Tyler Danke's Personal Blog

How I Want to Be Remembered

Tyler — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:44:07 +0000

How I Want to Be Remembered By My Colleagues:
I want my colleagues to remember my servant-leadership, my integrity, my humility, and
my commitment to having fun. I want them to remember how much they learned and
grew as a result of knowing me. Most of all, I want them to remember how I stood
for the greatness in them and empowered them to accomplish far more than they ever
thought possible.

How I Want to Be Remembered By Ruth
I want Ruth to remember how I loved her, understood her, served her, and helped her accomplish
her dreams. I want her to remember specific times that we shared together—times
we laughed, times we cried, times we spent discussing things that were important to
both of us, and times we just held one another and watched the sunset.

How I want to Be Remembered by my children.
My family will be led by me. My children will be pastored by me. I want my children to remember how I loved them, understood them and helped them accomplish their dreams. I want them to remember specific times we shared together.

How I want to Be Remembered by God
I participate in the ministry of a good church. The bible is read in my home by me. I learned my theology and pastored my family. I repented of sin. My church will be served by me.

Garlic and Planting Dates

Tyler — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 11:26:00 +0000

This morning I woke up at 3:30 am and wanted to research garlic. Why have I not found garlic at Steins, Bakers Creek, or several other places I have looked. Well I found this amazing website wegrowgarlic.com. They actually are in Wisconsin, just north of Madison! I was a little saddened to learn that for best yield you should plant garlic in the fall. I did however find out that there are TONS of varieties of garlic and they are from Wisconsin! Very interesting! I counted them. 162 varieties! They had very detailed instructions on growing garlic and will offer seed garlic for sale this fall. I also found that Seed Savers Exchange has garlic for sale. This all makes me very happy and excited. Now I can’t wait to plant something in OCTOBER! YAY!

I also found a great resource from Farmer’s Almanac. It lists the best planting dates for planting seeds. It is by zip code so I no longer have to wonder if I should plant at the same time as Madison, or if I should plant 1 or 2 weeks after Madison.

We are starting seeds today! I can’t wait. I think I need about 5 acres to plant all that I want to plant. My trouble is I like to purchase seeds, I like to plant seedlings… but man… those weeds are going to kill me this summer. But I want to feed my family. I want my garden to be the sustenance that gets us through this rough time in our lives. I want the flavors of all these heirloom varieties of vegetables. I want the beauty of a garden, the sweat of hard work in the summer providing food for my family.

My view of etiquette on Facebook Personal Profiles and Business Pages

Tyler — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:50:48 +0000

I have had hundreds of people friend me only because my work is Purely Poultry. They strongly desire to follow both my personal profile and my business page. At one time I would accept anyone who invited me as a friend. There was one point where I had several thousand friends on facebook. Since that I have removed many of the people that I have do not know.

I view my personal facebook profile as my opportunity to share my personal life, views, photos, and personal voice. It is my chance to stand on my soap box if I want to. I view it is my opportunity to have FREEDOM OF SPEECH. I feel as though I can say whatever I want to there. (except expressing anger about my mom… that didn’t go over well.) I have had several very active discussions on religion, politics, and sex. One of my political conversations I had on my personal facebook profile was controversial and lengthy. Involved in this conversation was one of my “friends” that friended me because I operate Purely Poultry. She eventually instructed me to “stick to chickens and keep my mouth quiet about politics.” In response I stated that if she wants to know about chickens she can follow the Purely Poultry facebook page. If she wants to know about me she can be my friend on facebook. She unfriended me and discontinued following my business page on facebook. I am perfectly okay with that.

A very long time ago I decided that I wished only to talk about poultry or Purely Poultry related items on my business facebook page. I only want to talk about personal related things on my personal facebook profile. I had a person very strongly tell me that I was being too personal on my business page. I was talking about my son’s interaction with poultry, or my personal poultry flock on my Purely Poultry facebook page. These things I viewed as acceptable because it is specifically about poultry!

I want to say that I do very highly value being friends with the independant contractors I work with on facebook. I view being friends with you on facebook as the water cooler talk that employees who work at a traditional office. It is like going out for drinks with co-workers after work. It is like when I invite co-workers over to my home for dinner. It is a chance to socialize even when my customer care reps are a 12 or a 22 hour car ride away, my writer or professional organizer is a 14 hour car ride away. At this point if I add a third independent contractor customer service rep they would be a 35 hour car ride away. I long for the day when the Purely Poultry team can meet face to face and sit down to dinner even when though they are from all around the nation.

I do however find it very uncomfortable to be facebook friends with ex-girlfriends from high school and my mother in law. I don’t feel the need to get into religion, politics, and sex conversations with any of them.

My experience as a customer service rep

Tyler — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:49:19 +0000

This was an email I received from a supervisor when I worked in customer service:

Hello Tyler,

I want to recap our monthly coaching session from today. It will be your last coaching, but I thought that it would be helpful for you so that you can apply what you learned here for your chick business.

