May is also a great month because of the excitement of the planting season and, more importantly, my birthday. But that is still not all May has to offer, here are some other important days in May. I found this on the Internet, so these all must be true:

May 1 is . . . . . Mother Goose Day and Save The Rhino Day

May 2 is . . . . . Fire Day

May 3 is . . . . . Lumpy Rug Day

May 4 is . . . . . National Candied Orange Peel Day

May 5 is . . . . . National Hoagie Day (who doesn’t love a hoagie with a beverage?)

May 6 is . . . . . Beverage Day

May 7 is . . . . . International Tuba Day, Paste Up Day, and National Roast Leg of Lamb Day (Lamb and bass instruments are also worth commemorating)

May 8 is . . . . . No Socks Day and Have A Coke Day

May 9 is . . . . . Lost Sock Memorial Day (a legitimate day at my house)

May 10 is . . . . Clean Up Your Room Day (also important at my house)

May 11 is . . . . Eat What You Want Day and Twilight Zone Day

May 12 is . . . . Limerick Day

May 13 is . . . . Leprechaun Day

May 14 is . . . . National Dance Like A Chicken Day

May 15 is . . . . National Chocolate Chip Day (Chocolate chips with an egg on a hamburger could be interesting)

May 16 is . . . . Wear Purple For Peace Day

May 17 is . . . . Pack Rat Day

May 18 is . . . . International Museum Day and Visit Your Relatives Day

May 19 is . . . . Frog Jumping Jubilee Day

May 20 is . . . . Eliza Doolittle Day

May 21 is . . . . National Memo Day and National Waitresses/Waiters Day

May 22 is . . . . Buy-A-Musical-Instrument Day

May 23 is . . . . Penny Day (also my birthday, but hopefully not my present budget)

May 24 is . . . . National Escargot Day

May 25 is . . . . National Tap Dance Day

May 26 is . . . . Grey Day

May 27 is . . . . Body Painting Arts Festival

May 28 is . . . . National Hamburger Day

May 29 is . . . . End Of The Middle Ages Day

May 30 is . . . . My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It Day

May 31 is . . . . National Macaroon Day

At any rate, it is hard to believe that this month is already more than half done. So little time and so many eggs, hamburgers and macaroons to enjoy!

The tractor was a popular attraction.

daughter’s preschool animal day. In our rural community, several of the kids

in our daughter’s preschool are from farms. So, on a pleasant spring day,

Our son is surveying the donkey pen with scrutiny.

locals bring some gates and some critters and set up a fun farm day right outside the church preschool. We brought two sheep, along with some lamb recipe cards and some fun sheep stickers to hand out to the kids.

The event was a huge success, with a young boy staring up at a massive Case IH tractor saying, “This is the best day EVER” with the sincerity only a four-year old can muster. There were cows, a goat, ducks, rabbits, a pony, donkeys, pigs and a preschool full of happy kids.

When our four-year-old daughter’s class came through the display, we were

What is more fun than a couple of piglets?

very proud parents as she told her classmates that the sheep were Horned Dorset ewes. She also told them about their wool and that they are used for meat. Our two-year-old son helped some as well, but he was mostly focused on the aforementioned Case IH.

It was a fun event that was enjoyed by all, except, maybe, for the person who had to remove the “Ewe R Cool” stickers from every table and chair in the preschool. Sorry.

Holy cooooow!

One more reason to celebrate.

Another wonder of spring to cheer,

But the purple martins are one day late.

Maybe they’ll come tomorrow.

Then their throaty cries will resonate,

And bring spring’s joy to winter’s sorrow.

The purple martins are two days late.

The sugar peas in the garden have sprung.

The daffodil bloom is first-rate.

The wheat fields are green beneath the sun.

The purple martins are three days late.

The insects are buzzin’ with no Martins to eat them,

Gnats have begun to congregate.

I just can’t imagine what would keep them,

The purple martins are four days late.

The martins have arrived on the very same day,

For more than 45 years — now this wait.

My old martin house by the pond is crumbling away,

And the purple martins are five days late.

