Sustainable Thoughts and Ideas Anecdotes of Farm Life- Laughter Can Get You Through The Tough Days
Nathan Melson MS & Ellen Melson BS Written for Living Natural First Magazine This time of year when we have had months of winter weather, brown pastures, and knee deep mud, we find that laughter really is the best medicine. As I write this, we are braving the “Winter Storm of 2011” as the newscasters [...]
Sustainable Thoughts & Ideas: Just Who is the American Small Farmer?
By: Nathan & Ellen Melson Written for Living Natural First Magazine The other day while we were having one of our 18 hour work days trying to get several farm tasks done. As we were working we were thinking of the many things that the American Small Farmer does on a daily basis that most [...]
Sustainable Thoughts & Ideas: The Real Meaning of Sustainability
Nathan Melson MS, & Ellen Melson BS Written for Living Natural First Magazine By the time you read this article it will be almost 2.5 months since we welcomed our first child into our home, Ada Elizabeth. I won’t say that becoming parents has drastically changed our perspective because this was something that we have [...]
Sustainable Thoughts and Ideas: Co-Opting The Family Farm Image
Nathan Melson, MS & Ellen Melson, BS Written for Living Natural First Magazine I don’t know about you, but Ellen and I tend to notice all the farm images, names, and themes that are strategically placed in our lives as Americans for marketing purposes, and frankly this irritates us. You see this on everything from [...]
Sustainable Thoughts and Ideas: Who’s Going To Grow Our Food, Fiber, and Fuel?
Nathan Melson, MS & Ellen Melson, BS Written for Living Natural First Magazine This week, Ellen and I were looking through a publication of the Noble Foundation (An organization in Oklahoma whose purpose is agricultural research and education.) and saw a picture of an agricultural field day in the 1950‘s. The majority of the people [...]
Sustainable Thoughts & Ideas: Farmer John or Farmer Jane, a Jack or JIll of all trades, Part 2
By: Nathan & Ellen Melson written for Living Natural First magazine For those of you who follow our monthly articles in Living Natural First, you already know about the first part of this article series. For those of you who don’t we’d encourage you to find a back copy of the magazine from one of [...]
Sustainable Thoughts & Ideas: Farmer John or Farmer Jane, a Jack or Jill of all trades, Part 1
By: Nathan & Ellen Melson written for Living Natural First magazine Many people view farming and ranching as a simplistic life that requires very little education. Simply a menial job that requires a lot of labor and not a lot of brain power. Those of you who live in a rural area or farm and [...]
Sustainable Thoughts and Ideas: Thinking outside the Soapbox about “Going Local.” Part 4: Is Going Local Expensive?
By: Nathan Melson, MS Agricultural Sciences Written for Living Natural First Magazine June 2010 As I continue my series on “Going Local”, I’ve come to one of the questions many of us in the local food and economy movement get asked by skeptics a lot. The question is, “Is going local expensive”? This question cannot [...]
Sustainable Thoughts and Ideas: Thinking outside the Soapbox about “Going Local.” Part 3: Stumbling Blocks on the Road & Ways to Repair Them.
By: Nathan Melson, MS Agricultural Sciences Written for Living Natural First Magazine May 2010 By now many of you are following along with my series of articles about “Going Local”. If you haven’t been, try to find a back issue of LNF, or e-mail me and I’ll shoot you a copy of my previous writings. [...]
Sustainable Thoughts and Ideas: Thinking outside the Soapbox about “Going Local.” Part 2: Food Sheds & Food Miles
By: Nathan Melson, MS Agricultural Sciences Written for Living Natural First Magazine April 2010 As many of you know, and some of you may not, our family farm is located in the DFW Metroplex Food Shed. As I mentioned in the March article a food shed can be defined as a geographic zone around a [...]
