Even in the best of times, farming is a precarious enterprise. There’s drought, floods, hail, wind storms, and pests of all kinds to deal with.

Spring has sprung in the Cornhusker State. Nowhere is that more evident than in the specks of color that have been emerging across the countryside in recent weeks.

In November, Nebraska voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative allowing workers to earn sick leave for personal or family needs. They also voted to legalize marijuana used for medical purposes.

There is a pretty solid chance that, in the history of Nebraska high school football, yours truly was the first player ever to take a book that was a part of Oprah’s Book Club to football camp. Odd, I know, but during the summer between my junior and senior years in high school, there was about a ten-day stretch when I was glued to a book by Ken Follette titled Pillars of the Earth.

The other day, I got a text from my uncle in California. He’d just watched a news report about the tumultuous March 18th town hall held by United States Representative Mike Flood, a Republican, in which shouts and boos dominated.

Late last Wednesday night, with the world still recovering from a late-season blizzard, I found myself bent over the tank of my toilet. I am not a plumber.

St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone, but as always, you probably saw buttons reading “Kiss me, I’m Irish” from all sorts of people, Irish or not.

Growing up in rural Nebraska, there is a skill that, throughout your life—farmers and ranchers master it much quicker than others— you have to learn. That is how to properly, and somewhat gracefully, climb over, through, or under barbed wire fences.