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 By Melissa Hart

News isn’t news anymore, it’s drama used as a weapon to stir
up emotions and fuel our hatred for the opposite, polarizing point of view.

I used to watch it religiously, but now I rarely spend my
time or energy on it. If I were to believe what they tell me, every convenience
store would be in a state of robbery, every country leader would qualify to be
institutionalized and race would be the basis of every decision from friendship
to farm loans.

I just got back from a trip to Texas and witnessed the
opposite of what you see on any media source. 
I saw vast farm fields full of fertile soil getting ready to grow
cotton, rice, corn and beans. Vibrant farm towns were still in existence with
pick-up trucks parked outside of local diners packed full on a Saturday night.
I drove thru Clear Fork Coffee Company in Albany, Texas for a great cup of coffee
and a Texas Cheater that hit the spot.

Kind people were the trend not the exception. I missed the
trash can with my empty water bottle while filling up at a gas station, the guy
on the other side of the pump picked it up for me.

The desk clerk at the Days Inn in Cabot, Arkansas was
concerned for our safety, warning us about the bad weather coming across Texas
and she wanted to make sure I knew about it.

There was a trucker who stopped his semi in rush hour
traffic in Dallas to rescue a stopped motorist who was having some sort of
issue. He could have just called 911 from his truck and kept on going, but
instead he noticed the struggling man, pulled over and raced back to the car to
offer his help while waiting for the paramedics.

In a hotel lobby in Springfield, Missouri there was a group of
friends playing scrabble in the breakfast area while watching The American
Rodeo on TV.  

When I hear a British social media influencer talk about how
great American is and that every state is like going to a different country I
have to agree.  Each state has it’s own
look, feel and natural wonders to enjoy. There are different accents, customs, food
and slang phrases that mean different things in different parts of the country.

In the north we like our sugar in our cornbread and not in
our tea and in the south, they want loads of sugar in their tea but don’t you
dare put it in cornbread. And when you enjoy BBQ in the south, it doesn’t mean
pulled pork with a few chips, it means a pile of pulled pork, with a side of Brunswick
Stew, baked beans, slaw and cornbread to sop it all up.

Don’t take my word for it, discover the beauty of our
country on your own. Find those open fields, or the sweet cashier who calls you
‘Hun’ when she asks if you want your receipt or that drive thru attendant who
is happy to make a fresh pot of coffee for you and then apologize for the wait.
You won’t find them on the screen in your living room—but you will find them on
the rural routes of the greatest country on earth—‘Merica.

Hauling things out of my parent’s farmhouse to sell in a
yard sale was how my sister and I spent our Memorial Day weekend.  With each dust-covered box, we found a
treasure trove of history we were just now discovering about our mom. Sorting
through files and photos, we were seeing the dimension of a self-less mom grow
into a person we never knew existed. I mentioned in an earlier column about the
things we never knew about our mom, but the sacrifice of her life has never
been clearer. Growing up, stories of her college days were plentiful but
several details were left out as she concentrated on raising a family and
helping her husband of six decades run a farm. 

We knew she was a successful vocalist in college, but we
never knew she recorded an album until we pulled out an old 78 vinyl record and
listened to her lyrical voice through the crackle and pop of the old relic. We
knew she was the first woman on the Michigan State livestock judging team, but
we had no idea she was the first woman on the meats judging team too.  We knew she had spent time in Germany with
her uncle, but we had no idea how well-traveled she was until we found her
passport and the countless letters she penned in stunning penmanship sent to
her mom back home.

You see, she had a remarkable upbringing by a single mom who
was educated and accomplished instead of the traditional two-parent household
of the 1940s, so her desire to raise us with two parents on a farm was
paramount.  Holding a bachelor’s degree
and a teaching certificate from two universities, she chose to stay home and
soak up every moment of her children’s development. 

My mom traded the spotlight of the performing arts for
lambing a flock of sheep with two young children in tow during the cold Midwest
winters.  Instead of teaching in public
school, she taught her daughters how to bake, can, and sew and turned her sons
over to their father to teach them how to plow a field and take care of
livestock. She was the consummate school volunteer up through her 80s and three
months before she passed, she was walking the streets of a small Montana town,
Christmas caroling with her great-grandchildren.

