Good Times and Good Friends

Last week Jerry and I traveled to the American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia(to find out more info on Twitter- search #AFBF11). We planned on learning about new technology and issues facing agriculture but we left with that and a whole lot more.
We made some great friends and guess what?!?! Some of them even have blogs!
The Weiss family and Carla and Kris have dairy farms and Jeff blogs on all things AG. All of these fine folks are for real farmers in Michigan.


We started our adventure in Atlanta by taking a very fun and educational bus tour of 2 local farms.
First stop= Greenhouse and Nursery.




Then off to Southern Belle farms.
This was a really great family and I learned a lot there.
They turned their old milking parlor into a classroom!




There was a huge trade show where we saw first-hand the latest/greatest farm technology.
Here we were supposed to check out the new milker and I couldn't get over the display- this would go great in the Dairy Discovery Barn!



A Ginormous Cotton Picker!



Biggest Corn Chopper in the world!



Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs" on the Discovery Channel was the Keynote Speaker! It was really cool to hear his appreciation for American Agriculture. He talked a lot on how regulations and activist groups are burdening farmers instead of creating common sense solutions "to get the job done". I love his "Brown before Green" slogan!


And then...dont dont DONNN...the BLIZZARD!!
For some reason 3 inches of snow is a big deal down south. I guess in a city of 5million, 6 snowplows just couldn't keep up.
Needless to say, the city completely shut down...


One restaurant we went to had only 2 people on staff. Another ran out of food! We had some flight cancellations and delays and finally got home a day later than anticipated.
We will never forget our amazing adventure to "Icelanta!"