agri-Culture

Send us Fan Mail This past weekend we attended the NY State Sheep and Wool Festival, also known as Rhinebeck...which of course is in Rhinebeck, New York. It has become an annual pilgrimage for Rick and I.  We love coming back to the Hudson Valley this time of year, there's a brisk in the air, the fall colors are beautiful, and the sheep people are in town...not only the sheep people, but the...

Send us Fan Mail This month is the traditional time to celebrate Halloween, so we have a creepy crawly podcast for you this time around.  Maia Holmes from The Bug Zoo at Colorado State University sits down to talk turkey with us.  Oops – that’s next month.  Maia sits down with us to talk about all things insects, what the Bug Zoo does, and why these poor critters are completely undeserving of the...

Send us Fan Mail Today we’re bringing you a conversation from the exotic location of…San Diego!  The American Sheep Industry Association’s annual meeting this year was held in our home city, and we managed to be at home to catch it.   Today, we’re speaking with Scott Stuart, Managing Director for the National Livestock Producers Association.  He discussed how this national nonprofit organization h...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back from our trip to the San Juan Islands, which can comfortably be said to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  It’s full of natural beauty and interesting creatures, so on the way over to geographical bliss, you’ll stand on the windswept deck of the Anacortes ferry, viewing and smelling glorious the forested stretches of Sitka spruce, western red cedar and...

Send us Fan Mail Fall might seem to be the beginning of the end for some things - leaves, the start of move toward the final season of the year, and a dormant time.  But for some, it is a time of beginnings;  a new school year, and the move toward a new life.  What do I want to do and where will I go?  Like farmers, the decisions that a student makes might impact their path for the next 50 years....

Send us Fan Mail David Kline is one of the Plain People, but to us he is anything but boring.  He’s a naturalist, writer, farmer and all-around interesting man.  He joined us at the 2021 Horse Progress Days exhibition in Mt. Hope, Ohio.   Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A7UPDPK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://horseprogressdays.com  ...

Send us Fan Mail Last fall Elara and I had the opportunity to travel to Colorado and go to CSU in Ft. Collins. There we met up with  Professor Frank Dayan who teaches and studies Plant Physiology, Biochemistry, Mode of Action,  and Biosynthesis. He had a 20-year career as a research plant physiologist for the USDA-ARS, before coming to Colorado State University.  He and the team at the weed lab (n...

Send us Fan Mail This week's episode is with guest interviewer ABGA  Executive Director Katie Carruth, as she speaks with Judge Phil Myers about the ins and outs of grading livestock in the ring. Links: https://www.abga.org Support the show

Send us Fan Mail James Reams (1956-2022) So many songs to sing; and so little time to sing them. That was the mantra of James Reams, beloved and well-known Bluegrass performer and song writer. Because of his driving promotion of Bluegrass and Americana music, he had earned several nicknames durning his lifetime that reflected his contributions to the genre; Kentucky Songbird , Father of Brooklyn B...

Send us Fan Mail We won’t be bringing you our typical podcast for the next few weeks, because we’re doing a Bowman left.  Those of you who are regular listeners might remember that that’s the swerve in plans we tend to do if we find something interesting to pick up.  Sometimes that’s sudden, sometimes expected, but either way it’s a departure from our norm. We’re about to get on a plane to head to...

Send us Fan Mail The Chowchilla FFA has earned the title of State Champions for Dairy Cattle Evaluation, and we have two of those proud titleholding individuals with us today.  Mr. Brad Bitter, FFA Advisor, and his student Sydney Alexander politely allowed us to waylay them for a quick conversation amid the bustling halls of the 2021 FFA Convention.   Staying true to the nature of Californians, th...

Send us Fan Mail We met up with Paul and Darlene  Miller from Windy Creek Farm in New York while we were at the  annual North American Suffolk Horse meetup at the Ashtabula County fairgrounds in Ohio. As usual we were on our way to Horse Progress Days and decided to take a Bowman left.  There aren’t that many Suffolk Punch horses around anymore.  It’s really a shame, because a rich history, smarts...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever seen one of those commercials for an all-American heavy-duty truck, with an all-American cowboy or farmer?  They’re usually off-loading dirty-but-not-too-dirty hay into a field, parked on a majestic mesa, with the sun shining about. There’s not a lot of sweat, and perfectly-placed dirt on all the faces.  No dirt on the cows, either.  It’s lovely and stirs the patriot...

