When you’re dreaming about farming or homesteading, it’s easy to be consumed with the exciting things. Baby chicks. Fresh eggs. Pulling the season’s first sun ripened tomato from the vine. Sun drenched fields of green on still summer days with cotton puff clouds softly floating by overhead. You know, the things we usually take pictures
There I was. Standing in the barn with both hands firmly wrapped around the legs of a squealing three week old male pig. I held it up as the vet made an incision across each testicle, beginning the castration process. And the first squeal sent Charlotte charging at us. I had dreaded the moment most
Every year, during the downtime between Christmas and New Year, I choose a word. One word that will define what I want out of the year ahead. This word might be what I want to give, receive, learn or achieve. Usually it’s a combination of them all. For 2019 I’ve chosen the word VALUE. I
Here we are once again, at the birth another new year. The older I get, the quicker the years seems to pass. On more than one occasion last year, I had to double check the calendar because it sure felt like we had just started into 2018 not that long ago. But alas, we’ve now
There are seasons and cycles on the farm. A rhythm and a flow to this life. But the one thing that permeates everything is busyness. We are always busy. Because there is always something to do. And if I’m honest, most of the time it feels like if we take a few moments to rest
We are not meant to live life in grayscale. Do you ever feel like that? Life can sometimes seem like one long exhale. Go to work, pay the bills, make sure the kids do their homework. Recycle. Repeat. Exhausting. But what if there was more available to us? Have you ever read a
Do you remember how it felt to wake up to the first winter snow? How white it seems, that first snowfall. Hauntingly perfect. As a child, you probably couldn’t wait to get out there in it. To make the first snowman. To throw snow balls at your buddies. Or just to mess up that perfect
I sat down with a local agronomist to go over soil samples he pulled from both of our fields. I was encouraged, but not necessarily surprised by the results. For the most part, our soil is pretty healthy. Nitrogen levels are good, which is to be expected after years of conventional soybean and corn rotation.
This morning started out normal. Pretty much the same as every morning has started this week. Eyes open to a semi-kind of-daylight leaking through the window. Coffee downstairs followed by the pattering of little feet and impish giggling in the hallway. Cartoons on the television, cereal pouring into plastic bowls, the house suddenly coming awake.
When we first told our family that we were moving to Iowa, my grandpa asked me if I knew that Iowa gets “weather”. That wasn’t the first time we were asked that question, nor was it the last. Even when we finally did make the move, well-meaning Midwesterners asked us if we’d experienced Iowa winters