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still barking loudly.
    “Good dog,” Josh said. “Good dog.” Josh had met many dogs over the years, some of them friendly, some of them ready to chew his leg, and therest somewhere in between—unknowns and unpredictable. He put this one in the third category. One of the reasons he always carried a clipboard was that if a dog decided to bite him, he would slam the edge of the clipboard against its nose. That generally worked, although it did not put him in the good graces of those he visited.
    A thin woman wearing an apron and holding a broom appeared on the porch of the farmhouse. No doubt she’d heard the dog barking.
    “Shut up, Ralphy. Shut up that damn barking,” she scolded.
    “What was it you wanted?” the woman said to Josh. “Ralphy, you shut up that barking or I’ll bust your ribs with this broom.” She swung the broom at the dog, but she obviously had not intended to hit it. The dog slunk away, its tail between its legs.
    “I’m from the Farm Country News ,” Josh said. “I’d like to talk with you folks.”
    “What newspaper?” the woman asked.
    “ Farm Country News .”
    “Never heard of it. Only paper we know about is the Ames County Argus . What’d you want to talk about?”
    “Want to talk about farming.”
    “Talk about farming.” She paused for a minute. “You wanna talk about farming, you gotta talk to the mister.”
    “Where would I find him?”
    “I expect he’s out in the barn. That’s where he usually is this time of day.”
    “Thank you,” Josh said as he turned toward the barn. The woman disappeared into the house. The dog remained out of sight.
    “Hello?” Josh called when he pulled open the barn door. “Mr. Burman?”
    “Yeah, who wants to know?”
    “My name is Josh Wittmore, and I’m with the Farm Country News .”
    In the dim interior of the barn, Josh saw a short, thin man wearing bib overalls and working at something spread out on some boards over a couple of sawhorses. The man had about a five-day growth of whiskers and hair that stuck out from under a dirty John Deere cap in every direction.
    “Whatever you’re sellin’, I don’t want none of it.”
    “I’m not selling anything,” Josh said. “I just want to talk to you for a few minutes.”
    “Talk about what?”
    “I’m doing a story on farmers like yourself, how you’re doin’, how things are goin’.”
    “Nobody cares how I’m doin’. I don’t think nobody gives a damn about me and my family.”
    “Well, I’m one of those who does. I’m writing a story about people like yourself, farmers who are trying to make a go of it.”
    Josh, with his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior of the barn, noticed that Burman held a big butcher knife and was carving up two skinned animals. He cut off a chunk of meat and tossed it into a big tub.
    “What kind of meat is that?” Josh asked, curious.
    “These here are goats. We raise a few goats, eat a couple of them every year. Not the best meat in the world, but we don’t go hungry.”
    “So what can you tell me about farming here in the Tamarack River Valley?”
    “You really want to know?” He waved the big butcher knife in the air.
    “Yeah, I do.”
    “Well, in a couple of words, it’s a bitch.”
    “How so?”
    “First problem is the damn government. They don’t care about us little guys. They give those subsidies to the big-time farmers, and we sit out here and they don’t give us a dime. Not a stinkin’ dime.
    “And our taxes. Do they ever go down? No, they do not. Damn government keeps raisin’ the taxes, especially taxes on my land. I only got 120 acres, and they tax the hell out of me.”
    “Taxes are a problem for farmers,” Josh offered.
    “You damn bet they are, and you can write that in your story too,” Burman said. “Then there’s the DNR. That damnable Department of Natural Resources. I tell you, we’d be better off if every damn one of them DNR people got fired. They can be such a pain in the ass. Take