Courtesy of Northwest Ag Show
Inspired by his dying grandfather, Hillsboro High School FFA student Brooks Pfister took first place in the restoration division of the recent FFA competition at the 2010 Northwest Ag Show.
Devotion to deceased loved ones can be a strong motivator.
For 16-year-old Brooks Pfister, son of Fred and Holly Pfister of Hillsboro, Ore., that became apparent at the 2010 Northwest Ag Show in Portland.
The story began in August of 2008 when Pfister, who is now a sophomore at Hills ...
Friday, March 12, 2010 12:01 AM
Customers who buy Mike and Trish Vieira's milk get more than a refreshing drink.
"When people come here, they don't come here just to buy milk," Mike Vieira said. "They come here to get hands-on. They want to see the baby calves, how the cows are milked, where the milk goes into the jug, ...
Thursday, March 11, 2010 10:29 AM
AUMSVILLE, Ore. -- Carol Binkley's goat herd recently welcomed seven new members in one day, a good indication, said a longtime goat breeder and judge, of the quality of Binkley's breeding program.
Binkley, 57 and a retired U.S. Postal Service employee, calls her 45-acre patch of land Car ...
Thursday, March 11, 2010 10:49 AM
Members of what Tom Brokaw described as The Greatest Generation are dying off at the rate of 1,500 a day and, unfortunately, dying with them are their stories of living in that era.
Today's column is about one of those who was part of that greatest generation and who left that legacy in writte ...
Friday, March 12, 2010 12:01 AM
Honored
* The governor's award recipients at the 2010 Idaho Ag Summit were: retired University of Idaho professor John Miller, of Moscow, for education and advocacy; veterinarian and dairyman Greg Ledbetter, of Jerome, for environmental stewardship; Agri-Source Inc. chairman Grant Wyatt, of Bur ...
Thursday, March 11, 2010 9:39 AM
Fencing is one of those jobs best done when the temperatures are tolerable and the ground isn't frozen. But sometimes we don't have a choice.
I had a small fencing project to keep two groups of cows separate that I feed in the winter. I roll some hay out for the cows out on the range. I f ...
Friday, March 12, 2010 12:01 AM
Despite its sinister sound, a "germplasm collection" spells good things for farmers.
Think beyond the flu season and the word "germ" takes on a broader meaning: a small mass of living substance that can give rise to a whole organism or one of its parts. Think of wheat germ, that nutritiou ...
Thursday, March 11, 2010 11:21 AM
BILLINGS, Mont. -- Henry Armstrong's family has farmed the same patch of central Montana land for 100 years, hanging on through the Depression, low wheat prices and the ever-present risk that the next generation would move on.
Armstrong, 82, lives in the same house near Geraldine that his ...
Friday, March 12, 2010 12:01 AM
OLYMPIA -- Ranchers had a beef with their legislators, but there was nary a discouraging word.
Hungry people by the hundreds -- lured by the aroma of sizzling steak -- lined up for a tri-tip dinner on Feb. 25, courtesy of the Washington Cattlemen's Association.
The cattlemen have bee ...
Saturday, March 06, 2010 9:08 AM
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (AP) -- When Heather Gardner enrolled in her first agriculture class as a freshman four years ago, she had never planted a seed or fed a farm animal.
Now, as a senior, the Casa Grande Union High School Agriculture Department co-op student is growing four tomato plants a ...
Sunday, February 28, 2010 8:49 AM
WILSONVILLE, Ore. -- Hazelnut grower Peter McDonald has heard the rumblings.
Since the mid-1990s, when McDonald began traveling to developing countries to help growers improve their nut production, he's heard the talk that helping foreign growers harms U.S. farmers.
But for McDonald ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 9:09 AM
I've never been much of motor head. I accept the need for a little motorization to get things done on the ranch, but I generally prefer muscle energy -- mine, my wife's, a horse's, anything that doesn't need diesel or gasoline or grease to do its work.
My mother could see that I wasn't immediat ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:09 PM
Wherever Warren Seely goes with his farm equipment, he draws a crowd.
