Minnesota Farm Living

Connecting Consumers with Farmers


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Minnesota Farm Living is about connecting consumers with those who grow their food. I share my passions — my life, my farm, and my family.

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8 Ways to Deal With A Stressed Out Farmer

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Okay, we know farming is not easy and there can be signficant stresses. Farming is like a rollercoaster.–volatility is the only constant. Not only are commodity prices down, but on our farm, we struggled with some terrible animal health issues a couple months ago. Now, the weather finally feels like spring and we are trying to plant a crop. But, it’s not going well. 

Planting, or the lack thereof, has been frustrating

Locally, we have received a substantial amount of percipitation. First, it was heavy, wet snow. Lots of it. And it was cold. We had the latest ice out date on our local lakes. Now, the temperatures finally feel like spring, but our soils are saturated. And you can’t plant on wet soils. We did manage to plant one day–on one of our driest farms. Then . . . it rained 1.5 inches last night, further saturating the wet ground we already have. On top of that, the forecast is for 100% chance of rain two days from now. Continue Reading

What Do Farm Animals Give Us? – Preschool

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Ag in the Classroom activity for preschoolers. This is a short 10-15 minute activity. You can add in reading a book such as Big Red Barn with the activity. Preschoolers love farm animals and they will truly enjoy this lesson. Here are the two handouts needed.

What do we get from farm animals – Handout #1 (Pdf file)

Ag in the classroom
What do we get from farm animals?

Products we get from farm animals – Handout #2 (PDF file)

Farm products we get from farm animals

Depending on your students, you could have them cut the pictures and glue them to the first handout. If not, cut them apart and work through the pictures as a group activity.

 

5 Real Struggles From Marrying a Farmer that Your City Friends Don’t Know About

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Farm life is very different than my city friends lives. And it’s really hard to explain. Here are just a few struggles that I face that my city friends don’t know.

1. Meal time is non-structured.

Meal time can be a struggle. Since there is no such thing as a 8-5 job on the farm, your evening meal could be anywhere from 4 pm to 10 pm (or later?). Meals could range from “made from scratch” homemade meals to throwing a frozen processed bacon cheeseburger you just bought from Sam’s Club in the garage microwave. On the run meals–especially during the busy times. Oh wait, isn’t it almost always busy?? 

2. Dates take on a whole new meaning.

Farm life is hectic and dates can look different. It could mean a ride in the farm truck to pick up a tractor part located 90 miles away. Daytime dates are a real thing. Sometimes it’s just “let’s go to town for an ice cream cone” or “just a walk down your gravel road so you can catch up on the day.” You just make the best of it and take them when you can.  

3. You will know more about ‘farm things” than you ever wanted to know.

And some of it may even make sense–eventually. There is no shortage of farm discussion points. Some days, after a 20 minute one-side conversation, I give him the “dead stare” like really, you think I know what you are talking about? Or do I really need to know that? Like the time he tells me in great detail how he fixed the baffles on the hog barn. Or taking apart the tractor to fix the hydrolic hoses. He knows immediately when I give him that look that he probably has crossed the line and he is boring me to tears and have no idea what he is talking about. 

Farmer
Working on the farm

4. Farm husbands are not always in tune with pop culture.

Your kids love the fact that dad isn’t always up on the latest fad. Case in point. Years ago when our daughters were young, Hardees sold California Raisin posable figures. Being the cheap mom I was, I never bought into those fads. One day, my husband needed to pick up supper using the drive through (probably because he either smelled or was dirty) at Hardees. The order taker asked my husband if he wanted Raisins. He yelled back to the girls and asked them if they wanted Raisins. Here is where the “cluelessness” comes in. My husband,  thinking he is ordering cookies, thought he was asked if he wanted raisins in them. The girls, who are NOT  clueless, knew exactly what was being asked. I am sure they looked at each other and thought, yes, we have one over dad. Of course they wanted Raisins! So, yes, they came home with (California) Raisins and my husband had no idea why they were part of the order. To this day, it still makes us laugh.

California Raisins

5. The Sights, The Sounds, The Smell

When we have people visit from “the city” we know our environment is different than what they are used to. We have hog barns on the same place that we live. Maybe it’s because I am used to it, but there are only a few days of the year that I don’t open my windows because of the smell. To my city counterparts, I am sure the faintest smell is noticeable. But the sights and the sounds are undeniably the best. To see wildlife such as rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, coyotes (well maybe not coyotes), deer, oppossum, and the occassional skunk scurrying across the farm, enjoying nighttime campfires, and to hear the constant bird chirppings in the early morn, frogs croaking in the distance, the scuttling of squirrels scampering and the distress call of the killdeer when you come too close to her nest. It. just. doesn’t. get. better.

