Rescuing planting season, spirits

By Terry O’Keefe, Staff Writer for The Public Opinion

Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 11:26 PM CDT

David Becking, foreground, and his wife Laurie pose with Farm Rescue volunteer Chad Hansen before Hansen headed out to plant the last 80 acres of soybeans on the Becking farm Monday morning. A team from Farm Rescue arrived last Saturday to help out the family. Both Laurie and David have suffered serious illness in recent months. (Photo by Terry O'Keefe)

FLORENCE — On a windy Monday morning, a group of people gathered in a farm yard northeast of here and got ready to plant some soybeans.

Hardly an unusual sight in South Dakota this time of year.

But the huge John Deere tractor and planter system was much larger than anything that normally sits in the yard and the man in the cab had no connection to the farm.

Chad Hansen of Red Lodge, Mont., doesn’t even normally farm — he’s a pilot for United Parcel Service (UPS). But for a couple weeks each of the last two years, he’s switched his schedule around and moved from piloting airplanes to piloting a tractor for a group known as Farm Rescue.

Farm Rescue, headquartered in Jamestown, N.D., is the brainchild of Bill Gross and came to be in order to provide aid to farmers in need of temporary help because of health issues or other crises that keep them from working their farms. The organization is supported by volunteers and a large number of commercial businesses including RDO Equipment of North Dakota which donates all the equipment.

Of the dozen or so people who stood in the yard at the David and Laurie Becking farm, eight were volunteers with Farm Rescue, coming from Montana, New Jersey and Kentucky and they were getting ready to finish planting 317 acres of soybeans for the Beckings.

The group arrived last Saturday afternoon and by Monday morning, just 80 acres remained to be planted.

For the Beckings, their arrival over the weekend was a blessing to get the last of their crops in the ground.

Last August, David Becking underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation. By February, complications had set in and more surgery was required to insert stents into the veins.

Just three weeks ago, Laurie Becking underwent major surgery as well, so the health issues have been a double blow.

As the rest of the crew began packing up the trailer and motor home they travel in, the Beckings led Hansen to the last field to finish the planting. For this particular Farm Rescue team, things were winding down on their South Dakota trip.

Coordinators Jack and Genita Limke were preparing to travel to their final stop in Calvin, N.D., before heading back home to Bardstown, Ky. During the month they have spent with Farm Rescue this spring, they have made a number of stops, including a couple in the Watertown area. One more planting stop is planned in the area when a Farm Rescue team goes to the Paul and Janice Streich farm near Nassau, Minn., when things dry out enough to get into the field there.

The weekend spent at the Becking farm was a memorable experience for those involved, especially the Beckings.

David Becking said he heard about the group from a neighbor and, after wrestling with the idea, finally contacted the Farm Rescue office in Jamestown.

“I contacted them the first of March and a representative was in the yard about the 10th,” David said, adding they filled out the paperwork and waited to hear the results.

“It wasn’t long,” said Laurie. “A couple of weeks probably.”

David, 59, has been on his farm for about 40 years, raising cattle and growing corn, wheat and soybeans. This year, the heart problems sapped his strength and he was able to hire someone local to plant the corn and wheat, but turned to Farm Rescue as the season moved forward.

“I was skeptical,” David said. “Would they make it (here) and would they make it when we needed them?

“They were coming from such a distance,” Laurie said. “But they’ve been just awesome. Unbelievable.”

Genita and Jack Limke, himself a North Dakota native and also a pilot for UPS, said Farm Rescue has grown and this year will help more farm families than it did in its first two years combined. Twenty families in North Dakota are being helped, they said along with six in South Dakota and two in Minnesota.

Asked his reaction to the team showing up in his yard last Saturday, David said it was overwhelming.

“In the short-term, just since Saturday, it’s felt like someone took a big piece of concrete off my chest,” he said. “Like being able to take a deep breath and relax.”

“They’re such caring people,” Laurie said. “It’s been great having them here. It’s been hectic, but great.

“I’m sad to see them go.”

Before coming to Becking’s, the group made a stop at the Terry and Stephanie Wicks farm near carpenter where they also planted soybeans. Stephanie Wicks was diagnosed with a rare nervous disorder this past winter that left her paralyzed and in a Sioux Falls hospital for five weeks.

She has been recovering from the attack, but the help of Farm Rescue took some of the pressure off the family.

One of the last stops for the spring will be at the Streich farm near Nassau.

Paul Streich was seriously injured last fall when a combine began to move as he was standing on the back wheel and he fell under the wheel.

The accident broke two vertebrae in his back, broke ribs, collapsed a lung and caused bleeding from both his liver and spleen.

He was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center in the Twin Cities where he remained hospitalized for 47 days, then under went 10 weeks of rehabilitation.

Paul, who is still recovering, and Janice were also in the Becking’s yard Monday, visiting and finding out more about the Farm Rescue program.

“I just started day-to-day activity March 1,” Paul said. “I just lost all my strength. I went from wheel chair to walker to cane.”

The Streichs have suffered through a wet spring in their area as well, but are hopeful the Farm Rescue crew will be able to plant about 300 acres of beans for them by the middle of next week.

Janice said she heard about the group from a friend and e-mailed and asked some questions.

“I wasn’t sure if they would come, but got a very good response,” Janice said. “I wasn’t sure (about the decision), but I’m certainly glad that we did.

“It’s all very humbling to have someone come in and help like that. It’s great for Paul — he’s lost so much strength, I was afraid he couldn’t even lift the seed bags.”

For the people who volunteer to do the work, there are personal rewards. Hansen said he enjoys meeting and helping the people involved and for the Limkes and their young children, it’s also a chance to reconnect.

“It’s just a neat feeling,” Genita said. “It’s a chance to give something back.

“It’s great to be able to come back here and help out. We take our vacation to do it and people ask why, but it’s great.”

For the family that lives just 30 miles from Louisville, Ky., it’s a chance to help out and get away at the same time.

“We take the kids with us and they see things they wouldn’t back home,” Genita said. “It’s very refreshing to come out here.

“I am concerned that we’re losing a lot of family farms.”

Reprinted with permission from Public Opinion, May 23, 2008.