She buried two children and a husband and knew the value of
hugging her family whenever she had the chance. With talent, grit, and the
opportunity to break glass ceilings, her choice was to give her entire life to
the only thing that will last through eternity, her family. 

Sitting in a motel room in Princeton, West Virginia, is not
where I expected to be this week after a long two months of being on the road
covering shows.  But here I am looking
out the window at beautiful mountains in full color.

My daughter was headed to cover the South Carolina State
Fair when she called with her car broken down on the side of the highway at 8
pm on a Friday night.  We got the car
safely towed to a shop but we had to get her and her assistant headed to Columbia,
SC.  Because her assistant was also a
Virginia Tech graduate, Wytheville, Virginia was a friendly place to be
stranded.  Several phone calls later and helpful
texts from the exhibitors in Columbia, South Carolina, the two girls were on
their way in a borrowed car from Virginia Tech Dairy Judging Team coach, Dr.
Katharine Knowlton.

Thankful for a generous judging coach who has made a career of
teaching and loving the next generation of our ag leaders I was elated when I
heard the show was being covered without missing a beat and it was a simple fix
for the car.  Two days later they picked
up the car in Virginia and were headed home. 
Feeling as if I should call them to find out how they were doing, my
phone started ringing, my daughter beat me to it.  I gleefully said, “How are things going?” She
responded, “We are stuck on the side of the road again.”

Alternate plans were set in motion to get her assistant back
to The Ohio State University to teach her class on Monday while my daughter was
checking into a motel in Princeton, WV.

When I woke up on Monday morning facing the possibility of
driving to West Virginia when I was planning on spending every single day at
home for a least 10 days in a row, I was less than thrilled. The indecision
about what to do if the car is fixable, has a blown motor or if we need to tow
it home are decisions I did not plan on contemplating when I had a full
workload ahead of me. I have calls to make, stories to write and a son getting
married in two weeks, I just wanted life to slow down for a minute so I could
catch my breath.   But then I read about a
local mom who lost her 30-something son over the weekend.  She is planning a funeral.  She is selecting clothes for her son to be
buried in. She is contemplating life without her baby boy that she loved with
all her heart and soul.  As I thought
about her, I prayed and was reminded that I could count it as pure joy to
interrupt my daily life and get in the car, drive eight hours south to help my
daughter get back home.

Perspective is a beautiful thing when we get it right. 

By Melissa Hart

Imagine four-wheel drive John Deere tractors gathering
cobwebs in a pole barn with doors that hadn’t been opened in months.  Can you see fallow farm ground growing up
with weeds and annoying brush?  Or farm
lanes that are grown over because there was no traffic in or out of the farm.
The grease guns are never used, the farm implements rusting away behind the
barn and no fuel trucks in and out of the driveway for lack of need. 

The neighborhood equipment dealer would cease selling new
tractors, and electric lawn mowers would be the new hot item.  The parts manager would also serve as the bookkeeper,
the part time mechanic and the custodian. 
There would be one grain elevator to serve the entire county, one farm
store would be able to serve three counties and the seed dealer and chemical
salesman would be an online store somewhere in Kansas.  Stockyards would close up, vibrant diners
that served local farmers would shutter their doors and the county fair would
be nothing more than a carnival with a few photos of what used to be exhibits
of crops, livestock and horses.

This would be the reality if the current administration
decided to do to agriculture what it’s done to the fossil fuel industry.  When the drilling leases were eliminated,
pipelines were shut down and we were told that clean energy is where we are
headed, we took an entire industry full of owners, employees, families and
vibrant towns and said, sorry, you don’t matter anymore.

When people in perceived power used their position to bend
the will of an industry to their agenda of priorities and impose them on a
country who’s founding was based on hard work, ingenuity and freedom, they slowly
create a sluggish economy that is profitable for the powerful and merciless to
Americans.

This is a country of people who not only adjust on the fly
but have the tenacity to do what is needed. 
During World War II our factories were changed from producing everyday
goods to war-time necessities.  During
Covid when we thought we needed ventilators, industrious minds and intelligent
engineers backed by hard working people produced more ventilators that we could
use during three pandemics.  When hurricanes
hit our southern shores, people from all corners of this nation dropped their
daily activities and headed to help those in need. We are rescuers. We are
resilient. We are survivors.