Killdeer Eggs
Killdeer Eggs that we have marked so we don’t accidentally run over them. You will know when you get tooo close!

Even though our life on the farm is different than my city friends and the struggles are real, we wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Life isn’t about the big things, it is the little things. And I have learned to appreciate and enjoy the little things in life. 

 

Sick Pigs and Sick Trade Tariffs

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I have been asked to post an update on our pigs. If you recall, a few weeks ago I talked about how very sick our pigs were. In fact, the worst we have seen in many years. And I am also going to give my two-cents worth on the tariff issue.

Sick Pig Update

The sickness all started about the middle of February. We didn’t know what we were dealing with or how to treat it. After many visits and conversations with multiple veterinarians and a lot of diagnostic testing, we determined our pigs had a nasty strain of PRRS and flu. Yes, quite a few pigs died. We tried our best.

I am happy to report they are looking better. We left on vacation mid-March and came back about 10 days later and we could tell they were better when we returned than when we left. If history is any lesson, they probably will continue to give us health problems-just a lot of lingering health damage. The other concern we have is “will they be ready for market in time?” They lost a lot of growth time from being sick. Our next pigs are coming in July and this group needs to be sold and the barns need to be washed and sterilized before the next ones come.

Future Concerns

So, concerns going forward: keep them healthy and hopefully they grow fast and our last concern: we have a new group of pigs on another farm. We DO NOT want this group to come down with the same virus. So we have changed how we are taking care of them to reduce the amount of foot traffic between the home farm and the offsite farm. We have also heard (just this past weekend) that other farms near us are possibly dealing with this same PRRS strain. We think the virus is moving by air and it was windy over the weekend. So here we are – on pins and needles “hoping” this new group does not become infected.

One more thing we are doing on our home farm is putting in wire fence netting underneath the hog barn eaves. This will prevent birds from coming in the air outlets. I am hoping to have a video of exactly how we are doing this. Again, another step to prevent a way to transmit viruses.

The Ugly China Pig Tariff

The next thing I want to talk about is the 25% tariffs put on pork by China. I talked to a Wall Street Journal reporter today about how this will affect us on the farm. Here is my take:

I am EXTREMELY nervous about what will happen to our markets. Because we sell on a market system, we don’t dictate our selling price. If we can’t sell as much pork through exports (because of the tariffs) means we will have an over supply of pork, which will result in lower market prices, which will result in a smaller check for us, which will more than likely mean we will lose money.
Farming is a volatile business. There are many factors that affect us and the markets. Things we are not in control of such as weather conditions (for crops), viruses and diseases (think of PEDv), costs of inputs, regulations, etc. It’s just plain crazy at times. But, we DON’T need the government to put additional pressures on our markets. I am truly worried for our future.

And it’s not just tariffs, it’s also about NAFTA

And it seems to change daily. It’s exhausting. One day, it looks like NAFTA will be a go and the next day we hear it’s not. We are the BEST farm producers in the world. We export about 26-27% of our pork and 60% of our soybeans. We NEED exports. If our export markets go away, we cannot consume the additional pork we produce.

Can’t just shut the barns down

So why don’t we just shut our barns down for a while to reduce the supply? We really can’t. We have farm and barn payments to make–bills to pay. We have sows that are bred and ones that are ready to give birth. There is a long pipeline of pigs that can’t just be shutdown. Farming is a very complex business. Where will our animals go? And if you shut a pig farm down, the expense to start it up again will be significant and for many, completely out of reach. There just is not enough cash to startup again. In addition, you can’t just hang on to pigs and sell them “later.” It doesn’t work that way.

And all of this at not fault of our own. I mean, honestly, how do you plan for something like this?
So with that, the pig markets were down significantly today. I can only hope that our lawmakers and government personnel understand how detrimental these tariffs are. We are not just individual farmers, but also individual businesses.

Fix it!

Let’s hope those in power can figure things out. It’s just not fair to throw U.S. farmers under the bus to help out another economic segment such as the steel industry. Period.

Other Articles:

What I Wish People Knew About Pig Farming

12 Frequently Asked Questions About Pigs

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