 happening in the 21st century right now and they put out this amazing policy platform two months ago y'all and I don't know if anyone in this room has read it but please read it it matters so much for rural America they're asking for it into fossil fuel extraction they're asking for universal internet access for every time you like so many things that you're like oh this is just about like black urban people like it's not y'all and so I think there's real questions we have to ask ourselves in rural communities about what are the similarities we have with people but what are some of the differences and how we really understand that relationships are two-way streets and that it's not okay to just sit in our like tiny white community and say like well we don't know how to deal with X1 and Z because we're just here but to really reach out and realize that people are making substantial arm links out to us and it's up to us to return and I specifically think about it and have been trying my best as a young person to learn more about what this specifically means for a native sovereignty and that Indian country is not the same as rural America and we need to talk about that as a rural group whatever that means so anyway I just want to say those are some of my reflections over the last 24 hours as the work is amazing and we gotta go harder and we gotta go deeper and we really need to reach out to each other and some more thoughtful ways so thank y'all very happy to be here well good afternoon my name is Ronnie Taylor I'm one of two guys here with a cowboy hat on. The only guy from North Dakota and what brought me here is a long dirt road and I live on the end of a long dirt road south of town or North Dakota most of the time 60 miles between me and the town of 533 people I kind of think of a long dirt road is an analogy that is obvious to the world but it's the one that's kind of guided my life up to this point one I was a colonist for 21 years I can call him called cowboy logic and part of what I did there was bring stories about the life at the end of that dirt road to folks who lived on the ends of dirt roads all across the western US and western Canada I had a chance to serve folks at the end of long dirt roads when I was a elected senator three times in my state senate we had a 4,000 square mile district that had 13,500 people you know so that's pretty rural and the schools and the communities and the folks in that district had pretty distinct needs that I proud to represent I am raising kids cattle and horses at the end of that long dirt road and as of last August received the appointment to be the state director for USDA Rural Development and you know what rural development does they help up folks at the ends of long dirt roads we financed the fiber optic cable that came along my dirt road and brought a gigabit capable speed internet to my home in Corman Township which has six families and 36,4 miles that's pretty cool we make sure the hospital on the other end of that dirt road is modern and capable and well financed to satisfy folks needs and that we have things in that community that make us proud to live there so you know my mom was an artist and a fiddler and a coyote wrapper those aren't three things that are often put together my dad is a cowboy but that appreciation for the arts is probably what brings me here as much as anything and North Dakota is a resource dependent it's an oil and an ag state number three behind that is tourism and so you get tied to commodities and you're all of a sudden oil is below 50 bucks a barrel and sky is falling and wheat goes down and corn goes down and cattle go down and sky is falling and liver really is on the economy so how do you diversify that and I think with our work at Rural Development we're about improving quality of life and increasing economic opportunities and we know that gets beyond the commodities because commodity production will usually do what it does but how do you add value beyond that how do you expand beyond that and I think that's where the opportunities are that I want to be a part of maybe a takeaway since I'm a storyteller and wrote stories for 21 years I appreciate the storytelling session with the hearts and soul folks and so I think all of us gather here will think about not what we don't have but what we do have right and if we're living at the end of that dirt road it's a conscious decision we're not just stuck there we're there because we want to be there right and we're there because we have something that keeps us there and those were the questions that struck me in the storytelling session is not just storytelling for the sake of telling a story or entertainment which is what I've done a lot of my life but also to bring communities together why do you live where you do what do you have that you're most proud of right what's your biggest concern and I know one of the things that I'm most proud of is also my greatest concern because if we get together to work cattle on our place we've got 30 people there that we feed from around the neighborhood so we've got a community of folks that care more about their neighbors than they care about getting the neighbors land and it's a pretty competitive business where in a lot of places it's above longing on to what your neighbors got so you can be bigger and more efficient and produce more and make more right but we still care enough about each other that we all go helping each other and it's a tremendous day it's my favorite day of the year my biggest concern is that we might lose that right so it's good to be here today to be a part of that culture and part of this event Hi, my name is Michael Rode I come from Baltimore originally, I come from a Russian Jewish family, I come from Quaker school, I come from a lot of TV and I come from a lot of travel having spent most of my adult life working in different communities around the nation as an artist and I'm here today as the founding artist and executive director of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice which is a five year old national resource for artists and communities working together to build civic equity, health and capacity and we work at the intersection of arts and community workers and social change makers of the communities around the nation I used to say the lower 48, I do a bunch of work in Alaska of Lake, so the lower 48 and and I'm also the founding artistic director of Sojourn Theater which is a 17 year old ensemble based theater company and we make original work and I'm really listening to the three of you talking about work and thinking about story and the things that have been on my mind today and on my mind lately as I thought about this conversation was the condition of empathy and the action of listening and as we are all amidst the current landscape of public discourse and political tunnels, it seems and I know I've been told by my parents and my grandparents that a long time ago a great-grandparent many of whom I just mentioned who were not born here that everyone always thinks that they're in the most tumultuous time that everyone always thinks that their story is mostly meaningless that everyone always thinks that folks have never listened as much as they don't listen today I find it hard to believe it was 49 years ago that there have been a lot of times in the last couple hundred years of how things have been going here that listening has been as poor as today but then again there are many people we can talk to in this room and elsewhere who would say no that is not the long history of not listening here so I am interested in our conversations here about how we are all through the very projects that we take on and the very initiatives we support and the various missions and agendas of change that we spend our blood and sweat and energy on how we are not only making space to build the capacity for listening in spaces where it is perhaps rare and difficult but how we are also committed to transformation of self in the process of working on listening I don't know how many of you have this experience but a lot of my work as an artist and a community worker has to do with trying to build capacity and space and occasionally at home the person that I live with and my life and the co-parent of our children will say to me don't you work on listening a lot? she says so let's bring some of that home and I have been thinking about that a lot again commitment to change and equity and inclusion in all aspects of our work particularly working on the practice of partnership which is what we spend a lot of our time doing in Alaska a few weeks ago working with a housing authority and community partners and artists on how do we make space for ethical collaborative co-design and co-creation in the world and urban context it's going to be meaningful, resident driven, creative, innovative and change making so I'm excited to be in the room with you learning about that offering a little bit of experience on that and hopefully learning how to listen better I'm the executive director of Region 5 Development Commission in central Minnesota where I serve and work and play I'm actually foremost a mother of three adult children and one grandmother, one grandbaby and proudly the wife of my partner of 32 years and that is most important and he will tell you the thing that keeps Cheryl Hills motivated in moving every day is the fact that I have to have my hands in the dirt at least once a week to be whole and to have my mental and all the same so I think that's who I am that's where I come from and what brings me here is the journey that we started in central Minnesota around building a resilient region about five years ago and it has been a very interesting journey on how to live up to and hold our values of people in that five county area that is economic prosperity that truly adheres to environmental stewardship and really pays attention to our values around quality of life for all people and I know that's live service a lot but it is work that has engaged us into a lot of new relationships that's taken us to the places like this with colleague brothers and sisters as yourselves that are doing work in the space of place making and involvement of our next generations in ways that value creative thinkers so we're on the beginning of what I call the place making journey in central Minnesota with a lot of work ahead of us frankly so what I'm holding Eric to answer your third question is so much gratitude when I look around this room and I see these people and I've been listening to these sessions all day and the expertise you hear on this panel it is easy to walk away from summits like this and feel very intimidated and go back home and say holy shit we all walk away too there's just not enough time to do what I've got to do to make things better for the people that I care about in our region yet I look around and go I've got a lot of brothers and sisters here that can help me figure