Damn, that felt good.

A long walk down a country road in 55-degree sunshine. Oh, Lordy – I thought this day would never get here.

I found a bud on the lilac bush and a planter rolled past my house. It was daylight at 7 p.m.

God is good.

We still have piles of snow, but they’re just white hills amid the brown ground cover. And I swear I saw bits of green poking through. Continue reading →

And so it begins…..the countdown to Spring.

Three weeks. Twenty-one days.

Then all will be warm and lovely and there will be peace in the world…

Nice try.

We almost topped zero at sunrise this morning (no, I didn’t see it for myself) and at least two snowstorms are forecast for the next week. This is Iowa. It’s still winter here and will be for longer than I want to admit. Continue reading →

It’s been some time since I’ve posted.

I swear I have not been ignoring those of you who take the time and effort to stop by for a read. It was neither intentional neglect, nor innocent oversight. Rather, just the natural order of things.

Life here on the North Fontanelle 40 (I just came up with that) has, indeed, pretty much gone on as usual. In the last few weeks — Continue reading →

An article in the New York Times last week raked the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center for animal abuse. The center, located near Clay Center, Nebraska, is the USDA’s premier research facility and is charged with finding ways to make meat production in this country more profitable.

Yes, there were parts I found disturbing. But then, most of those were scenes taken out of context. It’s easy to create drama around isolated images.

In my work I frequently use scientists from the U.S. MARC as sources, and have never had any reason to doubt the accuracy or ethics of their work. Continue reading →

A cluster of mid-month deadlines put me in a position to not fully appreciate the changing of the year. Instead of “after the first of the year” I found myself muttering “after the 15^th.

Tasks like year-end filing and bookwork were done on an as-needed basis. In other words, if it wasn’t going to screw up my 2015 bookkeeping, it could wait.

Same goes for household chores, correspondence, new project proposals, and a host of other activities – not to mention any thought of long-range strategic planning.

Finally, this week, the milestone arrived. Deadlines met. Projects complete. I’ve turned the corner and what do you know? Continue reading →