Patio Pondering: $1,126,462.39 — Before You Vote on May 5th

A few months ago I wrote about more than $2 million in fire protection funds that were supposed to be returned to the taxing units when the Northeast Allen County Fire Territory dissolved. Since then, I have heard from neighbors with two very different reactions. Some are angry. Some told me things aren’t as bad as I made them sound.

Let me share what the numbers say.

As of December 31, 2025, the balance remaining in the former Fire Territory fund is $1,126,462.39. That balance sits 24 months after the Fire Territory was disbanded. Twenty-four months after Indiana Statute required those funds to be returned to the participating entities.

That $1,126,462.39 was paid by taxpayers for fire protection. Instead, those funds have been held hostage by Cedar Creek Township, not being used for fire protection, and in some cases being used as a slush fund to purchase things like a new township office building.

Because those funds were not transferred, the Fire District had to borrow money just to keep operations running. That cost us interest, interest we should never have paid. Those funds could be doing much good protecting our community, adding needed equipment, equipping ambulances, and making sure the citizens of our community get the first response protection they not only deserve but paid for.

That really chaps my lips.

Some have suggested that we should be grateful for the era of volunteer fire departments. That an $800,000 budget built on hog roasts and bake sales was a simpler, more responsible time.

It is 2026. The lives and property in our townships are too valuable for that.

I want to be clear about what I do not know. A second audit of these funds is currently underway. It has not been completed. I do not know what it will find. I am not accusing anyone of a crime. What I am saying is that more than a million dollars collected for fire protection has not reached its destination, a second audit is open, and there are questions that remain unanswered.

The Cedar Creek Township Advisory Board will hold its next meeting on April 29th. If you want answers, show up. Bring your neighbors. These are public meetings and this is your money.

The May 5th primary is one week away. Some of the people on the ballot have sat on these boards throughout this entire period. I am not telling you how to vote. I am telling you to know the number before you do.

$1,126,462.39.

To help taxpayers understand the full picture, you can view the reports taken directly from the Indiana Gateway site here:

PatioPondering.com/Fire

Patio Pondering: When a Tweet on Ag Twitter Was NOT Anonymous

I'm jumping back in the saddle after several weeks away from the Patio, between travel and some health challenges that kept me off the keyboard longer than I'd like. This morning dawned sunny and warm, and I enjoyed a hot cup of coffee on the patio listening to the water move through our water feature. It was a good morning to think.

This reflection started with a memory that hit me during a bout of insomnia earlier this week. To set the stage, this happened over a decade ago when I was deep in the middle of Ag Twitter drama. There were lively debates about AgVocating, all-out fights over GMOs, and people choosing sides on big farms versus small farms. In retrospect, it was pretty toxic, it didn't change anyone's opinions, and I was right in the middle of it all.

To understand this story, you need to know that there are two women in my wife's family who deserve an apology from me, and they are not the same person.

The memory starts with a family vacation. We were spending the last day with my brother-in-law and his wife, waiting out the hours before our flight home. It was the kind of afternoon that feels both ordinary and precious — food, conversation, laughter, and the quiet sadness that comes with knowing you're leaving people you don't see often enough.

We had just finished lunch when I spotted a label on a bottle sitting on her counter. Proudly and loudly emblazoned on it was a "Non-GMO" certification. The problem was that the product inside had no GMO version — every variety of it was the result of traditional plant breeding. The "Non-GMO" label was pure marketing, playing into consumer fear and ignorance. It wasn't science. It was hype.

Given where I was in the Ag Twitter wars, I did what I did in those days. I took a picture and posted it with something along the lines of "Look at this false advertising and fear mongering!" I went to great lengths to make the photo anonymous — no location, no context, nothing that could identify the person or the place. Then I went about my day, convinced I had posted something that might actually change a mind or two.

A few days later, my wife's sister sent me a message that absolutely lit me up. We were on opposite sides of the GMO debate, so I immediately framed her message as an attack on my position rather than listening to what she was actually saying. She called the post offensive. She said it was an attack on my brother-in-law's wife. I fired back that the photo was completely anonymous, that there was no mention of anyone, and that it was just a picture of a label. I was technically correct and completely wrong. That argument went unresolved long enough that my wife's sister and I did not speak for years.

What I failed to see then — and what hit me like a ton of bricks at two in the morning this week — is that I had violated the sanctity of my brother-in-law's home. His wife had welcomed us in. She had fed us. She had given us her last afternoon before we got on a plane. And I had stood in her kitchen and turned her hospitality into ammunition for a Twitter fight. Yes, the photo was anonymous to strangers. But it was not anonymous to family. She knew. My wife's sister knew. And they both had every right to feel what they felt.

I was so fixated on proving a point — on the mechanics of anonymizing the photo, on landing my punch in a debate — that I was completely blind to the people standing on the other side of my righteousness. I wasn't posting a picture of a label. I was posting a picture taken in my brother-in-law's kitchen, using his wife's home to score points in a fight she never agreed to be part of.

That's not AgVocating. That's not winning a debate. That's just wrong.

I don't know if it is maturity, experience, or simply having the opportunity to slow my life down enough to let my subconscious do its work. But somewhere between a great vacation on Kauai and a sleepless night this week, what really happened all those years ago finally came into focus. Too often we get caught up in the heat of the moment — political arguments, defending our financial decisions, taking a stand for or against a neighbor — and we fail to see all the people our words and actions touch. I did that. I own that. And I am trying to see the bigger picture when I engage today. It is a lesson I wish I had learned many years ago, on a warm afternoon in someone else's kitchen, with a hot lunch still on the table.

Greedy Farmers and Convenient Lies

While I had a down day during my trip in China I was able to visit a few groups on the old Facebook for entertainment. One thread in the Grain Market Discussion Group really hit me, not the subject but one of the responses. It bothered me enough I wrote this essay.

