Why Is Tuition So Expensive?

K-12 and college tuition continues to increase while the economy struggles to support it. $225 was a huge amount of money when I attended Ohio State but that won't even buy a good textbook, now.

Since I mentioned some statistics in a recent blog, I have been thinking, "Why is tuition so expensive?" Are teachers overpaid? Many think so but many always did. It's not as easy as it looks. In my experience, I never felt was paid as much as other professions with my skill but that was just me. College professors often don't make that much either.

Blogger Sue has a good report on this. Read her perspective here.

Tenured college salaries were not that overly high when I was an assistant professor at Ohio State. Salaries were frozen and I made $10,000 more going back to the high school classroom.

I think colleges and universities have to "spend beyond their means" to get the press and presence to stay in the limelight and attract new students. I am sure there some who do not and I would like to hear about them.

I have been asked to teach at local colleges but the pay wasn't worth the hassle for me. I can make more raising soybeans.

College costs have put a non-saving country in more debt. It shocked me to see seniors owe over a billion in college loans and were mad their SS benefits pay their debt before they could receive benefits.

A program said recently the average debt was $44,000 per student and the parents borrowed another $16,000 or so on top of that for a total of $60,000 per students.

Thankfully none of our children owe that and the loans are about all paid off now.

If you are a veteran, there are many ways to get help for training but even some of these fine people are not assisted enough. The Aurora foundation is one of many groups who can help.

Why is tuition so expensive? There are many reasons and some of them may not seem "educational" oriented enough to those paying tuition.

I can't argue with that.

You may have to work in a "night shop" or quit buying there to support your educational goals.

Ed

Wet

The "southern tier" is really wet now. Seems like I have used this title before, WET. I couldn't find a blog of mine titled Wet. Can you? If you do a Google search, I sure use the word wet in my blog many times!

The ground is saturated, so it's a good time to plant trees and shrubs. We are planting some more to fill in. We made a trip to Dublin, Ohio yesterday and the fields were soaked all the way up the Interstate. The storms have followed the normal path up I-71 and more. The eastern region is pretty wet. Corn that is up is a little yellow but looks good. The older and more nitrogen it has the greener it is, of course. Just a handful of soybeans are poking up now. It's a long way to go to finish planting and it well may be June again, who knows!

Shannon just finished the Flying Pig Marathon. She did pretty well for hardly being able to walk a month ago. She and I go to the same Chiropractor, Dr. John Albino at Total Health Chiropractic and her hips were out of balance and he got her healed enough to run again.

We had first communion for the second graders at St. Patrick's this morning. Six little boys and seven little girls had their first communion. I pray for the little ones and hope they always value what happened this morning.

The good news is Madison is ready for her first communion. Her instructors said she is full of the Holy Spirit so she doesn't have to wait a year for her first. She truly is full of the spirit and is such a blessing to everyone around her.

Did you see the "super moon" last night? It was big and beautiful but I think it has looked closer here before last night.

I saw a new procedure for aching backs that need surgery on CBS Sunday Morning. I wonder if that could help people I know? There are 3 times more back surgeries each year in this country than heart by-passes!

If you go to that link, you will see one near it on Axis Sally. I had heard of her English transmissions to the United States from Nazi Germany years ago but had forgotten about them.

For my airplane enthusiast readers, here's a link to a German Radio Controlled plane that is really cool! I think R/C planes will find their way into more and more agricultural uses.

Our garden is officially a mess again. I guess I shouldn't try to garden? I don't take care of it. It is infested with weeds and every time I have time to weed it's too wet to walk on. That same thing has become a recurring proposition the last few years of our gardening. Everytime it is dry enough to work I am off doing something else. It's a little frustrating and very embarrassing.

The first peonies have bloomed and already taken a beating by Mother Nature. Here's hoping your fields and gardens look better than ours,

Ed Winkle

Did I Miss My Planting Window?

Did I miss my planting window? That's a hot topic of discussion around the country today as corn and soybean planting stopped before it really got started in many places. The rains since May 1 have had farmers like my friend Lucas in Pennsylvania asking this question.

