When The Farmer graduated from the Cortland Enlarged School District, back last century, his parents bought him a Vic-20 computer. That was back in the days when you hooked your computing device up to your TV as a monitor.
The Farmer spent the summer between high school and college teaching himself the BASIC programming language.
He has dabbled with computer technology ever since.
Does anyone remember CompuServe? The Farmer used that service as a gateway to the online world, using it as a bridge to this new thing called the Internet almost as soon as it was possible. (Don’t even get The Farmer started on all of those dreaded AOL disks that came in the mail trying to get him to switch over!)
When it became time to make a website for the farm, The Farmer did it himself. He chose the WordPress platform because it was well supported and easy to install on the farm’s hosting service. But it seemed to run slowly.
So over the years The Farmer has used straight HTML, HTML templates, Wiki software, and flat-file CMSes to built the various iterations of the farm website.
Over the years, The Farmer actively avoided WordPress, resorting to an obscure solution when the Wonderful Farmer’s Wife took up blogging. When that obscure solution caused major problems for the website, The Farmer bit the bullet and installed WordPress again.
Now The Farmer has come full circle and converted the farm website back to a WordPress solution. The fact that WordPress is still a viable solution with a vibrant development community is a testimony to its popularity and the possibilities it brings.
The Farmer still thinks the website feels a bit sluggish. But it is definitely more colorful and better organized. And responsive, (which is a fancy way of saying that it looks OK on phones.)
So is all of this web stuff “farming technology?” In today’s day and age, a web presence and internet-based technologies can definitely help small businesses succeed.
Websites are great tools, and we hope you like our new one. But watching the plants grow and seeing the animals frolic is even greater. Need a breath of agriculture? Call (or email!) and ask for a farm tour. The farm may not be as neat as the website, but it is a down-to-earth source of joy for The Farmer.