this out I'm not alone and that's gratifying and I'm very humbled by that and very appreciative so thank you all for being here and I think we should dive right into some questions here what do you think? I think we should dive into questions I just want to thank the panel so I want to actually also thank Matthew and the folks from my other room who have put this together because in some ways this panel is representative of what we're talking about you've got folks that are really rooted in the arts like Michael and Nathan Appleshop and what they all do but also that work is also what community you've got folks that are coming in from rule development and from that kind of development point of view you've got Jeremy as an intermediary kind of supporting individual artists so they're the driver, artists made by artists so I just want to acknowledge that I want to talk about y'all like right here please be I also want to just reflect on some of what I've heard as I've given y'all time to think about who wants to raise their hand first to I can't come up and say hello but you know this notion of wanting, number one we're not alone in this work it's about relationships with this idea of how do we transform ourselves it starts with us and this notion of listening I think he talked to us about this relationship to being two-way streets and Jeremy Bennett's here in the house as an accommodation with him and he talked to me the other day we talked a lot about how we want to give voice to the voiceless and he was saying that maybe we need to actually be given ears to the ears because there's so much there's a lot of talking but there needs to be more listening so I just want to first quote that this idea of us really trying to think about the new systems that are needed as we move forward to really get us to the better place in the 21st century how we build on things like community identity how we meet people where they're at many people where they're at I think is so important and really I think and then the last one Ryan said what is it we love about the places over there what's at the end of that long year because at the end of the day it is about love for our place that's how we do this work so with that who would like to who has a question or comment that they want to share with the group and if you could give your name and word in front would be awesome my name is Christine Gauvay from central Virginia and you do some things up beautifully I guess what I would ask the panelists you know been listening a lot today and what do you see I don't know how to easily frame this but in terms of continuing to learn from and support one another what do you see as the greatest opportunities and challenges that we as a group of people can continue to do to support one another learn from one another and to kind of create that rising tide for rural communities you know across the nation there isn't like under the chair I'm not sure who wants to jump in first but so what do we need to continue to do to really help ensure that as the tide rises we're making sure the tide rises and that rural communities are benefitted from that supporting one another I think and continuing as you know beyond individual communities who wants to jump in say hello I think it'll kind of vary a little bit maybe there will be opportunities for us all to continue to work together and I think as a pioneer collective folks talked about we're not all millennials here probably but to be on the platforms that millennials are which hopefully we should all be on and maintain that relationship together to hold each other up and I told this one as I called Cheryl the other day so since I've got young children eight, ten and twelve I've relayed everything to the children's book and the book about filming your bucket above their head and when you're saying mean things they're to each other it's empty and if you're building them up the bucket fills back up and you can see that bucket where everyone's head I think maybe a smaller sense than the whole group and maybe it won't connect to Charlottesville and Virginia but for me having just designated a promise zone in North Dakota with the Toronto Mountain Band of Chippewa and the Spirit Lake Dakota that I'm going to definitely work with the folks that I've met here that have the other promise zones and are using arts to build economic opportunity in promise zones where there's persistent poverty and it's Kentucky and South Carolina places that I don't go to every day but maybe the advice would be to seek out and build these relationships here maybe we'll get together again in a year or two years and we can always contact on those platforms that are out there if I'm not too excited about that I actually think that for me I would say to Matthew during the break we have tried to back so much into this day because we just don't do this and so I'd actually say that this is a great opportunity but this is a first installment in some ways of exactly that how do we start to get to know each other the other thing I'd say is that for me personally I'm walking with a pile of cards in my pocket and I would encourage each of you if you don't come away from this thing here are four new folks I would say going to conferences is kind of like you meet people and you can take these rocks away new contacts you can only take some of your rocks home but you'd better be taking at least two, three, four, five rocks home with you folks that you're going to follow up with that you're going to email, that you're going to talk to and really rely on and Cheryl said knowing that we're brothers and sisters in this work that we're all in this together so another question here we have found that when communities of practice in geographic regions are trying to find different ways to come together over time and build coalitions of practice or support that it seems that there are three main things that bring different personalities or organizations to the table and the sort of sweet spot is figuring out how to let all three of those things coexist in the network and one of them is people come together to learn people come together to talk about problems and challenges and get into problem solving mode and people come together to highlight bright spots or successes and the trick is some people really only want to come together to problem and time to problem stop and some people only want to come together to a learning opportunity and so on so how do you make spaces where either you have three tracks that people can intersect on or how do you allow all three of those things to happen simultaneously so different folks have inroads to the process and possibilities to develop relationships in a larger than just a couple entities at a time so adding to that I think one of the things that we also thought about is along the lines of those three tracks is thinking about who's at the table and who else might care about the issues that we're talking about and who else should be at that table and that goes back to thinking about our own views and our own biases and where we come from and who else might have a different view that can add diversity and frankly innovation to solve some of the issues and to address some of the conversations and I think not only addressing how people what they want to do when they come together but that ecosystem is can be sustained and create great work when there are those diverse views at the table and certainly when those are trying to benefit and impact are there. Hi, thanks great panel. I'm Sam Cortes from Ridleyville, Illinois um he talked about the importance of community identity Cheryl you work in a fairly large geographical space, much more region there can be tension between individual community identity and that larger region can do you or any of you make comment on how that tension can be overcome in general using the arts in particular whatever. Yeah, I mean obviously community can get used in a lot of ways, right so another woman who specifically talks about community of place, right so it's a very place specific community so it's not around a cultural context or something racially or some identity thing it's about where you live. So for instance when I think a lot about the community identity of my region it is based around the people who have come in and out of that physical landscape the Appalachian region and what our cultural identity is it's not static right I think one of the things that I feel like is one of the biggest tension points is people feel like this is the culture like this is what we are and there's no strain from that whereas we understand most cultural identities come from a long array of people and influence in a way that things meld or don't meld together and that we're always creating culture right that we like for instance at Appalachia we talk a lot about cultural sustainability that it's not captured in a jar we're not putting a dead butterfly on a chart so we can understand the biological whatever that we are a part of helping create and understand that for instance right now in Appalachia one of the most lively cultural events are punk rock shows it's not the banjo in the fiddle so you know it's like I think I guess I just want to wriggle out of that question a little bit and say yes I think there can be community and regional conflicts and yet I think we need to be a little more thoughtful about culture is an active thing that is changing and that we also have to understand the rules of it and where it comes from and I think there's a lot of making panels but another thing I've been taking away a lot is that a ratio of who we are and where we come from being a key thread of also what happens in small towns and rural areas as people leave you don't know where your people went and where they came from so anyway I guess I didn't exactly answer the question but that's my take on it I don't know it never happens in any country it's almost never it does actually and so I'm going to admit something I'm a very territorial and I'm very passionate about the work that I do and most recently there was an organization that has traditionally done financial lending on a national level and is kind of working within the same sector as First Peoples Fund as an artist now and initially the ego kind of took over and like what are they doing in my sector they're in my sandbox and it was really hard for me to kind of say you know but after evaluating things and talking with them you know they bring a whole different skill set to the work that we're not working and we have already we're doing something amazing within our own communities but it all impacts the community in a positive healthy way and for me to really kind of wanting to take a meaning to take a meaning and saying you know what this organization really has something to offer that's really great and benefits us holistically not just First Peoples Fund and the work that we do but the community is