Feed-in Tariffs for Solar Continue To Spread

Variations on the policy that jumpstarted Germany’s decade-long boom in rooftop solar systems are taking root in more cities in the United States. The policy, called a feed-in tariff, offers small-scale producers of solar energy long-term contracts (usually at above-market rates) for the electricity they sell. Last week, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.4 million people, approved a feed-in tariff that allows homeowners with solar panels a chance to sign up for 10, 15 or 20 years of guaranteed payments. The policy will take effect next January. The city of Gainesville, Fla., adopted a feed-in tariff this spring, as did Vermont. Washington state also has such a policy, and Hawaii is currently considering one. While feed-in tariffs are most closely associated with solar photovoltaic panels, utilities managing the programs in Vermont and Sacramento will also pay a set price for electricity generated from other renewable sources, like wind...NYTimes

Livestock Antibiotic Bill in the Works

A congressional committee recently held a hearing on a bill that proposes severe restrictions on the use of antibiotics in food animals. The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009 would ban "non-therapeutic" uses of antibiotics that are also used in humans. It is hoped that this would prevent antibiotic resistance and preserve these drugs to treat human infections. However, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) said there is no scientific proof that this ban would have any affect on resistance in human medicine. The AVMA said the bill affects food animals only and will not impact horses. "The AVMA opposes this legislation because it would increase animal disease and death--an unfortunate and unintended consequence--without assurance of improving human health. As defined within the text of the legislation, elimination of 'non-therapeutic' uses of antimicrobials would disallow disease prevention and potentially control uses. This type of broad based ban is contrary to the practice of veterinary medicine," the association stated. "We need tools that control herd health, not just treat disease. Animals that are exposed need to be treated prophylactically, and that is something that would be banned by the bill," said Ashley N. Shelton, DVM, of the AVMA. The American Association of Equine Practitioners has not taken a stand on the bill...TheHorse

Song Of The Day #092

Carl Smith's Satisfaction Guaranteed is our song today.

It's available on several of his collections, such as the 20 cut Don't Just Stand There: 20 Greatest Hits .

You will be "lured" not "coerced" out of your vehicle

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who said in May that he wanted to use federal policy to "coerce" people out of their cars, told CNSNews.com on Friday that what he really meant to say is that he wants to use federal policy to "lure" people out of their cars. At a May 21 event at the National Press Club, LaHood responded to a piece in Newsweek written by columnist George Will, which quoted LaHood as saying, " I think we can change people's behavior," and mocked him as the "Secretary of Behavior Modification." At that May event LaHood talked about a Transportation Department initiative that is designed to change people's behavior by getting them to walk and use bicycles rather drive, and he specifically described the initiative as "a way to coerce people out of their cars."...CNSNews

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary a lure has several definitions. One is:

an inducement to pleasure or gain.

Another is:

a decoy for attracting animals to capture.

I'm thinking he wants us to believe the first, while he really means the second...and with no bag limit.

Whale-Watching Ship Hits, Impales Whale

It wasn't a pretty sight, but whale watchers on a cruise ship in Canada got more than they bargained for when they arrived at the port of Vancouver -- a dead whale stuck to the bow. The vessel apparently struck the 70-ton fin whale in the ocean and unknowingly carried it wedged to the bow from Alaskan waters to the Canadian port. The adult whale was an estimated 70 feet (21 meters) long...AP

Climate Bill: Chambliss wants numbers, more numbers

For an update on the Climate Bill and the activity of Senator Chambliss, Ranking Minority Member on the Senate Ag Committee, see this post at blogriculture.

A Picture Is Worth A 1000 Words

The picture on the left demonstrates the importance of private property rights more than words ever could. Taken in Zimbabwe, and put up by the Center for Global Development, this is an ariel view where the "dry communal lands on the left are sharply delineated from the green private farms dotted with lakes and ponds on the right–so sharply that soil quality and rainfall are unlikely to explain the difference." The center then provides a second image, taken after President Mugabe's attack on private property, and the seizing of farms by the State. The result is sadly predictable. The dams and irrigation systems on the private farms collapsed, making them look more like communal lands, to the detriment of all...Tim Andrews on ATR.

