Now and then, when I get garbanzos for my salad or happen to eat something else featuring the bean, I send a #thankafarmer tweet to Gayle. Its something so uncommon to think of — who grew the chickpeas we’re eating — but now I have a name and a face to go with my meals. That helps me remember to be thankful for the hands that were involved before the food got to me.

I’ve read some of her blog posts and watched some of the videos she’s posted. To see how her family grows the food that ultimately reach me through a supermarket to come to my house is pretty cool!

Right now, her family is in the prep stages for the 2012 crop. But you can see what planting looks like in the post from last year…. love how she does sort of a Garbanzo Seeding Season 101 showing how seed is delivered, put into the planter and planted by the cute farmer. She also got back in the field to get photos and videos showing garbanzos being harvested…. Her family’s crop had been ready for harvest earlier than a neighbor so with their crop in the bin and rain on the way, Joe & the team helped their neighbors get the crop in!

She’s been sharing their family farm story through blogging and Twitter for a few years. I think this video of her and her husband Joe talking about a “Dinner on the Farm” event they host each year to provide people a chance to see the way they do things up close is a great summary.

Garbanzos Straight From Gayle

Over time, as we visited, I was able to get some garbanzos straight from Gayle’s farm! She sent me a big ol baggie filled straight from one of their on-farm bins! So I’ve got a chance to see how the garbanzo beans she sent, match up to my old standby — the cans of Sultan Chickpeas I’ve bought for a while.

Before I could make any recipes though, I needed to clean the chickpeas up a bit. See, Gayle’s family plants the beans in the spring and harvests them in the fall but the steps after that were left up to me.  So, I’ve sifted through the baggie she sent me much the way the food companies clean up beans in bulk. A lot of shaking and gravity! I also pulled out a few pieces that seemed to be off color or shape.

ziploc full of garbanzo beans

closeup of garbanzos in a ziploc pre-cleaning

sifting the chickpeas to clean them up

a lot of stuff got cleared out

parts of pods, leaves, immature garbanzos & other plant parts I cleared out

dry garbanzo beans

Now I’m going to get to soaking & boiling some of these so I can make myself some yummy hummus! I’ll post on that soon (if you guys are interested). I also hope to meet Gayle in person this week so maybe I will have a blog post come out of that!

So how did Twitter gain additional sounds? Easy. I read a tweet that made no sense to me just based on what I thought was commonsense. But since it was about cattle, and I really knew nothing about cattle, I really had no idea whether commonsense was the right thing to fall back on. That tweet, which I later found common sense and critical thinking proved accurate in determining I was reading some real BS.

I got that confirmed by going back and forth by direct message with one of the farmers I had been trading tweets now and then. But since our experience levels (& the accompanying vocabulary) were so dramatically different, we finally decided a quick phone call would probably put my questions to rest faster than the never ending direct messages. That farmer, who’s avatar was a cow for the first year he was on Twitter, was Mike Haley or as I knew him at the time @FarmerHaley.

Over the next several months, I learned a decent amount about livestock. That was the summer that Food Inc. came out, and since I knew some of the things said about agriculture didn’t resemble my experience with crop farmers so I had a lot of questions about livestock and meat…. Mike helped me understand his farm & volunteered info about a lot of other farms in his area. I even spent the better part of a day mooing in honor of his birthday as he helped draw attention to the problems dairy farmers were having! And it wasn’t long til I was booking vacation plans to see what this farmer was up to at a big cattle show — once I actually got to NAILE, I really learned a lot!!!

So Mike Haley is one of my social media heroes in large part because as we were getting to know Twitter, we were also extending it into the world of phones, email and visits in real life. He also helped me go well beyond the basics as we tend to have creativity sessions where we start wondering “what if….” and the wildest things happen on social media. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Mike’s a good enough friend he knows exactly what buttons to push…. and, like a brother, only pushes them when I can take it.

