Corn Fields and Tractor Wheels

Family Bonding Time

2012-02-25T21:19:00.000-06:00

What better to do on a Saturday afternoon but have a little family bonding time. JM and I didn't have anything on the agenda for the afternoon so Roger came up with a little family activity. Just the 3 of us and 200 members of our farm family..............working cattle was on his agenda. We figured no big deal, it would just take a couple of hours. And.....just when you plan for things to be simple..........they are simply NOT. Usually when you open the gate to let the cattle out of the pen, they do just that - run for new and exciting territory. However, these particular cattle have become attached to each other and their pen. They had no intention of leaving their space. We yelled.....and chased....and chased.....and yelled with not much luck at all. It took us over an hour to get 200 head of cattle out of their pen and into the holding area to work them. Phew!!! Boy were we tired. And since it was only about 20 degrees today and the wind was blowing, we were dressed for the occasion and were carrying around about what seemed like 20lbs of clothing. Good exercise program!!

Now that we had the kids in place and ready to go, we headed over to the chute to get started. Sounds simple.......but, of course, since it took so long to get them out of the pen, our syringes had frozen up. So....we had to get them thawed out. What else could go wrong??? Actually, several things could and did still go wrong, but eventually we got started and made it all the way through. It was kind of fun to see them all go through the chute. We have a scale on our chute as well, and some of the fellows have gotten to be quite large already. If they keep this up, we may be selling them earlier than expected.

This group of cattle is actually quite tame which is the main reason that they had no interest in moving away from where we were today. Luckily Jacob stopped by today to give us a hand. It sure was nice having an extra person help to keep them moving through the chute.

The cattle received two different vaccinations today to keep them healthy. They need their vaccinations just like our kids do to keep disease away. They also received a topical treatment for worms and other parasites.

JM helping at the chute.

After everyone was treated and returned to their home, we loaded the feeder wagon and got them their supper. They are always happy to see the feeder wagon line up to the bunks. Our little 2 hour adventure ended up taking us a little over 4 hours, but it was good time spent as a family. We all enjoyed what we were doing so I guess it doesn't matter what the activity is as long as we are together.

Calving Season 2012

2012-01-29T20:32:00.000-06:00

This morning marked the beginning of calving season for our family as one of our homegrown heifers had her baby early this morning. This new addition was a beautiful bouncing baby boy! (Just like the ultrasound said it would be! :)) She had him on her own and all cleaned up by the time we got out there to check them this morning.

We made sure everyone was OK and got mother and baby into a nicely bedded pen in the building. JM was very excited to jump right in there and make friends with the new addition. However, LuLu (the new mother) is still a little anxious so JM will have to wait a little while to get in the pen with them. JM did manage to come up with a name for the new little guy, and it is George.

George is very cute! We all love this time of year! We can't wait to have more new babies to join our farm family!

Family Farming

2011-10-31T21:53:00.000-05:00

We have had an extremely busy fall on our farm. With the weather being so dry, we have gone from chopping silage to combining beans, then into combining corn and now doing tillage work. And....in between all of that we have managed to clean pens and get ready for new calves to come in. It is a crazy time of year, but we wouldn't trade it for anything else.

Roger made a trip to North Dakota last week Thursday to be there to load trucks with new calves on Friday morning. We got in 2 loads of new calves on Friday night, 2 loads on Saturday morning, and 2 more loads on Monday morning. There were a lot of little babies missing their mothers.....as the whole neighborhood could hear! I think this is the first year that we have gotten in new calves that we haven't had cold weather or ice/snow to welcome them.

New babies!

Since corn harvest is all done for us, it has been time to bale cornstalks for bedding this winter, pick up those bales from the fields and do tillage work. We never quite know when the weather is going to change so we all pitch in and work hard to get those jobs done.

Saturday, I made a parts run for Roger in the morning, and ran the disc ripper in the field on Saturday afternoon. It wasn't too bad of a job to have for the afternoon. The tractor has auto-steer in it. So, I just had to lift the ripper on the ends and turn around. Having me in the tractor freed up Roger to help Jacob pick up bales and haul manure.

It was actually a great day to be out in the field! Since I have a full time job now, I don't get to help as much as I would like, but I pitch in whenever I can. I was able to take a couple of pictures while I was disc ripping since I didn't have to steer through the field.

We just have a couple of fields left to do tillage on, and we can wrap things up for the winter. All of our manure is hauled for now, and as of today, the cornstalk bales are picked up and hauled home.

There are a never ending list of things to do on our farm every day. But...we love that we can all pitch in and work together to get those things done! I means that we get to spend our family time doing what we love....farming!

Corn harvest is done!

2011-10-17T22:10:00.000-05:00

Harvest has gone very smoothly this year for us. And....Saturday, we knew if we worked hard we could get the corn combining finished. I had an appointment in town at noon, and Roger needed to go to a customer's to do weigh checks mid-afternoon. So...we made a plan to get the field done. When I was finished in town, I headed out to the farm to take over combining for Roger. That sounds easy, right? However, I have not run the combine before just the grain cart. I had a quick 15 minute crash course, and Roger was off leaving me in the field all by myself. I had plenty of wagons to fill so I just got to work!

My Saturday afternoon fun!

Roger left at about 2:30 p.m. and got back about 6:00 p.m. By this time, Jacob, our extra help, had returned from hauling loads with the semi to dump the wagons I had filled. Roger then jumped in the combine, and JM and I were back in the grain cart. Needless to say, we finished the field Saturday night around midnight. As much as we all love this time of the year, it is still a great feeling to have that last field finished. Now we can move on to baling corn stalks, hauling manure, and getting ready for new calves to come in this weekend. There is never a dull moment here!

Harvest Time

2011-10-10T21:47:00.000-05:00

Harvest time is one of my favorite times of year. I love the beautiful weather, the fall smell that is in the air, and of course, all of the hustle and bustle that goes with being a farmer trying to harvest their crops! It surely has been a crazy last few weeks on our farm! We have gone from bean harvest straight into corn harvest with no time to even catch our breath. Along with all of that, I have also started a new job off the farm in the last week as well. I guess that just makes us appreciate the time that we do get to spend together a little bit more. Since my new off the farm job is at a bank, I was lucky enough to have today off - Columbus Day, and JM also had the day off from school. It was great for us to have a chance to work around the farm. We did some running this morning to pick up things that we needed. This afternoon we had the job of running the grain cart.

My husband has also been helping his father harvest this week. So, by the time we got to combining some of our own corn today it was getting to be the middle of the afternoon. We have a couple of loads that still need to be delivered to the ethanol plant in Hartley, and they closed at 4 p.m. today so we didn't make it in time. We just filled the semi truck, wagons and grain carts, and will get those delivered in the morning. Them we can set the auger up on a new bin and start filling a bin on our yard.

I was having some fun taking pictures from the grain cart today. This one was taken using the mirror since it was about time for me to start moving and catch on the go. :)

Corn harvest is going really quickly since mother nature has does such a wonderful job of drying down the corn we won't have to run any of it through our drying bin. That saves us time and money! The only problems that we have had this fall have been the high winds the last couple of weeks. It has increased the risk of fire in the fields since everything is so dry right now. We have had quite a few fires in the area which has made everyone more cautious. We either quit combing on the really windy days or make sure that you have a disc hooked up and in the field ready to go in case a fire starts.

JM and I had a great time working in the field today. It gave us an opportunity to have some family time even if we weren't all in the same piece of machinery. We were all doing what we love - farming!

Wild Harvest Day

2011-09-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Well, we are fully into bean harvest. The combines have been rolling full speed all week. We do not have any beans of our own, but we have been helping out my cousin and combining his beans. Roger started on a field yesterday and finished this morning. We took a little field trip to ride with him after church school last night.

There was no breeze at all last night, and the dust just hung around the combine. It was hard to see as you went through the field. Today was the complete opposite! The wind blew about 30-40 mph all day. There were numerous field fires around our area today. One even started about 3/4 of a mile from our house. The wind just kept increasing the intesity of the fire, and it went for about 1 mile before they were able to get it under control. It burned off some beans, and unfortunately, someone's home as well. This fire crossed the major highway that goes through our area. They even announced on the local radio station that they would like to have farmers stop harvesting today to eliminate the chances for more fires.

This is part of the field of beans that burned along the highway. The home that was destroyed would have been back to the right. So sad!

Harvest will resume tomorrow as usual, and hopefully this will be the last of the major fires for the season.

Rocks

2011-09-21T11:52:00.000-05:00

Rocks are something that most farmers do not like to deal with. They do major damage to your combine when they go through as well as other farm equipment in the field. Like most farm kids, I had many "opportunities" to spend days out in the field picking them up to avoid equipment damage. So....as you can imagine, when I mentioned putting a rock in the yard and landscaping with them my husband thought I was crazy. After some convincing and a little work on my part to get the area ready, I had him convinced.

My mother had a spot south of our barn that she had landscaped with rocks several years ago. Since the area had not been taken care of for the last few years, it was overgrown and needed to be redone. I dug out all of the rocks that surrounded the area since they had sunken into the ground, and we pulled out the overgrown bushes. We leveled off the area and added some new dirt. We were pouring some more cement in the cattle yard on Monday and had enough left over to pour a little pad for my large rock! Today was the day to move the rock.

Roger and Jacob carefully moved the rock over to the new pad. We are hoping that this will keep in from settling into the ground. Setting it was a little tricky, but after a few minor adjustments, the rock has been put into place.

We will probably wait until Spring to do anymore with the area, but at least we have a start. Now we can focus on harvest, and I won't be bugging the guys for anymore "help" on my projects.

Relaxing Sunday?

