Family Farming

I didn't get to see my dad for Father's Day and I felt bad because I saw my mom for Mother's Day, as it was the day after my college graduation, plus nobody was home with my dad for Father's Day this year.  The older of my two younger brothers is currently at Lackland Air Force Base for basic training and won't be home until November because he has skills training immediately after.  My youngest brother has been gone most of the month with different conferences and on Saturday he left for a boy scout camp.  I've been living in a Minneapolis suburb since the middle of May and my mom came to the Twin Cities area this weekend to attend a graduation party so she decided to spend time with me as well.

Despite not being with my dad for Father's Day, both of my parents have taught me the importance of family.  I believe farm families are especially aware of what it means to be a family and how important it is because they work together and play together.  My mom was a city girl who married a dairy farmer and they had very different backgrounds but both love the farm and have been incredibly supportive parents.

My dad grew up in a large family on the same farm that I grew up on and he always had to work on the farm. He went to tech school for Farm Business Management and joined his dad on the farm immediately.  Even though my dad had to work on the farm, my brothers and I were never forced to do chores, though he would ask for help when necessary.  I learned to drive tractor and feed cows because I wanted to and because I enjoyed it.

Working on the farm with my family brought me closer to them.  I did a lot of things with my brothers and my dad that most families don't do together: picking rocks, unloading hay and moving cattle.  (My mom cannot help much on the farm due to asthma and allergies but wishes she could more.)  Even though we would occasionally still fight while working, we often had good times too.  We got to have fun while working because we were interacting with family.

My brothers and I at YELLO, a state 4-H leadership conference, when I was a MN State 4-H Ambassador.

Besides working together, my brothers and I were all in 4-H, all showed rabbits at some point, and were all in drama in high school.  We're all different and those similar activities were good to have together.  My parents were always fully supportive of everything we were in despite being busy with my dad milking cows and my mom working off the farm most years.

Visiting Home

There's no place like home.  I feel this classic "Wizard of Oz" line is even more true for people, like me, who feel a strong connection to the farm they were raised on.  I've traveled and lived away from home, and currently live 2 1/2 hours away, but I do love home and that's partly because it's where the farm is.

This weekend instead of staying in the Twin Cities, I went home after work on Friday.  My uncle has been living at my home for the past week to help my Dad with fencing so he was there and will be staying for at least another week.  It's nice that my Dad has the extra help because my youngest brother is the only sibling still at home but he's gone for most of June at a 4-H conference, Boys State, and a boy scout camp.

I always enjoy being back on the farm.  When I'm in the city I miss the cows, I miss the fields, and I miss doing chores.  I like to go back home and feed the cows and clean the barn, simply because I think it's fun.  I like to talk to my dad about the crops and about what's happening on the farm.

Cows are nice and I've had some great favorites, but this weekend one of my favorite parts was playing with the young calves.  We have 4 heifers in the pen that houses the youngest calves and they are all very friendly.  this weekend I petted the 4 young heifers for at least 10 minutes.  It's fun to see how curious they are and how much they like to be petted.

Of course this year hasn't been a normal planting season and I was able to talk to my Dad more about that while I was home.  My Dad hasn't even finished planting his corn and he just started last week.  Our farm has clay soil and it's been a cold, wet spring so planting got started very late for us.  My Dad is hoping to get some barley in as well but we don't have enough tractors to do both corn and barley planting at the same time.

On a non-ag related note, I also got to attend a grad party for one of my friends and her younger brother (her from college and him from high school), go to a bonfire the same friend had, and see the boyfriend who is currently interning at a company in Bismarck and living 7 hours from me this summer.

Taking Sides

I love agriculture and I love all aspects of it that I am familiar with.  I love the cows, driving tractors, picking rocks in fields, and the people in the industry.  Sometimes though, I feel like I am being asked to take sides on what is often a controversial, and often discussed, topic in agriculture.

Being from an organic dairy farm has put me in a somewhat unique position, especially when it comes to applying for jobs in the agricultural industry where I might be representing conventional farmers.  It seems that there is often a great divide between organic and conventional farming, one that I don't think necessarily has to be there. I know there are plenty of people who will disagree with me and say that one system is inherently better than the other. 

My family's dairy farm became organic about 9 or 10 years ago.  We always pastured our cows, but have even more pasture since we became certified organic.  Before we became organic, my dad started getting really sick and none of the doctors had an answer until one told him that it was a chemical sensitivity so he had to stop using chemicals on the farm.  When that happened, he looked into becoming certified organic, since we couldn't use chemicals anyways, and began the process.  Organic is a necessity for my dad to keep farming, but it's not for everyone.

We have lots of neighbors who are conventional farmers and I have never heard my dad saying anything to indicate that they should switch to organic.  He will certainly talk to them about it if they ask, but I don't believe it is something that should have to be forced upon all farmers.  Our neighbors primarily own small farms, like us, and care for the land and their cows like we do.  They simply choose to do so in different ways.  

Living in the cities

Even though there are lots of cities across the U.S., Minnesotans sometimes refer to the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) as "the cities".  Though I'm not currently living in either, I'm living in Robbinsdale, which is a small suburb right next to Minneapolis.  Last summer I lived in Kansas City so living in a city isn't totally foreign to me anymore, but it still takes some time to get used to.  At least being in the Twin Cities area I am close to drive home for a weekend if I just need to go to the farm.

