Is it getting warm, or is it just us?

Mention global warming, or climate change, in a group farmers and you are likely to get some heated responses, no pun intended.

That's to be understood, since global warming, or climate change, is the latest big cause celeb of the environmental movement. From past experience, people in a variety of natural resources industries, like farming, ranching and forestry know that when environmentalists tout causes, like the endangered species act, it ends up costing them money, time and sometimes their very livelihood. Many would say, with ample supporting evidence, that natural resources industry professionals are becoming the endangered species.

So discussion of climate change makes some folks nervous. They think they are going to be blamed for it, or blamed disproportionately for it, by urbanites in trendy restaurants ordering tofu dishes and drinking colorful 'tini drinks.

Now comes word from Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona, that the Western United States is getting warmer faster than the rest of the planet.

"The West is warming dramatically," Overpeck was quoted as saying in an Associated Press story distributed today. "Things are just going to get hotter. You can bet the farm on it."

Farmers bet on the weather every single day. But the odds could get steeper in parts of the West if the predictions are correct.

Along with the warmer weather, computer models are also forecasting reduced precipitation.

"We're going to have drier average conditions — then cycles of drought will come on top of that," he said. "Droughts will be more extreme. It's going to be severe in our lifetimes."

Climate change is an issue the Capital Press has been looking at in-dept this year in an on-going series. You can check out the series by clicking this link to our website.

Agriculture
Weather
Global warming
Climate change
Drought
The West

Falling pumpkin caught on video

Want to see how it looks when a giant pumpkin smashes down on a car?
Video is now available at capitalpress.com.
The video is from the Giant Pumpkin Festival at Fir Point Farms in Canby, Ore.
Go ahead, tell your friends, encourage them to visit our site.
On Friday the 13th, we could create a new superstition: It's bad luck to park under a giant pumpkin dangling 10 stories high from a crane...

Agriculture
Video
Pumpkin
Oregon

Interviewing governor candidates

What would you ask if you had a chance to meet a politician face-to-face who wanted to be your governor?

Today several of our staff had a chance to interview current Gov. Ted Kulongoski and his challenger, Ron Saxton, who are competing for the job in Oregon.

Our sister newspapers in the East Oregonian Publishing Company had about an hour to ask questions, and Capital Press journalists had about half an hour to concentrate on agricultural questions.

We were fortunate that even though these two men are extremely busy with their campaign, we were given such a block of time.

Within the next few days, our website will feature the audio of our interviews with the politicians. We will also soon publish our endorsements (Oct. 20) of who we think will make the best governor.

While all of our newspapers had a chance to work together to interview the politicians, we each have the editorial independence to decide who we want to endorse and what we want to say. That is important for the readers we serve: for example, the Daily Astorian, serves readers on the Oregon Coast who may have different concerns and questions then the East Oregonian that covers eastern Oregon.

Capital Press serves an agricultural audience, and we think of the farmers, ranchers and also the people who have small woodlots.

And yes, there have been times in the past when our various newspapers have taken different stands on who should be governor, whether a measure should be approved or not, and even what we think will be the implications of how people vote in an election.
Will everyone agree with our assessments?

No. Part of being a democracy is being able to hold different points of view and being able to freely express them.

That is one of the reasons we hope our readers will share their views with us, by e-mailing us at opinion@capitalpress.com so we can share their viewpoints with others.

We welcome your letters.

Agriculture
Politics
Oregon
Ted Kulongoski
Ron Saxton

Smashing pumpkins ... delayed

For those wondering why I have not revealed the traumatic results of what happens when a giant 1,000 pound pumpkin drops from 10 stories high onto a Mazda Hatchback, I admit it: I was writing a serious editorial on the threat of nuclear war on American agriculture.

It seemed the appropriate thing to do for our newspaper issue that comes out … uhm … Friday the 13th.

This gives people an idea of the types of things we journalists deal with here, leading up to Halloween. One moment we may write humor about pumpkins, the next we take on serious topics like nuclear bombs.

Just call us jack-of-all-lanterns.

Okay, so sometimes it’s our humor that bombs.

It was difficult to make the transition back to pumpkins for another reason.
We are being weighed down by preparations for this week’s interviews that some of us are doing with candidates running for governor in Oregon.

Tomorrow we travel to Portland to interview Democrat Governor Ted Kulongoski and Republican candidate Ron Saxton. Our sister newspapers in the East Oregonian Publishing Company join us for the interviews.

