The Oberdecks are one of a dwindling handful of families in Rock County who continue to grow tobacco.
Jessie Gonzalez works in the hot afternoon sun to string the last bit of a crop of tobacco in the Oberdeck family's field West of Edgerton.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Larry's son, Steve, stacks strings of tobacco plants.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Larry Oberdeck reaches for a string of tobacco plants hauled up to him by Jessie Gonzalez to hang among the rafters in one of the drying sheds on his farm. The group joked with Larry about how much he missed chewing tobacco. "There was nothing better than that first rush after putting a pinch under your lip...oh man," Larry said who quit two years ago after 28 years of chewing.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Larry Oberdeck jokes with the guys while they take their daily break from the hot afternoon sun after eating lunch and before getting back to harvesting.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Jessie Gonzalez hangs on while a trailer is pulled through the harvested tobacco field to load the last of a field of tobacco plants.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Larry Oberdeck chops tobacco plants at their roots harvesting the last half acre of his crop for this year. "I wouldn't do anything else," Larry said about farming tobacco, "I love it."
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
"It's looking pretty good," Larry said about his drying tobacco plants in one of the barns at his farm outside of Edgerton. Larry has been harvesting tobacco since he was a young boy when he helped his father with the harvest.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Larry, Andrew Cesar and Jessie Gonzalez take a break mid-cutting and examine the rest of their work in the tobacco field. Between the three of them, they cut approximately 5200 tobacco plants by hand in under two hours; "Not bad," Jessie commented on their time.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Larry cut and harvested the last half acre of tobacco plants on Friday morning out of the five acres he grew this year, down from nine acres last year and fourteen acres when the harvest was at its biggest before Larry's father handed over the farming and before the government stopped subsidizing.
Photo By: Cat Szalkowski-Patneau
Andrew Cesar strings tobacco plants quickly and efficiently working his way down one of Oberdeck's tobacco fields outside of Edgerton.
