Fresh Picked: Farm Life in the Summer

Reflections on baling hay, modern agriculture and family farms.

By Amy Nelson | Photos by Joseph L. Murphy

I love summer in Iowa – the long days and warm nights, watching fireflies in the yard and listening to the animals once the sun has finally set.

Many of my summer days are spent on an older tractor going round and round the hay fields to get the forage baled and put away to feed the cattle after the pastures dry up and through the following winter. This is hot, dirty work. But I love the time it gives me to reflect on farming and how much it has changed.

Making hay hasn’t changed all that much since I was little. We still must cut the hay, rake, bale and put it away. Now, we do primarily large round bales instead of the smaller square ones because our feeding system has changed, and the larger ones better fit our system. I can do round bales with a tractor vs. moving each one by hand.

There is still a definite place for the small square bales put on the rack – one by one and then put up in the barns – one by one. We use them for individual cows, those in a special nursing pen or sometimes the doors in winter are all just frozen shut in the big barns, but the cows still need feed.

Many farm kids remember baling hay as a way to make money in the summer. My dad told stories of making 1,000 bales each day and putting them in the barn. He would do this day after day, all summer for other neighbors while he was in high school. This year, my son and a couple of his friends have learned these skills and will carry on these memories of helping me refill the barns. They are senior football players, so I’ve coined this work their pre-season conditioning.

Making the rounds to prepare this cutting of hay (there are usually four per summer assuming we get good timely rains) gives me time to think about how farming has changed. I think about how many fewer times I drive across all my corn and soybean fields now than my grandpa and dad did. They would easily cover a field eight times a year and significantly disturb the dirt each time to prepare, plant and manage the weeds in the fields. I’m so thankful now that I have less intensive cultivation methods than the original John Deere plow.

Now, after planting, I don’t disturb the soil at all. With the help of my agronomists, we do a lot of scouting or looking at the fields. We check for weeds or insects that are so invasive they choke out the growth of the crop. If we find these culprits, we apply a specific herbicide or insecticide only to that field or area of the field. For small areas, we will spray from a four-wheeler so that we leave as little compaction in the soil and only address that specific area of concern. All these advances help us to keep our soil quality high and reduce the herbicides or insecticides we use. I have a license from the state of Iowa that I must keep updated annually to use any of these chemicals (which is essentially the same Roundup® you use on your lawn) on my fields.

This past year, I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing the seasons on the farm with you. It makes me so proud to share my story while letting you know how much different farming is today than when my grandpa started in the Dust Bowl Era.

In the 1930s, Grandpa started with a team of horses and picking corn by hand. Back then, farms really were just “family farms” because the total crops fed the equivalent of about four people annually. When my dad started farming as an adult in the 1960s, his operation fed about 26 people each year. I started my adult farming journey in early 2000, and I’m proud that 95% of farms are still family-owned. Today’s farms, like mine, help to feed 166 people annually both here and abroad, providing food security to more people than ever.

Amy Nelson is a fifth-generation farmer who grows soybeans and corn and raises cattle. She is an active member of CommonGround Iowa, the Scott County Farm Bureau Board and the Iowa Soybean Association. She lives near Davenport with her husband Randy and children Jakob and Courtney.

To view the full spread, view this magazine in your internet browser on your phone, tablet or desktop. This story is funded by the soybean checkoff.