2011-09-18T20:36:00.000-05:00

For most people, Sunday is day to relax and enjoy some family time. However, on our farm they seem to be family project days. We have a bunch of projects left to complete before we get busy with harvest and/or the weather turns against us. Today's family project was cutting down apple trees at the other farm. We had 3 large and 1 small apple trees that haven't produced apples for the last few years and needed to be removed. Roger grabbed the chain saw from the machine shed, and JM and I grabbed our gloves and a rake. It wasn't long and the first large tree was down and cleaned up. As we were starting on the second tree, my cousin stopped over. He saw what we were up to and headed home to grab his chain saw and came back to help. In just a couple of hours, we had all of the apple trees down and cleaned up as well as some wild mulberry trees that had popped up in the old garden area.

These trees were located right behind where the new shop is being built. Now the crew will have plenty of room to maneuver around when setting rafters or putting on steel.

After we finished this family project, we cleaned up and headed over to the Clay County Fair. We love to walk through all of the farm equipment on display and check out the animals that are in the barns. We came home with two new cattle waters for our yards and a new toy semi truck and two trailers for JM.

As for relaxing Sundays, we don't see too many of those, but we still get to enjoy each other's company and the farm!

A lot changes in a day

2011-09-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

The construction began on our shop this week. Last weekend we worked hard digging in water lines and putting in the floor drain. The crew showed up on Tuesday to start getting the shop floor ready to pour the concrete. The plumbers came in on Wednesday to lay down the floor heat. When they were finished, the crew finished preparing the floor. Early Thursday morning, the cement pump arrived and several cement trucks came rolling in to pour the concrete floor. After the cement was poured, the crew started working on the shop walls. And today, the shop walls started going up!

I made it over to the other farm about 9:00 a.m., and this is what they had accomplished already. Wow! I was so surprised.

After JM got home from school, we decided to go over again and see how far they had gotten. All of the walls were up. Amazing! This shop really looks big now. It seems to look a lot larger now than it did when just the footings were standing there. I can't wait to see what next week brings!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-14T07:41:00.002-05:00

JM checking out the new "Farm Toy"

The Big Game

2011-09-12T21:22:00.000-05:00

We made our way to Ames this past Saturday to watch the Iowa State Cyclones game. They played their instate rival - the Iowa Hawkeyes. It was a beautiful day to be in Jack Trice Stadium to watch the game! We made it to town a couple of hours before kickoff. Just in time to stop by a couple of pregame tailgates. We had bought tickets from some friends who had season tickets, and the seats were great! We were on the south end of the stadium in the end zone. JM was with us as well as the son of a friend. Both were very excited for the game.

The teams came out on to the field shortly after 11:00 a.m., and the game began. It was a very exciting game. The two teams both played about equally throughout the game as the score showed. And when the clock ran out............we were off to overtime.

Overtime was very exciting! Both teams gave a very strong effort. We had an excellent view of the plays since it was all taking place at our end of the stadium. After three overtimes, the Cyclones came out on top.

We were naturally excited since we are Cyclone fans! :) Although both teams played their hearts out, and the game really could have gone either way. Hats off to both the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones for an excellent game played. You gave both sets of fans a great game to remember!

Chopping Silage

2011-09-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

It's silage chopping season in our area, and this year we decided to take a little different approach to chopping ours. The chopper that we have is older and takes a little TLC before the season begins. Since summer projects got off to a slow start this year, the chopper didn't get out of the shed in time to get that needed TLC. So...we enlisted the help of Jake Franken and his crew at Franken Custom Chopping. They had put up some haylage for us in June so we were familiar with the drill. The group pulled in about 7:30 last night and started opening up the field.

We also had our customer appreciation supper last night at our seed dealership. Therefore, I did not get back to the farm before dark to start taking pictures. It was really fun to watch them go!

They were using a big Claas silage chopper. It was amazing how fast they moved through the field. The chopper was able to take 12 rows at a time! That sure beats the four rows that our older John Deere chopper takes! I wasn't sure if I would have the opportunity to get some shots in the daylight today before they finished so I did the best I could last night in the dark.

I managed to make it over to the other farm this morning when they were on their LAST round. That chopper sure filled up the trucks in a hurry!

The silage looked great and smelled really good too. I love the smell of fresh cut silage.

By 10:30 this morning they had the bunker filled and packed. The new cattle are going to LOVE this in their feed ration!

And the small pile that we put out back was also finished. We will be tarping that pile tonight. This silage chopping year went a lot quicker that usual. If we had used our chopper, we would be chopping for about 4 days. They had it finished in less that 6 hours. Now we can concentrate on getting equipment ready for the rest of harvest to begin.

Holiday Weekend Fun

2011-09-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

Since it is Labor Day weekend, we have planned to get together with some friends tomorrow for lunch. Everyone is bringing food, and the kids will have a great time playing together. So...I have put together a little treat for the kids. I started with an idea that came from Lisa at www.jerseygirlcooks.com. She made orange creamsicle jello shots for a party. I loved the presentation so much that I made a kid friendly version to take along tomorrow. By the way, the link to Lisa's recipe is: http://www.jerseygirlcooks.com/2011/07/orange-creamsicle-jello-shots.html.

I started with 4 oranges. I cut them in half, squeezed out the juice, and removed what was left in shell. Then I put the halves in a muffin tin to keep them level. Next, I followed the directions on the jello package to make Jigglers. I poured the mixture into the orange halves, covered them with plastic wrap, and put the muffin tin in the refrigerator.

After they were set up, I cut them into quarters. The kids will love eating these! They look just like quartered oranges. Thanks Lisa! What a fun idea!

My green thumb!

2011-08-31T22:54:00.000-05:00

You probably remember that a few months ago JM and I planted the seeds to start the plants for our garden. I am simply amazed at what those little seeds have done! Our garden has turned out wonderfully, and we are harvesting the produce now.

Our garden!

The tomato plants were as tall as I am (until the latest storm moved through.) We have been canning tomato juice from the garden. We have canned 33 quarts so far, and there are plenty of tomatoes left to ripen yet. Our pickle plants have been producing quite well also. I made a batch of sweet pickles for the first time, and have also canned some dill pickles. I picked a bunch of cucumbers again today and decided to make a few more jars of dill pickles so they did not go to waste.

I started by soaking the pickles in ice water for a couple of hours. This makes them really crisp.

Then I gathered my ingredients for the brine and scalded my jars. I cut up the pickles to the size I wanted them and positioned them in the jars with garlic and dill. I also added a little sugar to each jar to give them a little sweetness. My grandmother used to do this, and her pickles were always wonderful.

After I brought the brine to a boil, I added it to the jars and sealed them. Then I soaked the jars in boiling water to make sure they sealed up. I don't do this with everything that I can, but it works well for dill pickles.

And here is my finished product. They will be ready to enjoy in about 6-8 weeks.

We have enjoyed a lot of wonderful produce from the garden this summer. My next "trial" will be to can pizza sauce. I am learning as I go this year. I never expected our garden to produce so much! We have a bunch of great things to enjoy this winter!

Let the construction begin

2011-08-25T18:29:00.000-05:00

We are putting up a new shop on the farm this summer. It will be nice to have a warm place to work on equipment this winter. Also, this way all of the tools will be in one spot instead of in two different machine sheds. Monday, they started to trench in where the footings needed to be. Tuesday and yesterday, they poured the footings and stub walls.

We took down the two bins that were next to the shop last weekend. The cement from the bin floors got hauled away today as well, and the area was leveled out. We are excited to see the new building take shape.

New Beginnings

2011-08-23T19:01:00.000-05:00

Well, we stopped for a moment of silence on our farm this morning as we marked the end of summer, and the beginning of a new school year. The school year is starting off with a bang too. We had a pretty nasty storm roll through our area last night. So...instead of getting a good night's sleep before school starts, JM was up for a while in the night to wait out the storm. Getting up this morning when it was time to get ready was a bit of a challenge. We made it in plenty of time to get some pictures before he had to get on the bus.

I was kind of sad to see my little farmer get on the bus this morning. It just meant that the house was going to be pretty quiet, and I would not have my helper anymore. He is really looking forward to his 4th grade year. I'm sure that he is having much more fun with his friends at school than hanging out with boring 'ol mom.

And off he goes! :(

I did manage to keep myself busy today since there is always a long list of things to get done on the farm. Fall is right around the corner, and we will be getting started making sure the equipment is ready to go to the field.

Loading Cattle

2011-08-22T22:00:00.001-05:00

Last night we had a load of fat cattle going out. We had some family bonding time sorting cattle to be put on the truck. JM stood in the bunk with his sorting stick keeping the biggest heifers on one end of the lane, and Roger and I did the picking. After we had our chosen group out of the pen, we just sat back and waited for the truck to arrive.

Waiting to load.

Backed in and ready to load.

JM and I just stayed out of the way, and let Roger and the truck driver do the loading. The cattle stay calmer if there aren't so many people in the loading area. It didn't take long and all of the heifers were on the truck and ready to go.

Ready to go!

JM waves goodbye to the heifers. We only have a few loads of cattle left to get loaded out. Then we will get the building and yards all spruced up for the new groups to come in this fall. It's always exciting to see the cattle that you worked so hard to care for all year go to market. It means the beginning of our harvest time. Which means chopping silage is right around the corner.

Change......

2011-08-21T09:57:00.000-05:00

Change is something that occurs everyday, and our farm is no exception to that rule. We are in the process of "changing" some things on the farm that I grew up on. The old chicken house which had been converted to a farrowing house years ago was taken down early this summer. This is to make way for the new shop to be put up yet this summer. A large tree came down last week to allow us to reposition fuel barrels and make some more room to work on the yard. And last night, we had one grain bin moved and one taken down to give us more room by the shop and to make a spot for a another building to be moved there. In this case, change means progress. All this change is to make our farming operation more efficient.

Grain Bin in its new home.

The new shop area.

Change happens quickly! This was all done within an hour last night. Monday they will start pouring footings for the new shop. In a way, it is hard to see the old buildings go away, but I know that the changes we are making are good for our operation.

Iowa State Fair

2011-08-20T22:01:00.000-05:00

Friday was Iowa Corn Day at the Iowa State Fair, and I had the opportunity to participate! My schedule for the day was to help out at the Iowa Corn booth, participate in a CommonGround presentation and introduce the Thank a Farmer Magic Show. I arrived a little early in order to check out some of the "new" fair food that was available and, of course, check out the Butter Cow!

