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The Country Today
A learning, uniting experience
One thing I’ve learned about myself is that I really love a good challenge–physically, mentally and professionally. Perhaps this is why I said yes when Professor Jamie Tester Morfoot of the UW-Eau Claire Social Work Department asked me to help lead the inaugural social justice immersion to South Africa just a few weeks ago. When Jamie gave me a run-down of the itinerary, I was shocked to discover that it checked all of the boxes on my “Things I’d Love to Get Paid to Do”...
Tribal partnership with UW-Madison combines ag research with Indigenous food knowledge
For thousands of years, Indigenous farmers have cultivated crops like wild rice and corn, and have raised fish in fisheries. Now, new federal grant funding will help Indigenous farmers and food access programs in Wisconsin expand their reach. A partnership led by the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition and the University of Wisconsin-Madison received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agricultural Systems program earlier this summer. ...
Crop conditions decline
We are starting to see more interest in the weekly US corn and soybean crop condition reports. While using this data to predict yield is highly unreliable, crop condition does give an idea of overall crop potential. At the present time 81% of the US corn and soybean crops are rated fair or better, and 9% poor to very poor. This is still a low volume of poorly rated crops, but at the start of the reporting period they were half of this total. This gives the indication that average yield estimates of 181 bushels per acre on corn and...
Daughter Lovina shares about married life
I (daughter Lovina) decided to write Mom’s column for her today. It’s been a while since I wrote, and a lot has changed. Daniel and I are married now. We’ve moved into our small place on a secluded dirt road. The house is very cozy. There’s quite a bit of wildlife around here. Deer roam around everywhere; rabbits, too. The birds are always chirping, and I love being out here in the countryside, where there’s hardly any traffic. Speaking of wildlife, we even have some...
Ding-a-ling, there goes spring
In my life, time has a way of getting out of control. If I could control time, I would be a very happy dude. My one question in life is, where does time go? The other night, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I sat in the living room watching a little TV. I then heard a deep sigh from the other resident in the room. Looking over I...
DNR reports wolf attacks on several Spanish mustangs in Bayfield County
Several Spanish mustangs have been attacked by wolves in Bayfield County over the past couple months, according to the Department of Natural Resources. Reports obtained by the Daily Press indicate a Spanish mustang mare was attacked on June 16 and a Spanish mustang foal was attacked on July 14. Both incidences occurred “on a farm located in the town of Bell.” Wolves in Bayfield County have recently targeted several more...
New Auburn farm opens ice cream business
NEW AUBURN — Dixie Klemish recalls that 40 years ago, there used to be seven dairy farms along their road southwest of New Auburn. The farm has been in her husband’s family since 1889. “We’re the last one left,” she said. “It’s almost bittersweet when your child decides to take over the farm.” In 2022, Dixie and Randy Klemish decided to create a new business on their farm, choosing to...
UW-Madison Extension holds electric weed control demonstration in Chippewa County
CHIPPEWA FALLS — As Chippewa Valley farmer Adam Seibel drives down the rows of the soybean field in his tractor, a series of orange zaps and a puff of smoke means that the attached “weed zapper” is doing its job. As part of a casual field day for the UW-Madison Extension in Chippewa, Dunn and Eau Claire counties, people from the Future Farmers of America, the Department of Natural Resources, Chippewa County Department of Land Conservation and others saw a demonstration of electric weed control. ...
Could be worse
An old First Communion song proclaimed, “Peter built the church on the rock of our faith.” Closer to home, bricklayer Frank “Banty” Wendt built a small cabin on a concrete slab jutting into Lake Hallie sometime in the 1930s. I’ve lived there with my husband since 2010. Stonemason Aaron Hanson recently explained to Bruce and me how Banty likely poured the cement base: dammed the water with sandbags and used a wood frame to hold the shape of foundation. Once that cured, he pulled out...
Lodi Agricultural Fair celebrates 158 years
For years, a high point of the Lodi Agricultural Fair has been the Saturday evening Celebrity Pie Auction. But this year it also marked a conclusion of almost three decades of service for two of the fair’s board members. Before the start of wheeling and dealing for pastries and gift packages with bids well into the thousands of dollars going toward future fairs, State Assembly Rep. Jon Plumer, of Lodi, took to the stage to present awards recognizing the work of outgoing Lodi Fair Board...
Gun closets across America
Like most southern Illinois farms of my youth, my family had a closet filled with guns. It was just inside the living room and it held my father’s 12-gauge Marlin shotgun, his .22 caliber Remington pump rifle, brother Richard’s single-shot 20-gauge shotgun, brother David’s single-shot 410-shotgun, and my single-shot .22 caliber rifle. The same unlocked closet also held my mother’s ironing board, dust mop, and “good” china. ...
