Bits ... Pieces .... Stuff

Sunflowers

There is so much going on .... but I don't have a lot of say.

Maybe all those words in my brain have melted away.

For those of you that are not in the Midwest, let's just say this summer has been hell......... or at least, my idea of it.

It has been miserably hot ....... day .......after day .........after day.

There have been evenings that Honey and I run into the local farm store ... just because they have air conditioning and I can cool off for an hour or so.

Yea ... I know I could buy a window unit .... but there is a lot of work to do outside that doesn't get done if I am sitting in the a/c.

So ... I  will sweat a little more, clean out the pores of  my skin, drink lots of water and remember generations of farmers and farm women that suffered through heat like this ............. and survived.

It has been dry.  To be perfectly honest with you ... I don't remember the last time it rained.  Really rained.  Like there are mud-puddles-everywhere-rain.

Zinnias .....

The sprinklers have been running on the main cutting bed between 8-9 hours a day.  For that expenditure of water and electricity .... I have been given beds that look like this.

Rose Magic Dianthus .........

I do have beautiful flowers.

Zowie Zinnias

I am one of the lucky ones.  I am fortunate to have a good well and the ability to keep on watering .... and watering and watering.

Red Bombay celosia

The drought ... the heat ... have taken a toll on all the local farmers.  From corn to soybeans ........ to cattle and chickens ..... to flowers and tomatoes.  Its going to be a rough year.

I have done a lot of interviews in the last few weeks.  Interviews are not always easy.  The timing is not always perfect or convenient.  I have to find clean clothes and comb my hair.  But doing interviews is important to my business.

So when the Iowa Farm Bureau calls for an interview ... I do it.  When the local tv stations call for an interview ... I do it.  When a newspaper across the country calls for a statement about the heat and drought effects on specialty crops ... I give it to them.

If I want to connect consumers to the food they eat and the farmers that produce it ... I have got to share that story.  It isn't always pretty.  It isn't always the story I want to tell. 

When we as farmers won't share the good, the bad and the ugly with the people that buy our goods ... why should they care?  Why should they understand what the cost of production is?  How will they understand the lack of tomatoes .... the limited greens .... the wilting crops?

We are two generations removed from the farm.  Ninety percent of all Iowans have never been on a farm, according to the Iowa Farm Bureau.

We farmers have to tell to share the story of agriculture. Not once.  Not twice.  But over and over again. Not only in the good years ... but more importantly, in the bad. 

Prices are going up.  We don't know how high yet.  But we need to share why our $4/ dozen eggs are better than the factory farms $1.50 dozen eggs.  We need to tell why our small, mis-shaped tomatoes are tastier than those perfect red orbs from Mexico.

So I'm talking ..... because someone has to do it.