Going Back to School

Well, after encouragement from Kelli at Sugar Creek Farm and the folks at Blue Gate Farm (along with other great reviews) we have decided to take the plunge and attend the Grow Your Small Market Farm workshop. We had considered attending last year, but the timing just didn't work out. This year there may be a couple of classes that I have to miss because of work, but we decided there would never be a better time and this was a class that looked like it would help a lot!

The class meets each Saturday from January 24 until April 11 and after that until October there is one-on-one help at each of the farms. Finally, you end the year with one last meeting in December. Through out the weekends workshops we will be covering everything from business plans to tax stuff. I'm especially looking forward to the sessions on marketing, business plans, and of course the chance to meet with other farmers in similar situations as us.

From talking with the teacher, Penny Brown Huber, it seems like the greatest part will the the one-on-one time when she comes to your farm and helps you take stock of your resources and your business plan. It will be great to have have someone with experience on small farms to come out and take a look at our place and our plans. Also, I'm sure that we will get plenty of help hashing out some of the questions that we have.

So, this Saturday we are back in school ... hopefully I enjoy it more than the last classes I took on a college campus. I'm sure that I will!

Holistic Herd Care

One of the most interesting presentations I went to at the Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual Conference was the workshop by Will Winter called, "The Art of Raising Drug-Free and Healthy Livestock". Mr. Winters had about three hours with us on Friday afternoon, but I'm thinking thirty hours would have been better for me! He had lots of great information ... some of which I caught and lots that flew over my head while I was digesting other information. I took lots of notes about things to look up later though, and I'm beginning to work my way through them. Here are some of the homeopathic/holistic medicines (I'm not sure what they call them) and other things that he spoke about:

• Rescue Remedy: If you go to this website you will find that Rescue Remedy is like "yoga in a bottle". I'm not sure what exactly that means, but Mr. Winter uses it when he is shipping or working livestock, trying to calm livestock, and even to help lower stress in people. Sometimes these things sound too good to be true, but there was a lot of positive feedback about this one ... maybe I'll check it out.
• Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide: This is one that he recommended for livestock suffering from shipping fever. He said it needs to be the strong stuff (35%), but that you only add 8 ounces to every 1,000 gallons of water. Should be interesting to look into this one a little more.
• Apple Cider Vinegar: I know a lot of different people that add ACV to their livestock water tanks and to their own diets. I'm not exactly sure what it is all about, but there is a book that tells a lot of the story titled, "Folk Medicine". It is also supposed to help lower cholesterol ... do you think it does that for bovine also? :)
• Desert Dyna-Min: One of the commenters mentioned that they keep this one around at all times and Mr. Winter spoke very highly of it. They described it as the bouillon cube of minerals for cattle. We are talking about 2 to 4 ounces per day, but I'm not sure how they feed this ... maybe someone can chime in.
• Hemocel 100: This is a product by Agri-Dynamics (same as Desert Dyna-Min) that he likes to give to sick animals as a rumen starter. The companies website touts this one as a dairy supplement as well.

Of course most of those things are something that you add when there is trouble or to prevent trouble. The biggest thing that I got out of this workshop was that holistic herd care has as much or more to do with preventation as it does with treatment. Mr. Winter spoke a lot about soil health and forage quality being key to a holistic approach to care ... but, that does take time.

I would be interested in hearing anyones thoughts on the ideas of holistic vet care and herd health as it is something that is really starting to interest me.

Saturday at the PFI Conference

Saturday at the Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual Conference was just as great as Friday, but in a different way. Of course because of the snow and the wind I woke up in Marshalltown and didn't have as far to travel to get to the conference, so in a way that was nice. Once I got there I had a great day attending the keynote by Joel Huesby, a session on the new Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), a great lunch containing all Iowa food, my session on websites and blogging, a great little discussion with other beginning farmers, and finally a cluster group on alfalfa and grass mixes. It was a great day filled with lots of information! So, instead of detailing everything I just thought I would share some of the notes I took and then take time to disect things later.

• Here is the first thing I wrote about the CSP session, "apply through the NRCS". But, after that and lots of questions and discussion from the group I started writing things like this, "this is pretty confusing ... not sure if anyone will ever get it" and this, "there seems to be a disconnect on what is in the 2008 farm bill." That is not to say that it wasn't informational, but rather that things are so confusing that there were many different interpratations represented in the room. It kind of made me dislike governmental bureaucracy a little bit more.
• "EQIP: more interesting than CSP". Water systems ... inside fencing ... frost seeding clover in released CRP ground ... wind breaks ... need to find out about this.
• "Iowa Micro Loan Foundation: not ready yet, but very soon."
• "72 dpi for photos intended for the internet will help dial-up users view your website more easily"
• "Hmm, Kelli Miller had a quote on the 'Grow Your Small Market Farm' display that was about me! I guess I should attend those classes." (By the way, it looks like we will be signing up)

Like I said, those are just some thoughts and quotes from my notes. Even from that sampling I can tell how useful these two days were for me. Besides the notes I made many good contacts and picked up a bunch of great information. The way that I summed up the weekend for my wife describes it best I think ... "I learned a lot this weekend, and I also learned what I need to learn about". Basically, I did pick up a ton of information and then I also jotted down more information about things I wanted to research. At least I should have good blog discussion fodder for a while now!

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.

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...