Beginnings, Endings, and the Seasons We Don’t Notice Until Later

I got lucky today.

I spent some time with a wonderful woman named Dolly Glasscock (Dean’s wife) by happenstance picking up dinner, and we found ourselves talking about the past. Not in a heavy way. Just the kind of conversation that happens when two people share history, even if they lived it from different angles. Those conversations have a way of slowing time down. They open doors you didn’t realize were still there.

As we talked, I kept thinking about how hard it is to see beginnings while you’re standing inside them. And how endings are even harder to recognize—because they don’t usually arrive all at once. When Brant and I first got married, nothing felt like a beginning. It just felt like life unfolding. He was working with Dean, Manuel, Jasper, Martin, His Brother, Mother and his Grandpa Melvin too—people who had already been farming together for a long time before I stepped into that world. I was just supporting. The one who gave rides to the tractor when needed. The one who got to make harvest meals because the jobs needed to be spread around, or the one who could drive people to meetings if they needed to be dropped off.

We didn’t start something new; I joined something already in motion.

And it was good. It was fun to be around them. There was history in the way the work got done, and I was learning how to fit into it. There’s something grounding about stepping into a rhythm that already exists and realizing you’re allowed to become part of it.

Harvest season always carried that energy for me. I’d get excited in a way that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it. Don Wright was part of that season too—someone whose presence made harvest feel like an event, not just a job. Long days, dust in the air, meals that mattered because everyone was exhausted and grateful.

And then there was Brant’s mom—getting to spend time with her during the farming season, in whatever capacity was needed. Making meals. Feeding people. Supporting the work in ways that don’t show up on balance sheets but absolutely hold operations together.

None of it felt significant at the time. It just felt normal. That’s how beginnings usually work. You don’t label them. You don’t pause to commemorate them. You’re too busy living inside them.

Endings are just as quiet.

Farming doesn’t look the same anymore. Not here. Not in the ways that mattered most to me. The land might still be there, but the people, the structure, the shared sense of purpose—it’s different now. And that’s not just personal. It’s happening across agriculture all over the U.S..

U.S. agriculture is changing—structurally, economically, and generationally. We talk a lot about innovation, efficiency, sustainability, and transition. And those things matter. They really do.

But every change carries loss with it. For those of us who live inside agriculture, who make decisions that stretch across generations—this moment matters.

We are not just adjusting practices. We are navigating identity. We are not just responding to markets and policy. We are letting go of ways of life that shaped who we became. The Land doesn’t just produce crops. It carries memory. Operations don’t just generate income. They hold relationships, roles, and responsibilities.

And when agriculture changes—as it is right now—it asks something personal of us.

It asks producers to redefine success beyond acres and yields. It asks landowners to see stewardship not only as preservation, but as adaptation. It asks families to acknowledge that continuity doesn’t always mean sameness.

There will be endings in this transition. Some quiet. Some painful. Some that don’t get named at all. But there will also be beginnings—new models, new partnerships,

new ways of caring for land and people at the same time. The work ahead isn’t to resist change or rush it. The work is to move through it with intention.

To tell the truth about what’s being lost. To respect what carried us here.And to choose “deliberately” what we bring forward into the next season of U.S. agriculture.

Because years from now, someone will be sitting at a kitchen table, or leaning on a pickup door, or walking a field with someone they care about, and they will be talking about this time. And they won’t remember the metrics first.

They’ll remember how it felt to live through it.

As we reshape what agriculture looks like in this country, some ways of working together are ending. Some roles are disappearing. Some families are stepping away. Some traditions are quietly closing their chapters without ceremony.

Not because anyone failed.Not because something went wrong.But because seasons shift.

The hard part is learning how to stand in that space without forcing clarity too soon. Without demanding that every ending come with a reason, that we can wrap neatly in words.

Sometimes the work is still there, but the meaning has moved. Sometimes the structure remains, but the heart doesn’t recognize it anymore. Sometimes you’re still showing up, but you’re no longer becoming.

Recognizing that takes honesty and a lot of grace.

Beginnings and endings don’t announce themselves. They overlap. They blur. They live inside the same days for longer than we expect.

I don’t think we’re meant to always know which one we’re in.

I think we’re meant to notice.

To pay attention to what feels alive and what feels heavy. To honor what was real without demanding it last forever. To grieve what’s ending while staying open to what might be starting, even if we don’t have language for it yet.

One day, we’ll look back on this season personally and in agriculture and realize it was a turning point.

We just didn’t know it at the time.