TALES FROM THE BACK 40 - With Father’s Day just around the corner, I have been reflecting on lessons from my dad. Most boys look up to their fathers, and I am no exception. I worked side-by-side with my dad, Bill Frankenhoff, for almost a quarter-century, until I moved away to start my writing and editing career. As I looked through family photos earlier this year, I found a few that really showed how our father-son relationship formed and grew.

TALES FROM THE BACK 40 - Farmers can find unconventional uses for conventional equipment when a job has to get done.They say that a truck is often a man’s office. The same could be said for a tractor. While my family’s tractors and other farm equipment did serve their intended purposes, we also used them in ways that were, to say the least, unconventional.

TALES FROM THE BACK 40 - Farm communities are full of charitable acts. They say a farmer will give you the shirt off his back, and, in my experience, that’s always been true. The neighbors around our farm helped each other, kept an eye on each other’s fences and property, lent equipment when needed, and borrowed equipment, if it was needed. 

TALES FROM THE BACK 40 - While most of my early work was performed on our family farm, I did take on occasional other jobs for other employers in the years before I moved away to begin my full-time job as an editor in Iola, Wisconsin.