Weekly Review January 31 - February 6

A little belated, but here's my Weekly Review for last week. It was a busy week, especially the weekend, but I still got in a lot of fitness, farming, and life!

Beautiful golden light on a recent pasture hike.

Fitness

The #RunLoveChallenge continues! Last week my long run was to be 5 miles and I had done this on Friday morning with Jeff on the trails. That was a really great run, but I wanted to do 5 again on the road and try to push it a bit to see how I'd fare and to check in on what my pace is right now. So, Sunday I did just that and went for a 5 mile straight-line run from our house to Goldstone Church, and then had Jeff pick me up. The last mile especially I really felt like I was pushing hard, but I also surprised myself with my speed and ability to maintain a higher speed than I thought I could sustain. I'm really encouraged by this run and will use it as a reminder of my abilities and confidence-builder as I continue to work toward my 2016 goal of breaking under 25 minutes in a 5K. (My current PR is 26:10.)

Speaking of 5Ks, I stumbled across this article on the internet about why 5Ks are awesome and I agree with SO MUCH of what it says. I am impressed by athletes who train and compete for longer-distance races, but my body is just definitely built for shorter, faster races, and it's just more what I love. It was great to see the 5K get some love! If you like to run, definitely check out this article: 

10 Reasons the 5K is Freaking Awesome. 

My long run for the week was planned to be 5.5 miles, and I knew I'd be busy over the weekend so I did it on Wednesday. It went pretty well. I took a slower pace and enjoyed the scenery on a new route. There was as big group of mule deer at my turnaround point which was really cool to see, too. It was a nice run.

Mule deer!

Otherwise, I got in a lot of yoga and stretching. Great week for yoga this past week.

Last week was also the start of Shape Up Montana, which I'm doing with my family again this year for the fourth year in a row. It lasts from February 1 - April 30. I'm also coordinating three teams at the school where I work. I'm not on any of their teams, but I'm helping their Captains out and helping with overall motivation and troubleshooting. They are off to a really great start and their enthusiasm is inspiring!

This is a sample workout we had as a Weekly Challenge for Shape Up Montana.
Not too shabby! Turns out I need to work on my ability to complete a pushup.

Here's the Week Stats-

Sunday- 5 Mile run to IronMan statue. Hard effort.

Monday- 15 minutes core exercises, 30 minutes yoga.

Tuesday- 30 minutes yoga.

Wednesday- 5.6 mile run.

Thursday- 3 mile pasture hike with Jeff.

Yes, this is a cow skull.  We found it on our hike.
I find old, weathered skulls and bones to be strangely fascinating.

Friday- 10 min core, 30 minutes (3 miles) interval run on treadmill.

Saturday- 30 minutes yoga.

Here's my week last week, and the start of this week!

...and YTD- 

2016 Year to Date, through 2/6/16
Running: 58.95
Walking: 11.3
Yoga: 255 min 
CC-Ski: 380 min / 10.8 miles (since I started tracking mileage on 1/17) **No skiing this week.
Alpine Ski: 2 days

Farm

Not a ton going on on our farm right now. We continue to feed cows daily and work on bookwork. The biggest farm-related event that occurred this week was my attendance at the Montana Farmers Union Women's Conference. This was the fourth time I have attended. The past few years, I've even participated on the MFU Women's Committee, which helps plan the annual conference, among other things. The Conference was a great way to connect with other women from around Montana, whether they farm or not, do some networking, learn some skills, and communicate about strengthening our voice and our communities. Lots to say about this. I'll save it for its own individual blog post, I think. Watch for that, soon. 

Hello!

Life

I've been reflecting a lot lately on leadership, aspirations, and sort of a vague idea of what my role and identity is in this life. I'm not sure I have any concrete answers or clear-cut plans, but I recognize that I have leadership capacity and I'd like to continue to embrace that. 

Someone I really admire and look up to, Kriss, emailed me this citation from a book she is reading (Canoeing the Mountains, Tod Bolsinger)--

The person who takes personal responsibility to live into the new future in a transformative way, in relationship to the others in the system, is the leader. If someone is not functioning as a leader, the system will always default to the status quo.

