Wordless Wednesday: Ag Business Learning Community Adventures

One of the most rewarding things I've been a part of on the Iowa State campus has been the Agricultural Business Learning Community. As a freshman, this group helped me find the clubs I'd most enjoy, answered my questions about business dress codes, and guided my class choices for the rest of my college career. For the past two years, I've been employed as a peer mentor in this program teaching students how to prepare for career fair and helping them discover their passion in agriculture.

The program is a class that meets twice a week. Most of the time we listen to guest speakers, explore campus resources, or work hard on improving resumes and 4 year plans. Occasionally, we have time to let loose and enjoy the fall season. This week, after many students completed their first round of midterms, we painted pumpkins for a local nursing home and visited Center Grove Orchard. The orchard took time to give us a behind the scenes tour and teach our team about marketing strategy. This week's Wordless Wednesday features the adventures of our relaxed week.

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse of our Learning Community adventures as much as we enjoyed getting creative, jumping on the jumping pillow, and munching on caramel apples! Happy fall! Thanks for reading!

Northwest Iowa Dairy Days

One of the reasons I finally decided to begin my blogging journey has been my internship with Iowa Corn. I'm so blessed to be able to work in the Market Development department and surround myself with so many experts in agriculture. Later this summer, you'll hear more about my big projects like pump promotions, foreign teams, and the Iowa Corn Indy 300. 

Every once in a while, to help out other departments in the office, I get to go on their trips. Several weeks ago I traveled with our Communications intern to Northwest Iowa for a Dairy Days event. Because it wasn't my project I didn't know what our night would entail, but as soon as we arrived realized I was in for a treat!

The educational event was hosted by Plymouth Dairy Farms near LeMars, Iowa. The 2,700 head dairy farm invited families of all ages to join them for an open house that included tours of the dairy, kids activity tent, and a free meal. I was so disappointed we ran out of time before I got the chance to hop on the tour, but was really impressed with the neat and clean facilities on the farm. Western Iowa Dairy Alliance and Midwest Dairy Association were excellent sponsors. Many passionate volunteers directed visitors, passed out literature, and offered a helping hand to those of us setting up booths.


The Iowa Corn display was inside the children's tent along with tables from Iowa State Extension, a petting zoo, the corn pools and other commodity group's information. I loved watching little ones squeal with excitement as they pet young calves, bunnies and kittens. A large crowd of children enjoyed burying themselves in the corn pools. 

 

 



At our table families lined up to make corn necklaces for a solid two hours. Despite heavy rain the line was steady. It was so exciting to see eager young faces curious about corn. As the children filled their small baggies with soil, selected a corn seed, watered it and clipped it on a lanyard we asked them questions. "Is the corn hard or soft? Do you eat this kind of corn? Why are you putting water in there?" As they moved down the line Sarah, the other intern, and I explained, "This corn is hard, not soft and juicy like sweet corn. You eat sweet corn at your house, but these cows eat hard corn. The corn helps the cows produce the milk you drink. If you tasted their corn you'd think it was yucky. Corn plants need water just like you to grow big and strong." By the time the kids proudly held their finished project they were repeating all they'd just learned to their parents.

At the end of the night, over 200 corn necklaces had been made. According to an article in the local newspaper, more than 2,000 visitors completed the tour. Several employees of the nearby ice cream plant, Wells Blue Bunny, brought their families to see where the products they make start out. After our display was torn down and the Escape was packed up we enjoyed burgers and ice cream bars.

I truly enjoyed my visit to Northwest Iowa and agvocating with so many others in the ice cream capital of the world! Thanks for reading!

For more photos check out the Western Iowa Dairy Alliance Facebook album here.

How do you start a blog?!

Hello family, friends, and mysterious strangers of the internet! I've spent several hours on the mower contemplating what this first blog post should include. Should it be serious? Or funny? How personal should it get? Should I start off general? Or write about someone famous? How about a cool place I've been? But then thoughts like, "maybe I should wait til I have more time" and "I should hold off until I talk with an experienced blogger" started creeping in. Before I knew it, it had been a month since that warm summer breeze and fresh cut grass smell convinced me I needed to finally get my passion on paper and start blogging.

Today, I decided it was the day. My bucket list for summer is only growing, and I'm learning exciting things worth sharing NOW. At work, as I counted out tickets and sorted envelopes, daydreams of viral agvocacy posts filled my mind. A few clever titles got me even more excited, and by the time I got home I couldn't wait to open my laptop. Finally, once the website was set up and a few got pictures arranged, clearly I was running out of time. After writing down "my roots" I had so many thoughts my head was spinning even more. Please check out that page and come back soon for a more official first post. Thanks for joining the roots journey!




P.S. Aaaahhhhh! It's really happening! I'm actually a blogger!