Farmer Gets a Smartphone

There are things in all of our lives we picture never happening, like going to the moon or owning an airplane. More often than not we are surprised by what life hands us. For me this came in the form of a smartphone.

My parents when they came this fall to visit!

The surprises all started a few years ago when my dad mentioned he wanted to use the internet to find a new pitching machine to put in the shop for my brother. So being the good daughter I am, I taught him a few tricks on the computer, which was harder than I thought! From there it just escalated. A year or so later he learned to send a text message. Now fast forward a couple years to the present. This Christmas, my parents purchased an iPad. Yet again my dad got the hang of it quickly.

What happened next probably surprised me the most; my dad got a smartphone. Not just any smartphone, an all touch screen, 4G smartphone. With that he also set up an email account! My dad having an email? SAY WHAT?!

Thinking about it now, none of this should shock me. My dad, a farmer, is one of the smartest people I know. He has taught himself, along with the help of my uncles and grandpa, everything he knows. He uses tools every day that are way more sophisticated than a smartphone or iPad. In both his tractor and combine, there are touch screen computers that monitor and operate the machines. He also uses a GPS system that maps the fields out to assist in the planting and harvesting of crops. Along with those, he uses many more pieces of technology I could only dream of understanding.

Since getting his smartphone and email, my dad has been very crafty and put them to use in everyday life. Just the other day I caught him (see below) using it to find a diagram to assist him when wiring new lights in our shop!

His smartphone is action!

-Paige

Rain and Twilight

If you haven’t already noticed, I am a long ways away from home. To be exact from the front door of my dorm in Manhattan, KS to my driveway in Pullman, WA, it is 1528 miles.  With the distance comes a lot of questions, about where I grew up. The top being: “How do you like the rain?” “Have you been to Forks?” and “So, you aren't used to small towns and this much agriculture?” And to those questions I smile! I compare the common questions I am asked, to asking someone from Kansas how Dorothy and Toto are, or if they live in the middle of nowhere.

“How do you like the rain?”

I love the rain I am a farmer’s daughter! But, what people are often referring to is the Seattle area, where it rains on average 40-50” each year. I live on the east side of the state, literally four miles from the Idaho border, where we average 15-20” of rain each year. In Eastern Washington is gets into the 90’s in the summer and below zero some winters, we see a little bit of everything! Though, I do have to admit, the weather in Kansas is a bit more temperamental.

“Have you been to Forks?” (Like Twilights Forks)

No! Forks is an eight and half hour drive, including a ferry ride. But I know someone who grew up there and they also have an FFA chapter! 

“So, you aren’t used to small towns and this much agriculture?”

Wrong! I grew up in a small town, on a wheat farm (that often gets gasps). And wheat isn’t the only thing produced in Washington; it is the 2^nd most agriculturally diverse state, behind California. The state produces over 320 different agricultural products! Needless to say, if you take a drive across the state you can roll through the fields of wheat, pass by the pastures of cattle, see the famous grapes of the Columbia Valley, eat an apple fresh off a tree, pick some cherries for a pie, try some cheese, fresh from a dairy, eat fresh sea food on a harbor, pick up some logs to build a log home, and so much more! The diversity of Washington’s agriculture is amazing!

Coming to Kansas has taught me a lot about stereo types related to the places people are from. I challenge you that the next time you meet someone from a place you have never been, to take the time to understand what the place they are from is really like, before you assume it is like what you’ve seen the movies and on the news!

-Paige