Putting the election to bed

Well, I've watched enough election drama for tonight and made my final post for the night on the Capital Press website. Tomorrow, is production day for Capital Press, and we will be working to put some analysis of how tonight's election results will effect agriculture in California, Oregon, Idaho and Washington.

There will undoubtedly be fallout for farmers and rancher, both positive and negative, as there always is when politics is involved.

The big question in my mind is what Democrats nationally think the message was from voters who have turned over control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats, and could still gain control of the Senate when all the final counting is done.

Have farmers and ranchers abandoned the Democratic Party, or have Democrats abandoned the people who grow food and fiber? Can they find common ground again? That will be vitally important to how the 2007 Farm Bill plays out. Of course the agriculture community is not completely unified on issues that will be central to the farm bill either, like crop subsidies and who should, or should not, be getting them.

I'll let the "experts" sort it out. I'm going to take a moderate position, smack dab in between the sheets of my bed.

Agriculture
Elections
Politics

Election update: Red tide receded in Congress

It looks like the pundits were right. Several news organizations are projecting the Democrats will gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. And at this hour, it appears the Democrats still have a shot at gaining a majority in the U.S. Senate as well.

I'm posting election number over on CapitalPress.com, but I'm trying to monitor four states, and the numbers are changing quickly. The governor's races in Idaho, Oregon and California appear to be decided, with the incumbents winning in Oregon and California and Rep. Butch Otter appears headed to the governor's office in Idaho.

Agriculture
Elections
Politics

Polls close on West Coast

Check the Capital Press website for results as they become available on issues related to agriculture.

Agriculture
Elections
Politics

Election night drama and questions

The polls will close on the West Coast in about an hour, but early results out of the East indicate that Democrats are gaining ground in congressional seats. Will the trend continue in the West?

If so, and if you subscribe to the conventional wisdom that the Grand Old Party is now the party that best represents agriculture and agribusiness, what would Democratic control of Congress mean to America's farmers? How might that effect the 2007 Farm Bill, which the next Congress will take up after the first of the year? How effective would a Democratic Congress be able to be with a Republican president? And how effective will the Republican president be in his final two years if there is a Democrat-controlled Congress?

Even if the Democrats don't get control of the House and/or the Senate, it appears likely the Republican majority, if it remains, will be slimmer.

Agriculture
Elections
Politics

Raining cats and ballots

Northwest Oregon and western Washington are being bombarded by heavy rains and flooding again today, creating inconvenience for some and outright disaster for others. But will it effect today's election?

There will undoubtedly be some impact, as those procrastinators who haven't yet dropped off their ballots at a collection site (or mailbox in the case of Washington voters). But if voters had to physically go to the polls today, like they do in most states, turnout in the areas hardest hit by this late fall storm would likely be down significantly.

Those in the rural parts of the state east of the Cascade Mountains may wish Oregon and Washington, why generally find it more convenient to vote from home than to drive to town to vote may be wishing this election wasn't a vote-by-mail variety this time. If voter turnout were down significantly in west-side precincts, those on the drier side of Northwest life may actually see their vote count for more.

I'll be trying to post some results tonight on some key West Coast races and ballot measures affecting agriculture on the Capital Press website after the polls close at 8 p.m. and vote tallies become available sometime thereafter — that is, weather permitting.

Election
Rural life
Weather
Agriculture

Bittersweet homecoming

To continue the homecoming theme here at Blogriculture, I just got back late last night from a quick trip to visit family in the community where I was born. I was in Scottsbluff and Mitchell, Nebraska, over the weekend for the funeral of my uncle, Don West.

My Uncle Don was an ag pilot, better known as a crop duster back in the days when he was getting started in the business. He also got my dad, Landis West, started in the same business, which eventually led to my dad buying an aerial spraying business in Oregon. That led our branch of the family tree to the West Coast. But the family tree is deeply rooted in the farm country of the Nebraska panhandle.

That's where I was over the weekend, in the flatlands of Western Nebraska, where the exhaust stacks and silos of the sugary beet factories tower above the plains and are visible for miles beyond the fields of corn stubble, bean and sugar beets. It was my first trip back there in nearly 15 years and marked the first time I'd seen many members of my family in maybe 20-25 years.

In spite of the solemn reason for our gathering, it was good to spend time with family and see some familiar faces and terrain. Many of those faces now bear the unmistakable signs of time's unrelenting march. Even the "children" I remember as little more than toddlers are now grown with children of their own. And the landscape too revealed some signs of progress in some places and decay in others.

It seems inexcusable that in a time when it is so easy to reach out to people via modern communications methods, like cell phones and e-mail, that so many years have passed without a word passing between myself and so many aunts, uncles and cousins.

But there were no pointed fingers or heaped guilt. Instead there were hugs and genuine attempts to catch up on a lifetime of missed moments and reminisce about memories shared. Better still, there was a brief period of time to create some new shared memories.

Like seeds lying dormant beneath the ground, enduring years of drought and neglect, all it takes is some nourishing rain to made the seeds sprout and grow, flowering anew.

As for Uncle Don, grounded in recent years by failing health, he has once again "slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the sky on laughter silvered wings..." to "...touch the face of God." My thanks to World War I aviator John Gillespie Magee Jr., who wrote "High Flight," probably the best-known poetic tribute to pilots everywhere.

Family
Homecoming
Ag pilots
Crop duster
Agriculture