I am getting ready to head to the woods as I warned you about last week. This means very light posting until next Wednesday. Almost a whole week! Whoo hoo.

If you want to learn more about what I’ll be doing please feel free to visit the Missouri Department of Conservation website.

I’ll have my camera and I hope I’ll have something to share with you over the next several days.

Looking ahead to next week, I’ll be posting from the NAMA Agribusiness Forum and the NAFB convention in Kansas City. So until soon . . .

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to vote today but I am anyway?

Cindy and I have decided not to listen to any more of the rhetoric. We’re going to read about it in the news tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean we don’t care. We’ve done our duty and registered our vote. Now it’s up to the rest of the country to stand up and be counted.

Does your one puny little vote count? You bet it does. What do you think makes up that big number at the end of the day? So, no matter what side you’re on please get out and add your vote. As I heard someone say yesterday, we have the freedom to do this at the cost of many, many lives and they should not be forgotten. I also think our vote is a way to honor those who are still in harm’s way defending our right to do this.

I am back and had to post this picture. This is out the windshield and what you often see driving west on I-70. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked a an I-70 sunset and thought, “There’s no way any human could create something this beautiful.”

October was another record month for traffic on AgWired. Our statistics show over 15,000 unique visitors and almost 100,000 page views.

I am not only amazed but thankful to all the people who visit, comment, share, email ideas and provide their support. I don’t know where we’ll wind up in the future but I promise to keep bringing you all the information I can.

I’m sure you know we haven’t done any formal advertising of AgWired. Other than my periodic email to those of you who are in my personal contact database I’ve got to believe that good old word of mouth is spreading the message that we’re doing something unique and I hope valuable to a growing audience.

We’re going to keep on making AgWired a more and more valuable online destination for anyone involved in, or interested in agricultural marketing. Keep an eye on us.

I want to thank the Front Porch Rocker for a link to AgWired from her blog. People are always asking me who reads AgWired. Well go visit one of our readers.

I just learned that Gary Bradley passed away yesterday. Gary worked many years in the communications area of the National Corn Growers Association. Gary had been involved in a long battle with cancer which he wrote about on his page in Carepages. I will always remember him for his smile and laughter and the times we got to go jogging together at an NAFB convention or somewhere on the road. Since I know that many of you were also friends of Gary I’m posting the information that was last posted on Carepages.

Hello everyone. I wish that there was a way Gary could narrate this posting to me. I know he would use his sense of humor to ease his fears and to show us his strength.

Tuesday morning
Mass 10 a.m.
Our Lady of The Pillar Church
401 S Lindbergh Blvd
Saint Louis, MO 63131

May you rest in peace my friend.

During a conversation this week about AgWired I was told “You’re not trying to reach farmers.” That is correct and I was kind of glad to hear this person say it. That doesn’t mean I’m not reaching a growing number of farmers btw. I’ve had some farmer leaders tell me that they’re fascinated to learn how companies are marketing to them. However, since I made the decision and commitment to move forward with AgWired I’ve focused on the professional agrimarketer. I’m trying to provide a place to get ideas and information to help you in your job or your business. I’m not trying to compete with traditional online farm news outlets whose sole focus is informing the farmer. In fact, the people who are doing that are some of the ones I’m targeting here in the hopes they’ll find something valuable to take away from the time they spend on AgWired.

The World Congress on Communication for Development got kicked off today in Rome. I guess we’re not the only ones to come up with the idea of a virtual press room. This is something I’d like to help companies and ag groups develop by the way.

My presentation here in Cedar Falls is over. We gave my Dell equipment a good workout and I hope I contributed some information that’s useful.

Good day from Cedar Falls, Iowa. It’s a beautiful rainy morning, the kind that makes you just want to turn over and go back to sleep. But not the serious blogger.