Illinois Farm Families Blog

Most of my personal belongings have been in a livestock trailer while Grandpa’s cattle were still grazing the back pasture. Our couch, kitchen table, sock drawer and bath linens a couple times traveled in the vented shelter of a trailer designed to haul pigs and cattle.

One of the coolest things about living or working on a farm is access to stuff. A backhoe to plant trees in our yard. A flatbed trailer to haul lumber for a house project. Farmers are known to give equipment multiple roles on the farm. As a child, Mom swam in a large, round livestock water tank, which served the cattle when she and her brothers were done with it. Old tractor tires became sandboxes. The hayrack was a float in the homecoming parade. We even used the machine shed for our wedding reception.

Just in the last 16 months, Grandpa’s 27-foot livestock trailer has moved grandchildren to new homes three times. The trailer has unloaded belongings along a city street, country road and a subdivision between the extremes.

Like our home when company is coming, most farmers’ livestock trailers are spotless only on special occasions. Those include when a farmkid’s furniture needs moved or during 4-H Fair time, when we would spend a couple hours pressure-washing the manure from the trailer’s interior to make a shining appearance at the fairgrounds.

These recent family moves reminded me of annual move-in days during college. More than likely, the upper-classmen who served on the dormitory moving crews still recall my arrival and no one else’s. The gal next door rented a U-Haul to transport her belongings. Other families had mini vans with the back seats removed. We had a pickup truck pulling a livestock trailer that stated the name and address of our farm. For six consecutive years, livestock trailers hauled my brother or me to college.

We know how to move furniture farm style.
 
Joanie Stiers
Williamsfield, Illinois

My ears definitely perked up when he mentioned that, because just earlier in the week I had read this article, about a high incidence of an autoimmune disorder among certain workers at the plant, and how Hormel has reacted.  Now obviously that article focuses a lot on labor and immigration issues, but things like: “…And then there was the sound of sizzling electric prods, the clatter of cloven hooves on metal grating, and the guttural, almost human, screeching of hogs” were what stood out to me.  I’m an animal lover, so stuff like that gets under my skin, and makes me question my decision to fry up a pound of bacon and serve BLTs for dinner.

So Chris mentioned going to Austin, I embarrassed myself and yelled out “the Spam plant!” (as if everyone else at the table had read the article too), and he continued to tell us about his experience.  Unlike Ted Genoways, the author of the article, Chris did get to venture inside the plant.

He told us the butchering process was calm.  Quiet.  That the pigs are loaded off of the trucks and put in a pen to relax before they’re slaughtered (I’m sorry, but I can’t think of a more PC word for that…).

Hmm.  So here’s the thing – while “calm” and “quiet” are totally relative terms, and probably mean something a little different to a pig farmer than they do to someone like me who works in an office all day, the contrast between what Chris described and what Genoways described is huge.

And THIS is why I applied to be a field mom.  Because I want to get closer to the truth.  Not the media version, not the PETA version, not even the Hormel-spun version – I want to sit down with the farmers themselves and hear what they have to say.  Chris didn’t know what I’d read earlier in the week.  He didn’t know that the vision of ”…the guttural, almost human, screeching of hogs…” was still lingering in my mind.  He was just a guy, telling a table of ladies about a trip he took.  I think that’s about as close to the unspun truth as this suburban mom is going to get, and I’m so thankful to have the opportunity to hear it firsthand.

Betsie Estes
Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Originally posted by Betsie on her personal blog at Super Suburbs.

Driving out for my first tour of the Martz grain and beef cattle farm near Maple Park felt a little bit like going back in time. Traffic thinned out - and included a lot more pickup trucks - a tractor drove down the road, and horses and cows grazed in gently sloping fields against a silo-dotted backdrop.

