TODAY’S FARM
THE GLOBE
150 YEARS From Page 6
“The buck hit that and fell right over,” Jim said with a laugh. Jerry, thinking he’d just killed the animal, was terrified about having to give the news to his dad. That wasn’t necessary, though, as the buck soon shook his head and got up. During the Armistice Day blizzard of 1940, the Russells were caught unprepared and lost about half of their roughly 400-head sheep flock in the storm because they weren’t able to find their way home. They eventually sold the remaining sheep and began custom grazing for a neighboring sheep farmer. Jim said their family grew a lot of corn for silage, small grain and baled about 100 acres of alfalfa every summer. The feed and hay was fed to their 120-head of Hereford stock cows and 350 to 400 head of feeder cattle that Harry bought in Montana. By 1975, Harry and Evelyn moved into their new home a mile north of the Russell farm, and Jim and his wife, Cindy, moved in. Shortly thereafter, Harry sold the two smaller houses on the
Special to The Globe
Evelyn and Harry Russell were the third-generation owners of the Russell family farm in Bigelow Township. property, and they were moved into Bigelow and are still in use today. Jim said it was never his plan to go into farming — it was the dream of his older brother, Jerry, to take over the family farm. Jim had gone on to lineman school and was injured on a job in Little Falls. Around that time, Jerry was killed during his tour of duty in Vietnam. “That’s how things change,” Jim said. As the fourth-generation farm owners, Jim and Cindy got out of the cattle business during their first year on the
farm and began a farrow-to-finish hog operation within the next few years. They raised three children on the farm — Matt, Ann and Susan. Hogs remain a part of the operation today, with Matt and Alisa custom feeding 3,000 head in a trio of barns they constructed in 2001. They feed for Jackson-based New Fashion Pork. Matt began custom feeding hogs at age 15 and continued that through two years at then-Worthington Community College. He graduated from South Dakota State Uni-
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021 | 7
versity in agronomy and returned to the area, accepting a job as agronomist at United Co-op Elevator in Bigelow. By then, Jim was farming while also working for his brother, Dan, in Russell Drainage. Matt’s step into the family family operation “just kind of happened,” he said. He and wife, Alisa, married in 1996 and moved into Matt’s grandmother Hinsch’s house in Bigelow the following year. It’s that house that Matt and his parents traded in 2007. As the farm’s fifth-generation residents, Matt and Alisa were already heavily invested in ag business. Matt became a Pioneer seed dealer in 2000 and was custom feeding hogs, while Alisa, now a third-grade teacher at Prairie Elementary,
worked alongside him to raise their two sons, Nate and Adam. The two will become the sixth-generation owners of the Russell family farm. “They both have that love,” said Matt, adding that Nate leaves later this month to join a custom wheat harvesting operation based in Conde, South Dakota. Adam, meanwhile, graduates this spring from Mitchell Tech as an electrician. He has secured a job with Marmen Energy in Brandon, South Dakota, sponsors of his college scholarship. With technology changing so much during their generations on the farm, Matt said he wished his sons had the experience of walking beans and doing some of the other tasks that farm kids often groaned about having to do.
“They didn’t ride the bean buggy, either, but they picked rock,” Matt said. At age 50, Matt still has plenty of years to continue farming the land — now 260 acres — before the farm transitions to the next generation. The tillable acres are planted strictly to corn and soybeans these days, and Jim still helps with planting and harvest. Cindy, meanwhile, retired in December 2019 after 31 years with a local ophthalmology clinic. The Russells — and the Bird family before them — have made a living, and a whole lot of memories on the land in Section 32 of Bigelow Township. “To quote my mother, ‘When you hear about the good old days, some of them weren’t that good — they were just old,” Jim quipped.
HEADS UP POWER LINES ARE HOT!
Coming in contact with overhead power lines can be deadly. Today’s farm machinery is bigger and taller, making the danger of working around electric lines greater than ever. Spring can be the most dangerous time of all.
Make sure all family members understand these rules: • Utility lines are uninsulated. Don’t let your body become a direct link to the ground or the result could be fatal. • Know the clearance height of all farm equipment. To be safe, keep all objects at least 10 feet away from overhead lines. • NEVER attempt to raise or move a power line. If you’re operating equipment that touches a line, stay where you are and have someone call the utility. • If you must leave the equipment, jump as far as you can so that no part of your body touches the equipment and the ground at the same time.
For parts & service, call PSI.
1-800-555-1677
Serving NW Iowa, SW Minnesota, SE South Dakota & West Central Minnesota
22636 US Hwy. 59 - P.O. Box 788 Worthington, MN 56187-0788 800-776-0517
Website: noblesce.coop • E-mail: nce@noblesce.com