Gene Logsdon's Blog, page 16

Nothing New About Robot Tractors

​ From GENE LOGSDON With all the talk about robotic farming and robotic everything else, I like to tell how one of my many uncles, on my mother’s (Rall) side of the family, invented a self-driving tractor back in the 1940s. Uncle Lawrence was plowing with his tractor, a Ford 8N, I think, that had […]

Is the Day of Socialized Mail Delivery About Over?

From GENE LOGSDON Our son just installed a new mailbox post for us. The old one was crippled after being wounded repeatedly by Halloweeners and snow plows over the years. What with email and cell phones I wonder if mailbox posts will go the way of hitching posts. The Postal Service says it is going […]

Amazing Prices For Organic Crops

 From GENE LOGSDON I just ran into more evidence that farmers who took a deep breath and became certified organic growers a few years ago made a smart move. I attended a meeting of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association Grain Growers Chapter, a group seeking to improve and strengthen certified organic agriculture. I […]

Travelholics Anonymous

From GENE LOGSDON Farming and gardening have a beneficial effect on society beyond providing food. They make staying at home a pleasure. They could become an effective treatment for travelholism, the affliction that affects people who can’t stop travelling. Countless benefits would flow into society if we could cure travelholism. First of all there would […]

Drone Groans

From GENE LOGSDON How quickly business picks up on innovations that waft the odor of money into the air. The idea of using unmanned aircraft in agriculture has been so completely embraced that there are already experts out there warning farmers of possible shysters who will try to sell them the wrong drone for their […]

The Creekside Stalker

From GENE LOGSDON That sounds like a title for a creepy mystery novel but I mean it literally. I have spent countless hours walking along creeks and rivers doing little more than looking and thinking. There is just something fascinating about watching water move in a natural stream and all the natural life that flourishes […]

Keeping It Simple Not An Option

From GENE LOGSDON I call him Joe Commentator because he spends much of his spare time commenting disgustedly on the news. When he gets really irritated about what’s going on, which is often, he calls me to vent his displeasure. This started because I write a local newspaper column. He uses me the way a […]

Gene Everlasting

From GENE LOGSDON That’s the title of my new book soon to be out. It is sort of a testimonial on how living close to nature can give comfort to those facing the inevitability of death which is all of us. I also try to work in a little humor about the futility of trying […]

“Holy Shit” Becomes A College Textbook

From GENE LOGSDON If I am ever asked for highlights of my “career” I will answer unhesitatingly that one of them was how my book, Holy Shit, became a textbook in a university. The book was not used in an ag course, as one might expect, but for a course in anthropology and sociology. This […]

Playing God With The Weather

From GENE LOGSDON Thanks to Big Ag and Big Data, our worries about the weather are just about over. There is the possibility, another one of those blessings that is “just around the corner,” when we will know exactly which day to plant which field to which crop to be assured of abundant yields. The […]