Day One of PFI Conference Report

Day number one at the PFI Annual Conference ... Great! I gotta say that I really enjoyed my first day at the conference from the workshop to the food and especially the "King Corn" guys. In fact the only down fall for the event so far has been the weather. After getting out of the conference at 9:40 PM I found the snow and wind a bit greater than I expected. I drove a little ways and decided that driving as slow as I was would mean about 2 1/2 hours until I got home. So, I decided to stay in Marshalltown and pony up for a hotel. But, everything else was great.

Here are a few bullet points from the day:

• The workshop I attended led by Will Winter, DVM was great. I ended up taking a few pages of notes ... most of which I didn't completely understand. But, the reason I wrote down all those notes was so I could go home and do a little more research. Mr. Winter is a Holistic Veterinarian who only works with natural remedies and of course focuses on prevention more than anything. I wrote down words like: Desert Dyna-Min, Hemocel 100, Rescue Remedy, Selenium, and so much more. I feel like I have the beginning of an understanding!
• There are a lot of interesting vendors and what not in the Exibition Hall. I'm kind of shy when it comes to going up to people I don't know, but I have had some good conversation in there and collected some good information. Hopefully I'll have some more to write about from what I looked at there.
• The food is good! Local chili, local cornbread, local ice cream, local milk ... what is there not to like. I can't wait for lunch today.
• I have recognized a few faces that I have seen around before at things like auctions and field days. It is great to know that there are others out there who are and are willing to think differently about farming.
• The highlight of the day without a doubt though was the "King Corn" guys (specifically Aaron and Curt). If you have been following the blog for a long time you might remember that Aaron found my post and started interacting. He had a lot of great stuff to say and really opened my eyes to what the film was about and the possibilities. I had hoped to met him soon after that, but our paths never crossed because of one thing or another. Well, we finally got to meet! And I'm happy that he remembered me ... honestly I never would have expected him to. I had a good conversation with him and also was introduced to Curt. One more cool thing ... it seems that Aaron has opened a grocery store in the Brox that sells food "that you know where it came from". Check out the website for Urban Rustic.