The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
The Farmer's Greatest Asset podcast is dedicated to supporting and empowering farmers by recognizing that their greatest assets are the knowledge, experience, mind and health. Hosted by husband-and-wife duo Jesse and Dr. Leah, this podcast combines their unique backgrounds to provide valuable insights. Together, they explore topics that help farmers thrive both personally and professionally. Tune in for a blend of practical advice, real conversations, while having a little fun along the way as they talk about all thing's agriculture and family.
The Farmer's Greatest Asset Podcast
Summer's Flying By: Why Family Matters Now More Than Ever
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Family connections remain vital despite our busy lives, especially as older generations age and health challenges arise for loved ones.
• Summer is flying by, with county fairs marking the end of the season and family reunions filling our calendars
• Both hosts come from large farming families – with 15-16 siblings in their parents' generations
• Only a small fraction of family members still farm compared to previous generations
• Agriculture in the US is economically larger than the S&P 500 despite farmers being a small minority
• Family support becomes most apparent during hardships like injuries or illness
• Pride and ego often prevent reconnecting with family members after disagreements
• Expressing love through hugs or words can feel uncomfortable but is always worthwhile
• Time moves quickly, making it important to prioritize family connections while you can
Find us on social media at Farmers Greatest Asset and email suggestions to FarmersGreatestAsset@gmail.com
the farmer's greatest asset podcast. We believe the farm's greatest asset is the farmer, their knowledge, knowledge, experience, mind and health. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Jesse.
Speaker 2And I'm Dr Leah.
Speaker 1It is.
Speaker 2August Holy cow.
Speaker 1How did we get here?
Speaker 2I don't like the summer just flies by.
Speaker 1It's crazy, it goes too fast.
Speaker 2Way too fast, way, way, way too fast. You know, every year like you hit county fair and it's like summer's over. We have state fair to go, yet we've got a very busy couple of weeks coming up, very, very busy it is a little crazy how fast we get to august anyway.
Speaker 1So we do have a couple busy weeks, um, and this last weekend kind of started it all really, with the first of one of our family reunions.
Speaker 2It was fun. It was fun to see people and that you hadn't seen for a while.
Speaker 1Yeah, so we had a family reunion of my dad's side and it is a large family, so not everybody was there, but a good, a good amount you know, there were like I don't know 50, 60 people and it just seemed like there was no one there's nobody here. Where is everybody?
Speaker 2it's. It is kind of crazy our perception of not very many people here, like there were actually very few of the first cousins, it felt like, because there are there's 50, 51 or 52 of us first cousins.
Speaker 1So it's a large family, so my dad was one of 16, and then you just imagine all of those kids and then spouses.
Speaker 2And you are yet one of the youngest towards the end. So there are, you know, great grandkids and now great-great-grandkids, so it was fun to see, but I don't even think there were 25 of the first cousins there.
Speaker 1Yeah, not very many.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1It was still good to see the ones that were there and the aunts and uncles. It's hard to get everybody together just because everybody's got their own families and they're spread all over the united states literally across the country. So I have one cousin that lives in scotland.
Speaker 2So it's just, it is what it is but it was wonderful to see the people that were there right.
Speaker 1So then we have family pictures coming up for my mom and dad's side, and then family pictures for your mom and dad's side, and another family reunion on Saturday For your mom's side Um her siblings she and her siblings, and then their kids and their kids, kids.
Speaker 2Um, that she is one of 15. There are 13 of them still with us. It is a large family as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, so you said our perception is skewed because we have friends or acquaintances that talk about cousins, but they might be referring to second, third, whatever cousins.
Speaker 2We don't usually count anyone if they're not first cousins.
Speaker 1Because we have so many. It's crazy.
Speaker 2It's actually quite amazing. It really is.
Speaker 1So your dad is one of 10. My mom is one of eight, so we have it all around. Large families, very large german catholics, had to raise those kids to get some work they had some good workers, that's for sure, right so your mom grew up on a farm, your dad grew up on a farm, my dad grew up on a farm and my mom grew up in an implement dealership.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Farming background all around.
Farming Families Across Generations
Speaker 2And you know we've had this conversation on both sides of the family and I. We may have talked about this in a podcast, I don't know, but on your side of the family there are with your dad's family. There were 16 kids and of those boys, how many of them farmed?
Speaker 1Well, my dad and two of his brothers farmed together up through or to the 80s, and then there was another one who farmed but was a banker, so technically four.