They fly up here from far down south,

From the Amazon to our northern state.

In mid air they catch prey in their beaked mouth,

The purple martins are six days late.

Though I did not know what was in store,

I went to visit my old friend and neighbor Lee.

“Hello,” he said as he answered the door.

“There is something I want you to see.”

“I’ve always held your martins in high regard,

I love their acrobatic ways.

I put up a martin house by the pond in my yard,

They’ve been here now six days!”

With full bellies and suspicious minds, consumers are questioning more than ever the science behind their food. Genetically modified crops, antibiotics, pesticides — these are all scary sounding things that seem more at home in a science laboratory than in relation to something as intimate as the food on our plates.

Despite the fact that it is this same technology that allows for those plates to be so full of healthy, bountiful and diverse foods, the reality is that such science sounds suspicious to many consumers. This certainly seems to be the case for the frenzy of fears associated with antibiotic use in livestock. Like every aspect of these seemingly mysterious production practices, science is on the side of agriculture, but it is not always easy, or practical, to convey this to people. Because of this, it is easy for the agricultural industry as a whole (from the scientists to the farmers) to make decisions based on the science and move forward without much explanation to or consultation with the general populace about what is going on.

Any change has some inherent risks, some more than others, and the decisions that are made in agricultural production are based on the pros and cons considering the best science available. Zero risk is impossible, but if the risks are very small, and the benefits are very significant, it only makes sense to move agricultural production forward as mankind has done for thousands of years.

This concept does not always make sense to consumers, though, who do not care to hear about any risk in their food supply. The result: we don’t tell them about the risks because, quite frankly, they are much too difficult for most of us to explain in the first place, let alone to an irate mother who is convinced farms have been pumping chemicals into her four-year-old’s hamburger. Hence, agriculture implements these practices that are “dark secrets” in the minds of some consumers.

As an example, here is a technical abstract from a 2007 study from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service on the topic of resistant bacteria in food resulting from antibiotic use in livestock.

Although enterococci are considered opportunistic nosocomial pathogens, their contribution to food-borne illnesses via dissemination through retail food remains undefined. In this study, prevalence and association of antimicrobial resistance and virulence factors of 80 Enterococcus faecalis isolated from retail food items was investigated. While the highest rates of resistance were observed for lincomycin (73/80, 91%) and bacitracin (57/80, 71%), lower rates of resistance (is less than or equal to 40%) were found for chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, flavomycin, gentamicin, kanamycin, nitrofurantoin, penicillin, and tylosin. Overall resistance to antimicrobials was low. Of the virulence factors tested, the majority of isolates were positive for ccf (78/80, 98%), efaAfs (77/80; 96%) and cpd (74/80, 93%). Isolates were also common for cob (72/80, 90%) and gelE, (68/80, 85%). Very few isolates contained cylMBA (12/80, 15% for cylM and 9/80, 11% each for cylB and cylA) and efaAfm (2/80, 3%). Positive statistical associations (significance level = 0.05) were found between the agg allele and tetracycline resistance, cylM with erythromycin resistance, and gelE and efaAfs with lincomycin resistance. The cylB and cylA alleles were also positively correlated with bacitracin and tetracycline resistance. Negative correlations were observed among many of the virulence attributes and ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, flavomycin, gentamicin, kanamycin, and tylosin resistance. These data suggest that both positive and negative associations exist between antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence in E. faecalis isolated from foods commonly purchased and consumed from grocery stores.

This is not a quick sound bite or catchy headline that would effectively sooth a panicked mother of a four-year-old. And, when a hog farmer gets a concerned phone call from a neighbor about an article they read about the risks of antibiotics in meat, how would he effectively, honestly and accurately convey this science to defend antibiotic use? It cannot honestly be stated that there are no risks associated with antibiotic use. There are risks. The word risk, though, is not something that a neighbor wants to hear about their food.

