FFA Kids

That is not what the sun should look like at 8AM.

The Rough Fire in the Sierras has dominated the local weather and news for the last week. The last time I saw it this bad was when there was a fire in the mountains of San Diego when I was a kid. The smoke was so thick you could look at the noon day sun and all you saw was a red dot. We will all be glad to see this over with. As the hippies said of war in the 60's, this is not good for children or other living things.

I thought I had posted this already. It is a radio script I did a few years ago.

The People of Agriculture- FFA Kids

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright August, 2011

            We have all heard a lot about what is wrong with teen agers these days. Let me introduce you to some of the best kids out there- The Future Farmers of America. These young men and women are some of the brightest, poised, and well spoken young people in our society. I am always encouraged when I am around them. They are so energetic.

         You may have seen them at the Fair with their blue jackets. In addition to regular classes during their high school years they prepare and compete in fields such as livestock, Ag mechanics, agronomy and ornamental horticulture.

         I don’t know how many of them will actually farm in the future. [Actual farmers are becoming an endangered species.] But, they have learned the lessons of farming: hard work is important, but it takes smart work too.

         An old friend told me years ago, “You can’t out smart a smart farmer.” The young men and women of the FFA will be hard to outsmart wherever they end up because of what they have learned during their years as Future Farmers of America.

 

Rural Mail Boxes

I didn't realize how busy we were this past week until I was talking with a friend this afternoon. I started to run down the list after she asked and boy have we been busy. The cantaloupes got watered. We rebuilt a road. (The bus driver for Raul's kids said it had been getting rough. Under drought rules the neighbor had not been watering the road all summer and it had gotten pretty bad. We put up new racks and shelving in the shop and built a new work bench. The trees got fertilized and watered. Go, go, go.
   This next week we'll start cutting bolls and scheduling cotton defoliation. It won't be long. 

Do you notice anything unusual about this picture? I mean besides the fact it is not a farm picture.

What's inside? Doesn't that look like a bike rack where you can lock your bike?
Then why is there a lockable cage around the locking bike rack?
This just showed up at a new medical building in town. I don't think it is a good sign. Have we come to the point where we need to lock our bikes on a rack, inside a lockable cage? The old timers around here tell stories of when they left their houses unlocked. That reminded me of a radio piece I did a few years ago-

Mail Boxes

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright April, 2012

                  Rural mail boxes are a quiet sign of the deterioration of our society. The next time you drive though the country side, please notice the mail boxes.

                  My old mail box was a simple galvanized mail box with a red metal flag set in an old milk can like you might have seen in Mayberry.  Some idiot bashed it in on night. So, I fixed it, and…it go bashed in, again. Arrrgh. So I armored it up with some old well casing. It doesn’t look as nice, but is it bullet proof.

                  After that I noticed that neighbors all over the Valley had done the same thing. Some are very pretty; they are done in brick or stone. Some are merely functional, like mine.

                  What  people forget is a generation ago people in the country didn’t even lock their doors at night.  And now I have to armor up my mail box?

                  I must be getting to be one of those crabby old guys. I see things changing, slowly, and not for the better. Today’s rural mail boxes are silent testimony to a sad change in our society.