Just before the sun comes up I head out to the barn The soil's turned concrete or granite? It's so hard! Nice to think it's just a crust shielding life down deep Creatures live, under the frost roots are holding life Makes me think of a birthday candle that relights itself, again and again [...]
Welcome to the Arctic! and you didn't even leave home! Down, down, down comes the sub zero blanket of air freezing all it can Soil, rock hard snow, crunching cold "Crack!" noises here and there as materials contract, shrinking We bundle up and just keep going hindered, modified trudging to the barn early morning [...]
Where horses used to run where buggies rolled along where people heated rocks to warm their ice cold feet cars and trucks now run rubber balloon tires springs and shock absorbers roll across the prairie blacktops delivering folks here and there Engines purr where horses snorted pulling loads with ease comforts taken for granted [...]
Crop Management Conference they labeled it The rest of the story is it's all about farming Year of Our Lord 2015 A baker's dozen of Ph.Ds sharing hearts and souls with a hundred fifty farmers and their supporters The very best from one of the very best lecturing and answering questions Getting their minds [...]
Winter evenings on the farm Find me settled in Family room, they call it And indeed it is 5 red sweatered kids Pictured above the fireplace Me in my recliner Good light, good book, warm fire The walls are aged red barn boards Hauled here by horse A hundred years ago The Parkville sawmill [...]
The calendar grinds along sifting winter's cold adding sun minutes here and there stretching daylight hours Cold toes and fingers stiff but not with age grasp the icy handles buckets and shovels and my little stool and I park next to Bessie Her milk plays its notes striking, ringing the cold metal as the [...]
The farmhouse windows show it the beautiful living blanket that feeds us amply year after year Beginning as beautiful ebony it hold a living world microbes, by the millions scurrying about, we're learning, they do amazing things Winter's skin puts things on hold sometimes wearing pristine white sometimes hazy gray or tan patience quietly abounds [...]
Retired from the Presidency Champaign County Farm Bureau but, really, getting 'a new set of tires'! Still doing, still involved, still thinking! Retired from Parkland no longer a board member no longer chairman but, here, a different automobile still self propelled, still moving still doing, still thinking Poking, here and there, with ideas Retired from [...]
Honestly Abe, we need you back! If your are indeed walking out there at midnight* just for a bit we'd like you back God grace flowed through you your words, your choices and a lot of fine things have happened The Land Grant Colleges you birthed have sown abundance on Illinois World leaders are planted [...]
Illinois is an adventure we can have 'snow globe' whiteout blizzard, skiff and we even do one more: spittin' snow! I know! Hard to believe! But if you had my window my office, you'd see a combination that's new No, not sleet that's ice ah, come on spring! Meanwhile we start a snowstorm with something [...]