In regards to your metrics, I was happy to point out how much progress you have made since starting with us in November. Call Quality jumped from 74% to 100% in February; First Pass improved from 93% to 98%, and finally the overall Data Entry accuracy grew from 51% to 79.7%. All of this is fantastic progress! You have worked hard, it the numbers prove it. In addition to all this, your schedule adherence has been wonderful and I really appreciate that.

We listened to a call from yesterday, regarding the availability of one of our products. Your tone was very nice and pleasant; you were professional, as well as polite. I really liked how you asked a lot of questions to find out which product exactly she was looking for. While you could not give her a date as to when the product will return, you did offer to send her future promotions, announcements and coupons as a solution; she declined and you didn’t let that bother you. My one opportunity for development was to offer empathy sooner in the call. Whenever a consumer says that they cannot find a product, it is best to offer empathy right away – “I am so sorry to hear that you haven’t been able to find the product. I can understand how frustrating that it.” – this will help to eliminate any frustration they may feel and acknowledges that fact right up front.

Tyler, it has been a pleasure working with you and having you on my team (albeit for a brief amount of time)! I truly hope that you will be able to apply what you learned here and that it will help you grow your business. Remember your call flow – Open, Learn, Solution, Close – and don’t forget the Hugs

End of the day routine

Tyler — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:56:09 +0000

I love the helpful insights that Michael Hyatt’s blog always provide. This article was particularly wonderful on Friday http://michaelhyatt.com/crossing-daily-finish-lines.html It encouraged me to write the following last Friday.

How did the day go? Today went quite well. I was productive with Purely Poultry today while at work. I have only 7 working days left at Alta Resources before I go back to operating Purely Poultry full time. I am hoping to go sledding tonight and help my brother move.

What did I learn today? I learned about doing this daily review and how helpful it can be to divide parts of your day. It draws work to a close so that I can spend quality time with my wife and son tonight.

About myself? I love being a father and husband.

Who did I interact with? I chatted with Meghan and Amanda today quite a bit. I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with co-workers today, both Purely Poultry co-workers through google chat and also co-workers at Alta Resources.

Anyone I need to update? I need to tell Darren that I am not interested in doing the website for his work.

Thank? Thank my brother for suggesting myself for his employer’s website. Thank Darren and Eva for considering Ruth for doing their taxes.

Apologize? Amanda for trying to be too helpful in her personal life.

Ask a question? Cackle if they would ship small orders for us.

The most important tasks to accomplish tomorrow:
Finish fixing Uncle Wayne’s computer
Entering mailed in check order
Process my laundry basket of paperwork.
Move my brother.

Last Frost, First frost and more for Fremont, Wisconsin

Tyler — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:26:52 +0000

Each winter, on average, your risk of frost is from October 3 through May 6.

Almost certainly, however, you will receive frost from October 15 through April 22.

You are almost guaranteed that you will not get frost from May 19 through September 22.

Your frost-free growing season is around 150 days.

Temperature   10%   20%   30%   40%   50%   60%   70%   80%   90%
Spring 32°    May 19    May 15    May 11    May 8    May 6    May 3    Apr 30    Apr 27    Apr 22
Spring 28°    May 3    Apr 28    Apr 25    Apr 22    Apr 19    Apr 17    Apr 14    Apr 11    Apr 6
Spring 24°    Apr 26    Apr 21    Apr 18    Apr 15    Apr 12    Apr 9    Apr 6    Apr 3    Mar 29
Fall 32°    Sep 22    Sep 26    Sep 29    Oct 1    Oct 3    Oct 6    Oct 8    Oct 11    Oct 15
Fall 28°    Sep 27    Oct 2    Oct 6    Oct 10    Oct 13    Oct 16    Oct 20    Oct 24    Oct 30
Fall 24°    Oct 11    Oct 17    Oct 21    Oct 25    Oct 29    Oct 31    Nov 4    Nov 8    Nov 14

Ruby’s Food Pantry

Tyler — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:31:48 +0000

Ruby’s Pantry in Readfield and Waupaca has been a true blessing to me. I have had the opportunity to receive the food, to be a part of a team, to be able to serve. The first two visits to Ruby’s pantry I went just as a participant. At Ruby’s Pantry you pay $15 to help cover the costs of transportation of the food to the distribution center. Also $6 of the $15 is kept in the local community for those in more need than us. Ruby’s Pantry gets donations of foods from large corporate donors. Food warehouses, manufacturers, processors and other sources donate food to Ruby’s. Most of the donations are because the food is about to expire or meet its sell by date. Most food is still good until a long while after the sell by date and so we get a lot of food this way. Also many food at Ruby’s is food that cannot be taken by normal food pantries. Ruby’s has a large volunteer team at each of its distribution centers that allows them to repackage fresh, refrigerated, frozen, or baked goods from large cases into smaller usable cases that can be distributed to those in need. The normal food pantries do not accept perishable food or food that has to be repackaged so Ruby’s Pantry fills a need for food with a supply of perishable food in large cases. Ruby’s does also receive some canned goods but not many because most of those are given to the more traditional food pantries.

