Ordinary Time

Because Ordinary Time refers to the period of the Catholic Church's liturgical year that fall outside of the major seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter), and because of the connotations of the term "ordinary" in English, many people think Ordinary Time refers to the parts of the Church year that are unimportant. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Ordinary Time is called "ordinary" because the weeks are numbered. The Latin word ordinalis, which refers to numbers in a series, stems from the Latin word ordo, from which we get the English word order. Thus, Ordinary Time is in fact the ordered life of the Church—the period in which we live our lives neither in feasting (as in the Christmas and Easter seasons) or in more severe penance (as in Advent and Lent), but in watchfulness and expectation of the Second Coming of Christ.

Advent went by me too fast.  Catholics love Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter but we love Ordinary Time, too.  The liturgy, or public worship, of all Christian churches is governed by a yearly calendar that commemorates the main events in salvation history. In the Catholic Church, this cycle of public celebrations, prayers, and readings is divided into six seasons, each emphasizing a portion of the life of Jesus Christ.

These six seasons are described in the "General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar," published by the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship in 1969 (after the revision of the liturgical calendar at the time of the promulgation of the Mass of Paul VI). As the General Norms note, "By means of the yearly cycle the Church celebrates the whole mystery of Christ, from his incarnation until the day of Pentecost and the expectation of his coming again."

I am happy it is Ordinary Time again but I like every day of the Catholic Calendar.  Ash Wednesday comes early this year, February 18.  I have enjoyed receiving my ashes since 2010.

Today's readings are excellent but I enjoy them all.  We try to read them ahead of time so they mean more when they are read.

I wish you all a Blessed Sunday, the first Sunday of Ordinary Time, The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Ed Winkle

Good Story On E-85 Blender Pumps

I ran across this good story on Market Talk and know you will enjoy it.

"Not sure if I should put this here or in crop talk but it's got to go somewhere. I was at the local corn growers meeting tonight and learned about how powerful a group can be if you put just a little effort into pushing for people to notice the farmer and his product.

First a little background on our group. It is a new county level group of farmers from Mille Lacs, Kanabec, Chisago, and Isanti counties in east central Minnesota. We had a few guys get in touch with the state level corn growers association a year or so ago to form this group, East Central Minnesota Corn Growers. I started going last July and have only attended a few meetings now. We are still in the process of getting our board of directors set up and actively prospecting more members. So in summary, we are a very small group in a not so big corn producing area.

Now for the reason I'm sharing this. At the first meeting I went to last July, one of the topics of discussion was an E-85 promotion this small group of guys had done at a local gas station. They made a deal with station to give an $.85/gal rebate to each driver that fueled up with E-85 for like a 3 or 4 hour period. The price just happened to be $2.85 so they changed the price to $2 and the promotion was underway. A few of the members manned the pumps, filled each vehicle that pulled up, explained what they were doing with the $.85/gal discount, and thanked them for using the product.

When it was all said and done, this group payed for $900 some odd dollars of E-85. Now fast forward to tonight's meeting. We got a message from the state corn growers that because of this effort they are putting in 6 blender pumps across Minnesota as a pilot program for Ethanol. If these 6 pumps work out, they will add 73 more across Minnesota and the Dakotas! It is just amazing to me that this all started from a $900 promotion at an E-85 pump in Princeton, MN from a small group of farmers promoting our product! The gas station says that since this promotion, their E-85 sales have also increased!

So, for those of you that don't think you can make a difference, you're dead wrong! This little group of small time farmers could be the reason for 80 more Ethanol pumps in the northern Midwest! So I encourage you to do something to promote our business or join your local corn growers group because you can make a difference! And if you see a new pump pop up in your area, please use it as there could be 73 more that come with it all because of YOU!"

Amen!  It's time for us corn growers to roll up our sleeves and get to work!

Ed Winkle

Thank God For Care Givers

Thank God for care givers!  I never would have dreamed how important my wife is to my own survival.  I would not be here today without LuAnn.