A corn processing mill in the Eastern Corn Belt announced it was closing. The comments filled up the way they do — some sympathy, some analysis, and eventually, right on schedule, the comment I knew was coming. A familiar name. A familiar tune. The farmers in that area were too greedy to sell at the price the mill needed. If they had just lowered their price expectations, the mill would still be open. The farmers killed it.

It is easy to blame the farmer. It is a lot harder to look at what actually happened to corn demand in that geography. Just over the state line, a brand new mill supplies feed to a large integrated hog operation. Just north of the closing facility sits one of the most feed-intensive livestock corridors in the region — beef, dairy, hogs, poultry. The competition for that corn changed dramatically since the day that mill was built. The market moved. The farmer didn't cause that. The farmer responded to it, the same way markets work.

But structural explanations don't feel as satisfying as a villain. And farmers make convenient villains.

This particular poster has a long pattern. Blame the farmer for not hedging when prices drop. Blame the farmer for selling too much when prices rise. Blame the farmer for planting too many soybeans, too much corn. And when called on it, the cards come out. I'm just stating facts. Show me where I said that. That is gaslighting. It has a name and we should use it.

We are in the middle of a farmer mental health moment. Social media is full of hotline numbers and reminders to check on your friends. That matters. But the conversation is incomplete as long as we put all the weight on the farmer to reach out and none of it on the people who spent years telling him everything wrong on his operation was his own fault. Calling a hotline is hard when the voice in your head sounds exactly like the people in your comment section.

The poster who blamed those farmers for a mill closing will share a suicide awareness post before the week is out. He will not connect the two. That is the part we need to talk about.

What This Season Was Really About

Purdue basketball just ended its season, one full of expectations, disappointment, and genuine exhilaration. And if you'll give me a few minutes on the porch, I'd like to tell you what I think it actually meant.

I won't forget watching Braden Smith break the assist record in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. I won't forget that Big Ten Tournament championship against Michigan, a great Michigan team, by the way, not a pushover. And I won't forget what it felt like to watch this team crawl out of the rubble of a brutal end to the regular season, look the world in the eye, and reel off seven straight wins to earn a seat at the Elite 8 table.

Seven in a row. From despair to the doorstep of the Final Four.

That's why I'm calling this a great season, not because of the preseason rankings, not because of the projections, not because of where we ultimately finished. I'm calling it great because of the turnaround. Because of what this team showed us about itself when the noise was loudest and the margin for error had disappeared entirely. That's what I'll carry into the offseason.

Am I disappointed we didn't reach the Final Four? Of course I am. "Maybe next year" is practically tattooed on my chest. It comes standard with the Purdue fan membership card, right alongside a tolerance for cold weather and an irrational faith in the run game.

But that disappointment is already doing what it does every spring. It's bringing out the annual calls for Coach Painter's head. Find somebody better. Find somebody who can finally bring home a national championship. It's loud, it's predictable, and I understand the emotion behind it even when I think the conclusion is dead wrong.

Because I am firmly and staunchly not in that camp. And I want to tell you why.

Matt Painter has coached Purdue basketball for twenty years. Twenty. In that time he has built something genuinely rare in college basketball: a program that shows up consistently, competes at the highest level year after year, and gives you a real reason to care in March more often than not. Big Ten championships. Regular tournament appearances. A Final Four. And now an Elite 8 earned by a team that refused to quit when quitting would have been the easy thing to do.

Has he won a national championship? No. But neither have a lot of coaches who belong in the same conversation as the best in the game.

Here's the question nobody asking for his head seems to want to answer: Who exactly are you replacing him with, and what makes you think that goes well?

I've watched enough college basketball to know how this story usually ends. Programs that move on from coaches like Painter don't typically take a step forward. They take several steps back. They spend a few years trying to rebuild the culture, losing recruits they used to take for granted, and eventually find themselves wondering what they were so impatient about. The grass looked greener. It wasn't.

I'll be honest with you: some of the opinions I've had about Matt Painter over the years were, I'll admit, bourbon-assisted. I'll own that. Sitting on the porch after a tough loss with strong opinions and a lowered filter is not exactly a foreign concept around here.

But sober, and looking clearly at what this man has built in West Lafayette over two decades, I think a lot of us need to be more careful about what we're asking for.

What a national championship banner won't show you is what we just witnessed this season.

Braden Smith. Trey Kaufman-Renn. Fletcher Loyer. Four-year Boilermakers, every one of them. Players who chose to stay, chose to build, chose to finish what they started. And when Braden Smith broke the all-time NCAA assist record, he didn't talk about himself. He told the media he loved playing with everyone he'd played with during his Purdue career. The all-time assist leader in college basketball history, and his first instinct was gratitude.

You don't get that by accident. You get that from a coach who measures success by more than a final score. Matt Painter stood at that podium and celebrated that his players were good people, not just good basketball talent. Good people.

A banner can't show you that. But I saw it. And I'm not ready to trade it for a recruiting pitch and a hope.

Purdue basketball isn't easy to love. The heartbreak is real. The expectations are heavy. And March has a way of leaving marks that linger all summer long. I know that feeling well.

But this team, this team, reminded me what it looks like to fight when everything is on the line and nothing is going according to plan. The toughness, the resilience, the refusal to fold. That doesn't happen by accident. That's culture. And the culture that produces players like that? That belongs to the coach.

So tonight, I'm grateful for what we had this year. I'm grateful for Braden Smith. I'm grateful for that Big Ten Tournament run. I'm grateful for seven wins in a row when seven wins seemed impossible.

And I'm grateful Matt Painter is still the one building this thing.

Boiler Up.

