About a year or so ago I was flipping thru an issue of Green Magazine and saw a short story about a seed corn dealer who had a giant ear of corn sitting on a running gear he used as advertising outside of his business. The kernels on the ear were made out of milk jugs fastened to what appeared to be a cob made of cattle panels. It really caught my eye and made me think. Around the same time I attended my town festival's annual parade and was disappointed at the quality of the floats. It had turned into dads pulling youth baseball teams on a car trailer with professionally made banners and signs behind a shiny 3/4 ton truck that's never seen dirt or mud. Most other floats looked as if they were slapped together the night before or the morning of. It just wasn't the same as when I was a kid.

Back then the norm was tractors pulling hay rack floats put together by the labor and collective teamwork of a group of people. There were the common floats you would see annually like local daycare kids tossing candy, Boy Scout or Girl Scout troops, the high school football team, local politicians, the county pork producers and cattleman's association. However there was always a handful of groups that would put together floats  just for fun. They put in days of hard work coming up with clever and witty slogans that poked fun at local and national hot button issues and some were just complete nonsense in general but they all did the same thing: they made people smile and laugh. To me, our parade had lost some of that. So I made up my mind: I was going to build a giant ear of corn for no other reason than "just because." 

I put out the call to all the big milk consumers I knew: my cousin with 8 kids, my in laws with 2 teenage boys, and our daycare lady. All my aunts and uncles and grandparents in the area answered the call and also chipped in. Over the course of the year we collectively saved up nearly a thousand one gallon milk and water jugs. In the spring, cattle panels went on sale at Tractor Supply and around the same time my brother found me 54 cans of yellow spray paint at a Good Will Re-store in Omaha for $2 a can. I now had all the supplies needed.  

I got the "cob" put together a month ago. I wrapped the cattle panels in a circle and wired them together. Then lined 4 circles up butt to butt and wired those all together. The "nose cone" was shaped out of scrap pieces. The weekend before the parade my wife finally got it through my sometimes stubborn head that I needed help. I called up my brother in law and he and my wife's sister came out with their 3 kids. My wife's parents also showed up to pitch in. In the ensuing 5 hours we zip tied almost all the milk jugs to the "cob" and when done, only had 16 jugs to spare! The following nights my wife and I spray painted the kernels which turned out to be the quickest and easiest job. My mom also came over to help us spray paint and paint signs for the float. It turned out to be an awesome experience and I am so grateful and blessed to have such hard working, helpful, generous, and dedicated family members willing to pitch in with this project.

I had left the 237 on the 60 after finishing the "breakdown acre" in early June for one purpose: to pull the ear of corn in the parade. I kicked around a few slogans but settled on "Bartlett Farms Custom Corn Picking... No Job Too Big" on the butt of the ear it said "Thank You 'Kernel' Donors" as a tribute to all the family and friends who helped make it possible. It went just as I had hoped, dozens of smiles and laughs were seen and heard along the parade route. To top it all off I wore a foam corn hat and threw out ear corn instead of candy. It was priceless to see all the kids as they picked up an ear of corn with the look of "what the hell is this" on their face! 

By the numbers it took somewhere in the ball park of 925 jugs, 25 cans of spray paint, and 5 cattle panels. the ear has a diameter of 5 feet and is 18 feet long.

It was a fun, enjoyable day and I'm already scheming up ideas for next years parade. Hope all is well with all you pickers out there and I can't wait to see some pics this fall!