by Howie Feaga, President - Howard County Farm Bureau

WOW!! It just kept on coming. Just when we thought that it had finally stopped raining, then it just wouldn’t stop snowing. We have blown the seasonal record for snowfall right off the books.

I hope that all of you made it through the storms safe and sound. I did hear that tragedy struck at Gene and Charlotte Mullinix’s Woodbine farm with the collapse of one of their big feedlot barns. I haven’t heard yet how many animals were lost or injured. Regardless, we wish them well on their cleanup and recovery efforts.

Hopefully, no one else has suffered this kind of misfortune. All that we can do is learn from our experiences. And it seems that there have been more than enough opportunities for learning from our weather-related experiences of this past fall and winter. Please be safe in your future endeavors. Take your time and look ahead.

I had the wonderful opportunity of traveling to Seattle, Washington in January for the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual convention. Believe it or not, it was warmer in Seattle than in Tampa Bay, Florida. We met many other farmers from across the country and enjoyed visiting with them.

We heard a very moving message from AFBF President Stallman, telling us that we must no longer tolerate the efforts of our opponents to change American Agriculture. Our adversaries are skillful at taking advantage of the politeness of members of the farm community. We must not allow that to continue lest it result in our demise. We need to be more proactive and actively defend ourselves and our way of life.

On the lighter side though, we were totally entertained by our keynote speaker, Terry Bradshaw, a former Pittsburgh Steelers Quarterback and member of the Pro-Football Hall of Fame.

Spring is just around the corner and hopefully memories of this past fall and winter will fade, and we can begin to look forward to a more normal spring and summer.

So, like always, "keep your plow in the ground." "We’re all pulling for you".

JANUARY 10 MESSAGE

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. We all need to put last year behind us and start looking forward to the new year. Not that last year was that bad, it just really got old with that weather. We have had a little bit of winter and there are a lot of crops that have not been harvested yet. The only thing I can say is that you are not alone. This past fall was just one of the wettest that I can remember. Try to be patient and sooner or later things will get better.

Several of us went down to Ocean City to the annual Maryland Farm Bureau Convention and we left with a new President. She is former Howard County farmer Pat Langenfelder. She and her husband, "Dutch", farmed in Clarksville and moved to Kent County several years ago where they now have a very successful hog and grain operation. Congratulations to Pat.

Chuck Fry has moved up to 1st Vice-president and Jim Steel is our new 2nd Vice-president. I would like to express a fond farewell to our out-going president, Mike Phipps. He has done a great job and will always be remembered for his humor and talents as well as being a great Maryland Farm Bureau President. Good luck to all of these hard working, dedicated people.

Here at our county level we have a new Vice-president, Jay Rhine. Jay is a former dairy farmer and now farms part time, but also has a very successful landscaping business. I look forward to working with Jay.

We have two new board members now, Zack Brendel and Allan Bandel. Zack farms part-time and operates an excavating business that he and his brother Justin started along with a new septic pumping business. Allan Bandel, the other new director, you all have known as our newsletter editor for many years. I would like to welcome the new officers and directors and thank the rest for a great 2009. I am looking forward to another great year together.

So, like always, "Keep your plow in the ground. We’re all pulling for you".

NOVEMBER 09 MESSAGE

Well here we are in the middle of harvest again and we are looking at Thanksgiving in just a few weeks. The summer was a lot different than those that we have gotten the last few years. Plenty of rain, lots of sun at times, but our weathermen still struggle with being able to predict the future. But I think it was a good summer all in all.

With the wet summer and fall it is going to be a challenge to get all the harvest done quickly, so we will need to be patient, and don’t let yourselves get into a worse situation by rushing. Take time to enjoy the fall with its cool breezes and wonderful colors. The colors of the trees are short-lived and before you know it, the cold winter winds will be here, the colorful leaves will be gone, and the winter will really be upon us.

I hope to see all of you at our Annual Banquet on the 12th of November. It’s always good to visit with you. It will be a good meal, as usual, and you will have plenty of opportunities to catch up on how all of your farmer friends are doing.

Your Board of Directors has been working hard to increase our membership. They made their goal! And that was not so easy to do. With everyone tightening their belts it was a job well done. A special thanks to Susan Baker, Shelly Buhlman, and Merhlyn Barnes who are the ones who really deserve a congratulatory "slap on the back".

I want to congratulate our new Miss Howard County Farm Bureau, Danielle Bauer. She also did a great job at the state contest. She is joined by the Little Miss Howard County Farm Bureau, Rachel King, and Future Howard County Farmer, Mitchell Feaga. These kids did a great job! I think we have another great generation coming along.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the up-coming Holiday Season! Once again, remember to "Keep your plow in the ground. We’re all pulling for you."

MAY 09 MESSAGE

I think that we made it! It’s warming up more each week and we are getting some rain and that’s a good thing. The daffodils are blooming and soon the Red Winged Blackbirds will be nesting in the weeds in our hay fields. I always leave a few weeds just for them, don’t you?