going to and the communities across the region are going to do that that was something that really had to accept I guess at a personal level, at a professional level as well I don't know if that's just a question but it sure is interesting I really appreciate sharing that I'll make just tap on something there because it's brought about tribal nations and the other folks say in North Dakota we have five tribal nations and the rest of us can live six miles away and I can think of folks I served in political life with that had never traveled to a tribal nation in North Dakota and they're North Dakota's and it just blew my mind and so one of the projects we recently helped fund but the community facility loan and grant and Northwest Area Foundation was involved and the tribal council was involved and they happened to locate it within the rock's throw from the casino so we know that we're starting whether we have a discussion about that but folks are starting to come together and now it's not just some slot machines or a blackjack table but actually a chance to appreciate the culture that is generations deep there and a portion of the art that can create opportunity because up to 25% of that facility can be used for retail purposes and business so I think whether we travel outside of the US we know that handshake diplomacy and relationships come from a lot of different ways but you're right I think it can come from the arts and when we can help fund a project like that that's worthwhile along with the music that takes place that brings people together that's way to break down barriers thanks Sam for that question on a regional scale can be difficult sometimes but I think the approach that we've taken in central Minnesota is to say we have a lot of commonality and opportunities in that region on a regional scale but we don't have to do everything on a regional scale and we don't have to lose the identity and the autonomy of our very small towns those small communities that value their culture and want to maintain that micro-polyton that's 50,000 people 20 miles away they still want that culture and that autonomy and they want the control frankly to stay small so the approach that we've taken is to say yes and we can think about regional strategies that address some of the challenges that we're dealing with whether it's in the space of broadband or whether it's energy or local foods and food sovereignty some of those things on a regional scale some of those things need to be done on a localized level and that's okay so it isn't a one size fits all I think that's important our approach has also been to start as your question indicated around arts and culture but it's always been with food so for us it's been creating culture through food and art and so that's the marriage that we started with because that was the common thread that a region had that quality of place and that involved food and arts and to create our culture so I think does that answer your question a little bit as I'm walking I'm about to sell some of this part of the question for me also is this idea that we all do better when we all do better and so part of it is how do you broaden that conversation to recognize that if my neighbor 300 miles down the road that actually helps me as well and I think that also when we put that in a cultural context we also often have this like us versus them kind of thing and I think in one of the great conversations we were talking a little bit about how actually when there's more equity we actually are all going to do better in the long run so I think that's there's a framing part of this I think there's also an opportunity I think my piece of the puzzle has to do with Mark Luther King said in the racism and anyway but not much of the farm aspect of social attention so for example a Jerry Farmery in New England shot all of his cows with a shotgun I guess and shot himself I don't think he tells me he's being listened to and I'm someone who has worked on farm issues for 30 years and had a lot of people for decades saying we want to listen to farmers we want to listen to farmers we're here to listen to farmers we're here to listen to farms kind of like that and so anyway here 10, 15 miles away we had you know his wife murdered so she wouldn't know that he murdered his banker and then he murdered his and he murdered a neighbor and then he shot himself and I don't think he felt he was being listened to either so the you know just to translate that back to how I hear things you know I come from a certain place I mean I see that here we have listened to some anyway to Native Americans and to Latino and so forth I heard things a couple of things I've heard were in this session you know beyond commodities is where the opportunities are is kind of like saying that the core belt, wheat belt, cotton belt very belt, western rangelands is it their biggest issues aren't what we want to focus on if we're doing rural art again that's filtered through my experience and my fathers and my grandfathers what I mentioned them you know but anyway on another part of it and I'll sit down here everyone thinks that there's the most tumultuous time with the least listening and that sounds kind of like a distancing thing as to the commodity I think it has to be objectively examined okay I spent eight years examining how people are listening to it how are they hearing for example in the food movement what has been a 50-year social drama in Iowa and across the nation and I think we've got a recent history I think there's an objective reason for saying I'm not even sure to be the woman's history here that has two archives but you can't get it online the good stuff you have to come to Iowa it's not it's not digitalized much yet so attention I think first off the stories that you're saying are real like this is happening to people all the time every day in this country and obviously it's not just farmers that they don't feel like they're getting listened to and they're going to drastic measures and so that's what I was saying earlier people aren't really hard situations right now and it's really hard to watch as anyone who has an analysis has a worldview, etc it's really hard to watch the situation that I think our country has put itself in and the way that it has decided to treat its people and I think that for me you know when you're speaking about the local foods movement or whatever like for me it's around climate change right as a young person do I feel like it's better to have an environment that's hopefully going to be protected longer yes what does that look like on the ground for me in my place looks like massive disinvestment no jobs, no opportunities economic collapse we haven't figured out yet and this is what I was trying to speak to before is like what new systems are going to be created to when we disinvest in all the current forms of energy production we have there are ways to reinvest into the places that we're looking at because of that and I think that's the same thing with production in this country I don't know it as deeply I don't live in a place where there's massive agriculture but I think these questions are the same questions we as a people, as a community, as a country have to figure out and specifically within our financial structures it's not just the government it's the private investment world that has got to figure out when it disinvest how it's going to make sure a place that specifically rules small towns, any country etc continue to have investment when things are when society tells us that things have to shift over here and probably it's a good thing, those shifts and yet it doesn't feel like that when you're on the ground it doesn't feel like it's a good thing it doesn't feel like people are getting listened to it doesn't feel like they have any chance for anything new it feels like we're just left and I think it's one of the biggest dichotomies within this country right now and I think it even brings to bear the founding of this country what is the role of this country in my opinion it was to do what it's doing now to continue to make as much profit as possible on whatever means that it has to make so you know what I think these are big questions we have to wrestle with and I think the hard part that you're bringing up is that people individual lives, human beings are affected communities are affected when humans are affected it what's my call, avalanches so anyway I just want to say thank you for bringing it up and I hope we can wrestle with these questions together I appreciate the question and just to talk about commodities and as a guy who took the Aggie County College and I'm not saying that there's no opportunities in commodities because our family has tried to make a living at that for generations my good friend Sarah Bogo was the one who led the lawsuit of Coleman v. Block during the 80s crisis when those things that are still happening as you said were happening at that period of time as well in our mind and not to put any barriers but for the folks in western North Dakota or those who produce oil they can't control the price of oil and OPEC makes a decision miles away and their local economy will be subject to that and I personally can't set the price of cattle that we sell in a co-op of Oregon that directly sells to the wedge in Minneapolis and maybe that gives me a little more control and now working in world development that's maybe the place where I can make a difference if I can make a difference on commodities I don't sure do it but where I can make a difference with the work that I've got right now is value act producer grants and with making sure that if you're going to have a vibrant agriculture you've got to have a vibrant community so that if you're whether you're producing commodities or whether you're producing something more value added you've still got a hospital that your family can depend on you've still got the entire center if you need a place for your children you've still got the internet to connect to the rest of the world so appreciate the question and hopefully there was next slide there's a question one minute one minute there's two questions back here this is sort of a follow up to what's being said please forgive my I grapple with this but I can't quite get in on the specific articulated but in light of this moment of a long moment of agonizing transition between economic change it can at times become a bit of a triage for an artist in a great way in that all of the artistic sensibilities can lead to creating structures or being a mediator or communicator or being a teacher or being a fundraiser all of these things that then the scaffolding for that very delicate very erotic or that very sensitive spiritual component whatever you want to call it that thing that relates to aliveness which I think is needs to rival any aspect of community infrastructure let's say a company I'm trying to be really careful so in thinking about this