This will be an ongoing topic for a potpourri of things pertaining to rural living in general. It could be sharing your new adventures with chickens, what you've been up to on the homestead, or perhaps asking a question. Pretty much anything goes here.

This is an ongoing topic.

According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ( DEC ), adult male bears are usually the first to emerge and may have lost up to 30 percent of their body weight, while females with nursing cubs emerge later and may have lost up to 40 percent of their body weight. Bears are especially hungry in the spring due to depleted fat reserves and will search extensively for easily obtainable, calorie dense foods.

While bears have access to plenty of natural foods in the spring, they will readily use human food sources such as bird feeders, unsecured garbage, chicken coops, apiaries, or messy grills and pet food left outdoors. Continued access to human food sources can make bears bolder, which can lead to an escalation in human-bear conflicts around homes and residential areas. To avoid bear conflicts on your property, take a few steps to prepare in early spring:

• If you choose to feed birds in areas with bears, empty/remove your feeders and clean up spilled seed before early March. Let nature feed the birds from spring through fall.

• Make sure garbage cans are secured and stored in a sturdy building.

• Clean or remove all residual grease and food from grills and store all pet food inside.

• Consider installing an electric fence around chicken coops or apiaries to protect your flock and hives.

• If you are taking a trip to bear country, take a few minutes while planning your visit to review the basics of coexisting with bears.

• Remember that DEC regulations prohibit the intentional feeding of black bears.

DEC officials say that by taking some time to remove and/or secure food sources that might attract bears, you help keep bears away from people, homes and neighborhoods. This helps keep bears healthy, wild, and safe. Do your part and encourage your neighbors to do the same.

For more information on how to live responsibly with black bears, please visit DEC's Be BearWise webpage and BearWise.org.

The 2026 Pennsylvania Farm Show’s opening day on Saturday started bright and early for many visitors.

Carrie Shreve of Derry Township and her granddaughter Macie Lilley, 9, of Harrisburg, arrived at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg at 7:30 a.m.

“It took barely anything to get in here. We parked in the main lot,” Shreve said. “I never missed a Farm Show in my entire life.”

The two started their day with a breakfast of champions — potato doughnuts and milkshakes — before following their annual tradition of taking in the opening day sights.

Visitors have eight days to attend the Farm Show, which runs through Jan. 17 under the theme “Growing a Nation.” Admission is free and parking is $15.

Judging by Saturday’s crowds, the show is off to a robust start. By mid-morning, the complex’s hallways were crowded with visitors. Outside, the main parking lots filled up as traffic was stacked, but moving along Cameron Street.

Read the rest here.

In the garden, herbs are forgiving plants. They aren’t fussy about soil pH, almost never need fertilizer, and can power through if you occasionally forget to water them.

But when the weather turns cold and their outdoor beds become inhospitable, I grow some of my culinary friends on a sunny kitchen windowsill, even as they become more needy.

I say “some” because herbs are tricky plants to grow indoors. Dill and fennel have large root systems, making them impractical contenders for indoor pots. Basil tends to grow straggly because it requires intense sunlight, which is just about impossible to achieve indoors. And the way lavender and chamomile spread makes them best left outdoors.

Rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme and bay laurel, however, will get by indoors if cared for properly. Parsley may grow well, too, but only if planted in a deep pot, provided with supplemental artificial lighting and fertilized regularly. Cilantro is hit or miss, but there’s no harm in giving it a try.

Read the rest here.

Kevin Deinert grows soybeans and corn and also raises cattle on his family's farm near Mitchell, South Dakota Kirk Siegler/NPR

Kevin Deinert farms the same land his great-great-grandfather did near Mitchell, South Dakota, about 80 miles from the Iowa state line.

"I'd be probably the fifth generation, I've got sons, that'd be the sixth that possibly would want to take over the farm," Deinert says over the hum of his tractor.

Lately it's a fight to just stay in business one year to the next, never mind legacies. Deinert is 38, in a thick, worn hoodie, his brown hair cut short. He climbs out of his tractor and onto the slush in front of four-story high grain bins.

They're still full of soybeans.

"Too full," he says.

Deinert is hoping to store them a few more months, hang on until maybe prices go up and there's a new trade deal with China, historically the Dakotas' biggest buyer.

"We haven't seen anything in writing, and until we do it's hard to get overly excited, we're optimistic," he says.

