Category Archives: Uncategorized

We haven’t made it down to The Farm nearly enough this year, so I’m especially grateful for occasional photo updates from Hoosier Outsider. The below photo is of the soybean harvest. With this snapshot comes some family farm history that I’d never heard before. Dad says that for decades, our farm’s largest field down byContinue reading “Soybean Harvest and Horse Heaven”

I continue to marvel at the success of FarmVille, the virtual farming game played by millions of Facebook users. [It’s so big that even McDonald’s is getting into the game, literally. USA Today has a story about the company partnering with FarmVille’s creators to offer prizes and incentives as part of a real life marketingContinue reading “Ghosts in FarmVille App Frustrate Facebook Users”

The Associated Press is reporting on a controversy surrounding a $180,000 Department of Food and Agriculture grant awarded to a California-based group that critics say is advocating against organic agriculture. Environmental and consumer groups are protesting the federally-funded Specialty Crops Block Grant awarded to the Alliance for Food and Family Farming, which is working onContinue reading “Consumer Groups Protest $180K Grant for Pro-Pesticide Campaign”

It’s t-minus three cooking days to Saturday’s bake sale at the Farmers Market to benefit the Irving Schoolyard Project. I have more than 30 volunteers lined up to bake everything from sprinkle topped cookies to Swedish cake and pumpkin bread. There are so many little details to consider, but it’s all starting to come together.Continue reading “What Was I Thinking?”

I caught a glimpse of this interesting little creature when the kids and I headed out the door this morning. Dad identified him as tomato hornworm with braconid wasp larvae hanging from his back. Once I found out they were wasps, I was tempted to kill the larva. But dad convinced me that the waspsContinue reading “Backyard Nature: Wasp Larva at War with Tomato Hornworm”

It’s the last CSA of the season. We’re still working our way through the turnips from last week, though I really am starting to like turnips, especially how I prepared them last night – roasted w/ CSA carrots and potatoes. Our partner family this season got the last box of goodies: CarrotsBroccoliMustard GreensShallotsBeefsteak TomatoesNapa CabbageFreshContinue reading “Last Box of the Summer Season”

This is a band from my childhood, Pepper. I remember a few jam sessions and them playing at parties or individually around a good fire. I also remember that my dad silkscreened the t-shirts for the band for a while. Damn I wish I had some of those. For a long time, I had aContinue reading “Music in the Mountains, Not to be Confused with Mountain Music”

Photo courtesy Hoosier Outsider. Farmers are the hardest working people I know. By far. These men and women truly eat and breath agriculture from sun up, well past sun down. Vacations are non existent, even in the dead of winter, especially if there are animals on the property. And those are just the owners. FarmingContinue reading “Is Farm Work Too Hard for U.S. Workers?”

Fridge Full of Food To my disappointment, in this week’s CSA box, I was greeted by yet another bunch of turnips. These were different from the purple and white variety I had two weeks before. This bunch was smaller, about the size of a big radish, and pure white. Still, they were turnips. And asContinue reading “Did I Say I Didn't Like Turnips? Maybe I Was a Bit Hasty”

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski via Flickr. On Saturday I did something that made me very sad. I canceled our Chicago Tribune subscription. It was a decision, even in the midst of Saturday’s unfortunate confrontation with a particularly nasty “customer service” rep, that was pretty hard to make. We’d had this subscription since 1996, not longContinue reading “Why I Canceled My Chicago Tribune Subscription or Customer Service Is Dead”