Using a patent-pending cleaning process, a Wyoming company hopes to water ranchlands with the notoriously nasty byproduct from oil and gas wells — When people think about fracking, most think about fossil fuels. But Wyoming rancher Owen Goertz, 70, thinks about water. Specifically, the approximately 5,000 to 8,000 barrels a day of fracking byproduct water that is currently produced on his land. For the last 30 years, Goertz has leased out oil and…

All they need is love — I could have saved a lot of panties. That was my first thought upon reading about the “Companion Collar,” a next-gen satellite-linked smart collar for dogs and cats that didn’t exist when Peanut, my underwear-devouring Rat Terrier, was going through his troubled teenage years. Granted, my dog-chewed drawers might not…

The modern American turkey is the epitome of “get big or get out” — In the 1960s, my tiny, rural farming community in Washington State raised 100,000 Thanksgiving turkeys a year. This year, we raised less than a few dozen at most. I personally raised nine. The turkey once supported thousands of family farms and rural, agrarian economies across the United States. But as…

Livestock with gene-edited testicles can help humans survive an increasingly food-insecure world — In a Pullman, Washington, laboratory barn, goat #1962 has one purpose: Go forth and multiply. #1962 is in the world’s first-ever generation of a gene-edited “Super Daddy” or “Surrogate Sire” goat. This means he has the balls (literally) to pass on not his but another, more elite buck’s DNA. Project…

Woody Harrelson Says So. — I watched the Kiss the Ground film on a creepy, smoky September morning. The West Coast is on fire again. My Covid mask supply has been doing double-duty, warding off a pandemic and smoke inhalation. 2020 sucks. Enter Kiss the Ground. A film claiming that we can reverse climate change, fix our health, ease global tensions, and save farmers’ livelihoods by managing dirt — aka regenerative agriculture.

Cows could be a climate change solution — if we take the science seriously — Farts are funny. Burger King thinks yodeling about cow farts is even funnier. In mid-July, the fast food chain released on Twitter an ad campaign starring boot-stomping kids, led by Mason Ramsey of Walmart Yodeling Kid fame, singing about cow farts contributing to global warming and claiming that lemongrass can…

This swarm of robots may herald a chemical-free food revolution — Clint Brauer’s farm outside of Cheney, Kansas, could be described as Old MacDonald’s Farm plus robots. Along with 5,500 square feet of vegetable-growing greenhouses, classes teaching local families to grow their food, a herd of 105 sheep, and Warren G—a banana-eating llama named after the rapper—is a fleet of ten…

Stop Blaming the Media for Basic Human Nature — “Media hype” has long been a favored whipping post when the human species loses their ever-loving minds. With the coronavirus panic hitting the U.S. hard it’s sure a lot easier to point fingers than take a hard look at ourselves. It’s the media’s fault, we scream, as California declares a…

I’m writing about it until the ‘cows come home’ — What are the silly things that writers — who are also farmers — think about? At least this one? Farm-inspired idioms. And what they really mean. I know, I know. I’m a dork and this is mind-blowing stuff. But what can I say? …