The Phone Number at the End of the Story

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Shanghai, China, scrolling through my Facebook feed because I can't sleep. My clock is twelve hours different from sunrise here, and at 3am your body just gives up arguing with the sun.

I came across a magazine article about the recent suicide of a Midwest farmer. I started reading it the way a practitioner reads — looking for something useful. Something I could bring back to farm families I know personally who are in the middle of their own transitions right now.

The article was brave in ways that matter. A family chose to share what happened. They named the suicide. They put their grief on the page so other families might recognize the signs. Those are not small things and they deserve full credit.

But the article danced around the real problem.

This farmer needed someone to move his siblings.

There is no 800 number for that.

Here is what the article documented and then stepped around: the farmer's parents never built a succession plan. When his mother died, her will divided the farm equally among children, most of whom didn't farm it. Within months the family was communicating only through lawyers. The non-farming siblings voted to ban cattle. The farmer and his son were running a thousand head of feeder cattle and a farm-to-table beef business. The farm corporation took a low-debt operation into deep debt. Lawsuits followed.

And at the end of all that, the article handed similar farmers a phone number.

We do this constantly in agriculture. We have built an entire infrastructure of awareness campaigns, stigma reduction, hotlines and counseling referrals — all of it aimed at the person who is drowning. All of it placing the moral weight of survival on the man with water in his lungs. None of it aimed at who opened the valve.

That is accepted victim blaming. We just don't call it that because the people causing the stress are usually family, and we have decided that family gets to be complicated instead of accountable.

Our industry makes it worse. We hand families the vocabulary of detachment. Heirs deserve what is rightfully theirs. It's just business. These are numbers on a page.

Numbers on a page don't wake up at 4am wondering how to make payroll. Numbers on a page don't walk beans in July or pull calves in February. Numbers on a page don't carry four generations of a family's identity on their back while a corporation votes on whether their cattle can stay.

When we reduce a farm transition to an estate document and a balance sheet we don't just simplify the transaction. We disappear the farmer. And a man who has been made invisible by the people who were supposed to know him best is a man who stops believing anyone can see him at all.

This farmer was not a man who failed to save himself. He was a man whose parents took the easy way out on succession planning, and whose siblings picked up that failure and weaponized it through corporate votes and lawyer letters while he was standing in the field he had spent his life trying to hold together.

The sequence is not complicated. Parents didn't plan. Siblings weaponized the gap. Farmer absorbed every consequence. Farmer died.

Siblings collect. The land gets sold, the estate gets settled, and people who never drove a tractor across that ground walk away with generational wealth built on a brother's grave. No legal consequence. No social consequence. A check in the mail and a clean conscience.

There is no accountability for any of that. They were within their rights at every step.

Five years from now someone will look back at this and do the accounting. One farmer gone. One family destroyed. Four siblings with fattened portfolios and clean hands. A once-thriving farm family that shared meals and harvests and the particular language that only people who work the same ground together ever learn — silenced. No more family dinners. No more phone calls. No more showing up when the combine breaks down or the cattle get out.

The estate settled perfectly. The attorneys got paid. The numbers on the page worked out exactly right.

And nobody who caused it will call it what it was.

The next time we hand a suffering farmer a hotline number, we should ask ourselves an honest question. Are we offering help, or are we just making sure the blame lands in the right place when the help doesn't work?

We Need a Trusty Trustee

Patio Pondering: We Need a Trusty Trustee

The 2025 financial data is now available on Gateway for taxpayers to review. I did just that, and I’m not happy.

In the 24 months following the closing of the NE Allen Fire Territory, the Republican candidate for Springfield Township Trustee received $78,639.88 from Fire Territory funds. Let that sink in. $78,639.88, from a closed, non-existent entity.

That candidate is Lori Dewitt.

The Gateway records show those payments split across two separate vendor accounts. Vendor 1549, listed as “Lori L. Dewitt,” received $6,591.30 in 2024 and $3,187.33 in 2025. Vendor 1671 tells a different story. That account was originally listed in public records as “Dewitt Consulting LLC,” a company I can find no legitimate record of. After I raised questions publicly about those payments, the vendor name was quietly changed to “Lori Dewitt.” That account received $56,053.47 in 2024 and $12,807.78 in 2025.

Two vendor IDs. One person. One fictitious company name that disappeared from the public record only after someone started asking questions.

When questioned publicly about the “Dewitt Consulting LLC” entry, Lori Dewitt blamed a high school intern for the mistake. That explanation does not pass the smell test. Establishing a vendor in a government payment system is not a casual data entry task. It requires a completed vendor application, a W-9, a Tax ID number, and authorization through the system. A vendor account tied to a fictitious company name does not get created by accident, and it does not receive $68,861.25 in payments without someone approving every single one of them

Here is what voters need to understand. The NE Allen Fire Territory was a joint operation serving Cedar Creek Township, Springfield Township, Scipio Township, and the towns of Leo-Cedarville and Grabill. Cedar Creek Township served as the financial manager for those funds. They held the checkbook. And Lori Dewitt, as Clerk of Cedar Creek Township, sat inside that operation. At the same time, she was serving on the Springfield Township Advisory Board, the very township she now wants to lead as Trustee. One person. Two townships. A clear conflict of interest.

Now the Indiana State Board of Accounts is investigating accusations of malfeasance and inappropriate use of those same NE Allen Fire Territory funds. In early February, the SBOA issued an extensive subpoena to Cedar Creek Township demanding financial records. Two townships. One pot of money. One name at the center of it all.

$78,639.88 doesn’t move itself out of a closed fund by accident. And a fictitious company name doesn’t appear in a public ledger by mistake.

Springfield Township voters deserve a trustee who is trustworthy. Before you cast a vote in 2026, pull up Gateway yourself. The data is public. The numbers don’t lie. And right now, those numbers are doing a lot of talking.