My cousin and her daughter were with me to help out with the sampling. First, we tried the Red Velvet Funnel Cake. Yum! But, honestly, how could it not be good???? Deep fried and covered in powdered sugar and cream cheese frosting!

Then, we moved on to the Deep Fried Butter on a stick. This was interesting and very hard to eat. It tasted like a cinnamon roll covered in butter. Needless to say, it was so rich that the three of us were unable to finish it. At that point I was on sugar and deep fried overload and gave up on the food trials. Besides, we had to find the Butter Cow before I needed to start my other duties.

We managed to locate the Butter Cow. The Butter Sculptures always amaze me at the Iowa State Fair. It has been several years since we have made it to the Iowa State Fair, and it was nice to be able to attend the fair this year. I even managed to come home with an Iowa State Cyclones shirt for JM with the Butter Cow on it!

I helped out at the Iowa Corn booth for a couple of hours which was a lot of fun. I helped people sign up to win Iowa vs Iowa State Football Tickets and made "corn babies" with the kids. It was fun to show the kids how to grow their own corn. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, visited the booth while I was working as well. I was also able to check out the new Cy-Hawk trophy up close. Iowa can be proud that our corn and soybean farmers so strongly support both schools and their athletic teams! The new trophy pays tribute to that pride whether you are a Hawkeye fan or a Cyclone fan.

At our CommonGround presentation, we got the crowd involved by playing an Ag Fact Game. It was fun to see how much the crowd really knew about agriculture in the United States and in Iowa. Iowa Corn Association and Iowa Soybean Association sponsored the prizes for the game. After we finished our game, we were happily surprised by one of our fellow CommonGround volunteers from Nebraska who was at the Iowa State Fair showing cattle with her family.

My last event of the day was to introduce the Thank a Farmer Magic Show in the Ag Learning Center. If you ever have the opportunity to see this show, make sure that you take the time to watch. Rhonda does a fantastic job of doing magic as well as teaching us just how many products we use every day are made from things that we grow right here on our own farms.

I had a great day at the Iowa State Fair! I can't wait to come back next year and bring the rest of my family!

Iowa State Fair celebrating 100 years of the Butter Cow!

You Don't See That Everyday!

2011-08-17T21:27:00.000-05:00

Today was an unusual day on our farm. It started out like almost every other day on the farm.....we fed the cattle, walked through them to make sure everyone was comfortable and happy, and looked around to see what project was going to be first on the list for the day. Then.....around 9:00 a.m. this morning, a camera crew from CommonGround arrived to shoot a video on our farm!

Our Camera Crew!!

It was very exciting for our little family. We are so proud of what we do on our farm, and that we have the resources available to produce food to feed our family and yours. I can't wait to see how the photos turn out as well. JM was happy to get his show steers out to groom and lead them for his spectators. The traffic on our gravel road seemed to be at an all time high this morning. All the neighbors passing by did a double take when they saw the camera crew on our yard. I'm sure they were thinking..."you don't see that everyday!"

Gina from CommonGround had the opportunity to spend some time with Rudy (the show steer) and take a little walk in the corn field. We are always happy to have visitors on our farm and show off the lifestyle that we love!!

Gina, Roger, JM and Rudy!

Cattle Show

2011-08-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we entered 2 of our market steers in a local open cattle show to give JM some experience showing calves. He spent every day washing, grooming and walking the steers. They have become very close to him. He couldn't wait to take them to the show and parade them around in the show ring. This is only the 2nd time that JM has had the opportunity to show calves, and he enjoys every minute of it!

Ralphie and JM in the ring!

Ralphie was the first of the two to enter the ring. He is more of a fat steer than a show steer, but JM wanted him to go to the show since he showed him last year as a feeder steer at the same show. I think saying goodbye to Ralphie is not going to be easy for JM or the rest of us!

JM was very nervous going into the ring with Ralphie. He wasn't sure he remembered what to do. But....he did great! Ralphie followed him and did just as he was supposed to. What we didn't realize was how much Ralphie and Rudy had become attached to each other. Separating them for showing made them the "noisy steers in the ring until, of course, they were happily back together at the trailer.

Rudy and JM in the ring.

Rudy also did quite well in the ring for JM. It was a very warm afternoon, and the animals were all on their best behavior. JM did not walk away with a trophy, but he did have a great time showing and thought it was all a great experience no matter what the outcome. He is very proud of the work that he did with his calves, and we commend him for putting in the effort to make this his project. He can't wait to show in the 4-H shows next year! And we can't wait to be there to help him every step of the way. This has become a great family project!!

Our little family and Rudy!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

Gladiolas from my garden!

Progress.......

2011-08-01T21:22:00.002-05:00

The calf show that JM is going to participate in is fast approaching, and the boys are making progress (at least it appears that way.) They love to get washed and brushed daily. The routine is pretty set.

Rudy walks from the barn right into the grooming chute. He loves have the water run on him especially when it is as hot as it was today. They will get clipped in the next couple of days to get them "pretty" for the show on Saturday. It is supposed to be a little cooler by then so the boys might be a little more fiesty.

Rudy and JM go for a walk tonight after washing and brushing him. He did pretty well tonight on his walk. Ralphie had a little more energy tonight. If he keeps that up, he will have to stay home on Saturday since he is too big for JM to handle alone.

As they headed back towards the barn, JM had a little "talk" with Rudy to keep him moving! Saturday is going to be so much fun! This is truly a family project that we all enjoy!!

Pies, Pies and more Pies

2011-07-27T21:38:00.000-05:00

It's RAGBRAI week here in Iowa, and I had the opportunity to help make homemade pies for my cousin's booth in Elkhart today. We made a variety of fruit pies for her to sell. The pies consisted of peach, apple, cherry, blueberry, mixed berry, rhubarb, & strawberry rhubarb. It was a lot of fun to do this project together, but a ton of work too. We ended up with 107 pies!!! Each one had was completely homemade from the crust to the filling to the topping. Here is a look at a few of the pies while they were cooling.......

Each pie was cut into 7 pieces and individually packaged. WOW! That was a lot of pieces of pie. I did not help at the booth, but it sounded like she sold all but 20 pieces of pie. That's pretty amazing! We had a great time making the pies, but I'm pretty sure that we won't try a project like this again anytime soon! :-)

RAGBRAI Expo

2011-07-24T21:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to travel to Glenwood, IA for the start of RAGBRAI. I represented Iowa Corn Growers at the Farmers Feed US booth at the RAGBRAI Expo. It was a fun to meet people from all across the country who came to Iowa to ride their bicycles across our state. We distributed maps to the riders showing them where the Farmers Feed US stops were along the way. They will also have the opportunity to collect "Spoke Cards" along the way and have a chance to win an iPad which is courtesy of Farmers Feed US.

There were literally thousands of bicycles and people making their way around Glenwood yesterday. The heat index was well over a hundred degrees. This made for a great day for the Sno Cone stand! We met a lot of fantastic people as they made their way through the expo. Our stay was cut short by Severe Thunderstorm Warning. We had to take down our tent about 20 minutes early to avoid the storm.

Prior to the storm coming through, Offit Air Force Base treated the crowd to views of the B-2 Stealth Bomber flying over. It was a pretty awesome sight!

B-2 Stealth Bomber flying over.

I wish the 2011 RAGBRAI riders and supporters the best of luck as they make their way across southern Iowa.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-20T20:32:00.000-05:00

All the new cattle show toys!

Playing with all the new cattle show toys!

Breaking Calves

2011-07-19T21:35:00.000-05:00

Well.....it's summer, it's county fair time, and it's cattle show time. JM participated in his first cattle show last August in the neighboring town. After that, it was all over....he was hooked! We are still a year away from being able to show for 4-H at the county fair so the Summer Show is a great way to "break him in!" Roger and JM have starting working with the calves to get them broke and ready for the Summer Show which is on August 6th. One of the calves is the same one that JM showed as a baby last year, and his name is Ralphie.

This is Rudy, and he loves to get a bath after a hot day. We have been washing them in the evenings, and working on halter breaking them during the day. They actually don't mind that since it involves having fans on them all day.

This is Ralphie, and he loves to be brushed. Once he got his halter on and started heading for the area with the fan, memories of how things went last year came back to him pretty quickly. He knew just what the routine was. I think I was more nervous last year for JM to go into the ring with a 500 lb calf than JM was. Now Ralphie is 3 times as big so, I would imagine, that MOM will be nervous again this year! Getting the calves ready to show in the ring is fun for our whole family.

Bath time for Rudy & Ralphie

Ag Study Mission

2011-07-16T23:00:00.000-05:00

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in an Ag Study Mission to the Pacific Northwest with my I-LEAD (Iowa Corn Leadership Enhancement and Development) class. Myself and 22 others spent 4 days traveling to destinations in the PNW learning about agriculture from a different angle. We were able to learn about "farming" from a new angle by touring and talking with farmers who raise crops that are different than what we are used to in Iowa. We managed to find some common ground with them though - no matter what your crop is, you still face a lot of the same challenges.

The first opportunity we had was to visit Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, WA. We toured their processing facility and were given a presentation on their farms and how the shellfish are harvested. The process is very labor intensive. It was very interesting to see how the shellfish (oysters & clams) are processed and to learn that their industry also faces environmental and weather issues as we do with our corn and soybean crops.

As we passed by, we stopped to admire Mount St. Helen's for a few minutes.

Our first day was rounded out with a tour of the brand new EGT, LLC facility in Longview, WA. Bungee has partnered with other investment groups to build this state of the art export grain terminal. This facility was built to move grain from rail to ship in a short amount of time. It uses new technology and minimal labor. A facility of this type is very exciting for grain farmers from the Mississppi River on to the west. We may have the opportunity to rail our Midwestern corn to this facility for export.

