Last night we camped at Wilson State Park. We were fortunate enough to find some showers at camp, which many of us took advantage of. Our breakfast of eggs and sausage was cut short by rain, so we quickly packed up and loaded up and made the long drive to Goodland, Kansas, where we met with Ron Schilling, a local farmer. He showed us one of the last wheat fields to be harvested in the area, where he explained how the grain is harvested. We then all climbed on top of the combine, which happened to be the largest one on the market. After that we went to a massive grain elevator, capable of holding 2.6 million tons of grain, corn, what have you. We were shown some of the inner workings of the elevator. Next we climbed aboard the bus and had a question and answer time with some of the local farmers, bouncing some of the Land Institutes ideas off them and questioning the sustainability of the farming methods. The farmers feel that their continuing technological advances will take allow for the necessary conservation of soil and the aquifer as time progresses, saying that as farmers their involvement with the land makes them the best stewards of the land, noting that this is their livelihood after all. Mr. Schilling emphasized that increases in the price of grain do not necessarily mean major increases in price of food, due to the farmers’ small share in the food (which is one dime per loaf of bread). When then drove to Boulder, Colorado, where we were given some time to explore the city. Interesting enough James, Vincent, Nels, Matt Layman and Lars asked a passerby what he thought of the words “land ethic” and he immediately mentioned Aldo Leopold. We then went to Boulder Mennonite Church where we ate pizza and talked to two members of the church, Bruce Fast and Phil Metzler, about what Boulder Mennonite was doing green and what other churches might do. That night most of us gathered around a piano and sang hymns, then had a devotional, journalled, and went to bed.
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