Rain patters against the millhouse window pane.
Long rivulets of water race down the glass in a wild, snaking maze. Roy Pfaltzgraff peers outside. He holds his gaze for only a moment, and returns to the work before him.
Roy wants to be out in the fields right now. He wants to be harvesting proso millet. Instead, he’s stuck inside on a chilly, wet evening.
Even the best laid plans are no match for a late-season rainstorm on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. As a fifth-generation farmer, Roy knows that. He’s used to the adversity. For now, he’s focusing on what he can control.
“The first one we won’t screen [filter], it’ll just go straight into here,” Roy says, tapping his fingers on the top of a little white bucket. He turns, looking at Emily Pfaltzgraff, his wife.
“So the first one we don’t screen, because the screen is fine enough. So then what do we do with the next one?” Emily asks him, looking at the white bucket. Beside it are two others, and then a larger tub at the end of the row.
The buckets are all neatly arranged under a hulking wooden flour mill. The mill stands shoulder high and has a bright polish to the golden wood.
Tonight, Roy is teaching Emily how to run the farm’s millhouse. Even on rainy days, there is always work to be done on the farm. Instead of running tractors, the couple is taking proso millet harvested earlier in the month and turning it into baking quality flour.
After a bit of light banter, in which Emily floats a different arrangement for the flour buckets, they land on a solution. Buckets, bowls and tubs are exactly where they need to be. Now, it’s time to fire up the mill.
The rhythmic grating of heavy stone on stone sets the tune for the evening. Grinding, whirring and rattling, the large appliance commands attention in the little shop.
Roy and Emily are busy turning 125 pounds of millet seed into gluten-free flour. In addition to running Pfaltzgraff Farms, the pair runs Haxtun Heritage Mills, where they sell locally-grown, gluten-free products.
The Pfaltzgraffs have a different approach to farming than most folks they know. Everything they produce is gluten-free, which isn’t unique. How they run the farm is the unique part.
Roy and Emily’s operation falls under the “conventional regenerative agriculture” label, as they describe it. This means they use a lot of traditional farming practices, but with their own twist.
Diverse crop rotation, large machinery and selective use of fertilizers and herbicides all are part of the game plan. The regenerative part is how they use these practices to care for the land. Their farming practices prioritize soil health, resiliency and biodiversity above all.
This approach allows them to grow high-quality crops while keeping their land in top shape. Their soil is rich and healthy. Their fields are full of wildlife, big and small. One of the tools in their workbelt that helps them accomplish this: Corners for Conservation.
Corners for Conservation (Corners) is operated by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in partnership with the High Plains Land Conservancy and private landowners, like the Pfaltzgraffs. The Corners program builds native grassland habitat on the edges of working farm fields across eastern Colorado.
Sometimes Corners look like big rectangles, small triangular blocks, or twisting, undulating strips along a creek bottom. They take advantage of unproductive or difficult-to-farm land and turn it into a valuable asset for farmers, wildlife and communities across the Eastern Plains.
These properties are prime habitat for pollinating insects, songbirds, ring-necked pheasants, rabbits, deer and more. They’re home to abundant wildflowers, native tallgrasses and an incredible range of plant life.
That’s exactly why Roy has Corners, or pollinator strips as he refers to them, bordering all his fields except one. In total, he has 160 acres enrolled in the program.
With the milling done and puddles still growing larger in the gravel driveway, Roy and Emily break for the farmhouse.
Inside, Roy flicks on a warm golden light and the pair sits down at an old wooden table. It’s aged and inviting in its own way. It has been a dais for the Pfaltzgraff’s agricultural contemplation for decades, going back to Roy’s grandparents.
All around them are the classic trappings of a rural homestead. There’s a calendar with the moon phases for each day of the month. Old crystal serving platters are tucked inside a tall wooden cabinet. There’s a glass of water for anyone who walks through the front door.
One thing about Roy and Emily is there’s hardly ever silence. They’re always questioning, exploring and musing over any number of topics. How can they improve the farm? What’s best for their businesses? Why are things the way they are?
Tonight, the curiosity of a child meets the hard questions of a scientist in their conversation. In lieu of talking about harvest, the pair chats about soil health and dealing with adverse weather — which hasn’t exactly been rare recently.
During the busiest time of year, a rainstorm dropped more than three inches of rain on the farm over the course of a couple days.
“This is the harvest season,” Roy says, patting his hand on top of the dining room table.
“Millet, milo, corn, beans and sunflowers are harvested this time of year. And when things are ready to harvest, they are ready to harvest,” Roy adds with a sense of urgency.
“And if it gets wet, you lose quality,” he finishes. There’s a bit of disappointment in this last part.
Given the recent rain, that’s why it’s been a pressing concern for the Pfaltzgraffs to get their millet harvested and ready to be turned into flour earlier rather than later.
But an unusually large, late rainstorm isn’t the only concern Roy and Emily have. Just about a month ago, a hailstorm pounded the area. If there’s one type of weather most farmers would be happy to kiss goodbye, it would be pearl-colored icy stones falling from the sky.
“When we went out after the storm, you could see the dents in the ground from where the hail hit,” Roy laments, “So that compacts the soil … they say it takes three years to recover from a hail storm. So it’s not just a one shot deal, it’s this progression that you have to manage and deal with.”
“Our best millet field got wiped out,” Roy adds. He slightly purses his lips.
Many farmers across the county haven’t been able to catch a break with the weather since early August. Even this last rainstorm, which will provide a lot of stored moisture for crops to take advantage of next spring, comes with its own setbacks beyond delaying harvest.
Many farms in the area saw their topsoil, a nutrient rich part of their field, washed away.
“When you go out to this road here, you can still see where the damage is from that runoff, where it came through, across the road and went over,” Emily says, gesturing out an eastern-facing window.