Day two began with an Epicurean Excursion in downtown Portland, OR. We were enlightened by some of the locals as to how they determine where to buy their products from and what their views are of the local market. Oh, and we got to sample the fares at these establishments (which included a Dutch Taco, breads, coffee and sipping chocolate.) Our tour guide talked about the F.L.O.S.S. philosophy - Fresh, Local, Organic, Seasonable, and Sustainable. Everyone's definition of "sustainable" is different, but it was interesting to hear what the young urban people thought of the term.

The next stop was Bonneville Lock and Dam and Bonneville Fish Hatchery. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers operates this facility which makes electricity which is sent to different locations on the west coast. The water rushes through these very large turbines (right) to create power. They have done a lot to preserve the fish population that comes into the dam area. There is a fish ladder for the fish to move back upstream (which we were able to view from the viewing windows in the visitor center.) They also have rerouted some of the fish in order to keep them out of the dam area and risk getting caught in the turbines.

On day 3, our group was welcomed by the people at Yakima Chief - Hop Processing Facility in Sunnyside, WA. This facility processes hops to be sold to breweries and for natural products. They process and pelletize the hops to be stored in cold storage until it can be shipped to the brewers to be used in their beers. The aroma of the hops is something that we will all be able to pick out in the beers that we have the opportunity to come across.

After seeing the hops processing facility, we traveled a few more miles to Sauve Farms to see the hops being grown. The plants are grown on a large system of wires hooked to anchor poles and led up to the wires by ropes. This type of farming is also very labor intensive. The farmers need to keep their fields clean and, as you can see, there isn't much room in the rows to pull much equipment through the rows. They also have insect issues to deal with as we do. The farm is set up to handle the hops harvesting process as well. They have a large machine to extract the hops from the vine and another building set up to dry the hops to the optimum moisture.

The next stop was at a fruit farm near Sunnyside, WA. This farm raised apples and cherries. They were in the process of harvesting several different types of cherries while we were there. It is amazing that cherries can go from their farm to Asian countries in less than 24 hours to be sold at markets. We learned alot from Mr. Harlington about the varieties of apples and cherries and about the process of growing and harvesting the fruit.

The last part of our day involved attending a dinner with the Washington Ag Forestry group. They are a group that is very similar to our I-LEAD group. We had the opportunity to visit with people who have gone through the program as well as supporters of the group. I think most of our group had the opportunity to have some very interesting and enlightening conversations at the dinner.

Our last day was spent in Seattle, WA. We made a trip to the Pikes Place Market. Our group read the book FISH! for our last session, and we were all excited to get to see the Pikes Place Fish Market in action. The guys there truly know how to make their job fun! The rest of the market was very interesting also. They had just about anything you could imagine for sale at the large market. The gentleman in this photo was demonstrating gardening from the back of his pick up.

The last event of our mission was to tour the Boeing facility. It was very interesting to see the aircraft being assembled. They were building 747, 777 and the new 787 aircraft. The scale of the facility is simply amazing.

We had a very education Ag Study Mission! I think the group agreed that we found common ground with the different farms that we studied. The farms in Washington and Oregon that were part of our mission are very labor intensive and yet still deal with many of the same issues that our Midwestern farmers deal with. The EGT, LLC facility is a great opportunity for us in the near future. This facility will streamline the flow of grain to the export market. This was an amazing opportunity to see agriculture from a different perspective.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-13T20:19:00.000-05:00

Snoqualmie Falls, WA - Beautiful!!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-06T09:35:00.000-05:00

Mt. Ranier from Seattle Ferry!

VanEss Dairy

2011-06-30T06:00:00.002-05:00

Last night we had the opportunity to attend an open house at VanEss Dairy, which is our largest local dairy. We walked around to different stations in the barns, and they explained what happens in each area and how it is done. Harvey and Lisa VanEss and their sons are the owners/operators of the dairy. Harvey and Lisa moved their family to Northwest Iowa from Idaho and built this new dairy to enable all five of their sons to be involved in the business. They are a wonderful family and their business is a true asset to the area.

The first station showed us the feed ingredients that go into the ration that gets fed to the cows every day. In this barn the cows each have their own area to eat and be comfortable. They are sand-bedded pens which helps the cows stay cleaner. The barn is well ventilated and kept at a consistent temperature throughout the day and night. The air quality in these barns in great! These girls have a comfortable environment and are very content. By the way.....the gentleman in the center is my brother-in-law, Rodney, who is talking about the feed ingredients and rations used for the cows.

Our next station was about cow comfort. These cows looked very satisfied with their surroundings. Then we moved on to the Maternity Ward. This baby calf was born just 25 minutes before we got to the station and another calf was being born as we were walking through.

JM was very interested in the baby calves. He was wondering just how we could get our hands on some of these. We may have to look into that for a project for him.

The milking parlor was amazing. The cows are milked every 8 hours. This dairy does not have a bulk tank since they have a local creamery just a few miles away. AMPI has tankers that sit at the farm and are loaded as the milking process is done. Since freshness is a top priority, the milk is instantly cooled before being pumped onto the tankers. 30,000 gallons of fresh, cooled milk leaves this dairy every day. AMPI takes this milk and makes cheese from it.

Our family would like to thank Harvey and Lisa VanEss and their families for a very educational tour of your wonderful facility. The barns were immaculate, and the cows were content and comfortable. As livestock farmers, we put the care and well-being of our animals ahead of our own. We are proud to have your business in our part of the state!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-29T22:04:00.000-05:00

Aerial View of our farm this morning!

Indy Car Race

2011-06-28T23:17:00.000-05:00

Our little family took a short trip to Des Moines this past weekend to attend the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at the Iowa Speedway. We also had the pleasure of meeting some new friends from across the country. Iowa Corn had invited some bloggers to join them for the race, and we had the opportunity to join them for their events. Friday evening we enjoyed a wonderful meal at Dos Rios on Court Avenue in Des Moines. Then on Saturday morning, we went to Baby Boomers in Des Moines for breakfast and to the Farmers Market. Unfortunately, the rain kept us from getting to the Arts Festival. We did enjoy the Farmers Market though with umbrellas in hand. After lunch, the group made their way out to the Iowa Speedway in Newton.

We had the opportunity to walk through the cars and have a garage tour before the races began. Ed Carpenter, the driver of the Dollar General car, spoke to us and signed autographs.

JM and Ed Carpenter

After the tour, we made our way to the Iowa Corn/Pioneer tent to mingle and enjoy some food. Danica Patrick made an appearance in the tent as well as Governor Terry Branstad. They also had 2 Indy Cars in the tent for people to look at or have their picture taken with.

There were 2 shorter races before the Iowa Corn Indy 250 began that we enjoyed. We watched the entire race from the Iowa Corn/Pioneer tent since they were located just above turn 1. We had a direct view down pit road which was great to watch.

And they were off....................... JM spent most of the race listening to the in-car radios on his headset. He occasionally shared with us. He really enjoyed listening to the chatter.

We watched Danica Patrick's team in the pits and witnessed a few crashes. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured. Marco Andretti was the winner of the Iowa Corn Indy 250. It was a great race to get there.

Our family really loved watching the race! We also enjoyed meeting new friends and experiencing some events in Des Moines. After all of the excitement of the weekend, JM was just completely wore out. And believe me...............this sight does not happen often.

Great weekend Iowa Corn!! Thank you!

Working Calves

2011-06-27T22:18:00.000-05:00

We spent a fantastic weekend enjoying the Iowa Corn Indy 250 in Des Moines (which I will post about later,) but we were happy to get back to the farm yesterday to get our calves ready to go to the pasture. We have a group of cows and calves that have been grazing our grove waiting to head out to pasture. The "girls" have been finding their way out of the grove and into our garden. Yesterday was the day to get them ready to go since we came home to find 4 of them grazing the yard. The calves needed their vaccinations before they are taken out to the grass.

We rounded up the little ones and put them in a holding pen. As you can see, they are a little muddy. We have had an abundance of rain this month and the area around their bale feeder has gotten a little muddy. They are getting fed hay bales also to supplement the grass they eating. The rain has also helped the pastures become more lush for grazing.

The calves each received two vaccines to prevent them from getting sick. Just like we vaccinate our children from diseases, the calves also need that disease protection. We want to keep them healthy! The group was small and it did not take long to run them through.

The group is finished and ready to go back out with their mothers. Tomorrow they will go to pasture and have thick lush grass to munch on.

JM and Copper were there for support!

Busy Weekend

2011-06-19T20:38:00.000-05:00

It was such a beautiful weekend here in Northwest Iowa that we couldn't help but take advantage of it. Even though it was Father's Day weekend, the work did not stop on the farm. JM and I did some running around in the morning, but made the most of our afternoon. Roger got an early start and managed to get all of our corn sprayed yesterday as well as his Dad's beans.

Roger sprayed the weeds in the corn to help protect the crop that we are growing. If the weed pressure gets too bad in the field, it affects the yield of the crop. We always follow label instructions for the crop protection products that we use and want to do all that we can to protect the crop and the environment.

JM and I made a trip to the local strawberry farm to pick some strawberries to eat and make jam with. It only took us about 20 minutes to pick two large boxes of strawberries. They are SO good this year!!

We started with these beautiful strawberries...............

And ended up with:

We sampled a few when we got home and then moved on to the landscaping project. I added rock to the bushes that I planted a couple of weeks ago. We did about half of the area yesterday evening, and I finished the other half this afternoon. It was a lot of hard work, but it looks so nice. Oh....and we did manage to celebrate Father's Day today as well!

Take me out to the Ball Field..........

2011-06-13T22:16:00.000-05:00

Baseball games have officially begun! JM's season kicked off tonight. His team is made up of twelve 3rd and 4th graders. There are two teams of the same age group. He was so concerned all day about winning. I sat down with him and told him it wasn't about winning but more about what you learn from your experience. I think I can safely say that my little speech had absolutely no impact once he entered the dugout and joined in the excitement of the other kids. They all did a great job tonight, and...they did come up with a win.

