Fall Harvest and Family: Meet the Mahans

By Sarah Mahan of This Farm Family's Life and Real Farmwives of America and Friends

Harvest is in full swing in southeastern Indiana.  The wet weather we experienced this spring resulted in a late planting season.   Harvest is a little behind schedule compared to the last three years in which we have managed to finish by Halloween.  However, I vividly remember several years when it was Thanksgiving or after before we finished.  We can’t control Mother Nature!

We farm roughly 900 acres of beans and 1000 acres of corn.  We are finished with bean harvest and are about halfway finished with corn.  My husband is the fifth generation to live and work on our family farm.  The family farm makes up about 350 of the 1900 acres. The corn is fairly wet this year so we have to dry it before we can take it to the grain elevator.

 Farmers put in long days around harvest season. My husband works about 16 hour days which means we don’t see him very much.  Sometimes that is hard when the kids are little, but we make it work.  I deliver lunch to the field every day.  Our youngest is always up for a little field work.

She likes to help Daddy as much as she can…

Our oldest daughter is now in school.  When she gets home sometimes we head out to the field once again and visit everyone.

She even gets to sneak in a combine ride with Grandma…

while her sister gets to ride in the tractor with Papaw…

and I get to go home and fold laundry in peace!!!

I hope you all are having a great harvest season!

A Family Tradition: Meet the McFarlands

Growing up Barbara McFarland spent many of her autumn evenings carrying a sack of sandwiches and cookies(and maybe an apple or two) to her dad and uncle while they were in the field harvesting corn and soybeans. After moving back to the family farm nine months ago, she is seeing history repeat itself as she prepares sandwiches to take her husband as he hauls corn from the field to the grain bin.

Barbara – with her husband Kevin and daughter Jocelyn - recently moved to her family farm in Shelby County where Kevin is starting to farm in partnership with her dad and uncle. The family raises corn and soybeans on the farm that has been in Barbara’s family for more than 100 years.

Fall is a busy time on the farm as the combine usually starts rolling in the late morning after the dew is off the field. Often it’s late at night before Kevin finishes up in the field. Add to that Barbara’s full-time job off the farm and an active 1-year-old and you get a typical busy household.

What sets the McFarland household apart from other young families is that they are fortunate to live on the farm where Kevin works. They also live within a couple miles of a handful of family which means there is usually an extra car in the driveway and an extra niece or nephew playing in the yard.

So even if Kevin has to work late, Barbara and Jocelyn can walk out of the farmhouse, where Barbara’s dad grew up and her grandparents spent all of their 65 years together, and spendsome quality time with him in the tool shed or on the tractor before Jocelyn’s bath and bedtime.

As the combines continue to roll across Indiana corn and soybean fields harvesting crops that will go to feeding their families and their neighbors, Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council would like to honor all of the farm families –like the McFarlands – by giving away a $100 grocery gift card.

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