I pulled out an old notebook yesterday afternoon and flipped through to find a clean page. On my way there, I came across notes from a variety of semi-recent meetings and events. Among them: my most favorite quote, courtesy of estate planning attorney and Prairie Farmer columnist Curt Ferguson. He spoke last fall, addressing the Cultivating Master Farmers group and talking about communication and estate plans. He told them, "If you're not willing to talk to your kids…

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Farmers like straight corn rows and until very recent history, some farmers even pegged their ability as an equipment operator on how straight their rows were. Then autosteer came along and now everyone has straight rows. Amen. The joke is, of course, that you can get more corn in a crooked row than a straight one. I tried telling my husband that once, and he didn't buy it. But that was a stressful situation, so there's that. But in the end, farmers like straight rows just…

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Illinois and the Midwest, in general, have some tremendous advantages, including but not limited to ridiculously deep topsoil and beaucoup grain markets. (I've always wanted to use the word "beaucoup" in a story. Check.) That is to say, where we sit in our part of the world, we are farming directly between two major rivers that carry grain around the world ( the Illinois and Mississippi). We also have four ethanol plants within an hour's drive, and we have a rail…

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Harvest has always been my very favorite. And that's despite the fact that particular time of year has become the most busy for our young family, as we learn to juggle school functions, practices for a small town musical, the start of Awana and new-this-year: flag football. Still, despite the crazy, it's my favorite. The weather cools, and we pull out sweatshirts and coveralls. The early mornings see farmers gathering equipment at field's edge, preparing for the day…

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For the crop we grew in 2012, we spent $250,000 on fertilizer, give or take a little. We wrote checks for $150,000 for seed. We spent $50,000 to kill weeds and insects. We watch the crop grow. We pray. We can even buy insurance against weather like hail or yield in general. But in the end, we depend on the weather. And we have a lot of money sitting out in those fields. As a kid, the world stopped at 10:15 p.m. when the weather came on. Everyone was quiet so Mom and Dad could watch…

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Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure of sitting around the Martin Family Farm office with Doug and Erin Martin. Doug and Erin are excellent young farmers from the greater Mt. Pulaski area, and they farm with Doug's parents. Always thoughtful, Doug shared that they've spent more time this past winter thinking about what's ahead in agriculture and how it will affect their farm. And as he spoke about market volatility, he verbalized very well what a lot of us in agriculture have come to…

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If you didn’t get your Prairie Farmer over the weekend, keep watching your mailbox. It's gonna sound like I'm bragging, but I'm willing to do it anyway: I’m more excited about this month's cover story than I've been about any other story in a long time. We called it "Change on the Horizon," with good reason. The story started out simply enough, with a singular thought to profile a handful of the top young farmers in the state. Then I started thinking. Average age of the…

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I received a most thoughtful response to last week's blog, where I re-told my cautionary feelings about sharing information with the New York Times. The reader, Bill Graff (farmer and former IL FSA head), offered up this bit of insight: "We farmers probably give out way too much information. My wife, Judi, did not grow up on a farm and she thinks farmers let too many of their business decisions go out of their mouths that should 'never leave their lips,' as she says. I think we…

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Our pediatrician is a lovely, laid-back man named Dr. Krock. He's low-key and amiable, and after asking him to doctor three children over the course of eight years, I'd dare say he's unflappable. Broken foot? Let's take a look. Chicken pox? Come up the back stairs and we'll take a look. Weird rash? Let's take a look. My friend, Jody, also doctors with Dr. Krock, and we have decided that he is so laid back and unflappable that if he ever looks us square in the eyes and says, "This is a problem…

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I've been reading from A Corporate Tragedy, a 1985 book by Barbara Marsh that examines the business decisions that led to the rise and fall of the International Harvester Company. I don't believe it was a bestseller by any means – I found it on my bookshelf, an inheritance from a previous editor who appears to have received it from the publisher – but it holds some fascinating tidbits of business acumen, including accounts from senior executives and the decisions they made over the…

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