We need leaders to step up and make change happen. I can be that. I'm figuring out in what ways I can actualize this.

I also saw this on one of my social media outlets this week:

Image source: www.inspirably.com

Have a great week, everyone! Be LEADERS!

Four States, Seven Days!

Jeff and I recently returned from a week-long road trip to and from an FUE gathering in Bayfield, WI. This post is mostly going to be photos from that trip, with some commentary by yours truly interspersed. If you can't remember what I'm talking about when I say FUE, refer to this post: http://prairieponderingsmt.blogspot.com/2013/06/welcome-to-fue.html, which I wrote just over a year ago after our first FUE engagement. 

It's just over 1000 miles from our farm to Bayfield, WI, which is on the south shore of Lake Superior, east of Duluth, MN. We decided to road trip it this time, rather than fly, which afforded us much quality time together in the car driving through scenic northern Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. We have solved all of the world's problems, or have at least come close to doing so, during this extensive time together. 

One of the real reasons we decided to drive rather than fly to Wisconsin was the opportunities we had to visit the farms of a few of the other couples in our FUE group. A person can learn so much by seeing another person's home, farm, and way of doing things. Most of all, we enjoyed spending quality time with families we have come to know quite well throughout this FUE experience. 

The first farm we stopped at was that of our friends in North Dakota, just south of Rolla, ND. They raise spring wheat, canola, and soybeans. Below is our friend Mark showing Jeff his tremendous spring wheat crop. I couldn't get over how green the landscape was in North Dakota and how tall the crops were compared to what we grow here. I suppose it largely has to do with the fact they receive much more moisture than we do, but they also grow different varieties of wheat and other crops that are well-suited to their environment and local climate. 

Mark is out standing in his field, and Jeff is standing next to him. Har har har... 

What's the old saying? Belly-button high by the 22nd of July? Because that's how high this wheat was on the day we were at their farm! Jeff and I joked that we'll use this photo on our Christmas Card and try to pass it off as our own wheat crop (wheat just does not grow that high here, at least not what I've seen so far) but truly, it is a tremendous wheat crop and our friends are great famers!

 Mark and Mindy and their family were outstanding hosts and we enjoyed our time with them! Below is a photo of a road bordering some of their farmland. Spring wheat on one side, canola on the other. Beautiful, big sky near sunset time. Just lovely.

The next day we continued our drive on to Wisconsin to stay at our friends' place which was actually near Bayfield, close to Maple, WI.  The drive went well and again the hospitality and generosity of our hosts was phenomenal. They took us out to dinner at a great little place right on a lake called the Deep Lake Lodge. Food was fantastic and service was outstanding.

 Bad photo... terrible glare off that car, but at least you can get an idea for the setting. It was peaceful and wonderful, with great food and even better company!

 The next day, Jim and Lisa and their kids took us on a tour of their farm by four-wheeler. I had thought that North Dakota was impossibly green and lush... until I saw their farm! I couldn't believe how many plants and grasses and trees were growing here. It felt like being in a jungle compared to dry north-central Montana!

This is what their pasture looks like. They move their cattle from one field to the next every three or four days! Ours stay in the same pasture for months before they use it up. LOOK AT ALL THAT GRASS!

Corn being raised for silage. 

They have forest bordering and within their pastures.  I have to say that I do not envy them for rounding up their cattle among the thickly wooded sections! 

After visiting the peaceful, beautiful farms of our friends along the way to Bayfield, it was time to get to Bayfield itself. Bayfield, WI is home of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, which is actually part of the U.S. National Park Service.  It was a gorgeous setting for the next two days of FUE meetings. 

This was the view from our meeting space in Bayfield. Pretty rough, right?
Seriously. FUE takes us to some pretty amazing places!

The theme for our meetings this time was on maintaining a balanced life through the sometimes-chaos of farming and all of our many hectic responsibilities. The speaker was great, as always, and gave me a lot to think about. He emphasized writing out your goals as individuals, as a couple, and as a business, which is essentially what farming is. We are in the business of growing food. Jeff and I have talked about it some since returning but I think we'll have to revisit the subject as time goes on. Right now, we're focused on the pre-harvest hubbub. 