transition which is a long term one so then how do we talk about the long term while dealing with the present how do we protect these more for lack of a better word esoteric components which are so important to human evolution like not only responses to structures that are tool based or problem solving but are based on vulnerability and purpose how do we protect that artistic part that is so crucial and also how do we talk about these different economies that are melding and mixing and bumping heads these gift economies and these market economies my name is Matthew well I just want to say I feel like I feel like the space between what you offer and what you're saying is this question that is partly a question of these couple days as well as being an ongoing question which is when an artist engages in the kind of practices we're talking about and the kind of attempted interventions or change work that we're talking about what's the artist's responsibility what's the artist's accountability what's the artist's participation in and around human pain in and around crisis and fear in and around struggle of all kinds what is the responsibility of creative and artistic practice that moves through story and through process right in the middle of it whether directly attempting to impact lives in collaboration with people's lives or affected by what we're dealing with or making the thing from the belief that the making and the thing are offering something else in collaboration with change efforts responsibility, accountability ethics, intention all that stuff is not a panel arriving at a conclusion moment but like you very generously and it seems with cost for a moment brought no pain into a conversation that is suffused and filled with pain I mean we're talking the kind of changes lots of frameworks and language around people hurt it and I imagine like a lot of us in this room at different points in our families histories have sort of had our families move through various kinds of pain and there's great real pain right now that's at the center of the kind of issues a lot of people here are working with so I really hope that that conversation continues I just wanted to affirm what you were saying and thank you for sharing it and you were comparing that other people's stories were being heard more than the other and that's good and I just want to put to your point I think what you're saying points to the fact that we all have worked to do together right so now you're feeling this pain and many others have been feeling this pain for a long time but let us not isolate ourselves into our pain let us go towards all of the people who were doing this work historically felt this pain because if this moment is calling for anything it's for us in that side of us so thank you for your response I don't know if you can say anything after that let's go ahead let's just add one quick thing what a great moment for us to be able to use arts and culture to walk us through some of those conversations and if not for art to be able to depict some of these issues and different lights in ways that we can bring them forward and talk about them then what so I'm really grateful that there's an opportunity for us all to address the fears that we have look at these issues on all sorts of levels and use art and culture as a way to do that this is a good day I also just want to say as we close out this is a someone told me that the systems that we have are designed exquisitely to get the results we're getting when you couple that with this notion of the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results the reality is that we do we have to apply all of our creative talents we have to work together as a family we need the vulnerability we need to be recognizing seeing each other hearing each other and working together to try to build those new systems hopefully today has been a great day for y'all the last 24 hours it's been kind of an installment on that we have the rest of this evening together where we can continue these conversations continue to kind of explore these possibilities and obviously that will be together tomorrow in the morning so I just want to thank the panelists again and thank y'all for that thank you so much we have one more treat for us to complete our day today and to really bring some local context to our event we're fortunate to have Mary Slaughter with us today who is the poet laureate from Iowa and she's going to be she's going to be here today to read and she has an actress with her and you can see in your program what this is going to be about but it really is how land is really the thread that finds all stories together so we're really excited about that it's going to take about 10 minutes for Mary to get everything set up up here so we'll just hang out here a little bit and please continue your conversations that you were having and just a couple other pieces so Mary will perform we'll have that, we'll have time for a few questions and then it's on at a moose lodge tonight for a lot of fun we will have buses leaving from the same place today that they dropped you off and where they picked you up last night we will have an express bus directly from the 11th center to the moose lodge we will also have buses that will go from the 11th center to downtown and to the moose lodge so they will rotate, they'll continually rotate so we'll get people going and just another thing is once you're at the moose lodge if you're ready to come home we will have buses running again, Sheraton Camp out to the moose lodge, Sheraton Camp and the last bus to leave to the camp at 11 o'clock just to let you know and I'll remind you of that again but I just wanted to give you that information but that's where we're at now we're going to take about 10 minutes to get this stage set up so continue your conversations and again thank you for everybody participating and hanging in today I'm an artist I do a lot of organizational work and I use my I use my I use my I use my I don't even know I don't know I want to hear $50 it's empty I know, I really don't I've been waiting they have not ruined hey, you guys are kicking ass though good work let me up there that's it I think it's an excuse because I love the director so much he'll hear me like, you know, like oh my god but I said you I'm supposed to stay back and be like she goes I don't know I'm an artist I'm an artist that was the key thing when you just set up it's really exciting the rest of us talk to artists it might all have different ways it pays to be part of what we can but especially since it's legit some days it's like no it's like Kate and Mary so thank you for your patience and getting us through this and let you do a little introduction the swap of land in the United States is going to change hands in the next 10 years it adds up to over 2 million acres and a couple of years ago Practical Farmers of Iowa a conservation minded farming organization commissioned me to write a complaint about farmland transition and what you're going to see is Map of My Kingdom starring Maria Ortiz which has been touring now all throughout the Midwest in farmers barns to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to the USDA with Tom Bilsack and it is these agricultural plays that I've been doing for about 10 years have spawned an organization called AgArts which is to promote healthy food systems through the arts so there's a booth out in the hall we'll give you a lot more information about that and right now we're going to have Maria bring us Map of My Kingdom I just heard this story a few months ago now I remember getting this out of the blue news from my mom that my grandma sold the farm but I never heard how she went about doing it until just a while back it was only recently that I began to understand why my grandma sold the farm exactly like she did Carl Huber told me this story one Saturday morning when Grandma Millie was around eight years old she knocked on his door his farm was the next one over and she pulled into his driveway and put 41 forward and she laid out terms on contract, such and such for acre real top dollar and Carl, he's just standing there not knowing what hit him I don't mean Millie, just Carl your father and my father immigrated homestead of this land they've farmed side by side for years and you and I work together as neighbors all our lives we've seen a lot of harvest a lot of threshing crews and Carl, he's nodding along but can't get a word in edgewise and Millie is just now you Hubers have always been good farmers and I know to take good care of the land and then your sons will be the same after you a little steep, that ain't fair but a little steep and that he didn't really need another farm and that his boys were already set up and Millie, I have already had my lawyer drop the papers and they're all ready we'll sign them Monday morning with that and Carl took her hand and she told me Monday morning you signed the papers and Carl did that story a while back up until then I had known the details my mom had simply received a letter one day Grandma sold the farm my mom was stunned we all were no discussion, just a letter that it was sold that it was gone my mom had grown up on that farm I had spent some revocations there but we were in the city then but the farm that was steady always home no matter where we were always there and then it wasn't now my mom was an only child and had no intention of farming but still had been in our family for nearly a century I puzzled over that transaction for years my grandma Millie passed out long after she and Carl shook hands I guess I realize now my grandma knew her mind and wasn't about to have anyone change it no discussion, just a handshake with Carl and this letter I wondered, I started thinking how do other families handle these things I mean, we don't even have a real word for it selling the farm land transfer and it's not just that we don't have a real process for how to do this let alone do it well the process has always been difficult this is one of the reasons my family left Ireland as the population grew, land was divided into smaller and smaller farms too small to sustain even a single family and then the potato there, single crop failed and you know that story there was a story though I followed in the newspaper I think everyone in the whole state followed the case of these two brothers and it was just pain and evil I mean, even now there is still this primal thing when it comes to the land now, it was the late 70s and there was this big push on farmers get big or get out both brothers like in Tim thought they hadn't worked out with this old bachelor farmer close with their parents almost like he was in the family since he had no family of his own the brothers both had good size operations the bachelor farmer was in between them with just 80 acres this old man, small farm no one had passed it off to Mike, thought the old man was selling the farm to him Tim, same