Lasting Message

Sunrise, October 1, 2025, over a hay field.

I finished a book last night. That is not unusual. But this book - Theo of Golden - will likely stay with me for quite some time.

I had seen glowing posts about the book on some Facebook book groups. The cover didn't immediately grab my attention. We've talked about the power of book covers at the Recently Read Book Club I attend monthly at my Stafford hometown library, the Nora E. Larabee Memorial Library. What is it that grabs our attention and makes us want to crack the book spine? 

Still, while not overly enthused by the cover, I did check with the Hutchinson Public Library, but it wasn't in their collection. 

However, I stumbled across it as I helped arrange books for our church's Oktoberfest book sale this coming Friday and Saturday. I immediately paid my 50 cents and took it home. 

I was surprised to discover it was self-published. Books that get their start that way rarely find much success. But, as I wiped tears from my eyes and closed the book last night, I understood why it defied the odds. (And, for the record, that wasn't the first time I'd had tears as I read this beautifully-written book with a timely message.) 

Here's a synopsis:  

Theo of Golden is the endearing story of a curious old man who quietly moves into a southern city and, for reasons unknown to anyone but himself, undertakes a campaign of anonymous generosity. Theo’s love for people, combined with his fondness for books, art, birds, and story, unite in a colorful expression of outreach and affection. Stories are shared, friendships are born, and lives, in response to his inexplicable kindness, are affirmed and transformed. The old man, no stranger to sadness and loss, quickly becomes a welcome presence in the community but his new friends and neighbors wonder, who is Theo? And why is he here? Theo of Golden is a beautifully crafted story about the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life and the far-reaching possibilities of anonymous kindness.

This morning, I woke up to news of a government shutdown ... more political finger pointing ... a caravan that brought a police officer killed in duty back home to rural Kansas ... more gun violence overnight ... and I despaired. But, as I walked by the window, I saw color in the sky and figured it was better for my mental health to drive down the road to watch the sunrise, rather than watch more of the newscast. 

Milo field sunrise panorama, October 1, 2025

I was probably a few minutes later than I should have been, but it was well worth the effort. And it again reminded me of the book. Besides Theo's generosity to his new neighbors, he was attuned to the natural world around him - the birds, the flowers, the trees, the sunset and even feathers.

Ironically, not long before I started reading the book - which features a single feather on its cover - I saw this blue feather lying in the grass as I got into the car to leave. And I couldn't resist taking a photo. Honestly, at the time, I was thinking about how I might be able to use the photo to illustrate the Emily Dickinson quote:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

In the book, Theo meets new people at a bench by a fountain. At another bench near the river, he sits under a tree and watches at 7 o'clock each evening as the sun goes down. Maybe that thought about Dickinson's "hope" wasn't all that far off from Theo's philosophy of life either. 

Theo's bench - From the author's website

At one point of the book, Theo talks to one of his new friends about "good art." But his answer turns out to be about much more than just "art." It's about life.

It might not make a of of sense, but for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it. I'm not even sure I know fully what that means, but the older I get, the more I believe it. There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music or raising a child, if love is not in it - at the very heart of it - it might be skillful, marketable, or popular, but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.

From Theo of Golden by Allen Levi 

For me, messages that I'm supposed to "get" often arrive unbidden from multiple directions. This morning after my return from the sunrise chase, I opened an email devotional from The Upper Room and again read the words of the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy. 

Sometimes, it's hard to battle my way through those darker emotions - the hatred, the injury, the doubt, despair, darkness and sadness. But maybe we can find it as we pay attention to the small things around us. I spent some time this morning on the author's website, and read several of his essays, including "Taking the time to see" and "Learning Small Things Matter is Really No Small Thing." Those are themes I often talk about here at my little spot on the internet. 

 

And, thankfully, in the midst of all the other stuff, there's plenty of small "miracles" to open our eyes to see ... 

We've just experienced the Monarch butterflies' annual migration through our area.   

  

Even the search for butterflies can remind us that it may take some time and effort. I had trouble capturing photos of butterflies at rest. Most were flitting around high in the trees. But persistence paid off - a few times, at least.

 

The butterflies also share a message of perseverance and triumphing over obstacles as they make their way from northern climes to their wintering grounds in Mexico. 

 

But even through the rough days, we just have to look for the Light ...

 ... and the beauty around us.  

 

And give thanks - even when it's hard.

If you have read Theo of Golden or if  you read it in the future, I'd love to hear what you think.  

 

Fall Bounty

I took my first "vacation" shot a mile after we left home last week. Admittedly, I take a lot of photos. But unless it's a departure selfie of Randy and me, I usually get a little further down the road.

But, as we departed for a trip to Eureka Springs last week, I noticed the eastern sky and I just couldn't resist. I sent our kids a text to that effect. Our son-in-law texted back: "Pretty, but hopefully you can make it a few more miles before the next picture or it will be a long trip!"

