A couple of weeks ago, we had a major storm blow through with straight-line winds of almost 90 miles per hour. It knocked over power lines, corn, blew off shingles and took down hundreds of old trees. It was a mess, and for miles, you could see farmers with loaders and forks carrying off piles of branches. My nieces, on …

Blogging continues to grow in spite of all the naysayers who have thought it wouldn’t “go anywhere.” In fact, I’d dare say that many people who read online content don’t even know they’re on a blog and don’t really care. As you’ll see in a comment from the author of a new eMarketer report (The Blogosphere: Colliding with Social and …

While in Chicago I finally got to meet Kelly Rivard who I’ve been connected with via AgChat for some time. She was a participant in the first ever AgChat Foundation Agvocacy 2.0 Training Conference and produced a great video for it. Kelly is also a student at North Central College in Naperville, IL. Farmers have a story and are learning …

It’s a color explosion – there are dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, beet pickles, beets, beans, stewed tomatoes, tomato juice, kraut, pears, peaches, apricots, cherries, apple butter, plum butter, jelly and jam! And in total, back in her prime, my grandmother used to can at least 200 jars of food each year to feed their family. Next summer, in …

This evening I’ll be moderating the weekly AgChat conversation on Twitter. I hope you’ll tune in and participate. Our topic is farm safety. Next week is National Farm Safety & Health Week so we thought it would be timely, especially with harvest underway in many areas. I’ve got a number of questions to pose during the session but feel free …

Supporting military troops and their families this Christmas is just a few clicks away. Trees for Troops, a program of the Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, makes the holidays a little brighter for military personnel and their families by giving them fresh, full-sized Christmas Trees grown by American farm families. Trees for Troops is competing with charities nationwide through the Pepsi Refresh …

About a month ago, we were on our way to Lincoln when I looked out the car window to see the skies filled with smoke and the fields aglow with fire. It’s a farming practice I see every once-in-a-while…controlled burning. Controlled burning is used in agriculture as a part of field preparation for planting or as a management practice used …

As the months go by, the farming landscape continues to change and take on different shapes. The rectangular fields that were once bare are now covered with crops, and some are spotted with round bales. It’s the changing of the seasons. Although the technology to make round hay bales has been around since the 1940s, this particular farming practice didn’t …

The American Farmland Trust has announced the winners in its 2010 America’s Favorite Farmers Markets contest. More than 50,000 people across the country cast their votes, and these are the top ones selected in each category: Boutique Markets – King George Farmers Market, King George, VA Small Markets – Champaign County Farmers Market, Urbana, OH Medium Markets – Falls Church …

The Farmers Only on-line dating service is still going strong after five years. We told you about FarmersOnly.com when it launched in August of 2005. According to founder Jerry Miller, it quickly became THE place for farmers and ranchers to meet like-minded people. In the last five years, membership went from 2,000 to well over 100,000 members, and despite the …