Saturday, April 20, 2024

In Farm and Dairy's Classified Advertising section -- we used to call them Want Ads -- there are always many intriguing headings. I enjoy reading the Dogs and Dog Supplies, Horses and Ponies, Hay and Grain, Miscellaneous and Wanted To Buy.

This is the time of year when harvest begins, and farmers become aware of where erosion and gullying is under way in their fields...

So corn is rockin' north of $7, beans are toyin' with $14, cattle look to be headed to who-knows-where and hogs, well, bacon is sellin' for what steak used to.

While touring the Portage County Randolph Fair, I spotted avid Suffield, Ohio outdoorsman Al Kisamore in the hog auction audience. He was representing the Ohio Fur Takers club, an active conservation-minded group that each puts its money where a needy mouth is.

A day does not pass without some Big Ag chieftain or Capitol Hill yakker parting their perpetually pursed lips to unleash total nonsense on...

On Aug. 25 at a high school football game on Wheeling Island in the Ohio River, a flock of high flying birds distracted my attention from the game. Shortly before sunset, I counted about 50 common nighthawks swirling and feeding above the stadium lights. I watched until they disappeared in the darkening night sky.

After our county fair in August, Athens County hosted the Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council Beef Grazing Tour. One of the discussions during the tour centered on some patches of johnsongrass in a stockpiled field of fescue.

I knew this day would come. There are milestones in every child's life. Birth, roll over, sit up, walk, talk and the "whatever" eye rolls.

Since September 2006, U.S. corn has not traded under $3/bushel -- not one single time -- and chances are good that we will never see corn under $3 per bushel ever again. Meanwhile, milk prices have played yo-yo like never before.

The Wayne County Fair starts Sept. 11. It remains the largest junior fair in Ohio, with more than 350 dairy projects, 350 swine projects,...