NEIA Farms (Lantzky Farms)

Producing quality grain and livestock to the world in a safe and environmentally responsible manner from northeast Iowa.

2012

History

I attempt to provide a brief explaination of what is happening on our operation on a regular basis. Click on the links at left to see the previous year's history. The most current update is at the bottom of the page. Below is a history of our operation for 2012: January 11th: The weather continues to be just crazy warm. We have hit the mid 50's a couple of times since the first of the year. We are currently having the 3rd warmest average tempature since December 1st. The warmest winter on record has been the winter of 2006-2007. The main activity currently happening is continuing to clean out fencerows. Even though we have not had any snow, we really are not able to do much except cut the brush. Trying to cleanup the cut brush is difficult as it is very "slimy". We will wait for the colder weather to have the ground freeze up and then go out and clean up the brush. We are also selling hogs out of the Chickasaw Farms site. The mild weather has made the winter much easier than normal. Even if it does become cold and snowy, we should have only 6-8 weeks of rough weather. Year end paperwork is the other major event. We are busy sending out 1099 forms, preparing W-2 forms and sending in 943 tax returns. We also are preparing cashflow projections that will be presented to our lending institution in order to recieve an operating line that is adequate to cover our expenses until our 2012 crop is ready to harvest. Today I will be going to a funeral service for one of my landlords. He was 94 years old and lived a very full life. He was part of a family farm that has been in the family for over 100 years. He was also a Rath Packing employee for 27 years. I was very lucky to have talked with him this past fall. He said that he came out ahead on the Rath pension (probably one of the last Rath Packing pension recipients) and had a great life. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

February 8th: The weather continues to be above normal for tempatures and below average for precipitation. This has been a welcomed relief. Since the last update, cleaning of fencerows have come to an end as a couple of snowstorms deposited snow drifts in the area that we are looking to cleanup. The warm weather as also made it to sloppy and we are not able to work in the fields without tearing the ground up. We have now started selling out of our Bassett site. The Chickasaw site is currently restocked with 10-12 pound pigs that are 3 weeks old. We will be putting small pigs back in our Bassett site during the last week of February. Crop Insurance sales are hitting full speed. It appears that we will be able to guarantee just as much revenue as last year due to a "Trend Adjustment" option that is available. The spring price is currently being set and it appears that the corn price will be close to what it was last year. Our new planter came in last week and we took our 8320 tractor and planter that we are trading in to the dealer. They will set up the planter and have it ready for this spring. The new planter has row shutoffs that will automatically shutoff based on global positioning. It will allow us to not overplant in areas that have already been planted. It will also speed up planting by not requiring us to stop at the end of each row to pick up the planter. We can now plant through the end rows, turn around and put it back down in the endrows. The planter will automatically know when to start planting again. The grain markets have seen a recovery since the lows of December. A USDA report will be released this Thursday and may have a dramatic affect on prices. Estimates are out there that we will plant an estimated 94.5 million acres of corn. If this is realized, it will be the highest acre amount since 1944. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

February 28th: Although the weather continues to be above normal, we have recieved a fair amount of rain over the past couple of weeks. Chickasaw and Bassett sites have been emptied out and we now have a 4,400 head of 12 pound pigs to manage. There has been a good number of farms that have been listed lately, upcoming auctions and rumors of sales that will be happening this summer. It makes me wonder if the additional ground that is being sold is going to top this market or if it prices will continue to increase. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

March 17th: 70 to 80 degrees the past 5 days. Needless to say there has been records falling all over the place. Even though records have been falling, we found that frost is still in the ground when we tried to go to the field to pick up some rocks. Needless to say we went back to cutting brush from fencelines. Yesterday we spent the day preparing equipment for the upcoming spring season. The grain market continues to work higher as the recent warm weather makes everyone concerned about what may happen this summer. This past weekend, we went to Decorah to watch Trey play in a Middle School Honor Band. He was one of four WSR students to have the honor. They had a wonderful time and play very well. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

April 10th: (Planting Progress: 0%) Although the weather has just been wonderful, I have been holding back on planting since replant for crop insurance does not start until April 11th. I seriously considered planting 10 acres or so on March 31st just to say that I have planted corn in March. Not many opportunities to say that in your planting career. at a negative number. Needless to say this caused the bean market to shoot higher by $.50. Although beans are closer to $14 per bushel, the numbers still say that corn will We have been picking rocks that have come up due to tillage last fall. It is amazing the size of rocks that can still be pulled up. We also spread manure on the remaining 80 acres that were not able to be spread last fall. The March 30th crop report showed a large 94.8 million acres of corn that should be planted this spring. I have to believe that this report is close to being correct. The major surprise is the bean number with only 74 million acres which would put the carryout be more profitable than beans.

