Apple has a nice tribute to Steve Jobs today, marking one year since his death.
I still remember where I was when I heard the news. It is strange to think that a person I only saw a few times at a distance would touch my life in such a way that I would remember something like that.
I wish today that his family has found peace since his passing.
Recently, my wife switched around our first-floor arrangements and this is all she did:
When you read through it, not a ton of stuff, but it has made enough of a difference in the house to make the whole place feel, well, cozier. It has minimized the television in the entire house (now relegated to a cozy little nook in the porch) but emphasized the baby grand piano in the main living room.
Small changes making a big difference.
It is probably the most addicting time on any farm. It drives farmers, farm kids, and prodigal farm kids (of which I am one) to long hours in a field trying to get the crops out as fast as you can. Once they are ready, it is a push to the end.
This year, though, it was a different beast as the dry summer brought harvest a month earlier than hoped, but it also meant that things needed to get done as quickly as possible or else the crop would be too dry to really be worth much of anything. So, off to the fields we went.
Corn went first and went fast. It was dry and to keep the yields as high as possible, that is where the energy was focused. Yes, those are soybeans in the field … I know.
I missed the weekend for a vacation with the family. That’s what happens when things happen a month earlier than expected. However, with the newer equipment that my dad and brother have been accumulating, things went very smoothly. A combine, a semi, a tractor, and a grain cart makes sure things move quickly and smoothly through a cornfield. At one point we were able to fill the semi, dump the semi, and then have another grain cary and combine hopper ready by the time the semi was back. That’s efficiency.
Switching to beans slows things down considerably. Going from 200 bushels/acre of corn to 50 bushels/acre of beans means that you really don’t need to steady work of an additional tractor + grain cart which frees up time for other work to be done in preparation for winter. My brother started work on tillage by chopping the corn stalks in the corn fields and preparing the new ripper as well.
However, there is still stuff to do with the beans and the final act is to try and fill the grain bin. That is when the semi is “semi retired” for the year (that was terrible) and the grain cart gets used to ferry the crop for the field to the make-shift system at the bin to get the soybeans into their metallic home.
And that is that. All of the crop it out of the field. Tillage is now the name of the game and hog manure will soon be going into the soybean fields as preparation begins not just for winter, but for the coming year and growing season.
Not to mention that work continues on trying to get an expansion for the hog operation started for next spring. We are currently working through the logistics of the permitting process to add capacity to the current farm site and maybe another site as well. Trying to navigate the crazy regulations that are part of agribusiness today is sometimes mind-boggingly frustrating, but it is what it is … as they say. I’ll hopefully have more to say about that in the future.
Harvest is one of my favorite times of the year. It was something I never really gave much thought to growing up, but it is something that I cherish more each year as my wife and I get more involved and I watch how much my sons love to be out on the farm during that time of year, or really during any time of year.
Being that close to the actual ground of the world is fascinating experience. Pulling the crops out of the field and seeing how much you have completed is a very satisfying experience and unlike the work I do during the rest of my day. Visually seeing progress is exhilarating. Knowing there is an end is comforting.
These are things I now look back and wish I would have known growing up. Would I have become a farmer straight away? No, I don’t think so. However, I would have probably appreciated the opportunities that I did have growing up like I do now.
So, another harvest is in the bag and we look forward to the work to come.
The phrase “putting all of your eggs in one basket” has always appealed to me.
Even in High School, I didn’t really hang out with a single crowd or do only a single category of things. I played intramural sports, was a part of every music group I could find, did well academically and was a part of Knowledge Bowl … essentially splitting my time up in multiple “baskets”.
Who knew that it would be the thing I was doing at home that would become my career.
Then in college I was working on my “Education Degree” (scare quotes for effect) but then spent more time working in Network Services and learning that line of work. Multiple baskets (and I should pay attention to what I spend time on … it tends to lead to where I should go).
Now I’m again splitting my eggs up between technology and agriculture. Farming and iPhones. They might seem an oil-and-water sort of thing, but I think that is good (and where real “innovation” happens — again with the scare quotes).
You are always going to have questions on where you should be spending your time and right now I’m looking at not just technology and agriculture, but between the web and iOS. It is common for the choice to never be one of mutual exclusivity, but many times of complimentary area with no right or wrong answer. This is another case of that.
I’ve simply been blown away by the reception of iOS by my family members since I encouraged by mom and brother to purchase iPhones last year. So far they are up to two iPhones, an iPod touch, and an iPad. All of them will be receiving iOS 6 updates tomorrow and I have no fear of letting them just update on their own. That, to me, is freedom. They install and uninstall software themselves and just, overall, use the devices as they are intended without my intervention.
I could not say the same for the Windows boxes and Blackberry phones that they were using before.
That makes me excited about possibly jumping into iOS development with more than just my little toe. However, iOS without the web is pretty bland and so I also continue to look at Ruby and Ruby on Rails for the backend work. However, how much time and effort do I spend on each, especially knowing that I do not know nearly enough of either to be of any use yet.
I know the platform zealots out there who declare iOS-only or web-only and they both sound silly. There is room for both and a need for both as well. However, where do I toss in an extra egg or two to get started on doing more advanced stuff? I just really don’t know.
This is how I know:
Nothing like your son in a semi with a cob of corn in his hand.