Speaker 2And then your dad's sister. Her husband farmed. So, of all of the cousins. There are now three of you that farm. Yeah, you mark and dean oh, right, yeah, there's wow only three right of all of them and then on my side of the family, from two farming, large farming families.
Speaker 1It is my brother and I, and that is it kind of demonstrates the hiatus from farming, um, and how farming supported four very large families and uh kind of dwindled down to few and far between yeah, and those farming.
Speaker 2I mean, I just think about our grandmothers and the maybe not your grandma Cruzy, who lived in town, but the other grandmas and and the size of their gardens, like I remember. I remember, I think, my grandma, my grandma, she had like a quarter of an acre that she grew vegetables and fruit on. They grew all their own food.
Speaker 1Because they grew up through the Great Depression and then had large families, so they had to raise their own.
Speaker 2You would never be able to afford to feed all of them.
Speaker 1Right, they probably had. I know they would talk about a milk cow, one or two milk cows my dad's family both of my mom and dad's families. They all had dairy cattle they milked every day right on, not a large scale, but you know, right for the time.
Speaker 2And chickens, lots of eggs. They sold eggs.
Speaker 1Right, and my dad's family raised turkeys and they had sheep at one point too. Yeah.
Speaker 2Your dad has talked about it.
Speaker 1Grandpa was big into his horses. He was very proud of his draft horses he's very proud of his draft horses.
Speaker 2Well, that being said, that just kind of proves the point how you have. Most families back in the early 1900s to mid-1900s were involved in agriculture.
Speaker 1And how much that has decreased over the last 100 years. A good majority have ties somehow some way back to agriculture and farming but are very disconnected. Farming, I say it's basically the what, the country, it's the backbone. It still is. We are a small minority.
Speaker 2I think the big business of agriculture is quite large.
Agriculture's Impact Despite Fewer Farmers
Speaker 1Absolutely. But the number of farmers is dwindling. To put it in perspective, for some people I tell them and it blows their mind. For some people, I tell them and it blows their mind that agriculture as a whole and we're not talking just pork, cattle, corn, soybeans, agriculture includes potatoes, vegetables, all that tomatoes, but agriculture in the United States as a whole is larger than S&P 500.
Speaker 1The largest 500 companies in the country, agriculture is bigger. That just kind of blows my mind. Sometimes People don't realize it because we are such a minority, so few of us. The whole point we wanted to talk about is just the importance of family, because we are in the midst of some family pictures and family reunions and yeah, and we haven't done family pictures with I know my family for a long time your youngest niece isn't like, I think, brady, who is now going to be 10, and Claire will be 8.
Speaker 2Claire is not in any pictures and Brady was, I think, a year old-ish, almost a year.
Speaker 1Again, it's just hard to get everybody together and get the timing down.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it'll be good.
Speaker 1It'll be good for us to get together and get that done but we wanted to just highlight the importance of family and how important it is. You can't choose your family, but they're the ones that love you the most and through thick and thin I know we would be there for all of our family.
Speaker 2So absolutely and it's just well and and we've had family members and close friends that are struggling through some illness so yeah, let's put it out there a little bit, let's ask for a few prayers, just for healing and just support and for all of those people out there and they don't necessarily have to be your family members, but just send out positive prayers and ask God to help those who may be struggling with health issues or any issues at that, you know just to reach out and send out love and support to anybody who needs that, because we definitely have some good friends and some family members that could really use that right now.
Importance of Family Connections
Speaker 1So your aunt actually just the other day said it's so important we need to get together. And you're like oh, we're so busy. We're so busy? Yes, we are, no doubt, but family is too important to keep putting it off.
Speaker 2Well, and they're getting older.
Speaker 1All of our parents are of the baby boomer age and it's just they're getting to that age, but even your siblings and my brother's coming home. He hasn't been home for a year. He lives in Seattle, so it would be good to get him and his wife and the kids home and see them on the farm again. I guess the point is is just embrace it, enjoy it.
Speaker 2You never know slow down, take time for it, right? You know, with all the other things going on um, it is very important to be with family.
Speaker 1And this is as much me telling everybody. It's important, I'm telling myself it's the pointing a finger thing. Point a finger at them. You got three pointing back. We literally had the discussion this morning about how much we got going on and what's going to happen because we leave for the state fair on Sunday, how much we got to get done and what do we got to do this week. So it's, it is me telling myself. It is important. Slow down and enjoy it.
