Workcation: Fun or Work!
Every year, my wife and children always plan a vacation somewhere. Its time spent together and relaxing. While my family is always relaxing on vacation, I always seem to have some work that needs attention. After all, being in sales and management pretty much my whole career, business doesn't stop because I go on vacation. This drives my wife crazy. So, my family vacation is always a "workcation," a little work while on vacation.
Now that my children are adults and have their own families, our annual vacation (still a workcation for me) is now only my wife and myself. This year we planned a vacation to Nashville for a close friend's son's wedding. On the drive to Nashville, I planned to visit a few very interesting Growers Mineral customers with my wife along. I travel extensively in my job and visit farm operations all over the country and Canada. It has always amazed me how many different types of plants and animals benefit and thrive on Growers Mineral Solution. For the first time, my wife gets to experience the interesting part of my job.
Heading south to southern Ohio, our first visit was at a calving operation. Calving operations are springing up everywhere with the high cost of beef. These operations receive one- or two-day-old, weaned calves by the hundreds. The calves are pumped up with vaccinations and other supplements along with receiving a milk formula twice a day and a corn/pallet mix of feed. The calves are in pens with eleven other calves instead of individual pens. This is not the way nature intended for the calves to be raised, and it has its price with around a 10% death rate.
Our customer knows this but is trying to make a living and support a family with this type of operation. He doesn't own the calves, only the facilities. To help the calves, he incorporates Growers Mineral Solution in the daily milk feedings. This helps the calves deal with the stressful environment and lack of nutrients not received from the mother cow. They spend twelve weeks here, and then on to the next stage and another specialized operation.
After the calving experience, we headed to the next customer: an aquaponics operation in southwestern Ohio. Aquaponics is a method of farming with fish and plants in a symbiotic ecosystem. They feed the fish (tilapia) in separate tanks and circulate the water to the plants for nutrients. The process only uses rainwater, non-GMO plant ingredients, zero animal byproducts, and zero herbicides, pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers. They apply only Growers Mineral Solutions as a foliar application. This is a wonderful operation, and very well run. They produce high end, great tasting herbs, lettuce, flowers, microgreens, and sashimi-grade tilapia. My wife truly enjoyed our visit.
Aquaponics operation crops (lettuce, basil, etc.)
Calving operation in Ohio.
The next part of our trip took us to southern Indiana to a large orchard and winery. They produce apples, peaches, grapes, and corn, etc. on their 185-year-old farm. They are famous for their great wines and high-end bourbon, along with a farmer's market, restaurant, tasting room, and various family activities. This was my favorite part of the trip. The weather was perfect, lunch wonderful, and drinks second to none. I guess my workcation is becoming a vacation finally.
This is an excerpt from the Summer Growers Solution (2025) written by Chris Kohls, National Sales Manager.
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