My little lefty went up to bat with determination. Unfortunately, he struck out. He did have a good hit, but it was a foul ball. I am always interested to see which side of the plate he is going to stand on when he goes up to bat. He likes to change things up from time to time. JM hits well from both sides. He is having a great time with baseball. It is a great experience for him and his dad (since Roger is helping coach.)

Field Trip

2011-06-09T20:09:00.001-05:00

Today we took a field trip with a group of kids from Vacation Bible School from our church. The field trip was to Prairie Heritage Center near Peterson, IA. They have a lot of great things for the kids to look at and learn from. In the basement of the Prairie Heritage Center, they had a very large snake set up! The whole room was filled with nothing but pictures and information about snakes. The kids absolutely loved every part of it! On the main level, they had an exhibit to show prairie animals and plants.

The kids also did a scavenger hunt in this area of the center. There were all kinds of information about the heritage of the land the center sits on and of the local area. The Prairie Heritage Center sits in the hills and has a beautiful view from the windows. They have binoculars and a telescope available for visitors to help enjoy the view.

After the scavenger hunt, we went on a hike on the trails with the resident Naturalist. She explained a lot about the native grasses and flowers of the area as well as some insects and spiders that call the area home. They have native prairie grass growing there, and Charlene, the Naturalist, suggested we come back in the fall and see just how tall the grasses will be then.

There is a pond on the property also. We approached the area quietly and found turtles sunning themselves on the logs. There were several turtles swimming around the logs too. The kids had a great time watching them. Charlene also taught the kids about some of the native weeds. They broke open milk weeds and learned about some early uses for the milk from those plants.

Overall, the group had a great time. JM and I plan on going back soon since we had limited time today. Also, the resident Buffalo are expecting calves soon, and we can't wait to see the new babies.

Cyclone Fan

2011-06-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

Tonight we took JM to Okoboji to the Iowa State Cyclone Tailgate Tour. He was so amazed to see the coaches, football players, gymnastic team members and spirit squad spread out throughout the building. They had an inflatable slide for the kids and loads of Cyclone posters and souvenirs. His first sighting was Cy.

Go Cyclones!!

Then he moved on over to the autograph table where he had posters autographed by two members of the gymnastics team and 4 members of the Cyclone football team.

JM thought it was pretty cool to meet Coach Rhoades! I think his Dad thought it was very "cool" as well.........

Coach Rhoades & My Boys

We had the opportunity to listen to the attending coaches speak, and then they had a special surprise for the kids. They all received Cyclone football jerseys! JM was so excited!! He is very pumped to head to Ames for the football games. And.....he was a lucky winner tonight. JM won 2 tickets to a Cyclone Women's Basketball game. More Cyclone action for us to enjoy!! We all had a great time tonight and will put the Cyclone Tailgate Tour on our list of this not to miss next year! GO CYCLONES!!

Our First Week of Summer

2011-06-02T21:53:00.001-05:00

We have had a great first week of summer on our farm. Last week, I left my full time job to spend the summer with my son, JM, and work on projects on the farm. I couldn't be more excited to get to enjoy my son and the summer weather. As I prepared to be done with my job, I made a very long mental list of projects to be accomplished over the summer. We are off to a great start!

Yesterday, JM and I had to make a parts run to the Case IH dealer. On the way home, we took some gravel roads and came by the pasture nearby that has buffalo in it. There were several with babies, and we had to stop for a minute just to check them out.

Our garden is really starting to take shape. We now have actual rows! The onions, radishes, lettuce, and peas have emerged.

The tomato and pepper plants are doing well. They have grown alot since being planted in the garden. JM and I spent time yesterday hoeing around the plants and adding the rings to the tomato plants.

We also managed to plant 5 new bushes around our house yesterday and added 2 more today. If the wind wouldn't have been blowing so hard today, we may have gotten some more done in the perennial beds that we have in the yard. The sunshine and warm weather is bringing out the best in all of the plants - from the corn and soybeans to the garden vegetables and flowers.

Summer Beauty!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-01T14:33:00.001-05:00

Today's project.

I made myself a list of things to accomplish this summer, and planting new bushes around our addition was one of the projects. We still have to add the rock, but 5 new bushes were planted today!! I had this project complete, minus the rocks, a few years ago, but....one day the sheep got out, and in a matter of minutes my landscaping was bare. So, now that the sheep are gone, I am making another attempt at finishing the landscaping.

Memorial Day

2011-05-29T20:18:00.001-05:00

JM got out of school for the summer on Friday late morning. After saying goodbye to his fantastic 3rd grade teacher, we made a trip to the local greenhouse and bought flowers for Memorial Day. JM wanted to pick out the flower that we would take to the cemetery for his grandma. He did a nice job of picking out a beautiful red geranium in a hanging basket. It was raining when we returned home so we waited until yesterday to take it to the cemetery. As we placed the basket on the shepherd's hook next to my mother's grave, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful the cemetery looked with all of the beautiful flowers and the U.S. Flags that lined the driveways.

JM is getting old enough now to appreciate what the "avenue of flags" actually means for us. I explained to him that each flag that is flown at the the cemetery on Memorial Day is in honor of a U.S. Veteran that has passed away. He was full of questions from that point on. We discussed that they would some day fly flags for each of his grandpas since they both served in the military.

We also had a Memorial Day Tribute in church today. They played a PowerPoint presentation showing pictures and information on each member of our that was a Veteran and is no longer with us. JM had a lot of questions about the wars that these people served in. We have one member who was lost in Afghanistan, and JM remembers the impact that had our our little town.

As you enjoy your holiday weekend, please take the time to remember our loved ones who are no longer with us as well as our Veteran's who have served our country, and the men and women who are currently serving to provide us with the freedoms that we enjoy. Have a safe holiday weekend!

And the Planting Continues...

2011-05-24T21:09:00.001-05:00

Home grown tomato plant.

Now the that the crops are in, it is time to get the garden planted! In earlier posts, I showed how JM and I had started our tomato and pepper plants from seeds. It actually worked amazingly well. We had 12 pepper plants and 24 tomato plants anxiously awaiting their transplant opportunity. Last night was the night to get that done! We rounded up some plastic containers to protect the plants until they could get established in their new home.

These plants have done really well for our first attempt. We went into the project with the idea that if growing our own didn't pan out, we could still buy plants at the local greenhouse. Surprisingly, all of the plants that we started have survived. Assuming "project green thumb" keeps going as planned, we should have a bunch of tomatoes to can later in the summer.

JM and I finished planting the garden tonight since we ran out of protection for the plants last night. We had to borrow some of my aunt's containers to finish the garden. JM brought out the bag of seeds, and we got started digging in. We put in a row of onions, radishes, lettuce, carrots and peas in addition to our tomato and pepper plants. There is still room left in the garden so I think we will add some cucumbers and melons. We also added some glad bulbs to the edges just to provide some beauty! Now we can sit back and wait patiently for our plants to grow.

We had some extra help with the garden too............last week I brought home a little souvenir from work. While doing some work at the ethanol plant, they found 3 baby kittens tucked away under a very large fan motor. Since I have a farm, I was elected to bring them home. They love to follow us around the yard and think the dog is "mom".

Following "Mom"

They are still pretty little. We started out by feeding them milk replacer with a syringe, but they have moved up to eating from a bowl. It is so cute to watch them follow either us or the dog around the yard.

The new babies!

We have all kinds of wonderful things growing on our farm...........cattle, corn, the garden and kittens!

Growing Season

2011-05-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

As I was driving home from work tonight, I couldn't help but take notice of all of the corn that is literally popping out of the ground. Even with the cold weather we have just had, the corn is bursting through. I stopped by our field south of our house to see if our corn was breaking through, and sure enough there it was.

I think every farmer breathes a sigh of relief when they see their crops emerging. The worrying is far from over, but at least the growing season is off to a good start.

We put auto-steer in the planter tractor this year. Looks like it worked.....the rows are straight.

Now we just wait for warm weather and an occasional rain shower to nurture our new little corn plants past the plumule stage (which should be in just a few days.) It is fun to watch the daily changes to the corn fields. The plants can change dramatically just overnight.

As our crops are growing, so is the evolution of our farming equipment. We put auto-steer in one tractor and another tractor moved on to make room for the new addition. The MXU125 got traded in for a MX140. Even though I have not had the pleasure of driving it yet, JM says it is AWESOME!

The New Addition!

JM said he would love to take me for a ride in his Big Red Tractor!

Pioneer Sales Rep in Training

2011-05-11T20:08:00.000-05:00

JM walked to our seed store on main street after school today to help his dad. He loves to visit with the seed customers and help out as much as possible. The Pro Boxes that our bulk seed corn and seed beans come in need to be "nested" after they are emptied to be sent back to the plant. They each have 4 little plastic fasteners that hold the lid in place for transportation. Those fasteners need to be cut off in order to remove the lid so the top half can be removed and flipped over to be nested. JM loves to help remove the plastic fasteners to help out.

The Pioneer Guy!

JM has enjoyed being a part of our busy Spring planting season. He is a true farm boy!!

It's Good to Be a Farmer!!

2011-05-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

As of 7:00 p.m. last night, the corn is officially in the ground! We are 100% corn again this year so we can just sit back and wait for it to pop out of the ground. Well it's almost like that......maybe more like check it every couple of days to make sure it is sprouting, and once it sprouts and comes up we can worry that it will all grow nicely and have a good stand. Then we need to watch over the crop and worry all summer that we will get enough rain, and pray that the hail will stay away. We will scout the fields to make sure we don't have too many weeds. All of this care and worry is worth every second to be a part of growing a portion of our food and fuel supply.

Dave, who farms the land surrounding our acreage, worked hard yesterday to get the farm planted. They were forecasting rain last night, and the area farmers put in a lot of extra hours this week to get their crops in the ground.

Loading the planter

There were numerous acres worked and planted after the sun went down. The tractor lights served as a few extra hours of sunlight to get more work done. We missed out on the rain last night. By the weekend most of the area corn should be planted, and farmers are moving on to planting beans. Bring on the sunshine and warm temperatures!!

