Dubuque for wedding packages to fit your needs - Julien's Journal

German custom, gave the farm and personal
property to their son Philip with the understanding
that he would care for them, pay them $100
per year and pay each of his three sisters $400
upon the death of Adam and Maria. Philip and
his wife Barbara Rausch raised six daughters
and eight sons on the farm. They added more
buildings to the farm and expanded the number
of acres to 240.
On March 1, 1940, Philip’s daughter Lorraine and
her husband Aloysius Pfeiler bought the farm and
continued operating it as a dairy and hog farm.
Lorraine managed the large flock of laying hens,
which was quite a lucrative operation in those
days. Al and Lorraine raised their three children
on the farm and in the 1950s they upgraded the
dairy herd to registered Brown Swiss cattle.
In 1965, Al and Lorraine formed a partnership
with their son Lyal and his wife Melita Wolf. This
partnership operated for the next 10 years, milking
the Brown Swiss cows, raising hogs farrow
to finish, and farming the crop ground. The laying
hens had departed some time before this.
On November 1, 1975, Lyal and Melita purchased
the farm, becoming the fourth generation to own
and operate the property that Adam and Maria
Brecht had originally purchased. Lyal and Melita
raised four daughters and three sons and eventually
added confinement buildings for the hog operation
and a freestall/parlor setup for the Brown
Swiss dairy herd. All seven children helped on the
farm throughout their childhood and teen years.
Two of their sons, Joe and Jim, expressed an interest
in farming on the home place and on January
1, 1990, the Lyal Pfeiler and Sons partnership
was established. This partnership continued for
many years until Joe with his wife Kathy Hanson
and Jim with his wife Mary Hanley had purchased
all the livestock and equipment from Lyal and
Melita as Pfeiler Brothers Farm, Inc. Lyal retired
in 2002 (at least as much as any farmer retires),
and Pfeiler Brothers Farm purchased the 240 acre
home farm on March 1, 2007.
Joe and Jim, along with their families, continue to
operate the farm. Jim and Mary have two sons,
Chandler and Garrett, and live on the farm. Joe
and Kathy have twin sons, Aaron and Adam, and
a daughter, Livia. All of the kids help with chores,
as is the family tradition.
Jim is responsible for the dairy cattle, milking an
average of 80 to 85 Brown Swiss cows twice
daily. Joe handles the hog finishing operation
where they raise 7200 hogs a year. “Major management
decisions,” said Jim, “my brother and
I make together. Six or seven years ago we sold
the sows and bought into a sow unit with 14 other
producers. Now every nine weeks it’s our turn to
get 1200 pigs from the unit. Decisions like that
we make together.” He added with a smile, “But
labor goes wherever it needs to go.”
The pigs weigh around 17 pounds when they
arrive at the farm and are finished out at approximately
275 pounds, which takes about five and a
half months. The pigs are all raised in confinement.
“The biggest issue with confinement,” said Mary,
Jim’s wife, “is the manure. Around here, Iowa is
pretty good about having manure management
plans.” All of the manure is stored in pits underneath
the hog confinement building.
“The nutrients in manure include nitrogen, phosphorous
and potassium, which are the main
sources of plant food,” said Jim. “The manure
management plan states you can only apply as
much manure onto the land that the crop is going
to use. So for corn, if you are going to produce
180 bushels an acre then you apply X amount
of manure per acre.” Once or twice a year the
manure is pumped out and sprayed on the fields.
“All of it is applied to the land,” said Jim.
Jim and Mary’s son, Garret, who is 13, is in charge
Jim and Mary with son, Garret, on the front porch of the house to be moved. PHOTO BY JOHN MORAN
of the hen egg laying operation. Jim said, “He’s
on the ten year plan.” At this time, Garret plans
on staying on to farm.
The Pfeiler brothers also plant around 260 acres
of corn a year and harvest another 100 acres of
alfalfa. They still need to purchase approximately
40,000 bushels of corn a year to feed the livestock.
“If the price of corn jumps another $1.00
a bushel, you can do the math in your head. It
costs us another $40,000,” said Jim.
Jim and Mary live in and own the original farmhouse
that Great Grandfather Philip Brecht built.
An addition was built onto the old farmhouse in
1906 and the house was completely gutted and
remodeled in 1997. The house is located, as our
most old farmhouses, very near all the other farm
buildings, and these buildings and property are
all co-owned with Jim’s brother, Joe. The twist
to this Heritage Farm is saving and moving the
family home.
“We can’t sell this farmhouse separate from the
farm, because its right in the middle of the farm
buildings we are using.” And they don’t want to
rent it out to a third party. “It has to be located on
five acres of land and the property line has to be
at least 100 feet from any buildings. The idea is
to move it to a five-acre parcel, so if some time
down the line we determined we had to sell it
for whatever reason, it would be separate from
the farm.” They will be able to expand the living
space by placing the home on a new walk-out
basement foundation. Moving the house is actually
cheaper than building a new home. “And we
like this house,” added Mary.
The house will be jacked up, slid on to a trailer
and moved some several hundred yards down
the lane from its present location.
“We will have a bulldozer handy since the wheels
on the trailer used to move the house are 30
feet wide and there are some places on the lane
where it’s too narrow. We will need to add gravel
on one side or the other to create a 30-foot road
bed,” said Jim.
The new basement foundation will be dug out
and poured after the house is set in place upon
railroad ties. Plum lines will be dropped from the
corners of the house in order to mark the edges
of the foundation. Since old houses are not always
square, this is the best way to ensure the foundation
will match up to the house.
The moving of the house will take place between
August 15 and September 15 and will be done by
the Aylsworth Brothers House Movers located in
Wadena, Iowa. Julien’s Journal plans on keeping
our readers up to date on the move with a pictorial
placed on our website and Facebook network.
Some of Joe and Jim’s children have expressed a
great interest in farming, so odds are pretty good
that a sixth generation will some day operate the
farm started by Adam and Maria Brecht in 1861.
Iowa may have to begin a Bicentennial Farm
program if that’s the case. ❖
August 2012 ❖ Julien’s Journal ❖ 39