Stakeholders with Withheld Competence

In our discussions about leadership we easily fall into black and white assumptions. The leader leads. The team follows. When something goes wrong, we look up the chain.

But what if the failure was standing right next to the leader the whole time?

Early in the Fish Fry preparations I was working with a leader to finalize the last few items needed to complete carry-out line setup. I was following them as we were collectively running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Walking back into the cafeteria I stopped the leader, physically stopped them. Looked them in the eye and said: "Tell me what you need me to do and I will get it done. I'm here to help you."

There was a calming in their eyes as if a rock was lifted off of them.

We finished setting up for over 400 carry-out meals that night. There were no issues, we did not run out of supplies, the team knew what to do because we were prepared.

Sitting with my coffee this morning I thought about how differently that could have gone. Not because of the leader. Because of me.

I had knowledge. I had context. I had the ability to see what was needed. The question was whether I was willing to use it.

That is the conversation leadership training rarely has. We spend enormous energy teaching leaders to communicate, delegate, and inspire. We spend almost none teaching team members that they are stakeholders, not bystanders. A volunteer, an employee, or a crew member on the floor carries almost as much responsibility for the outcome as the person with the title. Their lack of contribution hurts the team as much as a leader who fails to share the plan.

Here is what makes this painful. In many cases the team member standing quietly in the back of the room is not clueless. They see the problem with the plan. They know the inventory is short. They recognize the method being described will not work. Their knowledge could make the difference between success and failure.

And they say nothing.

Not out of malice. Out of a misread of their own role. They are "just" a volunteer. "Just" an employee. "Just" a crew member. That word, just, is doing enormous damage. It gives people permission to withhold exactly what the team needs most.

Silence is not neutrality. A stakeholder who watches a plan fail when they had the knowledge to prevent it is not innocent. They are a contributor to the outcome, with or without a title.

The next time you are standing in the back of the room and you see something the leader does not, stop them. Look them in the eye. Tell them what you know.

That is not insubordination. That is what a stakeholder looks like.

Lean on the Gas

I rolled into the driveway at 11:15 last night.

The last few days had been a blur of good miles: visiting my daughter and her family in southeast Nebraska, the Midwest Animal Science meetings in Omaha, then over to Ames for the Niman Ranch Annual Meeting. By the time I pointed the car east on Wednesday afternoon, I knew it was going to be a long night. The GPS said midnight. I knew I could do better.

When I finally crossed into Indiana, I turned off the toll road and switched my Spotify to George Strait — a small nod to a man whose music has been present in my life since I started listening to country music on WBTU back in the 1980s. And somewhere around Warsaw, Run came on.

The whole song is pretty simple, really — Ford or Chevy, walk or run, just get home. And when that line hit — lean on the gas and off the clutch — twenty-eight years of late nights settled right down on my shoulders.

I've crossed the Midwest more times than I can count. Passing through Fort Dodge to end up in Sioux Center. O'Hare, which nobody enjoys. Interstate 70 across Southern Illinois and Missouri. Feed mills and dealer offices and pig barns. Weather changes every Midwesterner expects yet despises. I did all of it gladly. But every single trip ended the same way.

I came home.

I probably should have found a place to bunk up more than once over the years. But I didn't. Because I wasn't just heading home. I was heading to her. There's a woman waiting at the end of that driveway who has been my teenage dream since before I had any business dreaming that big.

The GPS said midnight. I pulled in at 11:15.

George said run.

Run I did.

One Opportunity. Two Responses.

This morning's reflection has been weighing on me for quite a while and the right moment never hit. Several weeks ago, I attended Scout Sunday at a local church. The pews were full of youngsters from Lion Scouts through young adult Ventures along with a wide array of adult leaders. Seeing the large group put a small smile on my face.

I've been involved with Scouting since my first year as a Cub Scout meeting in Mr. Hullinger's house on Salge Drive in the mid 1970's. I earned my Eagle, my eldest son is an Eagle, my youngest son is on his way to Eagle and is preparing to trek Philmont this summer.

During the sermon the preacher talked about how important the scouting organization was to this church. He talked about how the Scout Oath and Law were blueprints for life and how they fit with the gospel lesson where Jesus talks about fulfilling the law. The preacher spoke directly with the scouts, not at them, not preaching, but talked with them. It was a powerful moment.

The contrast with another congregation in our community is stark and embarrassing.

I learned last year that a church in our area with a long history with the scouts had pushed them out. Some in the leadership were frustrated that the scouts disrupted their church weekly and did not pay for the toilet paper they used. My understanding is that the church demanded payment for use of the facilities, a major sum, which ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back and forced the scouts to find a new home after many decades of partnership.

This same church raises money to mission out of country, yet they turned their back on a home-grown mission opportunity inside their doors every week.

I have thought about that contrast for months. Not the dollars. Not the logistics. The vision. Institutions reveal themselves in small decisions. What they protect. What they prioritize. What they’re willing to inconvenience themselves for.

One church saw disruption.

One church saw disciples.

Both had the same opportunity.

Hey, who's the Straw Boss here?

Yesterday I helped prepare a community fundraising supper for the first time in many years. The event has a great reputation and reception in the community, and for good reason. The event works because of the people, the ones who have been there for years. The food is great, and so is the community that shows up to make it happen.

Since I last helped, the organizers have added an online sign-up portal, which really helps. I arrived early, found the paper sign-in sheet, and prepared to contribute. I looked for the Straw Boss, someone to point me in the right direction, but people were already moving, already working. So I found my own way in.

After a little searching I landed the role of Sour Cream Cup Filler Master alongside another parent I've known for years. As my readers would expect, I watched and observed while getting that creamy milk product portioned. What I saw was impressive.

