TOTAL FARM LOSS

this is the reason that I have traveled to Palestine Illinois Small Town I don't want to say Southern Illinois maybe it's East Central probably [Music] morning I'm on my way to Palestine Illinois I haven't gotten very far but I did make it all the way to the end of the driveway I'm headed down there for Farm rescues 1 000th Farm Rescue we're headed down there I'm gonna do some helping out tomorrow but being the time of year that it is I thought maybe as long as I got to make that 800 mile drive I'd give you guys a quick crop tour we're dry extremely dry when you dig down in the soil we have not had a whole lot of precipitation really over the last year we did get a lot of snow but as Frozen as the ground is when that's around there's only so much it can do luckily we got about six tenths of rain here over the last couple of days you can see it in the corn it's really opened up now it was starting to twist a little bit I can't believe that it looks as good as it does to be quite honest with you as I pull out of the driveway and look across the road here our soybeans are really starting to fill out there may be a little bit short compared to what some of you guys are used to but all in all they look pretty decent for this time of year in our area and they dang nearly look like they've about doubled in size since we got the rain all right fine well this corn crop is no good at all Minneapolis Minnesota not a lot of good looking corn Acres so I would pretty much say this area is a total loss I'm taking a little bit of a detour here I'm in Sam's garage we're gonna do an episode of uh table saw talk yes look at the garage cast actually the podcast is called Everything egg and this song Thank you guys Jake's with Sam and other Sam other Sam double Sam's well that was fun catching up with Sam check them out on the everything egg and then some podcasts that's the first time I've been able to do a podcast with them they just started a few months ago but now I am just outside of Waterloo Iowa kind of continuing my crop tour here you see these are the roads that farmers take when they have 800 mile drives ahead of them I don't want to get in trouble for walking in someone else's field here or anything but this is pretty common for what I saw through southern Southeastern Minnesota I didn't see big areas where it looked like the corn was struggling from drought but one thing I've noticed is that they're farther behind than where we are in West Central Minnesota like they they must have gotten in the field later I would say they look like they're five days maybe a week behind us in some spots but this corn this corn looks really good it's not twisting up it's not struggling for for moisture I've seen some areas that are I can't say that what I've seen so far looks like it's a lot worse than normal though there's always some areas that are going to struggle with too wet and too dry just across the road here we've got a soybean field I would say they're soybeans are pretty much on track with ours I think they grow a little quicker down here but there are narrower rows so they look bigger but I don't I don't believe they are this is a uh either a no-till or very minimum tail field here which most of them seem to be down this road that I'm on I'm starting to see just a few flowers in here so they are actually a little bit ahead of us I don't believe we've got anything flowering quite yet so they are maybe a little bit of ahead of us on soybeans oh there's your update from the northern Waterloo area I'll hop back in the truck and we'll see where we end up next who would have thought I'd run into one of these in Waterloo Iowa well I'm in Champaign Illinois now honestly I didn't see anything crazy that jumped out at me on the way here there was definitely some drier spots around Davenport Iowa to the west and to the east once I crossed into Illinois so there is some drier stuff out there uh the big thing I noticed was that a lot of the Corn seemed like it's behind ours in West Central Minnesota which is very odd I don't I'm not sure why that is if they're short on heat if the planting was late I'm not sure but we'll see a little bit more tomorrow see what we get into this is the reason that I have traveled to Palestine Illinois Small Town I don't want to say Southern Illinois maybe it's East Central probably I followed my GPS but I'm here now at the pifer farm with Farm rescues 1 000th Farm Rescue this Farm was completely destroyed by a tornado this spring if I remember right it was on March 31st everybody was okay the family was able to get down in a sheltered room and when they stepped out of that room instead of stepping into their dining room they were standing outside the storm destroyed all of their outbuildings here including their home and all their Machinery they needed help planting uh and we are here today actually to finish up harvesting some of their wheat crop as I said this is Farm rescue's 1000th Rescue I'm going to be helping out a little bit today but honestly I think my biggest value is to show you guys and use my platform here of you guys watching to show you what Farm Rescue really does and the difference that they have made in the industry throughout agriculture across the Midwest this is obviously not a standard Farm Rescue event there this is this is a big deal a thousand Farm families helped is a big deal to them so they brought a lot of people together here sponsors of the of the organization a lot of the volunteers from the organization themselves and the families from the area here I don't know what it looked like immediately after the storm maybe not that bad they've clearly been out here with some excavators doing some work but regardless that's not a house anymore so let's go get to work uh on what sounds like about the last 60 Acres of wheat that they've got on a side note it's definitely easier to see here in this area that the corn is dry they're a little bit drier than us for sure their corn is still green but you can see it's getting some of that gray color and it is starting to twist up a little bit and they've got a little irrigator there they could use some rain like most of us right now interestingly this is some wide row wheat I'm gonna guess that's 15 intros don't see much of that around us you don't see a lot of wheat around us in general but my understanding is they will double crop this they do a lot of double crop around here so they'll come in and plant soybeans in here now they may not want in the field when they come back in the next round it was awfully nice of them to plant