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Essays &
Columns:
Essay published in
The Christian Science
Monitor, April 14,
2008
Discovered: My Inner Gardener
I have always
thought
that I was born with a
brown thumb and an innate
inability to nurture
anything
green. Despite my good
intentions,
the few times I've owned a
plant,
I've managed to ensure its
death
by drowning or
dehydration.
The
only plant
I've owned that
actually flourished was
an African
Violet with velvety
purple
blossoms that stood on the small
windowsill
in my bedroom. I was 9
years old
and I spent hours
reading to it
after hearing that
this could help
it grow. Whenever
a flower would bloom,
I'd be as
excited as a kid going
to the
county fair.
For the rest
of the
story, click here.
Editorial column published in Aberdeen American
News,
October 2005
It's clean, it's
plentiful, it's renewable,
and it
doesn't take all that much
to
produce a whole lot of power. What
is
it? Wind energy, something
South
Dakota has in plenty.
I
recently
read that South Dakota is
ranked
fourth in the country for
its wind
resources. Fourth? That's
it? Are
they kidding? I'm hardly
an expert on
such matters, but
where I live,
more often than not,
the wind is blowing.
Not just some
nice, gentle breeze
either; it's
usually enormous gusts that
have
even been known to blow my
daughter
head over heels, right
down the
steps, slam our swing-set
to the
ground multiple times, and
almost rip our
screen doors right
off the hinges.
Imagine my
surprise when on one
particularly
windy day, I looked
out the window
to see pieces of my house
blowing
across the lawn! Somehow
the wind
had managed to get underneath
our
siding and rip almost the
entire
east side off. We scurried around
trying to
save as many pieces as
we could,
which was quite a task
considering
how fast the siding
was blowing
away.
For the rest of
the
story, click here.
Editorial column published in
Aberdeen American News,
September 25, 2005
Ahhh...
Remember
the good old days? The
days when
families would gather around the
TV and
watch the evening sitcoms
without
fear of profanity, nudity
or
other sights inappropriate for
children; when a movie that was
rated PG-13
was actually okay for
thirteen
year olds? Forget about
TV shows on public
stations with
nudity like
"NYPDBlue;" they were
unheard of. And the PG-13
movies
we have today? They would
have
been rated R when I was a kid.
Wait
a minute, was this really so
long
ago?
The fact that I
am
only
thirty, yet have seen such a
rapid
decline in the morality of
our society
and the media
through-out my
relatively short
lifetime, tells a really sad
story.
It's not like I'm some old
codger,
reminiscing about the
"innocent"
days gone by, or even
that I'm
ultra-conservative, but I
find myself
becoming increasingly
offended
with the images and
attitudes portrayed in
the media.
It is said that art (in
this case,
the media) reflects reality,
but
these days it's more that the
media
hugely influences our
reality.
For the rest of
the story,
click here.
Parenting:
Published in
Motherhood, September,
2009
Labour
of Love
You may be
wondering whether or not you
should consider using some sort of pain
medication while you're in
labour. Whether it's your first baby or
your fourth, the questoin is in
the back of most mums' minds. With so
many pain relief options these
days, it's hard to know what to choose, if
anything.
According
to Dr. Chua Yang, an obstetrician and
gynaecologist at A Clinic for
Women, the use of pain relievers is a very
individual decision. "The method
of choice depends on the mother-to-be's
past medical and aenesthetic
history, any spinal deformity, allergies to
drugs, order of birth, and, of
course, pain threshhold," she
says.
For the rest of
the
story, click here.
Published in
Motherhood, September,
2009
Feed
Your Foetus
There has
been much speculation over whether
or not nutrition has any influence on
the quality of human gametes
(mature sperm and eggs), so can eating well
enhance gamete quality enough to
give you a higher chance of conceiving?
Recent research says it’s likely.
