Larry Blumeyer is hard at work, servicing and preparing machinery for the growing season — a typical early spring day for the Kings farmer.
“If we receive a call that someone needs a load of hay, we will load and go wherever is required,” Blumeyer added. “We get back and start where we left off.”
Blumeyer operates Blumeyer Farms, covering about 1,500 acres of corn, soybeans, and hay around Kings and Chana.
Although the off-season provides a little more time for maintenance, he also grows winter wheat to harvest the grain and straw for the livestock industry. Blumeyer also supplies major zoos and a children’s farm in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. The business has recently expanded northward into southern Wisconsin to the dairy and horse industry.
“I’ve gotten to know a lot of interesting people and interesting places…lots of good people,” Blumeyer said. “It started out as a winter time fill in when we weren’t busy in the field and has evolved into a year-round adventure.”
Farming tradition
Blumeyer is no stranger to farming, following in his parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps. His son, Lance, is in the business as well, residing on the very same property in Chana that Blumeyer grew up on and where his parents farmed.
He knew early on farming was his future.
“Ever since I was old enough I was either taking care of cows, milking cows, working with machinery…it looked like a good way to spend your life,” Blumeyer reflected. “It was an opportunity to hopefully make some money, enjoy what you’re doing, set your own timetable.”

Blumeyer had a modest start, renting 80 acres from a neighbor while tending to a few dairy cows on his parents’ farm. From then on, he found more opportunities to rent and eventually buy land.
There are several outbuildings on the Blumeyer farm in Kings, which happens to be the same place his wife, Lorna, grew up on.
“My wife has never moved, ever. When we got married in 1972, I moved here,” Blumeyer said. “We had pigs and cattle. As time progressed it wasn’t possible to get enough volume to make it economically feasible. The buildings weren’t in the best condition anymore, so we developed our energy into grain farming.”
Now that his son, Lance, is involved, Blumeyer said it makes for a perfect blend of an old school and new school farming operation. Lance tackles the computer end, which is more or less the technology aspect of the equipment — the GPS and mapping portion.
With Lance, that makes four generations and counting. Blumeyer’s grandson, Wyatt, is part of the summer baling crew, which usually consists of about seven young people on school break. Blumeyer happily shares he has attended many graduations and graduation parties over the years.
Planting time
Planning for 2018 crops started during last fall’s harvest using the combine’s technology to determine which varieties provided the best yield. Typically a plan is in place around the first of the year, but that will all depend on this spring’s weather conditions.
“Once harvest is completed we go over yield data from university trials and independent private trials and see what does the best. We also see what chemicals seem to work best,” Blumeyer said. “It’s an ongoing thing…if we can’t plant as early as we want to, we might go to an earlier variety or a different crop…we can plant soybeans later in the year. This last year was a classic example of a very wet spring, which made it difficult to till. We had to make some adjustments.”
As technology continually changes the farming landscape, Blumeyer reflected on the days when his father took great pride having straight rows, driving a small tractor without creature comforts. Now tractors are equipped with climate-controlled cabs and can be programmed for precise planting.

When he’s not keeping busy in the fields, in his shop, or delivering hay, Blumeyer enjoys his toy tractor hobby. About 25 years ago, he started collecting 1/16-scale models of every real tractor he’s ever owned, scouring through yard sales and attending antique shows in Illinois and Wisconsin.
“It was difficult to find a toy replica for some of those models. In some cases they were never made or there are so few of them made they are held tightly in collectors’ hands,” Blumeyer said. “That caused me to develop my other hobby of restoring and rebuilding farm toys. I will take an old sandbox toy that a child has played with or somebody has discarded and use that for the skeleton of what I want to make. Then I will transform that into the make and model to suit my needs.”
His collection has swelled to over 100 tractors.
He and Lorna both enjoy taking annual trips to Texas, often to see farming and ranching in a different part of the country. Many times they watch the harvesting.
Blumeyer takes it all in stride — challenges included. The top two are the weather and the market price fluctuations, both input and output. Like most farmers, Blumeyer continually seeks for ways to increase the bottom line.
“There’s been lots of good times, more good ones than bad ones. I don’t think I would change hardly anything from the way that I’ve progressed through life…I’d do much the same as I’m doing today,” Blumeyer said. “It’s been good to us, we’ve had some years that have been better than others. Sometimes grain prices aren’t as good as they could be, or weather isn’t as kind as it could be, but overall it’s a pretty good life.”