A treasury of family farms

by Diane Leukam

We have a special keepsake section for you in this edition, highlighting Century Farms from our seven-county Country Acres area. We also have Benton County, where we publish the Benton Ag pages in our Sauk Rapids Herald and Benton County News. When the idea was broached for this project just two months ago, none of us imagined it would take off quite like it did. We are proud to bring

PHOTO BY DIANE LEUKAM A wild turkey hen roosts with her 12 poults in early July at the home of Don and Diane Leukam in Sauk Centre. you one feature story from each of these counties, selected from the farms recognized in 2020. Each county also features a comprehensive list of Century Farms, courtesy of our friends at the Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation. To be recognized as a Century Farm, there must be a minimum of 100 years’ ownership within one family. All told, there are more than 1,300 farm names on these county lists, including many sesquicentennial farms, meaning they are in the same family for at least 150 years. I was a bit shocked to see those numbers, but I shouldn’t have been. A couple of years ago, I interviewed Ashley Huhn from Steffes Auction Company out of Litchfi eld. He told me there are times it happens when a piece of land comes up for sale outside the family just once in a lifetime. You could say our special section backs up that statement quite nicely. Congratulations to all these farmers on their generations of hard work, ingenuity and endurance. As you read through these lists, you are sure to recognize many of the names. Speaking of lists, many – not all – of you will notice a colored sheet of paper and an addressed envelope inserted in your Country Acres. Please do not ignore this; it is basically your opportunity to continue receiving the paper for free within our expanded coverage area. Simply fi ll out and return it to us, so we know you really do want the paper. We will be updating our mailing list before the Sept. 18 issue. ( If you get Country Acres in the Star Shopper, you DO NOT need to fi ll out a form and will continue receiving the paper.) Finally, those of you who read my column in the Sauk Centre Herald last week were expecting to see a photo of turkeys in this paper. For the rest of you, this is a family of wild turkeys that roams our neighborhood; to shorten the story dramatically, my husband, Don, and I watched these birds from our deck one evening. We thought we scared the mother hen as she suddenly fl ew very high – 40 feet or so – into a large tree in our backyard. The babies took their turns, one by one, and followed. It was quite the commotion, but after they settled in, we realized they were just roosting for the night. Using a zoom lens, I was able to capture the image from below. You will see that mama turkey has her wings around some of them, and if you look closely, you can count her 12 babies. We see the birds in our yard quite often and they have nearly doubled in size in just the last two weeks; it is unreal how quickly they grow. I hope your crops and gardens are growing as well as these turkeys. The last I heard, some of you are still waiting for those million-dollar rains; may they fall for you very soon. Enjoy this issue of Country Acres, and we’ll see you again Aug. 14!

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