this wide Row for me to walk in though hey check this out just like the real farmers in the old paintings well it's my turn now I'm gonna see if I know how to drive one of these things it'll be an experience actually the weeds will be new the only time I've ever harvested wheat was out at welkers that was in a different colored machine I'm going to be doing some sort of a professional interview in here apparently they think I'm some sort of a professional [Music] got enough AC down there is that are you good yeah it's cozy we're gonna put another sound guy in that but we had a fourth person in here they just don't build these cabs for the production teams very well today with everything going on back home at your farm why is it important for you to be at this event I think uh with the platform that I've been able to to build up on YouTube and and fortunately having that exposure I think it's important to me to be able to kind of showcase an organization like Farm Rescue and what they do you know this is the thousandth Farm Rescue that they've done so it's not just about this this one thousand Farm Rescue it's about the the 999 other ones along the way and the difference that Farm Rescue organization has really made being able to kind of you know use what what I have and and try to give back to an organization like this that gives back so much to the industry is important to me tell us a little bit about what it means to you to be a farmer and why do you create your content I started on YouTube creating the content that I do as a way of trying to connect with people and originally it all started with trying to connect to people outside of agriculture in the morning bring the farm to them to people that wouldn't normally be able to understand really what goes on in the Farms here in Rural America and that's why I started my content and that's the reason that I still do it today is just to try to reach anybody and everybody who's interested in seeing really what happens behind the scenes of it was me saying what 10 15 kids yeah standing by the trailer today yeah the amount of fans that you have it's cool that there's a lot of young kids that are looking up to you talk about that responsibility I mean those are their Future Farmers that were standing next it's terrifying isn't it yeah when I started you know I never knew where the millennial Farmers would go what would come of it I have way surpassed anything that I ever thought that it could be well I'm doing it I'm driving a real combine and I just had to act natural with the giant camera in my face nothing weird about that that's how I always drive combine yeah I would say that's full I'm probably not going to get too much more in there there's another truck full of wheat he's going to take off with that and bring it to I don't know wherever it's supposed to go we got Tim in there now Tim actually works in Moline at Harvester Works building combines with John Deere so look at him go he knows what's up he knows how to run this thing this is awesome your glasses on yeah I'm Gonna Keep mine on it okay great okay I finally got Bill gross I cornered him out here in the wheat field but Bill is it how would you say presidents and Founders yeah Farm Rescue yes that's correct what year did you start this organization it's 2005 2005 so we're not quite 20 years yet that's right has this become more than what you thought it could be or what was your vision for it when you started 18 years ago well it most certainly has you know on my original idea was just to be this random Good Samaritan helping Farm families that had a major injury illness or natural disaster and and to help farmers in my own home state of North Dakota but it went over so well the assistance we provide that we got requests from from neighboring states Minnesota South Dakota and and now we operate in eight states and this is our one thousandth case so you went from really trying to help the farmers around your area in North Dakota to now you got to fly all over the Midwest you've got a thousand Farm families that you've helped that's correct and there's been a lot of people involved in that you know well over a thousand volunteers have assisted in that endeavor and also a lot of good sponsors and social media like yourself the millennial farmer have been gracious to us both in supporting financially and with media exposure to help raise awareness so we can help more Farm families so on those lines for anybody that's watching that's interested in helping out whether it be through a donation or volunteer work what do you say to them well the best way to find out about Farm Rescue or see how you can help is to go to farmrescue.org there's farmer testimonials on there volunteers you know lots of good footage on there to see what the organization is all about you can donate on farmrescue.org also any anything else you want to add I just you know want to thank everyone who continues to support our mission at Farm Rescue what we're doing out here is not only helping the farm family that's had a tragedy happen but it's helping the rural communities and the livelihood of those people that work in those rural communities yeah and it really is so from me and the industry as a whole I want to say thank you for your work with the organization and to all the volunteers and everybody that stands behind this organization I mean a thousand different Farm rescues in the last 18 years you want to talk about actually making a difference there's there's no denying that you have so certainly for me and I would think from a lot of viewers and people within the industry thank you for for doing what you guys do well thank you Zach and thank you for volunteering for Farm Rescue also I think that's just down in the lug but I don't want to be the guy that pulls it out and causes a flat tire there's a there's a board with a nail in it I think it's just in the lug but I don't want to pull it out it's like it's going in sideways in the look I got a pliers [Music] I was pretty sure it was good but like I told Dan I didn't want to be the guy that thought yeah yeah crisis has been avoided all right my last victim here who I cornered in this hay field is Brad pifer that's how you say that right yes p-i-f-e-r we're out here on on Brad's farm this is his place uh I heard the story this morning when you were talking but for the viewers watching would you be willing to fill them in on on the tornado and what happened do a quick recap uh March 31st we had a tornado happened about 9 20 our time came through we basically took a direct hit at our farm my