First of all, I want to remind you about the upcoming tractor safety classes. Fourteen and fifteen year olds are required by law to complete tractor safety training before operating tractors or related farm and ranch equipment for someone other than their parents.
A class will be conducted May 31 at the Cody/Kilgore High School from 9:00 to 4:00 Mountain Time. Mr. Tim Nollette will be the instructor. On June 1, Mr. Greg Nollette will offer a class at Valentine Rural High School from 9:00 to 4:00 Central Time. The classes include both classroom and tractor driving experiences. Participants need to bring a sack lunch.
Interested youth must pre-register no later than May 25. They must complete the course workbook before coming to the training. You can pick up the workbooks at the Extension Office. There is a $3.00 charge.
The 4-H project drop/add deadline is also coming up. If 4-Hers want to change which projects they are enrolled in, they need to make those changes by June 1.
On a different note, we have been putting this weekly radio program on the internet as a podcast for a couple of months now. If you have iTunes, you can go to the iTunes store and search for “University of Nebraska” and you will find this program, which we call the “Monday Extension Report.” You will also find other UNL podcasts including Backyard Farmer, Market Journal, and the Nebraska Ag Almanac. If you don’t have iTunes, you can always find the program by going to our UNL Extension, Cherry County home page, which is easy to remember. It is just cherry.unl.edu. We also have the script posted on the web in case you missed something I said.
I don’t know how many of you have discovered podcasting. It might not be quite as easy as just turning on your radio, but it gives you the chance to listen to a program that you missed. You can subscribe to a podcast, much like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. The audio or video file is delivered directly to your computer. All you need to do is listen at your convenience. You can listen to it on your computer, you can put it on your iPod or other MP3 player, or you can even burn it to a CD and listen to it in your car.
Podcasting, rss feeds, sometimes modern technology can sound like a foreign language, but really the concepts aren’t that difficult to use. The internet has vastly improved our access to information. Podcasting and rss feed technology allow us to have some of that information delivered directly to us, without us having to look for it.
I would like to hear from you if you are interested in attending a class on using this modern technology. We are thinking about offering a class, but would really like to know if you are interested.
As always, please contact the extension office at 376-1850 for more information on any of the things I’ve covered.
