Wait. What Day Is It? I'm sitting at our 4-H meeting, which is really the only way I know it's Monday. The past week has been a blur. As of last Monday, May 13, we hadn't planted a seed. We'd had 14 inches of rain in the preceding month. Rivers had been out. Some of them twice. We'd been stuck in a three-week pattern of three decent days, then four rainy ones. Never enough time for anything to dry out. Temperaments were, shall we say, running a little ragged…

Continue Reading

As a writer and a farmer, there are some stories that will just never make it to print. Some are too personal; others can't be told without offending someone. If you farm with family, you surely know just what I mean about either case! Others would raise the ire of the farm safety folks, who do good work every single day but who would be astounded that some of us ever made it through our childhoods. Still others, I just never thought I would tell. That's the case with my…

Continue Reading

Yesterday, I was in hammer-down mode to get my flower beds cleaned off, ornamental grasses cut down, roses, trimmed, etc., etc., before the impending cold and rain set in (again). After the kids got home from school, eight-year-old Nathan assessed the situation and sensed an opportunity. "Mom. Do you want me to hook up my wagon to my four-wheeler and haul this stuff off?" And just like that, it was as if eight years of food, water and shelter had finally paid off. I…

Continue Reading

Time was, when you had a breakdown in the field, somebody made a parts run. Like the time when I was a teenager and Dad sent me to town for a part, and I wound up back at McLean Implement three times because I came home with the wrong thing. But I learned the difference between male and female couplers. And that you really can't just guess. This morning, my husband went out to spray. First decent day back in the field in weeks. He ran in at lunch and chased me away from the computer…

Continue Reading

You know, some days I just get tired. Tired of the accusations, tired of the misinformation, tired of the same old tired arguments. Monsanto's corporate agenda is driving takeover of the world's seed supplies. Farmers can no longer save seeds - and coincidentally the price of corn, soy and cotton seeds have skyrocketed. I personally hate anything treated with Pesticides or any other chemical and GMO foods of any kind. They stack more kinds of herbicides in sprays…

Continue Reading

Last Wednesday, I spent the better part of the day driving home from Kansas City, where I'd gone for a board meeting of the American Ag Editors Association. I sat with friends over breakfast chai that morning and we discussed the weather that was moving through, and I casually joked that I was probably going to wind up driving along with the front all the way home. As it turns out, that wasn't so funny when it actually happened. I drove with my wipers on high for a solid two…

Continue Reading

I pulled out an old notebook yesterday afternoon and flipped through to find a clean page. On my way there, I came across notes from a variety of semi-recent meetings and events. Among them: my most favorite quote, courtesy of estate planning attorney and Prairie Farmer columnist Curt Ferguson. He spoke last fall, addressing the Cultivating Master Farmers group and talking about communication and estate plans. He told them, "If you're not willing to talk to your kids…

Continue Reading

Last month, I was asked to speak at the Women in Agriculture conference, held in the Quad Cities, and organized by several Illinois Farm Bureaus. It was a fun and fabulous day. We learned about marketing, legislation and accounting software, just to name a few topics. And then I got to wrap up the day with a few thoughts on agriculture and farm life. As part of the presentation, my fabulous friend and local Fulton County Farm Bureau manager, Elaine Stone, asked me to create a handout for…

Continue Reading

A new study from Cornell University floated through my social media field yesterday. Basically, a group of researchers from Cornell's Food and Brand Lab wanted to know if the "health halo" effect of organic food could lead to real bias. Previous studies have shown that the organic label can lead consumers to think a product is healthier, but this group wanted to know if it went further than that. Turns out, it does. In short, they offered up a pair of cookies…

Continue Reading

So. It was a little crazy around here last week. A quick re-cap: 1.  I flew to Washington, D.C. on Monday to cover the National Ag Day festivities for Farm Progress, which mostly took place on Tuesday, March 19. (See here and here.) 2.  It was great fun. Lots of good people. Lots of work crammed into a reasonably short span of time. (See photo below.) 3.  My friend, Kenna Rathai, and I found ourselves with a narrow two-hour window of time on Tuesday. We wanted to…

Continue Reading