Read the rest here.

Really....I can't believe this was a story on the news. I guess it was a REALLY slow news day

But in case you are wondering.... here are the tips:

• Don't jump in old leaf piles

• Wear long sleeves and pants

• Check for ticks afterwards

....

Honestly... I just can't

🍁🍂🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃🍂🍁🍂🍃🍂🍁🍂

Read more about it here.

Not that long ago, many rural families had a place out back where stuff like that got dumped. It wasn’t ideal, but it’s not like there were many options. Nowadays, local government units are responsible for ensuring “easy access” to appropriate solid waste disposal options. But Wisconsin only passed its solid waste reduction, recovery and recycling law in 1990. In the 10 years it took to implement, people were still going to rural landfills to watch black bears rummage through garbage before it was managed with open burning and bulldozing.

For those who don’t remember that implementation and the time before it, a Hogwarts-style pensieve would come in handy. I could show you memories of a time when used motor oil was spread on gravel roads to keep the dust down. When throwing an old tire onto a burning trash pile was common (it burns hotter that way), and burn pits were an accepted means of waste disposal. When waste management was a concern for more populated areas, rural people just made do.

Nowadays, when people buy rural property, they’re not happy to discover they’ve acquired some forgotten midden heap. And you can’t blame them. Who knows what’s been leaching into the soil and groundwater from discarded refrigerators, fuel tanks, motor vehicles, and containers used for agricultural and other chemicals? Clean-up can be expensive. 

But I find it frustrating to hear people gripe about the legacy of others’ actions and then, in the next breath, complain how government infringes on their right to do whatever they want on their own land. Or about taxes that just about cover the operation and tipping fees for a transfer station, but not curbside pickup. I think it’s safe to say that many rural people think common sense should prevail. I don’t disagree, but unfortunately, that is often not quite sufficient. 

So historically, free people confer legitimate authority on the government to adopt and enforce laws and regulations to protect people and society, individually and collectively. We vote for representatives to oversee our interests at the local, county, state, and federal levels. When we’re frustrated with their (choose one) overreach, OR underperformance, OR perceived lack of common sense, we can show up at the polls to choose different representation. Or not: Not voting yet complaining about unsatisfactory representation is certainly common. 

But maybe we can find a place at the intersection of personal rights and responsibility where we can agree on some norms of behavior – individual and collective. If we can apply them to solid waste disposal, maybe we can also apply them to other issues where we seem hopelessly divided.

So let’s talk about the long and ugly tradition of getting rid of junk by dumping it along some country road. People dump unwanted furniture, appliances, building materials, deer carcasses, and other debris. They dump on public lands and private lands. They dump where they think they won’t get caught. 

Not that long ago, many rural families had to dump unwanted stuff “out back”. (Photo by Donna Kallner / The Daily Yonder)

They may tell themselves they’re not hurting anybody because the place looks deserted. Or that some items are biodegradable – like a big banana peel, only it takes longer to go away. Mostly, I think they know they’re turning their problem into someone else’s problem, or they wouldn’t dump in the dead of night.

Improved rural broadband connectivity can’t come fast enough for people who live near so-called wild dumps – places where other people’s bad choices are a perennial problem. My latest lottery fantasy is to fund grants that help rural people buy the latest, greatest trail cameras to aim at those spots. I don’t know if that would deter dumping any more than doorbell cameras deter porch pirates. But wouldn’t it be satisfying to announce remotely, “You have been captured on video, which has been forwarded to law enforcement.”

But consider this: Even stiff criminal or civil penalties probably wouldn’t eliminate some problems associated with rural solid waste disposal. It’s just plain hard for some of our neighbors to manage their trash, both the big stuff and their everyday household waste.

For example, where I live, we have to haul our own trash to the transfer station or arrange for someone else to do it. That can be a challenge for homebound elders without someone able-bodied who is willing and available to transport garbage during the transfer station’s limited open hours. Without the means to pay for disposal, it’s not unusual for stuff to just pile up.

There’s a lot of rural pride in our default response to problems: Community comes through. Except when it doesn’t – for which there can be very good reasons. For example, two different people in a neighborhood near me shared their concerns about a homebound elder. A mountain of garbage bags had collected outside his garage. Neighbors were reluctant to offer help in hauling it away. They had concerns that bags (probably containing used incontinence products and other bio waste) could leak or break during transport. There were also concerns about taking possession of trash that might contain drug paraphernalia left by visitors to that residence. People who meet their own obligations to remove trash may have compassion for someone unable to do the same, and yet be stymied in how to resolve a situation like that. 