Most hog farmers cannot honestly say that they do not use antibiotics, thus incurring the associated risks. Again, this is not something the neighbor wants to hear. The hog farmer could honestly explain that the use of antibiotics allows farmers to bring a healthier animal to market for the consumer, which is a significant benefit to the consumer that outweighs any associated risks based upon the body of available science. Whoa, there’s that risk word again. Eating pork from this farm must not be safe.

The farmer could clam up and not say anything, which obviously does not inspire trust. The farmer could lie. But, in most cases, whatever the exchange, these dark secrets of agriculture continue to persist, despite the best attempts for open, honest discussion from both parties.

Unfortunately, this happens over and over again with many aspects of modern agricultural production. The science is accurate and valid, but hard to explain to suspicious consumers who have been scared to death from all of the reports highlighting the worst-case scenarios of the production practice in question.

The answer to this broad problem is not an easy one. The concerned neighbor could quit his job, go to college and get a meat science or food science masters degree and write an exhaustive literature review to get an accurate and detailed handle on the science behind the production practices. The farmer could neglect his duties on the farm, sift through stacks of research and go through the science of all of his production practices with the neighbor over the course of months, weeks or years. Neither one of these options is terribly practical.

The most practical solution, however, may be even more challenging. Trust. This is a two-way relationship. If the neighbor does not want to trust the farmer, he can go out and find plenty of accurate scientific research about the possible risks of eating food in our current system of food production. He can find examples of bad players in agriculture that abuse their responsibility and examples of some of these risks realized. That is as easy as a few quick Google searches on the Internet.

And, while the neighbor has to trust, the farmer has to be worthy of that trust by taking the time to understand the concerns of the neighbor and explain how things work on the farm in an honest and open manner. The farmer has to make the effort to develop a relationship with the neighbor that facilitates trust. The farmer also has to understand the science enough to accurately spell out the realities of the situation.

Many consumers are taking steps to learn, but it is easy for them to get lost in the sea of twisted science and misinformation out there. In agriculture, we need to be prepared, and available, to help when asked. And, make no mistake, at some point if you are involved in any type of agricultural production, you will probably be asked some of these tough questions.

If agriculture does not take measures to re-gain trust, the politics stemming from consumer concerns about these perceived “dark secrets” of agriculture will limit or eliminate the tools that enable farms to provide such a bountiful, safe harvest. The current debate over antibiotic use in livestock production and resulting proposed regulation changes from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are a symptom of this problem.

The FDA has considered the body of research on this subject and chosen to continue to allow the use of antibiotics in livestock based upon the scientific conclusion that the risks are outweighed by the many benefits. Yet, consumer outcry is forcing them to do something.

While requiring additional veterinary oversight certainly has benefits, these measures also add paperwork and expense — another burden that will be most challenging for smaller producers who work less regularly with their veterinarian due to the associated costs. As a result, a few small or mid-sized farms will drop off due to one more hoop to jump though and five more minutes of paperwork that they no longer have the time, resources or patience to handle.

These measures allow the FDA to buy more time on this debate while politically responding to consumers by providing critics of antibiotic use with a victory, without really having to understand the real science of the issue. And the dark secrets persist.

It was an adventure with the children, my wife, and her siblings, parents, grandparents and

Big city life does not necessarily prepare urban dwellers for an in-depth understanding of the food system.

me on a road trip to visit my brother-in-law in southern Mississippi, just outside of New Orleans. One day on the trip, we went into the city to see the sights and enjoy some delicious beignets.

Though we had a nice time, it had to be very clear to anyone we encountered that we were not locals. We had cameras. We had to ask for directions. We made numerous wrong turns, and we were not quite sure how to place an order at the local café. I am sure we were quite a site in the land of stylish Mardi Gras masks and colorful beads. We fit in about as well as a corn planter on Bourbon Street in the Big Easy because it was just not what we are used to dealing with on a daily basis. It is easy to feel lost, confused and even a little scared in such an unfamiliar setting.

Now, imagine for a moment that you grew up in the city. Instead of cattle and corn, steel and skyscrapers reaching up to the clouds surrounded your childhood. Those who grew up in the urban areas learned about survival in the city, navigation in the traffic and the best place for bagels on Saturday morning. I am guessing that crop rotations, rate of gain and animal husbandry are not even thought about once in a lifetime when you grow up in the city.

