July 22nd………..“GRANDPA, WHEN YOU HEARD THAT YOUR FAMILY FARM, NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA WAS COMPLETELY GONE…….WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS”?
POEM – “Farewell Dear Farm”. Created by N. Elliott Noorlun on May 2nd of 2015 when I heard that the last vestige of our farmstead had been removed to make room for more acres to plant crops on.
Elliott’s family farm 3 miles northwest of Kiester, Minnesota in the Summer of 1968. The Noorluns had come back to Minnesota, on vacation from their new home in Battle Ground, Washington, and had a natural yearning to stop by to take this photo of what used to be their home for many decades. 😉
Upon this soil, So black and rich,
We called this place our home.
For decades life, Transpired for us,
As across green fields we’d roam.
For my young readers to better understand this phrase of the poem…….., when a cow is comfortable, they will utter a long, soft sound; almost as if they were talking to each other (or their calf) in the quietness of their barn surroundings. That sound is called, “lowing”.
Our cows would low each evening,
After father had milked and fed,
And they settled to straw beneath them,
Warmly comforted to bed.
These memories planted, So bright and clear,
Still glow within my soul,
Integral to, The scope of life,
That helps to make me whole.
Yet, just today, I heard the news,
The remnant of what was,
Has fallen to, The bulldozer’s blade,
And the sound of cutting saws.
A 1959 photo from the air of Elliott’s childhood farm looking to the northwest.
I may be only one oat seed in a field of millions, yet I have a story to share of beginnings on our beloved farm in southern Minnesota and beyond to life as I've seen it to this point. Famous? No. Gifted? Unlikely. Yet, I want to leave a legacy to my children and grandchildren of who this gentle Norwegian man was. My happy times, sad times, successes and failures. Someday, those who are tiny now, will have this volume to come to and get to know this Norwegian Farmer's Son.
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Norwegian Farmer's Son 