Twitter efforts to raise the awareness in farm-related topics, Facebook pages and groups to reach people, and major outreach projects like creating the AgChat Foundation and the FarmerBloggers site all have been among his accomplishments. And although you never know exactly what sort of project is to come next, you can rest assured Mike’s got another great social media idea just waiting to amaze the rest of us.

If you aren’t amazed easily, you may doubt me. But for most of my family and friends, the fact that Mike & his wife Pam actually sell semen and embryos online. I guess I should specify that they are from the family’s cow-calf operation where they have been improving the genetics of the livestock in their herd.But I kind of love throwing that out without the cattle qualifier first.

You can find Mike & Pam Haley (@SimmyFarmGirl), and their incredible cattle, on several places online starting with:

• Haley Farms Facebook Page
• Haley Farms Website
• Haley Farms blog

Who helped break that weird social media sphere into conversations that were longer for you? Have you met social media friends in real life? If so, did they live up to your expectations or even exceed them like the Haleys did for me?

Related articles

I’ve already done a couple of other “social media hero” blog posts…. if you haven’t already seen them, check out what I have to say

• Social Media Hero, Farmer & Blogging Coach Judi Graff aka @farmnwife (jplovescotton.com)
• Who Are My Social Media Heroes? Hero #1 is @ArveyColumbus (jplovescotton.com)
• Who Convinced Me To Sign Up For Twitter? @Kath_Manning That’s Who (jplovescotton.com)

Our host Frank was nice enough to get out and catch the new calf and although the momma cow stayed close, she was okay with Jake petting the new calf for a minute. But I am thinking we may need to visit a dairy or hog farm to get him a little balance and a little different view of the world!

farmer catching a newborn calf so Jake can see it up close

He's loving it!

the size of cows up close was surprising to Jake

I spent this weekend at the American Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers & Ranchers Leadership Conference. The event was theme “Your Voice, Our Story” and was helping people see that there is a big picture, shared story of agriculture that we need more farmers and ranchers telling in their voice. It wasn’t the sort of event where anyone was giving someone talking points, but it the kind of thing where farmers were hearing from various perspectives, learning how people are telling their own story and taking bits and pieces from places to make a customized approach that works well for the various people there.

Dana & Wilson Judice @DanaJudice @HeyHungryPeople

I had a chance to do a little work and a little fun. Some of the fun was catching up with the young farmers I already know through social media. And its become a bit of a tradition for me to take photos & post them…. have to admit, I didn’t do as well this time….. I missed photos of a lot of the folks I saw.

The photos in the slide show get you a bit of a feel for it though maybe…. but I didn’t get to catch most of the Michigan crowd with the camera during the meetings. Guess I was just having too much time goofin off — really the weekend was awesome!

I have to say, spending the weekend with a bunch of folks who have decided farming is the life for them and who have the vast majority of their careers to come was a way to get a real charge! The energy was contagious whether we were listening to a speaker or a country band. The future for agriculture will indeed be bright for U.S. agriculture…. these people are dedicated to making that happen on their family farms and more broadly!

If you want to experience some of the awesomeness these folks bring, you can find quite a few of them online. Here’s some of the folks you can learn about:

• The first tweep for me to meet this weekend was Diana Prichard @diana_prichard. I haven’t read her blog for long but finding it recently, I think she’s got a great perspective to share on Cultivating the Art of Sustenance. She has a CSA with hogs, geese, etc.
• Brian @DiamondMFarms and Samantha McLerran @McLerranMD were there for Tennessee. Sam’s blog pulls together her life in medicine, at home and on the farm with MommyDocFarmer.
• I can’t believe I didn’t have a chance to visit Ashlee Wood (darn it) cause I love her blog Across the Branch. How could I not love it? This Georgia girl writes about my part of the world talking about cotton & watermelons as well as other things that she gets into as a mom & nurse. I did have to shout out a big hey across a session when she stood up to say something and mentioned her name.
• Dana and Wilson Judice are celebrating Mardi Gras in South Louisana tonight. Their blog Hey Hungry People talks about the crops they produce like sugar cane and soybeans they are both on Twitter too at @HeyHungryPeople and @DanaJudice.
• Friends Zach @zjhunn and Anna Hunnicutt @hunnidue from Nebraska grow corn, soybeans and popcorn. Anna blogs on things as varied as teaching toddlers or living the farm life at http://hunnidue.wordpress.com
• I go to see the family dairy farm of Annie & Jerry Link while I was up there and no doubt I have to do some blogging myself on that, but you would be smart to read Dairy Discovery at SwissLane Farms and follow her Twitter handle @DairyDiscovery that goes with it!
• Sarah Bedgar Wilson tells her story of being a Farmer on a Mission from North Dakota (where I think 1 in 5 people who farm must blog cause I seem to know a higher number of bloggers from the state than I realized lived there two years ago).
• Fellow Missourian Brian Marshall doesn’t have a blog that I know about, but he worked with me on this video post about sustainability efforts on his farm in January!
• Leann & Glen Cope are new neighbors for me though they are from across the state. I had a chance to talk to Leann a bit as we sat in a blogging session. Love that she teaches science! Their blog is http://www.ourfamilyourfarm.com/.
• Jeff VanderWerff is a fruit and grain farmer who’s produced several videos for his YouTube Channel. He posts to his blog Through the Windshield now & then. His Twitter handle is @agsalesman. (And I really hope to see his wife Alyssa online…. I really think she’s got a lot to share!)
• I “met” Carla Wardin across a big room as I talked about telling agriculture’s shared story. Her blog Truth or Dairy has been on my blog list for a long time! Love that she & her husband did a total shift from corporate careers to become dairy farmers!
• Ben LaCross was there of course…. it was his final big event as chairman. He’s a Michigan fruit farmer who shared his family’s recipe for cherry muffins with me . He tweets as @BenLaCross and he’s got a video on apple harvest on YouTube.
• Poppy Davis from the USDA did a great convo on transitioning farms and business decisions I hadn’t thought of. She’s best caught on Twitter at @PoppyDavis

Related articles

• 2012 Beginning Farmer and Rancher Conference (ruralcommunitybuilding.fb.org)
• FSA Helping new farmers buy land (ruralcommunitybuilding.fb.org)
• Young Farmers & Ranchers-Why We’re Here (farmbureau.wordpress.com)

@JPlovesCOTTON Hey what is the demand for cotton?—
Marie Bowers (@MarieB41) January 31, 2012

My first reaction probably wasn’t what she was looking for, but it made me laugh.

I WANT COTTON RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! RT @MarieB41: @JPlovesCOTTON Hey what is the demand for cotton?—
Janice Person (@JPlovesCOTTON) January 31, 2012

Once the laughter subsided though, I wanted to figure out where she was coming from & what she was really asking about so I asked….

·         Maybe you meant something else? Like growing middle class in much of the world, growing population too?

It wasn’t long until I realized, she was asking about cotton because a lot of people in her part of the country have been talking about another fiber crop – flax. But Marie had only heard pieces and was willing to trust me to try and fill her in. When I mentioned linen clothing, it seemed she didn’t realize that linen came from flax. My guess is she is not the only one!

So what are the natural fiber crops and what makes them similar or different?

These are the points I have learned to date and I have to remind you, that i have only a tiny bit more experience than Marie and am in no way an expert.

What helps define the group of natural fibers? My layperson’s explanation is pretty easy. Natural fibers are harvested from plants or animals to be used in various products we use. You are probably like the vast majority of the world in not thinking much about where fibers come from, natural or man-made but natural fibers are usually from a farm.

The most common natural fibers in my part of the world are cotton, linen, wool, cashmere and silk. And I think we’d consider wood a fiber as we harvest trees, but I am not too sure there.

The first two are from plants (cotton and flax) and the others are from the animal kingdom (assuming silkworms can be classified animals). Some of the fiber crops that you may not hear as much about are mohair, hemp, kenaf, jute, bamboo and I’m sure I’m missing some!

