Bagworms are now beginning to hatch across the state of Kansas, although it’s best to wait until June 15th before trying to control them. Bagworms hatch over an extended period, from mid-May to mid-June, so the ideal time to start taking action to protect your plants this summer is not until Mid-June to Mid-July once all of the caterpillars have hatched. Bagworms can be found on a wide range of shrubs and trees but are most often seen on damaging evergreen shrubs and trees. In early to mid-June, bagworms will be the size of the end of a pen or pencil. Inspect your plants carefully and start to handpick now, or wait until mid-June to apply insecticides, such as spinosad, acephate, cyfluthrin, and permethrin. For more recommendations, and information on bagworms, visit our website: https://hnr.k-state.edu/
Scout for Bagworms & Mark Your Calendars for Control Starting June 15th
Lovina Mourns the Loss of Brother Albert
Has it only been a week since I last penned this column? So much has happened since then and life has changed again.
Brother Albert, age 59, lost his eight-week battle to colon cancer. He died peacefully with his wife of 37 1/2 years and his children by his side. Although he had unbearable pain, he still talked to his family and said some very memorable words. Albert didn’t sing much, but he sang song 131, which is the second song sung at every Amish worship service only hours before he passed away. This song is in the Ausbund, which has all the songs we sing in church.
The comfort the family has is knowing Albert is cancer-free now. He told his family they will need to let him go. Let go and let God! These words are easier said than done, but with God’s help we can be comforted. We have many precious memories of brother Albert.
Albert passed away on my 53rd birthday. We had plans to go to our neighbors’ house for supper. They had invited the neighbor families and some others. I was sewing all day and thought that it would be nice to not make supper on my birthday. When we received the call that Albert had passed away, I just couldn’t leave or go in a crowd of people. We knew it might come to this, but we still had hopes that he might go into remission. A reminder to us that God’s ways are not our ways.
Daughter Loretta and Dustin decided to not go to the supper either and brought supper here for our family. That was greatly appreciated! When little Denzel saw Grandma was crying, he kept kissing me. So sweet and innocent, yet so unaware of life’s trials.
Visitation for Albert was on May 23 and May 24 at the family’s residence. Funeral services were on Saturday, with around an estimate of 1,000 people attending.
Albert left to mourn beside his loving wife Sarah Irene (who never left his side through this cancer battle) and eleven children: Elizabeth (Amos), Benjamin (Ruby), Joseph (Amanda), Albert Jr. (Louanna), Irene (Levi), Emma (Johnny), Marvin (Lori), Leanna (Alvin), Andrew (special friend Diane), Susan, and Sylvia. Also 39 grandchildren and five sisters: Leah (Paul), Verena, Liz (Levi), Lovina (Joe), and Emma and sister-in-law Nancy.
Preceding him in death were his parents Ben and Elizabeth, his brother Amos, his sister Susan, and his brother-in-law Jacob, as well as his father-in-law Joseph and mother-in-law Elizabeth.
Albert and Sarah Irene’s church community did a wonderful job of making meals and supporting Sarah Irene and family. One of the ministers said that in the eleven years he knew Albert he never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. May we follow Albert’s example.
My husband Joe was off work most of last week. He has been having health issues, and after seeing the doctor they doubled his medication, so we hope it will give him relief.
Joe misses Albert at work after working with him the past three years at the Metal and Truss Shop. I told Albert, “Joe said you are like a brother to him at work,” and Albert replied that he couldn’t have had a better man to work with. Precious memories! Rest in peace, dear brother!
Blueberry Whoopie Pies
2 cups shortening or butter
8 eggs
3 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 teaspoons baking powder
6 cups flour
3 cups blueberries
Mix shortening or butter until fluffy. Add eggs and continue to mix. Add sugar, vanilla, salt, and baking powder. Mix well. Add flour gradually. Roll blueberries in flour to keep from coloring dough. Gently fold in blueberries. Bake at 350°F for 8 to 10 minutes.
Blueberry Filling
1 cup shortening or butter
7 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup blueberries
Note: Use rounded measures
Beat shortening or butter until creamy. Add sugar, flour, vanilla, and milk. Beat well. Add blueberries. Beat about 10 minutes. Put filling on bottom of one cookie and sandwich it with the bottom of another cookie. Wrap and keep refrigerated.
Lovina’s Amish Kitchen is written by Lovina Eicher, Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife, and mother of eight. Her two cookbooks, The Essential Amish Cookbook and Amish Family Recipes, are available wherever books are sold. Readers can write to Eicher at Lovina’s Amish Kitchen, PO Box 234, Sturgis, MI 49091 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply); or email [email protected] and your message will be passed on to her to read. She does not personally respond to emails.
Haven Steel looking to expand
A Reno County company is looking to expand in its hometown.
“Our Greater Hutch team, Lauren Storm, has been working with Jitana Graf and the Haven Economic Development folks,” said Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce CEO Debra Teufel. “They have their own economic development committee in Haven that employs a half time economic developer, and Jitana has been working with one of their mainstay companies in Haven, Haven Steel, and they are looking at the potential for an expansion. In order to give them the confidence that in order to invest in Haven and some things they want to do to expand their facility, they began exploring industrial revenue bonds as well. They’re working with bond attorney Gilmore and Bell, and right now I think they’re looking at about a $3 million potential expansion, and along with that, about $5 million of new potential equipment to help them really continue to just grow.”