I hope you all enjoyed the legislative dinner. It’s always good to see everyone and it shows us that you approve of what we are doing. Your Board of Directors works hard to keep up with all the new changes and at the same time with their own farm work. With the economy in such a ditch, I can’t say rut, because I think it’s a bit deeper than that, we need to remind ourselves that we are all here together with the same problems. So don’t hesitate to tell others about how things are going, good or bad, and it will help everyone.

I was fortunate to be able to participate in Farm Bureau’s DC drive-in this year where we had, as a group, an opportunity to lobby our Congressmen and Senators. We met with each one in small groups to argue our views on how the different bills would affect us as farmers, and agriculture as a whole. We visited the Capital Visitors Center. It was all a really good experience for me. My background in how government really works is not very extensive, so this experience was quite educational for me.

It’s almost summer once again, so don’t be in too big a hurry to enjoy the early summer warmth and the nice summer days. I know that we are all very busy. But God didn’t make these nice days for everyone else. He made them for everyone. So have a great summer! Be careful! And like always, "Keep your plow in the ground; we’re all pulling for you."

MARCH 09 MESSAGE

The winter has gone rather well, we have had some cold weather and some snow and ice, but we have done better than a lot of other parts of the country. We are not done yet, but with the days getting longer, we can easily get through what is left.

I had the opportunity to go to the American Farm Bureau Federation annual convention in San Antonio, Texas in early January. It was very interesting to meet so many farmers from all over the country. Our keynote speaker was Bill Bradley, a Hall of Fame basketball star for the New York Knicks and a former U.S. Senator from New Jersey. He assured us, and I agree, that we Americans will get through these tough times and will learn from the mistakes that have been made.

We went on a bus trip into the "Winter Garden" area of Texas and saw where they had already planted potatoes. We visited a feedlot, a beekeeper who had 9,000 bee hives, and a purebred Brahman breeder. We ate lunch in country music star George Strait’s home town of Pearsall, TX, though we didn’t see him. The food was great.

We are getting ready for our Legislative dinner on April 23 and I would encourage each of you to bring a friend with you who would be interested in hearing some of our legislators give us their updates on how things are going, or to just have a great dinner with friends.

We are trying to keep up with all the new bills that are being introduced. They are read and reviewed to determine whether they are in our best interests or not. We then make our commitment to be for or against them from an agricultural perspective.

I’m sure everyone is looking forward to spring, and as the days get warmer we seem to pick up the pace. But remember, there will be another good day. You don’t have to do it all today. Try to enjoy the new growth of the grass and tree’s. And be careful as you begin to run your machines – that’s everything from your lawnmowers to your corn planters.

So have a great spring and a prosperous summer. And like always "Keep your plow in the ground; we’re all pulling for you".

MARCH 09 MESSAGE

I hope that everyone had a great Holiday Season. The past year went by so quickly that it seems to have passed more in a blurr than as a normal 12 whole months. The year ahead of us, 2009, will most likely present many new challenges for us all. 　

Potential economic hardships will challenge almost everyone’s efforts to stay out of financial trouble. Some good advice might be to first try to talk out any problems before they get out of hand. You might ask a friend to just listen to your ideas so that you can face each new challenge with as much good reliable information as you can assemble.

The year-end Maryland Farm Bureau Convention in Ocean City went very well. We were able to get a lot of new policies introduced and accepted, including one that will help to protect our Beekeepers from unnecessary complaints from neighbors.

We are going to try to gain more support from our Nurserymen and Landscapers this year. The membership committee is working hard to encourage more of them to become interested in joining our County Farm Bureau. Next year we also plan to work on trying to interest more of the local Grape Growers and Wineries to join us in our ever more diversified county, to try and keep these industries viable through favorable legislation, ultimately for the good of Howard County.

We have a new Vice-President in place for 2009. Justin Brendel is a life-long farmer and I am looking forward to working with him in the coming years. We also have a couple of new directors on board for the coming year. Larry Barnard is a part-time grain farmer as well as a part-time builder. Phil Jones is a full-time dairy farmer. We welcome them both on the board.

I would also like to thank our secretary Merhlyn Barnes for all that she does in keeping our county organization running smoothly. And thanks to Allan Bandel, our Newsletter editor, for another year of hard work. All of the members of the Howard County Farm Bureau Board of Directors are doing a great job. My sincerest thanks go to all of them.

So, as always, please remember to, "Keep your plow in the ground. We are all pulling for you."

NOVEMBER 08 MESSAGE

Well here we are deep into harvest and have had some of the greatest weather. We are dry but this kind of weather is the next best thing.

We all hope to see you at the Annual Dinner meeting on November 13. For more details, please refer to the announcement elsewhere in this newsletter. We have new board members to nominate and bring on board, and we also will have our election of officers.

We are getting ready for Maryland Farm Bureau’s annual convention in Ocean City. If anyone would like to serve as a delegate, please let us know. I had the honor and privilege of being invited recently to the Frederick County and Carroll County Farm Bureau Dinners. Our neighbors are doing quite well and gave me a very warm welcome.

