On this February morning, I headed to a spot near the intersection of Gee and Ridge Roads between Holliday and Tioga. High on the ridge it was cold and blustery. At 7:33 a.m. Saturday morning, there was a single car’s track in the road ahead. In the quietness of the morning, I thought about many things. One of my best friends was dying (and did die later that day). He loved this area. Next to me lived another friend, folks who’d farmed this land for six generations. Would there be a seventh? I hoped so, but farming is hard. I knew Heidi and her dad were already caring for the livestock in the barn next to me that morning. These are hearty folks. I know because my great-great-grandpa is buried in the cemetery just a mile away on Farmington Hill. Country life is a hard life, but it makes good people. As I thought this, the sun broke over the treetops behind the barn and lit up the gnarled tree. Everything about the scene comforted me—that old tree, the snow-covered road curving toward the farm ahead, those fence lines, and, of course, the golden tones of the sun.