Farming through the generations

From horses to tractors guided by GPS technology, farming has changed a lot over the years and in our family.  As I've told you before, The Farmer is the 4th generation of his family to farm in Hancock County and both of our families can trace farming back farther than that on our family trees.  Despite all these changes in agriculture over the years, one thing has remained the same.  Family farmers are committed to producing safe, affordable, and nutritious food for their families and yours. 

Technology has played a big role in the changes on the farm over the years just like it has in all of our everyday lives.  I often think about when I headed to Purdue University as a college freshman 20 years ago.  I had never sent an email before arriving at Purdue and we had a bag phone in the car for emergencies only.  My how things have changed! 

Just like we have embraced technology in our personal lives, as farmers, we have embraced technology that ultimately allows us to do more with less.  By utilizing GPS technology, we are able to precisely apply the exact amount of crop protection and fertilizers that may be needed by a specific crop in specific location.  This has dramatically reduced the amount of crop protectants and fertilizers needed to raise our crops and just one of the many ways that technology is making a positive impacts on our farms and ultimately at the grocery store for consumers.  It is also one of the many reasons that The Farmer and I's grandpas fed 61 Americans annually in 1960 and today my husband can feed 155.  

Technology has also allowed us to provide the best care possible to our pigs.  I've talked about this numerous times in the past, but just in case you don't think about my pigs as much as I do I thought I'd give you a little refresher. 

Today we raise our pigs in climate controlled barns that allow us to not only protect our pigs from the elements such as snow, sleet, rain, and hail, but also keep the barns at around 70 degrees year round and protect the pigs from predators, such as coyotes.  I can only wish that my grandfather was still alive to see how we raise our pigs today. 

As you can see, farming has made a lot of changes over the years, but I am thankful that we have been able to learn from past generations and embrace technology to make the best decisions possible for our pigs and our crops.  Ultimately this makes it possible for my family to produce safe, affordable, and nutritious food for our family and all of yours.  I am very proud to be a part of  a family farm that is carrying on the family tradition. 

This post was sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance and The Glass Barn, 

but the the thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.  

We grow it, so where can you buy it?

So it is no secret by now that you all know we raise corn, soybeans, wheat, and pigs on our family farm.  We feel very blessed to be able to raise food for our family and all of yours.  So that being said, I'm often asked where can you buy the food we raise and grow on our family farm.

The answer is really quite easy, but it may not be obvious.

You see you can buy the food we grow and raise at the grocery store or mega big box store.  We don't have our own label or anything at the grocery store, but when you buy pork at the grocery store that is helping our family farm and fellow farms just like ours.

Our family sells the majority of our pigs to Tyson Foods who then distributes the pork in the grocery stores across the country.  So there is a good chance when we sell our pigs to Tyson Foods in Indiana, our pork ends up in a grocery store near you especially if you are in Indiana and the Midwest.   

Pork Chops I purchased at Walmart --- could have been ours

My mother-in-law and I also sell some pigs each year under our own private label at 2 local Farmer's Markets, a local orchard, and an online food hub as a way to educate others about our family farm and help pay for Big Sissy, Bubby, and Little Sissy's college education.

The cost of college for the three of them is scary!

So what about our corn, soybeans, and wheat?

Well all of the corn we grow on our family farm is used to feed our pigs so we don't sell any corn.

Big Sissy delivering a snack to my father-in-law driving the combine during corn harvest.

We do sell all of our soybeans; however, we sell them to a local soybean processor that makes soybean meal from our soybeans and we buy soybean meal from them to mix with the corn to feed our pigs.  (Soybean meal is what is left after the oil and hulls are removed from the soybean and is a protein source for out pigs.  The oil that is removed is used for cooking oil and the hulls are used as a fiber source to feed other animals.)

Soybeans in the pod in the field

Actual soybeans

As far as our wheat goes, we only grow a small amount of wheat each year.  But what we do raise, we sell to a local elevator where it is milled and turned into flour.

