Gene Logsdon's Blog, page 18

A Shortage of Straw? Oh Pshaw

From GENE LOGSDON I sort of saw this coming and I sort of did not see it coming and now that it is here I’m not quite sure it really is. (I originally wrote that sentence to make fun of the crop reporters who get paid big money for supplying the gamblers on the Chicago […]

Our Mysterious Pear Tree

From GENE LOGSDON Because I am too lazy to keep a daybook, I’m not exactly sure where our mystery pear came from. I used to be in the habit of carrying all kinds of unusual tree seeds around in my pockets or stash little jars of them in the refrigerator (which gained me no points […]

Wendell Berry on Bill Moyers

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Do We Belong Here?

From GENE LOGSDON I have started bringing in the stove wood for the coming winter, ranking it around the garage walls where I can get to it handily when the snowdrifts come. It is early for thinking winter but I know from experience that if I don’t start in October when time and weather permit, […]

Good Invasive/Bad Invasive

From GENE LOGSDON Among the many handwringing issues popular with today’s paranoid society is the issue of invasive plants and animals. Not to mention invasive human beings. The matter came to a head in California recently over a kind of eucalyptus tree that grows there. Forests of these trees are now deemed to be fire […]

Overlooked Opportunities In Forest Farming

From GENE LOGSDON In olden times (how I love to use that phrase) one of the folkloric ways used to repel insects from one’s abode was to put Osage orange balls (hedge balls, we call them) in the basement or around the house foundation. I thought that was only in the sweet bye and bye, […]

And How Is The Corn Doing In Your Area?

From GENE LOGSDON There are two things that a journalist should learn to avoid: making generalizations about human conduct and making predictions about the weather. Whatever one says about human behavior, there are individuals somewhere who will make a liar out of you.  Ditto with the weather— I have a hunch climate change will cause […]

Do School Lunches Taste Like Vomit?

From GENE LOGSDON I am aware that some of the criticism leveled at the School Lunch Program comes from political hate groups opposed to anything the Obama Administration supports. So when the news reported recently that school children in Harlan County, Kentucky wanted to tell Michele Obama that her food tastes like vomit, I took […]

Have Yourself A $300,000 Lab Burger

From GENE LOGSDON Some of you are going to pound on me for saying this but I must protest those doomsday prophets who keep saying that meat will soon become too expensive for most people to afford, or that producing meat is environmentally destructive. It is sort of hilarious to say that producing meat in […]

The Green Monster In Our Backyard

From GENE LOGSDON I used to worry about all the diseases and bugs that threaten our forests. Right now, the white ashes are dying. Something sinister is killing black walnuts west of the Mississippi and has now been reported in the east. White oaks and the maples are supposed to be under attack too. Out […]