wife and I and two boys five and seven uh our house sits on the farm so our house was hit we were in the basement luckily my wife prepared enough to put things in the basement have a change of clothes put the boots down there because kids who had their pajamas on ready to go to bed but we kept them up just to see what happened with the storm and uh luckily she did that because it it did materialize and we went ahead and had our clothes goes on and basically sat there and waited to see if it happened and it clearly did we had the barometric pressure changed drastically and you could feel that yeah it's something I had no idea it was that I knew barometric pressure changed within a tornado but it was probably the most shocking thing to me um I was standing there we were standing we're in a basement in a small room that has a heavy wooden door and I said man the barometric pressure just changed and she's like yes my ears hurt and within a few seconds of that the tornado hit and you started hearing you know glass shattered you know the house was breaking apart stuff like that and we um here he comes with his fancy new shirt there's my son are you do you want to be on YouTube [Laughter] what'd you do with that you were showing me in the car when you were in the car earlier that you had it you didn't lose it already oh that's good anyway so the anyways everything just kind of broke loose and we slammed the door covered the kids waited it out didn't didn't last any time of course but uh after long enough time after it passed we decided to try to go get out of the basement which with a little bit of effort we were able to get out of the basement unfortunately when we come up from our basement we should be walking into our small dining room and instead when I broke the door free I stepped outside part of our house was ripped off and that's when kind of like wow this is really bad and we looked over in our garage is completely collapsed down and uh kind of went from there to call in my parents to say check on them they said they're fine they're just up the road had no real damage at their house and we said well we've got major damage at the farm and you know we need you to come try to get us and they the roads were blocked our grain bins were laying in the road trees power lines and uh there's a few houses in between us so they had to drive you know back behind all the houses and they were able to get us picked up and uh I don't even know what time that was it was about an hour later before they got that all lined out and they were able to get us picked up and got up early the next morning came up to the farm and really set in how bad everything was at every single shed we had was on the ground on top of all of our equipment and uh realized our roof had been ripped off most about a third of our house we believe that was left of the house was missing the roof and uh like I said every every shed was down all of our equipment was parked in it we were ready to go for planting and we had everything hooked up it was just waiting for the fields to dry out and we were going to the field and we went from that to having not us basically a single piece of equipment we could run for planting season how then what did you do to get everything planted I mean aside from everything else you had going on how did you get the crops planted so yeah Beyond everything we had cleanup we had house you know intern situations we had to find equipment very quickly and luckily our local John Deere dealer Alliance tractor in Newton Illinois uh they called and said you know get us a list of what you want what you need it's really more a need than one at that point because we were doing anything we could to be able to get a crop out in time and uh he they started working on it very quickly and luckily ultimately they came up with a couple planners and tractors we could rent for the fall or for the spring and we were able to uh buy a big tractor and a field cultivator and that was enough to get going and in the meantime my brother-in-law my wife's brother he had heard of Farm Rescue and he didn't know a whole lot about him he just said I've heard of these guys it sounds like where something that they could step in and help yeah and um we of course extremely busy took a couple days later we still hadn't ever really called or looked into it and a neighbor farmer a friend of ours he said hey I've heard about these guys Farm Rescue I think you guys need to check into it and he was telling my dad this and my dad's like yeah we'll we'll get to it and he said you know what I'll just call him I'll just find out because there's two other farms in our area right here really close to us that were heavily damaged as well and he was ended up being our first person to contact Farm Rescue and he said yep they are very interested here's a name and number call them they're expecting a call So eventually we called and that started the process and eventually they came and planted a little bit of our beans did more planting for the other two Farms but we were really concerned about our wheat crop because it we both of our combines were in the rubble and we did not believe there's any chance we could get those back in time so they set up their main help for us was come back in to harvest our winter wheat which we are wrapping up today oh that's good well I'm glad that you guys are all okay yes ultimately we are lucky I mean as much as we lost we are very lucky because it could have been a lot worse right we were all safe were you glad that everybody was safe yeah I'll bet now you got your can your can cooler huh it's uh 4 30 in the afternoon now and I've got just about a 12 hour drive home so I'm gonna take off here I'm not man enough to drive all the way home tonight but I'm gonna get as far as I dare but keep in mind that the the story you just heard is the one thousand one thousandth story there's 999 different variations of similar stories so keep in mind what this organization is doing for the industry for Farm families all across the Midwest and if you're interested again in helping out whether that be if iTunes through a donation or or through volunteering whatever it might be maybe it's just raising awareness and doing whatever however you think you can help all right that's it thank you guys for watching thank you for being a part of the millennial farmer as well hmm [Music]

Channel: Millennial Farmer

Views: 2,760,830

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Id: dSeA3DSnb-A

Length: 21min 0sec (1260 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 11 2023