The Dog Ate My Blog

The dog ate my blog. Okay that isn’t exactly what happened, last week we were busy with bean harvest and the blog kind of slipped my mind. Oreo doesn’t look like a blog eater but does look guilty of something.

A few days ago Lisa and I took the opportunity to go and hear our son Cory’s fall concert at Dordt College.

He is a senior business major and was the original writer of this blog. I hope to be able to convince him to do a blog or two when he gets a chance, his writing is substantially better than mine.

I enjoy listening to college choirs and bands. These young men and women are participating because they want to and because they are good at it, not because their parents are making them.

We began soybean harvest last Tuesday and we're able to get a lot done with the dry weather we had most of the week. After a one inch rain Saturday night we were able to finish our beans last night.

We have about 50 acres of custom work to do and should finish that today. Once the beans begin to be combined the manure hauling begins in earnest.

We could have a month of good weather or just a couple of weeks before the weather turns cold and field conditions deteriorate.

Lisa had the tip of one of the easel’s she rents out for weddings break off. She had given me a deadline of when it needed to be fixed, but like the blog it slipped my mind. Trent took a look at it and said I can fix it. About 30 seconds with the welder and the tip was securely fastened to the top again.

. Stay warm this weekend, it is starting to feel like late fall.

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Backing Away from Basics

How many times have you said to yourself or to others that there is a need to get back to basics? A return to the basics can help us realign with the fundamental principles of the task at hand. It’s generally very helpful. When I was struggling in a sport, I often backtracked to the fundamentals to discovered my point of error. Other’s use it in work, family life, and in cooking. Unfortunately, I believe that we have remained a bit too basic in our approach to pork. Go to a retail store and you will see the same cuts that have been available for the past 30 years. You will see chops, shoulder and loin roasts, tenderloins, ham steaks, etc. Now there is nothing wrong with those cuts as they present a myriad of cooking opportunities. But the wonderful pig produces so much more! Take for example some of the dishes we served this week at a pork education event. We made street tacos out of pork steaks (it’s the Spinalis muscle if you want to get technical). We made Chulet

Can you power wash?

Can you power wash? It may seem odd, but this is often one of the first questions I ask someone interviewing for a job with us. There are generally two reasons for asking this question. The first is practical in nature. Pigs can kind of be like your kids sometimes, leaving a mess where ever they go. This makes power washing a frequent event especially in the farrowing house. Grant does a good job of making sure the next mom has a clean place to have her babies. The second reason is it may give you an idea of the persons work ethic. If they hesitate or try to appear that they are “over qualified” to power wash that may be a red flag. All jobs here are important, whether you are in charge of the books or cleaning farrowing pens, what you are doing is vital to the success of the farm. Last week I talked about getting projects done. We took advantage of the Labor day weekend to get one of those projects done. The white stripes went

Merry Christmas!

Christmas has finally arrived here at VG Farms. It is finally white and actually looks like Christmas. Before I go on, let me issue an apology for the lack of blog posts these past few weeks. Between my end-of-semester finals and my father’s busy work-load, it has been difficult to find the time to write. So consider this special Christmas edition a gift from us to you. As any family does, the Van Gilst’s hold several Christmas traditions. Some are small and informal – like watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation at least a half dozen times. Others are a bit more significant – such as gathering with each side of the family (Van Gilst and Branderhorst) to celebrate the holidays alongside grandparents, aunts and uncles, and an endless supply of cousins. We watch the Iowa Hawkeyes play in their bowl game (fingers crossed for a victory in a few days) and occasionally us boys will head off to Iowa City to catch some hoops. Whatever it may be, there is never a dull moment ov

Both Sides of the Fork

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