MONTICELLO - If you get up with the chickens on May 31, you might be late for breakfast.
The serving lines for Green County's 35th Annual Breakfast on the Farm open at 6 a.m., and this year, the Roe family farm, south of Monticello, is your destination.
Dan and Sally; their children Natalie, 11; Nick, 8; and Alex, 7; and Dan's parents Karen and Don Roe, will be your hosts.
Visitors coming for breakfast this year will see farming in a new light; it's not a dairy farm. In fact, animals seem to be conspicuously absent from the Roe farm, except the family dog, a friendly Labrador-Poodle cross.
Visitors will get a rare look inside of an 850,000-bushel capacity grain bin. The other bins on the farm hold from 188,000 to 370,000 bushels.
How much is 1,000 bushels? Dan has arranged for a visual aid on the event's grounds to help answer that question.
Dan grew up dairying on his parents' farm on the other side of Monticello. But by the mid-1990s, he had made a choice to turn to grains, and he and his dad let go of the milking business.
It was a decision that Sally and his parents supported, and that he hasn't regretted, Dan said.
"I like the marketing aspect, and the growing (of crops)," he said.
"It's a challenge every day," he laughed, "just like any other farm."
The Roes now raise about 3,200 acres of corn and 1,100 acres of soybeans. Don stays heavily involved in the farm work. Two full-time employees, Tyler Brugger and Rich Dallman, round out the crew.
The harvested corn heads to Badger State Ethanol LLC in Monroe. Dan said he's been selling corn to Badger State Ethanol since the plant began production in 2002.
The Roe family venture has been growing more than just crops during the past 20 years. The farm has been joined by the grain elevator enterprise, Pleasant Grain LLC, which handles as much as 1.3 to 1.4 million bushels of grain per year from the Roes and other area agriculture producers.
Grains need trucks and semis, so a trucking business was born, and fields need management, so a field tiling business has sprouted.
Together the multi-faceted commercial companies create a full-time job for Sally, an accountant by profession.
The elevator alone generates "a huge amount of paperwork," Dan said.
Even though she's an integral part of the farm's operations, Sally also finds the energy to serve on the township board and in the Washington Center 4-H Club, where their children show a liking for animals.
So, the Roes are not livestock-free. Two rabbits and four pigs are tucked under the roof, "oh, back over there," Dan said, pointing in the general direction of a large shed. As part of her 4-H projects, Natalie also shows cows or heifers that are owned by a neighbor.
For those who also love animal husbandry, the Breakfast on the Farm Committee will have on site a few heads of cattle and other animals to gaze upon or to pet.
Dan and Sally credit heavily the Ag Chest BOTF Committee and their community with getting them and their farm ready in time for the breakfast. They had volunteered to host the breakfast, but it was March, as Dan recalled, before the decision was reached and the 2014 location was announced.
But the Roes had no reason to panic. The committee has arrangements and setups down to a science, Sally noted, and needed to meet with the family only about once a month.
"We are honored to join the long list of great families and farms who have hosted this event in the past," Sally said. "Hosting a community-wide and county-wide event takes a lot of effort, and we are very thankful for the help and support that farms and families and the community have shown us already."
"Without the community, an event like this wouldn't be possible. We look forward to seeing everyone here," she said.
The serving lines for Green County's 35th Annual Breakfast on the Farm open at 6 a.m., and this year, the Roe family farm, south of Monticello, is your destination.
Dan and Sally; their children Natalie, 11; Nick, 8; and Alex, 7; and Dan's parents Karen and Don Roe, will be your hosts.
Visitors coming for breakfast this year will see farming in a new light; it's not a dairy farm. In fact, animals seem to be conspicuously absent from the Roe farm, except the family dog, a friendly Labrador-Poodle cross.
Visitors will get a rare look inside of an 850,000-bushel capacity grain bin. The other bins on the farm hold from 188,000 to 370,000 bushels.
How much is 1,000 bushels? Dan has arranged for a visual aid on the event's grounds to help answer that question.
Dan grew up dairying on his parents' farm on the other side of Monticello. But by the mid-1990s, he had made a choice to turn to grains, and he and his dad let go of the milking business.
It was a decision that Sally and his parents supported, and that he hasn't regretted, Dan said.
"I like the marketing aspect, and the growing (of crops)," he said.
"It's a challenge every day," he laughed, "just like any other farm."
The Roes now raise about 3,200 acres of corn and 1,100 acres of soybeans. Don stays heavily involved in the farm work. Two full-time employees, Tyler Brugger and Rich Dallman, round out the crew.
The harvested corn heads to Badger State Ethanol LLC in Monroe. Dan said he's been selling corn to Badger State Ethanol since the plant began production in 2002.
The Roe family venture has been growing more than just crops during the past 20 years. The farm has been joined by the grain elevator enterprise, Pleasant Grain LLC, which handles as much as 1.3 to 1.4 million bushels of grain per year from the Roes and other area agriculture producers.
Grains need trucks and semis, so a trucking business was born, and fields need management, so a field tiling business has sprouted.
Together the multi-faceted commercial companies create a full-time job for Sally, an accountant by profession.
The elevator alone generates "a huge amount of paperwork," Dan said.
Even though she's an integral part of the farm's operations, Sally also finds the energy to serve on the township board and in the Washington Center 4-H Club, where their children show a liking for animals.
So, the Roes are not livestock-free. Two rabbits and four pigs are tucked under the roof, "oh, back over there," Dan said, pointing in the general direction of a large shed. As part of her 4-H projects, Natalie also shows cows or heifers that are owned by a neighbor.
For those who also love animal husbandry, the Breakfast on the Farm Committee will have on site a few heads of cattle and other animals to gaze upon or to pet.
Dan and Sally credit heavily the Ag Chest BOTF Committee and their community with getting them and their farm ready in time for the breakfast. They had volunteered to host the breakfast, but it was March, as Dan recalled, before the decision was reached and the 2014 location was announced.
But the Roes had no reason to panic. The committee has arrangements and setups down to a science, Sally noted, and needed to meet with the family only about once a month.
"We are honored to join the long list of great families and farms who have hosted this event in the past," Sally said. "Hosting a community-wide and county-wide event takes a lot of effort, and we are very thankful for the help and support that farms and families and the community have shown us already."
"Without the community, an event like this wouldn't be possible. We look forward to seeing everyone here," she said.