Stay tuned to Capital Press to see our endorsements in the near future prior to the election.

Politics aside, I realize we are leaving our fans (?) hanging out there wondering about the pumpkin event at Fir Point Farms, and I promise we will have quite the package for you before the end of the week … and it includes a video of the giant falling pumpkin, shot by our ace photojournalist Mark Rozin.

We also have still photos of the event and other activities that day. Some are appearing in our newspaper the Capital Press this week, and others will appear on our website.

There will also be audio interviews for your listening pleasure, with the woman whose father owned the car, one of the owners of the farm, and one of the pumpkin growers to share how he grew such a large vegetable and why he enjoys the sport.

Yes, you read that right. Sports are more than just baseball, football, basketball and sumo wrestling in this world.

For those asking what serious news value does this smashed pumpkin have, we admit we are doing this for (giant) seedy sensationalism. We knew the tag line “smashing pumpkins” will reach a whole new generation of potential internet surfing music fans who excitedly think we have some news about their favorite rock band.

(We now deeply apologize, and yes, this was rather cheap of us. I blame Gary West for starting to insert names of music stars into a blog about agriculture.)

We now must return to preparing serious questions for political candidates.
Still wondering what happened with the giant dropped vegetable?

Need a hint? Hint: Giant pumpkin hit car and turned giant squash(ed).




Agriculture
Pumpkins

Off to a sound start — or maybe not

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was trying to get the wheels turning on starting some sort of podcast, which would be either for this site or our Capital Press website. Well, sometimes the wheels turn more slowly than I would like. But I have located some music I think will work for an intro, thanks to staff writer Mitch Lies (pronounced LEES).

Mitch covers a variety of agriculture issues out of our Salem office, including the Oregon Legislature. But when he isn't covering the intricacies or state politics or the complexities of grass seed production or some other important farm issue, you can sometime find him performing at one of the local clubs around the Salem area.

Mitch was kind enough to loan the Capital Press a copy of a CD of songs he wrote and recorded a few years ago. So once I can figure out the audio recording software I found (and can get over the jitters of actually recording my own speaking voice, not to mention figuring out how to upload an audio file as a podcast and all that other technical stuff) I may actually get episode 1 recorded.

But I'm guessing that little venture is probably still a week away from completion, maybe more, since I have no clue what I'm doing and I hate that whole being clueless thing. Maybe I should ask my 15-year-old daughter to teach me how to do a podcast. She could probably figure it out.

I wonder if I could talk her into actually being the podcaster. Do you think I'd have to pay her?

No, that would probably never work. She wouldn't want to talk important agricultural issues, like which is better, John Deere or New Holland? Or organic vs. conventional agriculture. She'd probably rather explore things like who's better, Fall Out Boy or Death Cab for Cutie. Like I'd know the difference. I'm lucky I even know they are bands. I find I have to plug words and phrases she says into a web search engine to figure out what she's talking about most of the time.

Do farmers and ranchers even listen to Death Cab for Cutie? And just who is this cutie anyway? How cute is he or she? And why would he/she want to have anything to do with a cab of death?

Anyway.

We are a few small steps closer to a podcast. Come to think of it music theme does have some appeal. Maybe a top 10 list of songs to bale hay to. Or how about the top 10 songs about farm animals or implements?

OK, so maybe I'm not quite as close to launching a podcast as I thought.

Agriculture
Podcasting

Cute kids, farm animals and YouTube

So less than two years ago a couple of guys created this Internet company that basically allows people to share homemade videos, most of which we wouldn't want to watch if they were our best friends or family members, over the Internet. And now Internet-tech behemoth Google decides to buy them for $1.65 billion (click here for the AP story).

So why is it farmers bust their humps for so little return, year after year, decade after decade? It has to be for the love of the life, the land and the magic of taking part in the cycle of life.

Life on the family farm is quickly disappearing from the collective consciousness of many Americans. But the following video shows that there is still magic there when you bring together a cute kid, farm animals and a little patch of ground were things grow.

And thanks to YouTube.com, you too can experience the magic without getting your shoes dirty.



By the way, if any of our readers have videos online related to agriculture in the West, let us know. If we like them and think they are appropriate, we'd be happy to share a link with our blog readers.

Agriculture
Videos
Google
YouTube