2013 American Farm Bureau YF&R Conference Begins....

Welcome to the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Sunny Arizona, home of the 2013 National Young Farmer and Rancher Conference  Okay, well that's what you would think anyway, but this 'sunny' picture happened to be the morning before the rain moved in, and even without the rain, I would look out and think, oh it's nice out, until I went out the door!  BRRRR!  It was a little chilly, but it sure looked pretty from the balcony.

Don't believe me about the chill?  Well, maybe the empty pools will help convince you!  If you could see it in the right light you would also be seeing the steam rising from the heated water, but no takers on plunging in or even sitting out, because it was so cold!

But, we weren't there for the poolside attractions, we were there for the conference, and that was well worth the chilly weather.

                          

The 2013 attendees from Nevada were (back row l-r):  Jexten, Jamie and Grant Perkins

(Mid l-r) Lucas Tom, Carley Alexander, Andrea and Levi Chandler, Dann and Jessica Mathews, Tami Dahl.

Lacey Tom, Betsy Hardy, Ian Chandler, Stephanie Bunker, and Trina Dalley.

*The shirts that you see on Levi and Dann were from the conference and in support of Feeding America, the foodbank that Farm Bureau and the YF&R partner with each year in our Harvest For All program.  THe shirts were $15 and all proceeds went to Feeding America and there was a # sign with a Twitter address to help promote it also (I don't twitter, so I guess I explained it right?)

Jexten and Ian are some of our youngest Nevada Farm Bureau members and met a couple of months ago at the annual meeting, they just kind of go wherever mom and dad drag them!

The conference always starts with an opening session and has several general sessions with big speakers that are usually really enjoyable, sometimes more motivational and humorous, other times very educational.  Along with teh general sessions there are smaller 'breakout' or mini-sessions.  This one was put on by the graduating class of the Partners for Agricultural Leadership Program or PALS, which just graduated its sixth class.  These people are all current or former YF&R members who have excelled and been personally invited to participate in the program that takes 2 years to finish, and trains strong agricultural leaders who can speak to the media and legislators and really be a future asset to Farm Bureau.  One of the graduates of this class was Misty Wall from Mona, Utah.  Misty and her husband Seth, were on the AFBF YF&R committee a couple of years ago over our area and attended our state meeting in Ely, helping us with the Discussion Meet.

This is another picture of our group, looking pretty snazzy on Sunday.  Stephanie Licht (far right) is our State Coordinator and a HUGE help and support of all we do in NV YF&R.

From Bernie Erven, another keynote speaker, we learned about Farm transition--usually a big deal for most YF&R age members of Farm Bureau, and always a topic that we feel we've benefited from, but how to get the older generation to hear it also?  I really enjoyed his presentation, just wished that maybe my grandparents could have heard it a year or two ago.

(From AFBF:  Bernie Erven is a professor of agricultural economics and Extension specialist at The Ohio State University. His teaching, Extension and research activities are in human resource management, farm management and business management. Bernie’s Extension and outreach program focuses on labor management topics such as hiring, training, motivation, compensation and performance evaluation. In Phoenix, Bernie will talk with Young Farmers & Ranchers about farm transitions.) The closing session on Monday morning was a light-hearted, yet serious about Ag speaker named Mark Mayfield.  In the meantime we attended workshops on everything from leadership to the fiscal budget and whether our towns were farm-friendly and what we could do to make them so.  There were workshops for state chairs, promoting ag literacy programs, and economics of taking the lead in the family business. In between sessions the collegiate Discussion Meet was being held, which runs after the same pattern as the regular YF&R Discussion Meet held at the AFBF annual meeting each January. but awards smaller prizes such as scholarship money.  This year our collegiate DM winner was not able to represent us due to conflict in schedule, but we hope to have some one back in the competition again next year in Virginia Beach, Virginia!! Well, that's it for not, I'll follow up with more photos and information from the tours we went on in the next post!

A Day (or a few) at the Fair....

So, for all my stressing, worrying, and more stressing, the Fair is over and ALL IS WELL!!  I can say that this was actually a really good experience and the whole week ended up working out well--I managed to find baby-sitters, make it to doctor's appointments, be at the shows, have a fun time with the kids on the rides even in the blustery and sometimes drippy weather.  And while my oldest was selling his lamb, the next two were winning their final gold medals of the wrestling season at a benefit tournament, and learning how to help others that had fallen on hard times, at the same time.  But, I am glad it is over--no more lambs, no more wrestling, no spring sports, just weeds and watering and homework and a few more weeks of school!

