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!

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Wordless Wednesday - Iowa State Fair

I love fair season and was happy to travel to the Iowa State Fair this past weekend.  Here are a couple photos from our time at the fair!

New Fair Food - Fried Pickle Dawg (pickle, covered with cream cheese and rolled up in ham, fried)

Good ol' Favorite Fair Food - Cookies in a Cup

LP at Little Hands on the Farm

LP as a Turkey Farmer at the Animal Learning Center
This is our friend Bart's photo that was turned into a photo board at this year's fair

We love volunteering at the Iowa Pork Tent every year
Here My Farmer and our friend's Brian and Mike get some Iowa chops ready to grill

We had a great time at the Iowa State Fair - it wore us all out!

Farm Friday

This week's Farm Friday is getting out later than I normally like to get it out because things have just simply been busy around here today, and really, this week.  We finished planting corn on Monday of this week and then finished planting soybeans last night!  It feels good to have everything in the ground.  Now that we are done planting, My Farmer has promised to get my garden tilled!  I usually have a goal of getting this done by Mother's Day, but the farm comes first.  I figure one week after Mother's Day isn't too bad!

As for my "backyard" this week, the corn is growing well.  It would be nice to get a little rain though, and it sounds like we might get a little at the end of the weekend.

The corn is at the V4 stage today.  As you can see from the photos below, you can clearly see four leaves and collars.

And to end today's blog post, I wanted to give a few fun facts about turkeys.  Today I visited the Iowa Turkey Federation and had a great time catching up with Gretta Irwin, the Executive Director of ITF.

My Top Ten Favorite Turkey Facts:

• Iowa ranks 7th in the nation for turkey production and Iowa increases production every year.
• It takes about 14 weeks for a hen and 18 weeks for a tom to grow to market weight.
• The average market weight of a hen is 23 pounds and a tom is 35 pounds.
• Turkeys have around 3,500 feathers at maturity.
• In a turkeys' lifetime them will consume approximately 1 bushel of corn and 1/3 bushel of soybeans.  This results in Iowa's turkeys consuming 62,000 acres of corn and 69,000 acres of soybeans.
• Hormones are not used in raising turkeys.  It is illegal.  The use of hormones was banned in the 1950s.
• Turkey sandwiches account for 48% of all turkey consumption.
• West Liberty Foods, an Iowa-farmer owned company, is Subway's largest supplier of turkey.  They also supply a large amount of turkey to Jimmy John's.
• It is estimated that 46 million turkeys are ate at Thanksgiving, 22 million at Christmas and 19 million at Easter.
• Feeling drowsy after Thanksgiving dinner?  Recent studies show that turkey is not the cause.  The study showed that a carbohydrate rich, not protein rich, meal increases the level of tryprophan in the brain, creating drowsiness.