Most of us know natural fibers is through clothing and household linens, and paper. But they are also used for things like rope, in medical supplies, and lots of other uses too. I’m going to stick to natural fibers used in clothing.

So a few bullet points from my background with cotton & textiles?

Its clear, I have a favorite fiber. But there are some points that I’ll mention:

• Each fiber has strengths and weaknesses (well other than cotton that totally rocks )
• It seems that as more parts of the world begin to build a larger middle class, people tend to buy another outfit or two. Think about how our grandparents may not have even had closets and now we have homes with closets that are enormous. Or think of how many hoodies/jackets/sweaters you have versus how many sweaters/jackets were in your parents home, or compare jeans, etc.
• Demand for cotton has been fairly consistent and global supply tends to keep up with demand. This is fairly easy as there are so many world areas involved in cotton production and consumption. There is more flexibility to plant more cotton in a given year than there is to harvest wool…. you just need to have seed & available land vs the livestock to do that production.
• Farmers will plant cotton in warmer geographies but they may change the number of acres in cotton vs other crops.
• Fiber consumption involves on-farm production as well as textile mill use.
• Textile mills tend to gain experience working with certain fibers and the equipment they use may be better for one group of fibers or another.

My selections for natural fibers?

• Cotton is a fiber that has great flexibility. I have a great love for wearing a pair of jeans and a hoodie (picking from a bunch) on a day when I’m goofing off, but have several tailored blazers and slacks made of majority cotton that make it a frequent fiber for the office too. In winter, I have thick cotton flannel sheets that are awesome! Its not just the crop I love but I do love cotton products!
• I like wool but it wasn’t until I found SmartWool that I realized what an incredible fiber it was! I can’t imagine a winter without my comfy wool socks! I’ve become a great proponent for wool too, buying my mom & nieces SmartWool that seems to have changed their lives! And boiled wool cardigans totally rock this time of year! My brother has been shearing his sheep for a few years and my sister had some of it spun for a blanket for his first grandbaby. And the trip to England resulted in some hand-dyed wool yarn & a wool scarf!
• Linen has varied a lot in my life… at one time all linen clothes would be wrinkled for me by the time I got the clothes on. But there are softer linens now and in the summer months, I wear some linen slacks and jackets. I’ve never been to a farm where they were growing flax that I know of. Since its a bit more to the north, I’ll have to put that on my to do list!
• Silk is a great summer fiber too but I’ll admit to wearing it a good bit of the year. I’ve got several nice blouses made of silk that make it easy to run around while wearing a suit but I also have some casual silk shirts. In early winter, or in this mild one, I sometimes wear silks (as in long underwear)!

Which natural fibers do you prefer and why?

A friend painted beautiful cotton artwork on silk-- tablecloths & scarves

We had a bit of a combination one day for lunch. We drove a couple of hours to have her mom’s home cooking in the restaurant she now owns! Sue’s Cafe on Broadway is in Enid, Oklahoma is just west of the downtown square on Broadway Ave. Its a place to go if you like homecookin’ and friendly people.

In fact, Sue has had a couple of other restaurants in town — Sue’s Place was on Willow had a lot of regulars — so she had regular patrons the minute she opened for business! And they even have their own area of the cafe to sit and visit with each other as they come and go. The regulars are friendly with a smile and are willing to let you just do your own thing.

In a crazy mixup, I ended up getting lunch before Shawna got there. I was REALLY late and thought she had eaten and when Sue mentioned the special was beef tips, I was ready to go! I’m kind of glad there was a mixup though cause I couldn’t have possibly eaten dessert with all that lunch, but 45 minutes later I was able to eat some fantastic banana pudding. And now I hear there is now music some nights too with local garage bands plugging in to play! If you’re in Oklahoma and think you can make it to Enid, you really should check it out. And if you see Sue, tell her Janice sent ya!

As you leave town, look at the Enid city limits sign in the rear view. You’ll see in says dine spelled backwards and you’ll want to come back!