Our Farm

Welcome to our family farm page! I grew up in a small town, so farm life was an entirely new concept for me when I met Kevin in 2006.

Here I am in a tractor hauling a grain cart during harvest!

Kevin’s the complete opposite though. Farming has been in his blood his whole life. Both sets of his grandparents farmed and so did uncles on both sides of his family. He’s actually the 5th generation to farm his dad’s family farm and the 6th generation on his mom’s family farm where we live in southwest Iowa.

In the spring of 1999, when Kevin was finishing his freshman year at Iowa State University, he had the opportunity to begin farming his dad’s family farm. He somehow continued to go to school full-time two hours away and plant his first crop. About three years later, while finishing up his college career he began farming his mom’s family farm too!

Family Farm

Like I mentioned above, we live in southwest Iowa on his mom’s family farm. We raise corn, soybeans, and have a cow/calf herd (more about all of that below).

Aerial view of our family farm in southwest Iowa.

While Kevin is the sole farmer, he does have help from various family members, myself included, especially when working cattle or during harvest time in the fall! His dad and uncle will drive the semi and haul the grain to town, another uncle helps will all kinds of chores when needed, Kevin’s mom does everything but drive the big equipment, and I do a bunch and try not to drive the big equipment! 🙂 Since I have a full-time off the farm job, I don’t necessarily have daily chores. I help where I am needed and also take care of all the book work (the least fun job of all!).

Kevin, his Uncle Reg, Uncle Roger, and the boys enjoying a meal after harvest was done for the day.

Crops

We grow mostly field corn and soybeans and have a little bit of alfalfa that gets cut and baled into hay bales for our cattle to eat. Our corn and soybeans are biotech seed (aka GMO) and have provided great benefits over the years with the various weather issues that we have had (drought, excessive rains, hail, etc).

Planting biotech soybeans

Biotech field corn (used mainly for cattle feed and ethanol)

Biotech soybeans (used for livestock feed, biodiesel, etc.)

Harvested field corn being loaded onto the semi truck which will then haul it to the nearest elevator about 20 miles away.

Cattle

Kevin has been raising cattle for as long as he can remember. His grandpa who lived on the farm where we live now used to raise Hereford cattle. Kevin has since changed his herd over to mostly Simmental and Angus purebreds. We have a cow/calf operation which means that we have a bunch of momma cows that have a new calf every year (usually in March/April). The calves stay with their moms until the fall when we will ween them and then sell them. From there they go to a cattle feedlot to be finished (grown to a specific size before they are processed and become the meat that we can all buy in our local grocery stores). A lot of talk is around grass fed vs grain fed and honestly most all grain fed cattle will start their lives on grass, they are just finished with grain. Every spring and summer when the pastures are green and the grass is growing, that is where you will find our cattle. And then after harvest is done, the cattle will get moved out onto corn stalks which they eat for most of the winter along with the hay and mineral.

Cattle out to pasture.

Cows eating grass in the pasture.

A newborn calf

Cows out to pasture.

Sometimes when we begin calving it is still really cold out. Occasionally it is necessary for Kevin to bring a new calf indoors to help warm it up. This calf was pretty new and when they brought him in they put him in a warm bath to gradually bring up his temperature. Then Kevin’s grandma blow dried him. Once the calf is warmed up and doing well he is returned to his momma.

Sometimes we keep some young heifers or a group of steers and Kevin will feed them out himself. Here they are being fed a mixture of (biotech) grain from our farm along with some ground up hay that is mixed with some other nutrients to give them a well-balanced diet.

Great Grandma Marian Bottle Feeding Calf

Occasionally there is a momma cow that, for one reason or another, doesn’t care for her calf so it becomes a bottle calf. Kevin’s grandma has always been the one to care for those calves. Here she is feeding it a bottle of milk replacement.

Raising Kids on the Farm

I love that our children are growing up on our family farm. If they so choose, they would be the 7th generation to farm this land. Every day we are trying to improve the land and our farming techniques so it will be even better when/if they choose to become farmers some day. In the meantime, they make perfect little farmers-in-training. They still think that going and doing chores is fun and any chance they get to ride a tractor, combine, or go play in the shed with their daddy they do!

Heading out to do chores with daddy.

Checking out the corn to see how it is growing!

Checking on the soybeans. Our farm is in the distance on the left side.

Walking through the pasture and checking on the cattle.

Riding in the combine (or bombine as Axten says) with daddy during harvest.

Hudson heading out after school to ride in the combine with daddy during harvest.

Farm Tours

Last summer we had a few farm tours on our farm. The first group was a Taiwan Grain Production and Quality Study Team and the second group was a Chinese media group. Both groups were interested in seeing a U.S. family farm, learn how things are done on a farm, see livestock, and learn about biotechnology. With both groups we showed them around our farm, fed them some homemade food, and shared information about raising livestock, biotechnology, etc. Both trips were very interesting and a great learning experience for our family too!

Taiwan Agriculture Group

Chinese Media Group

Our last farm tour was U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow from Michigan. She happened to be in Iowa and we had the privilege of showing her around our farm before she headed home.

United States Senator Debbie Stabenow from Michigan

So that’s basically it! If you have made it to the end of this page, thank you for reading! I know it was a lot, but I love sharing photos and I feel that it’s a great way to tell a story! Please let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for reading!

Comments

Toni says

March 11, 2017 at 6:49 pm

It was nice reading about another generation farm family. Not a lot out there . We also live on a homestead farm place where we live in the almost 150 year old house. It’s my husband fathers side and he is fifth generation. Pretty cool . We also raise stock cows , milk cows , pigs ( our oldest boy does that) sheep ( our middle boy does that) , chickens we have on farm too. . I was raised on a farm with my dad who passed cpl years ago about 30 miles away from us and now we farm that , which is few generations of my dads. It’s pretty cool being on a farm and knowing where your meat , milk , etc comes from . It can be strenuous at times, but it’s good for the kids too. Good luck with your generation farm !