The U.S. National Weather Service says that the nation has just experienced the wettest 12 months in the 124 years of the agency’s recordkeeping. Last month was the wettest May on record and the second wettest of all recorded months since 1895. As a result, a wide swath of land is unable to be planted to the principle crop of corn. What is being sown is confusion, much of it with its basis in government policy.
The 1996 Farm Bill is known informally as the “Freedom to Farm Act.” For the first time, the government made direct payments to farmers regardless of what seeds they put into the ground. The concept lost support within two years as weather and the Asian financial crisis wreaked havoc, and the fixed payments prove...
A pika (/ˈpaɪkə, ˈpiːkə/ PY-kə, PEE-kə[3][4]) is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal native to Asia and North America. With short limbs, a very round body, an even coat of fur, and no external tail, they resemble their close relative the rabbit, but with short, rounded ears.[5] The large-eared pi...
Lobelia (/loʊˈbiːliə, lə-/[4][5][6]) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Campanulaceae comprising 415 species,[7] with a subcosmopolitan distribution primarily in tropical to warm temperate regions of the world, a few species extending into cooler temperate regions.[8] They are known g...
The Olympic marmot (Marmota olympus) is a rodent in the squirrel family, Sciuridae. It occurs only in the U.S. state of Washington, at the middle elevations of the Olympic Peninsula. The closest relatives of this species are the hoary marmot and the Vancouver Island marmot. In 2009, it was decl...
