Tag Archives: farms

Wheat Harvest Preps

by nebraskawheatie

Well, as I’ve mentioned in prior posts, our family seems to view the year by events rather than days on the calendar. The harvest convention is nearly a month ago and Easter is right around the corner. The weather has been stupendous and our little piece of the world is beginning to take on colors – green trees and grass…yellow/red/pink and purple flowers are in the mix throughout the yard. My very FAVORITE season!! I love driving through the countryside and watching the baby calves run, jump and play with each other. The winter world is waking up in full force this year – about a month early.

The past couple of days I’ve heard a noise that I haven’t heard since last fall…lawn mowers. Jim’s mowing our yard as we “speak”. USUALLY, we don’t even think about mowing until Jenna’s birthday (April 23). The last sign of spring that I am oh so anxiously awaiting is the distinct sound of the house wren. When I hear her shrill song (which sounds more like scolding than singing) I know spring has arrived!

Along with this kind of weather comes the beginnings of the wheat harvest preparations. Jim is done working his “real” job and is now spending time thinking about what needs to be done to the trucks and combine in preparation of the 2012 harvest season. Trucks will start showing up in the yard and it will become a “mini” farm/equipment dealership. We don’t farm and we don’t own a shed of our own so it’s a lot easier for Jim if his equipment is right outside the backdoor. Unfortunately, when it rains, there’s not much he can do and the day is spent doing other things. How I wish we would have just bought some land and built a shed 20 years ago. Life happens too fast!

Our “summer cottage on wheels” has been purchased and is in the process of being built. It should be coming off the line around April 10… hopefully. Somehow, I have a feeling we’ll still be biting our nails wondering when it’s going to be in the driveway so we can get it packed.  Am I anxious? YES! Harvest is always something our family looks forward to each year. We’re ready to go – but for now, the daily preparations and the beginnings of pre-harvest stress are about to begin. Stay tuned…

What in the world I’ve been up to

by nebraskawheatie

It’s been quite some time since I posted. Been a LITTLE BIT busy! The US Custom Harvesters convention was last week (March 1, 2, & 3) and turned out to be an exceptional event! Hmmm….was I really there or was it just a dream? What an OUTSTANDING bunch of people involved in making everything happen – from the volunteers, to members of the Board of Directors, to the vendors, to all the members of the association! If you were there, you know what I’m talking about – if you weren’t…there’s always next year! Go to the website www.uschi.com to view the pictures and some video  (actually, I don’t know if the 2012 pictures have been uploaded yet). There are pictures on the USCHI Facebook page.

I got really excited when I walked outside just a couple of minutes ago and wanted to share that excitement with you. Spring is here!!!!

See what I found:

I’ve always said, “The best part of winter is spring”! It’s all uphill from here (don’t forget to set your clocks and watches and “spring” ahead tonight) There’s a daffodil that is nearly ready to bloom, too. This just makes me smile!

Now, on to something a little more serious. Jim and I don’t have to hire employees so what I’m about to talk about next doesn’t apply to us. The country has a Temporary Guest Worker program – H-2A, H-2B and J-1 – which is in dire need of a fix! Last month, I went to DC along with other members of U.S. Custom Harvesters to attend the National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE) annual meeting. Sometimes, the best way to learn about something or how something works is to jump into it head first. When you do this, expect to learn way more than you really want to.

Agriculture and the custom harvesting industry are being regulated more and more all the time. This scares me. Why? Because the government and the government agencies are going to regulate us all right out of a job. When this happens, where will your food come from? How will you know how your food is planted, grown and harvested? Frank Gasperini, Executive Vice President of NCAE says this:

“Our food WILL be grown, harvested, processed and prepared by immigrant’s hands – the important question for the future of America is whether we will find ways for this to be done LEGALLY in America or whether we will allow our food to be supplied from foreign countries? It is distressing that a federal program designed to assure American farmers sufficient and timely labor to plant, tend, and harvest seasonal and perishable crops; many of which feed the American people each day, has become so complicated, confusing, and unpredictable that farmers and even professional H-2A agents are routinely forced to hire lawyers to help them get through the process successfully. This is not what Congress intended when the program was instituted.”

Could this really happen, you ask? Yes, it could! H-2A, H-2B and J-1 visas allow foreign employees to come to America and fill the seasonal jobs that most people in this country either don’t want to fill or can’t. Employers submit applications and pay high fees to bring these foreign employees to do the jobs that can’t be filled. The government is working overtime at denying applications and making it nearly impossible to allow these workers to come to this Country. They reason that because of the high unemployment rate agriculture should be able to find suitable labor. Great idea – but it’s not working so well. “State work force agencies referred 36,000 domestic workers to H-2A employers. Only 5% worked through the contract period. Of the 20% of domestic workers who began work but did not work through the entire contract period, 59% quit, 15% were terminated for cause, 7% failed to produce acceptable work authorization documents and 16% left for misc. reasons. Only 3% left because there was no more work to be performed”. (This was taken directly from NCAE’s 2010 survey of H-2A employers)

No workers means food is left rotting in fields and on trees and custom harvesters are unable to find enough qualified employees to run their equipment.