Experienced volunteers were simply doing their jobs, jobs they've done for years, with quiet efficiency. Teams tackled each task with purpose: filling cups, mixing salad, crafting the "secret" seasoning mix, preparing the meat. Tasks got done not because anyone assigned them, but because experienced people knew what to do and others followed. Call it the osmotic transfer of knowledge, it's something to admire.

But as I watched, one thing stood out by its absence, one thing this organization is famous for teaching and celebrating: A LEADER.

I watched newcomers walk in excited to help, ready to contribute, only to stand at the edge of the activity, uncertain where to jump in. No one greeted them, not because anyone was unwilling, but because everyone was heads-down in their own task. Eventually they found a place to be useful. They figured it out. But that moment of hesitation, that's where a leader pays dividends.

As my partner and I filled our cups, a fair amount of time was spent debating how many we needed. Was 350 enough? Then 400. Then 450 became the magic number. In the end we filled 449 cups, stopping only when the last sour cream container emptied. Across the aisle, the sauce fillers had the same conversation independently, 350, then 400. Not long after cleanup started, someone came in noting there weren't enough sauce cups and too many sour creams.

Well duh.

I knew that. I filled them.

The supper preparation was a success, let me be clear about that. This was NOT a disaster, not even close. The food prep was on point, the energy was good, and the community will be well fed. But I sat there mulling over the leadership training I've seen modeled both in this organization and others, and I kept coming back to one thought: how much better might it have gone with one person in a coordinating role? Not critiquing, not teaching, just ensuring the right hand knew what the left hand was doing.

A leader to say: we need 400 of these, and these folks will help you get there. A leader to welcome newcomers who were excited to help but unsure where to start. A leader to see where a good process could be made even better.

How many times do "leaders" feel the need to do the work themselves, convinced no one else can do it quite right? It happens everywhere. I've done it. You've done it. Everyone has.

Writing this reminds me of the 4-H motto: Make the Best Better. Yesterday's preparation was already pretty good. A leader in that room could have made it great.

Patio Pondering: When a Beef Girl Buys Pork

Last night was one of those Monday Daddy-Daughter calls. Granddaughter almost crawling, flat tires, a stuck tender truck, the usual chaos of a working farm wife and mother. In the middle of it all she asked a question that immediately caught my attention.

"Guess what I paid for a whole pork loin at Costco?"

Now that was not a question I expected from her.

I've written before about what a great deal whole pork loins are, occasionally taking a swing at pork promotional campaigns for leaving this opportunity on the table. But nothing makes the point better than what my daughter told me next.

She is, and always has been, a dyed-in-the-wool beef girl. Ever since showing her commercial heifer, May Rain, at the county fair, cattle had her heart. Not sheep. Not pigs. Cows. That carried into Collegiate Cattlemen, continues at CattleCon, and lives at the center of her professional life in beef marketing. Sam Elliott and all, beef really has been What's for Dinner at their house.

So when she asked that question, I knew something had shifted.

I threw out sixteen dollars.

"YES."

Eight pounds. $1.99 a pound. Chops, a roast, strips for tacos. Several meals from one purchase.

What stayed with me was not the price, though it was certainly a remarkable one. It was the perspective. My beef girl was not talking about pork as competition or substitution. She was talking about it exactly the way a consumer would: as value, flexibility, and another option for supper.

Even with her deep roots and enthusiastic loyalty to the beef industry, she could clearly see what that pork loin represented for a household trying to balance variety and budget.

It does make you wonder what might happen if families simply added one more pork meal now and then. Not replacing beef, but supplementing the dinner table with another choice.

Demand doesn't always shift because of sweeping strategies or industry campaigns. Sometimes it moves because someone standing behind a grocery cart notices a whole pork loin priced at $1.99 a pound.

Patio Pondering: Better Than Before

This weekend while watching the USA hockey team win Gold at the Olympics I happened to look at my hands. For most of us that is no big deal, but for me it was a bit different. I have Dupuytren's Contractures on both hands. These are nodules that can lead to ligament contraction and finger deformity.

The significance of my observation was that the nodules were different — better than they were in the past. I remember an annual physical where my physician said they were just part of aging and we would do surgery to fix them if or when needed. That was two years ago.

To satisfy my curiosity I consulted Doctor Google with the prompt "Dupuytren's Contracture Alcohol." The first finding noted that heavy, chronic alcohol consumption is recognized as a significant risk factor for the development and progression of Dupuytren's contracture.

The change between that physical and this weekend was my lack of heavy, chronic alcohol use. The nodules were smaller, no longer dark colored, and more pliable. All good things. Sobriety — check.

This morning while pouring my first cup of coffee I was not excited about the revelation. I was already moving on to the next task like "improve palm nodules" was an item on a checklist to complete. Instead of quiet satisfaction that my body had visibly responded to a hard choice, I was chastising myself for not sticking to my eating plan or exercising enough in preparation for my trip to Philmont with our scout troop this summer.

It was as if none of it was a big deal. Just another thing to do.

How many times in our lives do we accomplish something and then just move on to the next task without a moment to reflect on what we just did? What in our society instills the "That's great, but you need to do more" attitude that prevents us from appropriate celebration of hard-earned victories? I'm not talking about the Participation Mentality where every task gets an atta-boy. I'm talking about genuine milestones being minimized — poo-pooed as expected, dismissed because we have more to do.

When we reserve acknowledgement only for the extraordinary, we teach ourselves — and each other — that ordinary progress doesn't count. But most of what actually moves us forward happens quietly, incrementally, without a podium.

The doers get the praise because we've decided only the dramatic finish line is worth marking. Meanwhile the daily work — the real work — goes unacknowledged until we've forgotten it happened at all.

