AM Northwest


My busy week was capped off last Friday with a pretty cool experience. Another farmer, Jesse Rue and myself made the trek up to Portland to go on live TV and talk about grass seed and family farming!

I say trek because it was during some pretty great winter blast moments. The roads weren’t too bad, just the side streets. Which proved almost too much for me and my heels!

All that shiny business…is ice!! So Jesse and I walked, skated, mostly just slowly scooted along the icey sidewalks to get into the studio…we looked like 90 years olds we were walking SO slow!

Here is a link to our segment!

AM Northwest, KATU

It was a very cool experience to shoot live TV and talk about what I am so passionate about! Here are just a few facts that we covered…

  • 98% of farms in Oregon are family owned.
  • There are also 1174 century farms (over 100 years old) here!
  • Grass seed production takes up 400k acres in Oregon. 90% of those acres are in the Willamette Valley.
  • Grass seed provides $1.2 billion to Oregon’s economy.
  • Grass seed as an industry provides over 10,000 jobs in Oregon.
  • Grass has great environmental benefits.  Erosion control, soil cooling, and water filtration.

To learn more great things about Oregon grass seed check out Oregon Seed Council’s website: www.oregonseedcouncil.org.

Home…

After 5 days of dressing up, 5 days of heels, 5 days of having to look, well, not like the usual farmer. And I can’t even tell you how happy I am to be in my Tshirt  and jeans hanging with these handsome fellas!


Yay…and a snow day!!! I’ll catch up with updates on how the past wild week went later…until then I’ll be busy with my two wild men who I’ve missed!


One of which is going to turn 1 tomorrow!!!!! Davor “Auggie” is one growing boy!


Happy Friday folks!

Meeting Season

As farmers we work in seasons…and I don’t usually mean the traditional seasons that we all work around.  I mean, harvest season, fertilizer season, rainy season, the all too familiar “it’s way too hot/cold season”…and then there is “meeting season.”

I tell people often that as farmers we rarely slow down.  Yes while harvest might be over, and the 14 hr days seven days a week aren’t our hours for the whole year, our work never seems to end it just changes.  This week for me is no different, this week traditionally marks the start of my meeting season.  Which means that I go to meetings of all kinds…so here is just a taste of the week I have coming up, not much tractor time for me!

  • Yesterday I got to sit in front of a computer for an online meeting to satisfy my pesticide licensing requirements. image1
  • Today I am a speaker talking to those who aren’t in the farming business.  I’ll be speaking at the Oregon Leadership Summit about the future of farming.
  • Tonight is my EMT meeting for our volunteer fire department.
  • Tomorrow I get to learn at a leadership conference of how to be a better farmer and employer.  untitled
  • Wednesday and Thursday I get to participate in the House of Delegates to set policy for our state farm bureau.
  • Not to mention an evening meeting for the Clover Commission Wednesday evening.
  • Friday I get to do some of the fun stuff like be on TV to help people  ear about our great grass seed industry that we have here in Oregon.  Tune in to AM Northwest on Friday December 9th to see me and Jesse Rue!
  • Then next week comes Oregon Seed Growers League Monday and Tuesday….I’m not kidding here folks, it never ends!

So sometimes…I look like this as a farmer, and sometimes I look not too farmer-ish.

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I have to say though that these are great opportunities for us to all learn more about our industry.  Whether it be a presentation on the weather, new crop protection tools, or markets around the world, it all plays into what a farmer plans for and works towards in the year to come.  It’s also very fun to get to see those folks who you don’t run into very often out in a field.  In the end I’m just a farmer, but the hats I wear may vary greatly from season to season, but it’s all for our farm for our land and our legacy!