Hello and welcome to “Grain Guy Fifty”! I’m Jim Voigt, and I’m thrilled to launch this blog dedicated to sharing insights, knowledge, and best practices from my 50 years in the feed and grain industry.
I didn’t start diving in some tropical paradise. Hell, I didn’t even start in a place most people would willingly swim. I got certified in the borrow pits of central Illinois, cold, murky water that smelled like mud and tractor grease, the kind of place where you learn to trust your gear before you ever see a coral reef. I was a country boy who worked hard, and when I finally got the chance to play hard, I took it. Diving became my escape, my reset button, my Jimmy Buffett Ca
I grew up a California kid in the 1950s and 60s, watching cowboy movies and TV series and then walking outside to see the real thing. There were ranches all around our place, a couple of jackpot rodeos nearly every weekend within an hour’s drive, and plenty of classmates who ended up riding line on cattle in the Sierras right out of the 1860s playbook. By the time I made my way to Cal Poly’s ag program, a lot of my classmates in animal science were headed for a life that look