Caroline Stocks on the obvious combination of journalism, media and farming
Seeing as he told me he doesn’t read blogs, I think I’m safe to say what I like about farmer Steve, who I met today. This is him overlooking the lake on his farm: I think Steve’s actually a closet Englishman, as he’s the first person I’ve met in the US who a) owns a [...]
I thought I’d use my unexpected rest stop at Champaign train station to catch up on a few blog posts. I’m swinging wildly from finding this escapade hilariously funny to getting really narked about my travel-related incompetency, so I don’t know which tone these might take to reflect my mood. Apologies in advance if they [...]
I had my first taste of home-made icream-making today (I believe my official role was foreman): We were joined for dinner by my my hosts’ (Jim and Marlene) neighbour Dave, an arable farmer who lives next door. Dave’s son has taken over most of the farm, but Dave still farms 100 acres of corn and [...]
While my host, Jim, has spent most of his life working for the University of Illinois, he’s continued to dabble in farming. His father, Walker, was interested in growing popcorn so Jim has followed in his footsteps and grows about half an acre of the stuff with his son-in-law, Bruce. We went and checked on [...]
I’ve travelled about three hours south of Chicago to a place called Champaign, Illinois. Part of the United State’s corn belt, the countryside of Illinois is very flat, with a perfect mixture of sunshine and rain to be able to grow corn exceedingly well. Apparently the saying goes that it should be knee-high by the [...]
I booked tickets to fly to Chicago and Toronto today for the first leg of my Nuffield study tour. To say I’m excited is an understatement. I’m now having to confirm the meetings I’ve been tentatively organising over the past few weeks and I’m already thinking I could’ve done with spending another week travelling around [...]
