Sylvan Sundays
Refresh your week with your free subscription to Sylvan Sundays, arriving with a beautiful farm or nature photograph and some … Continue reading Sylvan Sundays
Refresh your week with your free subscription to Sylvan Sundays, arriving with a beautiful farm or nature photograph and some … Continue reading Sylvan Sundays
Granted, my original stint was only for a summer, but that definitely counts.
Some background:
During my senior year of high school, I visited with Gary Truitt, a long-time farm broadcaster who had just started a new company called Hoosier Ag Today. I had been interested in radio for a little while and used the news source while studying for FFA competitions. I asked Gary if I could job shadow him, and he said he’d need to make sure I could visit when he went out and about to interview people.
Continue reading “I’m Back in Farm Broadcasting”Here it is! Our “Small Town Big Deal” episode! It’s a fun episode, and it was so exciting to watch … Continue reading See Our “Small Town Big Deal” Episode
Just a short post for now…. At the end of February, I announced that Root 61 Communications is now offering … Continue reading Audio and Video Memoir Order Form Now Up
I just finished Thinking Like a Prairie by Maurice Telleen. It’s a book of three essays by a former editor … Continue reading Book Recommendation: Thinking Like a Prairie
Everyone has a story.
What’s yours?
Our stories are treasures that should be dug up, polished, and cherished. But sometimes, we need some help to find those treasures. So I am excited to announce a new service available from Root 61 Communications: audio and video memoirs!
Continue reading “New from Root 61 Communications: Audio and Video Memoirs”The New York Times features rotational grazing, regenerative agriculture, and a former NRCS employee (a USDA agency I have worked … Continue reading Regenerative Agriculture in The New York Times
I had some time to ponder blog posts while I dug up moldy straw and pulled posts in the barn this morning. I’ve been deep cleaning (or attempting to deep clean) throughout the summer. The space has a lot of potential, and the particular area finished today is surrounded by plywood boards and previously provided protection for farrowing sows and their piglets or ewes and their new lambs.
Chickens are currently the only barn inhabitants–that is, the only non-pest barn inhabitants. There are plenty of raccoons and snakes and mice. But the chickens are the only ones that are intentionally fed and housed.
These pullets are housed in a fortress — not a true fortress in the medieval style, but a coop I bought at Tractor Supply Company and put together, stumbling through the drawn directions. Two pieces of plywood and a piece of hardware cloth are wedged underneath the coop to prevent anything from digging in the soft ground underneath the coop and entering the chickens’ home. So far, it’s worked (knock on wood). Continue reading “Life as a Farmer and Writer”
I can feel Spring itching to enter Indiana. We thought the Big Snow we had on the last Saturday of March was Winter’s last big showing, a last hurrah before consistent warmer temperatures and flowers finally reach us. But then it snowed on Easter. I enjoyed The Big Snow, crunching through it, watching new calves gallop around their mothers, tails held high, silhouettes in the coming dusk and falling flakes. The cold weather and snow, especially The Big Snow’s cold and dense and quiet six-inch fall, have helped me readjust to the Northern Hemisphere and, for the first time in three years, experiencing all four seasons in one year.
The spring has brought new opportunities, as well.
I’ve embarked on a new career. I am a farmer and a writer. I don’t consider one occupation more important than the other, as one exists at the same plane as the other for me. There is no writing without farming; there is no farming without writing. Take away one, and you might as well take away both and toss me into a car mechanic’s shop and ask me to fix the worn-out brake pad on a Hummer. Continue reading “Of Curious Calves and Communications”
While I was in New Zealand, I wrote a piece for a byline in Indiana Prairie Farmer about the similarities and differences … Continue reading “Hoosiers v. New Zealanders”: A Published Story