As always, it was so, so good to get together with the other couples in our FUE group. We have some pretty outstanding people in our group and have formed some amazing connections that I feel will be lifelong. This time, the couples who will make up the next group of FUE joined us. It was their first conference together, and for us it was the next-to-last meeting. Our last one will be when we fly in to Washington D.C. in September. The couples in the new group each bring a unique perspective and will offer some interesting viewpoints, I'm sure. 

The new couple from Montana is a couple we had met several years ago at the Montana Department of Ag Young Couples Conference in Helena. We hadn't seen them since then, but remembered the connection we had with them that weekend and thought we'd invite them to do this FUE program. It was really great to reconnect with them and rekindle a friendship. They are not too far away from us in Montana, so we're going to try to do better about NOT waiting 3 years between times we see each other! 

We also reconnected, oddly enough, with the new couple from North Dakota. They are lifelong friends with the couple from Minnesota who is in our group, and got into FUE sort of through them. We had actually met them last fall when we were in Minot for our fall FUE get together. Another pretty awesome couple that Jeff and I seemed to hit it off with right away, and with whom I hope we can keep in touch. 

One evening of our trip to Bayfield, we had an organized cruise of the Apostle Islands. I did manage to take a few photos of the scenery while on the boat. Now, I'm kicking myself for not getting a good photo of me and Jeff while we were out there, or of us with our friends. Next time. 

A little blurry... but still beautiful.

Lighthouse under construction. 

Another lighthouse. Wish I remembered the names of the islands... 

At this point, we are looking forward to our DC fly-in in September. It's actually only about 6 weeks away. In this sense, FUE will book-end harvest for us. I have somewhat mixed emotions about what will be our final experience as an FUE couple. I am looking forward to it as the culmination of our training and gatherings from the past year, and as another chance to spend quality time with people who have become close friends, but I am also sad to see this all come to an end. 

Inspired in Fairmont

Yeah... So it's Wednesday and I'm just getting around to writing about how awesome my weekend was!  I could have just let it go, but it truly was an awesome weekend and I have lots I want to share about it.

Some of you may know that I'm becoming increasingly involved in Montana Farmers Union, thanks in large part to the Women's Conference they held last year, which I attended (Read about it by clicking HERE). That's what jump-started it all. The key to getting me interested in something is appealing to my passion for women's leadership, so that's how it all began with me and MFU. This lead to a two-year membership, which lead to me and Jeff participating in the FUE Leadership Couples experience this year (and here's where you can read about FUE, and on and on. Where will MFU take me next?

Last weekend, MFU took me to Fairmont, MT for this years Women's/Young Producers conference, which were held concurrently at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort. Jeff couldn't attend, so I brought along one of my best gal pals, Adria, instead. Don't they always say "Friends are the family you choose yourself?" So true. We had a great time meeting other women and young producers in agriculture, learning about leadership and communications, splashing in the hot springs, listening to REALLY GREAT MUSIC PERFORMANCES, planning an upcoming Women in Ag themed calendar (Soon you'll all be able to sing "My Angel is the Centerfold" and it'll be about ME! ha!), and I also learned a lot about how to be a better blogger. Lord knows I could use a lot of help in that department. (Step 1: Write more. Duh.)

My MFU community never fails to disappoint. I left the conference feeling refreshed and inspired, with my duel passions for women's leadership and Ag education re-ignited. I made a lot of great networking connects and made some new friends, too.

In an attempt to hopefully inspire all of you as well, here's just a few of the ideas and quotes I wrote in my notes from the weekend. What are your passions? What or who inspires you?

"We are a diminishing voice in a country that needs us more and more each day." - Zach Overstreet, referring to farmers and ranchers.

"I call it learnership, not leadership." Joe Boyle.

"The world we create is the world we want to live in, not just the world that makes us the most money." -Judd Jensen.

