GRIT blogger Dave Bentz, aka Nebraska Dave paid us a special honor this morning. It turns out he was on his way from Omaha to Syracuse, Kansas but decided to take a 100 mile detour to stop at the GRIT office in Topeka and say hello. Dave and his faithful Ford Truck Ricky (Ranger Rick) arrived in time for a tour of the Ogden Publications vegetable garden (graciously hosted by Mother Earth News Assistant Editor, Shelley Stonebrook), some great conversation in the GRIT corral and lunch at one of our favorite diners just south of town. We took the liberty of sending Nebraska Dave on his way with a GRIT cap for his head and a GRIT totebag for some of his tools.
During lunch I learned that Dave spent 40 years working for the telecom industry after realizing that farming didn’t offer the future he was hoping for as a teenager. And he would be working in the industry yet today except that he discovered that travelling the country as part of a volunteer construction/handyman crew was even more fun than work. So he decided to go ahead and take that retirement package to do what he really wanted to do. Dave is now back on his way to southwest Kansas to work on the sanctuary for a new church in Syracuse — a project that’s expected to take about a week to complete.
We also learned that Dave worked out the final kinks in his backyard gravity-flow garden watering system and a few other really cool things that you will just have to wait patiently to read about in his GRIT blog, or one of his other wonderful blogs located here, here and here. You can also read about the adventures of his pickup truck here. We love you Dave!
Hank Will
raises hair sheep, heritage cattle and many varieties of open-pollinated corn with his wife, Karen, on their rural Osage County, Kansas farm. His home life is a perfect complement to his professional life as editor in chief at GRIT and Capper’s Farmer magazines. Connect with him on
