What does it take?

Have you ever stopped to think how new food products are developed? I know I haven't. But a group of NDSU students is learning all about food product development, and they even have to use ten of the top commodities grown in North Dakota in their product.

Read the NDSU Extension Release by clicking here.

What a cool way to not only learn more about North Dakota agriculture and the commodities we raise, but the intricacies involved in getting a food product to market, all packaged and labeled.

Good luck, teams! I hope we can all hear about the end results!

Dawn

I wish I was a farmer today

So, I'm sitting in my office wondering why I'm sitting in my office, particularly on such a beautiful, North Dakota March day. This is day number 2 of awesome, albeit slightly unusual, weather. Tomorrow, we're supposed to start that slippery slide south to more "seasonal" weather.

I really like my job, but I really, really wish I was a farmer today. I'd probably already be digging in the dirt, instead of punching keys and mousing endlessly.

On the positive side, I spent most of my day helping county Farm Bureaus keep their members informed on some pretty important ag issues, so even though I wish I was a farmer, I got the next best thing.

Time to drive home with the window wide open!

Ain't life grand!?!?

Dawn

Advocates for Agriculture

Troy and Stacy Hadrick, ranchers and advocates for agriculture, spoke at North Dakota State University for an Ag Day event. The event was co-sponsored by North Dakota Farm Bureau's NDSU Collegiate Farm Bureau.

Mikkel Pates of Agweek wrote the story on the Hadricks.

I thought it was good information to share.

www.agweek.com/event/article/id/155964/publisher_ID/40/

Dawn

Bud is back

I'm giddy. Bud is back with Deborah!

Here is the proof!

















Deborah, in this case, is our Deborah maple in the backyard, and Bud is, well, actually there are four "Buds" in this shot, aren't there?

There is something very satisfying about seeing buds all over the place!

And what of Snow Boulder and his buddies (The four, four-foot round snowballs my kids rolled in the backyard)? This is all that's left of them.....






















Today, anyway, it looks like Spring is here!

Dawn

I wouldn't go back

I had a teacher once who said, "You just wait. There will come a time when you will wish you could come back to high school. These are the best years of your life." I guffawed. Yes, I guffawed.

Acne. Angst. Homework. Fitting in. Is he serious? "Self," I said quietly and knowingly to myself, "there is no way you will ever want to be in high school again." And you know what? I've been saying it ever since, about every time of my life.

Oh, I still have the occasional zit, plenty of angst and I don't know where or how I really "fit in," but reliving the earlier version of all that? No thanks.

People say, "I wish I could go back to...." and all I can think is, "But if I did that, I'd have to learn THIS all over again. And I don't want to have to learn all this again. It was hard enough the first time. I like knowing what I know and by golly I EARNED it."

Maybe it's the "pioneer" in me, but I tend to do a lot more looking forward and not thinking much about the past. Oh, it's fun to reminisce and stuff, but relive it? Nah. The way I see it, there are just too many possibilities in the future to spend much time pining away for "how it used to be."

Maybe it's because I have a bad memory. I CAN'T remember how it used to be, so why not just jump in and see how far the current takes you?

Dawn

My pants got longer

My pants got longer and my shoes are wearing out. Yep. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. How else can I explain the fact that the pants I am now wearing ever-so-slightly touch the ground when I walk, when they didn't six months ago?

It could happen. Pants can get stretched out in the wash. The soles of my shoes are looking pretty smooth, too. And I know they USED to have some tread on them.

I am not getting shorter.

I repeat, I am not getting shorter!!!

Okay.

I'm getting shorter.

Curse the nurse who blurted out "5 feet 5 and a half inches" like it was no big deal!!! I'll have you know I have been 5 feet 6 inches since I was, like, 15!

When you get to be my age, you need to handle the shrinking height issue with a little more commiseration. She should have looked at me, smiled knowingly, and whispered, "5 feet 5 and a half inches? REMARKABLE you've kept your height for as long as you have!!!

But, that did not happen and that ton of realism hit me on the head and probably shortened me some more, thank you very much!