thing both felt that they had a right to the man's farm since it was in the family both thought they should have to inherit the farm and they did not want to wait both worried the old man might will it to the other brother so they were willing to give a good price to get the farm now, not risk it by waiting the competition for land was just fierce in those days farmers scanned obituaries attended funerals just so they could approach families to buy farms the old man he got so wore out he took to sitting on his porch with a shotgun each time one of the brothers came around trying to make his case he'd sit there with his hand on the gun all will the farm to my dogs if you don't leave me be ok so, while the brothers waited for the man to make up his mind they started to borrow money investing in an expensive machinery making plans for the land they were sure they would get longer they waited so expensive this became interest rates climbed on their loans land values were on the rise both felt that those acres, just those few acres and only those acres could get them out of debt and make them solvent now the brothers worked hard where white human churchgoers well respected members of the community Mike was that great neighbor always going to take over another farmer's chores if he got hurt or sick Tim was on the county board supervisors, real respected fair-minded I mean, they had their differences right, Mike was a Methodist Tim a Presbyterian but other than that finally Tim convinced the old man to let him at least lease the land and he started to pasture some sheep there Mike got mad really mad came roaring up yelling move your sheep off my land Tim you'll get your pickup off my land a huge search party for about 200 people who spread out over half the county to search for the missing brother after about 24 hours they finally found his body a bullet hole in his head stuffed into a culvert all of it covered over a straw the community just couldn't believe that Mike might have it had to have been some druggie who just blew through the area orders like this just didn't happen here the whole town, the whole family some chose to testify to Mike's good character others chose to stand for Tim but it just split them friends, cousins sitting in the courtroom facing each other and the parents they sat in between the two families stunned saying nothing Mike was charged with first degree murder he pleaded not guilty but the evidence was against him they found Tim's bloody scene cap in Mike's truck Mike was convicted and sentenced to life and prison brothers lost their farms one brother lost his life or maybe both did in a way their wives tried to hold on as long as they could but the farm crisis had begun in full force and soon their debts became too much for them the farms, their livestock everything the brothers owned was sold at the same auction I followed that case from the beginning all the way through the end of the trial and who better believe I began to understand my grandmother just a little bit better then in college first play we read in sophomore literature yep, Shakespeare's King Lear and it was like he understood by Grandma Millie too now King Lear knowing that his time was drawing near decided to divide up the map of his kingdom between his three daughters give me the map there know that we have divided in three our kingdom it is our fast intent to shape all cares and business from our age conferring them on younger strengths while we unburdened, crawled toward death Lear decided to offer the largest share to his youngest daughter, Cordelia whom he loved best all started Lear's eldest, gonerl, was not about to take that sitting down sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter dear than eyesight, space and liberty beyond what can be valued rich or rare then Lear's middle daughter Regan spoke up I am of that same self-metal as my sister and prized me after work in my true heart I find she names my very deed of love only she comes too short then Lear turned to his beloved Cordelia expectantly I love your majesty, according to my bond no more or less and Lear was devastated he disinherited and banished Cordelia and divvied up his kingdom between his two eldest daughters now our professor put this Freudian spin on the play saw Cordelia as this symbol of death went on and on how Lear was obviously afraid of his own mortality so he banished Cordelia death from his sight Lear made a complete denial of his own demise so the class discussion went on and on how the play was about sex, death wishes dreams, pun jokes women's hysteria really I sat there through the whole thing and here's the deal most of the kids in that class hadn't grown up on a farm but any kid who had any farmer reading Lear could see that the whole problem in the play is this idea of land how it's passed on transferred from one generation to the next next book we read was Jane Smiley's Modern Italian Lear a thousand acres and Smiley she just nails Lear all of it started to divide her kingdom whatever you get going on in your family whatever secrets like just beneath the surface boom they'll pop up alright take your pick incest, adultery attempted murder alcoholism abuse well they're waiting for you down at the farm now my mom would send me these little clippings from our hometown newspaper I've read more and more about the problems with families and farms and there would be these obituaries you could tell something was happening something different I learned that the suicide rate among farmers is 60 times greater than how average of other occupations someone has to help these people now okay of course there are families and farms that make smooth transitions but even in those families it had to have been hard starting that transition making it concrete all makes sense I started to think I got an advanced degree in psychology won in counseling then went to law school I focused on wills, trusts, estate planning I studied interpersonal relations, agronomy, economics this whole mix of things that didn't make sense to anybody but it made sense to me I moved back home and became a mediator for land transfer disputes believe me no one could have been more surprised than me by my choice so stuck out my shingle and never look back you know reading this might wonder what made King Lear even want such a large kingdom I mean one he could guess would inevitably lead to some kind of war maybe he didn't think it would start in his own family but see for most of the families I started to meet owning land meant everything owning land meant making things better making good on what their parents did for them making it better for their kids a real triumph generation after generation over poverty struggle servitude the agrarian imperative experts debate this idea all the time the historical genetic anthropological evidence suggests that those who engage in agriculture are fulfilling the agrarian imperative a desire to own land and a drive to farm is embedded in their very DNA hocus pocus a desire to own land has to do with monetary pressures the agrarian imperative instills in farmers the ability to work incredibly hard to endure unusual pain and hardship to take uncommon risks there's a personality type that goes with this bunk a farmer's success has nothing to do with personality or some genetic drive success revolves around economic, social and cultural capital these guys, winners like Conrad Lawrence have studied the territorial behaviors in birds and mammals humans have the same drive to mark out their territory and provide for their families there's an underlying anxiety that drives them regardless of what the experts thought I quickly learned from the families coming through my door what was truly at stake well Dan and I, we have three kids who want to come back and farm all have agriculture degrees hard workers all are interested in taking over the place but farm it's surrounded by subdivisions now and there's no real room to grow and we're worried about that went through the same thing with Dan's folks we started working, renovating his folks farm and when his parents passed Dan's brother well he's kind of got the greedy gene he contested the will I mean, we were there and he's not interested in that he sees the farm as development land, you know the subdivisions gets his idea the land is worth something like $40,000 an acre won't take care of cultural prices so he sued Dan sent out the will for a forensic test and looking at the ink, the signatures to prove something even tried to recruit our neighbors to testify against us that we were just parents, I guess we were in court for ten years we eventually settled with him six figures it was about as ugly as we could get now, I told my children I will come back and haunt you from the grave if you try anything like this and I mean, we finally got to start farming the land just a little bit ago you know, I really get to farm it, how we've always wanted to but we're not ready to be fed up just yet and the kids, well, they all have their own ideas of how they want to farm too which makes sense it'll probably be up to me to rally the troops when the time comes and I guess interview everybody about how they see it all fitting together for after you know the future Dan and I we get along pretty good but whew, there were some times when we were on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the land now, I'll read all up on something go try it, a few acres of organic vegetables a chicken tractor filled with poultry started a small CSA, things like that I asked Dan why don't we leave it to our children and Dan would say piece of expensive farm land well, all that expensive farm land washing down in the Gulf of Mexico and Dan would just well, the Roman Empire wore out their soil Dan and Dan would just say, I am trying to make living right now, right here without me to fix the whole damn Roman Empire now in him, I mean this soil is a global treasure plus our kids heritage our retirement too this soil we are truly blessed and if we keep putting all this ticking tack on top of it or, you know, don't do enough to I mean we are not only screwing up the soil we are screwing up the water we are screwing up the air we are screwing up some of our children's too we try to come up with a mission statement for the farm ooh, that is hard you know, I mean it's your home a mission statement for where to live I told my kids if nothing changes the day would come and they would have to start carving up the farm I see it coming and I'm not going to, you know, rule my kids from the grave but I will come back and give them a good visit they misbehave often act like women aren't involved in land decisions we think it's fathers who ask well, how do I divide the land among my sons but death, divorce maybe us paying a little better attention making clear this isn't just an issue between fathers and sons anymore probably never was, really I mean King Beard divided up his