Jacqueline and Glen Young, Young’s Greenhouse, Maine

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

A five-generation family farm, Young’s Greenhouse was severely damaged in a tornado. Read more »

Mark Timm, Colby Creek Stables Owner, Nebraska

Cross posted from the White House Rural Champions of Change website:

Colby Creek Stables, a horse stable facility located near Ithaca, Nebraska in Saunders County, offers a number of amenities for horses and riders, including a large indoor arena, heated barn aisles, and ventilated horse stalls. Read more »

Jim Guldin is supervisory ecologist and project leader at the U.S. Forest Service’s Southern Research Station in Hot Springs, Ark. His research focuses on silviculture, the art and science of sustainably growing trees to meet needs – human or ecological. The Guldin brothers are part of a family with a personal and professional connection to natural resources. They are featured in the agency’s Faces of the Forest project at www.fs.fed.us.

Brothers Richard and Jim Guldin both went to Penn State, both eventually joined the U.S. Forest Service and both ended up in forest research.You might say their professional path continues their family’s legacy. Read more »

Dale Bilyeu, manager for the Huntley Irrigation Project, and Nick Vira, NRCS district conservationist in Billings, look out over the repaired Pryor Creek channel.

Only a month after spring floods ravaged the Huntley Irrigation Canal near Huntley, Montana, and temporarily halted irrigation, over 30,000 acres of crops are receiving water. Read more »

The USDA Scottsbluff Service Center, local Agri-businesses and local producers delivered on September 2^nd,  more than 6,150 pounds of food to the Community Action Partnership of Western Nebraska (CAPWN) in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.  The food was collected through the “Feds Feed Families”.  CAPWN’s local programs provide a natural partnership for the “Feds Feed Families” campaign because they have an established avenue to distribute to people who are in need.

While Nebraska is known as the “Cornhusker State”, agricultural production in western Nebraska also includes dry edible beans and sugar beets.  Kelley Bean, New Alliance Bean and Grain, Stateline Bean Producers Cooperative, Trinidad Benham Corporation and individual producer Leo Hoehn combined to donate 5,700 pounds of navy, pinto and mixed dry edible beans.  Western Sugar, a grower owned cooperative, donated 160 pounds of granulated sugar.

When Phillip Mitchell heard about the effort, he brought in 15 dozen ears of locally grown, organic sweet corn from his one and one-half acre plot.  Phillip also participates in the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) available through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Read more »

One of my favorite camping activities is reading a good book while listening to the sounds of nature.

I’m an avid camper.  There’s nothing better than spending a week in the woods enjoying the calm and quiet beauty of nature.  Food tastes best to me when it’s cooked over a campfire.  And I want to make sure that I’ll always be able to go camping when I want to relax. Read more »