As I drove through the hills of Kentucky this week, I quickly realized that it is much different than my home state of Iowa. I’m not sure how to describe it other than strikingly beautiful. With the winding roads, trees, and agriculture having such a strong presence, it makes you wonder if you’ve found a small piece of heaven. Certainly, the people fit the bill too as they are delightful and will take time out of their day to have a conversation.

I had the pleasure of riding along in a wheat combine with Johnathan Ayer, an LG Seeds STAR Partner in Calhoun, Kentucky. Wheat was a whole new concept for me, and I quickly became acquainted with a New Holland combine with a 45-foot Draper head attached. It was quite the machine. Johnathan shared with me that ‘agriculture is a way of life’ and he couldn’t imagine his life any other way.

After wrapping up my interview on Tuesday afternoon, I bounced back on the Pennyrile Parkway and I rode along with Jim Jackson, LG Seeds Sales Account Manager, Olivia Hinkle, Rising STAR Partner Intern and Heidi Speer, Sales & Agronomy Intern. We toured through several southwest Indiana counties and I quickly became familiar with melon farms, coal mining, and beekeeping. It was so much fun learning about different aspects of the agricultural industry, and heck, who doesn’t love a good watermelon?

Thursday’s travel plans allowed me to meet my last grower for the week – Will Swope from Hope, Indiana. Will’s family has quite the setup and enjoys working alongside his family. Whether they are selling seed or completing field work, family is the name of the game.

Throughout the week, the message that I shared in last week’s blog of developing a root system played repeatedly in my mind as I drove down the road. As I visited with the growers and rode along with my fellow interns and Sales Account Manager, I realized that I had developed a small set of roots in Indiana. When I got back home on Thursday night, I began to appreciate the sense of community and wished that my trip had allowed me to continue to grow that set of roots.

See, here’s the neat thing: wherever you travel, there’s a good chance that you’re going to meet several new people – certainly, that’s the case with LG Seeds. After meeting those people, I want to continue to expand those relationships – essentially leaving a piece of myself with those individuals with the hopes that someday, I can return and we can pick up where we left off. That’s the beauty of working in the agricultural industry.

Stay tuned, because next week, “Adventures from the Corn Belt” is Michigan bound!