Don’t get me wrong – I am NOT a believer of illegal workers or amnesty!!! As a matter of fact, that just “torks” me! Being here illegally is a crime and as far as I’m concerned everyone who crosses the border illegally needs to be caught and sent back. This country needs a Temporary Guest Worker program that works and will allow all guest workers to work in America legally. “Without dependable, predictable, and willing agricultural labor, there will be little domestic food production; leaving our nation’s food supply in the hands of a merciless global marketplace. Sound agricultural labor policy benefits growers, workers and the American public”. (NCAE)

Tomorrow afternoon, I will be packing my bag again and heading back to DC with two other members of the US Custom Harvesters’ Board of Directors. Our purpose for going this time will be to TRY to make our Legislative members on “the hill” understand how the deterioration of the H-2A program is affecting the custom harvesting industry. The USCHI motto currently is “We Harvest the Crops that Feed the World”. We’re hoping that it remains that way and won’t have to be changed to, “We Used to Harvest the Crops that Fed a Now Starving World”. Wish us luck!

A Random Re-post

by nebraskawheatie

I’m in dire need of something that reminds me of summer. Eastern Nebraska has had a WONDERFUL winter as far as severity. Maybe a little too nice. We’re in need of some moisture and it sounds like it may be on the way starting Friday. For now, though, I’m really missing summer and the harvest. I started this blog late in the 2011 harvest season so I don’t have a lot to choose from.  I know I have fun reliving the crazy days of harvest:  Click here to read Finished with Winter Wheat in Jordan

I. Am. Tired!

by nebraskawheatie

So, in my last posting I told you I would be heading to Hutchinson, KS and then to Washington, DC. For anyone who thinks the last few days have been a vacation…I’d like to say YOU ARE SO WRONG (yes, I AM yelling)! The meeting in KS went well and it was great seeing the rest of the team (USCHI Board of Directors). It’s always good to get together with people from our industry when it’s not in a working atmosphere. Building relationships is the best thing a person could do for themselves – my thought any way. From KS, we flew to DC. We’ve had two FULL days of constant walking and talking on “the hill”.

To be honest with you, I was definitely not looking forward to this trip. I had fallen into the negative trap of “this isn’t going anywhere”, “they say they listen but they really don’t”, “you’re not making a difference”, etc. etc. However, we started yesterday morning and things just started falling into place. It went from one good thing to the next. Each one of those “good things” fell into place just as they were meant to. Contacts have been made and when it appeared that it would be hard, it got easy again. Today, we learned more and even got to visit with two members of Congress – Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Ohio Congressman Bob Gibbs. I shook hands with Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson last night. He happened to be in the same restaurant as we were in. It’s a BIG deal when you actually get to shake the hand of one of our elected officials and give them the opportunity to have a conversation with real people. It’s fun to see them and their staffers actually loosen up and they themselves turn into real people. I can only hope the time I and the others have sacrificed will make a difference for our organization and for agriculture. It definitely has not been a vacation. One of these days, I’m coming to DC to see some of the wonderful historic sites and will be staying away from the “hill”!

Looks like a few tax dollars are being spent on some repairs.

The Christmas tree in front of the Capitol.

Heading for our first appointment-ready to change the world 🙂

Inside the Cannon Building.

Railing inside one of the House buildings.

I feel so left out with my “dumb” phone!

Inside the Senate Hart Building.

Waiting…waiting…waiting

Senate offices in the Hart building.

We were able to poke our head in the Library of Congress on our way back to the hotel when our day was over. Beautiful!

Kansas ornament on the Christmas Tree in the Library of Congress. I couldn’t find Nebraska’s.

