Category: Challenges

Photo Friday…Geese at an All You Can Eat Buffet

I think it’s aboot time for these Canadian geese to head home!! After just a few grazing hours in our clover field this week they did a ton of damage!

20140425-103242.jpgOn the left is our beautiful tall green clover, on the right is where the grazing happened, leaves totally gone and lots of stems remain.

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It still amazes me how fast they can eat through a crop. But when it’s you and 3000 of your closest friends, bulking up for a trip north, at an all you can eat buffet…let’s just say I don’t think they care that it’s our livelihood they are consuming!

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I think they got to about 15 acres before we scared them off. So I guess here’s to hoping they leave soon aye?!

Living a Zoo of a Life

I have been realizing more and more that life is more like a zoo than a calm flowing of one event to another.  It may be because I’m pregnant, it may be because it’s spring time and I’m a farmer, and it may be because I tend to lean towards the “always busy” side of life.  But no matter what the more life I get under my belt the more I realize that life does fly by and usually it’s true that it happens whether you’re having fun or not!

Although I have to say that right now at this point of my life, it’s all good stuff, so for me I can’t complain.  I have these lurking sort of panther moments where I just know I’m forgetting something, all while praying it comes to be before it’s too late, before the stalking ends and I’m the fresh kill for the day.

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Then there are monkey moments when you get to be goofy, when you get to laugh, even if it’s just to keep yourself from losing it!  And the all too familiar elephant in the room (no not my belly thank you haha!) but the weather that seems to always want to change it’s mind and therefore change your plans on a moment to moment basis, especially in the spring time.

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Then there the giraffe moments, when you can look around from a higher perspective and know that everything is just going to be ok.  If you just be calm and realize that even when you’re fighting horns to horns, if it isn’t alright, then clearly it isn’t the end.

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So today as I get my blog out hours later than planned, because I’ve already met with a painter, picked up chemicals, checked on a crew, looked at a few fields, tracked down a cell phone, and helped load a buggy; I can’t help but take a deep breath and remind myself that once again this is all good stuff.  I think I”ll probably need a lot of reminding of that when our lives take a drastic turn here in a month with a new infant.  The common question of “what are you going to do?” keeps running through my mind.  So far the fake smile and “well we’ll just have to see” have been working, but the impending lion of reality is catching right up with every onsie I wash and soft blanket I fold into the crib.

I doubt this great zoo of my life will ever get any less crazy, probably just new animals to drive me nuts or make me laugh along the way.

 Sidenote: This post was inspired by a campaign from Dropcam to tell the stories about zoos in your life, might be a real zoo, might be an emotional zoo, or even just a wild experience!  If you’re interested in adding your story e-mail Tiffany at tpham@dropcam.com for more information.

**All photos are from a safari in Kenya in 2012.

 

Young Farmers & Ranchers 2014

I am not sure how this all worked out this year, but for some reason I seem to find myself more often not on the farm and instead I’m out talking to other farmers from all over.  I promise I will get back to the business of farming soon, this week though I’m at one of my favorite conferences, Young Farmers and Ranchers Leadership Conference 2014 in Virginia Beach.

AFBF President Bob Stallman

We have heard from Virginia Secretary of Agriculture all about the important of imports and exports to this country’s agricultural industry.  We have heard how a small town girl who didn’t ever think that she wanted anything to do with farming is now the Executive Secretary for the USDA.  She encouraged us to “Talk about what you do and why you do it…because people just don’t get us farmers.”  Bob Stallman, President of American Farm Bureau gave us a challenge to keep working to tell our story, because we have to connect to a new level of consumer.  A farmer that I met just today from Indiana I think summed it up perfectly, “My grandpa started the farm, my dad turned it into a business, and now it’s my job to protect it.”

I think it’s easy to get burned out on certain activities, even for us bloggers and social media folks.  But this is one of those places that you can come to and get re-energized to get back out there and realize that you’re not alone.  Actually the conference has over 1,000 farmers and ranchers who are under the age of 35.  All of who, even while farming across the entire United States are still facing similar challenges and many ways all speak the same language, see the same challenges on the horizon, or even knocking at our back door.  And we all in some way know that we need to do our part to answer that call from Secretary Harden, “To talk about what we do and why we do it…”

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All hands on Deck is the theme this year, and there have been many challenges to make sure that you’re doing your part to be a trusted source for consumers and be willing to tell your story.  So with that before I head off on our last day here in Virginia I want to extend that promise to all my readers.  I want to be a source for you to ask questions or even raise concerns.  I can’t tell you that I know it all when it comes to how our food is raised, but I do have a network of over 1,000 of my farmer and rancher friends who are ready to answer that call.