“The top soil is just washed away,” Roy interjects.
“We don’t see that on Roy’s farm because he has different farming methods … and with Corners for Conservation where we have those fields with the boundary,” Emily adds.
On the Pfaltzgraff’s farm, they didn’t see massive erosion of their top soil, and haven’t for years. This is where Roy’s farming practices (which include no tilling) and Corners for Conservation have given them an extra card in their deck.
Roy and Emily view the Corners, which are 90-foot wide buffers on the edge of each field, like a cell wall. When a big storm strikes, the cell wall keeps the interior field healthy, clean and resilient. The Corners help soak up and filter extra water. They catch any kind of unwanted, intruding seeds. They help keep the farm running, even during rough times.
But this conviction isn’t just fantasy. Roy has already lived through this issue, but without the protection of his beloved pollinator strips.
Roy winds the clock back at the dining room table. He’s painting a picture of the largest rainstorm he’s ever lived through.
“It was 2021. April 27th. We had nine-and-a-half inches in seven hours,” Roy says, his wooden chair squeaking lightly as he leans back.
“It was insane. I’ve never seen rain like that” he adds.
His farmhouse roof vents were leaking. An egress window to his basement broke from the water pressure in the window well. A massive lake formed at the intersection of his field and a neighbor’s, the two adjacent parcels now joined via several feet of standing water.
“The following year we put oats in that field. The farm is gluten-free. But the water had run out of the neighbor’s field with their residue, and we got wheat in those oats,” Roy says. He lightly pounds his palm on the table with each word. When he says “wheat,” his palm hits a bit harder.
“If we would have had the Corners, all of that residue would’ve gotten caught in the Corners, and it would’ve prevented that contamination in our oats,” he finishes.
For the Pfaltzgraffs, there’s a litany of reasons to love Corners. They see them as a tool for the farm. Corners help control weeds, boost pollinator populations and create a grassland habitat haven on the Eastern Plains.
Other harvest-time benefits include keeping farmers and their field hands safe. Farmers can turn around, park and operate equipment on the Corners during harvest. This keeps them off the county road and away from other equipment, people and vehicles.
Roy and Emily are generous with their love of Corners, and realize just how much these properties can serve a larger community, not just their own farm. The Pfaltzgraffs are eager to showcase the beauty and benefits of these weedy, grassy, flowering strips.
Over the past 18 months, the Pfaltzgraffs have played host to a myriad of interested groups, all trekking to Haxtun so they can witness the beauty of these properties. Among the visitors are nonprofits, legislative action groups, researchers and more. In the future, Roy and Emily hope these properties can help build up their community and continue to serve them.
“There’s so many different groups that are going to come and look at those Corners and see beetle banks, pollinators, weed suppression, all these different benefits. Everyone is getting benefits from it,” Roy says.
For years to come, they’re hoping Corners can help create a little oasis of sorts in northeastern Colorado, Emily says. A destination where native grasslands support pollinators, bird watchers, hunters, agricultural producers and many others.
This idea harkens back to something Roy was opining about in the millhouse earlier in the evening. These pollinator strips have the power to bring everyone together, and build community around them.
“We all can agree on pollinator strips,” as Roy put it.
The sun is shining for the first time in three days. A brilliant azure sky is framed between a few low, silvery clouds.
Emily is hard at work in the millhouse again. She’s not running the mill, though, she’s packing baking mixes. Brownies, cornbread, sweet treats and more, all made with crops harvested on the farm.
One thing they pride themselves in is creating high-quality, nutritious foods that are sold and enjoyed within their own community. Even with items like the brownie mix, Emily says it can be a tasty dessert, but still packed with nutrients. The ingredient label only has five items on it.
The concepts of being “local” and “community-focused” are the rising stars in both agriculture and eating habits right now.
It’s not necessarily new to Roy and Emily. For them it’s a by-product of everything they already do. While the pair has worked with local food banks and is talking to the school district about providing baking mixes for their respective programs, Roy and Emily consider “community” to mean all of Colorado.
Beyond Phillips County, they’re proud to be part of the state’s agricultural base. They’re an important part of a special crowd: folks producing high-quality food that can be enjoyed from little towns speckled across the plains to the bustling jungle of Denver and beyond. The Pfaltzgraffs take pride in that.
Emily kneels down. She’s eyeing the inside of a large stainless steel mixing drum. With a long plastic spatula, she scrapes the last bit of brownie mix off the edges and taps the drum.
She’s nearly done mixing a 50-pound batch.
The reason she and Roy are able to enjoy a bountiful harvest and create healthy food is because of how they run the farm. Everything in their world comes back to having crops in fine fettle.
Keeping the weeds out. Boosting pollinator populations. Tending healthy, robust soil. The heart and soul to handle adversity. The humility of accepting quiet triumphs. Each one a brushstroke that makes up the mural of Pfaltzgraff Farms.
Thanks to their farming practices, with help from pollinator strips, Roy and Emily are able to create fine foods and share them with their community – no matter how far-reaching that may be.
“Corners is helping us make more nutritionally-dense food … They’re helping us create something that can actually change the health of our community,” Emily says.
She’s heat-sealing the last few bags of baking mix. Then with a little hand-held stamp, she adds the batch number and expiration date.
When Emily delivers these bags to Denver later this afternoon, she’ll drive by some unruly green strips.
They won’t look like much. Ninety feet wide and rowdy with weeds, wildflowers and native grass tufts, they’re easy to look past.
But for the Pfaltzgraffs, these tangled emerald and bronze carpets are a big helping hand when it comes to harvest.
Written and photographed by Forrest Czarnecki. Forrest is a Colorado hunter and angler, and he is a Digital Media Specialist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
