By Mike Orso
1) Favorite food: Porterhouse steak
2) Favorite music, band or entertainment: “Barn Talk” podcast
3) Favorite sports team: Chicago Bears
4) What most people don’t know about me is: I read quite a bit
5) If I wouldn’t be farming I’d be: Golfing
A McHenry County farmer’s marriage in August culminated his yearlong engagement that started with a large-lettered proposal surrounded by crops in an area farm field he harvested again this fall.
Spencer Herchenbach, 27, of Hebron, utilized Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to plant the field a year ago. At the end of August, he married the former Anna Grace or “AG” Hatchette in her hometown of Spartanburg, S.C.
“I put up my drone and then kind of just showed her,” he said. “And then, got down on one knee.”
Herchenbach had seen other farmers do similar proposals on social media. He selected one of his farm fields north of Lakemoor and worked with an agronomist with Alcivia, a farm cooperative in Genoa City, Wis., to help program his corn planter to leave space in the field for the very special message.
“We just uploaded it and the planter went out there and planted that,” he said. “Kind of like a corn maze.”
Herchenbach grew up in Mundelein and always helped when he could on his grandparent’s farm near Grayslake.
“I was always involved with my grandpa, in 4-H, raising steers and that kind of thing,” he said. “I knew kind of the city-suburb-type life wasn’t for me.”
He credits his grandfather, Pete Tekampe, who farms near Grayslake, and Michele Aavang, who farms in Bull Valley and near Woodstock, for being major mentors in his life. After graduating from Iowa State University in 2020 with a degree in Agricultural Systems Technology, Herchenbach started farming full time in a partnership.
“I was more wanting to come back and farm rather than enter the corporate world,” said Herchenbach. “We each own certain pieces of equipment and then we just kind of share the responsibility of all of the acres together.”
He now grows soybeans, corn, hay and wheat in two Chicago collar counties, each of which pose a unique challenge.
“It can be pretty tough. I always tell people, ‘If you didn’t know where the county line is you can just tell if you’re in a piece of ag equipment,’” he said. “As soon as you get out of McHenry County, Lake County people don’t observe farm equipment near as well as the McHenry County folks.”
Herchenbach has a small herd of beef cows near Hebron but also helps raise beef steers on a farm near the Village of Greenwood. He sells meat directly to consumers as well as at the Bull Valley Farm Country Store. Like many McHenry County farmers, he’s currently putting in long trips on some busy roads and long hours in farm fields, harvesting soybeans, which averaged around 50 bushels an acre, and corn, which has been yielding up to 190 bushels an acre.
“We’re still in pretty good shape,” he said about the progress of this fall’s harvest. “Two years ago, I think it was, it was frozen and wet and then it got hot again in late November. So, we were picking like from midnight ‘til 8 in the morning and then we would have to stop again because it would be too muddy.”
He will also be adding farm organization leadership to his busy schedule, since he recently began volunteer service as an elected member of the McHenry County Farm Bureau board of directors.
“I want to try to help as much as I can, where I can,” said Herchenbach. “I think it is a great organization because it gives the people who don’t have much time the voice through that channel to the people that need to hear it, that write the policy and enact the change that affects us.”
This scene in a farm field north of Lakemoor last year served as part of McHenry County farmer Spencer Herchenbach’s marriage proposal to his then girlfriend Anna Grace or “AG” Hatchette. Herchenbach flew his drone, which includes a camera, and showed the screen on the drone’s remote to Hatchette. She said, “yes.” The couple wed in August of this year. (Photo by Spencer Herchenbach)
Spencer Herchenbach met his wife Anna Grace visiting his sister while both attended Clemson University. He grows crops and raises beef cattle and she works as a human resource professional. (Photo by Brad Herchenbach)
“I’m glad I’m doing it,” said Spencer Herchenbach, about his decision four years ago to farm full time. “There’s obviously days that are tough but it’s definitely more of a way of life than it is a job. Obviously, I like it.”
Spencer Herchenbach takes a break from trying to repair the combine he was using to harvest that broke down recently in a farm field near Grayslake. “There’s an injection line that blew a pin hole,” he said. “It’s Sunday, of course, that’s the day things happen so I can’t get parts until tomorrow. We’re kind of shot for today.”