For
example, a new study from Spain
shows evidence that men who eat
more fruits and vegetables have better
quality semen than those who
consume more meats (protein) and full-fat
dairy. Researchers believe it’s
the antioxidants found in fruits and
veggies that increase semen
health, mobility and concentration. The study
also showed that not getting
enough antioxidants leads to lower
reproduction rates in
men.
Published in
Motherhood, December,
2008
Your
Baby's First
Christmas
I
remember my twin girls' first
Christmas well.
At six months,
they were old
enough to appreciate
tearing the wrapping
paper off
their gifts piece by
piece, but
still too young to care about
what
was inside said boxes. Being
the
only grandchildren on both sides of
the family meant spoiling of the
worst kind. Thank goodness the
girls were
too young to notice how
many toys,
clothes and other items
they
accumulated.
The only rememberance
they still
have from that
overstimulating
Christmas is a
"Baby's First
Christmas" ornament that my
sister
gave each of
them.
My older
son's first Christmas was a lot
more relaxed. Only four months
old, he charmed everyone in his
red and
green Christmas pajamas
with his
curly blond hair and big,
observant blue
eyes. We managed to
stick pretty
close to his schedule
and the event was a
great deal
calmer than the
twins' first
Christmas had
been.
For
the rest
of
the story, click here.
Published in
Motherhood, October,
2008
It's
in the Genes!
It's
so much fun before a baby is born
to
guess what he will look like
(will
he sport dad's long legs or
mum's
freckles?)
and how his personality
will turn
out. But despite the
entertainment
this thinking can
generate,
particularly when done in
conjunction with your partner, no
amount of guessing can possibly
prepare
you for how your child
will
actually turn
out.
The gene pool
is
a mystifying concept -- there
is
just no way of knowing what will come
out of it. Will your child have
curly hair like his brother? Will
she
wrinkle up her nose the same
way
her grandfather does or
have a
temper that's easily
sparked?
Maybe he'll inherit a
predisposition to ear
infections or allergies, all
thanks to you. All the different
possible
combinations, both
physical and
personality-wise, are
mind-boggling.
For
the rest
of the story, click here.
Published in Motherhood, April
2008
10 Reasons
Why NOW is the BEST Time to Have a
Baby!
We give you our
top 10 reasons why NOW is really
the best
time to have a
baby...
1.
Pain relief.
Need we say more? Our
choices are
better than ever
before. In the
not so distant past, labouring
mothers
were injected with a
combination
of morphine and
scopolamine,
keeping them in a
semi-conscious
state and leaving
them with no memory of
the birth.
Often, restraints had
to be used
with this method, called
"twilight
sleep," since the drugs
couldcause
women to thrash around. Not
only
are we now able to
participate in
our babies' births and create our
own birth
plans, we have pain
control
options ranging from
sitting in
the
hot tub to massage
to
low-dosepainkillers to
epidurals. Plus we're allowed
to
change our minds about going
through
labour with no pain
relief, as the
going gets harder.
For the
rest of the story,
click here.
Published in Motherhood,
February 2008
Boy or Girl?
Pregnant with my
third
baby after having twin girls
three
years earlier, I was consumed
with
finding out the gender. I
already
had an ultrasound scan early in my
pregnancy, somy doctor wouldn't
schedule another one. I'm not a
patient
person under the best of
circumstances, but being
half-crazed with
hormones on top
of my inclination
to impatience, I
defiantly called the
obstetrician
and scheduled my own
ultrasound.
For the rest of the
story,
click here.
Published in
Motherhood, August
2007
Child(less)
Envy
There are some
days when I wholeheartedly envy
the
childless. Today has been one
of
them.
After a morning
spent
cleaning up after two little
boys
hell-bent on tearing down
everything on
each of the three
floors of our
house, and then
throwing it into various
corners
and odd places, I was
relieved
when nap time finally arrived. Two
hours later, my red-cheeked,
messy-haired partners in crime
crept down the
stairs. They seemed
to be fairly
cheerful, so my
forecast for the
afternoon
appeared to be a sunny
one.
Sure.