Water Restoration Act Threatens Ranchers, Small Business

Jim Chilton, a fifth generation rancher from southeast Ariz., testified today on behalf of National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council (PLC) during a House Committee on Small Business hearing on the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA). Chilton, whose family has been in the cattle business for over 120 years, explained how the CWRA would threaten farmers and ranchers, in addition to small businesses, small communities, forestry, mining, and manufacturing on private and federally-managed lands. “This is essentially a limitless national land and water use control effort that will regulate every activity in a wet area in the nation,” said Chilton. “It’s nothing more than a ‘nice-sounding’ name which masks an economically and culturally devastating power grab, flagrantly violating both the spirit and the words of the U.S. Constitution.” The proposed Act—which passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last month—would drastically expand the Clean Water Act (CWA), giving the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) and the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) control over all watersheds in the nation, and all “activities affecting these waters.” Since all land in the nation is within a watershed, it means that the Corps and EPA would have land-use control over farmers’ and ranchers’ property and other businesses not currently under the jurisdiction of the CWA. This new Federal jurisdiction would include hundreds of millions of isolated, intrastate pools, stock water ponds, springs, small lakes, depressions filled with water on an intermittent basis, drainage and irrigation ditches, irrigated areas that would otherwise be dry, sloughs, and damp places located on farms and ranches that have no nexus with any navigable waters...PressRelease

Coordination: Old concept, bold new weapon for property rights

The word coordinate has been around for quite a while, since at least the mid-seventeenth century, but its application as a strategy to protect property rights is relatively new. Now, a number of communities across the nation, and a growing group here in Wisconsin, are using the concept to force federal and state agencies to coordinate, or work integrally, with them in planning land-use projects. Simply put, a mandate for government agencies to coordinate with local governments is found in most federal land-use statutes and agency regulations, and in many state statutes. According to a Standing Ground white paper published last year by the groups Stewards of the Range - a pro-property rights organization - and the American Land Foundation, coordination was first required in a federal land use statute in 1976, in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and has been included in every federal land use legislation since. Some years ago, attorney Fred Kelly Grant, a land use expert who has served as president of Stewards of the Range (as of July 1, Stewards and the American Land Foundation merged to form American Stewards of Liberty), recognized the little-known requirement and began to use it to preserve local governments' policy prerogatives, not to mention private property rights. It sounds deceptively simply, but it can be deceptively powerful, having scored successes ranging from the preservation of grazing season length in Modoc County, Calif., to similar triumphs in Idaho, Texas and other states. Specifically, as last fall's white paper laid out, coordination requires early notification to a local government of all actions or plans of a federal agency that will affect those units of government, as well as giving those governments meaningful input into the planning process. It also requires an agency to consider a related local government policy or plan or management action, and to make every effort possible to make the federal policy, plan or action consistent with the local one...LakelandTimes

This article just shows how far ahead of his time Dick Manning really was.

Uranium Contamination Haunts Navajo Country

It was one year ago that the environmental scientist showed up at Fred Slowman’s door, deep in the heart of Navajo country, and warned that it was unsafe for him to stay there. The Slowman home, the same one-level cinderblock structure his family had lived in for nearly a half-century, was contaminated with potentially dangerous levels of uranium from the days of the cold war, when hundreds of uranium mines dotted the vast tribal land known as the Navajo Nation. The scientist advised Mr. Slowman, his wife and their two sons to move out until their home could be rebuilt. “I was angry,” Mr. Slowman said. “I guess it was here all this time, and we never knew.” The legacy wrought from decades of uranium mining is long and painful here on the expansive reservation. Over the years, Navajo miners extracted some four million tons of uranium ore from the ground, much of it used by the United States government to make weapons. Many miners died from radiation-related illnesses, and some, unaware of harmful health effects, hauled contaminated rocks and tailings from local mines and mills to build homes for their families...NYTimes

Las Cruces family gets glimpse of cattle's rough ranch life

A family recently learned firsthand how cruel nature can be when they came upon several head of livestock struggling to get out of the mud surrounding a watering hole. The situation so distressed the Las Crucens that they called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to intervene, but livestock experts say the grim scene at Corralitos Ranch is really just an unfortunate part of life on a ranch. Trey Bays, district livestock board supervisor for the Las Cruces area, said a livestock inspector responded on Sunday and he followed up himself a couple of days later. He said what they found at the site was not a case of ongoing animal abuse or neglect, but actually a relatively common occurrence. "Cows get stuck in the mud all the time," Bays said. "It's part of nature. Sometimes, you're just too late to save them. I don't think there's any neglect here." Dennis Hallford, professor of animal science at New Mexico State University, said even in the best of circumstances, it's normal for Western ranchers to lose about 1 percent of their cattle in a given year to poisonous plants, trouble calving, lightning strikes, predators - or even getting stuck in the mud. "It's certainly not a function of neglect on the part of the rancher," Hallford said...SilverCitySun-News

Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition launches Rangeland Monitoring Program

The Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition announces the launch of its Rangeland Monitoring Program and has contracted with two new Rangeland Technicians to implement on-site technical monitoring assistance. Funded by the Nebraska Environmental Trust and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service of Nebraska, the new NGLC Rangeland Monitoring Program provides assistance to landowners and managers in identifying grazing management goals and implementing a monitoring system to measure change. The program is available across the state on a first-come, first-serve basis for a low cost of only $25. Participants will receive an initial on-site consultation and training session with an NGLC Rangeland Technician who will provide assistance in identifying a monitoring plan, establishing one monitoring site and collecting samples. They will also receive a monitoring kit valued at over $175 consisting of grass shears, and a scale, tape measure, clipping frame and more. Dana Larsen, NRCS State Rangeland Management Specialist and NGLC advisor, said, "Ranchers and landowners who are dedicated to improving the quality of their grazing lands will ultimately see results in profitability, with economic and environmental changes that benefit the long-term sustainability of their business and the land." As part of enrollment, participants will agree to share their knowledge and experience--and help the program grow--by committing to help one additional rancher or landowner in their region set up a similar monitoring program. The program is limited to 100 participants statewide, and is expected to fill up fast, according to Larsen...HighPlainsJournal

Slater rancher Tom Williams pursues burro racing

Had everything gone to plan, Thursday’s workout would have been an important one, and Justine’s hesitation, even as slight as it was, might have been a worry. Everything hasn’t gone to plan, though, and instead of a final tune-up for Williams’ original goal — Saturday’s Burro Days race and celebration in Fairplay — Thursday’s jog saw Williams easing back into the sport. “That felt all right,” Williams said afterward, looking surprised. “I haven’t run for more than a week.” An early July riding accident ended Williams’ hopes of competing not just in the Fairplay race, but also in the other two spires of the triple crown of Colorado burro racing: the Gold Rush Days race in Buena Vista and the Boom Days race in Leadville. Williams fell from his horse and broke his ribs while checking the fence on a friend’s ranch. “The dog got after the horse and (it) bucked me off,” Williams said, looking at the floor and shuffling his feet. “It doesn’t really buck, but I lost a stirrup and fell.” Williams, a native of the Baggs, Wyo., area, has long been a regular runner. He’s completed in half a dozen marathons, logging finishes everywhere from Jacksonville, Fla., to Taos, N.M. He ran the Steamboat Marathon in 2006 and has been a regular in the Steamboat Springs Running Series throughout the years. “I still get between two and 10 miles a day,” said Williams, now 62 years old. It wasn’t until Justine came into his life that he contemplated burro racing. He got the animal from a friend and got the idea to race it from a flier for the Fairplay event...SteamboatPilot

Fair’s cattle drive reflects ranching legacy

The California Mid-State Fair opened this week with a cattle drive. It’s the real thing because San Luis Obispo County was a real “cow town.” The late Peter Andre recalled the days of cattle here: “It was great fun to become involved in cattle drives in those days. Before he died in the 1980s, George Souza, an old time rancher and also at times a cattle buyer, gave me two cashed and canceled checks, one dated in 1932, showing me receiving a day’s pay of $2.50, and one dated 1934 for $3.50 for one day’s pay driving cattle.” Pete’s father, grocer J. J. Andre, became a cattleman by default. Grocers extended credit to ranchers for supplies, sometimes for several years. Occasionally, when bad times hit, J. J. would acquire a ranch for the amount owed. That’s just the way it was in the Old West. Pete continues: “Before the days of trucks, we had to drive our cattle to either the slaughter house or stock yard from the ranch in the Irish Hills and Pecho area...TheTribune

Strong, Plentiful Green Chile Harvest Expected

New Mexico's harvest of the green chile crop is just a couple of weeks away, and experts already believe it will be a very strong and plentiful harvest. Stephanie Walker, a chile breeding researcher at New Mexico State University, said the chile fields look very good and the plants are loaded with peppers. "As long as Mother Nature cooperates for the rest of season, we will have an excellent crop," said Walker. The New Mexico green chile crop has had some difficult years recently due to insect problems and disease. In the state's top chile-producing area, Luna County, 25 percent of the crop was affected by disease and parasites during the 2008 harvest. Experts in Luna County said the chile fields "look phenomenal" this season. The county extension office said some growers are already preparing to harvest. K-FoxTV

Save the habitat, kill the turtles

Vin Suprynowicz

When -- in the name of heaven, I demand to know -- are those responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act going to do something about remediating the habitat devastation and starting to recover the minuscule remaining population, before it has dwindled past the point of no return, of that brave and noble beast, the poodle?

