Wednesday, July 29, 2026

When March arrives like a lamb, the old saying goes, it roars out like a lion. How then will the 2006 growing season finish if current numbers, courtesy of the USDA, show it hobbling out of the gate on weak knees and a bent back? Six months, of course, will tell the tale, but February USDA figures begin it with some opening lines that are grim - Brothers Grimm grim.

Joy is found in simple moments if our eyes and our hearts are open. Today, from the back porch of what will soon be our new home, I watched nine deer amble across the hay field, just about 75 yards from where I stood, only the white board fence separating us.

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

Look, I just don't know if I can stomach the path this nation is taking one more day. What kind of world do we live in when a down-on-his-luck panhandler has to say, "Pardon me, brother.

A few weeks ago, my eighth grader casually mentioned that she was one of two representatives from her classroom in the school spelling bee.

A month ago this space outlined the ongoing Australian probe of AWB Ltd., that nation's single-desk wheat exporter, and the nearly $215 million in kickbacks and bribes it paid to Iraqi officials to keep Aussie wheat flowing into Iraq between 1999 and the U.

I awoke, slightly bleary-eyed from not nearly enough sleep, and headed for the kitchen one morning last week.

On any other day, the Jan. 23 confirmation that another BSE-carrying cow had been discovered in Canada would have rocked that nation and its Canadian beef-importing neighbor to the south.

While some kids played house, I remember playing railroad hobo with my sisters and our cousins. Our maternal grandparents, Henry and Mabel Tucker, lived on a nice, small horse farm on the outskirts of Ashland.

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