kingdom among his daughters it's a family thing back in college right here, Will and Catherine's old pioneers we come and we go right here and the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while only for a little while Will and Catherine was writing about the same things, the same issues I was seeing coming into my office Native Americans had little sense of land ownership what is this view called property Massesot asked the early settlers of Pemic Colony the earth for the land is our mother nourishing all her children the beasts, birds fish and all men the woods, the streams everything on it belongs to everybody how can one man say it belongs only to him then the Europeans came and superimposed a Jeffersonian grid on top of the land and introduced individual property rights easier to get to market with a great system of roads that's for sure but the grid partitioned off isolated family farms every family on a farm in the communal model issues with the land were figured out together in the European model you were on your own to solve problems even if the farm up the road or across the section was facing the same problems the same crisis asking the same questions and a lot of times these problems kept repeating themselves the generation family to family farm to farm a while back I went and saw my own family's farm in Ireland and all this clicked for me I looked out over the land with my cousin and she told me this story the ancestral farm was 80 acres but pure rock only 20 acres were actually tillable and that soiled that 20 acres of arable turf cut that up for fuel and literally burnt through all their farmland so the farm's got an idea they went down to the ocean and they hauled up these large baskets of seaweed and kelp from the beach and laid them out across the rocks and buried spars now after years and years of composting what they were pulling out of the ocean that soil became full and when my ancestors came here they actually had great soil but they burnt through it just the same and when the dust bowl came let's just say there wasn't a lot of seaweed here see Native Americans viewed all land all creation as sacred my ancestors they heard the Bible and read there in Genesis that God created heaven and earth to benefit all of humanity but it also says in Leviticus that the land shall not be sold in perpetuity for the land is mine for you are strangers and sojourners with me by grace not by right God has entrusted his land to humans who need to be good stewards of this gift the land these issues they're in Shakespeare and the Bible and all kinds of other sacred types too the Quran says that property should not be gained by unlawful means that its acquisition and continuity should not damage others that acquisition should not invalidate a valid claim well the experts say agriculture is the mother of all civilization it provided leisure time to develop the arts bunk agriculture did nothing but deplete the soil which became the downfall of all civilizations agriculture allowed people to become stationary to live in cities to develop concepts of government agriculture people developed hierarchical societies that mistreated women and children agriculture provided the basis for science, math, engineering religious traditions and rituals grew out of agriculture's rich symbolism the shepherd and his flock etc etc the Bible is right for motifs of agricultural metaphor my grandma Millie she knew two jokes that's right only two she told them over and over as long as I knew her and one of these jokes had to do with these so called motifs of agricultural metaphor that dealt with it probably a little better than the experts at least from what grandma Millie had did you could always tell the joke was coming because she would lean back look up I said she was remembering some long lost knowledge that it was vital for her to impart to you right then, right there you know I saw this enthusiastic young creature come upon this farmer working in his field now this young man was deeply concerned for this farmer's soul so the pup creature he asked the farmer are you living in the vineyard of the lord my good man and the farmer he looks at the creature he looks in the field nah these are soybeans yeah we were polite enough to laugh or at least chuckle at the time now these motifs of agricultural metaphor were not beyond Millie no she was sharp as a tack but folks don't often have a lot of use for some metaphorical potable son story especially when their own family is literally being pulled apart by one mama's mother had passed a few years back and her father wasn't in the best of health he had let's see a stroke, diabetes and this aggressive onset of congestive heart failure which was limiting blood flow to his brain it wasn't dementia exactly he would be lucid for small stretches of time and then his body would have to shut down reboot the farm was worth millions and the father did not want to sell he had two children a daughter Molly still on the farm and took care of the dad and the son Molly's younger brother Larry Larry had made a lot of money in restaurants and then lost it all of it came back to the farm and you know the story prodigal son asked for his inheritance and there's also the story of jake up here too chirping his father Isaac and blessing him the youngest son and stealing the birthright of his elder brother he saw unbeknownst to his sister Molly Larry convinced his dad to let him change the will Larry saw how much money he could make when they finally sold the farm and he started driving a Cadillac taking jet setting vacations flashing fancy rings on his fingers Molly and her husband started to question what was going on they went to dad but he became confused angry his health was declining Molly was worried about Alzheimer's something not right with dad then one day Larry and his big Cadillac got into this huge fight with Molly's husband started over something small and built to Larry's shouting you and Molly won't be on the farm for long the fights continued to escalate dad's health continued to deteriorate and finally Molly called me she was so worried that one of the three men would try to kill the others she took all the guns out of the house one mediator and I met the whole family in a hotel suite 50 miles from the farm a neutral location we had dad in one room Larry in another Molly and her husband in a third my partner stayed with dad tried to keep him on track while I ran back and forth between the siblings separate rooms did not help they started screaming at each other through the walls dad yelled banging on the thin hotel walls I don't need to take this get out of my goddamn sight then Larry shouted I am out of your sight and Molly's husband shut up just shut up the two of you and dad oh go to hell about the farm I showed them how to conduct a formal business meeting take minutes use Robert's rules of order remember making progress real progress and then the father passed away at the reading of the will everything came to light Larry had convinced his father to name him sole beneficiary of the land all of it worth millions changing the will about Molly or her husband knowing and cutting them out completely and that's when it all started lawyers for Molly went back and looked at the books not only Cutter younger brother secretly changed the will Larry had been siphoning off money borrowing against his inheritance for years before the father passed bought that Cadillac built a half million dollar house Larry showed up at the farm to Molly to clear out it was all his now they went to court and stayed there for a decade Molly and her husband kept losing the will, the father's health Larry's deception all complicated things Molly appealed and appealed and at one point I was standing in my professional opinion of the father's state of mind yes I worked with the family as a mediator before the father's death my expertise is not in ascertaining the father's mental capability to I can only give a opinion not a professional no no I can't honestly with absolute certainty say that the father was incapable of making a rational decision during the period that he was my client the court upheld the father's will all the way up the line the family deception and dishonesty were brought to light in each trial but each time the judge chose to honor the father's will as a legally binding document each judge made the same decision all the way up to our state supreme court the family will probably never be on speaking terms the rest of their lives Molly has come to terms with it says she wants to be a better person not a bitter person but this is a learning experience she and her husband live in town now they're doing alright they're doing okay Grandma Millie's second joke went like this now you could tell it was coming because she'd get that same look and lean back and then tell a story about that same anonymous farmer and that same anonymous field you know I saw this salesman drive up to this farmer working in his field now this salesman was about to get out of his big old fancy car when he sees this big old dog sitting there over in the end rose there salesman he hollers at the farmer hey mister, your dog bite the farmer he goes no salesman he's out of his car dog runs out and fights him in the leg salesman jumps on top of his car hey I thought you said your dog didn't bite farmer he goes two joke medium and you know what for a lot of the families I worked with they would be just like that farmer in the joke that's not my dog but unlike him they'd be the ones getting bit see the joke had it wrong it was their dog it was their problem and it was them who were going to end up getting bit not some salesman in a big fancy car I mean it happened earlier he tried to simply pass off his land to his daughters and he ended up getting bit and in his madness he says little dogs and all Tray Blanche and sweetheart see they bark at me okay I know maybe a little much when talking about metaphors and madness but it seems real enough to the families what happens to them when it starts to fall apart but sometimes there's a family that finds its way sometimes I help but believe it or not I am learning to help more and more I have known Marilyn and Jerry for a long time they had a large farm really thriving they survived the farm crisis and were well respected members of the community I was surprised when they came into my office for a year Jerry had worked with his lawyer, accountant and a consultant to make a plan for his land when he and Marilyn stopped farming or if anything happened Jerry had reached this place where he and Marilyn had digested everything the lawyer, accountant and consultant had suggested then they set up a meeting with me Jerry and Marilyn they had everything in order the books, the abstracts they had asked tough questions and were working those out together they worked on a mission statement of plan for the land and got their kids and family on board it