What? Are you serious, Vin? There are, like, 68 million domestic pet dogs in this country, and the poodle is the seventh most numerous breed. There are millions of poodles out there.

As a matter of fact, purebred poodles are among the 4 million to 6 million dogs euthanized in America each year because homes can't be found for them. America's dog and cat problem is not species extinction; it's overpopulation.

Well, to anyone tempted to respond in that manner, let me clarify for you what the Endangered Species Act is really all about. You see, the number of poodles living in domestic captivity doesn't count. Once we have succeeded in getting the noble poodle listed as threatened or endangered -- as it most certainly is, in the traditional range of its wild habitat -- all that will matter is the number of wild, untouched acres set aside. Once you've developed a house and a yard and put two happy poodles in it, for purposes of the federal ESA, you might as well have just shot the pups, because you have destroyed wild poodle habitat, and we are going to count your poodles as "taken," meaning dead. In fact, we may have to take steps to stop you from allowing them to breed, up to and including "euthanizing" your captive slave dogs, since "Unlimited breeding of an endangered species in captivity is something the community has to look into."

You think I'm making this up? Here in Las Vegas, Clark County's Desert Conservation Program -- a well-paid division of the county Department of Air Quality and Environmental Management -- is currently going hat in hand to the appropriate chain of federal agencies, asking "permission" to amend the so-called Desert Tortoise (and 77 other critters, including bugs and mosses) Habitat Plan, with the purpose of "allowing" the county to develop an additional 215,000 acres of adjoining stinking desert in the decades to come.

The theory, you see, is that any human activity which "moves dirt" destroys tortoise habitat, and cannot be allowed unless developers obtain federal permits for the "incidental take" of tortoises (regardless of whether a single tortoise is seen or killed), including a fee or fine of $550 per acre, which is used to build "tortoise fences" to keep the turtles from crossing the road to get to water, and so forth.

Wow. Under that theory, there must be practically no tortoises left in the Las Vegas Valley, which has now been heavily developed for decades. Right?

Actually, officials have rounded up more than 10,000 of the little buggers, right here in the Vegas Valley, turning them over to the Fish and Wildlife's Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, where they and their progeny are farmed out as pets, or for experiments. Those that aren't euthanized for having runny noses, you understand. Marci Henson of the county's Desert Conservation Program estimates about 2 percent of the poor little "threatened" reptiles get "euthanized."

("Run, little tortoises, run!" as former County Commissioner Don Schlesinger once put it.)

Sometimes, on a Saturday morning, I drive around this town, visiting garage sales. I've seen quite a few kids playing with their desert tortoises in their driveways. Cliven Bundy, the last cattle rancher in Clark County, tells me when the Kern River pipeline people came through and did a federally mandated tortoise population density study as part of their required Environmental Impact Statement, they found several times more tortoises per acre on the lands where the Bundys have water tanks for their cattle than they found in the hot, dry desert -- and literally 10 times the tortoise population density -- the highest densities recorded -- right here in the Las Vegas valley.

This isn't even counterintuitive. Early explorers found precious few tortoises in the dry Mojave desert, where the toothless reptiles struggle to find enough water and edible tender shoots. The Spaniards found only shells and thought them extinct. These animals developed in an ecosystem which had large toothy vegetarians -- deer, elk, whatever -- to crop back the brush, a role now filled only by cattle.

In the 1920s and 1930s, tortoise populations swelled artificially as ranchers ran cattle on these lands and killed the tortoises' main predators, the coyote and the raven.

As "environmentalists" have succeeded in running the ranchers off the land, the cattle have vanished, no one is any longer shooting coyotes and ravens, and thus tortoise populations have slumped back to historically normal levels.

Are there now more tortoises, or fewer, than when cattle grazed the land? How many tortoises are there? Fish and Wildlife is still working to establish a "baseline population number," Ms. Henson replies.

Twenty years after the tortoise received an "emergency listing" as a threatened species in 1989, they're still trying to establish a "baseline"? So when will they be able to tell us whether we have enough new tortoises, bred in their joyous cattle-free paradise, to de-list the species and allow humans to get back to developing our land as we see fit? Eighty years from now? Eight hundred?

