In Our Very Bones: Poems by Twyla Hansen

DISTANCES 1 Midwestern Autumn, 2 Going to the Graves, 3 Memorial Day, 4 On the Screen Porch, 5 Gophers, 6 Lilac Tripping, 7 The Separator, 9 Conspiracy, 11 My Neighbor\u27s Daughter Learning To Drive, 12 Platte River State Park, Late January, 13 Spring Equinox, 14 When You Leave, 15 My Husband Snoring, 16 Full Moon, Total Eclipse, 17 My Father\u27s Miniatures, 18 Wind, 20 If My Father Were Still Alive ON THE PRAIRIE 23 Song of the Pasque Flower, 24 Blue Moon, 25 Crane River, 26 Nine-Mile Prairie, 27 Late May, 29 Prairie Trout, 30 Vines, 31 Building a Bat House, 32 Blue Herons, 33 Dragonfly, 34 Morning, 35 Mid-September, 36 Warbler, 37 Autumn, 38 Turkey Vultures, 39 Harvest Moon, 40 Winter IN OUR VERY BONES 43 At the Hospital, 45 Brother Story, 46 In Early Fall, 47 Each Time I Look Up, 48 Behind My Back, 49 Cedar Waxwings, 50 Planting the Garden, 51 At the Prairie, the Day Before, 53 Beginning Dance, 54 Full Moon, Partial Eclipse, 55 Annular Eclipse, 56 Walking, Early Spring, 58 Dog Days, 59 Poem for Madelyne, 60 First the Yellow, 61 Winter Solstice, 62 Not Even the Wind, 63 Full Moon Rising, February, 64 Backyar

Three Poems by Twyla Hansen

Twyla Hansen was raised on a farm in northeast Nebraska on land her grandparents farmed as immigrants from Denmark in the late 1800\u27s. And since 1982, she has worked as a horticulturist and arboretum curator at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Twyla Hansen, in the words of Bill Kloefkorn, Nebraska\u27s State Poet, connects : Her truths are in those taproots without which poetry would surely expire for lack of nourishment. She received her B.S from the University of Nebraska. Twyla and her husband Tom live in Lincoln where their yard is maintained as an urban wildlife habitat. In 1989, the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum awarded her the Johnny Appleseed Award for sustained personal involvement in tree planting. The recipient of the 1988 trophy buckle poetry prize from Elkhorn Review, Twyla Hansen has published two collections of verse, How to Live in the Heartland (1992) and In Our Very Bones (1997). Her poems--whether they feature her husband\u27s snoring or the prairie\u27s flowing--attest to her bountiful love of the environment and her joyful connections with the people of Nebraska. As Don Welch says of her work, This poet\u27s got it. By gosh, she\u27s got it. Got this place down pat. Its genus is Nebraskensis, and its species is pure Hansen. The following poems, Blue Heron, Warbler, and Turkey Vultures appear in Twyla Hansen\u27s book, In Our Very Bones (available from Slow Tempo Press, P.O. Box 83686, Lincoln, NE 68501-3686). Blue Herons What does it mean- all day rain coming straight down, slow, a noticeable absence of wind, leaves plush beneath canopies, stilt-legs in the flooded fields? All morning I have glimpsed them-along this highway bottomland the river tried hard to reclaim, broken dikes and debris and backwater-blue- gray sentinels nearly motionless, patient for a meal. And what can we do-in these wide-open spaces where mud creeks are capable of churning out of their banks, flattening brome and fence and farmland- but to take inventory of threatened senses,to pick ourselves up above the water,to rise, to rise

Prairie Suite: A Celebration

25 poems by Twyla Hansen, with illustrations by Paul A. Johnsgard, including: Walk on the Prairie There is mystery here, in the shapes of grass, in the dim movements of an inland sea, connections to an earlier time. Wander barefoot, hypothesize the dance of millennia, the unbearable carvings of the built environment, this ragtag escape. Let its divine simplicity ooze into your pores. Comb the steel from your hair, blanket your tongue with orange. Your breathing will slow. Breathing slow, unbutton the child within. Give her permission to go fly a kite