seemed easy I didn't realize how hard they had worked how hard they worked to make it seem easy until Marilyn came into my office with a very past with that plan we had made together into motion Marilyn came in exhausted from the funeral and those lonely weeks after all that work tying up loose ends all that work that nobody ever sees all that work that leaves little time for doing let alone feeling anything else Marilyn came in I put on the coffee and we just sat and Marilyn told me this story I want to see the Pope once never thought that would be something I want to do not Catholic, you know but the Pope he was traveling across the states visiting churches blessing people and I got this idea that I was gone this is what I was going to do see the Pope Jerry he was busy not interested but said go on knock myself out with the Pope anyways I drove into the city and people everywhere and he drove up in that that Pope mobile and people they just started waving and hollering he's there in that little aquarium and you know you put your hand up in the air and he looked at me and I felt like he was saying hi right to me and I just started waving hollering whistling I never got to see the Beatles or Elvis so I guess I got a lot of messages with that Pope anyways we sit on these bleachers and get ready to hear the Pope and Jerry he was at home on the farm painting the barn I guess he turned on the radio and they were broadcasting the Pope and you know I'm sitting on these bleachers Jerry's on the farm but we're both listening to what this guy had to say and why does he sound like a guy from Rome and the fancy robe gonna have for us you know me on the bleachers Jerry on the farm really so the Pope started to talk and I was looking around and all these people and Jerry must have been painting and then the Pope started talking about the need to be stewards of the land how we are called to leave the earth the soil a better condition than we found it the land is yours to preserve from generation to generation and that hit me and Jerry too I started crying right there the Pope talking and tears running down my face and I got home that night and Jerry was just sitting there no how was it nothing just sitting hands folded thinking Jerry I said and he reached out and took my hands Jerry said he about fell off the ladder one of the Pope started talking about the land you know Jerry started thinking about her kids and what we were leaving them how we were leaving the farm to them and I said me too Pope speech to the same thing to me and we just sat there for a bit thinking and then we got up cooked dinner and all that was it we just decided we wanted to figure out what to do next and they did they figured out a way to communicate to their kids what they valued and hoped for the land going forward everybody signed off on the plan no surprises one son would stay on farm the land while renting from his siblings Jerry had him build a house down the road far enough away so that he couldn't see Jerry in Maryland's farmstead Jerry figured this would keep him from trying to meddle in how his son was starting to farm and keep his son from trying to fix what he thought Jerry was doing wrong and that wasn't really the fix you know it just got the issue out in the open got them talking about it Jerry and son and they figured it out as they went right up until Jerry passed it wasn't easy but I learned that day how hard they had worked how much honesty and courage it took to make it look like it was I think about Millie's jokes about Lear many a true word have been spoken in jest or here how sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless child I think about Jerry I think about Maryland and all the other families coming through my door trying to figure out how their shared story with their land will change sometimes they have time to prepare men must endure they're going hence even as they're coming hither but a lot of times families don't have time to prepare you know like Lear they are facing down a storm standing in the middle not really sure what to do next you know like Millie's joke they are looking at a mean old dog they are pretty sure bites and if they're lucky they'll face it like Jerry and Maryland they'll realize nothing can come from nothing so they'll start to do something so when the time comes to give me the map there know that we have divided in three hour kingdom and tis our fast intent to shape all cares and business from our age conferring them on younger strengths Millie read this book maybe Lear had read Willa Cather like Millie had we come and we go the land is always here and the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while it's a tough conversation on how we end our own little while with the land but somebody else's little while start we come and we go the land is always here and the people who love it and understand it we only have this little sliver of time to make sure the land keeps getting loved keeps getting understood one while after the other thank you we're aware as you can see in the play there are lots of pressures that we can succumb to so we've had some remarkable discussions with this show with farmers and church basements farmers barns and then in wider venues we've performed for big agricultural conferences or conferences like these so questions responses you know professionalism of artists and you know the University of Iowa and then a rural community you know this is a great example of bringing the professionals into blue-collar farmers and giving us an interpretation right yeah no it's been amazing the audiences right, yeah the rural urban the city is where we get something that we'll put team leader in there I've had comments from farmers like a play before I start talking about my state planning I don't know, I thought I'd just turn off my hearing aid like Ali I listen to every single word that shows and then you know in another level you know place work on levels even the set works on levels so I was hoping that you know I would I mean farmer on a certain level then the the intellectual on a certain level with the play we've done the show for major meetings of lawyers and they look at it in a whole different regard you know greater writers with their farmers with so everybody has their how long did it take you to write the play it took way longer to research the play the play is a combination of my own experience I went through this with my own family farm and my family and I just blew the family apart for about five years and then I have a tiny little farm myself now so I've had to do that planning myself and then it was historical research research and then practical farmers of Iowa sent me Hither and Yon all across the state interviewing farmers and bankers and lawyers and so it took about a year to do all of that research and then it took a month it just sounded like a long time but it was like eight hour days to come up with a script and then the hard work begins because then you get a critique of the script and their rewrites and more rewrites and then we go into rehearsals and all of that production stuff takes months to do so yeah so the whole thing was about a year over there could you talk about some of the community or family conversations that you're following people watching this I'm trying to hear the conversations following the show really interesting one of the first times we did the show and the Makoka art experience which is the founders are here and you know I'm not part of that community so you just kind of waltz into the community and then afterwards somebody in Makoka said wow that was really interesting see that guy over there he was in the front row see that guy over there he was in the back row those are brothers and they haven't spoken to each other for 30 years because it was a farmland transition issue so people started like that speaking to each other we did it I was in a church basement with a table of eight widows all in their 80s and not one of them had a will and they started talking about well jeez I guess about time you know there's something amazing like that one man got up we did a show in Makora and one man again is another barn and he got up and there were just tears screaming down his face and he said you got a video of this and we do actually if you go to my website you can purchase a copy of the video the map of my kingdom and I said that's coming Mike give me a few months he said well what's that video coming out and I said no it's couple months and he said oh no no no no no no that's too late and I'm like what is going on here so just send me the script well send me six copies of the script he goes oh you know I'm going to send it to every one of my kids and it is required reading before Thanksgiving and that's when we're all going to sit down talk about how we're going to divvy up the farm you know if I can just plug I do have I think five copies of the film if anyone is curious they don't want to deal with the website so that's one thing too I think about five copies of the video okay great we've got it we've got real live DVDs here yep over there I grew up in an agricultural community my grandparents my family they were farm workers and so they worked for the property owners and and I currently now work with farm working communities that make 15,000 and 20,000 a year for family four or five and I hear in the play a great love and stewardship for the soil and I'm wondering in regards to this property conversation for those who weren't privileged to have that property conversation how does the conversation of stewardship to your fellow man and woman in the community that is making the farm successful how does that conversation play out in the state planning in the community conversations that's what I'm really interested in hearing in the stewardship of the people involved in the actual farming well these people actually they farm their own properties most of them that you see there and you know there is the integrity of the family this is an issue that just rips families apart I mean believe me and it had that happening in my own family and so that's where we're urging people to take the time to do this and I think the best story I've heard about this was um wonderful lawyer down southwest Iowa she really specializes in this and she said you know the way I taught law school is the person comes in and we drop the will and um that's that and then the person dies and I bring in the offspring and I read them the will and then they fight it out yeah and uh she said so one day this woman came in in her 80s and she said you know here's what I want and I want you to gather my whole family together and we're going to discuss this with you here in the room and the lawyer was like nah nah nah that's not the way it's done that's the way we do it and the woman's consistent and she brought in the whole family and they had a discussion worked out the details five years later the mother died