Introduction

Like many of you I have officially entered the world of blogging. My purpose in creating this blog is not to showcase my family or share with you my favorite picture (both of which are noble reasons for blogging) but rather to share with you my thoughts, beliefs, and ideas regarding the times we find ourselves in. I hope to "scare" you into examining your own situations and then making some changes that will put you in a better position to cope with what I see coming in the future.

For those of you who don't know me let me introduce myself. My name is David Patten and I live in central Missouri. I was born and raised in Idaho in a small rural area. I always had a love for farm animals and raised many types of them on our small acreage. I was active in FFA and knew that someday I would be involved in agriculture as my career. After serving a two-year mission for my church in Chile, I attended Brigham Young University where I received my B.S. and M.S. in Animal Science. It is there that I met my wonderful wife of nearly 26 years, Michele. She also has a B.S. from BYU in Animal Health Technology. We have been blessed with five wonderful children, John, Matthew, Shane, Melissa, and Jenna--my newest teenager (she turned 13 yesterday).

 We live on one of our two farms where we have raised hogs for Cargill for the past ten years. We have about 515 sows and produce about 12,000 pigs annually. We have a small herd of Braunvieh cattle. We also keep a few hayburners (horses) around. Our newest addition is Kimber, a miniature filly, born to Melissa's mare, Jamie, last week.

I hope that is enough of an introduction. I am proud to say that I am a BYU graduate but more important I am a "life experience graduate". I understand agriculture, especially on the small scale, and hope to share with you some of what I have learned.