We Haven't Moved...

If you go one country “block” north of our farm on the gravel road, you’ll find the State Line Road, where Olie and Lena continue their happy marriage with occasional interruptions. One of those occasional interruptions came along a couple of months ago, when the survey crew came through to determine exactly where the state line lay. Olie and Lena’ house sits right on the road, on the south side of a bend to the north, and they’ve always considered themselves Minnesotans. Well, the state survey crew came through, and Olie ran out after them, asking if they had decided that his house was in Minnesota or Iowa. Informed that his house indeed lay on the Iowa side of the state line, Olie exclaimed, “Oh! Thank goodness! I just couldn’t take another Minnesota winter!”

When we first moved here in 1999, we had a horrible time trying to figure out where we actually were. With our property located in the northeast corner of Winneshiek County, Iowa - just three miles north of Highlandville - we soon discovered that our mail would come out of Spring Grove, Minnesota, and that we would use that Minnesota address for all of our correspondence. Our phone service comes out of Burr Oak, Iowa, about 10 miles west of here. To call our nearest neighbor to the south takes a long-distance call, but we can call Ridgeway – over 20 miles away as the crow flies – on a local call. Both local school districts claim our farm as rightfully theirs for property tax purposes, unless we want bus service, in which case we belong to the other district!

Now, the United States Postal Service has decided that our mail will have to come out of Decorah, Iowa, instead of Spring Grove, Minnesota, despite the fact that Decorah is more than twice as far away. I guess that they have decided to do this all over the country to accommodate the increasing computerization of our society – common sense be damned and all. Where I went to school in California, we had a Nevada mailing address because the nearest California town was twice as far away and over a higher mountain pass than the nearest Nevada post office; we’ve become adept at making things work, as have thousands of other border dwellers.

Since we moved here in 1999, we’ve really considered ourselves to be honorary Minnesotans. We listen to Minnesota Public Radio, pay attention to the Minnesota news, and spend more of our off-the-farm time in Minnesota than we do in Iowa. Still, we’ve learned to take advantage of being Iowans as well, attending presidential caucuses, hobnobbing with campaign staffs, paying lower property taxes, and so on. We’ll miss being, as one farmers market customer called us, honorary Minnesotans.

So, our address will change, effective immediately, to Decorah, IA 52101. The street portion will remain the same, as our farm has not changed location. We did not pack up the rows of carrots, Middle Bear Creek, and our buildings and move to Iowa, but we do find ourselves, at last, here.