Notice the small wins. Not because you need the validation. Because the habit of acknowledgement is what keeps you doing the work.

Patio Pondering: One Man's Quiche, Another Man’s Casserole

Rain came through our area early this morning, the pitter-patter on the roof pulling me out of sleep before the alarm had a chance. The patio glistens as the morning sun finds its way through the landscaping. My coffee is hot and on the strong side as I settle into what I call the Terra Level Executive Suite — my home office, ground floor, close enough to the garden to feel honest about the day ahead.

My wife brought me breakfast while I was organizing my to-do list. A slice of quiche.

Every time I hear that word, I think back to a book from my youth — Real Men Don't Eat Quiche — a satirical poke at masculine stereotypes that was everywhere in the early 1980s. I'll be honest with you: I never read it. But that title stuck with me for forty-some years, and this morning it finally told me why.

One man's quiche is another man's breakfast casserole.

Same eggs. Same cheese. Same satisfying weight in your stomach on a rainy Wednesday morning. The only thing that changed was the word on the label — and somehow that word carried enough cultural baggage to make grown men defensive about what they put on their fork.

How many times in our lives do we let definitions define us?

In agriculture, we do this constantly. A "small farm" versus a "family operation." A "hog confinement" versus a "modern production facility." A "consultant" versus someone who couldn't keep a corporate job. The facts on the ground are identical. The perception shifts entirely based on the vocabulary someone else handed us.

I spent 25 years in an industry where I watched good ideas die because they got labeled wrong, and I watched mediocre ideas thrive because someone dressed them up in the right terminology. The quiche versus breakfast casserole divide isn't just a generational joke — it's a case study in how quickly we outsource our judgment to a word.

The lesson I took from my Tuesday morning quiche: be skeptical of the label, especially when it's making a decision for you. Ask what's actually in the dish before you decide whether real men eat it.

Turns out, real men eat whatever their wife brings them with a smile. And they're grateful for it.

Patio Pondering: Transparency Is Proven in the Records

After raising questions two weeks ago about why taxpayers of the former Northeast Allen Fire Territory have not yet seen the detailed financial accounts that were promised, I learned that the Indiana State Board of Accounts issued a subpoena requesting extensive documentation related to those records.

That development provides important context. Requests of this scope are not routine and typically indicate unresolved questions involving recordkeeping, classification, or compliance with required reporting standards. Until that process is complete, delays in releasing records may be understandable. Even so, taxpayers are still entitled to ask whether publicly available records align with basic accounting and transparency expectations.

As I review the transactions available online, two issues stand out.

First, the classification of labor-related payments.

Public records show nearly $66,000 in payments described as compensation for labor performed to reconcile or “fix” Fire Territory accounts. Under standard governmental accounting practice, labor compensation is required to be reported on Employment Compensation Reports. However, the Employment Compensation Reports filed for both 2024 and 2025 list only $15,000 in compensation and do not reflect the additional payments described elsewhere in the public records.

When questioned publicly, an explanation has been offered for how the payments were initially recorded. However, regardless of how the error occurred, the reporting inconsistency remains unresolved in the required Employment Compensation Reports.

This raises straightforward accounting questions:

• If these payments were compensation for labor, why do they not appear on the required compensation reports?

• If they were not compensation, under what classification were they paid?

• Where is that classification documented for public review?

Second, continued expenditures after dissolution.

The Northeast Allen Fire Territory was officially dissolved in 2023. Yet public records show expenditures recorded and paid in 2024 and 2025 against accounts tied to that dissolved entity. Dissolution ordinarily signals the end of spending authority, except for clearly defined and documented close-out activities.

To date, no clear public explanation or supporting documentation has been provided explaining why post-dissolution expenditures were authorized or how those expenditures align with statutory requirements. Public commentary has focused on criticisms of prior accounting practices, but those statements do not resolve the reporting and authorization questions reflected in the records themselves.

These are not allegations. They are accounting and governance questions rooted in publicly available records.

Transparency is not demonstrated through assurances, summaries, or slogans. It is demonstrated when classifications are consistent, reporting requirements are met, and documentation is available for independent review.

Taxpayers do not need speculation or interpretation. They need records that align with established accounting standards — and a clear explanation when they do not.

Until those questions are answered, claims of transparency and honesty remain untested by the very documents that should support them.

Patio Pondering: I Believe

While working on a project last week I let Spotify play something different. I landed on a sampling from the Stranger Things soundtrack. Then the "I Believe" theme came through my speakers and something happened I didn't expect. A tear ran down my cheek.

It caught me off guard. But then I sat and listened.

Because that song didn't just play. It sent me back to that ending basement scene with that unspoken question. Do you still believe?

And the answer that came back surprised me with how fast it arrived. Yeah. I do. I believe in a lot of things.

I believe the sun coming up over the east field tomorrow morning means another chance to get it right. I believe that plans made at a kitchen table with honest people are worth more than polished strategies built in conference rooms. I believe the best conversations I've ever had happened leaning on a fence, not standing at a podium.

Here's what I think that song reminded me: belief isn't a feeling you wait on. It's a posture you choose. Hope isn't naïve. Hope is what serious people carry when the path isn't clear yet.

So today, I want to ask you. What do you still believe in?

Write it down. Say it out loud. Don't wait for a Stranger Things soundtrack to remind you.

Patio Pondering: Willie the Wildcat, a Microphone, and The Pressure Vessel

Mornings on the patio are different now that our youngest son has his driver's license. No more regular trips to the school drop-off line for me. This morning started with a bright sunrise as I poured my coffee, sat down, and did what I probably shouldn't do before the first sip: started scrolling.

After a click or two, my feed was full of Coach Jerome Tang, Kansas State's coach, and commentary on a two-minute postgame press conference that's now everywhere. After a 29-point loss to Cincinnati at home, with students wearing paper bags in the stands, he told the media his players don't deserve to wear the uniform. That very few of them would be back next year.

