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Reflections and Conclusions The stories in this volume address the relationship of Michigan’s farm buildings to the land and farm enterprise, conveying a landscape of the mind, of practicality and efficiency. Photographs, plans, elevations, and section drawings of typical traditional farm buildings document their architectural qualities and robust, universally appealing aesthetic. The ways in which these buildings serve the productive activity of the farm, shelter and protect livestock and people, and enable production are described. But they also put farm people into the farm landscape and make tangible the life they lead. They serve to give a glimpse of some of these farmers’ values—frugality , self-reliance, hard work, honesty, integrity, reciprocity, and attitudes —their discomfort with “free” handouts, and the responsibility they feel toward their families and neighbors. They also delineate farmers’ skills, which include technical competence, innovation, mechanical and manual dexterity, and the ability to meet basic needs. These standards and aptitudes, possibly perceived as “old-fashioned ” in today’s speeded-up world of global capitalism, formed the underpinnings of the agrarian settlement of the United States. They provide insight into the way past generations successfully built an agrarian nation and how future generations might learn from this as they shape the country’s future. The stories aggregate. Each privileges particular aspects of Michigan family farm life. Age, gender, ethnic background and family circumstances shape the life experiences and stories of the individuals who speak. The stories are personal, particularized, and local . But what people say about their farm lives, and how, also allows a glimpse of their spirit and character. Their words serve to interconnect buildings, landscapes, and rural society and make accessible the spaces that farm people occupy during much of their lives, close to home and land. It is the space of their minds and also their hearts. But, paradoxically, it has a universal appeal. The Raab family emigrated from Germany and acquired its farm in 1850. Landownership allowed a life, rooted in Washtenaw County, among other families of German descent in a community Reflections and Conclusions 249 knit close to their church. Rolland Raab, eloquent and precise, communicates what it was like to grow up on the family farm, bringing to life the structures that sheltered and supported a self-reliant farm existence. The changing agricultural economy necessitated his taking up a city job. His efforts in acquiring an education enabled the transition. But the farm life he loved still shaped his behavior—frugal , careful, risk averse, self-sufficient, and neighborly—and informed his reserved but remarkably humane demeanor. Bill Lutz sustains a diversified family farm in the path of urbanization , facing the accompanying increases in regulations, land values , and taxes. Purchased by Bill’s great-grandfather in 1882, the Lutz farm, singlehandedly worked by Bill, is a testament to his cleareyed choices, which allow him the farm life he loves, one characterized by thrift and hard work. A lifelong bachelor of German descent, he is smart, independent, self-disciplined, self-reliant, skillful, and industrious. His labor makes the diverse crops, animal husbandry, orchard, and dairy profitable. Articulate and opinionated, teaching through practice, no stranger to technology and science but selective in their adoption, he knows his farm and what he stands for with an enviable clarity. The values that underpin his life—hard work and restrained consumption—are worthy of emulation. The psychological distance between the city of Ann Arbor and the daily life of Leroy Wing, on his farm at its boundary, is enormous . When he was actively farming, Leroy could have been living hundreds of miles away. But now, with housing developments at the farm boundary escalating property taxes and land prices, the relationship is more reciprocal. Options such as reducing the tax burden by committing land to farming or meeting the urban demand for Upick pumpkins are allowing his son Kevin to persist in farming on the city’s outskirts. Ann Arbor’s efforts to create a greenbelt on its perimeter may be of benefit. The Wing farm’s products have changed, but the way of life Leroy cherished remains. The Wing men, Leroy, his father Harold, and son Kevin, lacking extensive formal education but self-taught and highly skilled, enjoy being farmers . They know farming, the crops that allow survival, and the needed machinery and ways to maintain, innovate, and keep it viable . They know the vagaries and details of the local landscape. These will be extremely important skills for the society of the future. The modest pole...

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