Cathy Yeakel, BCCD, District manager
Get Ready to Welcome Spring!
Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22, 1970, as an environmental awareness day to educate people about pollution and its effects on the environment. Founded by a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day became a global movement to protect our environment. Since 1970, celebrations have changed from awareness lectures to outdoor events offering education on our natural resource issues and demonstrations.

Miranda Neville, Agricultural Resource Specialist, BCCD
What are the first signs of Spring that you notice? For some that’s seeing Robins bouncing around their yards or buds sprouting on trees, but for me it’s seeing tractors in the fields. Despite the multiple rounds of false-spring weather we’ve had, I saw the first few tilled fields while out driving through the county yesterday. An important reminder is that with those tilled fields, tractors and farming implements are not too far away. It’s also that time of year to be extra cautious on the roads, especially if you live in more rural areas. Farmers and their equipment are gearing up to spread manure and fertilizer, spring tillage (of all varieties) and plant their crop fields so here are a few important reminders for everyone traveling the roads; know your surroundings, patience is key, pass with caution.

Kevin Brown, BCCD, Ag Resource Specialist
Sayings, I am full of them.  Just ask my counterparts.  We even play games about what one I will say next.  There are a hundred of them, and they all have some merit to them.  This is why they exist.  This one definitely has some validity to it (I believe).   We will always have those “early adapters”.  You know the ones.  They have to be first to try everything.  Now, I am not opposed to someone being that way.  We need them.  We need to know how things will work, and this is the way to get that information.  It is not me personally, but it is the way some people operate.  And, if you can afford the risk, and you are willing to take it, thanks.  Thanks for helping the rest of us understand the pros and cons to whatever the next “thing” is.
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Kevin Brown, BCCD, Ag Resource Specialist
We knew this day would come.  Technology is just amazing if we think about it.  Some of the things that we can do, at the blink of an eye, are just incredible- make a call from about anywhere, watch an informational video to fix something almost anywhere, get directions to anywhere, and the list goes on.  I had an acquaintance tell me a year or so ago that he had put up a small lean-to on the side of one of his buildings.  Two weeks later, guess who shows up?  The county assessor.  They needed to update the assessment on his property because of the new addition.  Now, this guy lives on a dead-end dirt road/driveway, and that driveway comes off of a very seldom-used back road that just doesn’t ever really need to be traveled unless you live there.  My point?  He lives in the middle of nowhere.  How did they find that lean-to so fast?  Modern technology.