For the record, I did make it to Independence, Kansas, before getting my camera out again. (I will have more photos from our trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in upcoming blog posts. I don't like to post photos to Facebook while we are gone, and it takes awhile to edit photos and write about our adventures.)

I had another reason for my premature snapshots. Randy had told me the milo would likely be cut while we were gone. And another confession: I don't take nearly as many photos of the farm as I did when we were actively farming. 

The milo field at the corner south of our house had been pretty for weeks, but I hadn't ever taken the time. It was now or never, so I had Randy pull over the at half-mile line for a few photos.

And, indeed, the milo was cut while we were gone.  

The average yield for milo raised on our farmground was 110 bushels per acre. Kudos to Tye and Todd: That's the best milo we've ever had.

Also while we were gone, our calves from the Class of 2024 were weaned and averaged 638 pounds apiece. Tye and Todd arranged to sell the feeder calves (ours and theirs) directly to a feedlot.

Pretty sweet, huh? We didn't have to deal with any breakdowns or other harvest issues with milo. We didn't have to round up the cattle from summer pasture and do the sorting of mamas and babies. This retirement gig is all right.

 

Go Big Red: Milo Harvest 2021

  

Go Big Red!

If we're talking high school football, red IS our color. 

We also cheer for RED when the Fighting Unicorns are playing. 

 

However, in the college football realm, we bleed purple around here.

K-State vs. Iowa State - Farmageddon - October 16, 2021

 

But the "Big Red" I'm talking about this week is our Big Red Case combine cutting our Big Red milo crop. ... OK, it's not such a big crop here on the County Line. 

However, Kansas grows more sorghum than any other U.S. state. Our personal milo harvest does not contribute much to the statewide total. We only had 50 acres of milo in 2021, and harvest was done in less than a day. But it's always good to cross another job off the list. And this one was important for a couple of reasons: 1) It's the last of this year's fall harvest; 2) It's our final milo harvest as active farmers. 

October 20, 2021

 (We are still planting wheat to be harvested next summer, so don't usher us out the door quite yet).

The use of sorghum for human consumption is being developed further in countries where malnutrition and hunger are prevalent. In the fall of 2016, the Kansas State University College of Agriculture Ag Report had an article about sorghum:

In the Mara Region of Tanzania, one of the most starved areas of the world, K-State grain scientist Sajid Alavi is part of a research team working to improve child nutrition and health by providing a sorghum-soybean porridge blend to children younger than 5. ... While the results of the five-month study are yet to be finalized, Alavi said the early indications are that children were more healthy and had average growth rates.

Milo is getting some additional traction in the U.S., too, as consumers seek gluten-free alternatives. 

Pheasants are big fans of the grain, too. As we were finishing up the field, we scattered several pheasants.

It wasn't so easy to capture the wildlife action through the dirty combine windows. These were the best I got.

Randy was both the combine driver and the trucker for milo. Our employee just up and quit mid-morning a couple of weeks ago. But that's another story. Randy's lifelong friend, Rex, has been helping us finish wheat planting. So he been driving the disc tractor to get the field ready for Randy to plant after a rain delay last week. (Que the music for "We Get By With a Little Help from Our Friends.")

Once Randy had the truck loaded, he tarped it and off he went to Zenith to deliver the final truck load of milo - and fall crops - for the year.

I

I may have another job to add to my list after his trip to Zenith though. One of the employees there mentioned "Randy's wife's" cookie baking. I think it was a subtle hint. 

And we are thankful for all the people who make it possible to do our jobs - from the Kanza Co-op staff to the parts counter guys at Case and John Deere to the friends who fill a tractor seat in a pinch. 

***

A quick look back at the 2021 milo crop:

Milo as it was coming up, June 4, 2021

And, by July 28, 2021, it looked like this:

We cut the crop on October 18, 2021:

That's a quicker turnaround than the wheat crop, which will take about 9 months from planting to harvest.

Ugly Corn Syndrome

June 4, 2021

The headline on the email caught my eye: Ugly corn syndrome.

"OK, that's a new one," I thought. Even an old farm wife can learn something new. So I clicked on the link to the Farm Journal article on www.agweb.com to look at the article written by Rhonda Brooks, dated June 3.

Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie was advising farmers in the Corn Belt to look for three conditions, including ugly corn syndrome. (They were also to scout for making replant decisions and scout for insects.) While Ferrie said that some farmers tell him they have some of their best corn and soybean crops in recent memory, others say they have some of their worst. Here's what the article had to say about ugly corn syndrome:

It’s showing up in some fields now. Farmers finding yellow or yellow-streaked corn this spring have likely experienced too much rainfall, affecting nitrogen availability. High carbon loads can also be a factor—corn-on-corn or areas that had cover crops are more likely to show this phenomenon.

Ferrie’s research in Illinois shows it takes 60 pounds of N for corn after beans and 100 pounds of N for corn after corn to keep the corn crop from slowing down during what he calls the carbon penalty stage.

