Pre-packaged, vacuum-packed, just add water… Many of us in Kansas live in a world where food comes fast – so fast we forget how it arrives at our table. We also forget it comes from the hard labor and calloused hands of Kansas farmers. Our food also comes from Kansas ranchers who work miles of rangeland in rain, snow and blazing heat. Fast food? Not really. Our lives wouldn’t be the same without the farmers ...

Dear Dad, How life has changed since you left us to go to heaven 35 years ago! I doubt if you would recognize the world you once lived in. It makes me wonder at the changes you saw in the 74 years you wandered down this road of life. I know you had a hard-working life and I remember some of the things you shared with me about your earlier days. The fact that you achieved a college education that lacked only ...

“Resounding success” was the evaluation of spectators, contestants and promoters alike. That was following completion of the two-day kickoff DEL Motors Bull Riding Series hosted by Corey’s Country Corral in Grandview Plaza at Junction City. “Such a grand weekend we had all the excitement you could ask for. There were rank bulls mounted by cowboys and ‘wanna-be’ bull riders from throughout the Midwest before ...

When I park, I always make sure that I am parked so that I can move my car at any time. And if some of us girls go on a trip, like retreat or a doctor's appointment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I want to be the one to take my car and drive. I have pondered this, especially when hubby asks, "Why do you always have to be the one who drives?" I love to drive, and I know I am a good driver, no matter how much hubby joke ...

One of my favorite magazines is the National Junior Livestock Exhibitor and it’s not just because they have carried my column for years. It’s just that underneath my cowboy exterior lies the heart of a steer jock. I enjoy looking at pictures of winning show steers. I always have. While other boy’s bedrooms were filled with pictures of baseball players, every spare inch of my room was covered with newspaper ...

In the West we have forgotten how the world devours children because mostly when our children die they are defined as subhuman by the law, and so we don’t count their lives when we stop their hearts from beating. We have escaped an age when half the children born to us die before adulthood, and so we need not live—most of us—with the daily presence of death, prowling as it does like a wolf in tall grass. Wh ...

It’s probably human nature to avoid certain topics as long as one can because we know those subjects will irk or annoy or anger either ourselves or others. So here are some bothersome things going on in agriculture right now I know I would rather avoid, but feel bound to mention in this role of columnist who tries to inform. Start with a fine retail grocery outlet, Wegmans, based in Rochester, N.Y. This com ...

Days of a Bossy in every farm barnyard are long gone. Milking cows was part of being a farmer a century ago, and as recent as a half century later, still most farming operations had a few cows to milk. Dairies specializing in milk production as the main agriculture enterprise expanded with most counties having several dozen dairy farmers. That is no more. Today, a number of counties have no dairies, and som ...

Barn courtyards are being cleaned up.  The old cultivator and mowing machine and the clutter in the corner have been cleaned out and some of the relics go.  For instance, three pairs of perfectly good wheels from rakes and cultivators, and the third from the last old chassis.  Never know where he may need some part from the old car for repairs. The Farm Bureau units have a 5-year landscaping program under w ...

THERE IS NONE SO BLIND AS HE WHO WILL NOT SEE. Holy Scripture We buried Gene.  In his fringed leather jacket and three cornered hat he looked as though he had just walked out of a history book.  And a history book is what he was.  When I first knew of him I only knew him as Gene the Barber.  He cut hair for forty nine and a half years in Medicine Lodge. The first time I saw him it was on Sunflower Journeys ...