Farming for the needy

SARATOGA SPRINGS — If ever the Lord had reason for making folks so different, Dave Baldauf might be it.

Living among polished professionals and their modern gadgets, Baldauf prefers to work in the dirt.

The thought of soil forces many to yawn, others to grimace. But when the 43-year-old farmer looks out over acres of the stuff, it makes him squint a bit. Not out of displeasure — rather, his eyes narrow as he's calculating his next move — or fighting the sun's glare. It's one or the other, all day long.

While those scorching rays have left his face red and weathered, Baldauf appears built for the toughest of farm duties. He's tall, as thick as a sequoia and as gritty as the no-nonsense cowboys hailed in old-time Marty Robbins ballads.

Baldauf is one of two full-time farmers who raise wheat, corn and alfalfa on the western shore of Utah Lake at Saratoga Crops, part of the welfare arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"It's a vital aspect for the church," he said, pausing while standing in an alfalfa field to shift his weight to one side and tuck his thumbs in his Wranglers. "We're providing for those in need. That's really what this is all about."

But he didn't pause for long, not even for a scheduled interview. The abnormality of anything idling — be it bodies or engines — during his workday makes him anxious. In one hour, he had driven three different machines and worked in two fields.

"He's always thinking of how to work more efficiently," said Amy Baldauf, his bride of three weeks. "He believes in this place. And if there's work to be done, he's doing it."

When work wasn't complete one evening eight months ago, the couple — who had met at a church activity — spent their first date in a John Deere tractor cab.

"That's when I knew it," she said. "This is the guy. With other guys, it's just dinner and movie."

Since that night, Amy Baldauf's been no stranger to an upside-down, five-gallon bucket. She pulls one up and sits next to her husband quite often while he's out wrangling the duty of any given moment, which when the Deseret News arrived was a rogue rake wheel.

While his scarred hands battled the wheel's mechanical bowels back into place, a fresh wound appeared and bled. He wiped — and worked on.

Dave Baldauf and his manager are charged with cultivating nearly 3,000 acres for the LDS Church. The corn and the hay help feed 5,000 cows at Westlake Farm, the church's dairy farm a few miles beyond Utah Lake's southern shores in Elberta.