As a K-State alum, it's hard to watch. But what really got me wasn't the press conference. It was the 113 days before it.

Just ten days earlier, after a 34-point loss to Iowa State, Coach Tang told the media he wasn't disappointed. He was proud of his players' effort. Thirty-four-point loss. Proud of the effort. Then a 29-point loss and the whole thing comes apart.

For months, K-State fans watched two realities run side by side. The narrative at the podium: praise, progress, belief. And what was happening on the court: talent that wasn't being utilized, players who weren't functioning as a unit, performances that didn't match the story being told. The fans could see it. Every game, the gap got wider.

I've been there. Not in an arena. In a conference room.

I've sat in meetings listening to a supervisor praise the team, talk about great progress, paint a beautiful picture while my colleagues and I are giving each other side eyes. The "what is he talking about?" looks. No words needed. Because the people hearing the toxic positivity can usually see right through the fancy words and theatrics. They know something's not right in River City.

And I've been on the other side too. I've stood in meetings and said, "The project is going well. The plan is working. The team is doing a great job." Smile. Nod. Move on. Until the day it's, "Um... we've got a problem." And the building that had been smoldering for weeks couldn't hide behind fresh paint anymore.

That's not a leadership pivot. That's a pressure vessel failing.

Honest assessment isn't cruelty. It's respect. It's trusting the people around you enough to close the gap between what you're saying and what they can see, before someone else closes it for you.

If you're leading something right now and you can feel that gap opening, close it. Close it today. It doesn't get easier tomorrow. It just gets more expensive.

Coffee's cold. Sun's up. Go have an honest conversation with somebody.

Making It Official — Does This Mean I've Grown Up?

Patio Pondering started with me sitting on the patio on a sunny September morning in 2024. No business plan. No strategy. Just coffee, quiet, and a need to gather my thoughts after a career change I didn't see coming.

I started writing. Then I started talking first to myself, then into a microphone. For seventeen months, the writing and the podcast gave me a place to think out loud about an industry I've spent my whole life in. They opened conversations I didn't expect and reminded me what I'm actually good at.

Yesterday I filed paperwork with the Indiana Secretary of State and formed Patio Pondering LLC.

The writing isn't going anywhere, if anything, I've leaned into it more. The podcast is growing and I'm investing in it. But I'm also putting more emphasis into swine nutrition consulting; helping producers and feed teams make better decisions when the margins are tight and the answers aren't obvious. That's the work I've done for 25 years. Patio Pondering just finally gave it a home.

Forming the LLC was me making it official and being honest with myself. I spent a long time thinking I was just writing and podcasting while I figured out the next move. Turns out I was building one.

I won't pretend filing an LLC was dramatic. You fill out a form, pay a fee, and the state sends you a confirmation. But there's something about putting your name on a thing that makes it real in a different way, the same way putting a deed on a piece of ground feels different than just working it.

It started on the patio. It still starts there most mornings. The coffee's the same. The questions just got bigger.

Patio Pondering LLC — Clear Thinking for Complex Agriculture.

Patio Pondering: The Narrative Said They Lost. They WON!

Last night I watched a battle between two top 15 basketball teams as Purdue trekked across the Midwest to play Nebraska. It was a rollercoaster ride as Purdue came steaming out of the gate and built a double-digit lead before Nebraska hit their first field goal. The first half and the start of the second half went Purdue's way, with a 22-point lead at one point. But I'm a Purdue fan, I knew Nebraska would not stop fighting and they did as I expected.

Purdue began to struggle with their jump shots and the Cornhuskers started hitting from just about everywhere on the court. The lead fell to single digits then back to double digits with less than three minutes left. Purdue's poor shooting and Nebraska's grittiness came together to force the game to overtime.

Overtime was a fight with Nebraska finally taking their first lead of the game but Purdue prevailed by three points in the end.

As I scrolled through X and Facebook to read reactions I was not surprised. The narrative wrote itself within minutes: Purdue almost chokes again. Typical Purdue with no killer instinct. Painter can't coach with a lead. And much more.

I started to feel the pull to pile on, talking about the choke, but I didn't. Side note, this is where my sobriety pays off — I resisted the urge to comment. I thought about the game I just watched and tried to remove myself from the emotional rollercoaster I had just endured.

I wrote this on X after sitting and absorbing what happened in Lincoln:

Nebraska is a top 10 team, they're good. Plus, they were playing at home. This isn't as much of an almost choke by Purdue as Nebraska just being a great team at home.

As I looked closer, I saw a few others that saw the forest for the trees. Here is one I shared:

It'll be easy for people to point to Purdue blowing a 21-point lead, and a 14-point lead with 2:45 to go, but don't forget that they WON…AT NEBRASKA!!! It got hairy at the end, but that's still an ELITE win. Never apologize for winning…especially against Top 10 teams. – Brandon Ramsey @BRamseyKSR

What so many people lost in their speed to criticize Purdue for their 22-point collapse is that Purdue had just won on the road in the Big Ten on a Tuesday in February against a top 10 team. Brian Neubert of GoldandBlack.com contends that the Big Ten Championship is won on Tuesdays.

This morning as I thought about the comments and reactions, I thought about how many times in our work lives we fail to see the forest for the trees by taking the easy path and repeating the easy narrative.

We've all heard them and even participated: That new guy won't make it. She only got promoted because of who she knows. That farm will never make it work with that system. They'll never hit those numbers. We don't do it that way here.

Convenient narratives formed from fragments instead of facts.

Just like last night's game, reality is usually more complicated. Wins rarely look perfect. Progress often feels messy. And context matters more than we care to admit.

