The extent of our lives can be told in stories. The art of composing the story, as essay or poem or detailed biography, are together the composition of a life. The stories of loss and then redemption, the essays of cognition and then art, the poems of metaphors and then enlightenment, and the biographies of chronology and then honest reflection, are together the validation and acknowledgment of a life lived and given.

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series. I wrote my first column for Progressive Dairyman in July of 1993. This is my final one. During the space of 23 years, I have written several hundred articles.

We are well into winter here in upstate New York, albeit not as cold as last year. The trees have shed their leaves, which form a deep mat of organic matter on the woodlot floor. The pastures are green in spots, covered with snow in others, and the surface waters are cold and flowing toward New York City reservoirs.

Soil health is in the news. My agency, NRCS, is investing significant resources in soil health. I am pleased.The term soil health has multiple meanings, but we all can agree the term is rooted in the systems approach of managing soils.

I have been a public servant for 25 years. I began my career at Oregon State University in January 1990. I was 37 years old. I began writing for Progressive Dairyman in 1993.

The often-written-about theme of family farm transfer is our topic today. In the timespan of one week, I visited two dairy farms at two very different places.A young dairy farm family has just taken over the daily operations of a small Holstein dairy. Small refers to herd size: about 60 cows.

As part of my work here in the New York City Watershed, I visit a lot of family farms. Here in the Catskills, farms are relatively small, and the farm families have one or more family members employed off the farm.

The planning process requires a lot of effort. I often say or write that if we have one hour to plan, then 55 minutes is committed to inventory, evaluation and developing options. The options or alternatives provide the landowner with choices.

In July of this year, Cornell Cooperative Extension Service hosted their annual field day at the Robert B. Musgrave Research Farm in Aurora, New York. The farm is in the Finger Lake region of upstate New York, on the eastern edge of Cayuga Lake.