So, I'm getting old and short. Or, my pants got longer and my shoes are wearing out. Yep. I like that better. A LOT better.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Dawn

Where does the time go?

I know. I know. It's a cliché. But what a difference a year makes. I was getting ready to upload the Morton County Farm Bureau Ag Day 2010 video on the NDFB website, when I ran across the 2009 video. I couldn't remember what I did last year, so I watched it.

I smiled as I watched my kids bounce into the community center, excited to take in all the exhibits and get their Ag Day stickers. But I did a double-take when my son talked about the sheep shearing. He said, "I bet it's like a massage for the sheep" in a voice that sounded so young, I had to listen again. Then, I listened a third time. All I could say to myself is, "Self, he's not your little boy anymore. He's growing up."

Still, a few things had not changed. They were both still fascinated by the sheep shearing. And the big pretend hamburger at the Cattle Womens' booth still made my son hungry. They still agonized over just the right name for the calves in the Name the Calf contest, and they both had very big smiles on their faces when we left.

So even though my curious little boy is disappearing, I hope a curious young man, still excited about all the wonders of agriculture, will continue to grow in his place.

Dawn

A visit to Morton County Ag Day

It took a little convincing, but I got my son to reprise his role as NDFB Kid Correspondent to "report" from the Morton County Farm Bureau Ag Day event. Enjoy!




Dawn

Cheryl rocks!

Cheryl Bombenger rocks! She's a third-grade teacher in Fargo and she is doing so much to help kids understand how important agriculture is to all of us, that I just have to share her blog and her student blog with you.

aginmyclassroom.blogspot.com
agkids.blogspot.com

She's the kind of teacher you wish was in every school in the country. I asked her a few questions for North Dakota Farm Bureau's bi-monthly Focus publication and the quote from her that I love and will repeat every chance I get, is: "It's easy to see that agriculture is the foundation of everything."

Agriculture is the foundation of everything.

Cheryl understands that, as each generation becomes further removed from the actual work of farming and ranching, we need to educate our kids that our basic needs -- food, shelter and clothing -- all come from agriculture.

She is an outstanding agricultural advocate, and I'm happy she's on our side!

Thanks, Cheryl!

Dawn

The Swede stands alone

I'm the only one in my family (except for the dog) who cannot boast an Irish heritage. So, while everyone else was wearing green today to connect with their Irish roots, I was wearing green so I wouldn't feel left out. Hence the title, "The Swede stands alone."

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all you leprechauns!


















Dawn

In another life...

I could have been a mechanic. Of course, never having been a mechanic, I am only imagining that what I realized I like to do is similar to what a mechanic does.

As a teenager, I was not very involved in the daily farm chores. I didn't take shop in high school, either. What I did do is vacuum and wash dishes and make a lot of potato salad and chocolate chip cookies.

And while I never really had an interest in taking apart the vacuum to figure out what made it suck, I realized while we were putting together our new website for NDFB that I was curious about how things worked with this new system. Or maybe I was just impatient. Or maybe I'm just a big know-it-all.

I didn't design the thing, but once it was designed, I was in there, checking out the structure, fixing errors and trying to figure out how everything worked. I would ask questions, but then be too impatient to wait for answers and just try figuring stuff out myself.

When I was younger, I never would have considered myself much of a tinkerer, but the older I get, the more interested in "tinkering" I become, although to be honest, most of my tinkering is of the online variety.

I tinkered with a free social network application and ended up starting three social specialty networks for Farm Bureau. And that was even before the Twitter and Facebook craze really hit.

And even though we haven't gotten piles of people on the networks, I'm still adding content and tweaking and trying to find new ways to get people excited about these online tinkering experiments.

All this tinkering reminds me of what a mechanic does, so that's why I think in another life, I coulda' been a mechanic.

An online social network mechanic.

I kinda like the way that sounds!

Dawn

Moo!

Think Spring! But pray for a slow thaw!

(artwork by my 7-year-old daughter)

Dawn

My bucket list

I used to go to movies on a pretty regular basis B.C., which DOES NOT mean Before Christ, by the way. I may be old, but I'm not THAT old. B.C. in this case is "before children."

