I’m a family farmer, and I have signed a Monsanto contract. I’m the 4th generation to work this land. Somewhere along the line the idea corporations control farms or farmers are slaves to “Big Ag” came about. People claim that we are beholden to corporations like Monsanto and have to sign unfair contracts to be privileged enough to use […]
Another year of blogging and farming gone by already! It was an interesting year that started out too wet, but brought us perfect harvest weather even if the yields weren’t perfect. I’ve been sharing my top ten most viewed posts of 2015 on facebook and twitter so I thought I’d collect them all here in […]
The Bad 2015 is a tough weather year. Excessive rain is currently taking a fairly big toll on our crops. Corn especially. The last two years were very kind to us and brought big harvests. This year has been wet. Really wet. During planting I don’t think we worked the fields more than three straight […]
We just installed a barn quilt on the barn at our farm. My sister describes the history of the quilt as follows. “In the early1900s, my maternal great-great-grandmother Inez Newton made a quilt using her own variation on the Whig Rose Pattern. Around that same time, a barn was being erected on the ground that […]
Our 2015 planting season began on April 24. It ended on May 23. The season seemed longer than one month because I don’t believe we ever got a full week of planting in due to rains and waiting on particular fields to dry out. Some people think grain farmers like us work hard for just […]
A small farm is an important part of agriculture. But I’m not talking about a few acres so much as a few carpets. Our son, somewhat by default, is really into farming. He’s five years old and he will tell his great grandpa, granpda, and dad how to operate equipment in the field. And he will be […]