Agriculture

The Shelby County Cooperative Extension Office will host an informational meeting for a new regional produce auction Thursday from 4 to 7 p.m.

Shelby County farmer David Neville started Capstone Produce Auction this fall in response to increased demand for local produce. The business combines his agriculture and auctioneering interests.

"The biggest part of my job is to do the marketing," Neville said. "I'll be the one talking to the restaurants in Louisville or the Humana cafeteria or Oldham County Schools."

Guy Grubbs' cows are thirsty. It's nearly milking time, so this 55-year-old farmer lets his eager Holsteins through two gates to the water troughs.

"I've milked cows all my life, and we've had some tough times, but I've never seen one this prolonged," said Grubbs, a third-generation dairyman.

Holiday greenery has a history that goes well beyond the Victorian Christmas tree we gather around today. Most of the holiday greenery we use to decorate dates back to the pagan holidays of the Romans and Northern Europeans, when certain plants where chosen for their symbolic powers of restoration and protection.

In celebration of the Winter Solstice, the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, during which they would decorate homes and temples, feast and revel in honor of their god Saturn.

John Hammonds has had a pretty good year with his corn and soybeans – and that’s an understatement.

Hammonds, who farms about 200 acres of corn, mostly on Mulberry Pike near Eminence, said that in drought-laden 2008, his crop produced about 100 bushels of corn per acre.