So, after growing up, going to high school, then college, then getting a job, one day you wake up and realize that you know absolutely nothing about where your food — the source of the most intimate of human relationships — comes from. That is a rather scary thought.

Then you read best selling books about how meat consumption is not safe, see nightly news reports about unknown horrors in processed foods and watch movies about how our food system is poisoning us. Suddenly, “rather scary” turns into downright terrifying. And, to make matter worse, all of your city friends, family and neighbors are reading and hearing and watching the same things. The more concerned you become, the more you seek the negative information about the food supply.

It is a version of this storyline that led to the now notorious breakfast with the foul-mouthed food blogger, the Backyarditarian, from Chicago. In short, she bad-mouthed the farmers in person at a Farmers and Ranchers Alliance Meeting and then berated them on her Internet blog that has around 5,000 followers. Was this undeniably crazy rant an indication of pure lunacy from a misinformation-fueled whacko or the manifestation of an underlying terror of food that is increasingly prevalent in our society?

As it turns out, this incident with the Backyarditarian (her real name is Ellen Malloy) in Chicago has led to what appears to be some results that have been surprising to all parties involved. First, I think that the open and kind response of farmers in spite of the extremely offensive way they were treated got the attention of Ellen and her fellow food blogger Grant Kessler. In response, the pair of Chicago foodies seems to have turned over a new leaf of open mindedness with regard to food production.

In fact, they decided to set out on a campaign to learn about the food system over the course of 100 meals, including one at my house. We have not set a date yet, but the Reese house is on the schedule for May or June. While I am not sure how it will go, it certainly promises to be an interesting event.

In the weeks following my blog about her breakfast antics, I have been exchanging many emails with both Ellen and Grant about their questions and concerns. I will say that it really seems that they legitimately want to learn, despite the somewhat rocky start to our relationship. I have found the process enlightening as well in understanding their concerns.

I do not expect to change their minds, nor do I want to. It takes all kinds of thinking to move in a positive direction. I simply hope that, though open and honest discussion, my wife and I can impart to them that the debate surrounding our food is not a black and white issue. There is another, brighter side to their suspicion-laced food nightmares.

Thus far, though, it seems that the often-conflicting “research” findings continually muddy the clarity of these issues. A significant number of the emails between Grant, Ellen and I have been a battle with research. For example, they cited a study from the Pew Charitable Trusts that pointed out links between antibiotic use in livestock and antibiotic resistance in humans. I refuted it with a statement pointing out the fallacies of this study from the American Veterinary Medical Association.

I said that their research is not valid because the use of fear is a better fundraising tool for these hack research outfits than the much more logical truth of my research findings. They then they claimed that Big Ag dollars skewed any of the research I cited.

Here is an excerpt from one of Grant’s emails to me that outlines their concerns:

“Pew research shows antibiotic resistance in humans is real and is a result of 70% of the antibiotics sold today being used in livestock. There are countries like Denmark showing us a viable alternative. They removed non-emergency use and the World Health Organization shows improved human health, and same or increased animal production and farmer income…We are consuming these antibiotics and they are polluting our groundwater and producing superbugs.

Despite FDA rules to the contrary, we hear there is arsenic, Prozac, Tylenol, Benadryl and caffeine in chicken feed. You can’t let me hear that and then try to convince me the food you’re sending to the processor is pure and unadulterated.”

Now, when you or I hear about statements like these, we have a lifetime of farm experiences to fall back upon and these kinds of statements do not mesh with our personal experiences with agriculture. Most people, however, do not have all of those experiences to fall back upon. They understand steel and skyscrapers, not cattle and corn.

Because so many have so few personal ties to any part of the food system, other than the greasy cheeseburger at the local fast food place or that tasty bagel on Saturday mornings, they are as lost, scared and as frustrated as I would be in the middle of the wrong part of Los Angeles without a map.