Science-Based Organic Farming 2005: Toward Local and Secure Food Systems

Organic farming includes growing food and fiber — animals, agronomic crops, horticultural fruits and vegetables, related products — as one dynamic and rapidly evolving component of our complex U.S. food system. Even as more farmers are moving toward organic certification and participation in an environmentally sound and economically lucrative market, questions arise about the long-term social impacts and sustainability of a set of practices that has gone from a movement to an industry. Consolidations in the organic trade have brought multinational corporations to the table, as they have observed a grassroots activity that has grown by 20% per year for the past two decades, and that now includes a segment of the food system that has over $11 billion in annual sales in this country alone. The quest is broadening in our search for local and secure food systems. Beyond the threats of terrorism, insecurity of long supply lines, and dependence of a global food chain on inexpensive fossil fuels, there is growing concern about how food can be produced locally. This implies local ownership and management, use of foods that are in season, promotion of closed materials cycles, and distribution of benefits from the food system in ways that the current organic certification system cannot assure. In this set of resource materials for 2005, we present organic farming in the context of family operations, environmental soundness, and social accountability. Why do farmers convert to organic production, and what is its future? Why is local food security and connecting people to their food supply important? Are these idealistic questions that have no connection to “science-based organic farming” or do they help open a rich and productive discussion about the whole future of our food system? Here we present publications about production practices for organic crops and animals, about processing and marketing, and about the certification process. But we also open the debate about the future of organic farming, and what some alternatives might be that can enhance the future of family farming and locally secure food systems. There is a fine line between education and advocacy, and we attempt at every turn to identify what is established through science and where opinion enters in. To assume that science is value free is a myth, yet we introduce ethics, philosophy, and social values into this discussion to provoke further discussion and hopefully promote progress in establishing a long-term, sustainable, and equitable food system

Science-Based Organic Farming 2006: Toward Local and Secure Food Systems

Organic farming includes growing food and fiber — animals, agronomic crops, horticultural fruits and vegetables, related products — as one dynamic and rapidly evolving component of our complex U.S. food system. Even as more farmers are moving toward organic certification and participation in an environmentally sound and economically lucrative market, questions arise about the long-term social impacts and sustainability of a set of practices that has gone from a movement to an industry. Consolidations in the organic trade have brought multinational corporations to the table, as they have observed a grassroots activity that has grown by 20% per year for the past two decades, and that now includes a segment of the food system that has over $11 billion in annual sales in the U.S. alone. The quest is broadening in our search for local and secure food systems. Beyond the threats of terrorism, insecurity of long supply lines, and dependence of a global food chain on inexpensive fossil fuels, there is growing concern about how food can be produced locally. This implies local ownership and management, use of foods that are in season, promotion of closed materials cycles, and distribution of benefits from the food system in ways that the current organic certification system cannot assure. In this set of resource materials for 2006, we present organic farming in the context of family operations, environmental soundness, and social accountability. Why do farmers convert to organic production, and what is its future? Why are local food security and connecting people to their food supply important? Are these idealistic questions that have no connection to “science-based organic farming” or do they help open a rich and productive discussion about the whole future of our food system? Here we present publications about production practices for organic crops and animals, about processing and marketing, and about the certification process. But we also open the debate about the future of organic farming, and what some alternatives might be that can enhance the future of family farming and locally secure food systems. There is a fine line between education and advocacy, and we attempt at every turn to identify what is established through science and where opinion enters in. To assume that science is value free is a myth, yet we introduce ethics, philosophy, and social values into this discussion to provoke further discussion and hopefully promote progress in establishing a long-term, sustainable, and equitable food system

Multifunctional Rural Landscapes: Economic, Environmental, Policy, and Social Impacts of Land Use Changes in Nebraska

The conversion of farmland near cities to other human uses is a global trend that challenges our long-term capacity to provide food, fiber, and ecosystem services to a growing world population. If current trends continue in the U.S., the population will reach 450 million by the year 2050. At the same time, an accelerating change in land use will reduce today’s two acres per person of farmland to less than one acre per person. This is scarcely enough to produce food for our domestic population, without any food available for export – even assuming advances in technology. We need to take these trends seriously, as the national economy and domestic food security are threatened by conversion of land to non-farm uses. This bulletin provides insight on the multifunctional aspects of the rural landscape, including an overview and agricultural production (MFRL 1), human decision making (MFRL 2), landscape structure and function (MFRL 3), economic dimensions (MFRL 4), policy and legal dimensions (MFRL 5), and potentials for peri-urban agriculture in Nebraska and the Midwest (MFRL 6). Twyla M. Hansen compiled this information in fulfillment of requirements for her Master of Agriculture degree project; it is an outgrowth of the UNL course, Urbanization of Rural Landscapes, taught by Charles A. Francis. The information is suitable for a general audience, and especially valuable for city and county planners, county extension boards, natural resource district boards and administrators, Extension and NRCS educators and specialists, university and college classes in planning, high school classes in agriculture, farmers and ranchers, and residents of rural communities concerned about the long-term future and stability of their towns and quality of life. Through use of this bulletin in client workshops across Nebraska and classes in college and high school, we anticipate feedback from interested people and improvement in the information base. We welcome comments, additional references, and examples of application of the principles of long-term planning in this region

Professor Wilhelm Czermak

Inspired by a similar national event, the aim of Nebraska Wildflower Week is to increase awareness and appreciation of wildflowers and native plants in the wild and in the landscape through an array of events and activities across Nebraska