Each time we have been at Ruby’s we have received a large amount of food. Some of the items were frozen chicken, hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, shredded hard boiled eggs, tater-tots, tater logs, French fries, potato puffs, a case of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, frozen diced mushrooms, frozen diced peppers and onions, yogurt, coffee creamer, half and half, potatoes, bread, buns, cookies, jello, pudding, relish, pizza crusts, pepperoni, canned vegetables, orange juice, trail mix, breath mint candy and more. This list is so long I cannot imagine that the list could possibly be longer but I am sure that I am missing items. Many of these items we get an entire case but the quantity and availability on all items varies because it is entirely dependant on what items are donated to Ruby’s.

The experience at Ruby’s is interesting. Registration is from 8am to 9am. First you walk in and fill out a clip board sheet of paper with your contact information, and how many people are in your family and sign the waiver that you are not paying for the food but actually making a donation to the non-profit which goes toward the cost transportation and warehousing. Then you wait in line while everyone makes their donation, gets their number, and gets registered. After you have your number there is then a waiting area where you wait until your number has been called. In the waiting area there are prayers and gospel ministry. They call off about five numbers at a time for people to go through the line. Ruby’s likes you to bring laundry baskets, totes, or boxes to put into your cart to collect your food. There are boxes available from some of the packaging of the food for those who forget. I usually forget! :O)

Seed Saving and Shopping List

Tyler — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:03:20 +0000

I spoke with Meghan last night about gardening. It was so much fun. She has been a seed saver for several years. She recomends Seed Saver’s Exchange as a high quality source of seed. She is going to be sending us some heirloom tomatoe seeds! I am so excited! I can’t wait to try all the different tomatoe varieties. A tomato variety that has the word Zebra in the name is so exciting! These are the seeds and plants that we still need to purchase.

more asparagus
broccoli
cauliflower
more cucumbers
kohlirabi
more lettuce
onion
parsnip
potatoes
basil
chives
dill
oregano
rosemary
garlic
sage
tarragon
Apples
Cherrys
Plums
Rasberrys
Blueberries
Grapes
Strawberries
Country Gentleman Corn

2012 Garden Plan

Tyler — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:18:56 +0000

I am so excited for my garden to start. I love garden seed catalogs almost more than poultry catalogs at this time in my life. I spend my working hours and my income mind on poultry. Gardening is my opportunity to enjoy life a little more. I am able to have a large garden in my lot in town. The poultry farm that I dream of is so large that I am unable to attain that any time soon and I am not excited about pursuing the city to allow me to have just a few chickens in my backyard.

But my 100 by 120 foot yard can realistically hold a very sizeable garden. (and a few chickens and rabbits hopefully this summer). I already purchased seeds in January 13th! Thats an early start! Ruth and I decided that this year we are going to try to start seedlings indoors this year. I have not done that since I was 10 years old so I am very excited about that. It is almost as exciting as an incubator.

We are in Zone 4b which has an average annual minimum temperature of -20 degrees to -25 degrees. I wish I could remember this for more than 5 minutes at a time.

In 2011 we had purchased a CSA subscription from http://oldenproduce.com/ so we had fresh fruit and vegetables every other week in addition to our small garden. I want so badly to provide my family with enough food from our garden to feed us entirely for a whole year from local food grown within a sixty mile radius of my house. Preferably within a 10 mile radius of my house.

We purchased seeds for vegetables and flowers.

This is the list of things that I want to plant this year:

Asparagus
Green Snap Beans
Yellow Wax Beans
Beets
Broccoli
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cucumber
Kohlrabi
Head Lettuce
Leaf Lettuce
Muskmelon
Onion
Parsnip
Pea Pods
Sugar Snap Peas
Multi Colored Peppers
Potatoes
Pie Pumpkins
Radish
Rhubarb
Yellow Zucchini
Black Beauty Green Zucchini
Butternut Squash
Roma Tomatoes
Watermelon

Basil
Chives
Dill
Oregano
Rosemary
Thyme
Marigolds
Garlic
Sage
Tarragon

Apples
Cherrys
Plums
Rasberrys
Blueberries
Grapes
Strawberries

I know its pretty short isn’t it. LOL!

Our last frost date is early June. We are to plant in rows running east and west. The tallest vegetables on the North Side.

Time of Use Electricity

Tyler — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:04:43 +0000

In our effort to be Christian stewards and win financially we are on Time of Use Electricity. WE Energy has a plan that you save money by using your electricity at night instead of during the day. In our area electricity is normally about 13 cents per kilowatt.

In September 2010 we signed up for Time of use level 1 which means during the day from 7am to 7pm electricity is 19 cents per kilowatt. During the night it is 9 cents per kilowatt. The time of use only applies Monday through Friday. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays are automatically 9 cents per kilowatt. We have delayed the use of the water heater and dryer during the day and save that mostly for nights and weekends.

Electricity is more expensive to produce for the power companies during the day because all of the businesses are using large amounts of electricity during the day. The more electricity that is being used at one time the more expensive it is for them to add more power generation.

This project did save us some money in the last year but if memory serves me right it was only like $150.00 If we would have used level 2 electricity we would have saved much more than that so we are now enrolled in level two for Time of Use.

Level 2 is 5 cents per kilowatt during the day and 25 cents per kilowatt during the night. I can’t wait to see the savings over the next year!