Springtime thoughts

As spring comes to the farm, we are rejoicing in the fact that our nine month old granddaughter is living here at the farm.  She loves the things her mom and dad love: dogs, cows, horses, chickens, cats, dirt.  Just as Scott loved growing up here, he is nurturing a love of God’s green earth in his daughter.  Beth, his wife, is no longer a new bride; and the realities of farming are present in their daily life.  One reality is that Scott must work a full-time job off the farm, and helps us on weekends or evenings as his family time allows him to, in the fields and in the shop.  Beth is a full-time mom and growing a photography business.  Her photos are beautiful testimonies of rural American lifestyles.

This farm only supports a single family financially, and Roger is just 55.  That means ten years to go before he can think about “retiring” and passing ownership and daily management of the farm on to one of our kids.  A land contract will legally pass the farm to the next generation. In reality, I think real retirement, when he stops farming, is probably decades in the future.

We watch Margie grow, too.  Next month is her golden birthday: she will be 25 on May 25th.  She lives with us and helps manage the dairy herd.  We are building a new milkhaus this year,  an investment in the future of our farm.  The dairy cows are what earn us an income that makes perpetuating the farm and raising a family possible for Roger and I. Margie knows cows; she too could be a successful farmer. 

Even with kids this passionate about farming, even if we do everything right, we still know that farming has challenges.  What is the weather going to be like this year?  How does global agricultural production affect our commodity prices?  How will we make loan payments, pay the monthly livestock bills?  Health insurance and farm insurance?  Our own grocery bills? Taxes?

I used to think someday it would get easier.  I no longer have that optimistic view.  Roger works the land because it is what he has done his whole life.  He will do it until he retires, dies, or goes bankrupt.  We are good at farming, there are skills needed, and he and I both possess them in sufficient quantity to have lasted this long.

Prayerfully, with God’s blessing upon us, we will continue to do so, so that a sixth and seventh generation of Weisses can farm this land.  We do rejoice, because we know that we are working for a long-term purpose!  Welcome Springtime, and welcome Lilly!

  Daddy’s new farm vehicle carries the most precious harvest: our granddaughter, Lilly!

Scott and Beth, Lilly

 

 

MCFA Annual Picnic in Lakeview, MI

Our farm is honored to be chosen Michigan’s 2013 Centennial Farm of the Year. Roger and I shared stories about Johann LELY, our Frankenmuth Corn Maze, and the future of our farm (our children). Our farm has actually been in our family for 160 years as of August 1, 2013.

2013 New Beginnings

Our family is growing! Roger and Joanmarie Weiss, Lydia (19), Margie (23), Scott (21) and his fiancee Bethany (22)
In September, just before the corn maze officially opens, we will welcome Bethany to our farm family.  

Harvest of Gold

     (The title credit goes to Scott: he tagged his Facebook photo album from the past week using the phrase.)

     This year there is more truth to the title than ever before.  Because of prolonged drought conditions around the USA, corn prices have reached record highs.  Currently, corn is selling for around $8 a bushel at the Chicago Board of Trade.  And, here at Weiss Centennial Farm, we are buying corn in our dairy feeds valued at $10 a bushel.  We are more than a little thankful that we decided to put some of last year’s corn in the corn bank at the feed mill instead of selling it at $5 a bushel in the spring (which was a great price then!).

     So, since September 10 we have been harvesting corn in two ways for our cows.  First, and this is really a sign of how weird the growing year has been, we took off high moisture shelled corn with our combine.  We shell corn at 30 percent moisture, then roller mill it and store it in Agbags.  We can store cracked corn for up to three years in the bags.  Our strategy is always to have more than one year’s worth of feed in the bags, so we are covered in drought years.  This is the third year in twenty-five we will not be able to do that because of drought.  But, we can use some of last year’s extra to get us through to next year. 

     On September 22 we started to chop our corn silage.  Usually corn silage is made at the end of August or early September, always before shelled corn.  This is a year of firsts, though…. The silage corn took a long time to mature this fall.  We are fortunate, too, that the tiling Roger was doing in May kept us from planting corn before May 22.  Why?  Well, that delay meant our corn plants did not tassel and pollinate until late July, early August when mid-Michigan finally received much-needed rain.  So, our silage corn grew to its full potential of nine feet and the ears are filled out nicely.  My sister, Angela, lives in Hudson, Mi.  A dairy farm near their home chopped silage in August in a 100 acre field that only measured 13 bushel of corn to the acre!  I think the pilgrims did better than that in 1620!  So, we are grateful God made the tile machine break down, which seemed like a horrible delay at the time, but now is a blessing.  Waiting on God is preached all the time, now we have a first hand story why one should be patient…

    We are also in the midst of a new Frankenmuth Corn Maze season now.  September gave us an opportunity to make sure everything was set up and we were easing our way into the long, fun weekends.  Last weekend we partnered with Zehnder’s Splash Village and hosted many of their guests at the maze and also with a tour of our dairy farm and robotic milking system.  Now, it is October and we are eager to share an a-maze-ing experience with all our guests.  This weekend the color of the nearby woods is going to be absolutely gorgeous!  Here’s hoping we have beautiful sunshine as the trees arraign themselves in gold and crimson and orange foliage.

    I am sorry I have not written a blog entry for so long.  A combination of many things has kept me from sitting down and recording what is going on: first off, our life is changing dramatically with Lydia home briefly then off to culinary school, Scott is back in school full-time this fall, he and Margie are also farming with Roger and there is much to figure out in terms of family and farm communications and decision-making processes.  Also, Roger’s sister, Lori, lives with us currently, so there are many adults in the house who all want to be chiefs…no more Indians who just follow along quietly!  I know we will be solving some of these issues sooner than others, in the meanwhile there are days my heart and mind are painfully bruised with miscommunications and then there are just as many when I am filled with joy for the family love and adult relationships we are forging as Roger and I celebrate our 25th year as a married couple. 

    Please pray for us, and we also pray for everyone, too.  Families are precious gifts from God, they are forged by many shared experiences and much love.  Yet, every family needs to include God as the head of the household, I believe, to fully ensure contentment and blessings.

    I cannot figure out how to put photos into the blog post today, apparently some new method is used since I last wrote in August.  When I figure it out, I will be sure to put some in this post.  Meanwhile, you can see lots of photos of our farm this year by going to Weiss Centennial Farm on Facebook.