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April 26th: (Planting Progress: 15%, Iowa 9%) The weather has changed from a fairly dry pattern to a wet pattern just in time for planting. We planted 150 acres on April 11 and 12th. Then we had to wait due to 5" of rain in two seperate events. Amazing how many guys continue to work and work their ground and the erosion that it causes. Our ground is worked once and then rolled to control erosion, breakup rootballs and knock down small rocks. We didn't have much erosion because of this, where neighbors had gullies in their field. We started up planting again yesterday and moved the tillage equipment from our west farms back to our east farms. Wouldn't you know that the dryest ground is farthest away from us. Rain is in the forecast again, so it will be interesting to see how much we can get done. When we are planting we can rip off 22 acres per hour. We have just over 1,000 acres to go. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 8th: (Planting Progress: 52%, Iowa 69%) The weather continues to be wet with some farms recieving 3.5" of rain since May 1st. We were able to go one afternoon last week before rain shut us down after 40 acres. We are still not worrying about the date as the forecast shows that next 7days should be clear. We are hoping to start in the next couple of days and then should finish up in about 4 days. We can do close to 200 acres pre day. Due to the wet weather, Roger and I went fishing today. We went to Rice Lake which is near Joice, IA. We were there for just over 3 hours and caught over 70 bullheads. They were great size with some coming close to 12". It was a great way to spend some time with my dad before my birthday. On this Friday, I will be traveling with Natalie's class to Backbone State Park for a camping trip. Every year the 4th grade at Carey goes on an overnight camping trip as a passing from elementary to middle school. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 19th: (May 13th Planting Progress: 64%, Iowa 90%) Planting is officially completed. We had a wonderful week this past week and were able to finish planting the 500+ acres of corn for the first time. We also ended up replanting close to 80 acres of corn on 4 different farms. These acres did not emerge well due to a heavy rain right after planting that caused severe crusting. Now that we have had a couple of wet weeks the first part of May, we are now in need of a good rain and there does not appear to be any in the forecast. We will probably have a week off in order to clean off equipment and then start right into sidedressing nitrogen on the corn. We have half that will be ready to be sidedressed quickly and the rest will be ready in a couple of weeks. Soccer season is in full swing and both Trey and Natalie's teams are playing well. Roger and Deb came down to watch a couple of games yesterday. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

May 28th: Roger and Deb have left for a two week trip to China. This means that I will be all by my lonesome to do hog chores and hopefully have all of the nitrogen sidedressed on the corn. Things have been going well and we recently recieved a good 1.8" widespread rain. The ground continues to be very short of moisture and are going from rain to rain. With Roger and Deb gone, it is amazing how much planning needs to go into the logistics of moving equipment around without an extra body to move stuff around. Leasa has been able to come up every other day and we strategically move equipment and trucks around to where I am not stranded with only a tractor at a distant field. Leasa, Trey and Natalie came up today to pick rocks. Leasa enjoys coming up and helping out. Our regular rock picking guys (Cody and Chance) are high schoolers from New Hampton and have done a great job of staying ahead of the corn. The corn market continues to work lower. The crop condition has been very good and is ahead of schedule. The one wildcard that is the majority of the corn growing area has been low on moisture and the extended forecast is not calling for much rain. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 6th: Today the management of the farm operation changed hands (Sort of). Roger and Deb came back from China this afternoon. I spoke with them when I was doing chores this morning and they were very glad to get back to where they could hear English spoken. They ended up getting back to their place around 3 this afternoon. In the meantime, I did chores early this morning and then we took off on a family vacation to San Diego. We will be going to the zoo, Sea World and Lego Land. We have a room in a hotel at the beach and are really looking forward to our trip. I was able to sidedress just over 32,000 gallons of 32% nitrogen on 1,400 acres in 14 days. This may not sound like much, but we did have 3 days of rainouts and I had a hard time putting in a very big day by the time I did hog chores. Last weekend, Natalie competed in the Cedar Valley Cup Soccer Tournament. Her team won all four of her games over the 3 days and finished in first place. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 13th: Our trip to San Diego was excellent. The weather was wonderful and we had a room on the beach. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