But your priorities really change after kids, and somehow carving out that "me time" didn't seem nearly as important as making sure the "us time" was plentiful. As a result, going to a movie these days is an expensive event (once you factor in the snacks and drinks) that involves the whole family and often requires that you don those silly one-size-fits-none 3-D glasses. Actually, if there is a 2-D option, we often choose that.

So, while we don't go to many movies, we make up for it by renting and buying movies. The other night, after the kids went to bed, my husband and I sat down to watch the movie The Bucket List.

Yes, I know it has been out for a long time, but I think you have to be in the right frame of mind to watch a movie like that, and apparently we both were.

One thing that struck me about the movie was that, at one point, Jack Nicholson says that just having the list is an admission that we aren't happy with who we are.

Well, that made me think about what would be on my list, because I have been so busy the last 10 to 15 years, I haven't really thought about how happy I am with myself.

I don't know what my list says about me, because I don't have a burning desire to see the pyramids or climb Mt. Everest. I don't even want a fancy car or a huge house or a bunch of shoes. I would like, however, to figure out a way to get the dog to quit chewing up the shoes I have.

Other than wanting to be in a home improvement store and have that guy from HGTV ask me if I want a backyard makeover (it's two acres, dude, knock yourself out!!!) my most important list item is to be a good example to my kids so they can be happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who know how to handle rejection, disappointment, and yes, even success -- life in general -- with grace, gratefulness and joy.

Whew! I have my work cut out for me, don't I?

Dawn

Flood tips

I know. No one really wants to think about flood preparedness after last year, but with all the precipitation we've been getting the last few days, it just seems best to keep a watchful eye and be as prepared as possible.

An excellent resource for people to check out is North Dakota State University Extension's Flood Information landing page.

The site provides tips for before and after flooding as well as how-to videos on things like building a proper sandbag dike and how to clean up your home after a flood.

Here are a couple of news releases they have issued as well:

Plugging drains to keep sewage out

Flood emergency horse shelter

Here's hoping that by using the "before the flood" tips, you don't have to deal with the "after the flood" ones.

Dawn

Weather monitor

Do you religiously watch both the six and ten p.m. weather?

And then tune to the Weather Channel to compare its forecast with the local forecasters?

Do you keep a weather dairy?

Are you fascinated by Alberta Clippers, El Niño and what the Jet Stream is doing at any given moment?

Then you too, may be a weather fanatic.

But, here's a way to make that weather habit productive.

Adnan Akyuz, state climatologist and assistant professor of climatology in the North Dakota State University Soil Science Department, is looking for volunteers for a nationwide rain and snow reporting network.

Read the whole news release from NDSU Extension by clicking here.

To check out North Dakota's CoCoRaHS (Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow network) info, click here. But make sure you have a little time. You might find yourself getting lost in all the interesting data the site provides.

Happy weathering!

Dawn

My frosted bananas, part II

I sent out an e-mail to everyone on the North Dakota Values network about the change we had to make to that social network because of spammers, but I just need to vent a little, so please bear with me.

Who was it that said "No good deed goes unpunished"? Well, that's the way I feel right now. I'm mad because North Dakota Values was supposed to be an open membership social network that allowed people to join and share their North Dakota thoughts, photos, issues, and whatever else they wanted to share.

But after spending most of this afternoon cleaning out spam messages for this, that or the other wonder drug or ways to buy drugs without prescriptions, I had to stop the madness and make North Dakota Values a "you can only get in if you are approved" social network.

And I'm just a little mad about that. I mean, why can't people just be decent? Is that really too much to ask?

Oh, I know it was probably an automated program that was shoving random names and e-mail addresses like John1234567Doe@thiskindofmail.com into our network, but somebody had to write the dumb program to do it. And I'm just a little mad about that. (Oh, I said that already, didn't I? Can you tell I'm mad?)

Or maybe I can look at this a different way.....

North Dakota Values is truly for people who believe there's nothing like North Dakota living -- winters and all -- so just by virtue of that fact, we are an exclusive club. Why not make our network exclusive too?

