I’ve said before that it’s a see-saw farm market, and last week it was a see-saw weather pattern! One day, it was spring, and the next day it was a rolling, blowing blizzard! I didn’t even go outside that day, but watched the cows and calves get as close to the sheds as they could for protection, and I watched Erik put extra hay in the barn lot hay ring for them They were huddled together with their backs to the wind.
The calves could get into the barn through a small gate, but their mothers were kept outside. That’s the kind of weather that you DON’T want when baby calves are coming. Agriculture, and especially livestock producers, work so hard to put your food on the tables.
I was just reading the article in the Illinois Farm Bureau’s Farm Week newspaper about the death of Orion Samuelson at the age of 91. He was called the “voice of agriculture” broadcasting on WGM radio. I remember meeting him and Max Armstrong who worked with Orion when they were broadcasting from ag meetings. They were both easy to talk to, and I always felt they were sincerely involved in spreading agriculture’s story to the public. Thanks, Orion for a job well done. You are missed.
Talk about missing people, I had an experience this week. One of my classmates has been in poor health for some time, but with the help of his wife he was “managing.”
(I found we always ask about the person who is ill, but we sometimes forget to ask the caregiver how they are.) Anyway, I sat down at the computer and wrote a long letter to them.
I had done that before, but this time the day after I mailed the letter I got a phone call from another classmate telling me he had died the morning I put the letter in the mailbox.
Sometimes we go through life waiting too long to tell someone what they meant to us. Don’t do that! Sit down, make a phone call, write a letter, or go visit them.
Lots of local land up for sale or just sold, and lots of land leased. Windmills will be going up in fields along with crops being planted. Drive through the countryside towards Pennington Point and see a “staging area” in a farm field and all the wide driveways and enormous dirt piles where windmills will be going up. Drive west on 136 towards Colchester and turn south at the intersection of 136 and 1000th St., go across the railroad tracks and see where solar panels are going up in two fields. Drive on West Grant Street to the stop sign and see the “staging” area on the right that is completely fenced in. And, I believe there is a proposed solar panel farm to go up across from the high school. Times are certainly changing the landscape. Those folks are all busier than a cat in a fish market.
When the weather turns bad, or things go wrong just remember the words to a song from the muisical “Annie”,,, the sun will come out tomorrow. Don’t forget to see “Annie” at Macomb High April 9-11. You’ll be humming for days!
Sharon Chenoweth is a resident and farmer of McDonough County. Her column focuses on rural life and will be featured every other week in the Community News Brief Friday Edition.
