Blogs

Readers will notice we’ve made some changes this month to Progressive Dairyman. We think our new combination of headline and body text typefaces are more reader-friendly. The combination also allows us to fit more information-packed words on a page.

In the fall of 1983, my sister Nina and I devised a plan for her family to join our family in Jerome to embark on a Christmas trip to visit our two brothers living in Arizona. I had acquired a previously fire-gutted, 15-passenger Dodge Maxi-van that only had two full-width seats in addition to the single bucket seat and front passenger seat. With 11 kids and their parents making the trip, I decided to construct a bunk bed at the back of the van, complete with made-to-fit foam mattresses covered with sheets, blankets and pillows. “Since we would be traveling in the night, why not make it comfortable for everyone?” I thought.

Here’s a short Christmas story about a fictional character named Jimmy. Hope you enjoy!

It wasn’t like I really meant to argue with Mom and run away. Mom’s not the arguing kind, but when she announced we were going to have one more foster kid come to our home, I couldn’t take it. We had seven adopted kids already who came from foster care.

This year-end marks a political changing of the guard. It was a year of mixed blessings. The economy is booming, unemployment is down, the results of No Child Left Behind’s accountable education are encouraging, the prescription drug benefits program is a big success, the Department of Homeland Security is in its fifth year of post 9-11 success, the deficit reduction is ahead of schedule, the cattle market has remained strong, the drought has broken for a large part of America, but ...

Combine E. coli 0157:H7, ‘naturally’ produced spinach, food poisoning, an organic foods purveyor and author, cows and the New York Times and you get, guess what? That’s right, evil factory farming! No surprise.

Reporting from Bagram, Afghanistan …