Saturday, May 9, 2026

You don't own any cattle, so the court-clouded Canadian beef import rule doesn't affect you, right? Likewise, you don't make fructose, raise sugar beets or grow cotton so all that mumbo-jumbo about NAFTA, CAFTA, TRIPS and the WTO is better left to those smart trade-talkers in Washington, Brussels and Geneva.

I am not a morning person. In the morning, if forced to get up at all, I prefer nothing more than silence, and a cup of coffee as big as my head.

Familiar moments float to the surface of my memory pool at Easter time. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying leisure time with the Sunday comics, but I believe my fondness for the funnies traces back to the Easter mornings I spent with Dallas Clapsadle.

I am the first to admit that sometimes I make a mess of things. I try to teach my kids that the best reaction is to 'fess up, take responsibility, fix what I can, learn from my mistakes and move on.

The first hint of spring brings big iron and big irony to the winter-rested Illinois prairie.

I remember as a child being obsessed with horses and the cowboy life. It consumed our play, it invaded our dreams.

Last week, a busload of Pennsylvania farmers visited three dairy farms in eastern Ohio as part of a dairy profitability tour.

To be invoked by all PTO parents, volunteer parents, and room mothers (and fathers and "significant others") among us.

Although my daughters are, for the most part, pretty good kids, and I shouldn't complain, I used to think no child rearing could be worse than my two little girls when they were fighting - until now that they are teens, they are both bigger than I am, and just as loud.

The scene, often repeated these bitterly political days, was straight out of Alice in Wonderland. On March 3, U.