There are also times when local government is stymied in its efforts to balance compassion and responsibility (including fiscal responsibility). For example, in 2007, an F3 tornado hit just over a mile from my house. Clean-up began almost immediately, which is what rural communities do. Ten years earlier, local government probably would have just bulldozed tornado debris from structures into the town’s landfill. So no one checked with the DNR or the township’s waste disposal contractor to make a debris plan before word spread that people could haul that stuff to the town’s transfer center. 

Once it was there, that debris became the municipality’s responsibility, and the price tag was a whopper. To reduce costs, the town had to physically sort a mountain of trash into separate components. They were allowed to burn clean wood at the site. But non-burnables – including siding, shingles, insulation, drywall, windows, and treated lumber – had to be hauled by a garbage contractor to an approved disposal site. 

Eventually, the town got some reimbursement for expenses from a state emergency management disaster program. But there is a lot of paperwork that has to be done to get help like that. 

That’s something to think about when you’re voting for your representation in local government. Preferably before flooding floats pre-cast concrete septic tanks onto your property and you need help figuring out how to get rid of them. Yes, downballot races matter.

I’m grateful that we have better choices than burying our old mattress and box springs at the edge of our property or dumping it on a dead-end road some dark night. Bill and I got those pieces loaded on his pickup truck and hauled to the town’s transfer station in September. The guy who manages the transfer station helped Bill unload and stack them with other stuff people wanted to get rid of. The town pays the tipping fees. And the property taxes we pay contribute to making it possible for our community, as well as our household, to benefit. 

Donna Kallner writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Illegal Dumping Prevention Guide has helpful information including prevention strategies for communities.

This article is shared through a Creative Commons License and originally appeared on The Daily Yonder

You can read the rest of this column here.

While written about the Adirondack region, this no doubt pertains to other areas of the state. What do you think about the author's thoughts?

Home gardens pay off in produce to enjoy in season, produce to put by for winter, and produce to share with neighbors.(Photo by Ray Shrewsberry / Unsplash)

For many rural families, including mine, this does not feel like a year to be cavalier about what we have put by for winter. Grocery prices have not gone down. Availability feels uncertain. I can feed my household better for less than the cost of the “cheap” processed and prepared foods that have become the norm for many families over the past 40 years. But that takes some effort. And the growing season is short here at 45 degrees north.

So we went into it with slightly more ambitious plans than in years past — especially those years when I was on the road a lot for work and to care for aging parents. This effort has paid off in produce to enjoy in season, produce to put by for winter, and produce to share with neighbors. But there comes a point where a plan threatens to go off the rails. That’s how freezer boxes turned into my household’s version of a Seinfeldepisode: What makes a food box-worthy?

The saga began early this season when my homegrown tomatoes were suffering from blossom end rot. Pretty sure I forgot to bury the fish carcasses my husband freezes for the garden when he’s cleaning a mess of fish. It happens, no biggie. And it’s a simple matter to cut out the bad parts of a tomato. But with that much waste, it takes longer for a garden to produce enough to start canning.

So I sampled a simple preservation method recommended by several friends. Instead of canning big batches of quart jars, I roasted cored but unpeeled tomatoes in smaller batches, blasted them with a stick blender, and had sauce to freeze in minutes. No schlepping of canner and jars from the basement. Clean-up couldn’t be simpler. And the taste and texture of the sauce are sublime. 

I had always heard that leaving seeds and peels in tomato sauce made it bitter. Perhaps that’s true of varieties other than those I have planted. Or maybe I have just reached a point where some bitterness in my tomato sauce feels right for the times in which we live.

In any case, this method makes putting up tomatoes just one more simple kitchen chore every few days, easily dovetailed into other tasks. I have adopted it with the zeal of an aging gardener who repents years of doing things the hard way.

Here’s the problem: My mental household management spreadsheet did not account for using our stash of BPA-free pint freezer boxes for tomato sauce. With fall at hand, I suddenly realized we were unprepared to put up applesauce. 