Okay, all my hot air has unfrosted my bananas!

Keep encouraging your friends to join NDV. It's still a great place to meet and share and learn. New folks will just have to jump through an extra hoop, but I hope that won't stop them!

Dawn

Grammar Day

Who knew? Today is Grammar Day, which SHOULD NOT be confused with Grandma Day, which I don't personally know of, but is probably designated somewhere.

I think EVERY DAY should be Grandma Day. Grandmas ROCK!

But I digress.

Since it's National Grammar Day, I figured I'd tell you my favorite things about the English language.

I love the fact that depending on how you say it, "record" can either mean something you play (okay, only for us over-the-hill types does it still mean that) on a phonograph or that you are going to start the digital recorder so you can watch your favorite television program later.

I love that "it's" and "its" are entirely confusing to people and that I will catch myself, on a regular basis, saying out loud, "It is just not right that it's is so hard to figure out!" (Okay not really. I just thought it was kind of funny!)

I love that we used to be told NEVER end a sentence with a preposition, but the National Grammar Day folks say that it's Grammar Myth #1 and you can most definitely say, "What did you step on?" instead of the much more cumbersome and archaic sounding, "On what did you step, praytell?"

I love the fact that we even have a National Grammar Day, and that it's on March fourth, which could also be written as march forth, and mean something completely different. (Do you suppose that was on purpose!?!?!?)

Anyway, that's my short list. I'm out of time for today, so I'll just say, "Happy Grammar Day!"

Dawn

Farm Bureau Week

Next week is officially North Dakota Farm Bureau Week. It starts on Sunday, March 7 and goes through Saturday, March 13.

We've been observing FB Week for several years now (can't actually remember how many off the top of my head) but it has always been interesting.

This year, we're going to unveil our new website, announce the winner of a safety placemat contest for 3-5 grade students and support county Farm Bureaus with their promotions. I don't know what all the counties have planned, but I've heard of everything from a chili cook-off (yum) to a grocery store food giveaway.

We're really stressing safety, particularly farm safety, this year because we saw a lot of farm-related deaths last year in North Dakota. We especially are trying to get people to understand how important it is to say "no" to extra riders on farm equipment. More than 100 kids die in farm accidents every year and a tractor is involved nearly half the time when children under the age of 15 die in accidents on the farm. So please, keep those kids of the tractor.

In addition, NDFB Week is the same week as Agriculture Safety Awareness Week, not to mention National Groundwater Awareness Week, so it will be a week full of fun and educational information.

So enjoy Farm Bureau Week and remember to practice "tough love" and don't let kids ride on tractors!

Dawn

With my apologies to Dr. Seuss

"My hat is old. My teeth are gold. I have a bird I like to hold."

Was it foreshadowing? Weird coincidence? Or just the randomness of life that this favorite quote from one of Dr. Seuss's books would come true for me on the Seuss-man's actual birthday?

Well, I can't say the "bird I like to hold" part really fits me, but I have plenty of old hats, AND I can say my teeth are gold today. Well, one of them is, anyway.

What exactly DIDN'T I understand about the words "gold tooth" when a month ago I was told that I needed not one, but two crowns, and that because one of them was way in the back and on top, it would be very hard to see, so I could have a gold crown if I wanted? I said "Sure. Fine." Guess the "sticker shock" of spending substantially more than I was expecting fuzzed up my hearing. Because I was wondering why they were making such a big deal out of having a tooth with a little gold showing around the bottom. "Big deal!" I said to myself.

Then on the way back to work after having the crowns put in, I looked in my mouth and saw that big new gold tooth. After a "WHOA, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT" reaction, I thought to myself, "Self, you weren't paying attention when they talked to you about this, were you?"

But, really, it's still not a big deal. Like they said, it's way back there and hardly shows unless I open my mouth real wide, which doesn't happen very often. At least I don't think it does.+

Still, it was just a little weird to open your mouth and see a big gold thing back there.

I feel so old. My teeth are gold. And now my story is all told.
Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss.

Dawn