I finally have my university laptop, which I now get to keep forever, back so I'll likely start to post a bit more regularly again.  Last Monday I started my summer internship with Wilbur-Ellis Company as the Agribusiness Marketing Intern.  I'm working half with the Nutrition Team and half with the Seed Technology Team.  It's been very interesting so far, especially learning a lot about plant nutrition, seed and agronomy in general.  For someone from a dairy farm with just enough acres to feed our cows, it's a lot to learn but I enjoy it.  This week I took a trip down to Ames, Iowa to visit the Seed Technology office there and learn more about the seed business.

Living in the Twin Cities does have its advantages, including being able to walk to Cub Foods and really being able to walk to anything I might need, having access to anything I might want fairly close by, and that I have a lot of relatives in this area.  I'm actually staying with one of my aunts so I have a 30-40 minute commute but I get to hang out with her.  Like when I was in Kansas City, I do sometimes miss the fields and the open land so I was glad when I got to go to Ames and drive on the interstate for 3 hours through fields.

Pomp and Circumstance

I apologize for letting this blog go for a bit.  The last month of school was incredibly busy and, though I had plenty to write about, it seemed there were always more pressing things to get done such as class projects and applying for jobs.  I'll have to change to title of this blog soon as I am no longer a college student.  Last Saturday, May 7th, I graduated from the University of Minnesota, Crookston with a B.S. in Communication and Marketing.  I was also one of the first two graduates of the UMC honors program, which I loved being involved in.

My immediate family and I before the ceremony.

My boyfriend and I before the ceremony.  He graduates in December but we only have a spring ceremony so he walked with me.  He's also from a dairy farm and is majoring in Software Engineering.

I loved college so leaving it was bittersweet, especially since I only had 3 years of it.  Pomp and Circumstance is always, it seems, played at graduation ceremonies and it never fails to make me a bit sad as well as get stuck in my head for weeks.  I'll miss many things:  being surrounded by people, having roommates my age, the extra-curriculars, my part-time job, the learning environment, my research project, Crookston itself, but most of all the people.  I met many, many amazing friends, faculty and staff at UMC who I will never forget and I hope to keep in touch with.  

Despite the air of sadness surrounding graduation, I am also excited.  I'm starting an Agribusiness Marketing internship on Monday, May 16th, in Burnsville, MN.  This opportunity will allow me to explore some aspects of agriculture that I'd love to learn more about.  I'll be moving to Robbinsdale, MN this weekend for the summer.  Though I lived in Kansas City last summer for my internship, the Twin Cities are a bit bigger so this will be a slightly new experience for me as well.  

Birthday Party

At my job on campus we frequently have birthday parties.  I think there must be a birthday party a month at least between the University Relations and Alumni Development departments and they're always fun because we get together, eat a dessert and talk in the Heritage Room.  On Wednesday we celebrated the birthday of the graphic designer on campus and I was one of two student workers there among the full time employees.

Somehow the topic of conversation at Wednesday's party got to be about farms and it appeared that everyone I was sitting near had grown up on a farm or at least had a close relative or friend who had.  An employee in printing mentioned that we used to drink raw milk and nobody thought twice about it, but said that now nobody does that.  As someone who drinks the milk from my family's dairy farm straight from the bulk tank, I mentioned that I still drink raw milk when I go home and actually prefer the taste.  I know raw milk is a controversial subject and everyone has their own opinions about it, which is completely fine, but it is interesting to see how opinion on it can change over the years.

Since everyone around me at the party was older than me, it also struck me how it used to be much more common for someone to be from a farm or at least know someone close who was.  With today's farm numbers continually declining, this just emphasizes the need for educating the public about farmers do everything and how their food is produced.  If people don't know anyone on a farm, they have nothing to base their knowledge on.

It was interesting to be able to talk about dairy and farms at a birthday party for work and it just goes to show that agriculture conversations can come up anywhere.

April Snow Showers Brings Cinco De Mayo

It's been a while since I've posted on here because April is always a busy month for me as a college student.  With a just a few weeks left until graduation, all of my big projects are due soon, there are tons of activities going on, and there's graduation to worry about.  Because of all this I've been a bit stressed lately.

UMC had its 3rd annual Fiesta in the Spirit of Cinco De Mayo last night - held now instead of May because May 5th is during finals week - and nearly 900 people came to campus for the event.  Crookston got 6 inches of snow yesterday which I wasn't a big fan of at first, but it wasn't too cold out and the snow was actually very pretty.  The turnout of 900 for the Cinco de Mayo celebration was great considering the fact that it was snowing all day, and in mid-April no less.  I was one of the many students who volunteered to help with the event, which included a marketplace, children's activities, a Mexican supper, a fiesta celebration, and a family dance.  I helped with the children's activities and helped kids color wooden maracas, which was great because I like working with kids.  Helping kids and going to the fiesta, which included dances from various parts of Mexico, really helped lift me mood and destress a bit.

One of the things that caught my attention during the Cinco de Mayo celebration was a video that was playing repeatedly about life in Mexico for a family during the children's activities.  At one point in the video, the narrator was talking about how their mother said that chemicals on their crops were ruining them.  As someone from an organic farm who also tries to support the conventional side of farming, it was interesting to hear that.  I'm not certain that there what the video was saying was actually happening, and it was just a brief comment, but it is still something that anyone who paid attention to the movie could have heard.