Editorial / Opinions

During the winter, I picked up a new addiction—watching cattle sales broadcast over satellite TV.  On those cold, icy afternoons, I’d check my favorite channel and if there was a cattle sale broadcast airing that day, I would simply rationalize that all my cattle had been checked and fed and that I deserved an afternoon at the “sale barn.”

It's garden season! To recap my garden adventures last year: I started the growing season of 2007 with the idea of planting my great-grandmother’s heirloom tomatoes, but was unsuccessful at getting seeds to start. So instead I planted a few baby tomato plants in a small garden in my backyard. Again, unsuccessful. A disease, or maybe too much nitrogen in the soil, left my tomato plants deformed and bearing no fruit. But, abiding by the “if at first you don’t succeed” idea, I am really excited for my very large garden project this summer. I am one of the managers of my church’s garden program we've started this spring.

I can worry a lot. Seems like history repeats itself time and time again.  The weather pattern in the Midwest looks a like a big repeat of a decade or so ago when no one was able to plant to corn due to high soil moisture in the spring.  Mid April is the time in the central corn belt that folks plant hybrid corn seed.  There is a precious small window to fit the corn in their growing season.

The only times in my life when I have lived anywhere other than the wide-open spaces of rural America were the few short years I attended college. I didn't enjoy the constraints of urban life then, and I sure haven't mellowed with age, but for the past week (and probably for some time longer) I have become an urban dweller as I stay with my oldest son who is hospitalized out of state with a serious infection.

It's garden season! For those of you who followed my gardening experiences last year, I started the growing season of 2007 with the idea of planting my great-grandmother’s heirloom tomatoes, but was unsuccessful at getting seeds to start. So instead I planted a few baby tomato plants in a small garden in my backyard.

The good news is that our nation is better off today than perhaps ever before.
The bad news is that the United States is deeper in debt than ever before. And that is ominous to the dangerous degree.

The only times in my life when I have lived anywhere other than the wide-open spaces of rural America were the few short years I attended college. I didn't enjoy the constraints of urban life then, and I sure haven't mellowed with age, but for the past week (and probably for some time longer) I have become an urban dweller as I stay with my oldest son who is hospitalized out of state with a serious infection.

As a freshman in high school, I was fortunate to be selected to attend the National FFA Convention in Kansas City, Mo.  I had rarely been outside the Ozarks and had certainly never eaten in a fancy restaurant – unless you count the local Dairy Princess Drive-In – which you shouldn’t.  So, a gift from one of the local insurance firms in my hometown allowed our FFA Advisor to treat the five other boys and me to the experience of eating at the Golden Ox, one of the Midwest’s finest dining establishments. 

Every month I attend the Oklahoma Electric Coop State wide Association meeting in Okie City.  Since Ozarks Electric, where I am a director, serves a couple of counties in Oklahoma I’m their rep over there.  At a meeting earlier in the year a man came up to me asking about a horse and mule sale in Berryville, Ark.  His name is David Blackburn and he lives in Atoka, Okla.

Ethanol versus cattle, high input costs, high everything. Sometimes my banter of family, history and daily experiences seem to pale as column topics in the stressful climate of our industry. When we first started Ozarks Farm & Neighbor, our goal was to not be like the typical media outlets that tell mostly of the dark and dreary times. We want to tell the stories of hope, of forging ahead, of making a life on the farm work...