Sunday, May 13, 2012

Mother's Day

My mother passed away ten years ago on Valentine's Day, so today her memory, ever present, was brought into greater relief.  I believe that she would have approved of the fact that her children are cooperating in introducing the farm and our family to my students.  Mom would have enjoyed hosting Katie Jo at St. John's in Hubbard this morning or listening to Sam play his trumpet while my sister sang, and I played the organ.

We are enjoying amazing weather here in Iowa.  The students and I had a very good discussion about biofuels and the work of my old Iowa friend, Dr. Patrick Westhoff, on the food v. fuel debate.  Pat's disinterested approach to this issue suggests that the cause of rising food prices emanates from many causes, among them, the growing use of corn to produce ethanol.

Tonight we watched Ocean Frontiers, a video that features four vignettes about ways in which unlikely partners cooperated to make a difference that will have an impact in preserving our oceans.  In Iowa, our neighbor, Denny Friest, was featured in the video, for his work in reducing nitrogen use on his farm.  We are going to visit the Friest farm several times over the next few days to learn more about the research project in which Denny participated that led to his decreased use of nitrogen on his corn crop.

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