Twenty years and no one has done a simple control experiment, releasing 300 tortoises on Cliven Bundy's grazed land with its water tanks and cattle, and another 300 tortoises on an adjoining dry, desolate and cattle-free valley, coming back three years later to count which valley has more tortoises and which seem healthier?

All this bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo is based on the presumption that any "human interference" with the dry and stinking desert ruins it as tortoises habitat, when the truth -- that tortoises actually do much better with people around, just like roaches and pigeons and hummingbirds -- stares us right in the face.

Cue "Thus Spake Zarathustra." Remove the blindfold, please. No, Mr. Tortoise, you haven't died and gone to heaven. We call this ... a golf course.

If they really wanted more tortoises, any old desert rat can tell them the solution is to shoot ravens and coyotes. Mind you, I'm not recommending that. We've got plenty of tortoises right now.

These people don't care about tortoises -- they're euthanizing them, for heaven's sake. The tortoise -- or whatever moss or bug or flycatcher eventually takes it place -- is merely a stand-in, a cat's paw, to give federal bureaucrats and their lunatic green pals complete control over development of private land in the West.

Just how fecund are those 10,000 captive tortoises, I asked Marci Henson.

"Oh, we think a lot of those ten thousand were pet tortoises, we believe as few as 2 percent may have actually been wild."

How can they tell -- the turtles came in wearing little knitted sweaters and booties? They keep trying to sit up and shake hands?

Besides, Ms. Henson said, quite seriously, "Unlimited breeding of an endangered species in captivity is something the community has to look into."

"To stop it?" I asked.

"Yes," said Marci Henson.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "The Ballad of Carl Drega" and "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com/ and http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/vin/.

Maxine Hille 1919-2009

Maxine Hille passed away at the age of 89 at Mesilla Valley Hospice's La Posada in Las Cruces following a short illness, July 21, 2009. Her husband, Dick Hille, preceded her in death in 1998.
She is survived by a son, Rod Hille and wife, Bonnie, of Engle, N.M.; daughters, Ann Mobley and husband, Tom, of Doña Ana, N.M.; Linda Edwards and husband, Joel, of Hurley, N.M., and Gayle Ayers and husband, Jim, of Estancia, N.M.; a son, Freddie, predeceased her in 1941 at the age of 3.
Surviving grandchildren are Clint Hille, of Gonzalez, Texas; Bonnie Jo (Hille) Lee and husband, Randy, of Edmond, Okla.; Lori (Mobley) Snodgrass and husband, Mel, of Santa Teresa, N.M.; Fred Mobley and wife, Rebecca, of Las Cruces, N.M.; Jeff Mobley and wife, Cristy, of Nichols Hills, Okla.; Lisa (Edwards) Smith and husband, Darryl, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; Jolene (Edwards) Latta and husband, Marty, of Marana, Ariz.; Jason Edwards and wife, Rhonda, of Hurley, N.M.; Jamie Ayers and wife, Christy, of Lubbock, Texas; Jimi Ann (Ayers) Losleben and husband, Chris, of Glendale, Ariz.; and Jeremy Ayers of Glendale, Ariz.
She has 21 great-grandchildren, Shelbi, Blake, Audra, Ross, and Cade Lee; Stephanie and Chance Snodgrass; Brannon and Annalies Mobley; Mackenzie and Madison Mobley; Ryder and Sophia Smith; Dustin Latta; Jayross and Jaycee Edwards; Ethan, Aubree, and Jayton Ayers; and Bradley and Jocelyn Losleben.
Maxine was born on Nov. 21, 1919, into the family of a horse-and-buggy country doctor in Wellington, Texas. The family that included father, Dr. W. W. Beach; mother, Ethel Beach; brother, Gaston Beach; and sister, Zenada Beach Anglin, all preceded her in death.
The Beach family followed the traveling doctor with residences in several west Texas towns during the first five years of Maxine's life. In 1924, they settled in Shamrock where the doctor established a private hospital, then called a "sanitarium." The family home and separate living quarters for nurses, along with laundry facilities for the sanitarium, were located on an adjacent lot.
In 1935, Maxine met Dick Hille during a family visit to Hot Springs, N.M., now Truth or Consequences. During the night of June 11, the couple eloped and were married by a justice of the peace in Kingston, whom they had to awaken to perform the ceremony.
Together, Dick and Maxine homesteaded on the Seco Canyon near the Rio Grande adjacent to present day Caballo Lake, where they built their home and hand dug a well for irrigation and house water. Maxine continued her schooling, riding the school bus to Hot Springs each day, and graduated from Hot Springs High School. They "proved up" on the homestead and received the patent in 1938.
When construction on Caballo Dam began, Dick was hired on the project and became a skilled blacksmith and welder. During the World War II years, those skills were considered essential to the war effort and the couple moved through a series of military support projects in Oklahoma, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. In 1946, they returned to N.M. and established Las Cruces Welding and Fabrication in Las Cruces, which they owned and operated until 1973.
In 1959, Dick and Maxine bought the V O Bar Ranch adjoining White Sands Missile Range in northern Doña Ana County and southern Sierra County. During the ensuing years, they maintained the home and business properties in Las Cruces, along with the ranch. Following Dick's death in 1998, Maxine sold the city properties, building a home near her daughter Ann north of Doña Ana. In 2004, she sold the ranch, and in 2008, sold the home to live her final days with Ann and Tom.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m., Monday July 27, 2009, preceded by family visitation at 9 a.m., at Fairacres Baptist Church, where Maxine was a longtime member, under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Robert Donohue, with burial following at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens. Maxine's grandsons will serve as pallbearers.
The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts be made to Fairacres Baptist Church Building Fund, P.O. Box 257, Fairacres, N.M. 88003; or to Mesilla Valley Hospice, Inc, 299 Montana Ave., Las Cruces, N.M. 88005
Arrangements by Getz Funeral Home, corner of Solano and Bowman Ave., Las Cruces, N.M.; (575) 526-2419. To sign the local online guest book, go to www.GetzFuneralHome.com

