Editorial / Opinions

One of the oldest crafts in the Ozarks is basket making. People of the Ozarks wove baskets for countless everyday uses in the home, field and barn. Farming families wove baskets, in spare hours for trade or sale, helping the family’s finances. Families would work together on gathering and preparing natural materials such as grasses, timber or vines needed to weave together a basket that would carry game, grains and other agricultural goods.

I tried to make cowboys out of both my sons. Honestly, I really did.

Tis the season, the farmers market season that is. Anyone that knows me has a pretty good idea where to find me on a Saturday morning – at the farmers market.

A couple of items about Arkansas I want to share with you – number one is the western boundary. Arkansas is the smallest of all the states west of the Mississippi, it would have been larger if the United States government had not lied to the original territory founders. It probably all goes back to Desoto’s trip here through the sixteen hundreds or earlier. This Spainard discoverer, who may have been as far north as Eureka Springs, Ark., brought the kiss of death to the state’s Indian population. He brought with him the germs of the disease Small Pox.

The hay baler I presently own is a little over 2 years old and I’ve just started my third season with it. I can still remember the day it was delivered and since I had never owned this brand of baler before, the salesman spent the entire afternoon with me to explain all the operational differences between it and the one I had burned up the year before.

Tis the season, the farmers market season that is. Anyone that knows me has a pretty good idea where to find me on a Saturday morning – at the farmers market.

The hay baler I presently own is a little over 2 years old and I’ve just started my third season with it. I can still remember the day it was delivered and since I had never owned this brand of baler before, the salesman spent the entire afternoon with me to explain all the operational differences between it and the one I had burned up the year before.

April showers bring May flowers, isn’t that the saying? We are in full bloom here in the Ozarks, the Redbud trees have shown their radiant purple berries for a couple weeks now, and Dogwood trees can be spotted among the forest.

I sent the last of my down payment on the national debt off for 2010 and this year’s first quarter state and federal taxes. If working people had to pay quarterly payments to Uncle Sam, they’d take taxes more seriously I think. They really don’t know what they put in.

Since calving season is finished for another year, I have to admit that I don’t check my cows every single day. In between readying the hay equipment for another season and all of the other regular farm jobs, I’m lucky if I get to lay eyes on them as often as every two to three days to make sure nothing is sick, missing or dead.