The seed store has been extremely busy this week. Most of the corn has gone out, and we are beginning to load out soybean seed. There is no rest or break when we do not know exactly how many good planting days we will get. Oh, and in the meantime, we still need to take extra time to give our animals the good care they need as well. The next few days are supposed to be a little warmer - hopefully, the soil temperature will improve quickly. Everything happens so quickly when we get a window of opportunity. I am amazed at the changes every day from the time I go to work until the time I make it home. Roger is happy to have his corn crop in the ground. He only had one thing to say tonight..................

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-04T17:40:00.000-05:00

Rainbow

The sunshine creates some wonderful things!

The Corn is being Planted!!!!!

2011-05-03T21:04:00.000-05:00

Almost everywhere I look today there are planters going through the fields. I really love this time of the year (even if it is very hectic for us.) The ground has worked up very nicely for great planting conditions. The temperature could be a little warmer, but we still need to get the corn planted as we are not sure how many dry days we will have to work with.

As I drove home from work today, I came by the field south of our house to see that it was completely planted. It is amazing how fast they can get a field finished. It is great to be able to go by this farm every day and see the progress.

I took supper to the guys in the field tonight. We got there just before they were getting ready to load the planter. Roger had enough seed to finish the field that they are in tonight. He will change numbers when they go to the farm up north tomorrow. We should get fertilizer on that field tonight or tomorrow, and it should be ready to plant by mid-morning tomorrow.

We are getting some help putting our crop in this year since Roger has to be accessible at the seed store. The later planting date makes things kind of crunch together. Everyone needs to get a lot done in a short amount of time. Our equipment is not "Green", but it sure is fun to see this big planter go through the field.

Jacob, the guy who helps us, is leveling out the ground that we had spread manure on before they spread fertilizer on it. This time tomorrow, this field will be planted. With any luck our corn will all be in the ground by tomorrow night. They are forecasting rain Wednesday night, and it would be great to have things planted by then. The last farm that we will plant will be our silage corn. We always plant that close to the farm that we keep the cattle at. If we happen to miss the rain, most of the corn will be planted in our area by the weekend.

Seed Corn

2011-05-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

Besides farming, my husband is also a Pioneer Seed Rep. Therefore, Spring time is filled with a little extra activity for us. One of us needs to be at the seed store, which is on main street in town, most of the time. The majority of our farm work this time of the year is done by tractor lights or with some assistance since I work full time also. After work today, I stopped at the seed store and was amazed at how much seed has gone out the last couple of days. It is amazing what a little sunshine can do!!

The sun has dried out the ground, and the planters are rolling as quickly as they can. The farmers have been patiently waiting for their opportunity to get their corn planted. If the weather stays good, there won't be much corn left to plant in our area by the weekend. Now Mother Nature just needs to turn up the thermostat! It is supposed to be below freezing again tonight.

Empty corn boxes.

We had several empty corn boxes sitting in front of the seed store today. These boxes could have 20, 30, 40 or even 50 bags of corn in them. We lift them above the seed tenders with the forklift and empty the boxes into the tender wagon. One of these boxes could have enough seed to cover anywhere from 50-125 acres of corn depending on the number of bags in the box. You may see the red square labels on the boxes - those indicate that the seed is treated. The corn seed has a treatment on it to protect the seed.

Spring and Fall are really great times of the year. I love that everything is so busy, and we make a lot of progress in a short amount of time. It also means that we will soon get to care for this wonderful new crop that is emerging. We enjoy caring for the crops during the growing season and nurturing the land that the crops grow on. Farming is a very rewarding lifestyle!!

Not So Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

As we "patiently" await the arrival of Spring in our area of the Corn Belt, we are making preparations to the equipment to get ready for planting, spraying, etc. We have auto-steer installed in the planter tractor. Roger has the planter ready to go and is scanning the remaining equipment and deciding to upgrade an item or two. This week he traded our pull behind sprayer for a more updated version. Although it is not new, the sprayer is in excellent shape and should work well for us this Spring. Since Dad acquired a newer piece of farm equipment, JM thought his collection needed one as well.

The New Sprayer!

JM hooked his new piece of equipment up to the MX125 and proceeded to spray the tomato and pepper plants we are growing. I guess like father, like son! Now.....I think we can safely say that we own a miniature version of EVERY piece of farm equipment.

Easter Fun

2011-04-24T21:36:00.000-05:00

Our Easter weekend was filled with all kinds of "Easter Fun." We started out the 3 day weekend by making some goodies for the Day Care Bake Sale that was going on in our hometown. It was great to see all of the colorful baked goods that were donated for the fundraiser. JM and I each picked out something to bring back home as well.

Fun Bake Sale Finds

JM and I also colored Easter eggs. We bought a different kit this year.....less mess (or so I imagined.) This kit just had droppers to put the pearlized coloring on the eggs and then you worked the color around with a plastic glove. Hmmmm....sounds simple, right? Except for the kit came with plastic bags instead of gloves, and the colored eggs didn't exactly look like the pretty ones on the box when we were finished.

Even though our "project" was different than we anticipated, JM and I had fun coloring the eggs. As always, it is a new adventure every year. The eggs still turned out pretty neat.

JM and I helped with the Easter Egg Hunt in Hartley on Saturday morning. There were about 150 kids there to gather eggs. It was a lot of fun watching the little ones gather their eggs and bring them up for the prizes that we had for them. Too bad it was only 40 degrees. The poor Easter Bunny needed his coat.

We spent the afternoon preparing food for our two Easter dinners. We made dinner rolls, cheesecake, 2 egg bakes and a salad. A very busy afternoon for us. Plus we had time to do chores and care for our animals. JM took Harley his Easter treats, and Copper received his as well.

JM was very excited to wake up this morning and see that the Easter Bunny had indeed filled his basket with treats, a book and a new Wii game.

Early morning Easter surprise!

Our other Easter surprise was actually seeing the sun this morning! And it stuck with us ALL day. It was a beautiful Easter day! We had some wonderful time with family and got to enjoy some outdoor time on the farm.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-20T20:22:00.001-05:00

Reaching for the Sun!!!

We finally got a chance to see that big, bright ball in the sky this afternoon - a.k.a. the Sun!

April Snow Showers????

2011-04-19T19:23:00.000-05:00

You know how they say "April showers bring May flowers." Well......I'm pretty sure that does not include SNOW showers. Our spring weather is turning out to be much cooler than normal.

Saturday morning wake up call!

We woke up Saturday morning to a light dusting of snow. Needless to say, we were less than excited to see this white stuff adorning the landscape. Normally by the 16th of April, we are getting into some serious field work and starting to plant corn. As of today, the 19th of April, there is very little field work done, and I have only heard of a couple of area fields that have been planted. With the soil temperature still in the upper 30's, the corn seed will take in the water that is in the soil but will take a long time to emerge. We hope that we get some warm temperatures and dryer conditions that will favor getting our crops planted!

Sunday morning???

Sunday morning added a little more snow to the landscape, and this morning had even more to add. We have had snow/rain showers off and on for the majority of the day today. We welcome the moisture, but would rather it not come in the form of snow. Mother Nature will hopefully have some good things in store for us soon! On the bright side, the snow is very pretty and white just like the first snow fall of the year. It is hard to believe that two weekends ago we had tornadoes in the area and this weekend snow. That's why we live in Iowa.....for the love of farming and the ever changing weather.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-13T17:39:00.000-05:00

Our seeds have sprouted!!

CommonGround on Beyond the Bean

2011-04-11T21:08:00.000-05:00

Spring Cleaning

2011-04-10T20:55:00.000-05:00

Even though the weather was not what we had hoped for today, we decided to bundle up (in the spring sense of bundling up) and do some yard work. JM and I had a very busy afternoon. First, we baked sugar cookies - check out the recipe page to see the recipe and pictures. Then, we dug into picking up the yard. We got the 4 wheeler out of the shed and hooked up the yard wagon. I got busy picking up sticks and anything else that may be on the yard or stuck in the bushes. JM was working hard with a bucket picking up all of the rocks that were transplanted when the snow was piled up this winter.

Mom.....do you want to switch jobs???

I had two wagon loads of sticks just from the yard around the house. The grove is a whole other project that will take a whole weekend. JM had several buckets of rocks. I think they were multiplying as we moved across the lawn. We would rake a pile of rocks together, pick them up, and JM would carry them back to the driveway or rock pile (whichever was closer.) We both worked hard today, but I think all of rock carrying completely wore JM out! He was sleeping shortly after he hit his pillow tonight.

The other excitement on our farm today was.......putting new disc openers on the planter and getting all things checked over to head to the field. Now if we can just get the weather to warm up, the planter will be headed out to plant corn.

Testing out our Green Thumb

2011-04-09T21:05:00.000-05:00

We have a serious case of Spring Fever on our farm. JM and I are getting very anxious to get going on our garden. We are going to start a new garden spot at our farm this year instead of trying to maintain one at the other farm. I thought maybe I would get more help in the garden this year if I made JM an "active participant" in the process. So......we decided to start our plants from seeds. Today was planting day! We had orginally planned to do yard work today, but instead woke up to mist and fog. Therefore, plan B was put into place.

We started with this miniature greenhouse kit that we bought a few weeks ago. We also bought seeds for 3 different kinds of tomatoes, jalepeno peppers, and bell peppers.

To expand our little pods we had to add about 5 cups of water to the tray and wait for them to soak it up. Then we had to take each pod and work them around to loosen up the peat and prepare for planting the seeds.

JM took 2-3 seeds and planted them in the pods. I followed up with a covering tool - a.k.a. a toothpick - to make sure that our seeds were sown in the proper place. We planted 18 pods of regular tomatoes, 6 pods of Roma tomatoes, 6 pods of jalepeno peppers and 6 pods of bell peppers. If all goes as planned, we will be planting these new plants in our garden in about 6 weeks. If things don't go so well, we will be making a trip to the local greenhouse to buy the plants to plant in the garden. Either way, it will be a learning experience for JM and I on growing plants.