This is not smooth, uniform 4-H applesauce run through a food mill the way my mother made it. It’s cored and quartered apples cooked just long enough to soften, whirled briefly in the food processor with a touch of local maple syrup, and frozen. It’s chunky spoonfuls with all the flavor and nutrition of the flesh and the skins of the fruit that keep the doctor away. I make it from blemished organic apples grown and sold at a ridiculously fair price just a few miles from home. A few spoonfuls in a bowl with homemade yogurt and granola prepares me for just about anything a day may bring – and that’s saying something these days. It’s just not the same canned as it is frozen. So I hustled to order in more freezer boxes.

In May, my preferred made-in-USA freezer boxes cost 15 bucks for a pack of 10. In September, a 5-pack is $18. I grumbled about the price increase, but ordered some anyway to set 15 freezer boxes aside for applesauce. It won’t be enough. I will have to freeze the rest in straight-sided wide-mouth pint jars, which I have on hand. They don’t stack as well in the freezer as the boxes, and I have to be careful not to drop jars. But I can make it work. 

Meanwhile, my garden is still producing tomatoes, and I’m too stubborn to buy more freezer boxes. So it’s back to canning tomatoes. Which means peeling tomatoes, if, like me, you were raised to follow university extension service canning recommendations as if they are holy writ. 

But the cucumbers can die on the vine now. I finished a batch of my grandmother’s recipe for 14-day sweet pickles in mid-August. With those and bread-and-butter pickles, we should be good for the year. We don’t put pickles on the table every single day like many farm families do. But given the choice between a pickle and a bottle of Gatorade to replenish electrolytes, I choose homemade pickles. 

We also made time in August to forage elderberries, which grow wild nearby. I froze some of the berries and made lots of an immune-boosting elixir that combines the berries with raw local honey, ginger, cinnamon, and brandy. I used a full case of quart canning jars for elixir this year: That’s far more than a two-person household should need, but I share with neighbors and loved ones. And I had brandy given to me by my friend Myra, who cleaned out her late parents’ liquor cabinet. Gotta love our rural community, where people act like you’re doing them a favor by taking second-hand booze.

In the past two years, Bill and I have had four serious viral respiratory infections — Covid, RSV, and Influenza A, which really kicked our butts last January. I felt so rotten then that we went straight to the pharmacy and bought the over-the-counter remedy recommended by the nurse practitioner to relieve symptoms while the virus ran its course. That stuff was $15 a bottle on sale. Before it ran out, we did the math to estimate how much would be needed for two people taking the maximum dose for the next week. Even the neighbor who went to town to pick up more for us commented on how expensive it was. And the comfort it provided for the Godzilla gurgles in my chest was mostly theoretical. 

In late August, when we got Covid for the second time, I managed symptoms just as well with homemade teas and tinctures made earlier from stuff that grows in our own yard, including white pine needles, yarrow, mullein leaves, plantain, elder blossoms, willow bark, and cough syrup made from cedar leaves, honey, and lemon. I can pronounce all of the ingredients in our home remedies, and don’t have to worry about supply chain issues making them unavailable when we need them. You can buy a lot of raw local honey for what we spent on OTC medicine last winter.

I’m not too worried about the price of eggs this winter, but that’s entirely thanks to the generosity of neighbors who provide us with eggs from their hens. When eggs are so plentiful in summer that it’s hard to use enough, I freeze some and also make noodles from my other grandmother’s recipe. They go great in chicken soup made from the birds another neighbor raises that we help to butcher. Maybe in a city you can order chicken soup to be delivered to your door when you’re feeling poorly. Out here, it comes from neighbors or what you have on hand in the pantry and freezer.

I hear a lot of uncertainty and anxiety about what the future holds. I’m feeling it too. Putting things by for winter helps me claim some control over how my household will weather what might be a very hard season ahead. Staying connected to neighbors is important, too, if we are to preserve healthy rural communities where our political differences don’t outweigh every other connection we hold dear.

And I very much want to stay healthy. The Midterms are just around the corner, and I intend to be fit and able to do my part to ensure fair elections. I may not like the choices many of my rural neighbors make at the polls. But I plan to be there to make sure everyvote counts.

Donna Kallner writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin.

This story was originally published in the Daily Yonder. For more rural reporting and small-town stories visit dailyyonder.com

Elmira Telegram has changed only the title to add some context.