This past two months, I have seen the precious work done by care givers and witnessed what my own has done for me.  I can never repay her so I better be really good to her!

The amount of sick and suffering in the world today does not not show the extreme importance of or dedication by our care givers.  I need to find more help for me while LuAnn works so she can have a life besides taking care of me when she gets home.

This can make the the person receiving the care feel very guilty of needing all of this care.  I was always able to take care of myself until November when I became so ill I couldn't even take care of myself anymore.  God Bless our care givers.

I can see the Bible unfold and our religion practiced hourly with the work of our care givers.  There must be a special place in heaven for them.

It's a place where you are either a giver or a taker.  I guess I am more of a taker when it comes to caring for a sick person.

Thank God for our care givers.  I hope I can repay in some small way the care that has been given to me.  Doctors and nurses do it for a living but so many do it in marriage and/or out of the kindness of their hearts.

I can't repay her for yesterday.  My 3 pm appointment turned out to be after 5 pm because they had problems with another patient.  It was a long and terrible day but she saw me through it.  I was not fit to be around yesterday, beating myself up over my condition.  I let it get out of hand.

Just that aspect of dealing patients would make me not want to be a care giver.  I can get better but I am not cut out for it.

Thanks LuAnn for hanging in there with my yesterday and I hope you have a great day today.

You deserve it.  Neither one of us deserves what we are going through but you are making an intolerable situation tolerable.

I love you.

Ed

Soil Food Web

The soil is home to a host of creatures. Many, like earthworms and dung beetles, are clearly visible. Other species are much smaller – even microscopic. They run the gamut from bacteria and protozoa to mycorrhizal fungi.

“The biological life in the soil can perform its work most effectively when there’s a large population and when the species are in balance with each other,” says Jay Fuhrer, district conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bismarck, North Dakota.

Building soil
Building healthy soil is the work of the soil critters. Working in balanced unison, they cycle nutrients and build soil aggregates, thus, increasing water filtration. The result is healthy soil that withstands drought and heavy rains, and requires fewer purchased inputs.

If the balance in species is disturbed, beneficial services to soil health diminish.

“The soil fauna are like creatures in a jungle,” says Fuhrer. “For instance, when there are inadequate levels of protozoa (they’re like lions) but high levels of bacteria and fungi (they’re like wildebeests), you won’t have much nutrient cycling going on in the soil.”

A soil food web analysis is a test that appraises populations of soil biology and evaluates the extent to which species are present in balanced proportions. The test results can point the way to management changes that will build increasing populations of diverse soil life.

In recent years, Fuhrer has run biological soil analyses on several farms, using the testing services of Ward Laboratories in Kearney, Nebraska. Large and diverse populations of soil life are present on farms where crop rotations and cover crops are most diverse.

Soil life
After several years of testing for soil biology along with growing cover crops, McKenzie, North Dakota, farmer and rancher Jerry Doan has seen steady increases in soil life. Besides cover crops, his crop rotation includes corn, sunflowers, wheat, and alfalfa.

He grows cover crops annually on 15% of his farmland. These covers are season-long, multispecies crops, planted at least by mid-June and allowed to grow throughout the growing season. He grazes half the acres, leaving the balance of the cover crops to stand over winter. He no-till plants into the residue in spring.

The cover crops grow as tall as 6 feet and yield 5 to 6 tons per acre of forage. Soil food web analyses show high levels of soil biology after the season-long cover crops.

“When we grow cover crops that include as many as 12 species of plants, the soil biology doubles or even triples compared to the biology present after planting a less-diverse cover crop,” says Doan.

Nutrient availability
The spike in biological activity translates into greater soil fertility.

“After growing cover crops for two years on the same field, I planted it to sunflowers that yielded 2,200 pounds to the acre of flowers with 42.5% oil content,” says Doan. “That was on land that had trouble growing that kind of a crop before.”

Because a high level of biological activity in soil makes nutrients more available to growing plants, Doan was able to grow the bumper crop despite cutting back on N inputs by 25% from soil-test recommendations.

A number of commercial laboratories now do soil food web analyses."

