On Friday, we picked up rocks. Yeah, that’s right: rocks. Picking up rocks, or even just rocks, isn’t something most people think about on a daily basis (unless they’re @Jessie Wheeler). Farmers though, they think about rocks pretty often. Rocks can cause some serious damage to farming equipment, especially harvesting equipment. While the Neubauers do have rock insurance, it’s not something that they want to use: It would cut into the already small margins that they rely on for success.

I’ve picked up rocks before. It’s just something that you do on a farm. In my case, we picked up rocks to keep my arena clean (generally an area is a flat area where you ride a horse to practice things). However, as a group we were/are inexperienced rock pickers, so guess what we did? If you guessed that we did it wrong, you’re right. Generally, rocks bigger than the size of softballs are dangerous for equipment, and one leaves the smaller ones behind. We picked up ALL the rocks in a really small area, rather than sweeping the entire rock belt.

In a way, picking up the rocks symbolizes our entire experience thus far in Iowa. It’s a big jump for our group, and while we might think we know a little about farming, we just see the big, flawed picture that we have previously been presented. Conventional farming might rely on equipment, but it’s still helluva lot of hard work, hard work that rock picking hammered home. It also hammered home the variability of land in Iowa and the fact that farming hinges upon getting the smallest of details correct. The land where we were picking up rocks, affectionately known as The Rock Belt, used to be a dump, and we found a variety of older farming detritus, including old coke and tonic bottles. Now, with the advancement of technology and the reduction of commodity prices, all land matters, and what used to be a dump is now part of productive acreage. Additionally, the smallest of details matter, i.e. rocks. To be productive and to make a profit, everything has to go right. The rocks have to be picked up, the nitrogen has to be stabilized, it rains enough, it doesn’t rain too much, it rains at the right time, there are no pest or fungi issues, the equipment doesn’t break down, the commodity prices are high enough, and many more. One or more of these may go wrong throughout the year, and it might be okay. But it also might not, and that’s a scary prospect.