So, Here is my oldest in his first stock show, taking fourth place.  The 1st and 2nd  place lambs there to the right also went on to win Grand and Reserve, so it was a tight class and I was pretty darn proud of how well he did.  It is a neat thing when your kids get to enjoy something that you enjoyed so much when you were young, too.

One of these days I am going to teach him how to smile for a camera--but in 9 years of trying, I am still struggling--maybe it's just a 'guy' thing and mom's aren't supposed to understand it!  ;)

In other areas, the Fair was a great success.  I heard today that there were 61,000 people that attended.  The Clark County Farm Bureau does an excellent job with their Ag displays and support of FFA and 4-H kids.  Their newest addition to the Fair is their milk cow--Bessy.  You can see the kids lined up to milk her.  She has a system of water lines that run through her--the kids milk her and the water sprays into a bucket where it circulates back through for a continual cycle.  Fortunately, she does not come with flies or tail whipping, either, or they might not have enjoyed it as much.  

My kids loved it.  My Daughter talked about it over and over.  My hubby would like to see them milking the real thing, in our back yard--Maybe when fuel prices get a bit higher and we can't ever leave home again, then maybe will I agree, but just finding someone to feed calves and horses and chickens is enough of a trial when leaving for a day or two, let alone finding someone to milk a cow.  I know, I know, keep a calf on her, but still , I'm holding out for now.

And here is our Media Director for the Nevada Farm Bureau, Zach Allen, working hard at the Farm Bureau booth--he stayed busy all week and did a great job promoting Ag in our state.  Nice booth with great Ag products from all over the state!

And here are the great women of Farm Bureau with fun facts and games!!  Cindy Hardy, Irene Barlow, Stephanie Bunker, all worked hard for Clark County Farm Bureau, while our Field Representative for the State, Stephanie Licht, is always busy and hard at work!

Clark County also sponsored a dinner for their YF&R, with incoming Chair, Micah Leatham working hard at recruiting several new members.  Then it was off to the rodeo for the evening.  So, THANK YOU to Jim Hardy for his work on the evening and efforts to bring it together and THANK YOU to Clark County Farm Bureau for sponsoring it.  THANK YOU to Blake Stratton for the past few years he has spent as the Chair of YF&R in their county and the time and effort he has put in there.  Keep up the good work down there, Clark County, we are proud of your time and efforts that make this such a great fair for so many that might not get a taste of Farm life otherwise.  

4-H and Nevada Dairy Council always had great informative Ag booths.  Of course, my oldest and little sis were enjoy the butter-carving (playing) contest.  At least until mom dragged them off for the livestock sell.

And the show is done, the sell is over, we rode the rides, saw the booths, had lots of fun, but a big sigh of relief comes at the end.  So, one last thank you to Uncle Al for all his great help at the show and all his dedicated years of service to the 4-H and FFA kids his has helped, from his own family, to many, many more.  

Hope you all enjoyed the fair, and if you missed it--well, maybe we will see you there next year!!

YF&R Conference 2012 (Part 3--Grand Rapids)

So, here is the last of my report on the YF&R National Conference for 2012.  Basically, it is just the leftovers, a little bit of what we saw outside of the conference.  A lot of times, between the conference and the travel time, there isn't any time left for sight-seeing, but our 'Grand Finale' event was at the Public Museum, which gave us a little tour and taste of Michigan, and across the river was the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum.

Dinner at the museum, on all three levels, people visiting,  and checking out the exhibits.  They actually had kind of a scavenger hunt through the museum and if you completed it you could turn in your paper for door prizes.

Grand Rapids was actually the furniture center of the US for a time, and this was an exhibit of some of their incredible quality of furniture that was made here.

Just another cool exhibit.  The Museum there was great for all ages and had a lot of really fun sites.

MICHIGAN!!  The 'Upper Peninsula" and 'The Hand"

The museum also boasts an antique carousel that has been refinished and is walled on one side by a great view of the Grand River.

The old clock tower from an original courthouse in Grand Rapids, that had a neat story behind it, but I am too slow getting my report done to remember it.

Over the Grand River cross many bridges--we were surprised as we sat at dinner the first night in the motel restaurant and saw people--in the wind and flurrying snow--fishing from the bridge!  This seemed crazy to us, as cars and buses roared by, the building all around--unfortunately, we didn't actually see anyone catch anything.

Grand Rapids is named after the River that flows through it, the Grand River.  Early settlers tried to find ways to slow down the rapids because the river dropped so many feet in such a short distance that it was very full of rapids.

We stayed at the Amway Grand Plaza, which was at one point in the early 1900's ranked as one of the top 10 hotels in the United States.  The tower behind it has been added since it was bought and restored by Amway Corp.  We were in the older part and it was a very neat and historic hotel to stay in.