I hope that all of you are doing well. Try not to get in too big a hurry and make any costly mistakes. Have a wonderful Holiday Season and I will look forward to communicating with you next year. Like always, "Keep your plow in the ground. We’re all pulling for you."

SEPTEMBER 08 MESSAGE

Where did the summer go? Seems that we were waiting for the weather to warm up just a few weeks ago. I hope everyone has had a good summer, a season that is quickly coming to an end. I do like the fall though. It is my favorite season.

I hope that you all got a chance to visit the Howard County Fair. We have a new Miss Howard County Farm Bureau. Miss Caitlin Patrick is the daughter of Denny and Nancy Patrick of Maple Dell Farm in Woodbine. I would like to thank Laura Bradley for the great job that she did as the 2007 Miss Howard County farm Bureau.

Seems that we are all busy with our comings and goings. But I hope that everyone will take time to enjoy the last of the summer. Before you know it, we will be into the busy fall harvest season and then the holidays.

Until next time, have a great end of the summer and a wonderful fall. And like always, "Keep your plow in the ground. We’re all pulling for you."

MAY 08 MESSAGE

I hope everyone had a great Easter. It certainly came early this year. And how about that time change coming so early?. We are soon going to be in the fields at full go. I hope that we will all be careful. It’s so easy to get in a rush. That’s when accidents happen.

This spring has been a dry one, but maybe by the time this newsletter goes to print we will have caught up on spring rains. We definitely do not need another drought this year.

Our membership committee, Susan Baker and Shelly Buhlman, are doing a great job with trying to recruit new members to keep our organization strong and in an effort to help make our laws work for us. It was gratifying to have a good turnout at our Annual Legislative Dinner on April 10. I hope that everyone present got a chance to ask the questions that they wanted to ask – and got the answers too.

It has been one year on the job for me now as your president. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all they have done to help me with the responsibilities that the office entails. I especially want to thank Merhlyn Barnes, our County Farm Bureau Secretary. She is always right on top of things. And your Farm Bureau Board of Directors has been very willing to quickly step up to each task. For their enthusiasm, I am very grateful. And last, but not least, I want to thank you, the members, for your great interest in this organization. It has meant a lot and has ultimately been what has kept us all going.

Well that’s it for now. I hope everyone has a wonderful spring and like always, "Keep your plow in the ground. We’re all pulling for you."

MARCH 08 MESSAGE

The winter has been pretty good so far this year. I hope everyone is doing well. The dry summer is still plaguing us with a shortage of winter feed. Thankfully we are past Ground Hog Day now and that is about the half-way point of the winter feeding season, although most of us have been winter feeding since September or earlier. So, we are two thirds through the winter feeding time. Let’s hope the rest of the winter will be mild.

This time of year our Membership committee is hard at work to get our membership up to meet the state’s expectations and that is not an easy task. Our committee is reaching out to many new potential members with the hopes of getting some more new innovative thinkers into our organization. I hope all of you will try to encourage your neighbors that may not be familiar with the Farm Bureau to join, so that we can have the support to carry on with our job, to guide the governing powers to help us to keep the laws working for agriculture.

As we do enroll our neighbors, I would encourage all of us, traditional dairy, beef, swine, and crop farmers, that have dwindled in numbers but not in importance to the farm bureau, to welcome these new members and their idea’s so that we can include those horse, sheep, goat, beekeepers, landscapers and other agriculture related business’s into our organization.

With springtime fast approaching we will all be anxious to get out and start our field work. We need to take time now to get our machinery and our bodies ready to work all summer. So start slow and work up to those heavy loads and try not to over-do it the first good day. And like always, don’t forget to "keep your plow in the ground, we’re all pulling for you."

JANUARY 08 MESSAGE

I hope that all of you had a great Thanksgiving, a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to a healthy and prosperous New Year!

This past December, I had the privilege of attending the 92nd Annual Maryland Farm Bureau Meeting in Ocean City. There was a lot of time spent working on Farm Bureau policy and we all worked hard to see that they were the way you all would like to have them written I was really impressed with the process and must admit that I learned, and am still learning, how this process works. If you don’t think your dues are worth the $60.00 you pay, you need to experience these meetings. The Farm Bureau is our voice when it comes to having valuable input in the policies of our State and County laws.

We heard several very good speakers, one being Chad Hymas a young paraplegic farmer who had a terrible accident with a round bale that rolled over him while on the tractor. His message of encouragement was that you should be ready and able to change your life when things change, and that you should be thankful for what you have whether it is good or bad, it is what you make it.

Gov. Martin O’Malley spoke on making agriculture profitable to our family farms and promised to help make that happen. Dr.Cheng-I Wei, Dean and Director of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Maryland, was also there to update us on the college’s latest improvements and programs.

Your Board of Directors, after taking a much needed break for the Holidays, is ready to go back to work for all of you. Thank you for all of your support during the past year. I would also like to thank the Board and your Secretary Merhlyn Barnes for all their help during my first year as your President and like always don’t forget – keep your plow in the ground we’re all pulling for you!

NOVEMBER 07 MESSAGE