On the morning of Thursday May 11, we awoke at what seemed like the crack of dawn, 6:45 am, and arrived at Morris Stole’s house for breakfast at 7:15. Here, we met Diane. Some say she is the best cook in Harden County, which I might agree with. After our breakfast, we headed off to Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls to meet with Professor Kevin Butt. Starting at 9, we had a lecture on farm safety. It was interesting, but it was also very scary to see how easy serious accidents can occur on the farm. During the farm safety presentation, we were also introduced to precision agriculture. I would define precision ag as making life for farmers much easier and their work much more efficient. Instead of doing work by hand, such as driving the tractor and operating planters and sprayers, the software technology allows tractors to steer themselves or to plant seeds in very straight rows. Professor Butt also introduced us to the use of drones on the farm. This took us to his family farm, just outside of Iowa Falls, where we watched him fly his drone. While flying, he explained how the camera on the drone was useful to look at how crops were growing, where weeds were growing, and everything that had to deal with the field.
After we left Professor Butt’s farm, we drove back into town and ate lunch at 502 Grill House. In an attempt to keep with my majority pork diet while in Iowa, I ate the 502’s special, the pork tenderloin. While eating lunch, we were able to talk among ourselves and get to know each other a little better. This proved to be important because we typically spend all day together. Once we finished our lunch, we headed to the main campus of Ellsworth Community College in downtown Iowa Falls. Professor Butt took us on a tour of his workshop and let us ride on his precision ag golf cart. On the golf cart, we saw a sprayer work alongside the GPS and cover the field. In my opinion, the best part was seeing the sprayer shut off over the areas that had already been sprayed. Once we finished our testing on the golf cart, we took a tour of campus and headed back to the Stole house.
On the way back to Morris’s for dinner, we stopped at Theisens. The only way I can describe this store is a Lowes mixed with an Academy Sports with chickens in the back. We picked up some extra rubber boots and then we made our way back to the Morris’s place. For supperer, Diane and Staci, her daughter, made beef stew topped with biscuits. For desert, the most important part of Diane’s meals, we had rice pudding. After dinner, we discussed our day around the table and continued discussion on topics ranging from precision ag to a Kum & Go 100 oz. mug (which we will acquire). Stay tuned, others in the group will surely explain.