I’ll definitely be checking it out on one of my visits to Moline.

This Tuesday  is John Deere’s birthday.

John Deere the man, that is, not the company he founded. He was born 207 years ago  on February 7, 1804 in Rutland, Vermont. The company he founded has seen the invention of the engine, the tractor, even the telephone.

John Deere didn’t invent the plow- those had been in use for centuries. What he did was find a way to make plows work in the soil of the American midwest, which helped turn it into the agricultural powerhouse it is today. The company that John Deere founded is celebrating its 175th Anniversary this year.

Of course, John Deere is not the only inventor who had an impact on agriculture. Hiram Moore invented the combine harvester in 1838, and the Van Brunt brothers invented the grain drill in the 1860s to stop passenger pigeons from carrying off freshly planted seeds.  The first gasoline powered tractor was invented in 1892 by John Froelich, who founded the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Factory.

What’s most amazing to me is that while these inventions have been revised and modified through the centuries, they’re still very much in use today. Planting equipment is still built in Moline, Illinois, and some of the world’s most powerful tractors are still built in Waterloo, Iowa.

I do wonder if these men knew what a lasting impact their inventions would have. Or were they just trying to solve a problem to make life easier for themselves and their customers?

Pretty amazing, isn’t it?

And it’s com in to the John Deere Pavilion this February.

The Walking Forester prototype is one of only two in the world (the other is in Finland) and was a test to see how the walking technology would work for uneven terrain.

I can’t even imagine how complex it would be to operate. I think each leg has to be moved separately, even though whoever is operating it in the video makes it look easy.

My practical side also has to wonder what kind of maintenance is needed to service all the legs and joints. I have to imagine it would make a track tractor look simple.

It will be on display at the John Deere Pavilion when it reopens on February 15. I see a field trip in my future!

Equipment like a new S550 Combine

And some big construction equipment

and some tractors

and a replica of a classic old plow

I’ve had many discussions around the subject of online vs offline friends, and Alexandra Samuel does an amazing job at arguing that maybe we should stop drawing that distinction.

The video is about 10 minutes, so I won’t go into too much commentary, but I think many of you AgNerds will relate.

It’s official, with a press release and everything. Project Can Do, the life-size sculpture of a new S Series Combine built out of canned food, holds the record for being the largest sculpture made from canned goods.

In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records says it more than doubled the previous record.

And all 308,448 cans and 11,268 bags of food went to hungry families in the midwest.

There’s an awesome collage of the virtual cans that John Deere fans created on the John Deere Facebook page.  You can even see my smiling face in one…but I’m not telling you where to find it!

I love farms and I love puns, so farming puns? Oh yeah. I’m a fan.

*Technically, the vertical tillage tool DID make an appearance at Farm Progress this year, but it wasn’t Officially Announced until December. I didn’t get to the show, but I heard pretty positive reviews on how it ran, considering the soil was so dry it was cracking.

I’ve been seeing lots of post about the new McDonald’s ads in the ag community lately. Some people seem to really like them. Some people seem pretty skeptical. I feel…well-informed?

My very first reaction to seeing those ads was “hey, there’s another Faces-of-Farmers ad!”

My second thought was “hey, if read as many ag publications as I do, almost every face you see in an ad is a farmer’s.”

My third thought was “I can’t even begin to imagine what someone who isn’t part of the ag industry would think of these ads.”

I guess that’s an occupational hazard. When I did write ad copy, farmers were the target audience, and trust me, they would care if I confused a holstein with an angus. They cared if I called alfalfa “grass” instead of “hay.”  And they, like me, were probably checking out the irrigation systems, tractors, and cows in the McDonald’s spots.

On top of that, I was watching things like camera angles and shot composition, critiquing the music selection, and mentally cataloguing what it would take to move these shots from storyboard to finished product. And yes, I did cheer to see the green and yellow tractors.

Ultimately, I think I like the ads, in no small part because I like the farmers in them.

Even more to the point, they got me craving french fries. I guess that means the ads work!

This is only the second time in my 30+ years that I’ve seen eagles in the wild. The first was on a National Wildlife Refuge near Cedar Key, Florida, which, while incredibly cool, is somewhere I expected to see protected animals. Beside a gas station and a driving range on my way to get a hair cut was not.

Why is seeing a bald eagle such a big deal to me? Well, for one thing, it’s the national bird of the United States, and seeing them, even surrounded by suburbia, makes me appreciate the wide open spaces that the country has. Bald eagles can live anywhere from Mexico to Alaska, which is impressive when you think of the difference in climates, temperatures and vegetation that are encompassed in that range.

Plus, they were on the endangered species list for most of my life. I can honestly say that I never expected to see one in the wild. Too see so many, well… it just kind of fills me with hope. For all we hear about the impact humans have on the environment, here’s a time where we got it right. They were taken off the list in 2009, and now I get to see them almost in my back yard.

Way to go, us! Not a bad feeling to start the new year.