agri-Culture

Send us Fan Mail Watching the Winter Olympics this week made us think back to last Fall and the Future Farmers of America's National Convention. Well, you might say to yourself, "What do the Army, the FFA and the Olympics have to do with each other?"  You'll find out as we speak with Lt. Col. Quint and his associate Jane Tyler, as they introduce us to 2020 Tokyo Olympian Sgt. P...

Send us Fan Mail When you’re the guardian of a living creature – human, livestock or other -- there are some really tough decisions to make.  Do I homeschool or do the public option?  Do I do surgical intervention or see how they do on their own?  Do I breed, cull or slaughter (not on the human side, obviously).  In these days of technical innovation, there are some fantastic tools out there to he...

Send us Fan Mail Fencepost Flights of Fancy?  Ruminations from the Field?  Upside-down Bucket Talks?  My Favorite Way to Ruminate?  No matter what we end up calling these monthly segments, they’re bound to be interesting, and we hope you pitch in to give suggestions on your favorite name. We’re going to bring you a few moments from the lives of those in the agricultural community (read:  farmers a...

Send us Fan Mail This past weekend we went to the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado.  Have you ever wondered what it takes to put on a show like this, especially one that runs for 3 weeks? Well we had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Kelly Lombardi, the Director of Volunteer Services to explain just how many volunteers and staff it takes work in front and behind the scenes to...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode, we sit down with four breed organization members. We have representatives from the World Heritage Yak Conservancy, American Boer Goat Association, Cattlemen's Texas Longhorn Registry, and American Milking Devon Cattle Association to discuss genetics, small farms, and what makes their livestock breeds so unique. Links: https://www.heritageyak.com h...

Send us Fan Mail Our book selection:  The Trail Drivers of Texas (University of Texas Press)             Killing of “Billy the Kid” (Pg. 240-242) Links: https://utpress.utexas.edu/ https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/huntra https://www.britannica.com/topic/Goodnight-Loving-Trail https://www.thc.texas.gov/historic-sites/fort-griffin-state-historic-site https://www.thc.texas.gov/search?query=cattle+tra...

Send us Fan Mail We’re starting off the podcast year on a beautifully sunny but slightly chilly day in Connecticut.  Cam (Cameron) and Chip (Chester) Falkowski of C&C Back Achers Farm join us for a conversation about the wonderful combinations that can occur when you play with the ingredients a little.  Scottish Highland and Belted Galloway Cattle, American Boer and Cashmere Goats (though they...

Send us Fan Mail We are a little goofy at this time of the year.  So, Elara and I put a little ditty together to start this week's episode off,  but it's not about Jack and Diane. It'll go down as a classic. We look forward to bringing you more fun and exciting episodes from our adventures in the upcoming year, but we won't give up our day jobs. Happy New Year!! Support the sho...

Send us Fan Mail We give you the Real Origin Story (so we’ve heard) of Santa’s sled, and the valiant beasts that pull it. Happy Holidays, everyone.  Links: https://www.bing.com/search?q=A+Visit+from+St.+Nicholas&efirst=0&ecount=50&filters=tnTID%3a%2217C301C5-FC14-4bbc-A7A5-242874C90864%22+tnVersion%3a%224371033%22+Segment%3a%22popularnow.carousel%22+tnCol%3a%2235%22+tnOrder%3a%22bc2683...

Send us Fan Mail This week we would like to thank all of the farmers and ranchers who work so hard to bring food to our tables. Unfortunately most of the time these hard working people are not thanked enough. We all have stress with our jobs, but for many of us we don't have the added challenges of weather, trade embargoes, and how that's going to affect the price of their crops this yea...

Send us Fan Mail We’re not taking you to church, but we are going to a monastery (you never thought we’d start a podcast with that one, I bet).   Join us, as we talk to Mother Katherine at the Holy Myrrhbearers Monastery in Otego, New York.  Join us, and over 50 sheep, 12 goats, 3 chickens, and a guardian dog.  And Mother Katherine runs the whole livestock department, if you believe that. One of t...

Send us Fan Mail We talked a month ago about the cost of that comfy sweater from the knitting side of things, but now we’re going to go back a little bit further.  The Sheep itself (or goat, or llama, or…).  But that’s not the only thing we need to trace in that regard.  There’s the shepherd, which sprang into existence at the moment the sheep was domesticated.   Our podcast today brings back Tamm...

