I'm an #ActualLivingFarmer

Each morning while I'm waiting for the school bus to arrive, I usually do some scrolling through Twitter on my phone.  This morning was no different, except that a hashtag caught my eye - #ActualLivingFarmer.  I thought, well this is cool!  A couple fellow farmers that I follow were using it and I thought, sure, I'll introduce myself to the world of Twitter as an actual living farmer too:

I'm #actuallivingfarmer who raises corn, soybeans, pigs & 4 kids on my 5th gen farm in #NorthIowa, home to some of most fertile ground in 🌎 pic.twitter.com/vDcFP82njS

— Val Plagge (@PlaggeVal) February 10, 2017

I immediately started getting great feedback from the post, so I decided to dig deeper into the hashtag.  Last weekend the hashtag #ActualLivingScientist became trending after a couple scientist decided to introduce themselves, after feeling under scrutiny and under appreciated due to some reports in the news and government changes.  They realized that most people today wouldn't be able to name a living scientist, so the hashtag began and caught on fast.

Then on Wednesday of this week, a plant scientist spawned a new hashtag - #ActualLivingFarmer:

Statistically, Americans are far more likely to know an #actuallivingscientist (4.8% of US population) than an #actuallivingfarmer (<2%).

— Andrew Kniss (@WyoWeeds) February 9, 2017

If you are a farmer, get involved, and share your story as an #ActualLivingFarmer.

If you aren't a farmer, follow the hashtag and check out all the neat and different types of farmers that are willing and interested in sharing their story.  For me personally, I love sharing about my life on the farm because it is not only what I do for a living, it is also my passion.

Here are some posts about me and my farm that will give you a better idea what it is like to be raising corn, soybeans, pigs and kids on a North Iowa farm.

Harvest of Thanks to our Farm Family
We are a FAMILY Farm
What it means to be a FarmHer
When I Grow Up I Want To Be a Farmer
Planting a Seed
Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy

If you have any questions about my farm or being a farmer, comment below.  Remember to Comment for a Cause!

Goals from #ACFR13

Over this past weekend, I attended the AgChat Foundation Upper Midwest Regional Conference in Rochester, Minnesota.  This was a great opportunity to for me to focus on my personal agvocacy.  I attended breakout sessions that gave me new ideas for my blog, as well as how to utilize my facebook and twitter accounts better.  A highlight of the conference was getting to meet a few individuals who I had gotten to know through social media, but yet had never met in-person, such as Jenny Dewey, Katie Pinke and Emily Zweber.  I also got to connect with new people, which is probably one of my favorite past-times.

A fun side-note is that Franklin County, Iowa, where I am from, had a great representation in the crowd of 75 at the conference.  There were six of us, that as we all liked to say "live, work and play" in Franklin County.  From left to right is Larry Sailer (farmer and guest blogger who loves facebook), Deb Brown (communications guru who works for Franklin County's Chamber and Tourism), Shannon Latham, Laura Cunningham and Amy Hild (all who work for Latham Hi-Tech Seeds Communications and Marketing department), and then me!

I came home from the conference with several ideas, especially for blog posts, but I thought it would be good to create three goals, as a result from attending the event.  I think all of these goals go well with the beginning of year goals I created in January.

1. Start a Facebook page for my blog.  (I actually accomplished this yesterday during a disappointing over time of the ISU Cyclones basketball game.  Thanks to Sara Broers for her recommendations for starting this.)  So be sure to "Like" my Facebook page.
2. Start a regular post segment about my pregnancy.  I realized at the conference that I am 26 weeks pregnant and really haven't talked about it except in my initial announcement post.  Well this is going to change.  I love being pregnant and am happy that I am, so why am I not sharing this with everyone?  So look for my first installment of Hump Day Bump Report on Wednesday.
3. To actually read my camera manual, front to back, all the way through.  I love taking photos and actually carry my camera's manual in my camera bag but I only use it to look up what I have want to find information about.  So I have decided in order to understand and utilize my camera better I need to read my camera manual all the way through.

The AgChat Foundation's missing statement is: “Empowering farmers and ranchers to connect communities through social media platforms" and I think that is what this Upper Midwest Regional Conference was set-up to do.  This regional conference was the first in a series of regional conferences offered by the AgChat Foundation.  The Foundation decided to start hosting regional conferences so those who were unable to attend their national conference due to location or timing, had a chance to connect and learn about agriculture in social media.