Acton Family Farms LLC

12/03/2025

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Thoughts from the Cab to bring you Thoughts from the Shop, brought to you by our friends at Mother Nature. Mother Nature, when you thought things couldn’t get any worse your friends at Mother Nature say they can.

As farmers we have reached that magical time of year. The snow settles across the fields nestling it like a quilted blanket, the crisp snow crunches under your boots, the water troughs freeze solid, you haven’t felt your toes since Tuesday of last week. It really is magical and to top it off we get meetings and lots of them. These aren’t your regular meetings, picture a middle school fundraiser on steroids. Salesman begin to inundate farmyards like 6th graders pedaling wrapping paper. They are all basically selling the same ribbons and bows at very similar price points so it boils down to who gave the best pitch, who brought the most hats and ink pens, did they buy lunch or just do you like them more.

We test our math skills more this time of year than you could ever imagine. If you order today you’ll get 11% early order discount with 7% volume discount, the increase acres discount of 3.4% and my favorite I really wanna earn your business so I’ll throw in a 4% discount. And if you act right this minute we can throw it on special terms of 0% due in December of 2026. And if you’re still on the fence we’ve got a rain gauge that you can buy at Lowe’s for $5.99 to throw in on the deal. Still not sold how about 2 pair of gloves, a hitch pin and a toboggan with a brand on it you can’t even pronounce? And just like that you’re now planting XYZ corn, by the way it’s always the hitch pin that gets you.

And that’s just seed!! Now you have to purchase all the -ides. You’ve got your herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and insecticides. You’ve got number soups and acronyms like 28-0-0, MAP, DAP, 0-0-60. Other goodies like in furrow, beside the row, above the row, side dress, top dress and even non-nutritive cereal varnishes. Each with its own benefits and costs from different retailers telling us to raise grain as much a humanly possible.

So if you encounter a farmer over the next month or two and they seem grumpy or on edge just remember they are doing math so hard it’s like they are just trying to pass the 3rd grade proficiency test.

400-11-7-4+raingauge+hitchpin=purple or wait is it circle?

Did I pass? Wait 12 months we don’t grade very quickly, you’ll know next harvest oh and no pressure it’s just your family’s welfare and a 5 generation farming legacy on the line.

12/02/2025

Pedicure Day 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑

12/02/2025

Today we play with livestock.

10/26/2025

Normally it’s two generations of Actons working together to bring in a crop. Today is no different, except instead of dad and I it’s Owen and I. He’s doing exceptionally well running the grain cart and unloading trucks into the bin. I believe young boys need responsibility to become great men.

10/06/2025

To all of my farming friends posting about , you are wrong! If wheat is under $6.00 then it has nothing to do with the joy of Christmas and more like the Nightmare before Christmas therefore we must use .

That is all and please make the necessary adjustments to your posts in the future

09/25/2025

This isn’t just something I’m saying. Our entire farming community is talking about it. Let’s all talk about it. We take farmers for granted. They just exist, but what happens if they don’t?

Arkansas agriculture industry leaders warned again Tuesday of a need for aid to mitigate a crisis that has reached a breaking point for family farmers.

09/09/2025

Farmers continue to struggle in Northeast Arkansas and around the country.

09/08/2025

This is why we as a farm take conservative so seriously. Most of the farms under our care flow into Paint Creek.

An excellent shot of the confluence of Paint Creek and the Scioto River on the south side of Chillicothe by Tim Anderson Jr. back in 2016. That's Paint Creek coming in from the left, and the Scioto coming in from the right. 
Color differences between streams can be due to sediment load (such as dirt),  dissolved organics (such as tannic or humic acids from decaying vegetation), algae blooms, or other stuff. 
Do these solutes and such affect the health of fish and other aquatic organisms? You betcha. Dirt is often cited as the number one pollutant in our waterways. It clogs up the gills of fish and tadpoles and makes it difficult for them to breathe, for one thing. 
We owe a lot to our local farmers who use good soil conservation practices, and to agencies like the Ross County Soil And Water Conservation District and the Natural Resources Conservation Service who help the farmers do it right! 
Matter of fact, somebody should bake some delish cookies and drop them off at their offices on Western Avenue.
💛💪

09/05/2025

Well after taking 11 years off I have finally created my own Facebook profile again and will no longer have to use Pipe’s. I will continue to update and manage this page and will not let you down on farm updates. I will use my personal account more for my agriculture Mental Health advocacy, my personal endeavors and my writings.

09/04/2025

Huge shout out to Brady Riley and the crew at C & J Electric for fixing the lightning strike mess in the barn. We are so grateful to be getting the lights turned back on and the cattle appreciate the fans blowing again.

09/02/2025

Conservation isn’t just about the soils and waters of our farm but so much more. We work year round to make sure pheasants, quail, rabbits and doves have places to live, eat and hide. Even in the deepest snow we will take corn and hay out to our game animals to ensure a healthy population. We do this to make sure we have a stong healthy population and that we never harvest more than our share. It is our role to make sure everything under our care last many more generations.

Yesterday, the boys got to be a part of their first dove hunt. The doves harvested will help feed our family. The boys were nervous and didn’t know what to expect but by the end of the evening they were ready to plan the next adventure.

08/27/2025

Video of the fawns, audio is low because I’m whispering. I didn’t want to scare them