Having a load of baby formula flown in from Europe when
factories should have been ramping up production knowing one producer was
shutting down is humiliating.  Buying oil
from Venezuela, a country ruled by dictators, when we have plenty of our own
clean oil is not only foolish but has lowered the expectations on a country of
smart, proud, and ingenious people. 

We can produce our own food. 
We can produce our own fuel.  We
can produce our own goods and services. 
But when leadership rips that responsibility from people, they not only
tear away the fabric of a freedom loving republic, but they kill the spirit of
a country who thrives on liberty.

Our forefathers did not fight battles in bloody bare feet to
lose the war to power-hungry men in faux leather soled shoes two centuries
later. Our country has survived decades of difficulty and I am confident that
when we are tested, we will come forth as gold. 

 By Melissa Hart

As I look at my keyboard, I see wrinkled hands and chipped
nail polish on a 56-year-old body that has endured and enjoyed five decades as
a female.  Living an imperfect life, I am
a daughter, wife, mom and aunt.  And I
will never be able to change that. It’s how God made me. But lately there is a
loud minority of folks who want the privilege to change their gender and are
trying to make the rest of us think it’s as natural as a bull sniffing the rump
of a cow in heat.

There is a young college athlete who was born a male.  He was created by God as a male and no matter
what, his DNA will always be XY. With that chromosomal content, he will have
the tendency to be a conqueror, a protector and a fighter. But his fight is to
become a woman and he is being allowed to compete in the NCAA women’s swimming
events, smashing records set by women, as a man.

I will not pretend to know what is going through his mind,
but I do know that he and everyone who is complicit with him competing against
females is erasing the accomplishments of women’s athletics one lap at a time.

Generations of women fought for the right of women’s
athletics. Rural areas are full of highly competitive girls’ basketball teams
coached by the local dairy farmer. Sisters are shooting hoops with brothers in
hay mows and pole barns all across this country. But when it comes to games,
they are lacing up to compete with other girls.

Beyond the games, there is more to being a woman than pretty
hair and make-up.  Being female is an
exclusive club and if you weren’t born that way, you will never
understand.  God made women to be
caretakers, nurturers with the ability to love unconditionally.  A man trying to become a woman will never
know the calm, contented feeling that washes over her as soon as her baby is
born. He will never know the hours of labor or the intense pain of
delivery.  He will never understand the
heartstrings that ties a mother to her son or the unbreakable bond that she
holds with her daughter.

A man will never know the depths of postpartum depression,
the recuperation of a c-section while caring for a newborn or the unkindness of
her favorite pair of jeans. A man will never look in the mirror and have wide
hips and a pouchy belly where the world expects toned abs and sun-kissed skin
with shiny, healthy hair falling down her back.

I will never discount the vital role of fatherhood.  Dads are crucial for the success of the
nuclear family.  Period.

Will this man trying to be a woman ever stop numerous times during
the day to wonder if their first grader is making friends? Or if their 7^th
grader is getting ridiculed because of her clothes or hair?  Or if he should have stayed home with her
coughing 3^rd grader?  Will he
ever suffer for years from mom-guilt because she unfairly accused her 17-year-old
of lying or because she lost her temper on her 9-year-old for not putting the
laundry in the dryer? Probably not. Will he lose sleep because his third grader
isn’t reading? Will he wake up at 3 am to make cupcakes for the classroom
Halloween party?

He will never deal with postpartum flyaway hair, hot
flashes, menstruation, the embarrassment of thinning hair, nails that won’t
grow and leggings that never lie.

While I want to stand up for the purity of female athletics
and beyond, let’s not negate the responsibility that comes with XY.  It’s greater than you think. The current
culture has devalued dads for far too long. We need strong men willing to take
on the task of being influential fathers.

Women have exclusive rights to growing another human, are
exclusively responsible for nourishing an unborn life and delivering a joyous
bundle that will have immeasurable impact on countless lives. While someone may
feel like a woman, a man will never be one. 
Feelings are fickle, facts are facts.

By Melissa Hart

 You want me to do what? Produce a magazine four times a
year? 

