Then again, maybe I should run for office...

I just scared myself so bad my eyes rolled back in my head, my teeth chattered and I would have fallen over except that I was already lying on the sofa, working on my blog. It started last Friday, when Senator Mike Brubaker was talking to a group of farmers in New Holland about the current state of farm finances as they relate to dairy farmers and the beleaguered Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture budget.

Grim stuff, it was.

Before he talked about issues, Brubaker handed out a questionnaire to his listeners, asking them which PDA programs they felt merited funding and which didn't. There were 29 programs on the list, covering things like ag research, nutrient management, farm safety, FFA, 4-H, marketing programs, fairs, etc.

My eyes fixed right away on hardwoods research and promotion. I figured the tree guys can handle their own marketing, promotion, research, administration...whatever. They don't need taxpayer money to fund what is essentially a private industry.

So then I figured, "That is meat for a blog. Yeah. Juicy meat." I could have just taken off on hardwoods, and ranted for a few paragraphs about lumber barons or maybe earls with their snouts in the public feed trough, but I thought, "I'll get some facts first and really blow it up."

I went to page 378 - I believe it was - of the 901-page 2009-10 budget to find out how much we the taxpayers were paying these guys. In the 2007-08 budget, they got $780,000. In 2008-09 they got $760,000. And in 2009-10, in the midst of one of the worst financial crises the state, the nation and the world have ever seen, these tree-growers are getting zero. That's right, zero. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Goose egg. The check is not in the mail.

I was pleasantly surprised, as you can imagine. I thought, "Wow! That means the politicians are thinking the way I'm thinking."

Then I had another thought. "Or else it means I'm thinking like a politician."

That's when the eyes rolled back...

Oh they's so fresh and fine...and they's just around the corner. That's a paraphrase of the strawberry woman's song from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, in case you didn't know. This week's Home on the Range page in Lancaster Farming pays homage to the sweet red berry, due this week at your local farm stand. Love them berries. Love that Gershwin. I just had to sing it. By the time I got to "...and they's just offen that vi-i-i-ine..." Louie had looked at me with his sad, pitying basset eyes and dragged his ears off to another room.

This is how they do "Got Milk?" in England. If you understand this, please send me an email. Like I say...give me Gershwin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY_7EOVa310