For the rest of
the story,
click here.
Published in TWINS Magazine,
September/October, 2006
One-Pound
Miracles!
When
Ann Lee
of Aberdeen, S.D., went
for her 24-week
prenatal check-up,
her
obstetrician described
different signs of labor.
The
birth of her twins seemed
somewhere
off in the hazy future.
The babies
were due in February,
long months
away.
The
following afternoon,
Lee lost her
cervical plug.
Suddenly, the
twins' imminent birth was
nightmarishly
close.
For
the rest of the
story, click here.
Agriculture:
Published in Farm Journal, February
2008
Pick a Peck
of Pulse
If you've ever
considered
adding pulse crops to
your crop
rotation, you may want
to give this option
a closer look.
Not only do pulse
crops improve
the quality of the soil and
reduce
the need for herbicides and
fungicides,
they also break up the
cycle of
insects, weeds and crop
diseases.
Research shows that
pulse crops
may increase the yield
of
subsequent crops and produce a
better-quality
crop.
Pulse
crops are
defined as legumes with
dry seeds that are
edible for
humans. The most common
pulse
crops are field peas; beans, such
as navy,
pinto and kidney;
lentils; and
chickpeas. Though
soybeans are
technically a pulse
crop, in the
U.S. they are
classified as an oilseed.
Pulses
may be used for livestock
and
human consumption.
For the
rest of the story, click here.
Published in Massey Ferguson Today, Spring
2008
Cultivating
the Desert
In this age
of
corporate farm expansion, the
Baldenegro clan proves that not
only can a
family farm do well, it
can
flourish. Located on the
west-central border
of Arizona in
the Colorado River
Indian
Reservation, the Baldenegros have
been
living in Parker, Ariz., and
farming in Poston and Bouse,
Ariz.,
since 1967. Farming is in
their
blood, says Mike Baldenegro:
the family
has been farming since
the early
1900s.
Baldenegro began farming
with his
father, Fernando, in 1994
with 154
acres. His brother
Armando
worked with the two as
well until
this year when
Baldenegro's other
brother,
Sonny, took Armando's
place.
Thirteen years later, the trio now
runs around 8,800 acres of land,
leased from the Mojave, Navajo,
Hopi and
Chemehuevi tribes that
make up the
reservation.
For the rest of
the story,
click here.
Published in AGCO Advantage,
Summer 2007
It's
All About the Orange
In a
small community where
green is
more common than orange,
Tom Wolf's
enthusiastic loyalty to
Allis-Chalmers and AGCO tractors
gets him a lot of
teasing. "They
say that if I ever
cut my finger,
it'd bleed orange," he
laughs.
Raised on a farm that used
only
Allis-Chalmers equipment, Wolf
began
driving the tractors when he
was
around ten and has been a
fervent
fan ever since.
A
dairy
farmer from Shreve, Ohio,
Wolf owns at
least one of every
pedal tractor
ever made by
Allis-Chalmers, as well as a
few
other brands. "Right now I
think I
have a total of 110 pedal
tractors,"
Wolf says. He displays
them on
shelves in a shed where space is
"starting
to be a problem. But
it's a good
problem," he adds.
For
the rest of the story,
click here.
Published in Massey Ferguson
Today, Fall 2006
Carrots & Buckwheat
&
Pumpkins, Oh My!
Ever
thought about
venturing into
nontraditional
produce?
Alternative crops can
provide additional income,
give
your farming some variety,
and,
when used in crop rotations,
breakup
the cycle of diseases,
weeds and
insects. Of course, as
with all
new
business endeavors, it's
important
to thoroughly research
your idea
beforehand
and begin gradually.
That's
how Don Schuster, a
project
economist with the
University of
Wisconsin-Madison,
made his farm so
successful.
Schuster started his
business
inadvertently by growing
pumpkins
and raising exotic
animals for
fun. As the income from the
pumpkins
started to increase, he
took the
plunge and Schuster's
Playtime
Farm of Deerfield, Wis.,
was born.