Speaker 2That being said, you know we we haven't even like gotten in the pool. This year it's August. Like it is crazy how fast it all goes In the summer.
Speaker 1This one seems like it has gone by faster than I can ever remember, but everybody always says it gets faster every day and it, holy cow, does it ever.
Speaker 2Well, and we changed our fertilizer program, so the full year really takes up a lot of time in the summer.
Speaker 1We are getting busier with that kind of stuff and making more hay.
Speaker 2That does make it go faster, for sure and you know the countdown of henry being a senior this year and lucy being a junior and like you have all of that like lasts with them that you want to just hold on to it more, I think as well. That will be an interesting process for us to be going through this year and next year, and so I guess in in hindsight, in retrospect, I get like the whole importance of family loving you, supporting you, although it doesn't always feel like it all of the time.
Speaker 1It's okay to have differences.
Speaker 2Sure.
Speaker 1Because we are all different people and individuals. You still need to embrace them and love them, and tell them you love them.
Speaker 2Well, and it's really unfortunate that most of the time, the closeness gets revealed and the support gets revealed during times of hardship, when the importance of family really rang true, when we lost my niece, when you got injured. It's just nice to know that there are people out there thinking of you, praying for you, loving you from a distance, even though they aren't with you. I have a cousin who just had a bone marrow transplant last week and things are really improving for him. I have not seen him for years but definitely sending him love and prayers and support.
Speaker 1And I could tell you that those prayers, those prayers mean something. I know for myself, when I was laid up here in the house, staring at the ceiling, for how long you can feel those prayers and it's uh, it's a good feeling for sure.
Speaker 2Well, if we are all energy and we send it out into the universe, someone needs, someone will receive it.
Speaker 1So sending all of that out, put it out there, put the love out there.
Speaker 2If your family's close love them. If they aren't and you haven't spoken to them for a while, reach out to them and just share a few fun stories, a few laughs, even just a hello. And if you have had differences and there is some disgruntlement there, Disgruntlement. Yeah, that was kind of fun. I would definitely recommend reaching out, putting your pride aside and just letting them know that there's love there.
Speaker 1Pride and ego get in the way they do Almost all of the time.
Speaker 2Yes, In the end it's not worth it almost all of the time yes, in the end it's not worth it. Well, and in the end it's usually not necessarily about them, it's really about you and how it makes you feel thing.
Speaker 1Yeah, three fingers pointing back what does it really mean?
Speaker 2what does the underlying issue really mean to you? So reach out. Reach out to family. Love and support and and cheer are never going to be the wrong thing, right?
Reach Out With Love
Speaker 1and it's hard even for me, and I sit here and say, you know, hug him and tell him you love him, and I'll probably struggle with that a little bit, but it's because it's hard to say for whatever reason as a guy, but I need to do it yeah, and my family is just not done like it's so uncomfortable they all squirm when you hug them.
Speaker 2Like I'm such a hugger and they're all like ugh.
Speaker 1It's like the crazy aunt's coming. Oh, she's going to hug us. Here comes Leah, oh gosh.
Speaker 2So I tell myself deep down inside, they really love it.
Speaker 1But no.
Speaker 2I know I have a couple of nieces that it's just so cringy to them. Even my sister, she hates being hugged.
Speaker 1I think there's still a good feeling deep down though. Honestly it's okay, love your family, give them a call, give them a hug, because you never know.
Speaker 2You never know when it's going. It might be the last time, right, and you don't want to ever have any regret on I wish I would have, I should have. Don't should all over yourself. Take the step, give the love.
Speaker 1It's never wrong. Yeah, slow down a little bit and give him a hug, it's okay.
Speaker 2Plan the family reunions right.
Episode Closing and Contact Information
Speaker 1We were headed to my dad's family reunion the other day and saying that because they're getting of that age and they canceled it last year and a couple years prior to that and because of some deaths in the family, and I literally said just plan it and just do it because we're all getting older. So anyway, that being said, thanks for listening. As always, go out and find us on all the socials at Farmers Greatest Asset.
Speaker 2Like us and share with friends who may need to hear this, and if you have any comments or something that you'd like to hear about, please email us at FarmersGreatestAsset at gmailcom, and we'd love to hear from you, and we love all of the suggestions we've had this far.
Speaker 1It's a good day.
Speaker 2Have a great day.
Speaker 1Have a great day Bye.
