Welcome!

So here it is- the start of my very first blog. For how nervous I am, I am even more excited to get started talking about what I love, and to see where this takes me. So with that said, welcome to Brooklyn’s Backroad Blog! My focus of this blog will be on family farming and agriculture in Iowa. I have always been very passionate about ag, and I can’t wait to share my interests and experiences.

Bottle feeding Belle one summer morning. 

To start, my name is Brooke Young and I am a senior Marketing and Advertising student at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Now for a little background information so you can get to know me and my “rural roots”. I grew up on a family farm outside of the small town of Alburnett, Iowa. Our farm is three generations strong today. My house was built back in 1900 and many of our farm buildings were built in the 1920’s, including the barn, with the “newer” buildings built in the 70’s. It is amazing to me how buildings this old are still standing today. 

I began working on the farm at a very early age of 5 or 6 years old. My responsibilities included feeding the baby chickens or helping my dad bottle feed the cows. I would also walk the fields in the summer with my brother and grandma, collecting rocks in a 5 gallon bucket. In the fall and spring I enjoyed riding around in the tractor and combine with my parents, watching these huge pieces of equipment plant and harvest fields of crops. I would also go out with my dad on cold winter days before school in the morning and before dinner in the evening to bottle feed our calves. Despite the cold, that was probably my favorite chore of all! Other responsibilities I had on the farm included maintenance and upkeep. My younger brother and I were often assigned responsibilities together to paint the garage or barn, weed the garden, or mow the lawn.

As I got older, I was able to help with the “big kid chores”. We were given more chores that were more labor intensive. Before I even had a learners permit, I would drive the pickup around the hay field pulling the hay rack as my brother and dad collected the square hay bales off of the ground. We would then help unload all of the bales into the haymow in the barn. In case you didn’t know, the average weight of a square bale is between 70 and 100 pounds! Talk about a hard day’s work in the summer sun!

Feeding the chickens.

 This is where I come from, just a small, family farm in rural Linn County, Iowa. From bottle feeding the calves, feeding the chickens, collecting the eggs, to spending the day in the field, this is what I enjoyed, and still enjoy doing. Growing up I was never scared to get dirty or break a sweat. Although I refer to it as chores, it wasn’t chores. It was what we did, what we had to do, and a way of life. Stay tuned for more posts relating to family farms and agriculture in Iowa.