The Rest of The Story

Last Thursday I checked out for a small vacation to see friends in Los Angeles. Checking out means I didn’t pay attention to emails or get overly concerned about the hot article of the day or what was trending on social media.

The only thing I was concerned about was catching up with good friends and of course watching the Super Bowl.

The view from my friend’s balcony in Hermosa Beach, California.

My college roommate and I ended up watching the Super Bowl in a very crowded bar on the Hermosa Beach pier.

I saw this during the game but there was no sound to it in the bar:

However, I saw Paul Harvey‘s name and knew it had to be neat.

Paul Harvey, to me, was a staple of grass seed harvest while growing up. You could always count on Paul Harvey’s Rest of the Story to let you know the day was almost done in the combine or swather.

Of course you would also learn a little known fact or back story about someone famous. The stories are timeless and numerous. Check them out if you never heard one and you will not be sorry.

Shortly after the commercial was over my twitter started going off. Then I realized it was a poem read by Paul Harvey oh so long ago, On the 8th Day, God Made a Farmer.

When I got back to reality today I could actually watch and realize how truly awesome the commercial is.  I am not a Dodge girl, prefer a Ford, but I will definitely give them a second glance next time I vehicle shop.

Thanks Dodge Ram for supporting Farmers and Ranchers.

On a similar note I saw the below on a menu in California.  It made me smile. Apparently 2013 is the year of the farmer. Cheers to that!

One of my friend’s work, Ford’s Filling Station in Culver City, California…I am sure Dairy Carrie would love the cheese menu

 

Related articles

• ‘God made a farmer’ – truck ad stirs pride, passion and conversation in agriculture community (eatocracy.cnn.com)
• ‘Farmer’ Ad Gives Ram Trucks Big Boost, Study Says  (wsj.com)
• Dodge RAM pays Super Bowl tribute with “So God made a Farmer” (agricultureproud.com)
• Super Bowl ‘Farmer’ Commercial Explained: Where Ram’s ‘God Made A Farmer’ Ad Came From (huffingtonpost.com)

Farming in the Winter

I stopped by a local restaurant the other night to pickup dinner. While I was waiting the manager asked “Are you farming this winter?” I responded, “Yes of course.” Manager, “What is there to do this time of year?”

It may be a slower time of year but there is ALWAYS something to do, contrary to popular belief.

Maintenance & Projects

Each tractor, swather, combine, semi-truck, sprayer and fertilizer buggy is gone through in detail. Changing oil, replacing belts, repairing temporary fixes from harvest and any other thing that may arise. We do this each winter to make sure our equipment is taken care of. Things break on the farm but poor maintenance shouldn’t be the reason.

This year we have a big project in the shop. Our three-wheeled fertilizer spreader/buggy is getting tracks! Why? Because we get stuck. Working on wet ground during spring fertilizing makes getting stuck a likely possibility. Our oversized tires help to prevent this but the tracks will increase surface area and hopefully stop this…

This is not even that bad….

This will be the only three-wheeled machine of its kind in the Willamette Valley if all goes as planned.

Winter Field Work

There are a few sunny days or at least days that are not raining in the winter, so we must take advantage of them. On these precious few days we try to get a spot spraying crew in the fields. Spot spraying is a technique that selectively eliminates unwanted or rogue plant species that are detrimental to the crop. Without this practice seed purity could be compromised which affects its marketability.

We fight slugs. Typically we have mild winters which creates a prime environment for slugs to eat our crops. Some years are worse than others, but no matter the year we must be on the look out for them. Slugs know no boundaries, my friend Brenda has battles with them as well.

Fields are checked frequently for any other unpredicted issue and make sure nothing has been missed.

Office Work

The family farm is a business.  During harvest, you pay the bills but spend minimal time behind a desk.  The winter is time to catch up on book work and finances, a not always fun but a necessary part of the business.

In a typical winter we are shipping grass seed.  This requires tracking inventory, sending seed lab tests, invoicing companies and receiving payments.

This year we have a new software program to analyze our yield maps.   This requires some “classroom” time to learn, then upload and then interpret. data.

Meetings

It seems that every farm organization have their annual meetings in the winter.  So far I have attended American Agri-Women, Oregon Seed Growers League, Oregon Cattleman’s Association, Oregon Ryegrass Growers and plan on attending Oregon Women for Agriculture’s annual meeting in March. There are too many to list that I wish I could attend.  This is a time for farmers not only to learn and get updates on the crops they farm but also to socialize with other farmers.

