We bought the north forty in March for nine hundred dollars an acre, which was more than it was worth and less than it was worth, depending on how you count. We put in soybeans the first year and corn the second, and we ripped it eight inches deep the fall we bought it and the water went down where it was supposed to go, and the field that had been a lake became a field. Clara learned to read the furrows. She was slow at it and she was stubborn at it and after two seasons she could tell compaction from the seat of the truck, which is a thing most people can't do in twenty years.
We didn't put our names on the co-op list. We didn't need to. The list was public now, and it worked, and the fact that it worked was the point. Larry was out west. Dennis was inland and sent a Christmas card to C
