John Deere Greene

Although you can't really call me a City Girl -- I am certainly more urban than I am rural. I do know where food comes from so I have a start on some "city folk".

I ride with a retired farmer. As you may have read as we ride (car or bicycle!) across the country he tells me more and more about what crops are what, how farming works and etc.

And we stop at EVERY single Deere dealership!

So with a day off due to Veteran's Day I donned my John Deere hat and Jim and I headed out to Hardscrabble Farms, where Gary Skinner and his two sons farm 3500 acres.

Corn mostly. And that was all that was left this fine fall day. Popcorn to be exact. It is a more detailed process. They want 13% moisture, but after a certain date they'll accept 15% (which is what the corn we were "shelling" was at) and after November 13th they'll accept whatever you shell.

Leave it to me, not two minutes after climbing in the combine it broke!

But farmers need to be a little of everything: farmer, accountant, business man, mechanic, truck driver, etc. So Gary and his son were able to fix quickly and we were on our way.

On this day we shelled (by the way that is cool farmer talk for harvesting the corn!) about 130 total acres. It is no wonder Gary likes farming so much -- he spoke of sitting on the porch and looking out over the green corn fields -- straight rows that go on for mile after mile.

And there is a reason those rows are so straight.


Good old fashion GPS! It is kind of like cheating -- you set up the GPS (well Gary's son does anyways! While Gary is fine using setting up the technological marvel is definitely a job for his computer literate son!) and away you go.


Of course that is a little simpler than it really is but I'm sure much easier than the old way of lining up with something and hope you are paying attention. As I found out, it's pretty important to get your lines straight as it makes it MUCH easier to shell!

They had a few areas that they had to replant due to rain and flooding -- those areas no long had nice neat straight rows and were a bare to cut.

Oh -- by the way -- did I mention he let me actually drive the combine! I'm sitting on a $300,000 rolling piece of equipment, with a $100,000 header (that can cut 18 rows at once!) driving next to a tractor and hopper that probably cost $150,000-$200,000 -- oh yea I thought about that!

Of course Gary said I was the best woman who had driven it -- and the only one! Even his two sons rarely get the chance -- I'm sure they were jealous! That is me driving in the first picture!



I had a blast. Thanks to Jim for setting it up and Gary for remembering that I wanted to!

But while Gary refers to it as his "hobby" and couldn't imagine doing anything else, farming is a hard life. Add up the equipment I just mentioned, plus the four semi's that were rotating the corn back and forth to ConAgra, the barns, fertilizer, seed -- not an inexpensive operation. Plus the worry -- Gary said probably 100% of what he worries about doesn't happen! but you still have floods, drought, pests. We flushed out a deer from the field -- deer do eat the corn but they cause about $3,000 of damage by bedding down in the corn and smashing down the stalks to make their bed.

So when you go to the market this week, when you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner -- remember how it got there. The hard work, long hours, and the worry -- and thank a Farmer. And when you pop your next batch of popcorn remember -- I just may have shelled that corn!