Farming, Kids, Golfing, Wine, Country Music, Leadership, Community, Networking, College Football and Sushi

One of the things I really came to the realization of this weekend at the Agchat Foundation Conference is that as hard as you try to be yourself in your online conversations, the real you doesn’t get across until you have those in person conversations not limited by 140 characters or the time we spend in our endeavours to promote agriculture. So, in light of that, this is a blog post to introduce you to me. This is not our farm, what happens on our farm, or an agvocating post! It is a post about all of those things in the title that are me and create the fire inside.  In short, how do all of the words in this post title fit together?

Many on here know and have experienced my intense passion for the occupation in which I work, but there is much more that lays the foundation for who I am. I view my interests as rather diverse for a country kid raised on the farm. I am equally comfortable in Wranglers as I am in a Business Suit. I enoy being covered in grease, sweat, and mud while working but enjoy an evening of golf with my wife or friends at the country club. There is nothing better than charburgers on the grill and fresh sweetcorn, although to me equally good is great sushi and a Sapporo.

I love Country Music, but a little Eminem now and then with some Nickleback suits me also. Taste testing different local beers is something I love to do, and I also enjoy the experience with wine. Leadership roles come naturally to me, but I can serve in structure of an organization effectively. I can carry a hard edge when working, but have three kids that soften me more with age. I love college football, parrticulary the Nebraska Cornhuskers and also have an artsy side that appreciates greatly the gifts

artists have as I don’t play an instument and the only drawing I can do is a picture of Snoopy!  I like to Hunt and Fish, but also enjoy a night on the town with my wife.  I have a strong feeling that all need to serve their commuity in some kind of volunteer capactiy as working for something besides money is satisfying to me. I used to love politics, now it infuriates me!  I believe strongly in the community in which I live and will continue to fight to preserve it for my kids. But most of all I just want to be a good Husband, Father, and Friend!So while this gives you a glimpse of the things that drive my passion and are parts of my life, the one thing I realized and heard over and over this weekend was how important your real life connections are and that you must find a balance.  I am very fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends and family in my life.

Future blog posts are going to try to reflect our lives as a whole on this farm and not just the agvocating that we do.  In order to effectively communicate our thoughts and ideas relating to agriculture, you must know who we are also.

This Time of Year.

Been a while since I actually wrote something, so I thought I would update everyone on what exactly we are doing now that our planting season is over.  This week we have been cleaning up the planting equipment and getting seed corn ready for returning.  This included breaking down the plastic boxes which carry our seed to be shipped back to our seed corn company.

It is also a time to get caught up on mowing, spraying, and general maintenance on the farmstead.  We will be spending some time also hauling last years crop to market from our bins.  Storing some of the crop has definitely paid off this year for our farm.

In the field at this time we are getting ready to side-dress fertilize the corn crop.  We wait until after emergence of the crop to fertilize it as you gain efficiency from your fertilizer and can put on around 10% less than if you would put the fertilizer on prior to planting.  We use GPS technology to precisely apply the amount needed to specific areas of the field based on soil samples that we pulled earlier this year.

We are also readying our row-crop cultivators to put up a “hill”.  This is for our fields that we irrigate with gravity irrigati

on.

In between all of this I have started tearing the deck off of our house that we moved into last December.  The supports underneath were not constructed properly and we have had to tear the whole deck off and start over.  Thank God for a tool called

a Sawzall.  I will continue to post pictures of the crop throughout the growing season and try to summarize them every week.  Hope everyone enjoys their summer vacations, our busy seasons are in full swing, although we did find the time to get away for a little Husker Baseball during one of the rain delays during planting as evidenced by My son and his friends in the picture!

New Beginnings

Spring is always a time of re-newal and new beginnings on the farm as we plant crops and wait for them to grow and mature into harvest, but this year we have a new beginning in the addition of our third child.

It has been quite a year for us.  New house before Christmas, finishing the basement in it, and now adding another piece to our family puzzle.  Delaney was born Monday morning and came in at a just perfect 7 lbs 3 ounces.  Big brother and big sister are both thrilled.  It is nice to have them fighting over holding a baby, than the normal brother/sister fighting.  It is almost like our 6 yr old grew up overnight when you see him settle down to sit and hold the baby.  There are not many times in life you see him sitting and not moving unless he is sleeping.  Our daughter of course is a minnie mom, hovering over the baby every second and talking to her just like the conversations she would have with mom’s tummy before Delaney was born.

We have received quite a little rain lately and it rained all day Monday which allowed me to focus on the moment of having our third child instead of worrying about getting the corn and soybeans in the ground.  It is amazing how quickly our moisture has changed around here.  In Early April we had been put back in a drought, and have now had over 6 inches of rain in the last couple weeks.

We put 500 acres of corn in the ground before the rain which is sitting in the ground waiting for the sunshine.  So, on our farm this week will have the new beginning of a new baby and the new beginning of another crop year.  May you all be blessed this season as we proceed through another crop year and another year of life!