That's a really good question. Our best planting window was the middle of March and no one was ready to plant. Those who did saw corn and beans emerge just in time for the frost that hit parts of the midwest around April 12. You don't hear much from those people but the corn planted early here looks pretty good.

We have had over 4 inches this week across much of the cornbelt and I picked up another inch to two inches last night. There won't be any planting around here for at least a week and this pattern seems to be here for awhile so it might be June 1 before we talk about planting again.

In other news, I see EJ Potter, "The Michigan Madman" passed away. He was a guy who liked to go fast and "put engine where they weren't intended to be." He stuck a V8 Chevy in a motorcycle and was clocked by the state patrol at 146 MPH in the 60's. He understood about any kind of engine and loved the Allison V12 aircraft engines and even named his daughter after them. His Double Ugly twin V12 Allison tractor was far advanced in those days and he usually won first place, even after blowing a connecting rod on one pass.

We had a great time at Brynn's Grandparent celebration at Sonshine Preschool yesterday. It was broken into 15 minute stations of all of the kinds of fun and learning she had at Sonshine. The pastor quoted from the Bible how we as elders have the responsibility of passing down the wisdom we have gained in our lives. Everyone went home with a really good feeling about learning and parenting.

I have been thinking of writing about ethics in computers. I am talking about the ones in our automobiles. Flo on the Progressive commercials is promoting cheaper car insurance rates if you snap their computer monitor into your module.

Do you think that is ethical? Would you do it to save money?

Ed Winkle

Mother Nature's Cover Crop

I see lots of fields full of Mother Nature's Cover Crop around here. Cressleaf groundsel, a yellow plant that every one calls wild mustard, yellow rocket and everything else is in full glory. I snapped a picture this morning to show you. I have to clean my camera lense right now as the piece of dirt on it really shows up in this picture!

We didn't go 100 yards and the next field on the other side of the road was snow white! I tried to figure out what herbicide turned what weed white? I assume it's roundup on a grass that looks like downy bromegrass but that is not a common weed around here. I wondered if they sprayed liquid lime on the field but didn't see it all tracked up which it would be the last few weeks.

Now, would you rather have Mother Nature's Cover Crop or this pretty picture posted by Gary Fennig in western Ohio? He planted 3 lbs of radish and 25 lbs of oats last fall and the result is beautiful!

I have been talkling about notill and cover crops since the day I started this blog, January 1, 2009. They are the most exciting things in production agriculture I have found in my lifetime. They combine soil improvement with grain production which is something very difficult to do otherwise.

Think hard about my question and tell me what you would do.

Would you plant a cover crop or spray herbicide in the fall that might let your soil wash or would you do neither and let Mother Nature plant your cover crop?

Thanks,

Ed Winkle

PS Don't you love what Google has done to its bloggers? I have to know HTML to center the picture without the editor they used to provide. The blogosphere will never be the same!

National Prayer

This is our National Day of Prayer.

"National Day of Prayer Observance: Thursday, May 3, 2012
Aimee Herd (May 3, 2012)
"America is desperately in need of a spiritual renewal; may it start with us." -Dr. David Jeremiah

Every year the National Day of Prayer is important. However, it seems lately, like the need for prayer in and for America is becoming urgent.

In a promotional video, Dr. David Jeremiah, Honorary Chairman for this year's National Day of Prayer Task Force, notes that the theme for this year-"One nation under God"-comes directly from Psalm 33:12 which says, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."

He adds that especially in this time in which we live, our hope as individuals and as a nation "can only be found in Almighty God. America is desperately in need of a spiritual renewal; may it start with us."

If you cannot attend a prayer meeting in person on Thursday, May 3rd, there is another option; the National Day of Prayer 2012 Observance will be broadcast live from 9am to 12pm ET from Capitol Hill in Washington, DC."

As a good friend says when I share my prayer list, "Lord, hear our prayers."

We are waterlogged and everything is at a standstill so we are trying to get all of the equipment ready for the final push. Most of the fields in my neighborhood remain pretty much untouched. There is everything from wheat in head to corn with 4 leaves within miles of here to basically nothing done. I haven't rowed a field of beans anywhere yet though I hear there are some if you travel far enough.

