Building a Bridge: A 14th Blog-iversary

From a trip in 2020

It took 14 years for Mount Rushmore to be translated from idea to stone. Brooklyn Bridge construction took 14 years before it spanned the river, connecting New York and Brooklyn. But we don't typically make a big deal about a 14th anniversary.

And while 14 isn't a magic multiple of 5 - the hallmark of anniversary celebrations - I still want to mark this day as the 14th year since I first pressed "publish" on my inaugural Kim's County Line blog post. As I've said before, I began blogging for that reason every mother hates hearing: Other people were doing it. In my case, it was my sister, my niece and my daughter. (None of the rest of them are still blogging.) I also was recruited to write a monthly post for a women's devotional blog for a local church. Having my own "spot" to write and share photography seemed like a natural evolution. So, Kim's County Line was born on January 24, 2010. In those 14 years, I've published 2,220 blog posts.

December 27, 2023

 

For the past 14 years, Kim's County Line has helped me track our lives on a five-generation Central Kansas farm. Having this avenue to collect words and photos has helped me to connect with our  heritage and this life in a new way. 

 

And back to that Brooklyn Bridge analogy: It's been a way for me to connect with people far away from the plains of Kansas and share our story.

 

 

It isn't just my story and Randy's. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors who came to Kansas for the promise of land ownership and a desire to dream big and work hard on the Kansas plains. That seems fitting as we approach Kansas Day next week, celebrating 163 years since our state joined the Union. 

 

And, with our retirement from active farming in August 2022, the blog evolved again. I'm still writing, but the frequency and the content have shifted. But that's been happening my whole life. I remember "writing" my first story at a women's church meeting (WSCS) in the basement of the Byers Methodist Church. My mom handed me a little notebook and I scratched out a few words and pictures on the lined sheets of paper. With Kim's County Line, I've substituted my crude hand-drawn illustrations with clicks of the camera shutter. 

 

The Class Prophecy for Skyline High School's Class of 1975 predicted I'd be a writer at The New York Times by now. Since I'm a small-town girl through and through, I never bought into the vision some creative classmate penned 49 years ago.

 

At the time, I suppose we all envisioned that success was measured far, far away from Kansas. But maybe our 17- and 18-year-old selves were a little short-sighted. (Imagine that.) But the writing - in one form or another - has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I even chose it for my profession. 

It was a way to share the story of a 5th-generation farm family. It gave a platform for our voice telling about agriculture and didn't depend on a fast food restaurant or animal welfare group to define who we are and what we do. It was a way to record family history. It offered a glimpse of the work we were doing to our landlords and to anyone else who decided to follow along. 

 

 

And it changed me, too. The blog has given me the eyes to see how small, simple things are really the most important things of all. Even the most mundane, everyday things can cause us to pause in wonder.

 

 I hope it's created positive ripples in this world. 

 

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. 

Mother Teresa

 

Each quarter, I've compiled my blog posts into hardcover blog books. I got my latest one on Monday and added another volume to the bookcase.

 

For now, I continue to write and share photos. I continue to tell stories. And I want to thank those of you who come along for the journey - whether it's every time I post or whether you just take an occasional jaunt down the County Line.

It's my blogiversary, but to celebrate, one person will get a gift from me ...

• a selection of my photo notecards, or ...

 

•  a copy of "Count on It! Adventures from a Kansas Farm" my rhyming, farm-themed counting book, ...

• OR a revamped version of my farm alphabet book

To qualify, either comment about this blog post in the comment section of the blog or on my Facebook page, Kim Moore Fritzemeier. If you use the blog for comments, you'll have to type in your name or it will show "anonymous." Or, if you have trouble with either of those avenues, you may email me at rkjbfarms@gmail.com. The winner will be chosen at random from the commenters. Enter your comment by January 31 for a chance to win.

Again, I thank you! 

***

UPDATE: Winner of the drawing is Jan Blasi, who commented on Facebook. She has chosen to receive photo notecards. Thanks to all for your comments and for your support!

 

 

 

Lucky No. 13

 

Sunrise, January 10, 2023

13 has a bad reputation.

High-rise buildings often refrain from listing a 13th floor. TV newscasters warn their viewers about Friday the 13th. (We just had one this month.)

But, today, No. 13 deserves a celebration. Today, January 24, marks 13 years since I first clicked "Publish" on Kim's County Line. Back in January 2010, I didn't have a clear vision of what the blog would entail. At the time, three family members were blogging. I'd been asked to write a monthly blog column for a local church group. Once I figured out the logistics, I decided to try a personal blog, too.

These days, vlogs (video blogs), podcasts, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok all have more cache than an old-fashioned blog. But Kim's County Line has persisted, even though it's evolved during the 13 years. I'm the only one in my family who is still blogging. The church group no longer makes its monthly posts. 

