Harvest Time: Corn Harvest in Ohio 2011

Ohio Corn Harvest 2011 Video

As the 2011 harvest comes to a close I want to thank all the grain farmers who work so hard to feed our country and even our world. They not only work hard to feed people but the animals that I and many others raise.

I put this documentary style video together to showcase how corn is harvested. It will take you out into the corn field and end  at the grain bin. Even if you are around fields of corn,  I think you may take something away with this shoot. I even learned a thing or two. Farmers work hard and use  technology more than you may think. They have many new tools that can keep them even more efficient. Farmers are naturally resourceful and value technology.
Did you  know while in the combine or on the go they can use an App on their phone or tablet computer  to control their grain dryer? I am excited to see what will be developed in the next 5-10 years to help even more.
Thanks so much to a few of my favorite farmers for taking time to help  me make this video possible. The corn harvest is still underway in Ohio, it has not been a typical year due to all the rain. Many farmers still have corn out in those fields. The joke was some may be harvesting into December and I laughed, it just may be true for some farmers in my area.

This field corn will be used to make ethanol here in Ohio or possibly be shipped
out to N.C. to be used to feed chickens and hogs. Fields are averaging around 200 bushels per acre.
Around 1,000 bushels of corn will fill a semi trailer.

Who has time to blog?

Our lives have been very full this past month. Looking back they have been very full this past year. Where does time go? Someone asked me if I got an extra hour every day to get everything done. I only wish that was the case. We fill our lives with things that will hopefully enrich our children’s lives and make a difference for their future. Raising animals is something that I enjoy and can teach our children almost every life lesson. A few weeks back we took the last batch of meat chickens for the year to get processed. Campbell and Parker are very aware that we raise the chickens for meat and they know that to have the best meat, we need to provide the best care. They help feed water and clean out the chicken pen. They are learning that animals are hard work, fun and tasty too.
I grew up in the country but we had a neighborhood of kids. Not an in-town neighborhood, but a neighborhood in the sense that we could get to each other by walking through fields. We would play all day, come in for food and head back out to play some more. I recently ran into one of my old neighborhood friends. We got to talking about food and what we do on our farm. She told me she was a vegetarian. I, of course, had to inquire more and ask why. We talked and I learned that she no longer ate meat because, while living on the East Coast she could not afford to buy meat that was organic, all natural or antibiotic free. She feels very strongly about keeping her body free of as many unnatural substances as possible. I saw this as an opportunity to talk about how we raise our meat chickens. She agreed to try our chicken and add some meat back into her diet. I was so excited and felt that we may have made a difference. She loved the chicken and it sounded like she had a really fun time preparing it for her family. I am not sure I will get her back to eating meat from the grocery store in the near future, but I hope to have given her a little more insight on how farmers raise food.

I am indeed a busy person, but these are the little things that make me even more excited about how I can contribute to agriculture. These are the types of stories that make me find time to blog.