At one time, this was the lobby to the motel, and the ceiling was the, or one of the largest gold leaf ceilings in the world.

Add caption

Since our flight was later in the day, we were able to visit the museum before we left.  I am kind of a history buff and  recently read a historical biography about Harry S. Truman, and was so disappointed that for all my trips to Kansas City, I had never been to the Truman Library or historical sites, so I was glad to go to the Ford museum and learn more about another one of our President's past.

A little piece of the Berlin Wall.

A replica of the Oval Office from Ford's time there.  

Another bridge across the Grand River.  The building on the left was where the Public Museum is housed.

A few more fishermen in the cold morning on the Grand River.

I know that you couldn't have enjoyed my trip as much as I did, but maybe next year you can be apart of it!  See you in Phoenix in 2013!!

Chasing Gators in Florida Agriculture.....(YFR& Conference Part 3)

Well, I am still trying to get my report on the YF&R conference finished, but it seems there is so much to tell that it is hard to get it all done in one sitting. So, here is the telling of one of the greatest parts of the conference--THE TOURS!  Seeing agriculture up close and personal in a state so different from ours, is fascinating.  There is so much that is different and yet, so much that is the same. 

(Okay, here is the video of me holding an alligator--and no jokes about what a 'girl' I am.  I can hold my own just about anywhere, but an alligator is a little to closely related to a snake for me to be very comfortable, but this was a chance I could not pass--soooooo AWESOME!)

I guess I have a bit more of an understanding about why some people are so excited to come to the west and see our wild horses, because, I have to say, I was pretty thrilled every time we got to see an alligator sunning itself on the bank of any old stream or pond.  They see them more as a nuisance--hmmm, sound familiar?  Kind of like our wild horses?  

So, as I said before, there are huge differences--climate, moisture, what they grow, but there are still so many things that are the same--love of the land, the lifestyle, old cowboys with  their horses and cowdogs, the ups and downs of the economy.  Yes, no matter where we go in the agriculture industry, the ties that bind seem as strong as religion. 



So, Wayyyyy ahead of time, I had seen the tour choices and was pretty excited about getting in on the one that was going to Deseret Ranches.  I will admit that this has to do with a few facts that aren't as much Ag related, but because the ranch is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Having been raised as a member of that church and also watching my Grandpa serve for years on the board that oversees the ranches owned and operated by the same church for welfare purposes, here in Nevada, I have heard much about it and wanted the chance to see it for myself.  Actually, we even have friends here in Panaca who worked on that ranch in Florida for a time--Shane Mathews, brother of NVFB State VP, Paul Mathews.  Of course, Deseret Ranches is not one of the welfare ranches of the church, it is owned and run by a separate entity that is a for-profit business owned by the church.  



Anyway, a little bit about the ranch:  It is home to about 44,000 cows, the most anywhere in the nation, with an additional 1,300 bulls.  Brahman cattle have a big influence here because of their ability to handle the heat, humidity and insects.  They use a Braford, Brangus, and Simbrah rotational cross to develop replacement heifers and use almost exclusively their own stock for all of the process.

They are divided into 12 units of about 3,500 cows per one foreman and a couple of cowboys.  All cattle work is still done on horseback, from their 120 head of working horses that they raise from their quarter horse brood mares.



This map of Central Florida show
the outline of the Deseret Ranch in yellow. 



The ranch covers over 290,000 acres of central Florida land, most of which was purchased in the 1950's as very low quality cut-over timberland.  It is now a combination of pastures, wetlands, woodlands, and citrus groves.  From the comments of our Floridian Ag Teacher/Tour guide/YF&R member on the way to the ranch, it seems that the ranch is very well thought of by ranches throughout the state because of the good stewardship of the land by the ranch, and because it is the second largest ranch in the nation, land-wise, and the largest owner of so many 'mama cows' in the nation.



Lee Mathews hamming it up for the camera.
This gator is in the visitor's center of the
Deseret Ranches main office area.



A Cyprus Grove in the middle of a Deseret Ranch pasture--yes, this is Florida in early February.  The grass is green, a lot of the trees have leaves or are already blossoming.  The greenest grass in these pictures is generally field-planted winter Rye. 

Another thing that I really thought was neat--probably because it is so different from what I am used to, or I read to many novels about the Civil War and the South and I have a romantic notion of trees dangling Spanish moss over grand plantations--is the Spanish moss.  Even in the middle of the cities, trees have it hanging everywhere.  Hey, I have bought this stuff from craft stores before and it is everywhere here, for free! 

This is the system that the ranch uses for each of it's 12 units.  The foreman and a couple of cowboys manage their 3,500 head all in one day, separating through this chute system with one opening gates to the five pens around as the foreman calls out the number for the pen as the cow comes down the alley.