Send us Fan Mail A thanks to all of our listeners, sponsors, and especially all of the people who bring food to our tables each day....The Farmers Links: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM25-lz1Yms https://www.theeisenberggroup.com/ https://www.dutchessfair.com/the-fairgrounds/all-events/new-york-state-sheep-wool-festival/   https://www.virtual...

Send us Fan Mail In this week's episode we sit down with Becky Serres, a retired employee of Ft. Robinson State Park in Crawford, Nebraska. We were at Ft. Robinson to film the Longhorn roundup and ran into Becky as she volunteered to saddle up her horse and help herd these 125 head of cattle to their winter pasture.  The Ft. Robinson herd is one of the last few publicly-owned herds of the ori...

Send us Fan Mail Some of us associate Cornell University with the famous birding department and nest cams (that’s you, Elara).  Some might think of Cornell as the home of the Cornell Small Farms Program newsletter (also Elara).  And some might think of Cornell as the school with the neat restaurant program (El…wait - what?!?).  No matter what you associate with this prestigious Ivy-League school,...

Send us Fan Mail Kristy Meyer, FFA media and communications spokesperson extraordinaire, is today’s podcast guest.  She welcomed us graciously at the 2021 FFA convention in Indianapolis, Indiana (once we could find a place to stand behind the 55,000 teenagers and a gargantuan harvester, that is).   But we have other stars of the show as well – The Interns.  Backyard Green Films enlisted (drafted,...

Send us Fan Mail Wait – I thought knitting was relaxing.  Now we have to do math?!?  Well, that’s especially true if you knit for a living, which is hard to do if you want to survive.  Because if beautiful handwork becomes something that’s just a pastime, then “past” will become the key word.  Then the cost will be immeasurable.  It is a skill we cannot lose, so Elara is doing her part, and faithf...

Send us Fan Mail Before heading to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival 2021, we did a farm visit to speak with one of the participants of that grand event.  Siri Swanson (sheep shearer, farmer, butcher, educator and overachiever, among other things) gave us a tour of Yankee Rock Farm.  When she and her partner Colin are not running around the country shearing sheep, she plies her farming tr...

Send us Fan Mail Tammy White, of and at Wing and a Prayer Farm.  Custodian of one of the “finalist” places Elara wants to have her Elara’s ashes spread when the time comes. (Or maybe we’ll just hope that in the next life we come back as a Shetland Sheep in Vermont.) Links: https://www.wingandaprayerfarm.com/ https://www.virtual.sheepandwool.com/41 Support the show

Send us Fan Mail From Sustainable Solano’s website… “We are a grassroots, countywide movement uniting people through work that aims to serve the future of Solano County, to promote ecologically regenerative, economically and socially just communities in a world that works for everyone. Sustainable Solano has grown out of decades of dedicated community work that started with community gardens and h...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Donkey Season again!   If you don’t know why it’s Donkey Season, you’ll have to listen to the podcast intro to find out.  But not only do you get your curiosity satisfied on that count, you get to hear one of our favorite interviews in its entirety.  Dr. Amy McClean (B.S., M.S., Ph. D., thank you very much) gives us a quick lesson on the joys of the donkey universe – and we d...

Send us Fan Mail Goats were brought over to this country almost exactly five centuries ago.  For something that has been around so long, it’s amazing that this animal has flown under the radar of popular consumer taste for most of its residency here in North America.  But goats have a lot to offer to the agricultural universe, as the rest of the world has known for thousands of years.  That realiz...

Send us Fan Mail It’s that time of year again, and we can hardly wait.  The super extravaganza known as The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival is back in 2021.  Okay, so we just call “Rhinebeck” because, after all, it’s tons easier than remembering the acronym.  But it’s here!   Running up and down the aisles of the livestock barns was one of the joys of our filming lives, and the people we sp...

Send us Fan Mail Everything starts with a kernel of something – whether it’s an idea, a business, an organism or hope.  And sharing?  Well that can make it truly powerful.  In today’s podcast, the seed is all of those things, both literally and metaphorically.  Ken Greene of Hudson Valley Seed Company has germinated a little packet of seeds into something truly wonderful.  Maybe it was Ken’s exper...

Send us Fan Mail If you put power in a small package, sometimes you can get incredibly efficient output.  We’re bringing you a conversation today that’s all about that idea, straight from Mt. Hope, Ohio - Horse Progress Days 2021. Bob Erickson brought his team in from Westview, Wisconsin, and he was a constant sight at this fantastic event in the midst of Amish farm country.  He was everywhere wit...