Fall has arrived

Fall has arrived in a big way this week. We have switched quickly to jeans and sweatshirts from shorts and flip flops last week. I do hope it's just a cold front and we can get one more water day with the boys. The Florida part of me is sad for the summer to leave.

 

On Thursday I was able to represent farm women as I volunteered with Commonground (findourcommonground.com) at a trade show for women in Bowling Green, KY. I was able to share facts about GMO's and other hot topics surrounding farming. Commonground's slogan is conversations about farming and food and we were connecting with women who usually make most of the food choices for their family. I was able to tell them we grow genetically modified corn and soybeans on our farm and feed them to our children. The ladies responded great and wanted to talk about where their food comes from; family farms. We reiterated we care about the land it's our livelihood. The main message is we are real people and care about doing our job well.

 

 

Friday I was home on the farm taking meals to the field while the crew was harvesting our GMO corn. This was our first full day of the season. I thought I would explain how the corn is taken from the field. Eight years ago I wouldn't have been able to tell you any of this. I'm going to assume most of you are like I was back then.

 This green machine is called the combine that is harvesting the corn. Little C1 is riding with his Granddaddy. This machine is pretty neat it takes the whole corn stalk in the machine but only keeps the corn kernels and spits the stalk out the back. The first time I rode in combine it felt like a ride at Disney World.

When the tank on the combine is full the grain cart is driven along side to unload and they can even do it with both tractor and combine moving. Once the grain cart is full then it unloads the corn into a semi trailer waiting at the edge of the field.

 

 

Having the grain cart keeps things moving along otherwise the combine would have to drive over to the semi to unload. The grain cart speeds us up a lot. Once the truck is full it's driven back to the farm to unload one last time into the grain bins for storage. The corn will later be ground up to feed the pigs for the year.