Thanks, Blogriculture visitors

Thanks to those who have responded to our message asking for more feedback and letting us know who is reading Blogriculture.

A couple of the people who responded included a dairy producer from New York state (see http://northviewdiary.blogspot.com/) and a law professor from the University of Minnesota Law School who is the founder of the Agricultural Law website (see http://aglaw.blogspot.com or http://www.ag-law.org).

One of the things we appreciated is we know these people are serious about agriculture, but they also displayed great senses of humor.

We like that. Thanks for making our day by writing us. We also enjoyed visiting your websites and blogs.

For example, threecollie on her blog profile states “just don’t call me a farmer’s wife; I am just as much a farmer as he is.” Among her interests are “reading, writing, no arithmetic.”

As for Jim at his law school … let me figure out what I can mail you from our office … would a rain gauge or ball cap be enough to display prominently in your office? (Somehow I think we probably get a wee bit more rain here on the West Coast than you do in Minnesota, although you definitely get the award for more mosquitoes in your part of the country.)

For those who have visited Blogriculture since my fellow team member Gary West launched it, you may have noticed we have gone back and forth between serious and humorous message posts. Or at least we thought we were mildly funny. Maybe our fellow workers here are just humoring us. (“Yeah, that was great. Thanks. Nice job. Loved what you wrote. You’re the best. You should host late night talk shows. Write a book. Uhmm … Okay if I take that four-day weekend I wanted?”)

Sometimes we struggle with the right balance for Blogriculture. There is a lot of serious news happening in agriculture that we at Capital Press dutifully cover each week in our newspaper. Labor issues. BSE. E.Coli. Droughts. Frosts. Floods. Heat waves. Locusts.

Well, okay, perhaps we haven’t written about locusts lately, although Cancun was attacked recently by locusts, and worse than the invasion of tourists during Spring Break.

But we have written about Mormon crickets in Idaho and glassy-winged sharpshooters in California.

After all that serious stuff, we all need a break. We send Gary to Pendleton, Ore. to cover the large rodeo there so he can dutifully tell us he worked so hard he couldn’t get into the cowboys’ favorite drinking spot. We send me this weekend to an Oregon farm to watch a crane drop, from the equivalent of 10 stories high, a 1,000-pound pumpkin on a Mazda hatchback.

Truth be known, we sometimes volunteer for these assignments.

Why?

So we have great stories to tell later on Blogriculture, to mix with the serious stuff.

Again, thanks to those who have joined our small but hopefully growing audience even if we didn’t bribe you.

We look forward to hearing from more people in the future.

Agriculture