I love it when people, usually newscasters and meteorologists, say that the smoke from Canadian wildfires is bad and that everyone should stay inside. There are people who make a living outside (including but not limited to farmers), and there is nothing in place to make sure that during these type of events you can still make a paycheck and also stay inside. There are no protections, and in fact the legislature is going in the wrong direction to protect our environment and therefore the...

Now we are entering that time of the season when farmers do not have enough hours in the day to get everything done that the farm requires (even though these are some of the longest days of the year). Instead we are forced to prioritize things over other things that also need care and attention. We have a visual every moment of every day of all the items on the to do list that have not been done. They are not sitting in our minds taking up metaphorical space, they are sitting in front of our...

This past week has maybe been one for the record books for us. Of course the multiple days in a row with very high temperatures, but also the very warm nights. When plants experience heat stress one of their defense mechanisms is to drop blossoms (flowers). With fruiting crops like squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, melons, etc...all the vegetables we harvest from them start as flowers. So if plants drop flowers to help them get through these crazy days, then we have less to...