Gettin' Me Some Education...

Today I take off for the Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) annual conference in Marshalltown, IA. I'm pretty excited for a couple of reasons. First of all, this will be my first opportunity to attend a the PFI conference and it will also be my first farming conference of any sort. I had hoped to go to quite a few others, but they all landed smack dab in the middle of a youth event. The second reason that I'm excited to attend is that I will have a chance to share some of my thoughts about farm blogging (and I will get to learn more about website design and such). Hopefully I'll be able to share a little bit and encourage others to start blogging about their farm life and work.

But, my little session isn't what I'm most excited for. I am most excited for the different sessions and speakers that I will get to see. I thought it would be fun to share with you all what sessions I'm going to, and then when it is all said and done I'll report back on some of the things I heard, saw, and learned.

On Friday afternoon there are a set of workshops that you can choose from, and this was probably the most difficult choice I had to make when it comes to what I am going to attend. There is one called, "Fledgling Farmers" that features some farmers that started their farms from scratch and a person that helps beginning farmers find land. That sounded pretty interesting, but since we already have the land I thought I didn't want to hear what I should have done (just kidding). Instead I decided to go with the workshop titled, "The Art of Raising Drug-Free and Healthy Livestock". This session will discuss a holistic (from the animals to the soil) approach to herd and flock health and is led by Will Winter who works with Thousand Hills Cattle Company.

The rest of Friday evening features different food and gatherings until 8:00 PM when we get a sneak peak at a new film by the "King Corn" guys. You know I can't wait for that!

Saturday morning will find me attending the keynote and then in the session titled, "The New Conservation Stewardship (Security) Program". Since I have written about this a couple of times on the blog I thought it would be good to get some more information on the program and see if it is something that would fit a farm like ours. It should be pretty interesting.

In the afternoon I'll be working with another farmer on the session called, "Cyber Farmers: Using Websites and Blogs". As I mentioned I'm really looking forward to this ... mostly because I think there will be a lot for me to learn.

After that session there will be some time to meet with other farmers and then a sort of "what the attendees want to know" session where they will tackle some of the topics that people ask about. All in all it sounds like a great two days!

Now all I have to do is make sure I schedule in the time to finish my sermon for Sunday...