Send us Fan Mail Every once in a great while you meet people who are just plain special. The Hostetler Family and the company they run, Mountain Meadow Wool, is a true family affair. Now, we aren't talking of just the related kind, but the Hostetler's run their business and treat everyone who works for them as family. Rick and I saw this first hand as we filmed there in Buffalo, Wyoming...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back from the cold and snowy north.  Our trip to Mountain Meadow Mill in Buffalo, Wyoming was delightful, and today we’re bringing you a conversation with Karen Hostetler, its founder – who is also the matriarch of a fast-growing clan of Hostetlers.   They were a truly nice bunch, and we’ll definitely want to go back again after this trip (even after next week’s podcast with...

Send us Fan Mail We’re back on the road, and we’re celebrating this Spring burst of energy with a giveaway from Premier 1 Supplies.  Joe Putnam will give us a quick check in on the shipping news, and we tell you how to put your hat in the ring for the freebee.  And next time…not just the old run of the mill.  Literally. Links: https://www.premier1supplies.com/ https://www.ctlr.org/ https://www.abg...

Send us Fan Mail In honor of all of us surviving an overload of people, places and holidays in the news this month, we’re giving you another conjunction – the FFA and the Collegian FFA and Farm Bureau Chapter Ag Club at SUNY Morrisville.  And a Mustang.  And a tractor.  And 60,000 kids (okay, we didn’t have the 60,000 kids on the mic, but they were all there in the background somewhere in the buil...

Send us Fan Mail Every once in a while life and art intertwine. This week we bring you James Reams, who is a musician and artist who started life off in Kentucky, traveled to Wisconsin and had a long  career in New York. He has been named the Kentucky Songbird and the Ambassador of Bluegrass, but he started life off on a farm. We caught up with James in Arizona this week, where we sat down with hi...

Send us Fan Mail This week we are in Oregon at Shepherds Lane and it's lambing season - again.  There's no sleep for a shepherd at this time of year, and Joy Dally tells us all about it. A shepherd's life isn't an easy one,  and we're getting a crash course in the glorious highs and sad lows of a real reality show - life on a farm. We are following her as she goes and we h...

Send us Fan Mail We've mentioned that we are going to start to periodically check in with some people we've met along the way, bringing you a moment of conversation.  The ag update, so to speak.  Sometimes it's a farmer, sometimes it's a research scientist, and sometimes it's a supplier.   Today we are speaking with Joe Putnam from Premier 1 Supplies. Links: https://www.pr...

Send us Fan Mail In the spirit of that impromptu moment that often happens in the Bowman universe, today we're going to bring you a quick conversation that occurred at the National Western Stock Show this January. You might know that the draft horses hold a special place for me, and there are very few things that are as majestic and glorious as a full hitch at speed thundering around the ring...

Send us Fan Mail Small ruminants are the bedrock of agriculture in much of this little ball of rock we humans inhabit.  That said, here in North America they can be an afterthought for much of the population.  We think that's going to change. Whether they're used for meat or fiber (or even as pack animals these days for a trek through the wilderness), we believe the time has come for us...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s excerpt is from a now-public domain book called Everybody’s Standard Poultry Guide, Second Edition, Volume I.  It was Published in 1919 by Everybody’s Poultry Magazine Publishing Company, Hanover, PA.  The copy I have in my hand was a bit of a romantic present from my hubby, because he knows I love old books. This book is a beautiful thing, though.  The pages are so old, t...

Send us Fan Mail We bring you another episode of our Fencepost Ruminations talk with Tammy White from Wing and a Prayer Farm in Shaftsbury, Vermont.  It's March and Tammy is taking a few minutes from her day to share what's happening at her farm this month.  Whether early in the morning or late at night, you’ll get an intimate glimpse into her conversation that occurs between a human and...

Send us Fan Mail This week we travel back to Indiana for the 2021 Future Farmers of America National Convention. There we met up with our good friends from the American Boer Goat Association, who loaned us a couple of roving reporters  from the Junior ABGA, Logan and Alaina. They interviewed FFA Star Farmer Emily Acevedo from Bradford FFA in Florida who says her agriscience journey started in the...