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Overcast ~ High: 43°F ~ Low: 25°F Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012 |
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Labor department to take another look at ag regulations
Posted Tuesday, February 7, at 8:01 PM You talked, and they listened. Well, kind of, maybe. On Wednesday, Feb. 1, the Labor Department announced it will re-propose the portion of its regulation on child labor in agriculture interpreting the "parental exemption." The proposed changes to the 40-year-old child labor regulations drew more than 18,000 comments, including many from farm groups and legislators. ...
Adventures with cuddly, cantankerous cats Not many animals on our farm have caused as many stories -- both dramatic and humorous, or as much joy and pain -- as our farm cats. They are a lesson in survival, but also a lesson in nature. Growing up we had cats. In fact we bought (and paid good money) for two of them from a local pet store. I'm not sure how I was able to convince my mother that Groucho and Whitey were a good investment. Perhaps there were no other options. Animal shelters were few and far between...
Since when is feeding the world a "useless" career? Recently, a Yahoo blogger wrote a list of the five "most useless" college degrees in America. His top five were agriculture, fashion design, theater, animal science and horticulture. Really? Three of the top five are ag-related? Apparently he doesn't know (or understand) one of my favorite statistics: Four out of four people eat...
You can take the farmer off the farm ... (sometimes) For many years I never thought traveling with a farmer would be anything I'd ever do. After all my farmer didn't like to travel -- nor could he. After taking over the family farm right after college, leaving a long list of livestock chores to a neighbor, or even a relative, just didn't seem right...
Depending on the weather ... In January 2008, I wrote about the only "normal" months on the farm: January and February. I called them my favorite, because I could "enjoy normal family life," or at least as close as one can get on the farm. "How's the line go ... "We'll always have Paris." Well for our family, "We'll always have January and February!"...
A new beginning... When I wrote my first Semi View column on Jan. 15, 2008, I summarized the goals I wanted to accomplish, with these words: "I hope some of my columns will be funny; sharing my sometimes-unique way of looking at the life I've come to love. Other columns I hope will be thought-provoking. But most of all I hope in some way they'll be entertaining. (Please note: I'm not above a little exaggeration to make something more fun!)"...
If my sorority sisters could see me now... As I look at my weather-lined face, callused-hands and farmer-tanned arms in the mirror, I can't help but think about what I was supposed to become. More than 31 years ago, I entered Mizzou as a young Kansas City suburban girl intent on being a high school track coach, living in a cookie-cutter suburban home full of Ethan Allen furniture and being a taxi-driving soccer mom to my 2.3 children...
New farm labor proposals concern rural community Proposed changes by the Department of Labor have been a hot topic of conversation in the farm and rural community lately. In fact, I've gotten several press releases and phone calls about the issue. The proposals, if adopted as-written, could affect what jobs teenagers can do -- if any -- on the farm...
Food security being strangled by federal regulations It's a well-known but little thought-about statistic: Four out of four people in the United States eat. Yes, and lucky for us in America, most of us eat early and often. But for the 99 percent of the people who eat -- but don't actually produce the food -- it is something they rarely think about...
Everybody faces "The Harvest" When you live something long enough, it becomes part of who you are. Or at least it has for me. My co-workers have recently pointed out how I seem to explain everything in "farm" terms. Like when talking about people the other day, I noted as time goes on sometimes that other species (men) tend to "cultivate" certain parts of their personalities. (And not always for the better.)...
The latest threat to the family farm? Bureaucratic meddling By the time my boys were 11 years old, they not only knew how to drive a tractor, they wanted desperately to prove it. "I'm ready Dad," became a common conversation at our house. And they were ready. After all, they had spent most of their young lives either riding with myself or their father in a tractor. In fact, more than once, I was told a "tip," which helped me get out of a jam in a field...
At harvest time, it's all about the timing It's harvest time in the county. That means farmers and their families are working long hours on little sleep, trying to gather their yearly "paycheck" before mother nature claims it for them. It's a time farm wives with small children dread. Usually they discover their husbands (when not in the field) actually help with babies and home chores much more than they originally realized. It was always the time of year I realized being a "single" mother wasn't all it was cracked up to be...
Farmers on vacation: Moved by the view -- of tractors I recently went on a long car-trip out west with a group of men. Men-only. Of course, they were "my" men. Three farmers, all old enough to vote. There are a few inherent problems with traveling with just men. One is apparently men are born with iron bladders...
The fickle fury of the isolated summer storm When I was a kid, I can remember being told that sometimes it can rain on one side of the street, but not on the other. I never really believed it was true, until I actually saw it for myself. It was one of those warm summer showers, the ones in which we used to enjoy staying outside and running through. ...
Be careful what you wish for By the numbers it is indeed impressive. Two boys, 28 years experience in 4-H and FFA combined. 16 county fairs, 12 state fairs and numerous livestock shows. At least 34 calves -- with names that indicate the years they might have shown, like Holmes -- as in Priest; Dante -- as in Hall; or T-Rich -- as in Tony Richardson. It's easy to remember that year, 2003, the year our beloved Kansas City Chiefs started out at 9-0...
Flood of 2011 illuminates question of priorities
If you gave a starving person a choice like "Do you want to do something fun, like play on a lake?" "Save an endangered species?" or "Eat a meal?" It is pretty obvious what they would choose. The same would be true if you gave a homeless person similar choices...
Little boys, bugs, boots and a cat named "Mama" Through the years, our breezeway (think back porch) has been the home to many things. The long list includes no fewer than 1,015 boots and shoes (never did find the other one), 3,600 pairs of gloves, 26,233 pounds of dirt (really) and various other less desirable things, such as cow manure, 33 species of bugs and an entire host of other living organisms I never identified. And those are just the things we didn't intend to bring in...
The joys and discomforts are many on the farm "For I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny." --from "The FFA Creed," written by E.M. Tiffany, and adopted at the third National Convention of the FFA. It was revised at the 38th Convention and the 63rd Convention...
Born to farm According to his baby book, he was less than a month old when he took his first tractor ride. Inside the quiet cab, he snuggled on his mother's lap as his father plowed the farm garden. By the time he was 9-months old, he would yell "Dada" anytime a green tractor drove by his home out in the country. The red ones, he knew, belonged to another neighbor...
What not to say during "Hurry Up and Wait" A watched pot never boils. True, so here's another one ... a watched field never dries. Well, at our house it doesn't anyway, at least not fast enough. So that means for at least the third (maybe fourth) year in a row we have had "Hurry Up and Wait" time waiting for spring to well ... for lack of a better term, spring...
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Hot topics Labor department to take another look at ag regulations(0 ~ 10:54 AM, Feb 8)
Adventures with cuddly, cantankerous cats
Since when is feeding the world a "useless" career?
You can take the farmer off the farm ... (sometimes)
Depending on the weather ...
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