When the pumpkin income
began to
dwindle,
"we started adding things
like
hayrides, a bonfire pit, and a
large corn
maze. We started slowly
and we've
grown slowly," he says.
For
the rest of the story,
click here.
Published in Feedlot Magazine,
September/October 2006
Vet Clinic Embraces New
Trend
Thought about
looking into a different means of
record-keeping
for your livestock?
Electronic
identification may be the
way to
go. Once the wave of the
future,
electronic identification, or EID,
also known as RFID (radio
frequency identification), is now
becoming a
trend of the present.
Take
for instance
Northwest Veterinary
Supply
(NVS) in Parkston and
Wagner, SD.
In less than one year, the clinic
has tagged
over 11,000 head of
cattle in
their area, says Tom
Martinez,
veterinary assistant.
Much of this
success is due to the
education they
have done in the
region, helping
people understand
what EID can do for
them, Martinez
says.
The
clinic got
started in EID by chance two
years
ago when a couple of clients
wanted to
use it in their cattle
so
they could penetrate niche
markets. The technology piqued the
clinic's
interest, so they started
researching niche markets that
livestock owners
could get into
using EID tags.
For the
rest of the story, click
here.
Published in The Farm
Forum,
December 10,
2004
Ingenuity
Leads to Successful Business
in
Rural
Faulkton
Necessity
was
certainly the mother of
invention
for Kelly Melius of
rural
Faulkton. In 2000, Melius had been
farming with his father, Roger,
for twelve years and knew he
needed to
start supplementing his
farm
income. There just wasn't
enough land for
both he and his
father to run.
Thus began Common
Sense Manufacturing, Inc.
in Fall
2000 with only one type of
product
in its inventory; Melius's
unique
style of bale feeder.
Frustrated
with the quality and durability of
bale feeders he had seen, Melius
decided to create his own.
His
bale feeder, which
holds the hay
up off the ground,
was such a hit that
Melius went
through the time and
trouble,
about two years, to get it
patented.
The distinctive design
allows
calves to eat from the
bottom of
the feeder rather than
being
unable to reach the hay or
even getting
caught in the middle
of a
traditional feeder.
The creation of his
innovative
bale feeder led Melius
to design
other useful products
for
farmers and ranchers,
including
bottomless feed bunks,
calf shelters,
windbreak,
hydraulic wire winders,
and horse
shelters. All of the products
made
by Common Sense are extremely
heavy-duty
and come with five-year
warranties
for breakage. "We want
our
products to last a long time,"
Melius says. "My products are very
practical and I know they work
well
because I use them too."
For the rest of the story,
click here.
Published in The Farm Forum,
July 26, 2005
Demand For Organic
Crops Keeps Prices
High
When
Jerome
Stiegelmeier's brother,
Jim,
decided to turn
all his land into
an organic
operation in 1988,
Stiegelmeier wasn't
entirely
convinced it was a good
idea.
Seventeeen years later,
Stiegelmeier's
business is a
full-fledged,
certified organic farm near
Bowdle. He
credits his brother,
who passed
away in 2002, for
helping him
and others in the
Selby and Bowdle
area to get
started. Stiegelmeier
raises
spring and winter wheat,
soybeans,rye,
buckwheat and
millet, and is
certified by both
the National
Organic Program (NOP)
and the Organic Crop
Improvement
Association (OCIA), an
international
program.
Stiegelmeier
says that one
of the biggest
benefits of having gone
organic is
that he doesn't have to
put up a
lot of cash in the spring for
pesticides,
fertilizers and fuel
and then wait
until much later to
profit
like he did when he was
farming
commercially. The
trade-off for that is
the amount
of labor he has to put
into his
crops. "I use a rotary hoe to
combat
weeds, which takes quite a
while
to do. Though I don't have
to come
up with a bundle of cash,
my
method of farming is much more
labor-intensive,"
Stiegelmeier
says.
For the
rest of the story, click here.
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