"In an ant colony, females do all the work. Males breed and die." - Sarah Calhoun

"I am not strong for a woman, I am strong and a woman." -Kate in Maine, via letter read by Sarah Calhoun

"You are responsible for your own happiness." -Joe Boyle

I can "invite people to my place" through my blog. (from my notes)

We are how we think. (from my notes)

"When tillage begins other arts follow." - Grant Wood, on a large mural in Parks Library at Iowa State University. This is where I went to school and grew up, in Ames, IA. I walked by that mural every time I went to the library in college, which was at least three times a week.  I saw this quote again somewhere in a presentation last weekend.

Do any of YOU have any phrases or quotes or inspirations to offer?

A snowy evening in Almost-Canada, Montana, where I live. 

Welcome to FUE!

Add Farmers Union Enterprises to the list of time commitments and interests Jeff and I now embrace.  Have you heard of Farmers Union Enterprises before? What about Farmers Union Industries? I myself had heard of Montana Farmers Union and National Farmers Union, but not of Farmers Union Enterprises or Industries.  MFU, NFU, and FUE… Lots of acronyms here, folks.

 

FUE grew out of collaboration between five states: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Originally, each of these five states’ Farmers Unions had put up some money to start a business that would benefit Farmers Union members in their states.  The original business was a rendering facility.  Now, there are several more businesses in industry and manufacturing that FUE is ultimately behind. Each involves agriculture.  Here is the website for Farmers Union Industries- http://fuillc.com/ Check out some of the businesses they have! Besides the rendering facility, there is also a metal works company and a great cat litter called Swheat Scoop (made from wheat by-products). 

Image source: www.walmartimages.com

 

FUE was also the brains and original funding behind two farm-to-table restaurants in the Washington D.C. area, Founding Farmers and Farmers and Fishers. 

Founding Farmers Restaurant

Farmers Fishers Bakers

Definitely going to have to try to get into one or both of those restaurants next time I am in DC!

 

Jeff and I are members of MFU as of December, so less than a year. I signed up at the Women’s Conference I attended last fall, although I think we were likely to join anyway, as we believe in the ideals Farmers Union embraces. Somehow we made an impression on the leaders of MFU, as we were asked to represent Montana in the Farmers Union Enterprises Leadership Program.

 

Farmers Union Enterprises at some point decided to begin a leadership training program dedicated to young couples and families.  Each year, there is one couple or family from each state selected to participate in the leadership program.  We are the new couple from Montana. It seems as though the commonalities among all the couples are a commitment to Farmers Union in their state, and some sort of demonstrated leadership potential.  The hope is that couples who complete the year-and-a-half of training will take on a leadership role of some sort in Farmers Union and/or in their local communities.  I think Farmers Union, in general, is seeing an aging population among its long-time leadership, so I think another purpose of the program we are in is to encourage younger membership and younger leaders to step up.

 

We will meet with the other four couples in the leadership program approximately once per quarter, usually corresponding with another Farmers Union meeting or convention in one of the five states.  We attend that function as part of the larger group of attendees, and then spend one or two days in intensive leadership training courses with our small group and our coordinator.  This time, we attended the MFU mid-year meeting in Bozeman, and then spent time training on time management, conflict resolution, and just getting to know each other.

 

There was also a great session in which the Farmers Union Presidents from each of our five states were present for a question and answer session.  We got to ask them about anything we wanted. Jeff got in a question about the prospect of the Farm Bill, and I got in a question on the outlook of women in leadership of Farmers Union. One thing is certain, the Farmers Union Presidents of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin each have a lot of personality! They were entertaining as well as very encouraging and interesting. It was clear that they are thrilled with the FUE leadership program we are in, which was a great affirmation.

 

Jeff and I are very excited to participate in FUE and feel honored to represent Montana for the next eighteen months or so.  The other couples and families we met all seemed like fantastic people with whom we had much in common.  We are really looking forward to getting to know each of them as time goes on, and hopefully establish some life-long connections throughout the Upper Midwest. I am also excited about learning more about Farmers Union—I did not grow up within the organization as Jeff did.  My early impressions are great- this is definitely an organization Jeff and I feel like we can support and be part of.  It’s very clear that their primary concern is family farm operations. 

 

I am planning to do a series of posts relating to Farmers Union, so stay tuned for more.  There will be at least one more post in which I’ll write more specifically about the conference we just attended in Bozeman, entitled, “From Seed to Table.”