Mueller Sod Farm

About Mueller Sod Farm

The sod fields Mueller Sod Farm grows on the flats outside Columbus lie dormant and frost-rimmed by December, rows of turf cut and rolled for summer lawns now locked under whatever the plains wind has piled against the fence lines. The same crew that tends those fields all growing season turns to the farm lanes and equipment yards each winter, plowing the gravel roads between the fields and clearing the yard around the barns so machinery can move when it's needed. Platte County's open ground west of town takes drifting hard, with nothing to break its speed between the fields and the fence lines, so a lane cleared at dawn can be half filled again by the time afternoon chores start. The crew also plows driveways for the houses scattered along the section roads near the farm, working the same rural stretches whether it's loading sod in June or breaking a drift in January. Out here the horizon runs flat in every direction, and the work is measured less in hours than in how many times a lane has to be cleared before the wind finally lets up.