Control Issues

If you have been told you have control issues, farming may not be the occupation for you. A farmer could make all the right decisions on seed variety, fertilizer application, marketing grain, even equipment purchases but if Mother Nature turns against him, that farmer’s only power is to mitigate the damage.

Bettin’ On the Come

I have always said we farmers are gamblers betting on the come. They have huge amounts of input costs to put a single crop in the ground that may or may not produce a profit at harvest time. This is nothing new but very few occupations operate on such slim margins with such little control.

Every Year is Different

With the past four springs, we struggled to get the planting done on our farm because of too much rain. Usually we get most of the planting done in April to early May. These rainy springs we fought finishing planting by Memorial Day and early June. Fast forward to this spring where here on April 8, we are almost done with corn planting. We are having to plant the corn deeper to reach the moisture because the ground is so dry.

Part of the Job

It has been said that farmers are eternal optimists. Well, I know too many farmers to know this isn’t true. Many are just like my husband; waiting for the next down turn. The next down turn in the weather, markets, equipment. Because eventually they will come. But they also know from experience that more often than not they raise a crop and pay their bills. The lack of control of the weather and markets  is just part of the job. The risks are understood.

A fellow amateur photographer and I went on what has become our annual February road trip to shoot eagles. This year just happen to be great weather for the activity. To find the big birds in large numbers is only a 45 minute drive. When we arrived at Havana’s riverside park, we saw gulls everywhere. I took some shots of this gull who seemed to be teasing the other gulls by playing with a fish but didn’t eat it.

The park wasn’t a good place to see eagles because there aren’t as many trees as the other side of the river. So we decided to the wildlife preserve a few miles away. That is where we saw quite a few pairs of eagles. They were right along the road. This road just also happens to be a levee. So there aren’t many good places to pull off and try to take a few shots. But we did it anyway. Getting out of the car I had to be careful not to roll down the levee. and we had to watch for cars. We came up to a chained gate which I am sure was just meant to keep cars out and climbed it. How else  were we to get close enough to these shy birds of prey. I needed to get these two shots.

We drove around to a few other spots and spotted more eagles but none that would let us get close for good shots. There were tons of flocks of geese migrating north. I liked how their coloring shows against the blue sky. Their wings mimic the v shape of their formation.

Later we drove along the river to a state park that had a nice size lake. There was a rock dam on south side we walked along to the other side. Here we saw lots more eagles. But this one was the only one who stayed put for us to take a few shots before he flew off.

After taking a few more shots of him that didn’t turn out. We headed back to the car. The state park decided to lock the bathrooms for the winter. All I have to say is I am greatful that it wasn’t too cold out and the park was void of other people. We drove around to a few other places but didn’t see anything. So we called it a day and headed home.

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Even cows can benefit from having a mobile device. A new collar being developed for cattle ranchers could send cow health updates to farmers’ cellphones. The device could help ranchers save money in the long run, monitoring the health of their animals

This got me to thinking about getting a text message from my cows. I think it would be so cool. What would a cow text?

Gate left open. Cant find our way back in. Hrry Home

Ur late for chores. Where R U?

Betsy in heat. Lookn 4 Bull. bout 2 go thru fence

Pick up oats on ur way home

Dont 4get vet apt @ 2

What do you think a cow would text message? And what apps would they want?

Whoa. What a great time William and I had at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. convention last week. They had a record number register for this year’s meetings (8200+).  I’ll admit the main reason we decided to attend was because it was in Nashville. William and I love going to Nashville to hear live music and dance a little. Even better if we can join up with some cattle guys at the same time. After driving down Tuesday we had steaks at the Stockyards. It turned out not to be as good as the last time we were there. Wednesday we went to Robert’s Western World and listened to a singer. He was a lot of fun and played some good music.

Later that day, we headed over to Opryland Hotel to register and walked around a little ’til the exhibit hall opened. I took some pictures and made a short video of William for his blog. So the second reason I wanted to go to the NCBA was the exhibit hall. I knew it was going to be gooood and it waaaas. There were food tables scattered throughout with meatballs, fried pickles and okra.

We joined the tweetup at the Angus booth. It was amazing to finally meet many of the guys from twitter. @JPlovescotton @dailycowman @AR_Ranchhand @cowgirljesse @Agwired to name a few. Sorry if I missed someone. Please remind me in the comments. So much fun talking cattle and social media with everyone.

Afterwards we made a bee line to signup at the Beef Magazine booth for free pair of boots before the hall closed. Met Heather and Jamie there and chatted a little bit. We headed back downtown to our hotel and the honky tonks. A funny thing happened on the way. William’s phone rang. I answered it for him. it was the ladies at the Beef Magazine booth calling to say his name was drawn for the boots. Yeah.  William picked out this pair of ostrich Setsons from Roper. Thank you very much Beef Magazine and Roper.

The next day we were signing up for everything; gators, ipads, guitars. Hey, we were on a roll. We stopped at a ton of booths to talk about feed, bulls, fly control, ag colleges ect. William went to a few meetings while I walked around a little and edited some of the pictures I had taken on my phone. Before dinner we went to the MBA reception. There we sat with a couple from Kentucky. Then we met Whitney and Kaity from Missouri Beef Council. That night NCBA had a couple of bands playing. The band on the main stage didn’t play any two step music so quite a few dancers were disappointed. The action was at the karaoke dj. That was fun. Tried to bribe Ryan Goodman to sing a tune but he didn’t want anything to do with that. Guess tweeting his picture wasn’t enough of an incentive.

this guy nailed it

Again we headed down town for better music and found it at Second Fiddle. Excellent band. William and I even met a group from our state there. Had a good time talking to them when we could hear each other. That was our last night. We drove home the next day. We had to get back for 4H steer weigh in. I did miss getting grits at Puckett’s. I can get them next time we’re back in town or when NCBA is back to Nashville in 2014. We’ll definitely be there.

Agriculture Degrees Are Not Useless

It’s all the buzz in the social media ag circles. In Yahoo’s Education section, Terrance Loose wrote an article “College Majors That Are Useless“.  He lists top 5 degrees that should be avoided. Three of which are in the agriculture industry. Mr. Loose could have done a little more digging for more accurate information before condemning a whole industry. Is a survey of “almost” 1000 employers going to give you complete enough facts about career opportunities across the country.

Mr. Loose brings up the school in Idaho that is cutting ag programs. My alma mater, Illinois State University, is adding programs and degrees to the agriculture department. The ag student enrollment is up with an increase for next year. ISU is hiring more professors (=more jobs) because of the influx of students. Their Dept. of Ag has continually had the highest job placement for graduates in the university.

Which brings me to the next point. The article states “don’t expect farms and ranches to be calling you”. If Mr. Loose would simply ask a farmer he would know that farms raise their own workers, send them to college and bring them back to the family farm. But farms and ranches do call crop specialists, large animal vets, elevator managers, seed dealers, custom applicators, machinery dealers, fertilizer plants, specialty food contractors, even USDA’s county managers, extension specialists, ect. All of which are highly likely to have degrees in agriculture.

Finally, the point “U.S. Department of Labor projects 64,000 fewer jobs in this field over the next seven years”. I would suspect that these jobs mentioned are low skilled jobs that don’t require a college degree. All I can compare this to is the ag climate here in Illinois where we have the 2000 lb wind-bag gorilla on our shoulder known as Chicago. (It’s not a monkey. It’s a big, stinky, resource sucking, arrogant, felonious gorilla.) One would think the behemoth would dominate the state. With 76,000 farms, Illinois biggest employer is the agriculture industry at 25%. 68% job growth in the state is ag related and 9% growth expected over the next 10 years (2008 stats).

So if the saying holds “How’s it play in Peoria, IL ?”, the ag industry for the country is likely to be similar.

Yahoo is doing a huge disservice to its readers and those looking for factual information on career decisions.  It makes one doubt the accuracy of the rest of the articles in the “College Majors” series.

A career in agriculture is an excellent choice. It’s a noble profession to earn a degree that can take you anywhere in the world or back to the family farm. My kids are discussing which ag major they would like to study and what ag college to attend. I couldn’t be happier for them.

Every year we haul corn out of the grain bins in December or January to the elevator. The kids are always giddy about pushing their favorite shovel to move corn, as you will see in the video. Usually the weather is bitterly cold but emptying the last bin the beginning of this Jan. was unusually warm.

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Here is the video from last year. You can see the difference in the kids’ sizes in just one year. They eat lots of beef.

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My super simple but not-so-secret recipe for Corn Casserole. I get requests to supply this dish at every gathering.

Corn Casserole

1 pkg jiffy corn bread/muffin mix
8oz sour cream
1 can cream style corn
1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 stick softened butter
1 C cooked wild brown rice (optional but worth the effort)

Mix all together pour into a 1 ½  qt casserole dish. Bake at 350 ‘til golden brown. 55 to 60 min. Depending on how deep the dish is. Cake tester should come out clean.

I cook a big batch of rice ahead of time because wild brown rice takes 50 minutes to cook. Then freeze the rest to use later.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Be sure to share with your friends

We finished harvesting the 21st of October.  Actually one of the earlier finishes for us.  Only two real breakdowns with the combine and they were small ones. One of the hose clamps on the air inlet pipe on the turbocharger broke. The other was a drive chain on the corn head.  Semi’s were a problem early on, but the old 99 International once it was running ran great.

Oh by the way, this is Judi’s lessor half posting this, she is still trying to get caught up from being part of ” #occupycombine in #harvest11 “.  She also has been helping me with fieldwork for next year’s crop. We did get one of our new wells hooked up to the house.  Great to have “enough” water.  We also added to the kids show string of heifers this last weekend, more on those girls later.

She is really a great combine operator and she does look for the last row of corn or soybeans every year.  Found it two Fridays ago.  I took her out to our favorite Italian restaurant last week. We celebrated and then went home and went back to work.  She is just really busy right now, getting caught up with the kids and house stuff and computer stuff, and well the life of a farm wife/ farmer.

She would  say she is just glad it is over for this year.

Well, Monday coulda been the day we finished.  We had started the last field of beans late Saturday afternoon. The weather was warmish. We whittled away at the last 160 acres for the next couple of days. With the elevator staying open ’til 8:pm, we could get quite a bit done in a day. But it started getting cloudy late Monday morning. NOAA kept increasing the chance of rain from 30% to 70%. By 3:pm it started raining and we had to quit with 20 acres left of the 2011 harvest season. Then we’ve had drizzle for the next two days to keep us out.

BigGreenCombine ran this skunk out of the beans. Lots of critters in the field

Antique Tractor Club

Jack called William to ask if we had a field where the Vintage Ag Assoc. could run their old tractors and plows. The group’s members look for a place every fall to give their equipment a work-out.  Just to show every group has its tensions. Some antique tractor members say that other member’s tractors aren’t old enough. I wonder when the cut off date is? Here are some of the pictures I took and a quick video.

Massey Ferguson

FARMALL B

Minneapolis-Moline

Massey Harris

Oliver

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