Partially harvest wheat field

So as a proud Indiana farmer, you can support our family farm and fellow farms just like ours by buying pork at the grocery store or by contacting me directly if you prefer to purchase our private label.  Either way we provide the best care possible to our pigs as they are our top priority.  So whether it is providing a climate controlled barn for pigs to live in to be protected from the elements or predators or using precision when planting or harvesting our corn crop, we truly feel blessed and honored to be raising food for our family and yours!

Dear Heather

Well last week's Farmer Fridays didn't happen quite as planned with the passing of my Gramma, but we survived the events of last week and as I said then, I find much comfort in the fact that she is no longer suffering.

That being said, almost every day I get asked some sort of question about our farm, our crops, our pigs, etc...  Many of those questions I have answered over the years with past Farmer Fridays so I thought I'd get them organized all in one spot for you as part of this "Dear Heather" post.  I hope this answers some of your questions, but if you still have some, I'd love for you to contact me or leave a comment and I will answer them in future Farmer Fridays.

So here's some of the past "Dear Heather" questions I've been asked and answered:

What are the holidays like on the farm?

What is Christmas like on the farm?

How does corn grow?

Why is too much rain a bad thing?

Where do your pigs live?

Is corn really knee high by the 4th of July?

What type of corn do you grow on your farm?

What impact does the draught have on your crops?

How are you "green" on your family farm?

Did you grow up on a farm?

How do your pigs survive the Indiana winters?

How do you protect your pigs from the elements?

What is a "snow day" like on your farm?

Where can you buy our pork?

What is the best part of being a farmer?

What do you feed your pigs?

How do you use GPS technology on your farm?

What happens to your pigs when we have a big temperature change overnight?

How involved are your kids on the farm?

How long does planting and harvest season last?

So what else would you like to know?  Please leave it in the comments or email me at proudporkmom (at) gmail.com

Fried Corn Chowder

The temperatures are starting to drop a little and on days like that soup sounds perfect to me.  So when I found this recipe for Fried Corn Chowder in Gooseberry Patch's Hometown Harvest , I knew we were going to have to try it and we were not disappointed.  Even my normal non-soup eaters liked this chowder.

Fried Corn Chowder

Ingredients

3T. butter, divided

2 c. fresh or frozen corn

2 T. dried, minced onion

2 c. potatoes, peeled and finely diced (this was 4 potatoes)

2c. hot water

2 T. all-purpose flour

2 c. milk

1 t. salt

1/8 t. pepper

Directions

Melt one tablespoon butter in a saucepan over low heat.  Add corn; cook, stirring often, until tender.

Meanwhile, melt remaining butter in a separate large saucepan or stockpot.  Add onion and cook until lightly golden, stirring often.  Add potatoes and hot water. Simmer until potatoes are tender.  Drain half of the liquid.

In a bowl, add flour to milk; whisk until no lumps are visible.  Add salt and pepper.  Stir flour mixture into hot potato mixture; blend well and stir in corn.  Simmer until flavors are blended, about 10 minutes.  

Serve hot with Beer Bread and bacon bits if desired (unfortunately, we didn't have any bacon.).  Makes 6-8 servings.  

This chowder was relatively easy to make but my hands were busy so I apologize for the lack of photos during the cooking process.

This was the perfect lunch on a rainy Sunday even if we were slightly depressed since the rain is slowing down the harvest season on our family farm.  

Be sure to enter my giveaway for this awesome cookbook and good luck!

Special thanks to Gooseberry Patch for providing me with this great cookbook to try and share with you. If you would like to purchase this or other cookbooks, please visit their store. Additionally, this post does contain an affiliate link.

Farmer Fridays - 2011 Harvest Season

Well Harvest 2011 is not quite in the books for us yet as we still have a couple hundred acres of corn to shell, but the end is definitely in sight.  I thought I would share some of my favorite photos from this year's harvest season for today's Farmer Fridays.

And remember Big Sissy shared some of her own earlier this month as she shared her view from the combine with us.

And just because our real harvest is almost over, doesn't mean Bubby's harvest is over.  He is planting and harvesting crops year round in our house.

Don't be alarmed by the red equipment.  He is a John Deere boy 100% just ask Miss Liz, but he will use whatever people will give him. 

Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have about our harvest season.

Farmer Fridays - Do you believe in signs?

