Corn:
Like I mentioned, we have been busy spraying our corn and also side-dressing it. Side-dressing is a special machine that spoon-feeds nutrients to the corn crop during this key vegetative growth stage of its life. As you can see our corn is growing quite nicely.
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| Spraying our corn (I'm afraid all of my side-dressing photos didn't turn out too well) |
'Beans:
Almost all of our soybeans were planted the last week of May and have also grown very nicely so far. On our farm we rotate our corn and soybeans so we have about 2/3 of our acres in corn and 1/3 of our acres in soybeans. Rotating our crops helps with disease and insect control, as well as spreading out our work load in the spring and fall. Plus rotating crops can help with higher yields.
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Pigs:
On our farm we usually have a couple different age groups of pigs at all times that way we can spread out the work load throughout the year. We recently just got in a group feeder pigs, who all weigh about 40 pounds, and we will finish them to about 270 pounds, hence our pig farm is called a feeder to finish hog farm. We received around 1,200 feeder hogs a week ago today.
and Kids;
Just like our corn, soybeans and pigs, our kids are busy growing too and keeping us busy! LP is Mr. Independent and loves being outside. If I would let him, he'd stay outside all day long. MP is busy working on walking. She hasn't let go yet or tried walking alone, but I imagine she'll be taking her first steps soon. Here are a couple photos of the kids from this past week's Iowa Ice Cream Trip to Hansen's Dairy Farm outside of Hudson. I'll be posting about our trip soon so stay tuned!
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| LP petting a baby calf at Hansen's Dairy Farm |
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| MP getting kissed by a kangaroo at Hansen's Dairy Farm |
Can't wait to go to Hansen's Dairy. Our family drinks their milk, uses their butter and loves cheese curds and ice cream. We get ours from Iowa Falls and Clarion.
ReplyDeleteIt is a lot of fun to go to the farm. I love their milk too (and cheese curds and ice cream...) I've never bought the butter - I'll have to do that next time.
DeleteLoved Hansen's Dairy when we lived in CF. Miss it!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly where you live now Ally but if you go on their website they actually have quite a few locations across the Northeast quadrant of the state that they sell their products. There might be a location close by!
DeleteYour life looks like a blessed and healthy one. Thanks for sharing the great pics!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I feel very luck to have the life that I do.
DeleteGreat little update! Love to see how different farms operate! We grow wheat, canola and new to us this year yellow peas. No animals either...your family must be so busy!
ReplyDeleteIt does keep us busy! Yellow peas - interesting. Who do you sell them to?
DeleteI love reading your blog,
ReplyDeleteI study at the Royal Agricultural University in England, and would really appreciate it if you would check out my new farming blog on my journey to becoming a farmer at:
http://www.freshertofarmer.com
Thank you
Great post Val! I love the dairy pix and the kangaroo is great!
ReplyDeleteThanks Cristen! The kangaroos loved the kids!
DeleteOMG, such a big farm. Indeed proud of you. When I stumbled upon your blog by surfing I just wanted to laugh over when I was young, I used to cuddle the piglets but can never be comparable to your farm as we only reared about 30 big pigs or so.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder, ppl said, farmers in the State are rich people. Cheers and keep going.
When you said the word "sprayed" our maize, I really chuckled bcos if it was meant chemicals...????
During different times of the year we do give our crops added nutrients and will also spray insects.
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