Bringing Home the Bacon

I can't stand it when people get all indignant and can't see the humor in things. Nothing is more unappealing to me than when an individual or an organization is so self-focused that they can't or won't allow for any self-deprecating laughs. That said, this farm wife from Dayton HATES, HATES the "cow tipping" shirts that greet visitors at the Dayton (we offer connecting flights to Canada) International Airport. Oh, you haven't seen them? I tried to take a photo during my most recent trip: Right after I snapped the photo I was told by the Paradies Shop cashier that I wasn't allowed to photograph the shirts--they are copyrighted, apparently. The shirts greeting visitors to Dayton--our suggested last-minute gift items to take home to loved ones--they say "Nothing Tips Like a Cow." So you see my quandary. It is sort of funny. It says, "hey honey, look what I brought you back from the middle of nowhere." It's Ohio, nothing here

The fact that I straddle the worlds of corporate America and agriculture is a theme of this blog but it has really come home to me this week with the number of friends and family who have stopped us to get our opinion on Ohio Issue 2. Some have been apologetic for "bothering" us about this, but really we're the only farmers they know . I have been happy to help via Facebook message or e-mail but at the request of a good friend and fellow blogger, I decided to post about how we are voting and why. First, let me summarize by saying that we are voting YES. We have the sign in our front yard proclaiming our intentions. Second, if you disagree with me, then fine. I'm not writing this to change anyone's mind--only to reach people who are undecided and value our opinion as real farmers. I'll start by pointing out that the vote-no-people, the Humane Society of the US, is a vegan organization who (by their own admission) have the end goal of eliminating consumpti

Even when you live in a place called Farmersville, there is still a disconnect between farm life and the experiences of most people you meet. Fortunately, our children are happy ambassadors of rural living. This most recent episode of What Farm Kids Do for Fun takes place at our annual fall party. With five "hosts" (my children and nephews), the party has grown bigger than last year's party . We had 23 kids, plus parents at the farm to navigate the straw maze, decorate pumpkins, and enjoy the hay ride (it's really straw !). Farm kids and their friends know that something as simple as playing in the leaves can be the best way to spend an October afternoon. My petulant princess and her two rakish pirate brothers enjoyed themselves immensely. Check out more photos of the day here:

Sometimes when you are straddling the worlds of corporate communications and agriculture, you have conversations like this. Me from work via cell phone: Guess what? We WON! We won a national PR award! Noises coming from Husband's cell phone: OINK. oink, oink, snort. OINNNK. Husband: That's good isn't it? Yes, I'm very proud to say that our team won a PR News Platinum PR Award for a community relations program geared to introduce area high school students to careers in health care. The event included a cadaver lab and mock trauma in the ER. I'd say it's a safe bet that the national PR agencies (Coyne, Ogilvy) and major brand names (Hard Rock, GE, Lego, Coca-Cola) that also won awards in this program did NOT spend 2/3 of their program budget on dead bodies. But then it's also a safe bet that their PR team wasn't congratulated by barnyard animals.

This week I had the opportunity to speak to some Intro to PR students at our local Community College (Chevy Chase was not there. Darn.). The adjunct faculty member and I had worked together years ago doing B2B public relations. She asked me to share a little about my career path and how I had now landed in non-profit healthcare . Since I have also been asked to be on a social media panel for another local university's PR students, I thought I would use my blog to share the differences between working in public relations/communications in high-tech B2B and non-profit healthcare . Why you love to work there: Healthcare - Small department moves quickly. Ideas discussed in the hallway in the morning are underway by the afternoon. Management is all local. B2B - Challenge of taking high-tech jargon and turning it into compelling media pitches. Tech trade journalists and national business pages can be tough to crack--but very exciting when you do. Your biggest frustration on the job:

Last week--was it only last week, it feels like it's been months already--we hitched our wagon with all our belongings, tied a cow to the back for milk and headed out on a family vacation to Disney World. Actually, we flew on AirTran, which made the journey a lot less pleasant for the cow. We were so excited that our island-dwelling family could join us. All those days on the beach can really wear on a person, so we're really glad they could get away. Is it just me or does it seem like any time you get a large group of people together, you spend 80 percent of your time eating. For us, this worked out great, because WE ATE FREE THE WHOLE TIME. Oh, yeah. Eat your hearts out Mommy Bloggers on special Disney mommy advisory panels, we had FREE food for our entire trip. See that breakfast at the Magic Kingdom--FREE. We took advantage of a Disney promotion that offered a free Disney Dining Plan. We didn't even know what a great benefit we had until we did dinner for five wit

I took my popular Dayton Media Twitter list and did another analysis this week to determine the most frequently followed Dayton journalists on Twitter. WHIO TV7 - 1608 followers Dayton Daily News - Hal McCoy - 1462 followers Dayton Daily News - 1387 followers WDTN TV2 - 1286 followers Dayton Daily News - Ohio Politics - 990 followers Dayton Daily News - Mark Fisher Wine - 927 followers Greenville Advocate 360 - 903 followers WDTN TV2 - Kennan Oliphant - 794 followers WHIO TV7 - Rich Wirdzek - 676 followers Dayton Daily News - Mark Fisher Food - 611 followers *Followers as of Oct. 10, 2009. A few observations on this list: The list changed very little since August, with the addition of @darkecounty , which bumped Dayton Daily News - Kim Margolis . WHIO TV7 took the lead over Dayton Daily News - Hal McCoy . Just today, the paper announced that Hal will be staying on in a freelance capacity and continuing his Twitter account. Kennan Oliphant remains the most prolific individual