This time of year our family is usually in full harvest mode harvesting our corn and soybean crop to ultimately feed our pigs.  However, the combine has not moved on our farm since Monday night as the rain that we needed all summer arrived on Tuesday and didn't leave until last night.  After it was all said it done, we got 3 inches of rain this week which means it will be a few more days until the combine is back in the fields.  

The bright side of the cold, windy, rainy weather we had this week is that today was an absolutely beautiful fall day and tomorrow looks like it will be the same.  For me, I'm hoping this is a sign that harvest will be back on track soon.  Additionally, I'm taking this sign a little farther.

My Aunt S who was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this summer had a bone marrow transplant 4 weeks ago.  She came home from the hospital a week and a half ago which was well ahead of schedule and all appeared to be going well until this week.  Wednesday night she was readmitted to the hospital with some side effects that the doctors are still trying to diagnose.  When she was admitted on Wednesday, the prognosis looked potentially grim, but it is starting to sound a little better today.  We are still waiting on all the test results and only time will tell, but I'm taking today's beautiful weather as a sign that she is going to be OK.  So I'm asking for all of your prayers and thoughts for my Aunt S as that's really all I can do as it is out of my control.  

Farmer Fridays - What do we feed our pigs

In case you didn't know, October is National Pork month.  As a pig farmer, we love pigs and pork so it is always fun to celebrate them.

During the month of October, my Farmer Fridays will focus on different aspects of our family pig farm and how we raise our pigs so that we can produce healthy, nutritious, and safe pork for my family and yours to eat.

Today I'd like to focus on the diets of our pigs and what we feed them...

Farmer Fridays - A Guest Post from South Dakota's Stories of a First Generation Farm Wife

Well after an extremely wet and rainy Spring, it appears we are going to endure a very hot and dry summer.  I hope it doesn't stay like this for long as the temperatures this week have been killer on our family farm.  This week we have seen temperatures in the 90s everyday with a heat index well over 100.  The worst part of the high temperatures is we have seen very little precipitation so once again it is starting to be a critical time for our corn as we need rain.  It really is as simple as that, but the good and the bad of that is we aren't in charge of that department so truthfully all we can do is worrying about what we can control and say a couple extra prayers each day and night.  So with that being said, I'm very excited to introduce you to a special lady with this special Saturday edition of Farmer Fridays.  

Morgan from Stories of a First Generation Farm Wife is a fellow native Indiana girl; however, her heart and love of agriculture led her to South Dakota.  It was such a pleasure to meet Morgan this past winter and I am so excited to introduce you to her as she is a great gal and just happens to be the newest member of The Real Farmwives of America and Friends. 

Picture this:

    It is really your first time ever driving past the state of Illinois. Destination: Colman, South Dakota. Iowa shows its beauty on the first leg of the trip and on the second leg, the amount of traffic that I-80 can actually hold. Minnesota brings the excitement of finally getting closer to South Dakota, only to bring a completely blown flat tire two hours from state line. Finally, after 17 hours of driving through the night, filled with frustration, you miss your exit ramp. Only to find out in South Dakota it can be miles away from the next one. Finally, you reach your destination- an exit ramp where you meet someone for the first time face to face, even though you have been talking to them several times a day for the last few months. Twenty minutes later picture meeting that special someone’s entire family and closest friends. 

Did I paint you a pretty crazy picture?!? That is where my story truly begins on how I went from being a simple Indiana girl to marrying a South Dakota farmer and his family farm. 

Currently my husband and I farm in a partnership with his two brothers, their wives, our seven nieces and nephews, and also my in laws. To add that up quickly for you that is 8 farmers, and 7 future farmers. It always warms my heart that whenever we go to wedding dances, or other community events, it goes without spoken agreement that whoever arrives first finds the biggest table in the room so we can all be together. You can imagine how hard it is to sometimes find that table! My husband and his brothers are all third generation farmers, and their wives all first generation farmer’s wives.

We farm just over 3,000 acres of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa hay. We feed approximately 2,000 head of beef cattle a year and have a small calving operation of just over 100 cow/calf pairs. Most of our cattle we sell to a producer you may be familiar with selling chicken, which is Tyson. With that acreage and cattle we support three growing families. 