So what does this all amount to? First, I think as we look to evaluate any source of information (except for Ohio’s Country Journal, of course), all research from any source needs to be taken with a grain of salt based on the specifics of the situation. Any research needs to be compared and contrasted with the body of knowledge that you already know to be true. If it is a drastic outlier from what you know to be true, then the research should be investigated more thoroughly. Second, follow the money. See who is funding what and why.

But, ultimately, it all boils down to trust. To be functional in today’s society, we all need some level of trust. We trust a bank to protect our money, we trust auto manufacturers to make safe vehicles for us to drive and we especially have to trust our food supply.

And, while there are certainly problems, imperfections and plenty of room to improve, no matter how you spin the numbers, we have the safest and best food system in the history of the world and a country of generally well-fed people. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t even be having this debate in the first place.

Crawfish, pre-boil.

We went on family trip to visit my brother-in-law in southern Mississippi early this week. We celebrated Easter with a delicious Cajun Crawfish Boil. This was a first for me, and anyone in my family. While I wouldn’t want to do it every day, there are certainly worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Basically, from what I could ascertain, a boil involves throwing a bunch of stuff in a giant pot with Creole seasoning. Our boil included sweet corn, onions, peppers,

Dumping them in the giant pot.

spicy alligator sausage, mushrooms, potatoes, and 35 pounds of fresh caught crawfish. All of the ingredients, minus the crawfish, were chopped up and prepared before being combined in the pot and boiled for a half hour or so. With a rolling boil, the live crawfish are poured into the pot and boiled for another 5 or 10 minutes. The spicy boil was stirred with a shovel, for an extra special rustic touch. After that, newspapers are spread over multiple picnic tables and the massive pile of deliciousness is poured out, ready to enjoy.

From there we learned the less-than-delicate art of the twist-and-pull maneuver required to separate the tasty tails from the inedible bodies of the boiled crustaceans. The corn and mushrooms soak in the spices and makes a non-Cajun tongue tingle something serious, but in a good way. The potatoes are a great remedy for the spice of this and the sausage.

All in all, I really enjoyed it and ate way too much in this delicious Southern event worth trying sometime.

Yummmmm.

With a poof of disdain amid a cloud of black language, the Backyarditarian stormed into the breakfast meeting of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance late last month.

At the Chicago meeting, food related bloggers were invited to meet with the nearly 20 farmers (including my wife, Kristin) at the event to share breakfast and open conversation. Because

Am I fully expressing my chicken-ness?

Kristin represented by far the smallest farm there, all of the bloggers invited were tolerant of her, though some asked her how she could associate with these other large-scale farmers. The bloggers, in general, were very extreme in their disdain of “Big Ag.”

From their comments and conversations, it appears that the staunchest opponents of “Big Ag” at the event do not care about: food prices, farm profitability, a shortage of food in the absence of Big Ag, technology and efficiency, efforts to maximize animal care, or environmental stewardship efforts. They DO care about hating large farms and putting them out of business. Period.

While the bloggers in attendance clearly had a set agenda, most of them had legitimate questions that led to constructive conversations with the farmers. The Backyarditarian, however, took things to a different level of pure, cold, industrial factory farm hate. While most of the bloggers were firm in their one-sided and skewed beliefs, none even approached the lack of professionalism or unwillingness to have a legitimate conversation demonstrated by the Backyarditarian (a lady who blogs regularly at backyarditarian.com).

Here is excerpt from her blog following the meeting with farmers representing operations of various sizes. Please note that I have edited the foul language that appeared in its full regalia in her actual blog and from her actual mouth in conversations at the event in Chicago.

“I was, in a textbook sense, very bad today. I pushed a nice Virginia lady to near tears, told a cherubic Ohio mom that what she did was f—ing evil and, in an exasperated moment of utter despair, equated the work of a bunch of ‘family farmers’ to the evil doings of Wall Street at it’s worst…Industrial farmers, the people I talked to today, their work is tearing apart the very health of our society — degrading the animals they raise, polluting the environment and, if you did a little research, you’d learn and take heed, damaging your health.

Oh, and you should know — the ‘farmers’ and ranchers’ that are perpetrating the atrocities of factory farming, they actually believe that what they are doing is right and just.