USDA shakes up balance sheets
For once we did see moderate changes to the US corn balance sheets in the July update. For the 2023/24 marketing year the USDA bumped imports up 5 million bushels, but also raised feed and residual usage and exports by 75 million bushels each to trim the US carryout by 145 million bushels. This put the US carryout for this year at 1.877 billion bu. This is a 12.6% stocks to use and equates to a cash value of $4.65 per bushel. For the 2024/25...
The Hartley case
Job 24:14 “The murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night, as a thief.” A couple of my eight readers of the Yarns of Yesteryear section of The Country Today, asked if I would expound more on that kidnapping case. Evelyn Hartley, a 15-year-old La Crosse Central High School sophomore, was babysitting a 20-month-old baby, Janice, at the home of...
Another family wedding is coming
Yesterday my husband Joe and I celebrated 31 years of marriage. It doesn’t seem possible that it has been this long. We were married on brother Albert’s birthday. He would have been 60, but God had other plans for Albert. My thoughts were with Albert’s widow Sarah as I thought of the first birthday Albert wasn’t here to enjoy with her. Albert has two sons and a daughter-in-law who share his birthday. On July 14, son Benjamin had his 25th birthday. He invited our whole...
Clipper Brewing honors Bodin family legacy; Owner Tom Bodin launches beer paying homage to grandfather
Tom Bodin’s lineage is about as rooted in Bayfield as it gets. His great-grandfather moved there in 1881 from Sweden and started commercial fishing on Lake Superior. The family is still at it. “We’ve been commercial fishing for over 140 years,” he said, smiling. Bodin Fisheries has long been the family’s business, but Tom Bodin...
Down on the Farm: Nature's fairies
Hummingbirds flit and buzz about the four feeders in our pollinator garden at Farmstead Creamery. They duck under the canopied entrance, sometimes sitting on the strings that hold the top snugly. They chatter at each other, swooping and diving in and out of the hydrangeas and bee balms. The aerobatics of these tiny birds are stunning, their iridescent feathers glinting in the summer sunlight. Sometimes as I step out to help clients with scoops of our sheep milk gelato, they will buzz past right in...
Wisconsin’s own ‘Nate the Hoof Guy’ captures internet audiences by trimming cow hooves
For more than 20 years, Nate Ranallo has been working as a bovine podiatrist, trimming cow hooves at dairy farms in west-central Wisconsin. Unlike most in the trade, though, he has millions of spectators. Cow hoof trimming videos have become incredibly popular among certain internet audiences, and Ranallo is one of the most successful creators in the genre, living and working right here in America’s Dairyland. He makes videos under...
Age is just a number. Or is it?
Recently, one of our granddaughters reached the magical age of 16 and was applying for her driver’s license. When I reached 16, my next goal was 21 because I would be an official adult, and my parents couldn’t tell me what to do. Several years ago, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I celebrated birthdays at a restaurant. Her birthday is two days after mine. ...
And on this farm we had a … pizza? Why the Wisconsin pizza farm movement is an idea whose time has come
Chicago, in all its outsized hubris and self-consciousness, likes to believe it knows everything there is to know about the only perfect food ever created — the pizza. It knows deep dish and thin, cracker and caramelized-cheese crust, wedge cut and tavern cut, St. Louis Style, New York Style, New Haven Style and Detroit Style, Neapolitan and Roman and Sicilian, stuffed crust and whatever those pizza pot pies think they’re doing. But does Chicago know the pizza farm? ...
Wisconsin youth brings home top prize in NJAS competition
A Wisconsin youth was one of three top performers at the National Junior Angus Show earlier this month in Madison. The Minix Stockman Contest prepares young people for a future working with cattle by testing their overall knowledge and ability to evaluate cattle. Caitlyn Brandt, director of events and junior activities, said participants compete in a quiz bowl written exam and judge cattle. There is also a “skill-a-thon.” Titus Wynn...
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Eau Claire Press Company’s rural newspaper, The Country Today, was established in January 1977 and was designed to serve the agribusiness community of west-central Wisconsin. It began as a free-distribution newspaper, and in the summer of 1979 was converted to a paid-circulation publication. Today it is one of Wisconsin’s largest paid-circulation weekly newspapers with distribution throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. In October 1983, The Country Today expanded to offer statewide coverage. In recent years, the newspaper has developed an online and social media presence that is updated regularly. The content of the paper reflects the diverse interests of a rural population. In addition to coverage of agricultural issues, The Country Today offers regular columns and features on options for small-acreage farms, outdoor news, horse news and other specialty coverage and recipes. The majority of the content is staff-produced. The Country Today maintains a staff of regional editors and advertising representatives across the state in addition to the Eau Claire office staff. Covering topics of importance to the rural reader in a timely fashion, The Country Today is a newspaper that cares about rural life.
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