March 2012

It was a snow day in New England, but up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, in the little town of Hardwick, several people were gathered at the VT Food Venture Center, a local food incubator, to sign USDA Value Added Grant papers for the new businesses they are starting up.

The Michaud family of East Hardwick is launching Kingdom Creamery of Vermont, LLC. out of their newly finished processing facility on their dairy farm.  They are producing ice cream, yogurt and a soft serve mix for local retailers. They received a USDA Value Added Producer grant for working capital purposes for marketing, processing and purchasing packaging and production inventory.

An estimated 4,000 people in the San Francisco Bay Area recently celebrated the return of millions of migrating birds as part of the 16^th annual Flyway Festival held on Mare Island in Vallejo, Calif. California national forests act as a vital habitat link in the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south route of travel for birds migrating every year from Alaska to Patagonia.

The birds travel some or all of this distance both in the spring and in the fall, following food sources heading to breeding grounds overwintering sites. Many of the bird’s native habitats such as oak woodlands, riparian areas and mixed conifer forests are found in the golden state’s national forests.

A Whitesbog, NJ, native born in 1871, Elizabeth Coleman White spent her childhood summers helping out on her parents' cranberry farm in the Pine Barrens.  While harvesting cranberries, she often wondered if the wild blueberries sprinkled on her parents' farm could be cultivated like the cranberries. Conventional wisdom at the time held that wild blueberries varied too much in size and sweetness and could not be cultivated.  A true pioneer, she embarked on a new mission – cultivate the wild blueberry.

A new baby bald eagle will soon begin his flight lessons on the San Bernardino National Forest as the first recorded chick to be successfully nested in recent times near Big Bear Lake.

The chick was first spotted Feb. 21 by Forest Service wildlife biologist Marc Stamer while leading a school field trip.  “I was shocked to look through the spotting scope and see a bald eagle chick sitting up in the nest,” said Stamer. “The students, teachers and parents were as excited to see a baby eagle as I was!  It was a first for all of us!”

In a step forward in the Obama Administration’s desire to streamline government policies and build stronger inter-agency partnerships, USDA Rural Development, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) jointly announced the launch of a pilot program that will reduce regulatory burdens on affordable housing developers and owners. The program will help state and federal agencies better serve low-income families who rent their homes by reducing regulations across several layers of government.

Around 1,500 Jasper and Putnam County elementary students in Georgia got their hands dirty planting trees while meeting Olympic athletes at the Kids4Trees program sponsored by the Forest Service. The event was the first of 35 planned across the nation for 2012.

Bryan Jacobs, an inspiring two-time Olympic weightlifter, was among three Olympians who visited with students. After learning what it takes to help both trees and young spirits thrive, the students planted trees at their schools and potted their own small trees to take home.

As more and more Americans are working to become fit and healthy, one of the top athletic clothing companies – Under Armour – has been building a team to help improve its use of natural fibers.  Relying on cutting edge research to provide products that wick away moisture, Under Armour products traditionally were not made of the classic sporting apparel material - cotton.  However, since early 2011, one of the company’s most popular items has been Charged Cotton™, a line of clothing that uses cotton -- the fabric of our lives.

It’s 8:20 AM and Jo Ann Shelby, the manager of Compass Components, in Deming, New Mexico is beginning her day by going over her latest work production and business expense reports.  She finds the cost of electricity to light the 90,000 square foot assembly plant is down 50 percent.

It all started with a little red wagon and six pumpkins.

Growing up on his family’s farm in Suamico, Wis., Brian Gronski’s family had a large garden and five acres of pick your own raspberries. One year, Gronski’s father provided his sons with a small spot to grow their own vegetables, which resulted in six pumpkins. The boys decided to load their bounty into a little red wagon and haul it down to the end of the driveway. Selling just two of those pumpkins inspired the boys to only grow pumpkins the following year. That resulted in a much larger wagon load of pumpkins and the successful sale of most of them.

With that small start, the Gronski family moved from growing raspberries to growing pumpkins and becoming The Pumpkin Place on Briter’s Farm.

Imagine men mounted on horses, armed with rifles and sidearms, patrolling millions of acres of public land. These men were typical U.S. Forest Service rangers over a century ago. This is how the Forest Service first approached forest management.

Forest Service historian Dr. Lincoln Bramwell recently shared the history of the Forest Service to the agency’s Class of 2011 Presidential Management Fellows, a federal government leadership development program.