As quoted by our 34th President:

by nebraskawheatie

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from a corn field.”                                 Dwight D. Eisenhower (9/11/1956)

An opportunity to share our way of life.

by nebraskawheatie

A couple of years ago, Conrad Weaver with ConjoStudios contacted me regarding his dream of producing a documentary about the wheat harvest and the custom harvester. I LOVED the idea but “bucked” the idea of being a part of it. Mostly, because Jenna was already involved as a correspondent with the High Plains Journal and I was a member of the  U.S. Custom Harvesters board of directors. I was willing to give Conrad ideas and help him in any way I could but wasn’t comfortable with being in front of a camera. I feel EVERYONE has a story and ours isn’t any more unique than the next guy (or gal). I tried conveying this to Conrad and yet he continued saying he wanted our family involved.  I still wrestle with the fact that my involvement with USCHI and HPJ has been more than enough exposure for me and for my family and it’s someone else’s turn to share. However, last summer, we agreed to allow Conrad and his family to visit us on the road and film the harvest as it was happening at that time. Since then, Conrad has put together a “trailer” for the Wheat Harvest Movie – which I am proud to say I am a part of. It is my desire that every American know exactly where their food comes from (it’s not from the grocery store) and every step it takes to get it there. I wonder if most people realize that it takes nearly a year for that first load of wheat to be put in the bin of a combine? I wonder if they realize the process it takes from the beginning with the farmer preparing the land to planting and caring to the end with the harvest and the harvester? My hope is this documentary will educate and stir up an emotion within all who watch it. Everyone needs to understand just how precious this resource (agriculture) is to our country and to our people before it’s too late.

So, because of what I’m seeing this documentary evolving into, I can say I am proud of being involved and hope to do whatever it takes to make Conrad’s dream come true. I realize this 15 minutes of fame could quite possibly be my one and only time to vocally speak out about the lifestyle I love so very much! One day when I’m really old (and it’ll come way too soon), I’ll be able to say I tried rather than wishing I had tried! As I mentioned above, EVERYONE has a story – ours is no more unique than yours. Tell your story! Tell it loud so everyone can hear and be proud of that story! We’re here for a purpose. Discover what that purpose is and run with it!

Farmers/Ranchers…the next endangered species?

by nebraskawheatie

I’ve been trying to keep up with the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/USFarmersandRanchers). However, every time I go see what’s being talked about, I just get mad!

The following is MY opinion and MY opinion, only!

Why does it make me mad? Because there are a few people and a few anti-ag groups who speak up and, in turn, quiet the voices who SHOULD be talking – the farmer and the rancher. The farmer/rancher’s responses to the questions about food and animal production are oftentimes met with criticism and name calling. Once in a while, there will be enough positive ag comments from the farmer/rancher group the confidence level reveals  the truth.

So, this is what scares me. These food activists and anti-Ag groups will be the ones that will be heard by our congressional leaders. In turn, the governmental agencies who are there to “protect” us will make rules and regulations from behind their desks which will affect all agricultural businesses. We’re already seeing it with the EPA, the USDA and even the DOT. The American producer and supportive businesses simply will not be able to continue to abide by all of the ridiculous rules created by people who lack common sense.

The food activists will yell and scream that farmers are growing and selling unsafe food products, raising their animals in cruel ways, creating more dust than should be breathed, receiving more subsidies than they are entitled to, etc., etc. Do these people not realize that by generalizing all farmers/ranchers into one mold and making unfair accusations they are slowly digging a hole that really shouldn’t be dug? When the backbone of this country is forced from the farm and the ranch, we will be forced to look for our food elsewhere. We will be forced to import more of our food, leaving the safety issues behind. Will we really know how our food has been grown, fertilized, or harvested? We will be at the mercy of an unknown link in our food supply that could be dangerous to our country! When it reaches that point, those anti-Ag people will have created a monster too large to be stopped – the farmer/rancher will no longer be there to put the food on our tables.

What farmer/rancher really wants to grow unsafe food? damage the land that’s been in their family for five generations? abuse animals? The farmers/ranchers I know are in love with the land and their animals. Why would they do anything that would jeopardize their way of life and the lifestyle they love? The farmers/ranchers I know take care of what they have and do it in a way that most Americans don’t understand. How many other businesses do you know put in 12-15 hours (or longer) per day, seven days a week? Get up every two hours to check for new baby calves and bring them in the house if they need warmed? Suffer from drought, lose everything and continue the process all over again in HOPE of a good crop next year? The average American would NOT put their lives on the roulette table and risk everything like the farmer does.

I wish these food activists and anti-Ag groups would make an effort to visit more farms and ranches before they make such untrue and ridiculous accusations! I wish they would think about how their food gets to the grocery store shelves and eventually their tables before it’s too late. There are quite a few agricultural groups supporting the farmer/rancher who are trying to educate the American public. Unfortunately, I think they’re preaching to the choir! We’ve all got a story to tell and I challenge you to start telling that story! Don’t be afraid of the ones criticizing agriculture – speak up now and make them aware of the truth before it’s too late!

Here are a few links that are interesting to me:

http://nebraskafarmer.com/story.aspx?s=54218&c=9

http://usfraonline.org/

http://www.findourcommonground.com/

http://www.advocatesforag.com/

https://www.facebook.com/becomeafanofagriculture?ref=ts

http://www.agchat.org/