It’s legal, even.

Just like Wall Street!

Me, I’d rather just get financially raped by Wall Street than have to face the horror that the people on the front line of our food supply are, I dunno, shockingly ignorant? mindbogglingly clueless? utterly inhumane?

So while I was, I admit, audacious in my outrage, what I learned today is that outrage may be our only salvation.

Because these people who produce our food are not listening.”

She goes on to express her concerns in her blog in response to the breakfast meeting with the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance:

“After today, I realize that if you don’t know your farmer, you are probably eating something grown, raised or harvested — let alone processed — by someone who, really, you should not trust. And I realize that I need to jumpstart my research and remembering. I need to pay more attention to the food community and not just worry about my own food. I need to worry about the food of people who don’t know to worry or, maybe, don’t have time.

Maybe that is to say I need to worry more actively — and proactively.

Because today, I met the farmers and ranchers who grow your food.

And they frightened me to the very core of my being.”

It all seems to boil down to the fact that she is really upset. She is not exactly sure at what and she is not exactly sure why, but it is all included in Big Ag. She spouts off about atrocities of animal care, a chicken’s ability to express its “chicken-ness” and hormones in food, but cites no credible evidence to back anything up, at least in this particular blog post. Here is another enlightening excerpt from her blog:

“I don’t retain a lot of facts about it. I don’t have to, really. I am just me, choosing what I want to eat and what I feel is responsible. To be honest, I don’t really have time to get involved with the politics of food beyond posting a few articles on Facebook — which is, I believe, a personal endeavor — or having a conversation with people who, pretty much, already heartily agree with what I think.”

In short, she doesn’t like what she sees and does not agree with it, so it must be wrong, right? And, in skimming through the comments on her blog, she twists every positive suggested by “Big Ag” proponents into yet another evil and turns every pro into a con. She is very gifted at doing this, along with her clear talent for proficient and artistic use of the f-bomb.

She wraps up her blog with this (again, I will let you fill in the blanks for the choice words):

“But you know, maybe, just maybe, I ended up realizing that inappropriate outspokenness is what is needed. Maybe we need to tell these people that what they are doing is, in fact, f—ing evil. Because it is.

Because from what I witness this morning — they are too clueless, methinks, to understand nuance. They trot out their homespun families and talk about, oh, how hard it was for grandpa to weed the fields or tend the pigs. They marvel in the technology that manages the carefully calibrated environments these animals live in.

They are frightening. And they are the front line of producing your food.

It is time for you to tell them all to go to hell. When you do, make sure it is loud and proud.”

Wow. Those are some strong words directed at the people behind the safest, most productive food system in the history of the world.

I did some additional surfing around on the Backyarditarian’s website and did find some very impressive stuff (I am not being sarcastic, it really is impressive). She goes to great lengths to produce her own food or procure it from a farm that meets her standards. She even went so far as to butcher a hog in her urban dwelling. I think everyone at that breakfast meeting would have loved hearing about her efforts and passion for local food, but they never got the chance to find any common ground with the Backyarditarian because a thick shell of wrath obscured it. That was unfortunate for all parties involved.

She clearly has a passion and a talent for great food, but so do those farmers she hates, whether she knows it or not. And, though we know that her hate is based on inaccuracies and exaggerations, she doesn’t. And, honestly, I don’t think that there is anything anyone can tell her or show her that will change her mind. But, I will say, her most recent blog post and continued dialogue with farmers of all sizes, hints at possible signs of future open-mindedness.

Her views are very extreme, but most consumers (by the way, the food bloggers also hate the use of the word “consumers”) are closer to her side of the spectrum than the side of farmers who are producing their food. And, though their views may be very different than yours or mine, most people really do have a legitimate desire to learn more about agriculture, and rightly so. Those in agriculture need to be open to questions and provide clear and relevant answers. Agriculture needs to do a better job of listening to concerns and appropriately addressing them in our farming operations.

