DENVER — It's hard to beat the views from the farm of Colorado brothers Mike and Jim Kruse, near the sixth busiest airport in the world.
"You guys talk about a corner window in town or in your office. Here's our corner office right there, those mountains right there," said Jim Kruse of the view of the Rocky Mountains from the Eastern Plains.
The two brothers are Colorado natives and lifelong farmers.
"At least somebody in the family has been. Our grandpa, our great grandpa, then his dad," remembered Jim Kruse.
However, after college, they had to move out of the state to find their own land.
"[There was a] very high competition for land around here. A lot of farmers looking for more land to farm here," said Jim Kruse.
That was true until a grand plan began taking flight: Denver International Airport.
To make space for it, the City of Denver bought a lot of land three decades ago, including family farms. Since then, many farms have been preserved, and the land was leased back to farmers.
"In 1997 is when we got our first lease, me and Jim," said Mike Kruse. "Our dad was already leased from the very beginning."
Over the years, the original families have passed along the leases to a smaller group of passionate farmers.
"There used to be a lot more of us farmers. Ten at one time. We've just consolidated it down to the three families," said Tom Kirkmeyer.
Kirkmeyer and Patrick Simons' families round out the three remaning DIA farmer families.
Over the past 30 years, they've all adjusted fairly well to the quirks of farming on airport property.
"We have fields where it's never dark, over closer to the terminal," said Jim. "I still kind of enjoy it when you see the shadow coming, and it's coming right at you."
"The shadow comes across and catches you in the corner of the eye. You feel pretty dumb when you jump," said Kirkmeyer.
"It rattles your tractor, for a second, you think, 'Hope that's not my tractor!" joked Simons.
The stewards of these beautiful farms have built quite a unique bond.
"It's always kind of been a community and a family," said Simons.
A farming family they're hoping continues for another 30 years.
"We like to go out and farm our fields and be left alone. [Denver International Airport] has been a good landlord in that respect," said Simons.
"The closer you can keep a food source, the prices are going to stay cheaper," said Kirkmeyer.
"We're all humans. It's important to try to keep the earth to maintain the billions of people we have," said Mike Kruse.
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