We are growing our own garden this year because we like to can tomato juice, and have fresh carrots, peas, lettuce and radishes. JM also wants to plant some Indian corn and pumpkins. I usually get my fresh produce from my generouse aunts and uncle, but we thought it would be nice to have our own project.

The Greenhouse!

Later this afternoon we got a chance to work on the perrenial flower beds too. We attempted to burn off the last years dried up plants, but it was too damp from the weather today. Hopefully we will be able to do that soon in order for the emerging plants to come through. JM and I can't wait for it to get warm enough to plant some flowers. We walked through one of the local greenhouses today which just enhanced our excitement. The beautiful colors were amazing. Hopefully, JM was born with the green thumb that his mother was not, and we will have a succussful gardening season.

Soak up the Sun!

2011-04-03T19:49:00.000-05:00

It has been just wonderful to see the sun all weekend! The sun was even radiating some warmth to enjoy. We enjoyed having the opportunity to get outside and enjoy the weekend. I am beginning to think that winter may finally be ending, and we can move on to the excitement and busy times of Spring season. We were out in the yard this weekend picking up sticks and rocks from the lawn. We still have a little ways to go as this is the joy of having a large yard. I can't wait for the lawn to green up, and the mowing can begin.

We still have a rather large snow pile in the grove that needs to melt. It has gotten considerably smaller this weekend, but we could use a warm week to completely have it disappear. This large snow drift also happens to be in the summer horse pen. I am anxious for it to melt in order to get the fence fixed up and ready for Harley to be moved up there.

As we were outside enjoying the day, we wandered around the yard to see what the animals were up to. They all seemed to be enjoying the sunshine as well. What better way to spend a warm Sunday afternoon than taking a nap in the sun.

Soak up the Sun!

Our local neighborhood barn cat was also taking advantage of nap time. As it seems, we humans were the only ones who weren't taking a nap today. It looks like we have a nice weather week ahead of us which will give us the opportunity to get the planter out of the shed and start thinking about getting into the field. I can't wait to smell the fresh dirt when we work the fields. The tile guy is coming tomorrow to put a little extra tile in one of our fields. The frost is disappearing, and the water is quickly soaking in.

As I walked around the yard this afternoon, I noticed that the trees and plants are readying themselves for upcoming season as well. The trees are budding and starting to open. The perennial plants in the landscaping are starting to come through. I have staked out the spot in the yard for my garden also. JM and I are going to again try to manage a garden this year. Hopefully, we will be able to keep up with the work and not end up mowing it at the end of the summer. We are also going to attempt growing our own plants for the garden. We have seeds to plant for 3 different kinds of tomatoes, green peppers, and jalepeno peppers. We will also plant peas, carrots, and radishes in our garden spot.

Spring buds.

We also enjoyed a little time away from the farm late yesterday after we had our work done. The family made a trip to Sioux Falls to pick up some new baseball items for JM. He also picked out some new clothes as he keeps growing at a very rapid pace. I think he is going to pass his mother's height shortly. It was nice to take in a little family time since we know those family moments will be much less when field work starts.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-30T17:13:00.000-05:00

My barn quilt!

March Madness

2011-03-26T21:25:00.016-05:00

March Madness continues on the farm as well as on the basketball court. What we thought may be a quiet Saturday in fact turned into quite the opposite. I started off the day with taking JM to a baseball clinic at the school this morning. Then, after lunch, we walked the cows and discovered a heifer struggling to have her calf. Roger got her into the calving pen and went to work pulling her calf. It was a large calf and required more than just normal pulling to get the calf the rest of the way out. I helped him gather some more calf pulling equipment, and we were able to get the calf out in time to save her.

Our new little girl!

She turned out to be a very spunky little girl. She got up quite quickly and was looking to find her own lunch. Mom and baby came through the delivery very well and are getting along fabulously.

This is another very special little baby. He was born on Wednesday and is the son of one of our very important mothers, Sally. His mother was a bottle calf of ours from 5 years ago. She came to us from Roger's dad when Sally's mother died giving birth to her. The day she arrived at our farm it started to snow, and we had a 3 day blizzard. Sally immediately became part of our family, and we decided she would stay with us as part of the cow herd.

Sally has managed to give us great calves and is a good mother. She is still very comfortable when we are around her and her babies.

Later this afternoon, JM decided he should go out and take a walk through the calves to make sure everyone looked OK. I looked out the window and saw him walking through the yard so I went back to what I was doing. I thought it was taking him a long time to come back to the house, so I looked back out the window to see if I could find him, and there he was.......standing in the same spot I last saw him. I called out the door for him to come back to the house, and he replied that he wasn't able to because he was stuck. I seriously couldn't believe that he was literally stuck in the mud!! I started to laugh, got my coat and boots, and headed out to "pull" him out of the mud. He was stuck all the way to the top of his boots. Oh...and I also managed to grab my camera on my way out the door. This had to be a moment to remember. Roger pulled back in the yard as I was heading out there to JM. Good thing he was there to help. I don't think I could have gotten him out as clean as Roger was able to. I think this was a good lesson for him to watch where he is walking. But, we all had a good laugh anyway!

This is a job for Tow-Mater!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-23T14:49:00.000-05:00

Can't wait for Spring!

Mud Pies

2011-03-20T21:26:00.000-05:00

Happy first day of Spring! The beginning of this wonderful time of year brought us a nice little thunderstorm early this morning complete with hail. I hope that is not what the rest of the summer will hold in store for us as well. We received about 3 tenths of an inch of rain this morning. Although the rain is needed in the spring, it just added more MUD for us to deal with. Back when we were kids we would have loved to see all of this mud to play in. But...as adults with livestock to care for, the mud is quite unwelcome.

We completed our daily round of bedding all of the pens tonight. All of the cattle need to have a place to lay that is out of the mud. As soon as we were done bedding the pen of 350 pound calves, they all tucked in together on the new pile of straw. One of our cows chose to have her new baby out in the field just before we got to the other farm this afternoon. After we bedded their pen, Roger walked out to the field and carried her new baby about 1/4 of a mile back to the fresh straw. Their comfort and care is our primary concern.

Mud is something we deal with every spring. We just have to try to anticipate the needs of the animals and keep the pens as dry as we possibly can. JM was havig a great time investigating each and every puddle to see if he could find one deep enough to go over the top of his boots. Fortunately, he did not find one that could accomodate his wish. :-) Not that the majority of him was not already covered in mud. Luckily, the washer was not in use when we arrived back home since that is where everyones clothes needed to go.

This new little girl was also born in the mud yesterday. But, she was very clean and dry today and enjoying the attention she was getting from JM. Her mother was not equally happy with us giving her baby all this special attention. She was trying to call her back out into the mud, but Macie was in not going anywhere. As spring progresses the mud will dry, and we will be on the field work. I can't wait to get the fields ready to plant!

The excitement of Spring

2011-03-19T20:39:00.000-05:00

As the weather keeps getting nicer, we are getting very anxious for the arrival of Spring. It is more fun to be out with the cattle, and they are enjoying the warmer temperatures as well. We are starting to give the little ones some creep feed.

The calves know what that bucket means. They become JM's best friend when he walks through the pen carrying the white bucket.

Harley also enjoys an occassional ear of corn to nibble on. He is usually found with his head stuck in the bale feeder filling himself up with hay, but will also stop to see what JM has for him. JM likes to pet him every day when he heads into the pen. Maybe this year his mom will even let him go for a ride on Harley.....maybe! Mom is still not sure he is ready to handle a large horse.

JM is just one of the gang when he is walking through the yard. We only have 11 calves here at home, and the other 23 are over at the other farm. The calves at the other farm are equally as tame and enjoy the extra attention.

Since Spring is starting to give us a sneak peak at the coming attractions, we are using a lot of extra bedding to maintain a dry place for the cattle to lay. Last night we put bedding in all of the pens. It was a little cooler last night, and the cattle were running and jumping as we spread the bales out in the pens. We have a new group of holsteins at the other farm, and they are quickly becoming pets for JM. A few of them come running when they see him come to the gate to be first in line to get petted. The show cattle are getting used to being combed again, and we will start leading them again soon as well.

This week was busy trimming up some trees at the farm and getting a shed ready to be torn down. We still have a lot of work to do around the farm to get things back in shape after winter. We also bought some seeds today to start some plants for the garden this summer. Our family definitely has spring fever! The planter units have been test stamped on a Meter Max machine, and it is time to start getting it ready to head to the field. I can't wait to experience the smell of freshly worked soil. That truly means Spring has Sprung!

Our Growing Family

2011-03-12T19:41:00.000-06:00

I took advantage of the sunshine this morning to go check out the new baby calves while their mothers were having breakfast. Some were just hanging out together, a few found places to lounge in the sun and after we arrived to watch them, some of them decided to show off and run around with their tails in the air.

The Rat Pack!

This little girl found herself a great place to tuck in out of the wind and sun herself.

These two little guys ran out from the "rat pack" to have a little fun on the mound. They ran around for quite awhile showing off.

Our little farm family keeps growing every day. We now have 31 calves on the ground. At least the temperatures are getting warmer for the calves to be born. We have had a pretty good calving year as most of our mothers (even the new ones) have been able to have their calves without assistance. The cows are being monitored both day and night since we do not want any of our mothers to have to struggle to have their calves. It is always worth the extra work to make sure we have healthy mothers and babies!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-09T17:39:00.001-06:00

Rudy and Lu Lu at feeding time!

Back To Work!

2011-03-06T19:12:00.000-06:00

We arrived home from our trip to Commodity Classic in Tampa, Florida this afternoon. The first place we visited before even making it to the house was to check the cattle and cows/calves. It has only been 4 days since last seeing them, but it feels like a month. Always great to be back on the farm! There were 10 calves born while we were away, and it looks like we will have at least 2 more tonight. After unloading the luggage into the house and starting laundry, we all put on our winter gear again and headed out to walk through the new additions. The bottle calf, Ernie, was happy to see a smiling face as well.