FUN

I would be remiss if I said there was no fun.  Yes, there is lots of work to do in the winter on the farm but it is a time for us to relax a little bit.

We have our annual lamb BBQ towards the end of December.  We invite the folks we have done business with over the last year and the neighbor farmers.  It’s an event that my family has been doing for 20+ years.

And of course there’s the occasional snowmobiling trip and weekend getaways as well.

I am sure I have forgotten a few items that my dad will remind me of when he reads this post, but like I said there is no lack of work on the farm in the winter.

Honored and Humbled, Thank you!

On Friday night I received a very prestigious award, the Agri-Business Council of Oregon’s Ag Connection Award.  I was unable to accept the award in person at the Annual Diamonds and Denim event because it was the night before my sister’s wedding (blog post to come). However, Paulette Pyle, the grassroots director for Oregonians for Food and Shelter, accepted it for me.  She is and has been a great mentor and role model to me since I was in high school.

This award was not something I expected.

I feel very blessed and grateful for this award because to me I am just doing what needs to be done for an industry that I am passionate for.

I am proud of my accomplishment and wanted to share it with my friends.

This video played during Denim and Diamonds:

Here is a link to the article in Agri-Business Council’s bimonthly publication:

2012 Ag Connection of the Year:  Marie Bowers

At the same ceremony they honored Dale Buck, a dairy farmer from the Oregon Coast. I just hope one day I can be as well-respected as he is.  I had the opportunity to share a table with him at Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom’s annual dinner.  He is an inspiring individual and very deserving of his award, Agriculturist of the Year.

Here is his video:

I  hope that my and Dale’s efforts inspire others and inform people about this awesome industry known as Oregon Agriculture!

Thank you Agri-Business Council of Oregon for this great honor.  I am truly honored and humbled.

Wordless Wednesday: Earth Day

Sunday April 22nd is Earth Day.

Farmers, ranchers & foresters celebrate Earth Day every day or else we lose our way of life.

This is the bumper sticker that rides around on the back of my car!

Wordless Wednesday: Truck Driving Bulldog

Duke, the mostly English Bulldog, loves to drive truck!

After a hard days work!

A Legacy of AgVocacy

I wrote this post a little less than a year ago.  Today, Feb. 19th, 2013, my great grandma passed away.  What a great life she had. 

Forty-three years ago, in 1969, a group of unstoppable women formed Oregon Women for Agriculture (OWA), one of them being my Great-Grandma Charity. As she describes it, she received a phone call from Mary Holzapfel saying women were coming to her house to discuss what they could do to fight & educate the people who wished to end field burning. A practice that is vital to producing quality grass seed. The women realized they had to do it because the men were to busy in the fields that time of year to do much.

As they organized no one was stepping up to be president so my great-grandma did. My great-grandma Charity is one of the best women I know. She is 96 years old and still remembers, in detail, going over the Santiam Pass in a wagon in the early 1920′s at seven years old so her dad could farm the land we still farm. One of the original rocking rural women!

On Saturday, my grandparents drove my Great Grandma nearly two hours to come see me installed as president of Oregon Women for Agriculture. I was so excited to see her there, so were her friends and so was she! Women of all ages still actively participate in OWA.

During my installation my mom surprised me and caught me off guard. She presented me with my Great-grandma Charity’s past president pin. I shed some tears, not an easy thing for me to do.

Past & Present

Great-grandma Charity & me!

I believe I have the same passion that group of women shared back in 1969 when founding Oregon Women for Agriculture: we need communicate our story of today’s agriculture so that we can protect our livelihood!

Wordless Wednesday: Lamb Lovers Month

Today is the last day of Lamb Lovers Month!

Meet my neighbors! This photo is just outside my front door…some of you may remember my new home.

Our farm does not have livestock but Anderson Ranches, a 5th generation operation, graze their sheep & lambs on our lush green fields. This helps keep the grass short in the winter and, at times, improves our yield in the summer!  In 2010 sheep & lambs contributed $16.7 Million to Oregon’s economy.

I love eating lamb most ways. However my dad’s recipe, that he learned from his grandpa, is my favorite! Lamb kabobs marinated for 3 days than BBQ’d!

Kabobs!

My dad doing his thing, hard to imitate.

Delicious!

 

Sheep bring us more than just their delicious meat they also provide fiber! To learn more about lamb visit the American Lamb Board.

How do you like your lamb: food, fiber or both?

Eat what you want & don’t insult my family

Today we are supposed to “Occupy the Food Supply” and show the “evil” corporations that they don’t belong in the food system.