June 22nd: Well we finally caught a good rain that was close to 1" on Wednesday evening. This broke a 3 day heat wave that had tempatures close to 100 degrees. This was definitely needed as we have only had .3" of rain during the month of June before this rain. The rain finally came into eastern Iowa. The past couple of weeks have seen any storms move through northwest Iowa and into Minnesota. Minnesota has had close to 16" of rain in spots in the past week alone. The unfortunate thing about this past storm is that the rain stopped a few miles east of our rain. Cedar Rapids has still only recieved .5" of rain during the month. The normal amount of rain is closer to 3.5". Needless to say the corn is starting to be stressed. I am working at getting all of the acreage reports for my crop insurance customers completed before July 1st. We will also start loading pigs out in the next couple of weeks. We were also able to finish picking up rocks. The corn that had been replanted needed to be picked up and there was definitely more rocks to be picked up since the ground was not rolled before we replanted it. The following is a time lapse video that I put together from trail camera photos that were taken when my parents went on their trip to China last month: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

July 5th: The last couple of weeks have been one continuous heat wave with little of no break and no rain. Tempatures have been in the upper 90's and the grain market has taken notice. Corn prices have exploded higher from $5.00 per bushel to just over $7.00 per bushel at the close today. I would estimate that our crop has gone from a 180 bushel potential to 160 bushel potential. If we do not recieve any rain by the end of the weekend, I would say we would be closer to 140 bushel. We should still come out okay as we have not sold any cash corn at this time and continue to move up our put options and have a floor of close to $6.50 cash locked in for our guaranteed bushels. This should allow us to equal the projected revenue per acre in our cashflows even though our bushels will be below projections. With the heat we have started to sell hogs at the Chickasaw Farms site. This group has grown well and we were able to sort them out and give the remaining hogs room. The following picture is from a wedding that we attended this past weekend. The bride is a director at the Korean Culture Camp that we attend every year and one of Natalie's favorite persons. Rachel was a beautiful bride and we were so glad we could attend her special day. July 18th: The weather continues to be HOT HOT HOT! We were fortunate to catch a rain on Saturday morning, but it only rained at the hog building site and the farm 2 miles away recieved none. The corn has really fallen apart. It has just run out of water. I would say that every day that passes continues to pull yields lower. If I had to make a guess, I say we are looking at 120 bushel per acre. We made the decision to no put fungicide on the corn. We have a 148 bushel guarantee and if the fungicide made a yield increase of 7 bushels (which is not guaranteed), I would have spent $30 per acre to reduce my crop insurance claim. The futures market continues to run higher. In the past 4 weeks, the December contract has gone from $5.00 per bushel to $7.70 per bushel. This is entirely due to the widespread drought that is affecting our country. We are rather fortunate, in that we have not priced any of our corn, but we have purchased corn puts and have rolled them up to where we have a floor under our guaranteed bushels at $7.50 per bushel. Our projected revenue per acre will be very similar to what we had in our cashflows, but instead of 190 bushel corn at $5.50, it will be more like 148 bushels at $7.50. This last Thursday, we had a series of crop insurance meetings for our clients to help understand how claims will work and provide them with a couple of different ideas of how to market their guaranteed bushels without committing to delivery. We had over 120 people attend and some good information was exchanged. We have loaded out close to half of the pigs at our Chickasaw site. The warm weather has been tough on them, but we take our time and make sure to water them down well before and after moving. We will begin to load out of our Bassett site next week. The main project besides keeping cool has been clearing a pasture of undergrowth for a landlord. We will get this cleared and then we plan on purchasing a couple of cow-calf pairs for next summer. No major plans to go into the cattle business. Just a little hobby. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

