(Note: Editor Susan Crowell is traveling with an agricultural trade mission to Israel. This is her first report, filed after arriving in Tel Aviv.

Do you want the good news or the bad news? Thing is, you can’t separate the two, when you talk about farm economics.

Last week, we talked about trends that shouldn’t surprise anyone: the generation gap, agriculture beyond food and fiber, and learning to “be human.

Adapt. Flex, Experience. Create. Focus. Partner. Shift. Imagine. Start. Enjoy. These are futurist Jim Carroll’s 10 “great words for 2006,” and they’re a good fit for January’s new beginnings.

The calendar officially says December. The holidays. The pace. The weather. The end of the year. The year’s 12th month is either welcome or despised: a reminder of tasks undone or accomplished, of goals unmet or fulfilled, and of plans waylaid or on track.

White HAZMAT suits. That’s what I think of when I hear the words “Superfund site.” White suits with self-contained breathing apparatus, gloves, boots.

The screen in the darkened room showed a rural road now bordered on the left by new homes. “I used to farm this,” said Knox County’s Tim Norris as he flipped to the next slide.

I tuck my two teenage children in bed several nights a week. At least I go into their bedrooms and pretend I can’t see the “Oh Mom!” roll of the eyes as I sit on their beds.

The livestock industry wants the government involved in the national animal identification system. And yet it doesn’t want the government involved.

The wind died down around 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 29. In that lull, Mississippi dairyman Bucky Jones scrambled out to the barn to milk his 80 Holsteins.