Every now and then, my husband will come into the house, peer into my office from a distance — where I’m either working on the computer, the mending pile or the pile of bills to pay, and ask if I’m busy. There are probably days he feels like he really stepped into a pile of something ...
NEWS An agreement has been reached between the Federal Trade Commission, John Deere and farmers from Minnesota and four other states. This agreement makes sure farmers have access to the diagnostic and repair tools necessary to maintain and repair their own John Deere equipment. This deal ...
I recently came home to find my wife staring out the window. “Look at Bella,” she whispered. Bella, our dog, was sitting on the deck and staring intently at the lawn. Out on the lawn, our cat, Sparkles, was staring intently at a gopher hole. You know it’s time to go on vacation ...
Too many officials in the Trump Administration and several farm state Capitol Hill leaders believe that just saying something is true makes it true. For example, on June 24, the White House said it would ask Congress for another $11 billion in “temporary economic assistance” for farmers ...
I have heard it said that farmers should not make too much of their own cropping conditions when making assumptions about U.S. crop production as a whole. They shouldn’t make too much of conditions, good or bad, in their own backyard. We report what our corn crop conditions and production is ...
Every year, families from one side of Iowa to the other gather at the Iowa State Fair to celebrate their farm’s heritage — whether a Century Farm marking 100 years of ownership by the same family, or a Heritage Farm, recognizing the incredible feat of 150 years of ownership by one ...
I don’t even remember when I became one of those garden ladies. I don’t have a ton of memories of tending to a garden when I was growing up, though Mom remembers it plenty. Given that, I don’t recall how it became part of my own DNA. We knew a guy who once told my husband that they ...
This is the time of year when Americans traditionally embark on extended journeys with their loved ones. Some of these journeys are so long that by the time they end there’s a good deal of fantasizing about leaving said loved ones at the next roadside gas station. It’s family vacation ...
In the ongoing, years-long group text between my four brothers and sister, there was a brief exchange the Saturday before Memorial Day between me, son Paul, and my next younger brother Perry. I had forwarded Perry a message from Paul, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy serving on a ...
In late 2024, my wife and I were asked by friends to accompany them to visit the White House at Christmas. The last-minute invitation came from college friends, he now being the mayor of Madison South Dakota. He had worked with the Biden White House on an infrastructure program that brought ...