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“The way our spring started out, I was thankful I was a no-tiller,” Ryan said. “Then, as the spring progressed and we got wet, I wished I was a conventional tiller. Now we're back to where we could really use the rain and I'm thankful I'm a no-tiller again. You can't count on anything in farming, it just changes so quick.” Located about 10 miles north of Beresford and just east of I-29, their flat land can be swampy at times. Even so, strip tilling and no-till has worked well for about 10 years. About 10 percent of their acres continue to be tilled conventionally. The extremes in weather can take a toll both on the crops and family life. “The beans we planted first have been hailed on four times. They froze once and then got sawed off with that derecho wind. I mean, if they make anything it'll be a miracle,” he said.

Ryan does a fair amount of custom spraying and often family time can take a back seat to working around the wind. “With Mother Nature, you don't ever know what you can plan for. It can be windy all week, but it never seems to be windy on Saturday and Sunday. So that’s when I have to spray.” That cuts into time they could be spending at their camper south of Yankton, although it’s been easier to head to the camp site since the camper now stays parked in the same spot all summer.

FAMILY IS ALWAYS ON THE GO

Taylor said their family is always on the go with either a sporting or church event. Their oldest son, Nick, will be a senior at Canton High School in the fall and is working full-time this summer at Bryant’s Lawn Care in Canton. Daughter Braelyn, who will be a seventh grader, has softball up to four nights a week in the summer. Eighth grader Ethan spends a lot of his summer taking care of the youngest son, Hobey, who will be five in September. Taylor said, “Nick works more hours than I do in the summer. Ethan and Hobey either come along with me to Braelyn’s softball games or stay home. Most of the time, they would rather stay home – they're wild together.” Ethan and Hobey also spend a good share of time in the tractor with their dad. Around the time the couple got married six years ago, Taylor jumped into training to become a nurse practitioner, while simultaneously continuing her career as a registered nurse. “Why not go back to school with a new marriage, three children and working full time? That sounds like an easy deal,” she said. “It was questionable some days; but, you know, we're still married.”

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Ryan said the demands at that time were tough. “Farming wasn't real good then, so it was a struggle. Taylor worked through two-thirds of it (nurse practitioner training). It was pretty impressive we made it through.” Taylor grew up in Luverne, Minn. Her mom was raised on a farm, but married a town guy. “She was not having anything to do with farming. She was a daycare provider forever and, for 30-some years, my dad was a high school or middle school teacher.”

Today, Taylor is a nurse practitioner at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls working in trauma and emergent surgery. “All the life-threatening traumas you read about or see on TV – that’s our team saving the lives. We're the ones that cut the chest open in the room and massage the heart to keep them alive.” From farming’s everyday bumps and bruises to a life-changing diagnosis, it’s been good for Ryan to have a health care professional in the family. “This morning, he hit his head on something and then sent me a text asking what he needed to do,” Taylor said. “I told him to send me a picture so I knew whether to bring staples home or not.”

A LIFE CHANGING DIAGNOSIS

About five years ago, Ryan was experiencing fatigue and dizziness on a regular basis. More than once, he went to see a chiropractor and a family practice physician. But the spells kept returning. Taylor said, “For a couple weeks, when he’d get off the couch, he looked like a drunk guy. He just couldn't stand up and would say ‘I can't feel my legs.’ I kept telling him ‘You're going to need to go in.’ Then he fell off the combine.”

Taylor made some calls and got him in almost immediately to see specialists and to get tests done. “It’s good to know somebody who can pull some strings,” Ryan said. The diagnosis was multiple sclerosis. M.S. is a disease in which the immune system eats away at the protective covering of nerves. The resulting damage disrupts communication