One thing that always surprised me was the sand--I think that our tour guide made some crack about what kind of soils they had there--spotty soils.  The had a spot of soil here, and a spot of soil there.  Ha ha.  But, really, you would drive down the highway and see some torn up ground and it looked like someone had dumped a load of sand--only they hadn't, that's what us there naturally!  This pen is a good illustration of what the bare ground looks like--the beach!

If you have followed any of my articles in the monthly journal you'll remember me talking about the billions of dollars in losses that Florida agriculture suffered last year do to unusual amounts of freezes--these oranges are part of that--they look great, but the freeze got to them and that means they will be dry and not good for much.

They have 1,700 acres of citrus, almost a quarter of a million trees.  Most go to juice production, though there are some navel oranges, tangerines and tangelos produced.

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed our time at Deseret Ranches.  Our Tour guide (I believe it was David???) grew up on the ranch, and came back to work there himself.  He was hilarious.  I heard someone from a different bus say that there tour there seemed kind of dry, but I think everyone on our bus absolutely loved it.  When we weren't laughing, we were learning.  So, they took us to their own rodeo grounds, where they hold a rodeo each year with their employees participating and the public invited, and we had lunch before heading across the road to Kempfer Farms and Sawmill.   

Across the road at Kempfer we find American Agriculture at it's truest, a family that has been on this land for several generations, trying to raise their kids to come back and do the same--at the same time, trying to adapt to changes in the world and economy.  They have always been cattle ranching cowboys, but they have also tried to integrate as many aspects of the ranch into production as possible to keep it profitable and running. 

The Kempfer's run a (confusing to me) mix of Brahman cattle, but they seem to know what crosses they are going for, which ones are in which pastures and when they are coming and going. 

They also have normally been know for their Cyprus and pine sawmill, which burned to the ground a few years ago.  They rebuilt in time for the economy to come crashing down and now the sawmill is almost unused because of the decreased demand for the product.

At one point they raised watermelons, but advances in watering systems took away they market to producers in northern part of the state. 

They do utilize waste from one of the county sewage plants that is brought in and spread on their fields, which then have to be kept untouched for 30 days, but it is free fertilizer and application for them and a great way of promoting to the city how agriculture takes their waste and turns it in to productive fields and pastures.  Kempfer Farms has also had a pretty good turf business in the past that has also been greatly down-sized due to decreased demands in the economy.  A lot of their laser-leveled fields are now being reverted back to pasture.  But, they are always on the lookout for new ways to utilize what they have, and one of their cousins is a hunting outfitter.  Certain parts of the ranch he can use all year round for hunting, but other parts are only seasonal.  In fact, there was a 12-foot gator in a pond near the pasture that they had just moved a bunch of cows and calves into and so, the cousin was bringing someone in to hunt the gator the following week.

This gator was on the bank of one of their ditches.  The gators are somewhat of a nuisance, though Kempfer's say the biggest problem is that they get their dogs.  The dogs are a special breed started up by the matriarch's family years ago.  Though the bigger the gators get, the scary they become.  The kids go out shooting them like our kids go out after jackrabbits.  They are also allowed to keep the eggs from half of the nests that they find on their ranch in a years time.  Alligators don't reproduce well in captivity, so the eggs are bought by those wanting to raise for food and whatever else you do with them?

So, as we were touring through Kempfer Farms, a baby gator was just off the road in the field, and the brother giving our tour and the brother in the bus ahead of us decided to jump off and catch him for us and let us have a real live gator experience.  Once again, I will say, SOOOOOOO AWESOME!

Lee Mathews, putting the moves on the little feller.

Grant Perkins putting the other moves on the little feller. (Actually, I have no idea if it was a male of a female, but Lee and Grant sure had fun goofing around with it)

Back at the Kempfer Offices, there are orange trees just growing here and there, not to mention the Spanish moss hanging from everything, so I had to get a few pic's of that to show what it is like around there.  What a great day.  We had such a wonderful time on the tours.

And, before you know it, the alarm is going off at 3:30 am and it is time to head back to real life again! Over the storms of the Midwest, we sailed straight from Orlando in to SLC and it was time to drive down to get our kids and drive on home.  So, after a full day of travel, we were finally back in dry, cold, home sweet Nevada.  But, I did LOVE the shots of coming into SLC, crossing over the Rockies and back into the vast open west, Oh, how I missed those wide open spaces and glorious mountains of the west.  Florida, was beautiful (though I am still sad that I never made it to the ocean), I really enjoyed my time there, but Oh,  how I love the west.

Over the Great Salt Lake and it's semi-frozen waters as we return from Orlando.

And then we're home again.