I found some great pictures of the making of the M Farmall, "the tractor that changed the world," or something like that, according to my NAT friend Mark Schlagel near Greens Fork, Indiana.

John Deere changed America forever with the steel plow but Charles Oliver refined that. Oliver also saw the need for live PTO and 6 cylinders long before most people did. At least the plow unleashed the power of the prairies but set up the need for Soil and Water Conservation and a whole host of programs to repair the damage of the plow!

Somehow, I just knew the Chen case in China would turn out this way.

Oh well, all I can do is pray anyway.

Ed

Farming in the 50's

A fellow asked a good question Machinery Talk yesterday. He asked "what's the oldest thing you can remember" as a child. I would word that, what is the earliest things you remember on the farm?

I grew up in the 50's and 60's but I remember back to when I was two and shoveling dirt in my mouth with a spoon beside the old house that is gone now. Mom and dad were getting ready to take me to the county fair and I got all dirty while they were getting ready!

I answered "The oldest thing I can remember is Elmer Yochum cutting dad's wheat with a pull type IH on dad's Oliver 77. That same tractor picked our corn with a number 4 Oliver corn picker with flatbed wagons, shoveled off. I remember the lines of wheat to unload in Sardinia in front of our house, 100 bu was a big load then.

Dad still cultivated corn with his team of Percheron's, Jim and Jane, when I was little but they were old and clumsy and stomped down too much corn. I do remember picking by hand and making shocks a year or two before dad bought the picker.

I distinctly remember dad buying the Oliver 50 twine tie baler with no one to drive, mom hated doing it so he put 5 year old me on the seat! About all I did was steer while he stacked and ran several marathons between the wagon and tractor. I remember being a little scared of making a mistake but I thought I was king!

An NAT friend asked what a Go Devil corn cultivator was and I found the picture and posted it there and for today's picture. I would hate to have to use that tool very long, but it sure beat hoeing in the early days!

Now farmers in the south are hiring hoe crews to chop out resistant weeds in their fields! I hope we are not going back to that or food will get MUCH higher! I have lots of blogs about resistant weeds the last 3 years, especially in the last 6 months if you care to browse.

So what are your earliest memories on the farm?

Ed Winkle

Shoots, We Have Shoots!

I was hoping I would find these this morning, and I did! That's a May Day present as nice as homemade basket of flowers hanging on the doorknob! We have baby corn shoots emerging from planting two weeks ago tonight. For the cool temperatures we have had, that is pretty good. Corn planted a week before that is no farther along in most places.

My little picture shows every blemish, the melting clods, the dying weeds and even a rock in the foreground. That's a problem with ripping, it brings up loose rocks. I have more soil disturbance than I would like but the new corn will soon anchor the soil in place. We just had too much hydraulic compaction in this long term no-till field behind the house after the record rain events since the fall of 2010. 80 inches of water is massive tonnage per square foot.

The spacing is good, less than 7 inches for 32,000 plants per acre in 30 inch rows. That shows you how much this picture is magnified because it looks farther than that between plants. The emergence is what I am looking for. We need all the plants to emerge at the same time as much as possible. I would like them all up in 24 hours and 48 hours at the max. Anything beyond that and the corn plant tends to become a weed with a smaller ear or no ear at all.

If all my corn comes up like this, I will be very happy. Now I have to start scouting for insects as cut worms and army worms are being reported with patches of wire worm and sod grub worms and web worms. I probably need to add more insecide to my post herbicide spray or I may not. I need to get the control down with the seed and I think I have done that. I rarely spray corn twice but I am really trying to get ahead of these resistant and reoccuring weeds. Fall panicum and other weeds have cost me yield before. I won't know until I scout and IPM says I only use the pesticide I need to save money and protect the environment.

So that's good news today. There is lots of ag news like the record corn purchase by China, the government backing off the teen labor farm law, and record planting pace(which is stalled in the east as we speak.)

I caught this interesting thread on Machinery Talk about rebuilt transmission and engines.

Have a great day,

Ed