Chores haven’t changed at the farm, but markets have

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    RURAL SCOTT COUNTY, IA (Quad-City Times ) — Country music plays from a radio as Robb Ewoldt steers his big white Chevy pickup down gravel and paved roads to two hog confinement barns about 12 miles from his home place.

Feed and water flow into the hogs’ troughs automatically throughout the day as needed and as set by a computer program. But at least once a day Ewoldt checks on them in person to make sure they are healthy and there are no problems.

He turns a key into the padlocked door and, as it swings open, the warm manure smell flows out.

The outside temperature is hovering around freezing and there is a raw dampness in the air. But inside the barn — 240 feet long and 40 feet wide — it’s a mostly even 66 degrees.

Ewoldt walks the concrete aisle, looking from side to side, his trained eyes fliting over the roughly 1,250 white barrows (castrated male hogs) in pens on either side.

There’s a squealing, almost like dogs barking, among the pens. Natural daylight filters in from windows on either side, and electric lights shine from above.

COVID-19 hasn’t changed Ewoldt’s chores, but it affected livestock and grain markets.

For extra income, Ewoldt drives a truck and last spring his schedule for hauling hogs to slaughter sometimes changed on short notice because a certain plant would be abruptly closed, and the hogs would have to be taken somewhere else. “You never knew where you were going,” he said.

Prices for corn and beans — both sources of biodiesel — took a dive because “no freight was moving,” he said.

The pandemic also means Ewoldt devotes part of his day to proctoring his 6th and 8th grade sons with their homework, as the Davenport school district is at 100% remote learning.

“I’m the one with the flexible schedule,” he said. Wife Jennifer is a veterinarian with a set schedule.

“They’re not getting the same education,” Ewoldt says of his sons. “And they’re not performing like they would if they were in school.”

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