We #CanHunger This Holiday Season

I just heard on the news last night that November is one of the busiest months for food banks in Iowa between the holidays, tighter end-of-the-year budgets and colder temperatures.  We all can help hungry families in need by simply donating to our local food pantries and organizations like Feeding America.  I'm happy to accept the #CanHunger challenge from Amy at Modern Rural Living to sign a can of food, donate it and challenge three friends to do the same:  Katy from Learning As I Go, Katie from On the Banks of Squaw Creek and Katie from the Pinke Post!

A reminder to everyone that throughout the month of November my Comments for the Cause is going towards the #NorthIowaBloggers food drive.  So help today by commenting how you are going to help hungry families this holiday season!

It's Turkey Time!

With Thanksgiving two weeks away I can't help but think about getting together with family and the FOOD!  I'm looking forward to indulging in mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pecan pie and of course turkey!  While you go for seconds this Thanksgiving, I hope you think about the farm behind your Thanksgiving dinner.

The Olthoff's - Bart, Isaac, Katie and Adam

Did you know there are more than 130 turkey farms in Iowa?  I actually grew up in an area with many turkey farms and am happy that share that one of those family farms is telling their story through a new children's book just in time for Thanksgiving, My Family's Farm.  Katie, who farms with her husband Bart (who I grew up with), raise more than 100,000 turkeys every year.  Katie, has become a good friend of mine over the last few years and I'm so proud that she has written this book, with the help of her six year old son Adam.

One of the reasons why I love this book is that there is information in it for the entire family.  Each page includes two sections of text.  The first section is in Adam's voice and is meant for younger kids.  The other section has more detailed background information and is great for older students (and even adults).

I think this would be a great book to share at your Thanksgiving dinner this year and I'm excited to share that I'll be giving away a copy to one of my readers!  You can enter the giveaway below and in case you don't win, you can check out the online version of the book here for free!

If you are looking for additional Thanksgiving materials, check out these free Thanksgiving printables from the Iowa Turkey Federation, as well as their new cookbook, The Ultimate Guide to Whole Turkey.

What is your favorite part of Thanksgiving?  Remember to Comment for a Cause!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Developing Your Pinterest Potential

How many of you enjoy going on Pinterest?  I know I love going on Pinterest to get ideas for holidays, kids crafts and activities, photography, recipes and I've been on the site a lot lately getting ready for a certain soon to be 2 year old's birthday party.  Besides collecting ideas for myself, what is my "Pinterest Potential" to reach others?

Pinterest is simply a virtual bulletin board.  What makes it unique, is that your pins on your bulletin board can be seen by millions of people.  This is an opportunity to reach millions of others with similar interests as you and grow your network, your business and your views.  So how are you going to utilize your "Pinterest Potential"?

My "Pinterest Potential" is showing the value of agriculture in every day images and pins.  I've been on Pinterest for over a year and about a year ago I started a board that shared different fun facts about farming and agriculture called "Living to Farm, Farming to Live."  Then around nine months ago I was asked to join a couple "shared board" about agriculture.  The first is "Farms & Rural America, Food & Agriculture".  This board is a "tribute to farmers, rural lifestyle, those working in agriculture and people with an interest in any of those."  It is a great board for people that have an interest in where their food comes from.  As of this morning, there are 199 contributors to the board and there are 2,147 followers to the board.  The second is "AgNerd".  This board has a similar purpose as the other and has 69 contributors and has 555 followers.

One person who I think has done a great job of developing their "Pinterest Potential" is Katie On the Banks of Squaw Creek.  Her blog and Pinterest boards center around her family, kids and renovating her 100 year old farmhouse on a turkey farm.  Katie has seen a lot of traffic to her blog from Pinterest.  What might draw people to her blog initially are her decorating for small room ideas, or her tips on working with kids that are picky eaters.  But once they get to her blog they have the opportunity to learn more about her family's farm.  One of her blogs that I pinned about a month ago included a cute printable sign she made that said "Wash your Hands and Say your Prayers because Germs and Jesus are Everywhere."  Once a person clicks on the pin to visit the website to download the sign, they'll also learn about how they care for their turkeys on their farm.  Katie has found her "Pinterest Potential."

So whether you'd like people to learn about your business, your product or even your farm, think about what your "Pinterest Potential" is and don't forget to utilize Pinterest, one of the fastest growing social media tools available!  Also, don't forget to follow my boards and pins on Pinterest and check out other social media goals I have set for the year!

LV2FRM

While I'm driving I always look at personalized license plates on other cars and try to depict what they mean.  What do you think this license plate says?

Do you see "Live to Farm" or "Love to Farm"?  The first time I saw it I saw "Live to Farm" and I think that is because I've always said that My Farmer and I are "Farming to Live and Living to Farm."  

Well, whatever way you see it, both views were welcome at last weekend's Iowa Farm Bureau Young Farmer Conference.  This was My Farmer's and my sixth year attending the conference.  It has been great to see this program expand over those years.  This year's conference had a record attendance of over 350 young farmers from across the state!  And we were proud that our county was one of the top attendance counties with 12 attendees.

The Young Farmer Conference delegation eating Saturday dinner
Photo taken by Hayley Muff

I would say My Farmer's and my favorite thing about Young Farmer Conference is networking - getting to meet up with friends we've had for years and at the same getting to meet new people.  We both enjoy being able to talk to others that are in similar "places in life" about everything from farming, to family, to kids, to even politics and religion, two things that were discussed heavily one night...

Besides networking, we also enjoy the breakout sessions.  This year I went to breakout sessions on "Speaking Up!  Telling OUR Agriculture Story" from Katie Olthoff who is a Common Ground volunteer and I went to "Influence Those Who Influence Our Bottom Line" from Zach Bader who is the Grassroots Program Manager at the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.  My Farmer went to "Continuing Our Legacy of Family Farming" from Dr. Ron Hansen of the University of Nebraska and he went to "Healthcare & Insurance for the Future" from Deb Ferjak, a Health Insurance Manager for Farm Bureau Life Financial.  These were just some of the options for the breakout sessions and we both agree that next year's conference should have three rounds of breakout sessions and not just two!  It was hard to decide which two we'd go to.

Katie Olthoff speaking about how to educate and answer questions about farming and food

This year's conference also had a great group of keynote speakers - Dr. Ron Hansen and Matt Lohr gave the group some great information that hopefully left everyone motivated to start discussing succession planning with our families and to make an impact that will leave our legacy, respectively.  We also had a lot of laughs with Damian Mason, as he discussed "Farm Camp."

A fun side note from this year's conference for me is that I made the Top 10 for the Discussion Meet!  Which means I'll have a chance to compete at the Iowa Annual Meeting Discussion Meet finals in December.  The Discussion Meet helps young farmers build discussion skills, develop a keen understanding of important ag issues and explore how groups can pool knowledge to reach a consensus and solve problems.

Discussion Meet Top 10 (I'm fourth from the left)

I just want to thank the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Young Farmer Advisory Committee for another great conference this year!  My Farmer and I look forward to it every year.  If you are a young farmer in Iowa you should get involved too.  It is a great group to work with where you get to learn and have fun at the same time!

I'm hoping to go more in depth in the next couple weeks on some of the breakout sessions and keynote speakers that we heard from.  So keep your eyes out for more information from this great conference!