Tough economic times and adventurous lifestyles are lending to new trends on the housing market, including tiny homes, shop houses, and barndominiums. Homeowners have various reasons for choosing these options: frequent travel, lifestyle, and cost-efficiency among them. For now, insurance, financing, and zoning remain challenges for these alternative homes, but builders and owners remain hopeful that the growing trends will pave the way for more nontraditional homeowners.   Tiny Homes  Colton Kudlock of Kudlock Construction, LLC. in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, built his first t ..read more

Flying spray planes is a dangerous occupation, but an exciting one, and the adrenaline rush that Perry Hofer gets from flying for his customers has kept him hooked for over 40 years. Hofer is from Doland, South Dakota where he farms and raises cattle with his family while also operating Doland Aerial Spraying with son, Mikel.   “We keep busy all year long, farming, spraying and taking care of the cattle,” Hofer says. “Our spraying season might start around May first, roughly, and then it’s just kind of like a crescendo as it builds up. If the weather allows you to fly, you’re out the ..read more

Nebraska farmer turns home-grown corn into whiskey   Customers can provide their own corn, if they have it, or Knobbe can provide it. Often customers request corn from a state where they have family ties. “They don’t always have their own corn but they would still like a custom batch from a local farmer.”   – Joe Knobbe  Nebraska is known for growing corn and beef.  And if Joe Knobbe has his way, it’ll be known for whiskey, too.   The thirty-two-year-old farmer is owner of Flyover Whiskey, a distillery located in tiny Monterey, Nebraska, just southwest ..read more

When Rick and Michelle Grosek started Bear Butte Gardens in 2011 it was a small venture. After moving back to their South Dakota roots, the Sturgis couple decided they wanted to get their hands “in the dirt.” “We just had one little garden. We only put out information locally and we didn’t have any greenhouses,” Michelle said. Rick and Michelle Grosek started Bear Butte Gardens because they “wanted to get their hands in the dirt.”11-Bear-Butte-and-Cattle-1 Like the seeds they plant, the business has grown “little by little.” They have added two greenhouses, and are considering adding a third ..read more

Growing, harvesting and cooking with garden and wild berries   There’s not much better than a juicy, sweet berry that’s been turned into jelly, syrup, cobbler, pie, or even eaten straight from the plant.   As spring and summer approach, the thought of glossy, bright colored berries dances through minds and appetites.   Raspberries are a low maintenance berry that is easy to grow. Photo courtesy Lisa Goodman.1-buckets-of-rasp-by-lisa-goodman Strawberries and raspberries can be found in gardens across the Great Plains, and wild berries like chokecherries, juneberrie ..read more

Be gentle when you touch bread. Let it not lie uncared for, unwanted. So often bread is taken for granted. There is so much beauty in bread– Beauty of sun and soil. Beauty of patient toil. Winds and rain have caressed it, Christ often blessed it. Be gentle when you touch bread. – David Adam, The Open Gate: Celtic Prayers for Growing Spiritually As a wheat farmer’s daughter, I have memories of helping to mix and knead bread dough from the time I was very small—so small, in fact, that my mother’s large McCoy ware mixing bowl was almost large enough for me to sit inside. James Beard was the text ..read more

Since 2020, there is a renewed interest in knowing where one’s food comes from. Consumers especially want to know that their meat is sourced locally, and many have taken a step further to harvesting and processing their own meat. Hunting is a great way to put lean protein on the table. Additionally, if one has the space and resources, they can select a beef animal to finish their own way and harvest it themselves. With rising costs of groceries and custom processing, relearning the process of sourcing one’s own meat is becoming an appealing option. There is a growing desire for consumers to kn ..read more

Mike Blecha grew up in northeastern Colorado in Fort Morgan, but his love of music took him out of the small community as he played with a punk rock band. After years on stages all over the world, he transitioned to a career as a concert promoter, which also kept him out on the road internationally keeping the stage lights burning. He was based out of Denver at the time and said he thought the big city was the right place and the only place to really do business.  An AnywhereCam mounted at a ranch gate south of Fort Morgan. Courtesy photo.ranch-gate When Covid caused the cancellation of i ..read more

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will now require that sexually intact cattle and bison moving interstate must be tagged with electronically readable tags. | TSLN photoImage20240426183959 The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its long-awaited update to the animal identification rules on Friday, April 26, 2024. The agency will now require that sexually intact cattle and bison moving interstate must be tagged with electronically readable tags. Previously the metal clip tags (bangs tags or something similar) were sufficient for this same class of livestock. Additionally cattle and bison ..read more

It was the battle between bird flu and cash cattle last week yet again, and cash cattle took the victory.  The story of avian bird flu kept on giving with the interstate transportation rules with lactating dairy cattle.  There was a week of lull in the avian bird flu news, but it appeared to ramp up again. Testing for the disease is new, so we do not know where we will all find a virus that is on the books since 1880. My thought is, we will find it in many places. Leftover dead fragments of the virus are found in milk though it is completely safe to drink. If they are ..read more