Cummings and Goings in Agriculture

Wild Hog Seminar Set For Multipurpose Building

By Steve Cummings

Hope everyone had safe and happy holidays.  It’s good to be back in the office, but it sounds almost impossible to be starting the fourth decade with the Yalobusha County Extension Service. Pamela Redwine, Mary Mason Furr, Pat Rodrigue, Nell Lowe and I all look forward to serving you in 2010. Pat and Nell are our call-in secretaries and we will be depending on them a lot until we hire a full-time office associate. If you are interested in the job or know someone that is, keep a lookout in the local newspapers or the Mississippi State University webpage for the job announcement. We do not know at this time when the job will open up for applications, but hope it’s soon.

We are not the only Ag agency going through some changes in personnel. Bobbie Williams retired from the FSA office at the end of the year. Jeff Tillman transferred from our county to the Bolivar County NRCS and Lamar Burgess took the job as head of the James L. Whitten Plant Materials Center.  Lee Clark will be the acting NRCS district conservationist for Yalobusha County. We wish each one of them well in their new job or retirement.

I am so ready for spring and do believe we have had enough cold weather. If the weather is as cold as predicted over the next few days, we will all be hoping for warmer weather. However, I will admit the snow flurries early in the week were beautiful.

Upcoming Events

There are several upcoming programs and activities sponsored by the Yalobusha County Extension Service. For more information on any of the following, please call the Extension office at 675-2730.

There will be a Wild Hog Seminar on Jan. 12 at 6:30 p.m. at the Yalobusha County Multi-purpose Building. Biology, Damage and Control of wild hogs will be discussed. Since wild hogs are becoming a problem for some parts of Yalobusha County, all landowners are encouraged to attend.

On Jan. 19 the Yalobusha County Homemakers Council and the Renasant Bank will host a “travel” seminar at 10 a.m. at the Yalobusha County Multi-purpose Building. Trips sponsored by Renasant Bank will be discussed.  Everyone interested in these trips or MHV are encouraged to attend.

Yalobusha County Extension Service will offer Master Gardener Certification each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in February and March provided five people sign up to attend. Extensive training will be given in the field of horticulture. This training will cost $85 and will include registration, a notebook and refreshments. There is a Master Gardener Program in the county and anyone interested in gardening of any kind are encouraged to attend. Please call the Yalobusha County Extension office at 675-2730 to pre-register.

The Horse Show season starts  Jan. 30 and shows will start at 4 p.m.  This will give everyone a better opportunity to come watch the horses run, as last year many of the running events started after 9 p.m. The horse shows provide great family entertainment as the shows are free and open to the public. I encourage you to come watch some of the best horses in the state run.