The first rule of road trips is to never embark upon a road trip. At least not one like ours: 10 days and 2,500 miles of tent camping in the n…
Tonight we’re a party of five: Dad and daughters and our husbands. Dad’s been eager to try the fish fry at Irvine, the bar where he ate every …
On Sunday, June 23, Shopko’s two Chippewa Valley locations closed after almost three months of “everything must go” prices. In mid-January, Sh…
To the left of the stainless-steel elevator in Eau Claire’s Christ Church Cathedral hangs a plaque which reads: “The Frank and Miriam Carr Car…
I’m no stranger to the country life. I grew up on a dairy farm near Northfield in Jackson County, where neighbors helped each other out withou…
We are deluding ourselves if we think that exports alone will forge a viable future for America’s dairy farm families. We’ve had 25 years of s…
More than half of the U.S. population works for a small business, according to a recent news release from WalletHub, a personal-finance website.
Farmers and ranchers feed our state, our nation, and in fact, our world. You work long hours to provide essential resources for us all, and in…
One trillion is one thousand billion or one million million.
The COVID-19 virus is cruel.
Two generations ago, no one in the cattle business ever thought “herd immunity” was a solution to bovine brucellosis. Instead, farmers and ran…
While most county and state fairs are COVID casualties this year, a giant, buzzing Ferris wheel — America’s relationship with China — continue…
The global pandemic has made all of us more appreciative of our food supply. In the early days of the crisis, concerns about food shortages sp…
Mid-July was always summer’s sweet spot on the southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth.
Before the late congressman John Lewis coined the phrase “good trouble,” he and Jim Zwerg, a former Eau Claire resident, lived it out. I first…
Back in March when the safer-at-home measures were rolled out and the quarantine began, I felt confident that my family was well situated, and…
Eight years ago, after watching the Packers in a bar, my son bid on a 1987 Sun Tracker pontoon. Let’s just say Alex’s judgement wasn’t crystal…
Learning to ride a bike is as easy as learning to ride a bike. Which is to say: pretty darn hard. Especially when you’re 6. And my daughter. A…
I do not have a great memory and perhaps this explains why I have gravitated towards a life of writing. I have to write stuff down to remember…
For years now I’ve kept a “Visitors Log,” a notebook where I write a few lines about what occurs when anyone comes over: family and friends, d…
If you’ve entered Putnam Heights Elementary School in Eau Claire any time over the past 28 years, there’s a good chance you were greeted by Da…
To the editor:
To the editor:
To the editor:
I want to draw attention to distress in the rural economy across the Grain Belt. States like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Iowa are experienci…
As large corporate meatpacking plants close across the nation, the pandemic exposes deep cracks in the nation’s monopolistic meat supply. Allo…
To the editor:
To the editor: