Family meetings just make sense
Regardless of the size of your dairy farm, if there are family members involved - directly or indirectly - with the business, it is important to conduct regular family business meetings.
Farm bill discussions are ‘ridiculous’
Be it bird hunting in Minnesota or vote hunting on Capitol Hill, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson is seen as a straight shooter of both pheasants and fools.
Draw of the water is so irresistible
In the dead of winter, I dream deep dreams of swimming. As the thermometer sits precisely on zero this morning on our farm, I just awoke from a blissful night of dreaming, snuggled down in my cozy warm bed, topped with a down comforter.
OSU Extension loses a good one
At last week's retirement open house for Jefferson County Extension Director Ken Simeral, OSU Extension retiree Joe Pittman observed, "I've always said there are good agents, there are average agents and there are those who should be working someplace else.
Time (and cellular minutes) is money
Apparently, a 50-percent divorce rate isn't high enough for the cellular telephone industry. No, they've given otherwise loving couples yet one more thing to squabble over: shared minutes.
My Crush on Marion
It's a fine man's name, though you don't hear it used much. Marion Morrison, who surely could have found fame using his real name, became better known as John Wayne, then dubbed simply "Duke".
Bull and bear get piggish competition
An unwritten motto of a former employer, market adviser Professional Farmers of America, was that it's easier to turn journalists into economists than economists into journalists.
Nothing replaces a good farm dog
Standing at the fence, enjoying a rare day of sunshine in January here on our farm, I watched our dog Channing circling the pasture in a sweeping motion and wondered what she was up to now.
Closing the door on the holidays
Make no mistake: down the road, we will pay for the prolonged January thaw which blessed us for so many days.
Not ready to let go of ‘early us’ cat
He's always been less a lover, more a fighter. We bought him almost 15 years ago, in our early dating days when buying a cat together was still giddily committed, "hey look at us, we're a FAMILY!" We found him in a pet shop, stuck in a cage in a roomful of barking dogs, eyes wide, fur on end.
