The annual release of Pumpkin Spice Lattes at Starbucks seems to be the unofficial beginning of the fall season, but are they really all they’re cracked up to be? In this episode, Claire and Gracie discuss the best place to get a PSL, the brilliance of the marketing team behind the original launch (seriously, your product has a hashtag and practically launches a new season every year), and whether apple cider has officially been dethroned as the Official Beverage of…
Follow the Field Update #11
September 6, 2019Happy Friday! Still not much happening in the fields as we start thinking about preparing for harvest. It was a late spring, so it’ll be a few weeks before crops will be ready to go anyway. In the meantime, here’s the weekly #FollowtheField update! 9/6/19 Update: Cover Crop Soybeans (112 Days) Check out all of those beans! So far, it appears that these soybeans are doing pretty well, which is reassuring after planting into a green and very tall cover…
Follow the Field Update #10
August 30, 2019Happy Friday! And even better since we’re at the beginning of a long weekend. 🙂 Here’s this week in pictures: 8/30/19 Update: Cover Crop Soybeans (105 Days) Even the soybeans have grown taller than the yard stick! These are some tall beans. Please excuse the terrible job I did opening these pods. Each pod has three developing soybeans. The one on the left is a little further along than the one on the right. The one on the left is…
Follow the Field Update #9
August 23, 2019Happy Friday! It’s almost the weekend, which means I’m bringing you another #FollowtheField update from Central Illinois! This sure has been a weird growing season this year. First, way too much rain. Then it was too dry. Then it got hot and dry. Then we got some rain and some folks were hit with strong winds and hail. Now it’s cool, but the rains have back to almost been perfect around us. (Highs in the 70s in August aren’t great…
Follow the Field Update #8
August 16, 2019Happy Friday! The corn and soybeans are still growing and beginning to focus efforts on filling ears and pods, which will harvest this fall. Keeping it short this week, so here’s a visual update. 8/16/19 Update: Cover Crop soybeans (91 Days) Corn (73 Days) No-Till Soybeans (69 Days)…
Follow the Field Update #7 – Keeping It PG-13
August 9, 2019Happy Friday! This week seemed to just fly by and it’s already time for another Follow the Field update! Big changes in the fields this week, and I’m going to try to keep it PG-13 for you. 😉 8/9/19 UPDATE: Cover Crop Soybeans (84 Days) Nothing too exciting happening in this soybean field. In the last week, we applied fungicide to this field. Diseases are a little different than insects in that there really isn’t a threshold before acting.…
Episode 036 – Flexing Those Ag Comm Muscles
August 7, 2019Aaand we’re back with another episode of A Farm Kid’s Guide to Agriculture: The Podcast. In this episode, we have our cousin, Evan Rich, back on as our guest to talk a little more about his role in the agriculture industry. Evan’s a District Sales Manager/Field Service Representative for one of the brands under the Bayer umbrella and was also an ag communications major, like Claire and Gracie. We cover everything from acronyms in the ag industry to what exactly…
Follow the Field Update #6
August 2, 2019Happy Friday! It’s 4-H fair week in my county, so lots of activity this week between helping 4-Hers in the club I help lead finish up projects earlier this week, volunteering as a judge on Wednesday, and helping out/attending the fair all of the other days. Since it’s such a crazy week, I’ll leave you with a quick visual tour of the three fields we’re following this season and come back with a more thorough update next week. 🙂 8/2/19…
Follow the Field Update #5 – Summer Marches On
July 26, 2019Happy Friday! I can’t believe how much it cooled off this week compared to the 100+ degree heat index we had last week. I was able to finally turn the air conditioner off and open up some windows, which is a huge relief since I cringe at the sight of my electric bill during the summer months. The cats love laying in the open windows, so win-win for all of us in my household. 🙂 7/26/19 Update: Cover Crop…
Episode 035 – Rural Routes vs. Urban Street Parking
July 24, 2019Rural America often has an “us vs. them” mentality, but is it right to blame our urban consumer counterparts without experiencing life in the city? And flip that the other way around – is it right to blame our rural and farming counterparts without experiencing life in Small Town USA? Claire and Gracie have both had the opportunity to live in a variety of communities – rural/small town life growing up, medium-sized city through college, and larger cities during the…