The Many Hats a Farmer Wears

Every month the coordinator of our local Farm Bureau Association and I go into our school’s fourth grade classroom to teach “Ag in the Classroom.” This morning two members of the board of directors came along to lend a hand. My husband Joe was one of them. Today’s lesson was about the many hats farmers wear.

We had five of the kids step in the hall to put on costumes and/or gather props. We had them dressed as a livestock manager (cattleman), a weather man, a scientist (plant pathologist), a heavy machinery operator and a businessman. The rest of the class had to guess what professions they were. Then the guys explained how they wear each of those hats on a regular basis.

The guys did great. I think it surprised the kids how much technology came into play for each of those jobs. It probably also surprised them that it’s not just driving a tractor and feeding animals. There are a lot of factors off-farm — even internationally — that producers have to take into consideration on a daily basis when making decisions. It got the gears turning… one of the students (MY SON!) even asked how we get commodities to China or Russia.

We start our “Ag in the Classroom” off each year with a day at the farm. At the farm, the kids rotate through several different learning stations: Wheat, Soybeans, Milo (Grain Sorghum), Beef Cattle, Dairy Cattle, Farm Machinery, Veterinarian. Then each month after, we pick one thing as a theme for our lesson. So far we’ve done pumpkins, pizza (more detailed wheat lesson since we grow a lot of wheat here), candy (yes! more specifically, cocoa, sugar beets/cane, palm kernel oil, touch on international trade) and the many hats a farmer wears.

Since farmers work hard to take care of the land, the next three lessons are spent focusing primarily on natural resources, learning how important it is to take care of our resources, soil composition and what farmers do to conserve our soil.

 

Finally, an idea!!!

Hello, everyone! I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to blog. Again.

I recently read Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. She was witty and it was well-written, but there was plenty of foul language in it. Didn’t exactly enhance the story line, in my opinion. However, I still enjoyed the story itself. She dove into the world of blogging in the early 2000s (2002, I believe). She decided to go through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, preparing every single recipe in the book in one year’s time. I think there were 524 recipes in the book. No big deal, right? Many of us cook at least one meal a day, that would surely clear a couple of recipes… wouldn’t it?

NO.

They were FRENCH recipes. Have easy access to calf bone marrow? If you happen to, do you know how to open the bone to retrieve the marrow???

I don’t have time for that kind of stuff. Besides, I have three small children. I’m all for encouraging more sophisticated palates, but come on, let’s get real here. (Besides, I don’t think I would have liked my eggs poached in wine.)

Anyway, my purpose for writing this evening. I’m going to do that. I don’t plan on Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I do plan to go through many of the 2000 recipes in Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook. I’ve seen Cook’s Country on television many times. I love the show. They have test kitchens where they perfect recipes like potato salad, fried chicken, making smoked pork that isn’t really smoked in a smoker… Lots of recipes the average person wouldn’t mind trying!

So, my goal for the new year is to make my way through many of the 890 pages of this book. I say “many” because I have no intention of making every single recipe. I plan to make recipes I think my family and friends would be willing to eat with me. I also plan to try a few new foods I haven’t tried yet. For instance, fennel. I know, how can I have not tried it yet? I have had fennel seed. I hate the stuff. However, every show I watch on Food Network has prepared fennel in some form or another. And my cousin Chris has cooked with it. If he can, so can I. (Love you, Chris!)

I will not be posting every single day. I still have a life. I also still plan to post things my kids do or say and what happens on our farm/ranch.

I will try to take some pictures as I go, but will not promise to do so with every recipe.

I hope this finds you all healthy and off to a good start for the new year.

 

Fall Harvest

We had some rain this past weekend. It was a nice break for the guys who had been working late every day, drilling wheat, cutting beans and picking some corn. It was a nice break for me and the kids too; we were missing Joe. We also needed the rain very badly.

We had header troubles on both of our combines. The exact same breakdown on both of them, which is rare. Fortunately, it happened Friday evening, just before it started raining.

A week later, the guys are back in the field, cutting soybeans. We had a total of 1650 acres of soybeans. We have 600 to go. They picked some corn while our beans ripened another hot and windy day, then went back to beans again. They picked 100 acres of corn. We have 400 left to go. We also have 550 acres of milo to cut, and have hired someone to cut our silage. We just have to pack it in the silo as they bring it in. (The silage is for our cow herd. We’ll start feeding them in February.)

Andy, our hired man, has been drilling (planting) wheat. Joe is planning on having a total of 1800 acres of wheat. Andy has 250 acres left to drill.

We raise non-hormone treated cattle (NHTC). We do not raise hormone-free beef. There is no such thing. We are fine with implanting cattle. However, we found a niche market and are taking advantage of it. The European Union prefers to purchase non-hormone treated beef. We get a premium for our calves when we sell them. We’ve spent a lot of time selecting bulls with good growth traits and have been replacing cattle we initially purchased years ago with cows we have raised ourselves. We’re finding that paying closer attention to sire genetics and cow production is paying off. We’re raising bigger calves. We also raise angus cattle. (The best, in our opinion.)

Sometime in the next few weeks, we’ll be making time for our annual NHTC audit, then will be weaning calves from our 300 cows. At that time, we’ll deliver them to a feedlot where they’ll be fed to harvest weight.

As I said in a previous post, this is the craziest time of year for us, but we enjoy it. Beautiful weather and lots of productivity. I’ll have Ag in the Classroom next week. The coodinator of a local ag organization and I go into 4th grade classes and teach kids about agriculture once a month.

I also have a niece and new nephew to go visit and our whole family will be going to a wedding at the end of the month! Hopefully we get a lot of work done so Joe will feel better about leaving!

Hope this finds you all doing well. Enjoy the beautiful weather!

 

I’m Still Here

Hello. I just wanted to say I’m still here! Things have been a little crazy lately. I’ve been writing a grant for an organization I’m involved in, I’ve not been feeling very well, and I just haven’t had the heart to write while worrying about a young relative who is ill right now. I’ve been spending a lot of my time praying for her instead.

If you’d be willing to say some prayers for her too, we’d really appreciate it. She’s happy and really doing pretty well, but her family is still awaiting answers and healing for her. Please lift her up in prayer to ask God to place His healing hands upon her, to give her parents strength as they await test results and to give the doctors wisdom, clear answers and compassion. Thanks, friends.

I’ll be back soon… probably to share some photos and words on my recent adventures in canning.

Take care until then.