bad week become a bad month, or a bad month become a bad year. I always fought back.” SOURCES • Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Locker • Keith Scherer, Society for American Baseball Research. sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-locker/

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PLYMOUTH COUNTY FAMILY

The Meyer family: Tyler with Miles, Sterling with Graham, Stan, Bonnie, Charlotte (Stan's mother), Emily and Austin. Photo by Sharon Schnepf.

SLOW DOWN AND ENJOY FAMILY, COMMUNITY AND FARMING By Bob Fitch

Brothers Tyler and Austin Meyer are still in their 20s, but their perspective is rooted in a 200-year timeline – that is, 100 years back and 100 years forward. They value the deep agricultural roots of both of their parents’ families, have kept legacy structures on the farm in active use, and strive to preserve the soil for future generations. 22

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Tyler and Austin farm land in both Plymouth and Sioux counties with their parents, Stan and Bonnie Meyer, who live a little north of the county line between Craig and Ireton. Tyler, Austin and their sister, Emily, are all graduates of Gehlen High School and live in Le Mars today. All three also graduated from Iowa State University (although Tyler will be quick to say he’s an Iowa fan). Looking forward on the timeline, they practice no-till on both corn and soybean ground. “Conservation is definitely on

the forefront of our minds. We trying to be sustainable. We believe it works. It sounds cliché, but you’re trying to leave the place better than the way you found it. No-till is a tool in the toolbox,” said Tyler. Stan started using no-till in 2008 and likes it because it saves fuel, saves the soil, and their organic matter has been going up. Austin added, “It sure saves on labor, which is important because all four of us, including mom, work off the farm.” Stan is a rural mail carrier. Bonnie has been a nurse and the office manager for a gastroenterologist in Sioux City for 33 years. Tyler has been selling Hoegemeyer Seed since his senior year in college. Austin works for Jolly Time Popcorn in Sioux City. He’s a field department representative who assists with growing the popcorn acres, managing farmer contracts, ensuring transportation of the popcorn to Sioux City, and getting it through the company’s cleaning process to their packaging lines. Tyler said, “In the springtime, we don’t get going on the farm sometimes until 1:00 in the afternoon because Dad’s working his mail route and I spend all morning with my seed customers. So we often get a late start and do a lot of work at night.” In addition to the seed business and raising crops, Tyler has a ewe flock which he lambs out and finishes. He said, “The sheep are mostly my deal, but it takes a fleet of people in some cases – especially in January, February and March. “The sheep go very, very well with a row crop operation. Every row crop farmer could have sheep because there’s not much happening in those first three months of the year. But most people don’t want to be labeled a sheep farmer. It’s kind of a secret commodity that actually does well.” Stan said, “You can have older facilities and the sheep don’t destroy them like hogs and cattle are rough on stuff.” He said the farm was purchased by his great grandfather in 1913. The Meyer farm milked cows until 1975 and then raised hogs farrow-to-finish until the early 2000s. The hogs were finished outside.

Three generations of Meyer farmers: Tyler holding Miles and Graham; Austin and Stan. Photo by Sterling Meyer.

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Tyler said, “All the sheep facilities are just outside hog facilities which have been retro-fitted.” The 88-year-old barn was remodeled in 2019 into a transition house for the sheep. The last remnants of the milk parlor were removed from the barn and the cement floor was eliminated. He put in all new steel and installed larger doors so a skid steer could get inside. “It’s been retrofitted from dairy to pigs and now to sheep,” Tyler said. “You just don’t get those old barns back. Mom always says, and we agree, you’ve got to preserve these older structures because they are staples of the long-lasting farmsteads. It makes me cringe when I drive around and see barns that are falling over. Hopefully that’s not us some day.” Not only does their family farm stretch back more than 100 years, but Stan’s wife comes from the Galles family farm near Remsen, part of which Tyler and Austin farm today. In addition, Tyler’s wife, Sterling, is the daughter of Dick and Sharon

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The Meyer family has worked hard to refurbish the older buildings on the farm. This 1933 barn has been used for dairy and hogs; and is now used as a transition house for sheep.

Schnepf, pork producers near Granville. She works for Merck Animal Health as a swine sales representative. “Every one of us have known nothing other than farming,” Tyler said. “Sterling wasn’t new to a farming family. She knew the ups and downs of the market and seasons of the year – although I test her in the winter months with the sheep.”

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The Meyers also do some custom-farming which Stan said complements the operation well. Tyler added, “ You don’t need to farm the whole county, but with the costs of machinery, it’s hard to justify without having a few more acres to use it on.” He said the biggest concern going forward is: “How do these small farms stay afloat?” Austin agreed: “There’s only so much land and it’s a hot commodity.” The three of them are going through the challenging discussions of how to transition the farm from one generation to the next. Tyler said, “You’re talking about a business, you’re talking about a livelihood, you’re talking about generational history. To make everyone satisfied is very tough.