I had no experience in magazines, printing, ad design,
selling advertising, much less any thoughts about a media kit, cover designs,
bleeds, or ad specs. I was a freelance writer. 
I knew how to type words in a word document and send it to the newspaper
or magazine, but to actually come up with a complete magazine, nope, not for
me.

I knew I couldn’t come up with editorial content that anyone
wanted to read.

I knew I would never be able to sell advertising, or come up
with a reason why someone should advertise.

I knew I would never have the time to sell, write, edit and
hire a designer, who was I fooling? Or better yet, what was God thinking?

My first reaction to any challenge is fear.  Fear of failure, fear of not knowing what I
need to know and fear of people being disappointed in me.  I know I’m not alone, but when I’m sitting in
my office and there is no one there to pat me on the back or to brainstorm
ideas with, the loneliness sets in, and the fear factor rises.

While fear may be a real feeling, the fact is, God has
equipped each one of us to perform the challenge that is set before us.  If we are managing a farm, taking care of
people, or making financial decisions, God knows we are capable.  If we own a business, 10,000 acres or rent an
apartment and work at the local retail store, God knows the level of responsibility
that we can handle. 

He knows how much we can manage, how well we can perform and
how far we can be pushed to accomplish His plans.  He not only knows, but He also expects us to
steward the resources he gives us.  We
may be in charge of our earthly responsibilities, but He expects stewarship.
And when you have a God who owns it all and He also equips us with the ability
to take care of his gifts, then there is no excuse or reason to retreat in
fear.

 Whatever your facing,
whatever decision you are making, remember that you were not gifted with a
spirit of fear, but you were given a sound mind and He expects you to use it
for your good and His glory.

 By Melissa Hart

Starch was a staple growing up.  My mom would spend a few afternoons every
week standing over an ironing board making sure all of my dad’s clothes were
starched and looking crisp.  She didn’t
stop there, she would starch her clothes, dad’s hankies, her aprons, doilies,
cloth napkins that were used on special occasions and especially the tablecloths
that donned the dinner table on Sunday afternoons when we were likely to have
company for dinner.

Seeing my mom set up her ironing board in the kitchen was a
normal part of growing up and I thought all moms did that, until I found out they
didn’t. But I did.  Early in our marriage
I had a big pile of ironing, just like my mom. 
And within the pile, along with my husband’s shirts, his Wrangler jeans,
and crocheted doilies were pillowcases.  Again,
I thought everyone starched their pillowcases, until I found out they didn’t.

This led me to asking mom why on earth we starched pillowcases?  It was simple, it protected the pillowcase
from the dirt and grime that can ruin or stain it. Also, it prolongs the life
of the pillowcase or anything else that could be starched.  This made perfect sense, and so I continued
to spray starch on the pillowcases, napkins, white shirts, doilies, and Wrangler
jeans.

As the busyness of a family encroached on my available time
to starch the family dress clothes, the pressed pillowcases went by the wayside.
I haven’t starched a pillowcase in 25 years. But my mom on the other hand,
still takes the time to carefully spray the starch on and press in the
satisfying creases.

In a recent conversation the subject of pillowcases popped
up when she had come across a set that were given to them as a wedding
gift.  That means those pillowcases were
65 years old and still going strong, thanks to the starch. Then she told me this
story; when she and my dad were newlyweds, she had just changed the sheets and
as they crawled into bed he smelled the pillowcase and asked why she starched
them. She explained why and he replied, “Whenever I smell the pillowcases it
makes me feel like someone cares.”  That simple
statement filled her up 65 years ago making her feel like she had done
something right. And today, every time she starches a pillowcase that memory floods
her mind and soothes her grieving soul that misses the man she loved and who’s
pillowcase she starched for over six decades. 

I have a new podcast out on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!  It’s the Dairy Agenda Today EXTRA Podcast with Chris Hill !

Chris and his wife, Jen, operate MD-Hillbrook in Maryland and specialize in marketing purebred dairy genetics. Chris took a few minutes out of his day while he was trucking cattle to the Maryland State Fair to visit about how he became an auctioneer and how on earth he can breath while crying a sale! 

If you enjoy the podcast, share it on your social media channels!