Go Ag!!!

Monday

Hooray for conference! We got up around 6:15 or so and were down for breakfast by 7:00. By the time my roomate, Brittany and I got down there there was virtually no food left on the buffett! I don't know what got into people- we didn't have to be there until like 7:45, but they were all down there and had eaten most of the food:( But, we survived and headed out to the busses.

The weather was just lovely, raining cats and dogs. I guess the night before we had some strong winds and hail. I did wake up but I went staight back to bed! ...must have been tired from riding with those boys all afternoon the day before.

I knew that this was going to be a conference worth while and it sure proved itself right away. First off, I wondered how many girls would be here- the ratio is actually really good. We have about 15 of 50- so not too bad. We are hosted on the campus of Pioneer's headquarters in Johnston- which is basically DeMoines. They have an amazing building and some great people! As soon as we got there and sat down they started us right off with a welcom and some fun activities. I won't hit everything we did- but most of it. Durding this time the President of Pioneer spoke with us as well as a few other representatives- it was really interesting and we had some good discussions. After being welcomed we broke off into our small groups of about 15 or so. We spent some time doing acitivites and getting to know one another. This was when they explained to us that we would be working on creating a "vision" or our operation all week long within our small group time. After spending some time diong that we met back as a large group and had a speaker come from the United Egg Producers. He focused his talk on ag advocacy and was very, very interesting. He had lots of quailty facts about the HSUS that were interesting- and he taught me a lot more about the poultry industry and all that they have done to advance laying houses. The poultry industry fights a pretty constant battle, and despite common belicf, that have come up with some very efficient, clean, and humane new ways of caging and housing these animals. It has been proven than free ranch chickens have a much higher mortality rate and are much less efficient- but that's not what people want to hear. But, I could go on like that all day.

After Chad from UEP spoke we did a few more group activites and then ate some lunch there at Pioneer. Afterward we headed over the the FFA center and met teh folks from the Adventure Learning Center. We were supposed to go and do a ropes course at the center, but because of the rain and mud, they brought some games to us. They were all games and activities that required lots of thinking and teamwork. It turned out to be a lot of fun and really worth it. We were all pretty tired by the time it was over!

After leaving the FFA center, we went to Fudrickers and grabbed some burgers for supper. They had it all set up in a party room with a limited menu so it actually went pretty fast and tasted good. After getting back to the hotel we met with our small groups and did what we call "ag in a bag". We each brought a few items that represent our operations and told about them. It was really intersting to learn about everyone's background. There is a citrus farmer, a pecan farmer, a few corn/soybean farmers, a dairy farmer, a few beef farmers, cotton farmers, an organic farmer, hog farmers, and the list goes on. I am particularly intrigued by the citrus farming, it sounds sooo intersting. They still harvest everything by hand- can you imagine??

We ended up done by about 10:15. I headed down to the pool after that and a bunch of us sat in the hot tub and pool and talked farming for quite some time. There were some cops there for a conference as well so we chatted with them and explained the point of detassling corn. The boys couldn't get it across to them why we do it so I used a steer in comparison to detassling a stalk and then they got it! hahaha men! There are also like 10 Snap-On tool trucks in teh parking lot of our hotel. We have all been waiting for our free Case IH tractor (beacuse they are sponsors) and free set of Snap-On tools...but I don't think it's gunna happen.

Overall it was an awesome day and I'm really looking forward to the rest of the week. I would say teh best part is a tie between the learning experience of it all and the people I'm meeting!

"Choose a job that you love and you will never have to work a day in your life." -Confucius