Here are my quick thoughts on the matter:

1)I hope you occupy the food supply every day because otherwise you would starve to death or become severely malnourished.

2)Please don’t bash corporate ag because you in turn are insulting my family.  I don’t call your great-grandparents, grandparents, dad or mom names so don’t do it to me.  My family’s farm is a corporation, I don’t think we have any less of a right to be here than a sole proprietorship farm or a Limited Liability Company farm.

3)Beauty of our America’s food system is diversity and choice.  I won’t tell you what to eat or buy because that’s your choice.  I just ask you show me the same courtesy.

Hope you are occupying the food supply today and eating whatever you want to!

Verbally Punch the Bully

When I was in 5th grade there was a bully who pulled my hair every day in the line after recess. Since the administrators weren’t doing anything about it my dad told me I needed to handle it myself. He said, “Marie, next time she pulls your hair turn around and slug her.” So the next time she pulled my hair I turned around, hit her and called her a word that means female dog. The unfortunate part was that I did it in front of a duty teacher so I got a half day of detention and I wasn’t supposed to say naughty words so I got my mouth washed out with soap. But she never bullied me again. Problem solved.

I thought by the time I was 26 I would be done dealing with bullies, that was one of the perks of being an adult. But I was terribly wrong. In fact the bullies are worse now because it’s frowned upon to punch them.   They spread misconceptions lacking sound science through main stream media and then use ill-formed policy based in fear to get their way.

Just last week Chipotle broadcasted their inaccurate perception of a modern-day “conventional” hog farm during the Grammy’s. Then the same week McDonald’s gave into pressure from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to quit purchasing pork products from farms that use gestation crates.

Bullying is happening in Oregon.  Thirty-five miles away from my home a group of anti-chemical zealots are attacking small woodland owners over their right to use chemicals on their trees.  They are making malicious claims that they are being poisoned to the verge of sickness by Atrazine & 2, 4D.   When results of urine analysis came back it was determined that there was no Atrazine in their system & the levels of 2, 4D were NO higher than the average US citizen, which are insignificant in the terms of toxicity. Of course any chemical is lethal at high doses including Sodium Chloride aka salt.

I recently read an op-ed  about the Chipotle ad by one of my favorite agvocates & writers Blake Hurst then read an another blog piece criticizing him. He responded with “And I am damn tired of being treated like public enemy number one in the New York Times.”

Amen Blake. I am tired of being bullied by a handful organizations who lack sound scientific theories and want to use precautionary principles to create policy & regulations.

There’s one way to stop it. With EVERY farmer, rancher & forester telling their story as much as possible.  I don’t care if you use tweet it, facebook it, blog it, email it, pen write it or speak it, just please tell your story and why you do what you do every day.

Like it or not there are people who want to eradicate us but we can end the bullying with verbal punches full of science based logic, reasoning and common sense.

Ultimate Minority: A Farmer

I am a minority, not because I am women or a proud card-carrying member of the Cherokee nation.

I am a farmer.  Less than 2% of the US population have my livelihood.

That’s less than the population of Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans

If I remember correctly from my history classes many laws were passed to give equal rights to at least 3 out of the 4 groups mentioned above.

What is so wrong with laws passing to protect people of a minority group who’s end product eventually feeds the world?

In 1993, the Oregon legislature understood that there was a rural & urban divide.  Oregon’s agriculturally rich Willamette Valley is in the midst of metropolitan Oregon. Tthey needed to do something to protect farmers, ranchers & foresters rights that are “a generally accepted, reasonable and prudent methods,” because more urban folks were moving into the countryside and they  wouldn’t necessarily understand the natural practices of the area.  This is why they passed Oregon’s Right to Farm and Forest Act.

This law protects me from radical groups who see my natural & generally accepted practices as a nuisance and wish to end it.   Many of these same groups claim to love farmers & farming, however they typically advocate for one way of farming only. Which usually  limits others’ choices.  What is fair about that? At least Oregon’s law protects them too. I believe that’s equality.

Our economy is struggling enough and our world population is growing. To limit any modern or progressive agriculture is a shame and should be frowned upon. Agriculture as a whole, not just limited to production ag, is vital to the United States economy, independent in food & fuel production. In Oregon, agriculture accounts for 15% of all economic activity, and in 2009 is credited with adding more than $22 billion to Oregon’s net state product.

My ultimate question in life is “Why can’t we farm & let farm?”  Why can’t some of us continue to ethically progress in agriculture as the environment and economics see fit, while others prefer to stay in 1915? There’s room for all of us.  As a whole we are already a minority.