The 16-year-old from Clatskanie, Ore., makes Lego models that do everything their life-size counterparts can do.
"They say, 'Oh, hey, I've run one of these,'" he said of the farmers he's met at farm shows around th ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:09 PM
Deadlines loom for thousands of students and their parents as they rush to apply for scholarships to help with college expenses.
With those expenses spiraling upward, many students are eager for financial help with tuition, books and housing. Yet scholarship money often gets left on the t ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:09 PM
After 59 years of marriage, my wife knows who is her Valentine so I didn't rush to the candy store or buy her fancy jewels.
Instead, I sent her a copy of an e-mail that came unsolicited to my e-mail address from someone who introduced herself as Kate and said she wanted to be my friend. My lov ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:09 PM
Honored
* Washington State University professor of plant pathology Tim Murray has been elected Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society. Murray has made key contributions to understanding etiology, epidemiology and management of Cephalosporium stripe, eyespot and snowmold diseases of w ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 9:09 AM
It's not easy to take photographs of wild animals when your legs are going to sleep.
I was deep in the desert sitting on a stud pile of dried horse manure. A mare glanced in my direction when I fidgeted.
The mustangs whirled and swirled in alarm. Then the herd stallion rushed to the ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:09 PM
Troops headed for Afghanistan have not been leaving hungry.
Many have been treated to a steak barbecue sendoff courtesy of the All American Beef Battalion, a nonprofit organization that was the idea of Bill Broadie of Ashland, Kan., a fourth-generation cattleman who served with the 3rd Ma ...
Saturday, February 27, 2010 12:09 PM
DENVER -- At the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo, retired rodeo champ Abe Morris needs only a nod of his black cowboy hat and his broad smile to be welcomed into the chute area where professional bull riders gather before their rides.
"If I put on this cowboy hat and go down to the ...
Thursday, February 25, 2010 1:33 PM
FLORESVILLE, Texas -- Ruins that archaeologists call one of the last links to the original ranches and cowboys that shaped Texas have been kept behind a gate, literally buried, for more than two decades -- awaiting the funding that would allow people to see them.
The 18th-century Rancho d ...
Thursday, February 25, 2010 1:34 PM
The Washington Wool Growers Auxiliary wants to help two young people get their hands dirty.
For the first time, the association is offering a scholarship for two people, from 12 to 20, to participate in the annual Washington State Sheep Producers lambing school.
"We definitely hear that people h ...
Sunday, February 21, 2010 12:09 AM
ALBERT LEA, Minn. (AP) -- Nothing says "I love you" like a half-mile wide heart made out of manure.
A southern Minnesota man created the Valentine's Day gift for his wife of 37 years in their farm field about 12 miles southwest of Albert Lea.
Bruce Andersland told the Alberta Lea Tribune t ...
Thursday, February 18, 2010 12:09 AM
When computer technology was introduced to Bob Ohlensehlen's job, it revolutionized his work.
He's been using computers to change agriculture programs ever since.
The revolution began about 1980, when the University of Idaho bought a limited supply of computers for its extension off ...
Saturday, February 20, 2010 11:08 AM
Sean Cutler, a researcher at the University of California-Riverside, has cemented his place in crop science by unlocking the process by which plants survive drought conditions.
What Cutler and his researchers discovered last year was the pathway by which abscisic acid, a hormone that plan ...
Saturday, February 20, 2010 9:09 AM
Appointed
* The Oregon Senate has confirmed the appointment of Robert "Bob" Webber to represent Oregon's 4th congressional district on the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission.
* Four new members have been appointed to the Boise District citizen Resource Advisory Council, which advises Inte ...
Saturday, February 20, 2010 10:09 AM
Thirty years is an awfully long time to conduct a single wheat harvest, but this particular one was well worth the wait.
Located at the Antique Powerland Museum in Brooks, Ore., this harvest consists of hundreds of miniature pieces of old farm equipment, draft horses and wheat shocks handcraft ...
Sunday, February 14, 2010 12:09 AM
