One of my earliest memories was listening to Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. I was in the backseat of a pickup truck, forehead pressed against the cold glass and listening to stories of alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings and government conspiracy theories.

In its fourth generation, the Lauwers family has tried a bit of everything when it comes to farming but have found their place in baleage, specialty straw production and a thriving sheep business.

When I was 13, my dad bought a farm. It was a little over 100 acres and was mainly watered with the use of handlines and flood irrigation.

“Raised right, made right, stored right, fed right – that’s the key to success when it comes to growing feedstuff,” says Kendall Guither, an Illinois forage grower and six-time World Dairy Expo Forage Analysis Superbowl champion in the Baleage Division.

Although there is still a month left of summer, fall seems just around the corner. I know it is the county fair that makes me feel that way. As a kid, the county fair marked the end of summer and the start of a new school year.

Blue Lakes Country Club is a classy place. With its Snake River Canyon location, no jeans and collared shirts dress code, and its “only golf with a member” rule, it caters to the upper echelons of Magic Valley society. Yet, despite all its pretentions to Long Island sophistication, it’s located in the bread basket of Idaho farming country.

One of my favorite sports movies of all time is Field of Dreams. The iconic Kevin Costner stars as Ray Kinsella, a young Iowa farmer who plows up a cornfield and builds a baseball diamond. The words of his deceased father whispered to him have nearly become movie lore, “If you build it, he will come.”