What awaited me next was an amazing learnathon:

• “Prime,” “Choice” and “Select” refer to meat grades from highest to lowest
• Marbling - the fat in your steak - is monounsaturated, which is actually good for you
• “USDA-inspected labels on beef can be misleading - all beef has to be USDA-inspected
• The term “grass-fed beef” is also misleading – at some point all cows are fed grass and/or roam in pastures
• More than 98% of cattle on feed in the U.S. are given hormones to aid their growth and strength
• You would have to eat 2,900 lbs. of implanted steer to equal the amount of hormones in birth control pills (example: Beef from a steer treated with estrogen contains 1.9 nanongrams – a billionth of a gram – while a girl prior to puberty has 54,000 nanograms of estrogen naturally occurring in her system)
• Nutrition wise, there is no difference between organic beef and "traditional" beef
• Antibiotics pass through cattle before they even go to market
• Market Day Ranch Steaks (we order ‘em every month) come from a packing plant in nearby Aurora – and some of the Martz cattle
• Farmers are eating the same beef we are at home
• A dedicated cattle nutritionist creates a very specific feed recipe for the cows
• Farmers and veterinarians are working to reduce antibiotic use in cattle by focusing on good nutrition and the use of vaccines in comprehensive preconditioning programs (before they get big enough for us to eat)
• A “squeeze” machine developed by Dr. Temple Grandin is used to keep cattle stress free
• One ear of corn can tell a farmer what to expect in terms of yields for the year
• Combines on the farm can harvest 12 rows of corn at one time (some combines can harvest 18!) and hold up to 25,000 lbs. of corn

On the drive home, my brain was filled to capacity with all things farms and food – the coffee and ginormous cream cheese frosted brownie deliciousness Lynn and Mike Martz sent with me helped.

Stay tuned as I learn and share more about the anything-but-slow-paced farm life.

Pilar Clark
Lisle, Illinois

 

I’m digressing.

Anyway, I am really excited and passionate about this relationship we are forging between farmers and consumers, and after our first Moms Meet-Up this summer, I have been talking about being a part of this again if the opportunity arose. I came home from my first Moms Meet Up feeling like I could spread the story of my life on the farm to the entire world. Through good, meaty discussions along with aha! moments (both from the city and farm moms), excellent connections were made, and I was pumped.

So, as I readied myself (most importantly with a good outfit!) for this event just this past Sunday, my expectations were sky-high. However, as I watched the moms trickle in, counting the heads of the city moms in attendance, and realizing it was less than before, I was initially disappointed. I am passionate about this plight. I am ready to tell my story. As a mom, I can relate to the Field Moms because we all want to care for our children the best we can. However, when it comes to food, in this world of sometimes information overload, how do you know what is the right or true information? I truly believe that this relationship between the Field Moms and the farmers is an awesome way to close this disconnect.

That is what happened on Sunday. In the midst of this big, beautiful city, we farmers- who are generally more comfortable in tractor cabs than taxi cabs- sat down with the city moms, engaging in easy conversation about our lives, our livelihood, something we are so passionate about. This meet up allowed the city moms to not only hear the perspectives from one or two farm families, but farmers who not only raise corn and soybeans, but cattle, dairy cows, and hogs. We farmers were able to better explain ourselves and demonstrate the similarities between our farms, similar fears and concerns, and even demonstrate how alike we all are, even if we raise different animals and crops hundreds of miles from each other.

It was fascinating. This opportunity on Sunday truly showed that whether it’s farmer to farmer or city mom to farmer, we are all the same. We are all out here trying to care for our families as best as we can. Whether our commute to work is by train or taxi or dualie pick up truck, we’re all a bunch of folks hoping to do right in the world, whether its raising kids in the city or crops in the country.

I love being a part of these Mom Meet-Ups. I love sharing my story because there are times I can’t believe that I’m living where I do! I hope to keep telling my story to all who will listen, and hope that I can keep coming up to the city to enjoy all that it has to offer!

Emily Webel
Farmington, Illinois

Emily Webel is a farmer’s wife, mother of four, runner, former teacher, and author of the blog, Confessions of a Farm Wife. She lives in Farmington, Illinois.