 

Today is my 2,155th blog post on Kim's County Line. Through the years, I say that it's evolved into a place where I talk about the four "F"s and a "PH" - farming, family, faith, food and photography. I subtitled the blog, "Camera Clicks and Commentary from a Kansas Farm Wife."

 

As I enter the 14th year of blogging, Kim's County Line is sure to evolve again. Last year, we retired from farming. In the past couple of months, as my Facebook memories come up, I realize how much I wrote about caring for cattle during the winter months. During the year, I wrote updates on crops. We still have our farm ground and our cows, but we aren't the ones doing the day-to-day work any longer. Our cows just started having babies. Since we have a liberal "visitation policy" granted by Tye and Todd who care for the cattle herd, the babies will likely make an appearance or two on the blog. But I don't have the babies in my "backyard" any longer, so there are inevitably fewer blog posts and photos. 

When I first began blogging, I posted five or six days a week. What was I thinking? In the past couple of years, I've been posting fairly consistently on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Since we retired, I've taken some hiatuses when we traveled to six National Parks in October and during the holidays. I'm going to try to feel more relaxed about missing a post. (I'm sure I'm the only one who really cares anyway.) 

No matter what, the blog has helped me track our lives on a five-generation Central Kansas farm. Having this avenue to collect words and photos has helped me to connect with our heritage and this life in a different way. It was a good avenue for connecting with landlords, letting them know what's going on at the farm and showing them through words and photos.

 

Probably the biggest impact was on me. It helped me pay attention. It made me appreciate our heritage. It's given me the opportunity to hone my photography skills. While I don't claim to be Ansel Adams, I can see how my photography has improved during the past 13 years. (Just comparing food photography from 2010 to now is startling. And that's just one example.) 

Photography and prose help me look at even the most mundane, everyday things in new ways and with new wonder. It may be something as simple as the sunrise-streaked sky or a chance rainbow smack dab in the middle of two of Kansas' biggest icons - sunflowers and wheat. The blog has given me the eyes to see how small, simple things are really the most important things of all. 

 

Since 2010, I've printed a quarterly blog book. This year, I emptied Brent's bookcase and gathered my blog books in one place. It's really kind of amazing to see all these books which contain words and images from our lives in the past 13 years. I've also used photos and poetry to write 11 children's books - mostly for my granddaughters. 

Each quarter, I write another dedication, and I invariably struggle with something to say. (Looking at those rows of books, you wouldn't think so, but ...)

 

Here's the dedication from the first quarter of 2011:

I started Kim's County Line, in part, to tell the story of our farm. It's important WE tell the story of agriculture. The tagline on the blog says, "Camera Clicks and Commentary from a Kansas Farm Wife." I hope that it also serves as a record of a period of time and a snapshot of Kansas rural life.

From 2013:

... This is dedicated to my family - the ones I love and cherish now and ones down the road who I hope will discover something about us as they read our story.

From 2014:

... We are thankful for our ancestors who also farmed this land and look forward to continuing the legacy of faith, farm and family in the years to come.

Life is always changing, and we figure out the ways we'll evolve with it. Thanks for making the journey with me! It's my blogiversary, but to celebrate, one person will get a gift from me ...

• a selection of my photo notecards, or ...

 

•  a copy of "Count on It! Adventures from a Kansas Farm" my rhyming, farm-themed counting book, ...

• OR my farm alphabet book

To qualify, either comment about this blog post in the comment section of the blog or on my Facebook page, Kim Moore Fritzemeier. Or, if you have trouble with either of those avenues, you may email me at rkjbfarms@gmail.com. The winner will be chosen at random from the commenters. Enter your comment by January 31 for a chance to win.

Again, I thank you for visiting Kim's County Line!

Christmas in the Country 2015

I love getting mail. As a country kid who grew up in the 1960s and '70s, there wasn't email, Facebook, Twitter or the constant flow of TV news. We didn't have that many visitors down our rural  road, so the arrival of the mailman with the daily newspaper, some magazines and letters was a welcome diversion. (I was a kid. I didn't realize some of those letters were bills!)

So it's really no surprise that the idea of the Christmas in the Country gift exchange appeals to me. These days, it seems I'm constantly "connected" - at least, virtually. But it still seemed a fun way to relive that old-fashioned excitement of greetings arriving via the mailbox.

This was my second year to participate in Christmas in the Country, and, this time, it was open only to bloggers. (Last year, other country women could also participate.) I was lucky enough to receive a box from Jenny Schweigert, who lives in Hopeland, Illinois. (Don't you love that town name? It reminds me of Hopewell, Kansas, which was a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it-spot-in-the-road just west of my grandparents' house.)

