The end of the year is almost here. This is universally considered a prime opportunity to look forward to the next year and make some sort of plans and goals. Do you set goals? Why would you bother? Well, I have some thoughts on the subject. If you can cast your mind...

Throughout history, there have always been examples of people (soothsayers, etc.) in the population that made claims to know or be able to predict the future. In historic times, their degree of accuracy probably depended more on the gullibility of their audience, and...

Complaining about 2020 feels a bit like beating the proverbial “dead horse”, but in fairness, 2020 started it, right? It can be easy to look back on 2020 as a complete disaster, with the negatives completely overshadowing the positives, and the pile of adversity...

What does reputation mean to you? Over the years, I have spent a fair bit of time thinking about reputation and what that word means. Recently, I sat down and gave it some serious thought, as I felt that reputation was perhaps critically important to the success of my...

They (someone, no idea who) said that hindsight is 20/20. I am not sure that I agree 100 percent with that sentiment. We rarely look backwards without at least some sort of mental distortion, whether it be delusion, misperception, or some other sort of “fishing story...

Things are pretty dark out there in the world, whether you are looking at social, political, economic, financial, municipal, medical, or family circles. It can be challenging to see light at the end of the tunnel, or even recognize that this stretch is truly just a...

Continuing on the topic that I introduced last week, this is the second half of the interview about farm financial management blips that you might encounter, whatever your experience level. For this topic, I interviewed my dad, who is president of John Spencer and...

Looking at the title of this article, and perhaps knowing a bit about me, you might short circuit a little bit and wonder why I (horticulturist, plant nerd and plant disease guy) would ever think that I would have the qualifications or knowledge to write on such a...

If 2020 (the Lord Voldemort of years) and the COVID global pandemic have taught us anything, it is that we do not HAVE to be face to face, breathing the same air as someone, in order to learn from them. We have been forced (in some cases, dragged kicking and...