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“For me, today, farming is not even about me,” Tyler said. “I’ve got two boys now – they’re little but they love farming. The reading material at night with the boys is Tractor House magazine. We point at skid loaders and trucks and tractors before we go to bed.” He and Sterling have two sons are Miles, 2, and Graham, 1. Even with a busy work life on and off the farm, and challenging discussions about a transition, their priorities are kids, family and community. Five years ago, in 2016, those priorities were

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Ewes and lambs at the Meyer farm with another of their antique farm structures that has been refurbished.

driven home during an emotional year: Tyler and Sterling were married; Bonnie’s mother died; a brother-in-law died unexpectedly; and Sterling had two grandparents pass away. One incident in 2016 was perhaps the most emotionally consuming. “Our daughter was in a really bad automobile accident,” Stan said. “She was at the hospital and rehab from June 4th to Nov. 9th. There was a time when we didn’t know if Emily was ever going to walk again.” Sterling holding Graham and Tyler holding Miles, plus some wooly friends.

While Emily has lingering physical effects from the accident, she recovered and today is a family and consumer sciences teacher at South O’Brien Schools. Austin said, “Her accident really reiterated for all of us that we need to slow down.” Tyler added, “Emily’s accident gave us a life-changing perspective.” Friends and neighbors helped out on the farm and supported them in many other ways, big and small. The Sons of the American Legion in Brunsville, of which Stan is a member, held a benefit for Emily and the family. A huge crowd, some of whom came great distances, supported the event. Austin said, “It was amazing to see the community come together.” Tyler added, “For anybody who thinks they’re alone in this world, you’re not. When you’re in a time of need, people show up.” The family tries to give back and say thank you by being involved themselves. Stan is president of Christ Lutheran Church, Bonnie worked concessions at Gehlen Catholic athletic events for years, and Tyler is active in the Farm Bureau and the Northwest Iowa Sheep Producers Association. Tyler and Sterling are both involved in the Plymouth County Fair on the sheep committee, judging 4-H projects and Grandstand Pork.

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Looking ahead at the 100-year timeline, Tyler said, “Everybody needs to slow down a little bit. Even in the heart of harvest when we want to get the crop out as fast as we can, my favorite part of it all is seeing the wildlife – the pheasant, raccoons, fox, deer, and even the coyotes – even though I don’t like the coyotes around my sheep. Production agriculture will give you some pretty good scenes – you just need to slow down and enjoy them. A lot of us move forward too fast. It’s a good life.”

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FINANCIAL FOCUS

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No matter what stage of life you are in – starting out, providing for your family, planning for retirement or creating your legacy – having a clear plan will give you confidence for the future. Benjamin Franklin said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” The family farm is no different. Successful families make plans. Farmers do lots of short term planning, such as what crops to plant this year or what genetics should be used. How and what kind of nutrients should we use? When or how should we sell? These are all short term plans that farmers need to make each year, but what about the other plans you need to make about your business – the long term plans? These

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are the plans that look at: Where are we now, where are we going and how can we get there? Assessing your present status starts with a financial review and analysis. This should include your current financials and a retirement income analysis. Where are you going and how do you get there are the strategic parts of the plan. What are your long term goals and what road map are you going to use to make your plan successful? This is where you look at the business structure, succession strategies, legacy or estate plan, and your retirement income needs. When you look at structure, things to keep in mind are: control issues, profit allocation, income taxation, transferability, and liability protections. Different structures all have different positive and negative characteristics. Succession strategies need to answer the questions: What does this business look like when I’m gone and what tools are going to be used to get the desired outcome? The legacy or estate plan can be part of the succession plan but also looks at how the non-farming children are sharing in the success of the operation. This is often where the biggest land mines or heartaches must be addressed. Last but not least is a retirement plan. You now run a successful business ready to be handed off to your successor, but you must also plan for your retirement. How much income will I need and what resources will be available to generate that income? When you look at your plans, be prepared for many long discussions. Realize that having meetings to discuss these plans are good and may make you face some tough questions. However, your plan will be better because of the challenges or questions. Depending on where you are or what life stage you are in, this plan is something that should be revisited on a regular basis to keep up with your operation and the current business environment. You should also assemble a team to help you with the strategies and tactics you will need to make this continuous journey successful. A trusted lawyer, banker, accountant and financial advisor are all people that can be useful in providing the solutions you need to meet all you planning and business goals.

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The Farming Families of Lyon County (IA)—April 2021

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The Farming Families of Lyon County (IA)—April 2021