Guest Blog

“Nobody ever made a difference by being like everybody else.” —PT Barnum, The Greatest Showman

The summer season is rapidly approaching, and our little shop on Main Street in Maquoketa, Iowa, has been preparing!

Time is so valuable; time might be our most valuable possession because it has a finite limit. It can’t be manufactured or remodeled. It is spent and it is gone. While I recuperate from hip replacement surgery, I have some time to reflect on some topics that aren’t as easy to capture on paper regarding farming.

People are pretty crafty when it comes to scheming up ways to receive a check for doing nothing. For the most part, farm kids are above quitting a job and looking for a handout. But with the pool of qualified available talent shrinking and the number of farms depending on labor outside of the immediate family increasing, it makes sense to put some rules in place for dealing with labor.

Don’t ever feel like you have to hide your sensitivity. Your empathy gives you the ability to detect details that would have gone unnoticed, like that calf who just doesn’t seem herself today. You have a heart – and it’s OK to listen to it.

Advocating isn’t what it used to be, because what it used to be isn’t enough. As time goes on, we need to find new and innovative ways to communicate with our consumers. Not only does it need to be innovative, but it needs to be something that expresses who we are and what we’re about. What’s an impactful story that we can tell?

Prior to my return to our family’s dairy farm, I worked for an electrical contractor. In my time there I completed my apprenticeship and worked my way from foreman to superintendent to project management in a 12-year career.