Riding along with Cole the Cornstar

I have my favorite vloggers, too --- and as Iowa's harvest season has commenced the YouTube product of a young man from central Iowa who styles himself "Cole the Cornstar" has helped to entertain (and inform) me twice weekly. Cole is kind of a YouTube phenomenon, having picked up more than 100,000 subscribers to his channel in somewhat more than a year of vlogging.

He's a recent graduate of the University of Northern Iowa who farms 1,700 of land, some owned by his family and some rented, with his father, who calls himself "Daddy Cornstar," and younger brother, Cooper. All make regular appearances in the vlog. His mom's there, too, as well as an older sister --- but they avoid the camera.

The farming operation is located in the general vicinity of Marshalltown. Cole himself lives on a farmstead acquired by his great-grandparents during the 1930s and in a house occupied by his grandfather until his fairly recent death. During his grandfather's lifetime, that farmstead earned the reputation as the messiest place in the region. An ongoing theme of the vlogs is the determination of his grandson, somewhat obsessive about neatness, to clean it up.

I grew up in a farming operation, mixed livestock and grain, less than a sixth the size of the Cornstar operation, but not unusual at the time. Farming has changed considerably --- and this young man's light-hearted product I've found to be an entertaining way to catch up a little on the ins and outs of family farming in Iowa in the 21st century.

Recent blog posts have focused on the hard work involved in maintaining and preparing for the harvest season the equipment needed, from combine to augers, to get the soybeans and corn out of the field and into the bins before snow flies.

So if you're interested in family farming --- and if you live in Iowa especially you should be --- the posts you find here are well worth the investment of a few minutes twice a week. Here's a link to the channel.