When you go to the grocery store, you are offered lots of choices.  I grew up on a dead end gravel road.  It was 30 minutes one way to the grocery store, and we only went once a week (and that was usually after some other errand:  church, school, or even delivering pigs to market).  Now, I live just a stone’s throw (literally) from the city limits of Rockford, the 3rd largest city in Illinois.  While I miss my dead end gravel road, I do enjoy being minutes from many conveniences – one of those being grocery stores with lots of variety.  

I counted over 10 different versions of milk on my last grocery trip.  Not only is there skim, 1%, 2% and whole milk, but there is chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla flavored, and other choices, including organic.  All this means you have lots of choices when you go to the grocery store, but what does it all mean?

This statement has defined our lives, for better or worse, for the last 4 months.  It is the question I asked every time I got home after dark and hadn’t yet had a chance to see the day’s progress.  It is the question that all of our friends, neighbors, and families ask us when they see us.  You see, “The Barn”, has been the focal point of the summer projects.  On the farm you typically have a list of summer projects.  Sometimes that list may have things like paint the barn or re-roof the barn, but complete rebuilding of the barn is another level of project entirely.  Therefore, we have spent a great deal of time deciding all the little things that will make our cows lives better.  For some reason, we had the idea that we would turn the barn around & have it finished in May.  It is now September.  However, like at the end of planting or harvest, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel.  

The old saying is that corn should be "knee-high by the 4th of July."That saying should now say "tasseled by the 4th of July."

The reason why farmers can grow enough corn (and other grains like wheat, oats, and soybeans), is that science has helped us have plants with a higher yield. We have eliminated different diseases and things that slow down plant growth. We have better herbicides and insecticides that are safer, better for the environment, and we use less of them to produce more.

Hi! I’m Carrie Pollard, a self-described farm junkie from northern Illinois. I am known by friends and family for my passion for raising livestock, of all shapes and sizes. I grew up on a hog and beef cattle farm in western Illinois, and went to college at the University of Illinois, where I met my husband, Brent.