July 18th: The weather continues to be HOT HOT HOT! We were fortunate to catch a rain on Saturday morning, but it only rained at the hog building site and the farm 2 miles away recieved none. The corn has really fallen apart. It has just run out of water. I would say that every day that passes continues to pull yields lower. If I had to make a guess, I say we are looking at 120 bushel per acre. We made the decision to no put fungicide on the corn. We have a 148 bushel guarantee and if the fungicide made a yield increase of 7 bushels (which is not guaranteed), I would have spent $30 per acre to reduce my crop insurance claim. The futures market continues to run higher. In the past 4 weeks, the December contract has gone from $5.00 per bushel to $7.70 per bushel. This is entirely due to the widespread drought that is affecting our country. We are rather fortunate, in that we have not priced any of our corn, but we have purchased corn puts and have rolled them up to where we have a floor under our guaranteed bushels at $7.50 per bushel. Our projected revenue per acre will be very similar to what we had in our cashflows, but instead of 190 bushel corn at $5.50, it will be more like 148 bushels at $7.50. This last Thursday, we had a series of crop insurance meetings for our clients to help understand how claims will work and provide them with a couple of different ideas of how to market their guaranteed bushels without committing to delivery. We had over 120 people attend and some good information was exchanged. We have loaded out close to half of the pigs at our Chickasaw site. The warm weather has been tough on them, but we take our time and make sure to water them down well before and after moving. We will begin to load out of our Bassett site next week. The main project besides keeping cool has been clearing a pasture of undergrowth for a landlord. We will get this cleared and then we plan on purchasing a couple of cow-calf pairs for next summer. No major plans to go into the cattle business. Just a little hobby. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

July 26th: We finallly caught a rain (On a few acres). Last night our south farms caught 1.5 inches, our farm south of New Hampton had .5", but the balance of our acres did not catch any rain (300 of 1,400 acre received rain). The heat wave eased a bit. Before the rain, we had tempatures reach 100 degrees. Today the tempature was closer to 85 degrees. We started loading out pigs at Bassett. In order to not get them to hot, we ended up sorting them at 4 a.m. when it was cooler. The trucks came at 4 p.m. when it was in the upper 90's. We took our time loading and the semi trailer has a misting system that sprays cool water on the hogs before they go down the road. We are also finishing loading out the Chickasaw site. I had the pleasure of hosting a group from the Austrailian Crop Tour at a lunch to discuss the condition of the Iowa corn crop. I believe they were truly amazed at how poor our crop conditions appeared. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

August 14th: We are finally catching up from the activities of the last couple of weeks. The last week of July was the Bremer County Fair. Natalie took three 4-H projects which she recieved two blues and an "outstanding junior" (highest honor since 4th graders can not go to the state fair). We had a great time with the carnivals, livestock shows, combine derby, tractor pulls and animal scrambles. I was able to donate a rabbit pen that was sitting behind my garage from when Natalie caught a rabbit to another young family in town that came home with a rabbit. Last week was our annual Korean Adoption Means Pride Family Camp (KAMP). This year it was held at Hidden Acres in Dayton, IA. It was a wonderful facility and it was great to see so many of our friends. We attend this annually to give our kids an opportunity to connect with other adoptees and for us to connect with other adoptive parents. I believe that the parents have just about as much fun as the kids. In between the fairs and camps, we have been busy loading out pigs at both locations. The Chickasaw site was empty on August 6th and little pigs were put back in on August 9th. The tight window was necessary because the pigs being loaded did not gain as well as expected in this heat and we were trying to put as much weight on them as possible in order to not have a sort loss dock. We are also delivering the last of our 2011 corn into town so that we will have all of our documentation done to do a crop insurance production audit. If you are a producer and have a loss over $200,000 per crop, per county, then you must prove the production that you reported for the previous three years. This makes sure that your guarantee amount is correct. Since I am an insurance agent, I have to have a production audit done at any loss level. Now that the crop is delivered, I need to gather all of my settlement sheets and yield maps to have the review done. The first part of August also is a time to be working with landlords and potential investors regarding current land leases and farms that are coming up for auction. We have quite a few good leads for the coming year and are excited to see if these develop into additional acres. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 4th: The last couple of weeks have seen the kids starting school, football and soccer practice starting and all the other activities that go along with the beginning of fall. At the farm, we have been busy finishing loading out at Bassett and bringing in a new bunch of 12 pound baby pigs. The past week has kept us busy preparing for these new guests. This included repairing items that needed to be fixed after the last batch. The corn continues to dry down very quickly and we anticipate beginning harvest in the next day or so. We hand shelled some early planted corn that was coming in at 19% moisture (15% is desired). This corn will be harvested and delivered directly to the local coop. We were able to sneak away last week for a day at the Farm Progress Show (or as the WHO radio announcers call it "The World's Fair of Agricluture") in Boone, Iowa. Roger and I walked the 80 acres of exhibits and watched the tillage demonstrations. The harvest demonstration earlier in the day had an average yield of 130 bushel (normally 220 bushels). The drought has also affected this area of the state. It was nice to see the different types of equipment and the size that it has become (16 row corn head, 36 row side dress unit, 48 row planter, 630 horsepower tractors, 2,000 bushel grain cart). The following is a slideshow of some of the pieces of equipment at the show: JD 1608C Cornhead Combines 16 rows corn and chops stalks all at once. (40' passes) _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 15th: Harvest Progress: 370 acres (Lantzky Farms: 25%, State of Iowa: 7%). We have begun harvest and as expected, the yields are where we thought they would be. The first field averaged 40 bushel per acre with the majority of the field yielding 0, but once we entered a lower part of the field closer to the river, the yield popped up over 200. It was just low enough to reach the water. Moisture is coming in around 20-25%. The local coop is providing a $.35 improvement in their cash bid for the first half of September. They are also providing a discount on drying charges during September. These items make it worth the effort to harvest wet corn. A couple of full season varieties are starting to drop ears. Our owned farm is being harvested and we will be installing some tile later this week. We have been recieving some good rains with a 1 1/2" recieved last week. This weekend, Natalie had soccer games in Cedar Rapids. This was the first game that they had to worry about being offsides. They did well with both games even though they lost. Trey's football season began last week with a 24-12 victory over Oelwein. We are able to make it to all of our kids activities. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