Haven Steel wants to see the people that have committed to that community be able to stay there.
“They’ve got a great footprint in Haven,” Teufel said. “They are scheduled to have the city council in Haven look at that project at their meeting on June 3rd. It involves a cost benefit analysis of weighing that investment, as well as some new jobs. I believe there’s about 30 jobs forecasted with that project. It’s a nice size expansion. Recently, with the closure of the Restonic facility, there were some jobs lost in Haven. There’s really been an effort on Haven companies to look at, how can they re-employ people? How can they grow? I really applaud the ownership and the management at Haven Steel for really looking at doubling down their investment.”
FCEC and Kanza Coop merger approved
GARDEN PLAIN AND IUKA, Kan. — Members of Farmers Cooperative Elevator Company – Garden Plain (FCEC) approved a proposal to merge with Kanza Cooperative Association (Kanza) during a special meeting in Cheney on May 23. The vote received the required two-thirds majority required by Kansas law –180 affirmative and 85 dissenting.
“We had an excellent turnout from the membership and are very pleased that the majority approved the merger,” said Dixie Brewster, Board President of FCEC. “This vote has set our cooperative on the best track to maintaining high-quality service and products to our members, stay the employer of choice in our communities, and protect our members’ equity for generations to come.”
This vote was the final step in approval of the merger proposed by the FCEC and Kanza boards, who unanimously signed the definitive agreement for a merger in March. The organizations will officially be combined into one entity on September 1, 2024. 
“We are excited for the synergy that is possible as we bring these two strong cooperatives together,” said Alvin Neville, Board Chair of Kanza. “We have so much in common from geography to service to strong financial positions. Together we will create a better cooperative for our members, employees, and the communities we serve.
Based on the latest full fiscal year, the combined cooperative’s agronomy, grain, energy, and feed business is projected to generate $407 million in sales with $285 million in total assets. The combined entity will operate from 31 locations and employ 204 full-time personnel.
The administrative headquarters of the combined cooperative will remain Iuka, KS, and it will retain the name Kanza Cooperative Association. Alan Woodard will continue as the CEO, and Rusty Morehead, the current FCEC GM, will hold a key leadership position as a key employee.
Stuck On June (Best Of)
On the wall of my tack room is a calendar that is only in season one month in twelve. As I write this it’s only off by eleven months. You see, someone gave my wife one of those cowboy beefcake calendars for Christmas several years ago. You know the kind, where handsome cowboy hunks are posed in all kinds of scenic settings with their clothes torn half off supposedly by women like my wife. Well, my wife took a liking to a certain scantily clad bull rider so the calendar stays stuck on June. To her that’s much more important than the fact that the month is wrong or that next Tuesday isn’t really the dog’s birthday.
Based on the number of calendars available at my local feed store, and the price of the things, it’s obvious that women have fallen hard for cowboys on calendars. This despite the fact that they aren’t very authentic… personally I’ve never seen twelve cowboys in the entire universe who look that good! (Not that I go around checking out other men’s bodies, mind you.)
The calendars are all pretty much the same, they feature cowboys playing a guitar that is covering up his you-know-whats, or riding a rank bull while wearing only a pair of chaps. Now I ask you, what kind of bull rider goes to work with his shirt off? He is more apt to be wearing one of those bullet proof vests to keep the bull from relocating his kidneys.
There is just no realism in these cowboy calendars… no beer bellies, missing digits, love handles, skin cancer or farmer tans. They are supposed to represent typical ranch scenes but they are clearly contrived. One picture on my wife’s calendar features a cowboy putting up oat hay in August wearing only a pair of very short shorts. Anyone who has ever put up oat hay knows the haying hunk would be red all over from a rash. September features a muscle-bound aspiring cowboy actor bending over shoeing a horse while not wearing any shoes himself! Mr. May is standing over a spit barbecuing a side of beef and you can’t tell me he’d be smiling like that after a gob of grease spattered his bare body. And what kind of a cowboy cavorts in the snow wearing only his Fruit of the Looms? He’d turn blue at the points. When the camera man said, “FREEZE”, he would have.
Mind you, I am not jealous that my wife occasionally glances, okay, okay, perhaps stare is a better word, at another man on the tack room wall. Okay, okay, so maybe I am just a little jealous. In an effort to depict a more realistic picture of cowboys I had my wife take a few real life shots of me in various beefcake poses. Talk about your Kodak moments! The photographs featured me doing real cowboy things like mucking out the barn, drinking beer, picking my teeth at the auction, shooting pool and arguing with the dog.
When we got the pictures back from the drug store (my wife is still stuck in the 20th century and still takes her photos with a 30 year old camera and real film) I was a little disappointed in the cameraperson’s professionalism. There were a few problems to say the least. In one shot the photographer had asked me to “show a little skin.” So I took my hat off and the glare created a big sunspot right in the middle of the snapshot. And several other photos are a little blurry because the photographer (my wife) couldn’t hold still because she was laughing so hard.
I pasted the pictures of myself right over those drug store cowboys on my wife’s calendar and she quickly replaced it with a calendar from the bank. I did get free double prints so if there is one women out there who would like a copy of my calendar just let me know ($59.95). I can’t send the calendar through the mail though because my wife says if she got caught she could go to prison for sending obscene photos through the mail, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take if it launches an all new career for me and opens the possibility I might be named People Magazine’s “Most Sexiest Man Alive”.