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Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Read Julie's column today not just for pleasure, but for commentary. She's said more by using children, dancing and smiling in the rain than I and most political pundits have said using all kinds of political lingo.

God bless the country folk

Julie Carter

Is dancing on a dirt floor and laughing in the rain a sign that, maybe, perhaps, we the people are headed back to some basics in life?

Through my job, I've paid pretty close attention to rural trends and traditions for the past decade, hot on the trail of fun with a camera and keyboard. I recorded, documented, cussed, discussed and inquired myself through event after event throughout the years.

In the beginning, the families that had young children they watched and worried over, have now seen them off on their first date followed too soon, by seeing them off to college.

Those who had toddlers that crawled in the dirt under the bleachers at the 4th of July rodeo and dug in the sand pile at the county fair are now waiting late for them at the rodeo dance.

Year after year, it was the same, sometimes a few new faces, but life moved through its paces like a filmstrip on a steadily turning reel.

Country folk have always been able to find a way to enjoy life using what was at hand. All it took was family and friends with a dose of food and some music.

Ingredients for happy moments.

None of that has changed much. Even this far into the age of high-tech living where those same kids own iPods, cell phones and laptop computers, the basics of rural family entertainment still remain.

Those boot-scootin' teens will happily show up at a country dance - hats on, belt buckles shining and smiles that light up a barn.

It started when they were barely big enough to walk. Momma or Daddy took them out on the dance floor and danced with them.

By the time they were in the fourth grade, they were finding their own dancing partners, usually someone they had played with in the mud under the bleachers when they were toddlers.

A huge part of this country is living in situations and circumstances that are far from entertaining or uplifting. Fear and worry feed the stress they wear on their faces.

I believe the majority of people in those places have forgotten how to have fun. They have no way to fight it except with what ends up as addictions and a boiling rage at life in general.

I know people have been dancing in barns on dirt floors since they invented barns.

They've laughed and smiled in the rain since the beginning of rain, except for, maybe, those folks stuck on the shore while the ark floated off over the horizon.

However, what I see now, and I could just be all dusty and/or wet, is a new levity of spirit as folks gather to celebrate something worthwhile, something simple.

It seems to me the smiles come easier, folks laugh more readily and there is an elevated appreciation for friendships and the freedom to be happy.

A joyful spirit is a generous spirit and when there is a need, even the poor will pull out their pockets and empty them for a cause. That fuels even more joy. Pie auctions and passing the hat are two of the original bailout plans.

Is this the upside of a disastrous economy and uncertainty for tomorrow? Are we, the people, finally realizing that what we have right here in front of us is precious and that simple things can bring great pleasure?

I'm just saying, I'm convinced those folks dancing in the barn and smiling in the rain have something figured out.

The recipe isn't new, but the enthusiasm is renewed.

I'm all for passing a little more of that around.

Julie, who never did learn the Cotton-eyed Joe, can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com

Song Of The Day #091

Today's gospel song is I Heard My Savior Calling Me.

It's available as the fifth cut on her CD Dust On The Bible.