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Chuck Dewanz climbs into the combine. He helps a friend harvest his crops each fall. He'd like to farm on his own some day. (MPR Photo/Mark Steil)

Each fall, a reverse migration of sorts takes place in Minnesota. When the corn and soybeans are ripe, some city residents head home for the harvest. Often it's because of family connections, sometimes it's to help a friend.

Bingham Lake, Minn. — On the farmland of southwest Minnesota, it's the type of morning artists love to paint. Frost covers the land. Ducks fly overhead. The clouds are tinted pink. Chuck Dewanz takes in the scene.

"We're standing about a mile north of Bingham Lake, off of County Road 2. We're on a 110 acre farm that's all corn this year. In the process of taking out the crop," says Dewanz.

As the sun rises, Chuck Dewanz is getting ready to go to work. He grew up a town kid in Bingham Lake but farming was always close by. He helped on his grandfather's place, then worked for area farmers during high school and college. As he climbs into the combine, his wife and three kids are 100 miles away in the Twin Cities.

"Cripes, I'm 46 years old and still don't really know what I want to do, other than this, when I grow up. It was just nice to take a break, I have a very understanding wife. She likes it down here as well as I do. She has to work, I get to goof around," says Dewanz.

Dewanz is a little misleading on the goofing around part. He's working long hours helping a childhood friend bring in the crop. And in the Twin Cities he's built a a successful career as a manager with a company making medical devices. He says all that indoor office time makes him eager to escape to a corn field.

"You could come down here and you could get a taste of it," says Dewanz. "You could never get satiated with it, never get your fill. Now this year I've put in a fair amount of hours this fall and just love it. Just can't get enough."

His first job this morning is starting the combine. The engine stutters and coughs for about half a minute, then smoothes out.

"Doesn't like the cold any better than me I guess," says Dewanz.

Dewanz says it's still too early in the morning to pick corn since the fields are wet with frost. Wet corn material sticks to the insides of the big machine and plugs it up. So while the combine idles, he'll drive a semi loaded with yesterday's corn to a nearby elevator. Waiting in line to dump the grain, Dewanz says he knows there's a degree of unreality to his love of farming.

"I can come down here and do this and I can just have fun. I don't have much of the financial headaches that come along with it," says Dewanz "You sit behind a desk, it's fun to get out and just do some actual physical work for awhile."

Dewanz is planning to learn more about the financial side. He left his job in the Twin Cities earlier this year. He bought a second house in the country a few miles from the fields he's working this fall. He also owns farmland nearby. It's all part of a plan. For the next few years, he's going to remain a city resident. When this harvest is over, he'll look for another job in the Twin Cities. He figures he'll work there another six years or so.

"My intent is to at some point take a retirement, an early retirement, and come down here and do this on a fulltime basis," says Dewanz.

Those plans bring a knowing smile to the face of Bruce Nagorske. He's the childhood friend Dewanz helps at harvest. It's strictly volunteer, no pay. Nagorske says for himself, his love of farming has been seasoned by experience. He still enjoys most of it, but he carries with him the weight of managing a business. Worries like low grain prices, high fuel costs, bad weather, expensive equipment.

"It's not as rosy in my mind as he thinks it is in his mind," says Nagorske. "I still think he's looking through a different set of glasses than myself. I try to point out all these things to him. But he loves to do it. You can't turn that off. That's something that's kind of born in to you almost."

Nagorske says he's the same way. When he decided to make farming his life, no one could talk him out of it either. Chuck Dewanz is too busy driving a semi to the elevator this morning to worry about the down side of agriculture. Right now he's in farm heaven. There's frost on the ground, blue sky above, and more corn waiting back in the field.