Mainly my role within our farm is the same as both of my sister in laws, we all three share the task of maintaining our farm accounts, calving records, running various pieces of farming equipment, and cooking, which means a weekly rotation of cooking the noon meal, or “dinner”, if you are from South Dakota. We are also known for having to drop everything we are doing on a moment’s notice to give rides to various fields, jump in a tractor, or whip up 10 sandwiches to bring to the field “as soon as we get a chance”. Although translate that into our husbands' terms and that means, right now. Our family is not unique in the fact that we work together each day, many farming families do, and like many farming families we face our hardships, but with those hardships come times of joy, laughter, and complete wholeness. 

Being a part of a farming family is stressful, but so is being a part of farming, or even being a part of any family. However, being a part of my farming family is also fun, full of laughter, and true bonding time. When I go up to the farm and see my niece sitting on the floor while her dad works on a tractor I can’t help but smile, or I see my nephews pushing corn into a pile with their little toy tractors. I relish in the fact that all I have to do is drive a mile up the road to see the family that I love so much. We have our crabby days don’t get we wrong, we do have 8 people who work together every day, but at the end of the day we all are there for each other and support one another, just like any other family, the difference being sometimes our family time is just spent doing bookwork, harvesting corn, or working cattle. I couldn’t think of a better environment to raise my future children in.

People ask me often about what I love so much about the agricultural industry and in the past couple of years my answer has changed. What I love most about being involved in the agricultural industry is my family and families like mine. We aren’t the only farming family in the nation, or South Dakota. But we work hard at being farmers because it is our livelihood and we take pride in providing for our nation’s food supply, and our nation’s future farmers.

I hope you have enjoyed getting to learn a little bit about our farm and will enjoy reading more about our day to day operations over at my blog:  Stories of a First Generation Farm Wife.

Stop by and check it out!

Thanks Morgan and welcome to The Real Farmwives of America and Friends!!!

Farmer Fridays - It's going to be a busy weekend

Although this year's planting season started off extremely slow due to Mother Nature, it appears we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel but that means it is going to be one busy weekend on our family farm.

As you know, we finished planting a couple of weeks ago and although there is always a huge collective sigh of relief once all of our corn and soybeans are planted; the work does not end there.  We've kept quite busy since we finished planting and our list of activities for this weekend includes finishing wheat harvest,

applying anhydrous ammonia to the final two fields of corn,

spraying our soybeans, and possibly planting soybeans on top of the wheat stubble (the field where we harvested the wheat).  (This is called double cropping because we are going to attempt to get 2 crops out of the same field in the same year.)

So needless to say The Farmer and his dad will be ready to have some down time on the 4th of July when we have our annual family cookout and fireworks show which will probably include some fishing.

Happy 4th of July!!

Farmer Fridays - What a difference

What a difference just a few weeks have made on our family farm.  As you know from past Farmer Fridays' posts, planting season of 2011 has been proceeding at a less than desirable rate due to the extremely wet weather Mother Nature has sent our way for most of April and May.

Well that changed a lot over the last two weeks and we have been able to spend the majority of the 14 days in the field.  In fact last Saturday, we finished planting corn including areas that had to be re-planted due to being drowned out by too much rain after being planted.  On Sunday, we started planting soybeans and finished yesterday morning. 

Needless to say The Farmer and his dad have been working almost 'round the clock; however, it is always worth it when we can say we are done planting.  So I'm quite positive everyone released a huge sigh of relief yesterday at this family farm.

Now just because the planting is done, doesn't mean the work is done.  We are now working diligently to get all of our corn sprayed.  If you remember from last year, we have to spray our corn to kill the weeds that compete for essential nutrients with the corn.  And then after all of the spraying is done, it is time to apply anhydrous ammonia (nitrogen) to the corn to essentially help it grow or "get bigger" as Big Sissy used to say. 

So although there is still plenty of field work to be done in a timely manner, it sure is excited to know all of our corn and soybeans are planting.  Now if we can just get Mother Nature to bring back some rain periodically and gently over the course of the summer so our crops will grow, everything would be perfect... or close to it.