Today was the day we all finally made our journeys to Iowa. We arrived to sheets of rain, and an excited HN greeting us all at the airport. Some of us took different flights, but once we all had landed our journey to the farm began. Now we had landed in Des Moines Iowa, which is about 60 miles south from our final destination, Radcliffe, Iowa. This trip takes about an hour on a good day, but the rain made us go a little slower, and on this trip HN started to give us a little more background on all the people we were going to be meeting and staying with for the next three weeks. First was HN’s brother, who we met in his tractor shop working away at restoring the smallest tractor that International ever produced. He was a fantastic first person to meet, and he more or less fulfilled my idea of a farmer. He grew up on the land where we stood, fixing the tools that he used everyday to work the land and produce a crop. He gave us a quick lecture about his views of the current topics surrounding Iowan farmers today. I couldn’t have thought of a more perfect person to introduce us to our adventure that is Farm. Next we met the Knutsons, who Jessie and Josh would be staying with. They were a mild mannered couple that managed 600 acres of land (up until now I never thought I would hear a person say 600 acres and small in the same sentence, but apparently that constitutes a small farm here). When not on the farm Mr. Knutson works for Iowa State, and Mrs. Knutson works at a flower shop and does interior design work. The next group we meet were at Mr. Stole’s house, which is affectionally called Versaillesfor reasons we would later learn. Mr. Stole himself is a retired school counselor, and recently built a very nice house (thus the name Versailles). He will also be the new owner of 30+ chicks next week and I can’t wait to see the new little chickens. Also at his house was Diane Schwartz, and she was the one that HN had convinced to cook for us during the majority of our stay. She greeted us with warm cookies and lemonade, and dinner cooking in the oven. Now to call her a good cook is an insult because she is fantastic, she might even rival my mom’s own home cooking (sorry mom but if you were here you would understand). The last group of people we meet were the Sweeneys. Reid, Ethan, and I would be staying with them for the next three weeks and I was excited to meet them. They run a Black Angus beef cattle operation and Mrs. Sweeney has made an impact on the Iowa political stage, having served for four years in the Iowa Legislature, two as the chair of the House Agriculture Committee. We finally got the chance to meet them at dinner, and also all the other people we had met today came too.

Dinner was interesting for me because where I live I barely know my neighbors, let alone invite them over for dinner, but it came natural to everyone one. Diane had made more then enough food to feed all about 15 of us, and everyone already knew each other very well. Dinner showed me that in this small community everyone knows each other, and knows what everyone is doing. This sense of community was shocking at first because it is so different from what I know, but it makes sense. It makes sense because most of them are all working towards the same goal, run their farm as best as possible, and produce the best crop possible so they can farm again next year. This idea of them all working towards this one similar goals ties them all together, so it makes sense that they would know each other and have a vested interest in knowing what everyone else is doing. If all these people we met today are an indication of what is to come, then I know it will be fantastic because we were welcomed with open arms by some of the friendliest people I have met, and they are all more then willing to share their stories and knowledge with us. I know I’m excited to get to learn form all of them.