Greenfield, Iowa

Originally published in Sheep Production May/June 1984

Farmer’s Journal

Clark BreDahl
Greenfield, Iowa

Clark runs 200 whitefaced ewes that are
Finn X Rambouillet X Dorset and are bred
to Suffolk and Hampshire rams. He also
runs a small herd of commercial Hereford
X Angus brood cows and plants about one
half to two thirds of the farm to row crops.
All seeding is done with a no–till planter.

Greenfield, Iowa. It’s got a nice ring
to it doesn’t it. What could be more Mid-
west, more down home – more pure
corn, than Greenfield. Folks around here
call it God’s Country. The way the last
three winters have gone, however, there
are some who suspect he may, like a lot
of others, be vacationing in the Sunbelt.

Actually, if Greenfield, Iowa conjures
up thoughts of flat corn fields as far as
the eye can see, you had best go back
and check it out in your Funk and Wag-
nall’s. Iowa is not flat! Parts of Illinois
are flat. Ditto for sections of Minnesota,
North and South Dakota, Colorado (yep,
east of the mountains), Oklahoma and
Texas. Iowa, however, is undulating.
No sharp edges. Fertile. Nicely rounded
– much like a flock of freshly bedded
very pregnant ewes, quietly squirming
and groaning with expectation.

As for corn as far as the eye can see?

Well, in season that might almost be true.
In central, north central and portions
of eastern Iowa the rowed fields (both
com and soybeans) may literally stretch
indefmitely with the only breaks being

the country roads neatly squared off at

every mile. Here in God’s Country there
may occasionally be com as far as one
can see too. But usually that’s just be-
cause you can’t tell what’s over that next
hill a quarter mile down the road.

Adair county is lapland. We’re situ-
ated approximately half way between
Omaha and Des Moines, and roughly
20 miles south of the nation’s mainstreet,
Interstate 80. The northeast comer of
our county is prime row crop country.
South of Greenfield where I live, there
is some good land, but there are also
many areas where the hoot owls frater-
nize closely with the chickens!

Much of this county should be left in
grass. Perhaps it is pertinent that com
(or properly zea mays) is a grass too.
And it does seem most years to be won-
derfully adapted to our soils and climate.
But have we overdone it? For as long
as I in my 36 years can remember, Adair
County has been tops in the state in beef
numbers. In the last year or two, how-
ever, we have dropped to third as that
invisible dividing line between rowcrop
country and grassland moves precipi-
tously further south.

Returns for cow-calf operations haven’t
really been good here for over a decade
now, while at various times over those
years, many in high places have cordially
invited us to produce grain for the world.
It has not been a good policy from a soil
conservation standpoint, and sadly, not
from an economic one either. We have
bucked (pardon me) the trend here with
sheep on grass. It has gained us neither
fame nor riches yet. It has, however,
given us a certain amount of satisfaction
– the satisfaction that I think is univers-
ally shared by livestock people. I also
feel that perhaps we are handling our
land somewhat in tune with nature. We
raise com and soybeans too, but the
main ingredients are sheep, cattle and
forage. It is a combination that has in-
sured that most of the topsoil present
when my parents started farming here
nearly 60 years ago is still here today.

Oh, yes. I mentioned earlier that Di-
vine Providence seemed to have left for
the winter. We had heavy snow before
Thanksgiving this year, and the last three
weeks of March have been a continua-
tion of clouds, wet snow, rain and belly-
deep mud. We are starting to get calves
now, and have a couple of hundred as yet
unshorn ewes that we trust will wait at
least until the first week in April. We
pray for His return by then. Please hurry.