Air December 18, 2002

Thank you Gary, and good morning everyone. First of all my apologies for my absence last week. That nasty flu bug that’s going around get the best of me. It doesn’t catch up to me very often, so when it does it has to get even! A couple of quick announcements this morning from the Rural Fire side. Burn permit renewals have been mailed out and if you have no changes its a fairly simple matter to get that taken care of. IF you have an e-mail address we are asking that you put this down. We are trying to develop a mailing list so if we get into a time frame again when there is a burning ban or something else you need to be aware of we can quickly notify as many of you as possible and you don’t have to worry about missing something on the radio or in the newspaper! Also, they are having monthly training sessions for all the volunteer rural fire fighters. If you haven’t been attending these you’ve been missing a good opportunity. Contact Garry Berges at the sheriff’s office for more details.

Well, here are we are once again, already, just a week before Christmas. Wow, what a year! Its had its ups and downs. Its trials and tribulations, it’s challenges and rewards. Yet time just keeps flying by. 21 years ago right now, I’d just signed a contract and was preparing to move to Kansas to do this job. What happened to that young man with hair? A year ago I’d just found out that I was going to get to spend a month in West Africa on a Rotary trip. Days crawled by and the month flew by and 8 months later I’m still processing all I saw and experienced. My Christmas wish list is a fairly simple one this year. I hope that all of you that will be traveling will do so safely, calmly and soberly. The holidays are a time of happiness and family memories. Those memories shouldn’t be of a loss. I wish for a rainy winter, spring and summer. Those pastures are hurting bad and need a lot of rain and TLC to get back into shape. A summer full of better weather would sure be welcome. And finally I wish nothing but peace and good will for all of you. These are trying times with nearly all government budgets just as tight as our own. Yet we still have so much to be thankful for. I’ve been blessed with 21 wonderful years on this job and what’s made it so great is all of you. And that’s a good enough of a gift for me.

This is Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook 2002 wishing each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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