Maybe the better question isn't "How did they almost blow it?" but rather "What did they actually accomplish?"

How often do we miss the win because we're fixated on how uncomfortable the ending felt?

Patio Pondering: What do you mean you didn't know?

It is the day after the Super Bowl; I already made a trip to the meat locker to pick up venison and am now enjoying a strong cup of coffee as I prepare to attack my to-do-list.  Not one thing on that list has anything to do with football or halftime shows, I have real problems to address.

We have to file a small claims case in a neighboring county. Last week I prepared the filing document, affidavits, and gathered every original record I thought I would need. Before making the drive to the county seat, I double-checked the clerk’s website to make sure I had everything in order. I even visited a Notary Public to make an affidavit I prepared “official.”

According to the information available online, I did.

Last Friday standing at the counter, I began handing the clerk my paperwork. She looked through it, then paused.

“Where are all the other copies?”

What copies?

“Oh, you have to have three copies per defendant,” she said, pointing to a one-page instruction sheet sitting behind the counter. “Just like it says on this information document.”

I asked why that document was not available on the website.

She replied, without hesitation, “We keep this here so we can control it.”

What?

It is 2026.

Now I get to make another trip to the courthouse to file the same paperwork—this time with the correct number of copies.

Could I have called the clerk’s office ahead of time and asked? Yes. That part is on me.

But here is what keeps nagging at me.

On balance, I can find my property tax bill, review it line by line, and pay it in full entirely online. No counter. No clerk. No printed copies. No special instructions held behind glass. A process involving significant money, legal obligation, and public accountability runs smoothly at the speed of the internet.

So, what is different in the Clerk of Courts office?

Why can a one-page PDF not be posted for anyone to access?

What exactly is being controlled?

Time, it turns out, is not. Mine is spent making another trip. Certainty is not controlled either; that comes only after a mistake is made. What is controlled is information—and information is power.

Most people will eventually figure it out. Some will make extra trips. Some will take time off work. Some may give up altogether. The system works, but it works unevenly, and quietly favors those with flexible schedules, experience navigating bureaucracy, or simply more patience.

None of this is dramatic. No one raised their voice. No rule was broken.

But when basic information is treated as something to be guarded rather than shared, it is worth asking whether control has slowly replaced service—and whether we notice the difference until we are standing at the counter.

Patio Pondering: Pork, The Pyramid, Your Plate

I want pork to succeed. Ever since I bought my first pig from Howard Faulstick in Monroeville, Indiana, in 1987, I have wanted pork to succeed. From those first pigs forward, I have spent my career believing I could help make pork succeed.

That belief is exactly why I struggle with the mixed signals our industry continues to send.

I listen to industry leaders talk about promoting pork and increasing pork sales. That word choice matters. Sales are not the same as consumption, and they are not the same as demand. Much of the current conversation centers on positioning pork at the center of the plate, competing directly with beef steak.

If that is truly the goal, then we need to be honest about what wins that battle.

Beef does not dominate the grill or the steakhouse because it is the lowest-cost protein. It wins because consumers expect a rewarding eating experience and are willing to pay for it. Marbling matters. Consistency matters. Confidence matters.

Today, the typical pork loin contains roughly three percent intramuscular fat, while the high-quality beef featured in steakhouses ranges from five to more than eleven percent. At the same time, we continue to reward pig farmers for leanness, not marbling. We talk about taste, but we still pay for something else. Add to that the consistency of meat color beef delivers, compared with the ongoing challenges we face with pork loins.

We are still living with the legacy of Pork. The Other White Meat. That campaign solved a problem of its time, but the lean premiums it reinforced never really went away. Our messaging has shifted toward flavor, experience, and center-of-the-plate relevance, yet our incentives have not kept pace. We say one thing and pay for another.

This contradiction deepens when paired with the continual push that producers must always be the lowest-cost option. Cost discipline matters. No one disputes that. But lowest cost does not equate to quality. You cannot ask producers to optimize solely for efficiency, cheapest inputs, and maximum leanness, then expect a premium eating experience to appear at retail or foodservice.

Center-of-the-plate relevance is not won by shaving pennies.

It is not surprising, then, that much of our promotion leans into applications where pork is effectively disguised—carnitas, tacos, bowls, pulled pork. These are important markets, and pork performs well in them. But they are also forgiving formats. They rely on seasoning, sauces, and preparation methods that cover for inconsistency rather than expose excellence.

A pork chop on a plate has no place to hide.

I recently heard the argument that per-capita consumption is no longer a useful metric. The explanation was that total pork consumption continues to grow, even if per-capita numbers remain flat.

That deserves scrutiny.

If per-capita consumption is flat while the population grows, then we are not creating new demand—we are simply feeding more people. And if a growing pork-eating Hispanic population is not pushing per-capita consumption higher, we should be willing to ask where pork is losing relevance elsewhere.

Metrics are not the problem. What they reveal is.

The timing matters. New nutrition guidelines put pork in a strong position to grow demand. The health narrative has shifted. Demographics should be helping. The door is open.

The question is whether we have a plan to walk through it.

If we continue to produce pale, poorly marbled pork while telling consumers to “taste what pork can do for you,” promotion will be forced to work harder and harder to sell around the product instead of with it. Nutrition creates permission. Taste creates repeat purchases. Incentives determine whether we ever get there.

I want this industry to be bullish—but I want that bull to be Babe the Big Blue Ox, not Ferdinand. Babe pulls real weight. Ferdinand is pleasant, but he does not move the load.

If pork is going to win at the center of the plate, it will not be because of word games, reframed metrics, or lowest-cost absolutism. It will be because we finally align genetics, production systems, incentives, and promotion around delivering a consistently great eating experience.

That is how demand is built.

Everything else is just keeping pace.