Anyway, Jenny serves as the executive director of AgChat, which is designed for "Empowering a Connected Community of Agvocates." She also helps manage her family’s small hobby farm and in-laws' dairy farm in central Illinois.She blogs about life on the farm, Jersey dairy cattle, hunting and her boys, all at The Magic Farm House. Her tag line there is Love More. Laugh More. Live More.

How could I not like her right away? And I liked her even more when I unwrapped ALL the goodies!

Here's the overview, but I thought I'd break it down a little so you could get to know Jenny, too!

In the questionnaire form we fill out to participate in the gift exchange, we tell some of the things we like. I know I didn't put down popcorn, but Jenny must have read my mind. It's one of my favorite things. But I hate to admit I hadn't popped any on top of the stove for years. It didn't take me long to open the sack of Pilot Knob Comforts popcorn grown in Illinois. (Popping corn on the stove reminds me of my Grandma Neelly and eating popcorn out of her old metal bowls while watching the Wonderful World of Disney or Lassie. Bonus!)

The Illinois-grown popcorn pouches were given to attendees at the Illinois Harvest dinner, an event which brought together 80 consumers and 20 farmers for a meal and discussion around food. It's yummy!

I didn't know that Illinois is the No. 1 producer of pumpkin in the U.S. Jenny says she lives in an area that's considered the Pumpkin Capital of the World. It arrived just in time for holiday pumpkin bread baking.

The koozie advertises Illinois corn and ethanol. (My son-in-law has a koozie collection, so I may share it with him.)

Like most women, I like chocolate, and Jenny made sure all the bases were covered. She included the "buck bar" because she likes to hunt. And how about a little coffee with that chocolate? She says that the coffee was an intentional re-gift. She got it during the swap meet at AgChat Foundation's Cultivate & Connect conference in November. Farmers and ranchers bring a taste of their home state to trade for items from other attendees. The Maui coffee was a Hawaiian delegate's swap item. Yum to all of the above!

I grouped these two items and named them "from my Oklahoma neighbors." I got a Ree Drummond Pioneer Woman mason jar. And Blake Shelton serenaded me on my last-minute Christmas preparations.

I really like the journal with the Eleanor Roosevelt quote on the front: "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." I would say the AgChat mug ties into that, too, since ag-vocates are some of the biggest dreamers I know.

Thank you, Jenny, for all the fun surprises!

My Christmas in the Country recipient was Wanda Patsche of Welcome, Minnesota. (I think I won the prize for the best place names for both my recipient and my gift giver!) She blogs at Minnesota Farm Living. On their farm in southern Minnesota, they raise pigs and grow corn and soybeans. Like me, she's a Mom and Grandma.

I sent Wanda a Pioneer Woman tin filled with spiced tea mix, PW salt & pepper shakers and some pig-themed kitchen gadgets. To represent Kansas, I sent some mixes from the Hudson Cream Flour Mill, some of my notecards and a desk calendar I made.

The Christmas in the Country was a way to meet some new blogging friends. Other bloggers participating can be found at this link-up. Now that the holidays are over, I need to spend a little more time clicking on those links, and I invite you to do the same.

The hosts for Christmas in the Country volunteered their time to make it a success. THANKS to each of them! Check out their blogs: Laurie Link – Country LINKed; Jamie Rhoades - This Uncharted Rhoade; Kirby Linebach - 15009 Farmhouse; and Lara Durben - My Other More Exciting Self.

Our Littlest Consumers: Sharing the Message

This littlest consumer is what agricultural education is about.  Hadley was her mommy Erica's tagalong during a blogger gathering I went to last week. Like me, Erica's Whimsical September blog is a mishmash of who she is - a Mommy, a military wife, a woman of faith, a closet fashionista, a recipe experimenter and a workout advocate.

There are some overlaps on our interest lists and favorite blog topics, but there are differences, too.  We both came to Baldwin Farms in McPherson County to learn and to connect with other bloggers for a farm tour and sweet corn picking. It was Erica's first time at a Kansas farm. She grew up in Alabama and lives in Manhattan while her husband is stationed at Fort Riley.

For me, farming is an integral part of who and what I am, the very fabric of my life as a fifth-generation Kansas farm from both my family and Randy's family.

But, for both of us, family is of utmost importance. Just like me, Erica wants what is best for her family, including what we put on their dinner plates.

Giving consumers accurate information is what I most appreciate about what Kim and Adam Baldwin (along with his parents, Dwight and Cindy) are doing through farm tours. Kim also is a volunteer for Common Ground, whose slogan is "Make food choices based on facts, not fear." With so many food choices available, Common Ground serves as a resource to help consumers sort through the myths and misinformation surrounding food. Volunteers help consumers discover that America's farmers produce food that is safe, affordable, accessible and nutritious - whether it's from conventional or organic farms, whether the seeds used are GMO or non-GMO, and the myriad of other choices U.S. consumers are privileged enough to make.

