Letter to Dave

Dear Dave,

Thanks for the visit, Dave. Jamie and I drove out to visit you earlier this month for a few hours and it was great as is typical for these trips.

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When I travel alone, I usually leave about three in the morning. This isn’t always a good idea as sometimes I arrive at places before they open. Our nephew, Jamie and I left about six that morning bound for Carrington. He and I had great conversation about work and farming and the importance of “C” stores. I need coffee every 45 minutes of a road trip so “C” stores are the only islands of convenience which provide my bitter, dark, liquid master.

We arrived in Carrington around eight and met you at Erickson Implement. It was good to see you and good to see the Farmall 450 tractor restoration you completed last summer. I think Jamie and I both liked the new chrome exhaust which looks so good at a parade.
Breakfast was good and made even better when you paid. You, Jamie and I have represent fairly different backgrounds however we sure intersect at agriculture. I could talk to you guys all day.
The trip to the NDSU experiment station was good. I like the old buildings and like to let my mind wander to a time when they were first built. It was nice to see some cattle wandering around the feed lot, they looked pretty relaxed.

Our next stop was the best, the VanBedaf Dairy. These folks must have an awful lot of common sense and they must have considered every detail before they built their farm. What a pleasant place to visit. The VanBedafs store the various feedstuffs for their cattle in concrete bunkers just like at a fertilizer plant. Their drainage and waste removal is immaculate and I have never seen such a quiet place. When it comes to cattle, quiet is usually good. If cattle are mooing a lot that means something is not right in their perspective. It means they aren’t comfortable, they’re hungry or some element of their life that is normally present is not present. When we visited the VanBedafs dairy farm, there was not a sound. Honestly, I could feel the pressure of the silence against my ears drums, almost like being in a plane. I have never seen so many contented cattle with so little interest why the humans were staring at them.
The work you have done on Mary and your home is fantastic, Dave. I said it that day and I will write it here; we Nelson’s truly undervalue our own labor. I am amazed at how labor-intense your house projects are until I look at my own. I always say if I wasn’t working then I would just be on the couch drinking coffee and I am better on my feet. You apparently feel the same way, Dave.
Tell everyone hello, until we meet again.

Your little bro’