There is an old Bob Dylan song about how, no matter who you are or what you do, you have to serve somebody. Being the on the front line of food production, environmental stewardship, and use of natural resources, farmers have to serve everybody — even foul-mouthed food bloggers from Chicago.

Though we typically plant in early April, and have never planted in March, the warm weather left soils nearly ideal for planting. And, unlike many other crops, there is no potential penalty (at least that we can think of) for planting Christmas trees early. So, this year we finished planting even before we typically start.

Here my brother, Aaron, and dad are running the augers to make the holes for planting the trees.

We planted 1,700 Canaan fir trees last week and 210 white pine, 100 Norway Spruce and 300 Scotch Pine trees this week. In the past, we have typically hand planted all of our trees, using a six-inch auger to make the holes. This is a huge amount of physical labor (and I am not as young as I used to be).

This year, we planted the first 1,200 or so trees in the open field with a two-man riding planter in around 3 hours. If we are really pushing with hand planting we can plant around 200 an hour with a crew of 6 or 8 people. Obviously, the riding planter made a huge difference. The rest of the trees had to be planted by hand though, because we were replacing trees that died or were harvested last year.

In the field we just planted, we seeded a Dutch white clover cover crop that suppresses weeds and is much easier to manage. The clover was seeded last spring and has filled in nicely. Hopefully it pays off for easier weed control this summer and fall.

As always, tree planting is a family activity and the children all get to help. Our two-year-old son was a great assistant. He helped my dad trim the roots that were too long and put the trees in the holes after they were augered. He even put the roots down in the hole first, most of the time.

One concern we do have with the early warm weather is that it pushed the spring growth on the older trees, which exposes them to the possibility of frost damage. Hopefully it won’t be a problem. Frost could also be a problem for those trees my son planted with the roots up.

My two-year-old son was a great help with the trees this year.

I think I have convinced my children that I am pretty smart. They are at the ages where they ask copious amounts of questions. And, every time they ask me a question, I have an answer for them.

“Daddy, why is this soccer ball round?”

“So it rolls after you kick it.”

“Daddy, why do we have a fireplace?”

“So we can stay warm in the winter.”

“Daddy, where do baby puppies come from?”

“Ask your mother.”

And, while it is important for all-knowing parents such as myself to have all of the answers, it is a matter of political survival for politicians. The reality is, though, that nobody has all of the answers. In the case of what to do about the oft-discussed algal blooms in Lake Erie, there are no clear answers. But, an “I don’t know” from a politician in response to an angry constituent

Is ag up a creek without a paddle on this phosphorus issue?

who got a gooey glob of blue-green algae stuck in his jet ski is not acceptable.

So, the politician offers, “That is terrible, I’ll look into it.” Soon the disgruntled jet skier becomes Lake Erie’s 5 million water drinkers and $10 billion recreation industry and there is a political cry for funding to solve the problem.

This funding goes to experts in the field, consultants, advisers and so forth, who know that the real answer is, “I don’t know.” But, it is amazing how quickly a couple of million bucks can change those, “I don’t knows” into, “We need to conduct more research into the situation in an effort to solve the problem.”

The current result is millions of dollars being poured into land use, agricultural management education, and research of a problem that may not even be solvable.

“We see signs of the problem, but the science hasn’t figured it out yet. There is no denying the pea soup in Grand Lake St. Marys, but at the same time we’re seeing close to the same thing in southeast Ohio where there are no livestock operations or nutrient applications,” said Mark Wilson, with Land Stewards, LLC in Marion. “We have science that says that dissolved reactive phosphorus will result in an algal blooms, but we don’t know the triggers. We’re going to see laws and regulations put into place and I’m a little uncomfortable with the approach that the government, USDA and Extension have taken because, while there is an educational need here, there is also some self-interest on the parts of these organizations to receive and distribute funding. The government wants to throw money at this to show they are being responsive, but nobody really understands the science of it. It makes the constituents in those areas feel like they are getting some attention from government, but in the bigger picture, it really isn’t going to make a whole lot of improvement overall.”

