Friday, January 23, 2026

About 10 seconds after the Democrats reclaimed the House of Representatives last November, Collin Peterson, the Minnesotan who would lead the chamber's Ag Committee come January, began to think about the 2007 farm bill.

It's a good thing we humans don't get to run the weather or we would be living on one mighty, mixed-up planet.

We Americans are a cheeky lot. We've built this nation on independence, courage and true grit. We're rags to riches, Don't Tread On Me and don't tell us what to do.

Regardless of the weather, there is always a need for a reasonable estimate of the price of corn when used for silage.

Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got till it's gone They paved paradise and put up a parking lot - Lyrics by Joni Mitchell Ten farms in Adams County.

To think I am being held hostage by a half-ounce bird! Outside the kitchen window, the wisteria vine is headed for the roof, hulls from oil sunflower seeds are piling up, venturing to the trash can elicits a loud scolding, and even filling the bird bath is a challenge.

I can't even get arrested in this town. Well, OK, technically I could probably get arrested, but what I probably wouldn't get is a CNN ticker and headline news.

"Step, kick, kick, cross-back, step, step; repeat, kick, kick, cross-back." I heard my daughter practicing in her room.

If the writing of federal legislation is, as often described, a kabuki dance, then the farm bill passed by House Ag Committee July 19 is only the first, essential step of a complex drama that has two more months of rewrites before its scheduled Oct.

"Until that time, he hadn't given money much thought. They'd never had much, but neither had anyone else they knew.