Harvest Time, and Other Ramblings

Ok so once again I'm not holding up my end of the bargin and writing something once a month.  I was all ready to sit down and wrtie a post in september, but my favorite part of farming started before I got the chance.  We were able to get started with harvest work on the 23rd of september this year, which is about a week earlier than normal.  So needless to say things around the farm here have been pretty hectic.  This year's harvest run started out with lots of problems.  Living on a farm comes with some special challenges, and this year it seems like all of those special challenges have happend to us.  We had actually started preparing equipment several weeks earlier, but I guess we didn't prepare well enough.  We started the combine and found out a few of the features weren't working, nothing that would keep us from harvesting, just things like the gps yield monitor and a few other electroinic things.  This is where having our special challenges comes in, see we have rodents around our place all the time, and since they are around they like to chew on wires which causes our problems.  It took us about a week but we got most of the problems fixed.

Here's a view from the top of the grain truck we were cutting soybeans which is what you see piled in the truck.


Now for my other ramblings, I'm sorry if I make any readers mad here but I'm going to get back on my soapbox.  I have heard so many things lately about how our food isn't safe to eat, that all of our meat has antibiotics in it etc.  Chipotle had  a commercial that basically depicted the farmer as a lazy drug pushing clown, and farms as nothing but big factories pumping out cows, chickens etc like cars off an assembly line.  Well people I'm here to tell you those things couldn't be farther from the truth.  I'm going to say the same thing everyone has always said don't believe every thing you see on TV or read on the Internet (this blog excluded I'm telling the truth).  I see people posting things on facebook that come from some ag organizations trying to combat all the negative things out there, and then others who have no idea what they are talking about making comments because they read something on the Internet.  The best thing I can tell you is to educate yourself about where things are coming from.  If you are concerned about your milk or eggs having antibiotics in them used in production do some research.  Every state should have a board of animal health, or you can go to the USDA and find out what the regulations are.  Even the animal associations will have good information on how food is produced.  I'm talking about organizations like the American dairy association, national pork producers, national cattleman's beef association, even farm bureau has good information, not just for the producer, but the consumer as well.  I know I say this in every post, but you could even ask a farmer.  Leave your question as a comment here, and I will get you hooked up with information, or even a farmer that deals with what your asking about all the time.  I only raise corn and soybeans, but our family milked cows here on our farm for 60 years, so we know a thing or two about milk production.  If I can't answer a question I know other producers who could, or I can use my long list of ag industry contacts to get the info you want.  So please please please don't be afraid to educate yourself, like I've heard before there are no stupid questions.  I'm always willing to answer any question because I love agriculture, and I really like talking about what we do to feed the world. 

Like always let me know if you have questions, and I'll do what I can to get them answered.  Hopefully I'll get another post up before we get done with harvest.  We will be diving full force in to corn harvest today, so I'll get more pictures.  Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy.

Brad