A Hundred Years

What was it like 100 years ago? So much has changed. Yet many things were the same including family. Jan's greatgrandfather Elijah and Martha had five children and eleven grandchildren in this picture. Jan's grandfather Carl and his twin brother Curt are in the back row. They were born 100 years before our twin sons Karl and Kurt. Jan's Aunt Lois is a little girl in the front row.

Yesterday was that same Aunt Lois's 100th birthday celebration. She is sharp as a tack. Both her hearing and her sight are excellent. She remembers families. She remembers past conversations. Her little brother Uncle Homer is 94. Three other brothers, Max, Loel, and Jan's father Gene all died at 93. Her and her late husband Maurice farmed in the Cedar area.

Can you imagine spring work back in the early 1900s. Maybe some of you remember farming with horses. Chores, hitching and harnessing, walking to the field, spring plowing, then single discing, numerous harrowings. Finally planting 2 rows with a check wire that gets moved over at every end row. A few things they would have no worries over would be low diesel fuel pressure, satellite drift, flat tires, air conditioning not charged, unadjusted headlights.

What was it like just 200 years ago? In the early to mid 1800s pioneers were coming to Iowa to check out the vast new possibilities of homesteading. They looked to live near a water source. They looked to farm rolling hills. The rich flatlands were wet and unfarmable due to lack of drainage. They were called buffalo wallows. They experienced Indians, lack of medical help, hard winters, wildfires, and flooding. Way back in Jan's family Henry was an historic character in the early life of Iowa and Missouri. He was a Methodist minister who pioneered from Virginia to Iowa in 1850. The article I read said he was a man of extreme opinions and vigorous expression, yet a great and generous friend. He was unafraid to try anything. Sounds like my late father-in-law.

Speaking of flooding Kim, our Iowa governor has asked that we specifically pray today in our churches and homes for the flood victims of western Iowa and eastern Nebraska who are still coping with one of the worst floods in a 100 years yet get little press or publicity about their plight. Much of those flooded acres will not get farmed this year. The last I heard the double tracks are still closed. Cargill/Eddyville has had to hire trucks to haul 100 loads of wet feed a week to their cattle in Texas because of no trains. No coal to the power plant in Chillicothe, Iowa. No Amtrack.

We've been getting our older fleet ready for another year. Believe it or not these tractors were the big horses 50 years ago. I started farming with the one in the bottom of the picture in 1974, my senior year of high school. Jan grew up on a JD 4020, the one on the left.

We were able to get some NH3 applied in the northern areas of where we farm early in the week.

Alex spread dry fertilizer in Marion and Jasper counties. Crops use nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash as they grow and produce grain. 100 years ago farmers relied on livestock manure. That's still very effective today. It's why we apply liquid hog manure on fields in the fall within range of a hog shed.

BJ and Kasey were able to get a fair amount of tiling projects finished. Putting drainage tile in the ground around 4 feet deep is very effective. Especially in a wet spring. 100 years ago landowners started tiling those flat buffalo wallows starting with a walking plow and then going 2 more spade depths deep by hand and laying in clay tile. Today many of those areas are some of the best farm ground.

It's bean treating season. Karl and Matt worked on treating and rebagging seed yesterday. Soybean seed is treated with a fungicide and insecticide to protect against early diseases and bugs which is more prevalent in wet soils. 

Late yesterday we started planting corn on bean stubble on a well tiled field along the Lacy blacktop on a farm we rent from Marvin and Jean.

We plant around 2 inches deep with an average population of around 35000 seeds per acre. We flip our corn maturities starting with around a 105 day corn and finishing the season with 112-114 day hybrids. This process allows us to start harvesting earlier and deliver our September corn contracts which we usually sell ahead of planting.

Although we watch soil moisture closer than we watch soil temperature when we start planting the 4 inch soil temp in southern Iowa yesterday was 51 degrees.

Yesterday morning we attended a benefit breakfast the Leighton community put on. Donations went to research into the rare disease Esther has. Anthony, Owen's father, and Harry, his uncle, were our landlords much of my growing up years. Our son Kurt and Emily live on the old home farm west of Leighton where Owen, his sister Carol, and his brother Gene grew up. Brother Doug still rents the farm we grew up on. You are in our thoughts and prayers Esther as you battle this disease.

What will the next 100 years bring? How will life look when Sydnie is Aunt Lois's age? There is a favorite Latin term I like. Ora et labora. Pray and work. Let's do our best sharing our faith, restoring values in our culture, with our relationships, and in our vocations, to make this a better place for the folks we leave behind. 

 

Speaking of restoring values in our culture, the movie Unplanned will be showing in Oskaloosa starting this coming Friday. Listen to Bev and her team on our local Christian radio station for possible free tickets.