JM and Harley

The calves were enjoying the day, and had to show off while we were walking around. The additional 10 calves puts us up to 24 babies on our farm. And....we have names for the all!! It looks like the boys are outnumbering the girls this year. While we were gone, we also got in 77 new heifers to put in the pasture this summer, and these girls will have babies next year. We also walked through them to see how they were doing in their new home. Everyone looked like they got along just fine without us even though we can't help but think about them while we are gone.

This cow is a very good mother. She was letting 3 calves nurse while we were walking through them and only 1 of them belonged to her. The more the merrier I guess.

It is fun to watch the calves grow just like kids. They try so hard to act like the adult cows. Addi had her head in the hay feeder tonight with the big cows. She is growing so much!

Now that we have reacquainted ourselves with the rest of the family, we can concentrate on getting everything ready for the snow that is headed our way this week. We had a great time attending Commodity Classic, but now it is back to work!

Commodity Classic

2011-03-03T21:32:00.001-06:00

We are at Commodity Classic Tampa, Florida this week. Myself, and 3 other Common Ground Volunteers, are helping out at the National Corn Growers Association booth and the United Soybean Board booth as well as hosting a learning session Friday at 1 p.m. talking about food and farming. There is a lot of enthusiasm for Common Ground, and we are all very excited about the program!!

This is our first time at Commodity Classic and are having a great time visiting with people. If you have the chance to attend Commodity Classic in the future, please do so. It is well worth your time to attend the fantastic presentations and trade show.

JM and his favorite things.

Roger and JM enjoyed checking out all of the farm "stuff" at the trade show today. JM was in seventh heaven having a look at the Case IH and John Deere equipment on display. Both of them had all (or at least most) of their favorite things all under one roof.

Common Ground has a lot of good things to look forward to. We have the opportunity to talk to people about what we know and love.....farming. It is our way of life, and we can share how proud we are of the food that we work hard to grow.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-02T13:47:00.000-06:00

Tampa, Florida......nice break from winter in Iowa

The beauty of winter

2011-02-22T20:53:00.000-06:00

With all of the ice and snow this weekend it is hard to imagine that we could see any beauty. It was warm enough today to actually melt a little bit. This is one of the icicles that formed on our garage. It was really beautiful with the sun shining on it as it was setting this evening.

Today, Roger and I had the opportunity to listen to John Gnadke speak about grain quality and Duane Lowry also gave us some market perspective. John does a really great job of teaching us how to effectively store our grain. There is more to storing grain than sticking it in the bin in the fall and taking it out when you sell it in July. Duane talked about selling grain when it is right for your business. If you feel it is a good sale when you make it, you shouldn't worry about what the coffee shop crowd has to say. It was a tough day to address an audience about grain markets when corn was down the limit (-30) today. He also showed us charts displaying that we are near record highs from 2008. It would probably be a good time to start making some marketing decisions in this area. Everyone would like to hit the highs, but in the end you just have to make good marketing decisions for your business.

When we arrived back at the farm for the evening, we checked the calves in the calving barn. They were all just tucked in the bedding out of the wind. Jake, our little adopted family member, was ready for his bottle. He came right up to the gate to greet us. We had two more new additions today as well. That puts us up to 11 new babies.

Sid poses for the camera again.

After spending some quality time with our furry family members, it was homework time for JM. He had spelling, math and reading to do before supper.

Ice on the Farm

2011-02-20T20:42:00.000-06:00

As promised, we woke up to ice this morning. Feeding still went as planned this morning except for the discovery of a cow having her calf. She was quickly transferred to the calving barn to be able to have her calf where it was warm and dry.

Happy Birthday Jake!

It has rained most of the day, and the trees and power lines have been accumulating ice throughout the day. About 4:00 this afternoon we lost electricity. As soon as that happened, the whole family headed outside to bed the animals and bottle feed our little baby calf. His mother still has not "seen the light" so we will continue to help him out with bottles throughout the day.

JM feeding Ernie

The cattle love the fresh bedding. They enjoy running through in as it comes off the bale shredder.

JM was having fun getting acquainted with the new calf this afternoon. He is a beautiful little calf. Hopefully he will be our only newborn today since the weather has still not improved. It was still raining when we came in from chores, and the electricity had come back on. We were only without power for about 2 hours. The power outage happened at about lap 147 of the NASCAR race. Thank goodness for Twitter - we could find out who the winner was. It is great to see NASCAR is powered by American Ethanol!

Ice on trees

Winter is back...

2011-02-19T21:13:00.001-06:00

Winter weather is back and headed our way. In a few hours, we will be under an Ice Storm Warning which means that our family spent the day preparing the animals for the impending weather. Instead of heading to my husband's Christmas party in Sioux Falls, we opted to clean pens, bed pens, and make sure the feed ingredients were stocked up to get through the storm. Having animals on your farm means that caring for them comes before anything else. Nobody says a word or feels disappointed about missing the party since this is the way of life that we love.

It was such a beautiful morning on the farm. It's hard to believe that tomorrow morning everything will be covered in ice. The ice and wind probably means loosing electricity which in turn means frozen waters. We hope that doesn't happen, but if it does, we will be out making sure the cattle are able to drink and are comfortable.

We made sure the modified distillers grains pile was full as well as the flaked corn pile. Our corn syrup did not arrive as scheduled, but is supposed to be here tomorrow. If it doesn't make it, we are prepared to adjust the feed rations to accomodate not having syrup in it. We still have plenty of silage on hand, and the protein bin is 1/2 full. The animals will all be fed in the morning before we think about doing anything else.

We also had a new calf born yesterday, and the new mother isn't quite sure what do with him. We have been trying to convince her that he is hers, and it would be a big help for her to take care of him. She is a first time mother and isn't sure that's what she signed up for. So...until she decides which way she is going lean, we are supplimenting his nursing with a bottle of milk replacer. He will just become one of the family! By the way, he would be calf #8 for the year.

The show calves managed to get some time today as well. JM is still quite close with Ralphie even though he hasn't been led around the show ring since August. Soon we will start working with Ralphie, Rudy and LuLu to get them ready to attend some cattle shows. It is a lot of work, but well worth it to see the connection that JM makes with them.

Fun on the farm

2011-02-16T17:53:00.000-06:00

Last week when we had snow!

Spring is here.....well, almost!

2011-02-15T21:24:00.002-06:00

Today was a beautiful day in northwest Iowa. It almost feels like spring! It was over 40 degrees ABOVE zero today and everyone (including the animals) is enjoying the nice weather. The new calves were out running around in the grove with their tails in the air. I am amazed that grass is now visible on the lawn and dirt is showing in the fields. That is sure to get covered again before spring truly arrives, but we have enjoyed this nice week nonetheless.

Happy to see black soil!

Meet Sid...

We now have 7 beautiful little calves on our farm and so far, we have managed to name them all. We have 2 heifer (girl) calves and 5 bull (boy) calves as of today. They are so much fun to watch as they explore the grove and learn about their surroundings. The calves made several laps around the hay feeder as I watched them tonight. Then....curiousity got the best of them, and they had to come over and check me out too.

There are a couple of other members of our farm family that I would like to introduce you to. Below is Copper our faithful "cattle" dog. He is more of a friend to the cattle than a helper with the cattle, but he is a very good family dog. He is our protector (or so he thinks) and loves all the affection that he gets from us.

Copper

Harley

And this is our "ranch" horse otherwise known as Harley. He loves to ride through the pastures to check the cows and calves in the summer time. When we round the cows/calves up in the fall to come home, he is there doing his job. In the off season, he is the resident hay tester...never getting too far from the hay feeder.

I took advantage of the great weather to gather some more wonderful shots of our farm family to share. Everyday has something different in store for us on our farm. That is one of the reasons that we love it so much!

Common Ground

2011-02-08T20:54:00.001-06:00

Everyone makes a trip to the grocery store at least once a week. But, as your making the food choices for your family, do you think about where that food comes from? The Common Ground program was developed to give you some answers to those questions and put a face on American agriculture. It is a grassroots program designed to connect farm wives and mothers with the people making the food choices for their families that are not connected to the farm. The Spokeswomen are farmers who want to show how proud we are of the food that we produce!

Iowa is one of five states involved in the pilot program. The program is sponsored by corn and soybean farmers. The launch for the Iowa Common Ground program was held Saturday, February 5, 2011 at West Lakes HyVee in West Des Moines, IA. Spokeswomen, Suzanne Shirbroun, Sara Ross and myself were on hand to talk to consumers and answer questions about what we do and about the Common Ground program. So, where do we go from here? Each of us will be hosting grocery store events similar to the launch at HyVee in our own area of the state, doing speaking engagements, and continuing our blogs, twitter & facebook pages to get the message out. You can get more information at http://www.findourcommonground.com/.

We think it is great that we live in country with so many wonderful food choices. The United States has the safest most abundant and affordable food in the world. Our message is to let consumers know that we put a lot of care into the food we grow. We are putting the same food on our tables that we are producing to send to theirs. Our animals are a part of our family and most times get fed before we do. We are stewards of the land that we farm and want to preserve that resource for our children to enjoy as well.

Sara Ross, myself and Suzanne Shirbroun

We have been featured in the following media following our launch:
http://brownfieldagnews.com/2011/02/07/farm-moms-seek-common-ground-with-urban-counterparts/

http://www.whotv.com/videobeta/?watchId=6097df4d-3c11-4300-9f96-bc7317dc5ecd

Calving Season is off and running......

2011-01-22T15:55:00.001-06:00

Our first calf of the season was born Sunday, Jan.16, 2011. She has a ton of fire for being born on such a COLD day! Our son has given her the name Addi, and as of yesterday (1/21,) she has a new playmate named Sam. 2 babies down.......50 to go! Until my husband buys more.....ya know, you can never have too many calves.