September 28th: Harvest Progress: 618 acres (Lantzky Farms: 43%, State of Iowa: 25%). We are fast approaching the halfway point of harvest. Yields have been all over the place. We finished a 140 acre field yesterday that went just above 50 bushel per acre. The large areas of zero bushels eats into the overall average very quickly. Today we started a 40 acre field that is yielding close to 170 bushel per acre. This field had many different factors that may have affected it: it was no-till, following beans, had a full water profile (ponding on the ground earlier this spring), the tile has a lift station that was turned off and the water allowed to drain back up the tile lines. This good field was only 3 miles from the 50 bushel field. Moisture is still around 20-25%. The market has fallen by $.75 over the past 2 weeks due to harvest pressure. We are currently hedged and are looking for a bottom. The local coop has extended their discount on drying charges thru October. We have had the tiler working at installing a good amount of tile on our farm. We are working at installing tile between the existing tile lines that are currently 80' apart. When finished, the tile will be 40' on center and will be able to drain the ground much better. The weather has been sunny and no rain in the forecast. Beans are starting to get very dry. I apologize for not having any photos of harvest up yet. I got a new phone a couple of weeks ago and have been taking photos, but have yet to figure out how to upload the photos. I promise the next update will have some photos. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

October 10th: Harvest Progress: 1023 acres (Lantzky Farms: 75%, State of Iowa: 76%, 5 Year Average 17%). We are working at wrapping harvest up with only 350 acres to go. The past couple of weeks has been dry and we have been combining every day. Our Floyd County farms were a nice surprise with an average yield of 154. Chickasaw County on the other had continues to be a struggle with average yields only being near 90 bushel per acre. Our tile has been installed and we are working at getting the rocks that were pulled up removed and the tile lines worked down. The manure applicators will arive later this week and will apply manure for the next year crop. We were finally rained out of the field yesterday afternoon although the total rain may have only been .1". The weather continues to be rather dry. Many people are holding off on fall tillage with the hope of additonal moisture. Trey had his final Jr. High football game yesterday. Both the heavy and light team won. He played free safety on the light team and they finished the season 5-0 and did not allow a single point to be scored on them. The highlight of the season was the game at Cresco where Trey had an interception. Unfortunately, Leasa was not able to make it and missed seeing it. Natalie is still in the middle of soccer season and has a couple of weekends left of games. She is having a good time and is continuing to learn the game. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

October 22nd: Harvest Progress: 1144 acres (Lantzky Farms: 80%, State of Iowa: 93%, 5 Year Average 49%). The last couple of weeks we fell behind the rest of the state due to multiple items. Our tiling project brought up many rocks and we were forced to pick up the boulders before the manure applicators arrived. I had continuing education for my crop insurance license, an alumni board meeting for Wartburg College and a weekend soccer tournament. Roger was able to keep the tillage unit moving in my absence and we are now caught up with the combine. We have also been rained out a couple of times which is a nice change. We have had close to 3" of rain in October. Although this does not break the drought, it does allow tillage work to proceed. Once we are finished with harvest, the paperwork of the crop insurance claim will begin. We have made the decision to deliver all of our 2012 corn to town in order to simplify the claims process. No bin measurements will be needed. The basis is at a historically tight level and the coops are looking for corn. The manure at Bassett was applied last week and the Chickasaw site will be spread when it dries up later this month. As for the kids update, we found out that Trey was selected for an Honor Band that will have a concert on December 1st. Natalie has completed the soccer season and is about to start basketball. She is really starting to sound good on her clarinet. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

October 31st: Harvest Progress: 1413 acres (Lantzky Farms: 100%, State of Iowa: 99%, 5 Year Average 58%). We officially finished harvest on the earliest date in history. Many producers in our area had finished a week ago, but our harvest was slowed down because we needed to clear rocks that were pulled up when we tiled 120 acres of field. The manure hauler showed up and those rocks would be really hard on the hose used to apply the manure. The coop was only open until 4 pm, so this limited how late we could run each evening. The harvest went very well with no major breakdowns. The Floyd county farms went so well that we will not have a crop insurance claim as they went 154 bushel per acre. Unfortunately, the Chickasaw county farms will have a loss as they only went 100 bushel per acre on average. The harvest brought an interesting twist last evening. I was on my way home on Highway 63 when we were forced to exit 63 and take a detour on the county blacktops. The detour was necessary to avoid the Fredricka area. Earlier in the day, a bank was robbed in Monona and a pursuit resulted in a couple of law officers being shot. The police had a perimeter around Fredricka and were searching for them. They found them later in the evening trying to crawl past them in a ditch. The ended up crossing a river and crawling in a ditch. As a former bank officer, it always amazes me that people think the best way to come into money is to rob a bank. If you rob a bank you may end up with $3,000 or a 20 year sentence. If you go out and borrow the money and nevery repay it, the worst thing they do is write it off as bad debt. Today we only had 11 acre to finish harvesting, so we decided to set the trail camera up to see if we could create a time lapse movie that showed us harvesting, chopping and tilling this piece. The only problem was that I did not have it set correctly to take a photo every 30 seconds. It did take some photos and showed the progress that was made. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

November 15th: The past couple of weeks have been very busy. Just when we thought that we were almost finished with the fall tillage (waiting for manure to be hauled on 150 acres), we recieved notice that we are going to farm three additional farms that we were placed rental bids. We are going to farm the Charles City Airport, another 160 acre farm east of North Washington and the final farm is 470 acres located in northern Bremer County. We now have approximately 700 acres to finish deep ripping for next years crop. We did recieve a inch rain that has finally started the tile lines to run again. The new North Washington farm is having tile installed and will be fully pattern tiled for the coming year. Hopefullly the tile will run this coming year. Natalie has a basketball tournament this weekend, but I will be going with Trey on a service trip to Minneapolis with the confirnmation group. The forecast is this year's trip should be much better than the trip two years ago when the bus ended up on the side of the interestate due to an ice storm. The following photo is after we took some of the large rocks that we found from our farm's tiling project and created a rock garden type area in front of the Bassett Pork site. We will see how long they stay balanced. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

December 15th: The past month has seen us complete fall tillage. The manure has been hauled and we have hauled all of the corn into town. We have completed the crop insurance claim and have assembled the scale tickets for the previous three years. The scale tickets will be used to complete the 3 year APH review. The past few weeks have been spent going to Natalie's basketball tournaments on the weekend and a couple of weeks ago we went to Trey's honor band concert. He tried out for All-State Junior High Band and although he did not make it, we were extremely proud of him. The crop insurance sales season has continued to be very busy. I have been attending training meetings that are updating me on all the different changes for the 2013 crop year. I am working on creating our annual movie for our farm, end of year tax planning and planning for next year's crop. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

December 31st: The end of the year is upon us!!! 2012 was a wonderful year!! I understand how many of you may have a hard time believing this, but hear me out. My family is continuing to grow and is healthy, crop insurance has made my farming operation successful even with a drought that caused us only to harvest half a crop and I continue to love what I do. The weather since the last update has finally turned cold. We had a blizzard come through on December 17th that cancelled school for the final two days before winter break and dumped 9" of snow. We have been busy planning for the coming year. Working with seed dealers, chemical reps, agronomists and fertilizer dealers in order to line up everything for 2013. If you had a hand in helping us this past year, thank you for all that you did. We are looking forward to a wonderful 2013.