Our Rural Roots

Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, Contributor

Last harvest while driving the grain cart, my father-in-law came over a rise and found an abandoned car. Police determined that the driver and friends took a ride down the fenceline, turned left into our field where the car caught a low-spot and killed the engine. The group must have walked back to the road and caught a ride or stumbled home.

This summer, in a separate incident, we discovered evidence that someone made a three-mile trek through our fields and neighbors' fields (see photo accompanying this article). Drone video helped trace the route but unfortunately did little to find the vandals.

Don't get me started about the junk that gets thrown out along our beautiful rural roadways.

Driving down Main Street in Any Town, USA, recognizing a business is simple. There is a storefront, a parking lot, a door, hours of operation, lights and a person behind a counter or at a desk. Perhaps recognizing a business that is a farm while driving miles of "open" space can be difficult for the untrained or uneducated eye. However, when a person purposefully enters a field to "drive around" or empty their trash can, that's just pure disrespect.

Unlike stores which have security cameras, our fields are not protected by alarm systems, locks or brick walls. A driver can plow a vehicle right in and, all too often, drive right out of a field with no consequences, except when those low spots, high spots, sink holes, fenceposts or rocks (boulders, for that matter) pop up. Whether it is day or night, a person cannot see what is coming next when flying through 12-foot-tall corn.

I know I'm preaching to the choir. Sharing this common frustration with others brings a little comfort. I wish I could offer a solution other than talk to your neighbors and your schools and your young people. Vandalism is a crime and a violation that hurts not just a crop but a business and a family.

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-- Katie Pratt writes and shares her love of agriculture, community and family with others from a north-central Illinois farm. Find her writing blog at https://theillinoisfarmgirl.com/…

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