The sweet corn is the shorter plant. This human treat was nestled in a circle of field corn, which will be used for livestock feed and other commercial uses.

Kim and Adam spend a lot of time giving farming a "face." Kim shares information through her blog, Alive and Well in Kansas. They show snapshots of farm life through Instagram and Twitter. They're active with Farm Bureau and state and national producer organizations.

 

During the Baldwin Farms tour, I watched as Hadley stood next to corn that was more than triple her height. She pulled back the husk and silks and sunk her baby teeth into corn that had just been plucked from the field. The sweet corn seed was Seminis produced by Monsanto. It was right next to field corn also raised with Monsanto seed.

Hadley's mom got the same handouts I did. Kim, who is an educator at Inman High School, gave us a Farm Vocabulary Cheat Sheet in true teacher form. I'm sure the terms like "no-till" and "dryland" and "double crop" were new to Erica, while they are second nature to me.

She got to see that terminology in action when we walked into a non-irrigated field where the Baldwins had no-till planted milo after wheat harvest. 

But I figure what spoke most fluently to Erica was seeing Kim's and Adam's son, Banks, in that field with his Mom and his new puppy, Milo.

He was with his Grandpa Dwight in the sweet corn field, picking corn.

And he and his Daddy had a conversation in the soybean field just across from the corn field while they waited on all of us to pick as much sweet corn as we wanted.

The Baldwins' 2 year old was out in the fields with his parents and grandparents. He will be eating the GMO sweet corn that his parents raised. As he sinks his teeth into corn on the cob in the coming years, they'll discover whether he's a methodical typewriter-carriage-type of corn eater or someone who prefers the hunt-and-peck method.

The Baldwins put a name to a face for consumers. They open their farmstead to visitors from China and Japan through Adam's efforts with the Sorghum Checkoff. Their littlest ambassador - their 2-year-old son - charmed a recent trade delegation from China with his skills on his Strider bike, tooling around the machine shed.

Connecting with consumers is what I try to do when I take crop photos and share them along with other photos in the "family album" of Kim's County Line." It's why I do step-by-step photo posts of alfalfa production or show the 9-month life cycle of wheat.

Bloggers from left: Jenny Burgess, Kim Baldwin, Kerry Wiebe, me and Erica DeSpain.

It's what other Kansas farm bloggers are doing. Some 99 percent of the people who grow food in the U.S. are family farmers. At the blogger event, I loved meeting a few people from my social media network. I shook hands with first-generation farmer Jenny instead of interacting through the Farmer's Wives Facebook group and learned more about her blog, Farm Wife Transparency.  I met some new-to-me bloggers, Kerry, from I Married A Milkman, who, with her husband owns and operates Keriel Dairy near Whitewater, the last remaining dairy in Butler County.

There was another Kim blogger. (We had a lot of Kims at this event, but Kim Fee is not pictured above.) Kim Fee runs Sunflower Supper Club in Hutchinson with her friend and business partner, Julie Kimmel, (and there are lots of recipes on her site that I'm anxious to peruse and try)!

The machinery that Adam showed us was familiar to me. But we can always learn something new. They have cameras hooked up on their equipment, helping them see the back of the sprayer to make sure it's working or helping them see any vehicle traffic jams they are creating as they travel from field to field. (Dwight told us farm wives that if our farmers are wanting to add the cameras that it's a good investment, both for safety and efficiency. Perhaps for chiropractor bills, too, to prevent some of that constant neck strain from turning around to look at what's going on behind you.)

I also learned about drip system irrigation. While we are dryland farmers, my parents and brother use center pivots for irrigation, and, back when my Dad was just getting started, my sister and I rotated wheels on the system to move it from one pivot to the other. Drip system irrigation uses sub-surface tape to apply water and nutrients to a crop. Through technology and sensors, specific amounts of water can be applied to crops throughout the growing cycle. Technology is making a difference in conserving water - one of our most precious resources.

At the Baldwin Farm, just like on the County Line, plants are nourished with fertilizer and sprayed with herbicide to combat weeds and insecticides to combat infects (as needed). The Baldwins, like us and other farmers, observe the regulations for application and the time restrictions before harvest. It costs money to apply these "extras" and to use quality seed. But it's part of our commitment to producing quality and safe products for human and livestock consumption.

 

We want it to be: For consumers like Hadley and Banks, our own families and the rest of the world. 

Disclaimer: My meal and a portion of my travel expenses were paid for by Monsanto.  I also received promotional items from Kansas Farm Bureau, Common Ground, Kansas Wheat and the Soybean Checkoff. And we are thoroughly enjoying our free sweet corn from Baldwin Farms. However, all opinions expressed are my own.