Farming Fridays!

November 21, 2014

Contest Winner & Winter Comes Early

I’m excited to announce that the winner of the (first ever!) The Farmer’s Daughter USA giveaway is:

SARAH

Congrats, Sarah!! I’ll be in touch about getting your contact information so we can send you Katie’s book “My Farm Family”! I hope you enjoy and I’m sure it will be enjoyable, especially for any little kids you share it with.

A bit THANK YOU again to Katie for allowing me to do this giveaway and for also writing a great book agvocating for turkey growers! Remember, you can find electronic copies of her book on her website as well.

I’ve been busy over the past week with some new ideas and projects that I have been working on for The Farmer’s Daughter. However, where we haven’t been very busy is in the fields. We still have over 400 acres of corn sitting in the field but, unfortunately, we’ve been stopped by the weather.

Lake Michigan

As you can see, winter decided to visit us a bit earlier. I know a lot of other areas in of the country are also experiencing snow as well (and a whole lot more than we are). We had a late night on Sunday (they came in from harvesting at 3 a.m.) and haven’t been in the fields since. It will be a bit of a challenge when we’re finally able to go back out, because the fields will no doubt be wet and muddy.

Be sure to check back on Monday for a fun announcement and some Thanksgiving-flavored posts!

Farming Fridays!

March 21, 2014

Farming IS Dangerous

When Chipotle named their anti-agriculture show “Farmed and Dangerous,” they definitely weren’t thinking about the danger our farmers face in their profession. (No, Chipotle was thinking the farmer was the danger, but I digress…)

But that’s exactly the case – farming is dangerous.

My brother and dad have both learned this lesson recently. They’ve been working a lot in the shop by getting our equipment ready for spring. My brother J was working in the shop on one of the tractors last week. As he was climbing down, his foot slipped off the rung of the ladder. As he was falling, he went to grab onto the weights on the tractor to catch himself, but his finger got caught between the weights. Thankfully, it was just broken and nothing more serious happened to him!

Then, on Wednesday, my dad was working in the shop on a new truck him and J are working on (I believe they’re converting it to haul the big tanks of fertilizer). Anyway, he went to use his grinder on a part and caught the back of his hand. Now, if you aren’t familiar, a grinder is a machine tool used for grinding, which is a type of machining using an abrasive wheel as the cutting tool. Each grain of abrasive on the wheel’s surface cuts a small chip from the piece being grinded.

Needless to say, dad had a deep gash diagonally crossing the back of his hand.

But dad was in a hurry, so he slapped a band aid on it and then some duct tape and went back to work.

Yeah, he really did that.

Now, I won’t show you the photos of what the grinder actually did to his hand (it’s icky to see), but suffice to say that he ended up going to the hospital (after dinner, of course) and getting 6 stitches.

Both of these incidents go to show that farming can definitely be a dangerous profession. They face these types of risks every day of every week. You just never know when a piece of equipment is going to go haywire. And, trust me, you don’t have OSHA snooping around and telling you that you need to wear safety glasses, or thick gloves, or put up safety rail (not that the guys would probably use it anyway…). These are certainly only two (less severe) examples of injuries that have taken place.

So, yes, farming is dangerous, but not the way Chipotle seems to think.

Comments

Anonymous says

March 21, 2014 at 2:38 pm

growing up in the farming community i use to see some nasty injuries and hear about worse thing happening to other families. so needles to say when i had to move my family close to a farm i was a bit paranoid and my city slicker husband could understand why lol. needless to say we dont live on a farm, but we do visit a friend's farm and my kids are very aware of the dangers and what to do in case of a emergency

Farming Fridays!

June 21, 2013

Uh, What’s that in the Field?

We don’t have animals on the farm. Er, aside from the dog and cats. But you know what I mean. Not that we obviously have anything against animal agriculture, it just isn’t what we do.

So, you can imagine my brother’s surprise when he got into the field and saw this:

Uh, who are you guys?

No worries. The owner came out and promptly removed them from the field!

A lot of the same things as last week are still happening. We’re about a week out from being done for a while. However, the corn is starting to grow (uh….slowly….):

My brother bought a farm this spring and, unfortunately, the guy before him didn’t use crop rotation. I’ve posted about crop rotation before and how it’s a good process for replenishing the nutrients in the soil. This farm was planted in soybeans for quite a few years now.

The corn that’s coming up this year looks like this:

See the purple-ish leaf? It means there is a phosphorus deficiency:

Phosphorus’s primary role in a plant is to store and transfer energy produced by photosynthesis for use in growth and reproductive processes. Adequate phosphorus levels encourage vigorous root and shoot growth and promote early maturity. These effects often increase water use efficiency and potential grain yield. Thus, phosphorus deficiency stunts plant vegetative growth and grain development.

Purple leaf tissue is symptomatic of phosphorus deficiency. Phosphorus deficiency symptoms appear on lower leaf tips and progress along leaf margins until the entire leaf shows purpling. Lower leaves often die when phosphorus deficiency is severe, especially when hot, dry, windy conditions persist. New leaves emerging from the whorl are usually green, because the plant mobilizes available phosphorus to the youngest leaves. (Source: MSU (no, the other one….))

Obviously my brother is going to have to give the soil some TLC and get it healthy again so his crops can reach maximum yield.