and the kids were all okay in place and she said that's the way I've worked it from then on that's the way to do it there's another play too called bang and it's about recent immigrant farmers and that's a show where you see immigrants hiring other immigrants to work on the farm and so some of those issues I think that you're touching on too come up there where they're not land owners but they are doing the farming and um and there's a lot of information about how we treat those people and what expectations we have of those people and their connection to the land their connection to the land in their countries so it's good I was just thinking on that topic in our family it's like very typical farm situation where my parents farm the land but then decide to lease it out that's where the stewardship in our land went it's a very common story in Iowa and the West that the stewardship lacks when someone else is farming it so that is what the attention of our family has to deal with that so even though we have the love of land that topic in particular can be very touchy of how to recover for what's wrong with leasing it out what do you think about the quality of the land and what it needs a lot of these farmer organizations are trying to address that that very issue one of the big conflicts that comes out is that 50% of the farm land in Iowa and I'm sure it's similar in other states is owned by women and oftentimes it'll be leased out like that and the farmer or the woman wants to keep the land the integrity of the land in good shape and then the farmer that's leasing it has a different kind of investment so women food and agriculture network has a program addressing that very thing so here I haven't gone through this with my family my grandmother died my grandmother's a large farm and I also have a sister just two us two girls and recently my father passed away and my mother is sort of having to deal with the state and a very hard struggle with that but I always felt that my sister and I were never really consulted with whether we were using intensive care because it was a sort of assumption that we didn't want it and so in our community that the girls are just sort of you're not even asked about it and now 15 years later I'm like I really would have loved you absolutely absolutely and that has a lot to do with your family mindset your ethnicity we were up in north central Iowa a lot of German communities, Scandinavian communities and women my age came up and said I got chipped out of it because I was the girl angry about that and now a couple of things turning around I think the majority of beginning farmers are now women and they're doing a whole new thing with small farms vegetable production small livestock those kinds of things it's time that we look at that and rethink we don't just automatically give it to the oldest boy I live in the middle of the Amish settlement down by Kelowna and their tradition is really interesting to watch it's the youngest who gets the farm often a boy but sometimes the girl and then they also get the youngest gets the farm and the elder care responsibility for the parents and he said could be young I'm not sure what the youngest is supposed to get but it ends up with it so you know I I worked with a woman this was in decor again she was a financial advisor actually so she had her head together she had a farm she was a widow she wanted to move into town she wrote a letter to all of her four kids and said alright it's time to make the transition alright do any of you want to farm if not I want you to get together even if there's one that does I want you to get together and figure out how we're going to make this transition and they did it really smoothly I thought wow that's interesting it wasn't just like the authority figure saying here's how we're going to do it kids she involved them way back in the back there thank you for this I'm going to put siblings and cousins and the stories you are all the parents and how the parents start the conversation how do they they're the ones that want to start the conversation with the parents yeah I think it's you know a good thing for offspring to try to bring it up just don't bring it up like on a major holiday you know in the same room at one street one starts bringing it up and the other just gets nervous they bring them together and everybody discuss it for the first time together maybe mid-september I think this is useful I think you've identified the complexity of this there's also a huge expense it's not just emotional it's not just about familial things happening there's a cost there's a cost that goes with this I mean it expects if you're going to work on this and so you talked about this being a problem with your siblings the other thing is sometimes people never say to their parents or their siblings I think I want to live on the farm even if they've gone away from it even if they've done other things that desire is often held in some weird place and people might have disdain for you because of that if you have siblings or they might have a completely different idea of what that family landscape is and so I think again this is incredibly beautiful and it's exactly to the point the difficulty of this and again if you're going to do this you're going to pay for it in trying to figure out how your family should work while your parents are alive when they're dead who thinks the territory belongs to them who wants money, who doesn't want money I mean that value system in your family is displayed in the most accurate and hideous and beautiful way but you're going to pay for it and it's going to take some time if you're interested in owning your family farm don't wait until your parents are going to die three months from then think about it now and talk about those things in a way that will get into a place and you'll pay but you might get a thing that you think you desire and it can work out you've talked about easy transitions talking about money and land and then religion might be the other one those are the things that people never want to talk about again it's part of living on a farm and being in the world in a way that's presented to us all the time so again thank you that's for that I was going to say I'm also the booking agent for Mary too we go to all kinds of spaces we go to conferences like Mary said in churches wherever so if people are interested this show I think really does work word of mouth so we have Mary also like she said has an immigrant show so please pick up a card with Mary's name on it and we'll be in touch too maybe one or two more questions here one of the messages I hear underlying in this piece is how limiting the system of private ownership of land is not only on this practical level of how people have to work through the legal system to pass on but we can also think about that in the history of race colonialism and racism where people were denied access to even owning land so I'm just curious as this piece of art has spawned conversation has there been any conversation about alternative models that don't rely on private ownership public ownership, cooperative ownership we've had a lot of response to that and it depends on the audience but we did the show in Dubuque for the Catholic Worker Farm sponsored us up there we watched a great group of people and I opened up for questions like this the first person got up and said well, alright so we stole this land from the natives so we'll have to give it all back which wasn't so crazy then people started coming forward and their various trusts and co-ops and foundations were beginning native farmers beginning other farmers their ways private farmers of Iowa has a branch of their group that helps you guide you through this where you can work with a beginning farmer to transfer your land there are a variety of things community foundations there are nature people they've given their land for nature preserves all sorts of very alternative things where people are completely thinking out of the box of the norm that you see on the stage so that's been really fun and interesting for people to come forward with their ideas like that Kevin? I just want to aspect with the farming since I grew up on the farm where as a small child you're like a business partner so there's a part of life with my parents it's like whatever you want to do that's your thing but part of it's like this is something you have a different relationship with yeah it's a business business too it'll begin at the end when you're just a small scapegoat one of the most difficult things is when there's any siblings and one stays on the farm and puts in all this wet equity and then the others are off living in California and and then they come back and see oh wow look at this the point is sprawling out here we can tell this for commercial value and the on farm offspring often has real trouble in that situation but there are ways even to deal with that and what I've learned from this is as I said get going on it right away but not all of us are involved in family farms but we all own something most of us and start thinking about your transition before it's a crisis or an emergency give it some real real thought and what I did was do some actually research and read up on it and I really meditated on this and did some discernment then I went into the lawyer because you didn't want to go in there where the meter is ticking available hours are ticking saying hey what should I do and so do some research of your own market of people other people's plans and look at some of these alternatives and then come up with your own ideas that you know might be modified this way or that okay thank you so much start to get the lower level and start doing buses a little loop that we want it to express it's going directly to the moose club and then there'll be one that's going south downtown go to the moose come back here south downtown so there'll be contiguous loops a couple things about tonight we'll have some great music we will have a caller from Kentucky who is going to do some great social dance and square dance we are going to have food trucks Jamaican food truck for Matt Fluher so it's going to be a lot of fun tonight we're going to do all kinds of fun things out there so hope everybody can join us the buses again are going to leave at about 6.45 they're probably down there now so they'll start going whenever we get down there and just to remind you coming back from the lodge tonight we'll make announcements as buses are leaving but they'll start leaving at 8.45 9.15 10.30 and 11.00 so thanks again everybody for being here today and participating and engaging and looking forward to tonight and looking forward to tomorrow thank you it's about $100,000 that makes sense engaging dialogue so we're going to do something about the troublemakers so we're going to bring forward things so you do this so so I was asking for each of you I'm far from over there and I take our time