Even if all of the research, funding, and land use changes are a complete success and totally stop dissolved phosphorus from entering our streams and lakes (an impossibility), there is ample phosphorus already in lakes and streams to support harmful algal blooms for many, many years to come.

“We ought to be sampling stream ditches and river beds because we have a lot of legacy phosphorus that is re-suspending. There is enough phosphorus in the system that agriculture is set up to fail,” Wilson said. “This is about managing expectations. Right now there are a lot of expectations that agriculture will fix this problem and I don’t think they’ll be able to do it. People will say, ‘Look, ag hasn’t been able to get this done and we need to force them to get it done.’ But we’re not going to appreciably change the levels of dissolved reactive phosphorus because it is such a minute quantity.”

The massive government funding efforts for a “quick fix” of this extremely complex situation seem misguided on this issue when the chances of solving the problem in this manner seem so small. Wouldn’t the funding be better spent in addressing the problem in other more productive ways?

In short, this question has already been answered with a resounding “no” based on the money flowing into the area of agricultural phosphorus research that will ultimately lead to more regulations. Wilson said that this course of events is just one more step in a process that has been going on for quite some time.

“We’ve had regulation of manure application for a long time and there always has been a desire to use this as an inroad for regulating commercial fertilizer,” he said. “We’re seeing a culmination of a lot of things with this, but the government is already regulating nutrients. That step has already taken place whether farmers are feeling it yet or not.”

With all of this being said, though, these efforts are still worthwhile. Regulations or not, there is still much that can be done within agriculture to improve nutrient management, both for the benefit of disgruntled jet skiers and for farm production efficiency and profitability. Even the best nutrient stewards out there have room for some improvement on their farms with regard to this complex and challenging issue. And, there is no denying that there are bad actors out there that need to take significant steps on addressing this problem.

There is plenty to worry about in agriculture besides nutrient management, so grandstanding politicians, overflowing pots of money, state recommendations and countless farm writers filling publications with mountains of related information can’t hurt.

“There are good things that go along with putting these management practices into place, but I really don’t see significant changes taking place in the ecosystem and how these things are balanced with regard to dissolved reactive phosphorus,” Wilson said. “No matter what we do, we will have a nutrient enriched landscape that will continue to deliver nutrient enriched runoff.”

The real problems will ultimately result when good intentions based on “I don’t knows” turn into irrational regulations based on a lack of understanding. While the details about the future of this issue are uncertain, there is a general consensus that more regulations are coming, as it is unlikely that the problem of dissolved reactive phosphorus will be effectively controlled. In the meantime, farmers, crop consultants, commercial fertilizer applicators, and manure applicators need to take note of the exponentially increasing scrutiny upon them to operate in the best possible manner for the sake of environmental stewardship and the future success of their businesses. Good players will (hopefully) be tolerated, bad players eliminated and abundant research will be conducted courtesy of significant federal and state funding.

Until there is an answer on this issue, I just hope my kids don’t ask me about how we can control harmful algal blooms.

“Daddy, what causes harmful algal blooms?”

“Uhh. Politicians. Ummm, phosphorus. Uhh…jet-skiers…Ask your mother.”

Our kids gathered the eggs for the meal from our Fairfield County hens.

By Matt Reese

To celebrate Ohio Ag Week (the second full week of March) at the Reese house, we made an all-Ohio meal. We used fresh eggs gathered from our own hens that day, bacon and ham from a hog we got from our neighbor, Snowville Creamery Milk from Pomeroy Ohio and some cheese. The cheese came from the local grocery, but we’re not sure about the exact origin of the cheese, so we fudged a bit there.

Our four-year-old daughter made the meal from the cracking of the eggs (she has been doing this since she was two) to adding the cheese, with some supervision from her mother.

Our four-year-old daughter is pretty good at making scrambled eggs, especially cracking the eggs and adding cheese.

The scrambled eggs were delicious and (almost) all from Ohio. It was a great meal, a fun family project, and a great way to help the kids learn about where their food comes from. What are you doing for Ohio Ag Week?

Our daughter loved making dinner. Our son enjoyed eating it. What a great meal from Ohio's farmers.