June 4, 2021

 

Last week, Randy and I were laughing about ugly corn syndrome. By the way, he hadn't heard of it either. But this week, we began to wonder if some of our corn is suffering from that malady. There is a yellow tinge in some places. Since we got an unexpected 0.70" of rain Monday, it's possible that the corn's off-color can be attributed to "wet feet," lack of sunshine and the resulting deficit in nitrogen. Forecasts are for hot and humid the rest of this week, so I guess the corn will be getting the heat units it needs to grow (though there's also some concern when there's a rapid shift from cool to downright hot, too). I, on the other hand, would prefer the "heat units" and humidity to be lower. I'm not ready for mid-90s, with a heat index of 100. 

June 9, 2021: You can notice the yellow tinge in some of the corn plants.

In the name of research, I emailed my corn crop consultant (AKA my brother, Kent, who raises a lot more corn than we do.) His diagnosis - after I sent some photos - was, indeed, ugly corn syndrome. He attributes it to the amount of cold, cloudy and wet weather we've had. He also said some varieties show it more than others. 

June 9, 2021

 And the hot weather is doing more than making me uncomfortable, he says. It also impacts the corn. They started planting irrigated corn almost two months ago.

We see it (ugly corn syndrome) to some extent most years, more this year due to the amount of cold, cloudy and wet we’ve had. Some varieties show it more than others. I think it’s also the plant having to metabolize the herbicides we use in the cloudy and cold. It’s doing fine but should be waist high at this point, and we’re not.  And now that we’ve warmed up, it’s really trying to grow fast, and it doesn’t have the root system developed to handle that quite yet.

Kent Moore, Pratt County farmer

Another spring-planted crop - our milo crop (below) - appears off to a good start. It may be hard to see the little green sprouts down the rows in this overview shot.

But a closer look revealed a good stand after good moisture.

No ugly milo syndrome here ... at least, not yet. (For the record, I'm not sure ugly milo syndrome is a "thing," but until last week, I didn't know about ugly corn either ... other than corn that was impacted by a drought or low yields or another dozen problems.)

So far, so good.

***

If you'd like an in-depth look at corn, my brother is featured in this video produced by Kansas Corn. He operates our family's fifth-generation Pratt County farm in South Central Kansas.

Third Time's the Charm?

I've always loved the fairytale setting for our little farm home. The mighty arms of a chorus of old trees shade our house and yard.

Home Sweet Home "dressed" for fall - file photo

But on Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning, I was questioning my love affair with our big old trees. I know that Sunday night's storm toppling our 100-year-old-plus cottonwood had something to do with our hasty exodus from our upstairs bedroom to the main floor. As branches pummeled the roof and rain fell in sheets, it sounded a little like we were in a war zone. (Not that I know what that sounds like, but you get the idea!)

Early morning light revealed that not all the branches and trees had fallen in the Sunday night storm. There seemed to be plenty to "decorate" the yard and smash the rain gutter and flag pole after Tuesday night's storm, too. But, thankfully, the roof survived at our house. However, we will have to replace the roof at the farm employee's home.

The road in front of our house had been blocked by our massive cottonwood Monday morning. On Wednesday morning, it was trees from the shelterbelt across the road that blocked our way until Randy could get the loader tractor to again clear the path.

Our south driveway again took a hit in the Tuesday storm. This tree was just to the east of the cottonwood.

The tree that shades Randy's pickup also got an unexpected haircut. Thankfully, it didn't fall on his pickup.

We have had our share of wind storms this summer. A storm in mid-June skewed our lean-to and made it "lean" a little more than it should, as well as delaying wheat harvest for a few days.

The same storm damaged trees at a cemetery not far from our farm.

The two storms this week brings us to three - count 'em, 3! - violent wind storms since June 21. I'm really hoping "third time's the charm" comes true and puts an end to the storms and the damage.

Google tells me that the origin of the phrase "third time's the charm" is probably ancient since things that come in sets of three have often been associated with good fortune due to their similarity with the Holy Trinity. Another source says that the possible origin for this phrase comes from the common folk belief in perseverance. It's said that one shouldn't just give up in the face of setbacks and should instead, "Try, try and try again." This suggests that trying once or twice isn't enough, but trying four times is too much.

I'm all for perseverance, but I'd say a fourth wind storm this summer would, indeed, be too much.

However, Randy and I were surprised to see that the corn had fared much better than we'd expected.

Both of us had envisioned our corn snapped in two and leaning over like our trees. So we were surprised and, yes, thankful, too!

I missed this round of the clean-up since I needed to be in Stafford at 8 AM to help with 4-H foods judging.

Hmmmm - maybe I wasn't too sad about that!

***

This morning, we did a little farm scouting tour. Here's the milo, which has enjoyed these abundant "drinks" of water lately:

The silage is doing well, too: