Our Help

We are trying to get as much help as we can from these two on their last couple of days of summer!

New Pigs

50 pound feeder pigs came to the farm today. They will stay for about 5 months (and around 250 lbs) until they are ready for market.

The barn (above) all cleaned and ready for the new pigs.

Already enjoying their new home.

The Iowa State Fair

We had a beautiful day at the Iowa State Fair this year!  82 degrees and sunshine!

We had a lot of fun: 



Pigs ARE good for Iowa!

 





Listening to Governor Branstad.





Coloring at the Iowa Food and Family Project sand sculpture (very cool!)

 



My name on the ISU Alumni wall!



The giant slide (AJ and Wyatt coming down).

My (and the kids) favorite part was the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit.  It is a wonderful way to involve kids in where their food comes from.  It takes you from the farm to all the way to the grocery store.  You turn in your soybeans for soy biodiesel, and your other "commodities (corn, eggs, pork, milk, etc.)" for money.  Then you get to go to the store to buy something!  Super cool!  Each stop seemed realistic.  The feed was like what we actually feed our pigs and cows.  The photos were of what you might actually see on the farm.  Just by seeing and feeling those things - they now have a great start of what a real working farm might look like.

My kids see most of what we saw at the fair on a regular basis.  They know that the hamburger on our plate came from a cow on a farm.  They know that the bacon they eat came from a pig like we have in our barns.  They know that the vegetables on the table have been grown by a farm.  They already have an idea of the practices used every day to get that food on their plate.  

I wonder how new the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit is for other kids (and their parents)?  If it is new, will it spark an interest to find a farm and visit it?  To ask more questions?  I really hope it has!  

Cold Weather Chores

While a lot of my blogging friends have written about the cold weather, AJ and I were able to take a break with some great friends down in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. When we left Des Moines, it was a whopping -14 degrees (that does not include wind-chill!).

We got to Punta Cana at 4:30 pm that day (Punta Cana time) and it was 89 degrees ABOVE ZERO! Yea, it was awesome. We had a great time. Besides getting sick, it was a beautiful trip. I had hoped to see some of the Dominican Republic agriculture, but didn't quite make it. Maybe next time!

This week I am switching places with AJ, and I am doing chores (he had a small surgery and has some stitches to care for). I've done chores before and I used to help outside on the farm. But that was before we had kids. Now, my main chore on our farm is our kids. :) I am excited for our switch, but we also have some cold weather to deal with!

My experience so far has been more challenging that I had imagined. Friday was my first full day of doing chores by myself. Of course, the water tanks were frozen up, and we had a calf die (ironically, On The Banks of Squaw Creek wrote about "sentiment" and "sentimentality" on the farm that day.  Read it, I agree with her!). Friday, I started chores at 8 am and finally finished up at noon. I was exhausted! This morning I went out to do chores at 8 and was back in by 10 (I even had to load the feed truck!). By the end of this, I will be a pro :)

Here are some things that I am learning:

• I need better gloves, stocking hats, socks, and long underwear. It is cold outside.
• I need to lift more weights in the 'off season.' Going in and out of the loader, trying to load a 150 pound calf in the loader bucket, scooping out feed bunks, and crawling over gates has taught me that I'm more out of shape than I thought!
• I need a handkerchief. You can only wipe your nose with your hand and wipe it on your jeans so long before your nose gets sore.
• I need to remember my Bluetooth for questions (and to charge my phone up). This morning I had my Bluetooth and phone charged so when I called AJ with questions I had both hands handy! :)
• I need a better attitude at times. When I was having trouble yesterday, I was getting mad. I'm pretty sure I waste more energy when I get mad. I need to just move on.
• When the weather is windy and cold, chores will take a little longer.

Some cool things about chores:

• The beautiful winter mornings.
• The equipment that I get to use. 
• The calves and pigs :)
• Felfies (Farmer Selfie).  They are the cool thing to do!

Outdoor Observations

Okay. My goal was to do a post for my blog once a month. I'll change that goal to once a month on average. :)

Harvest for us began on September 27th. The bean crop is harvested, and we are already over half way done with corn. The harvest isn't as bountiful as we hoped, but it is a harvest. The kids and I are trying to enjoy all of the beautiful fall days that we can (and while the sun is still out!).

So, the real reason I haven't posted is because I didn't think I had much to post about. Well, now I am behind because there is a lot to post about!

We were able to be involved with a Water Quality Tour last week (this will be my next post :)), and it was great! That is what kicked off me getting inspired to write again!  Then, over the weekend my Mom came up and I started on my Christmas Shopping List (BOOM).  While I was obviously busy, AJ was out putting on fertilizer with our strip till bar (another post…). Today, I was lucky enough to help keep an eye on….(drumroll please)….MANURE APPLICATION! On the farm, this is what I get excited for!

A few facts:

• The manure from our hog building is 'liquid.'
• We take samples and send them into a lab to see what nutrients are in our manure (think of it like the nutrition labels on your food).
• We then follow rates that are calculated on a per acre basis from that analysis.
• We do not apply the manure ourselves. We hire a custom manure applicator who need to be certified through the state to apply manure.
• This year we applied the manure by dragline. This just means we pumped the manure through a hose directly from the pit to the field (see below pictures).
• While pumping the manure, the pit is being agitated (stirred). 
• This can release dangerous gasses, so no person is to enter the barn. We went over every 2 hours today to check on the pigs and make sure they were okay by peeking through the curtain from the outside of the barn.

Here they are pumping directly out of the pit.

                        The hose that leads from the pit to the tractor.

                 Manure application in action :)

Agitation pump

Manure is a big reason we decided to have livestock on our farm. By using those nutrients, we don't need to purchase as much commercial fertilizer. It gives us a more sustainable farm by creating a circular process: the crops feed the animals, the animal manure fertilize the crops, and so on.

If you have forgotten what I do, don't forget my blog post: I Work With Manure. I'm lucky to "bring my work home with me." ;) 

What questions do you have about manure application?

Conservation in Action Tour

First, here is an update on what has been happening on the farm: 

1. Planting:  We finished up planting soybeans on Saturday, June 22nd. Thank goodness! It's in God's hands now!
2. We loaded pigs out of our barn yesterday.  340 (not so little) piggies went to the market! :) 
3. We’ve been keeping up on the spraying in between rains.
4. We are finishing up side-dressing anhydrous to our corn.

Yesterday, I got to attend a "Conservation in Action" tour in Kossuth County. The tour was just that: tours of real farmers that implement real conservation practices on their farms. We saw:

• Wetlands
• The wetlands we looked at were in different conservation programs, but the basic concept is that they help create a reservoir to hold water and filter out excess nutrients (so they don’t flow downstream). 

• Hog Facilities
  • The farmers use all of the manure generated from the pigs as their main nutrient source for crop growth on their farms. Along with those nutrients, they also have a plan that shows an estimate of how much soil is eroded off of each field (called the RUSLE2) and the risk of phosphorus loss on each field (called the P-Index). They are required to meet certain levels to apply manure.
• High Tunnel Greenhouse
• This greenhouse was funded through EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) through NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service). Vegetables are grown in it and sold locally. I wish I could grow and maintain a garden like her!

• Windbreaks
  • The windbreaks we saw were mostly used around their livestock facilities. Windbreaks help protect the livestock from wind/snow, create a filter for odor/dust (so it doesn't blow off-site), and (in my opinion) make the farms look pretty!
• Strip Tillage
  • Strip Tillage is a reduced tillage program. It is a combination of conventional tillage (leaving little residue on the top of the soil) and no-till (leaving all the residue on the soil). It literally leaves a strip of soil to plant in, while the inner rows have trash/residue to prevent soil loss.

There were more conservation practices talked about, but these were some of the highlights. On our own farm we have a wetland; we use the same principles and practices as the hog facilities mentioned above; we have implemented windbreaks; and we utilize strip tillage.

Conservation is not a "one size fits all" package. Iowa is diverse in landscape which also means that while some practices work here, they may not work for someone else. We work with others and learn from one another (the good and the bad) because we have love and passion for our land.