I use the principles behind this article and think it's worth discussion.

Ed

Pictures

My pictures are some of my most prized possessions.  It's been a joy to share a picture a day with you the past six years.  Pictures add a lot to a blog.

I was searching for some of my pictures on Google and came across this flickrfeed I had forgotten about.  My computer got hit with a virus recently and lost pictures and email, not all, but it made a dent.  It's hard to protect things when you don't know all the ins and outs.

I need to get a book published for every year of my blog, now starting our seventh year.  My blog has been a great blessing to me and all of your support and feedback has been tremendous.

I have no pictures of the last few months.  As I slowly became more ill, my regular habits eliminated one by one down to bare necessity.

I really wish I had pictures of my childhood.  A few farmers will post old pictures of their dad farming and I really wish I had some to share.

Farmers love pictures.  That has been one of the greatest things about NewAgTalk is the sharing of pictures.

Hopefully we will get to share a few more in the coming months.

Ed

Ohio Seed Improvement

I have worked with Ohio Seed Improvement as a summer scout for the past 30 years.  I enjoy walking fields and have improved my crop knowledge with my scouting job.

OSIA had a busy year as interest in non GMO soybeans has increased in Ohio.  This year our scouts covered 150,000 acres of soybeans, wheat, corn, popcorn, oats. rye, spelt, miscanthus, and weed free straw for our clients.  This is the largest total since 2002 and is 23% larger than last year.

Soybeans was the bulk of this work at 125,000 acres with wheat in second at 14,000 acres.  Not as much wheat got planted this wet fall so those acres will be down in 2015 but soybeans should be steady.

When I walk a soybean field, I am looking for varietal purity number one.  It is counting flower colors in July or pod and hilum color in September basically.  We also comment on all pests with weeds always being the number one pest.

It's a fun job if you enjoy walking fields and I have since I was big enough to walk.  It's been a good education, too, seeing the various methods of producing crops for seed.  Seed is such an important part of the farming industry.

I've written several blogs about scouting the past six years.  You can read them here.  There is nothing better than scouting your own fields, though, and I've been blessed to scout hundreds of acres of our own crops since 2004.

If you are interested in non GMO soybeans from Ohio for your farm or your state, Ohio Seed Improvement is a good place to start.  If  you need seed tested, they also offer a high quality seed lab at a reasonable price, Central Ohio Seed Testing.

Ed Winkle

College Or Not?

"There are few debates in the startup world more polarizing than whether aspiring entrepreneurs should pursue higher education like a college degree or MBA.


Peter Thiel, the first investor in Facebook, offers $100,000 each to 20 students every year to drop out of college, or skip it all together. On the other hand Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combinator, believes trying to start a company before graduating college is generally an awful idea with lifelong ramifications.


And while Elon Musk has famously expressed his disdain for MBAs, stating, "As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don't teach people how to create companies," plenty of business leaders in the startup world tout their MBAs as instrumental to their success.


Representing both ends of the higher-ed spectrum are two cofounders of TheTake app—CTO Jared Browarnik left Columbia University before completing his undergraduate studies to cofound TheTake, while CEO Tyler Cooper believes there is no way he would have founded TheTake or raised $2 million without his MBA."


I think the whole problem centers around the problems of helping a child find their passions and learning all they can before they are even ready for college.  The hardest thing I did as a parent, educator, or school board member was develop a way to help a child find their passion.


I was groomed for mine but I still kind of stumbled into it.  I declared my major in Agricultural Education at the last possible moment because there was an ag teacher shortage.  I wanted out and I wanted a good job to support my farming habit!


Over half my class at Ohio State never graduated.  The parents had bigger dreams than their child.  Yet I've seen good businessmen stuck in the wrong job because no one ever taught them how to be an entrepreneur.


College is over rated and highly under rated because the wrong people go and don't go.  Over half the people I've met in my life should have never been in the job they were currently in.  We don't do a good job helping a child discover what they should do for the rest of their life.


Can you think of a person who is wasting their college degree or needed that education and never got it?


Ed Winkle