After spending four months in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, 60 head of Doug Zillinger’s momma cows returned home in mid-August to the short-land grass of Phillips County.

Moving out of the floor trailer and down the chute, the fall calvers hurried toward the green, knee-high grass. Fat and sassy, they quickly settled in and went about the business of contentedly grazing.

“They’re some good looking cows,” Zillinger said as a smile crossed his face. “They’ve shed out their old hair during summer and in a few weeks they’ll begin to put on their winter coat. I’m really satisfied with the time these girls spent up in Nebraska.”

The Sand Hills is cow heaven. This region of mixed-grass prairie in north-central Nebraska, covers just over one quarter of the state.

Depending on the weather, grass is rich, green and boot high by mid-April. The Sand Hills sit atop the Ogallala Aquifer. Temporary and permanent shallow lakes are common in low-lying valleys between the grass-stabilized dunes prevalent in the Sand Hills and provide plenty of water for thirsty livestock.

That’s one of the main reasons Zillinger settled on this grass-land area when faced with the choice of moving his cows to grass or selling off his herd back in 2013.

“We were in a three-year drought and lost some grass,” Zillinger recalls. “I wanted to continue in the cow business so I told my wife (in January of that year), ‘I’m going out to look for grass and I’m not coming home ‘til I find some.”

After a couple months of searching the Phillips County stockman located and contracted grass for his cow herd. He wanted land roughly the same altitude as home and similar grasses – familiar surroundings for his cow herd.

Three years later, Zillinger plans to take more cows north in 2016. The working relationship with Derek Schwanebeck, who owns the grassland he custom grazes, has developed into a win-win for both parties.

Schwanebeck likes to limit grazing on his family’s land to fall calvers – no bulls and no calves. Eight cattlemen with herds ranging from 300 to 24 head summer on the  grassland.

This summer the Grant County cattleman pastured 1,020 head of cows. Schwanebeck also runs 400 cows of his own.

“We provide grass during its peak growth period,” Schwanebeck emphasizes. “Our program lasts four months, includes high-intensity grazing and then the cows are gone. We carefully manage our resources, move the cattle and we never overgraze this land.”

Just importantly, Schwanebeck chooses to open up his grassland to other stockman who can benefit from grazing the Sand Hills land. Living on the land where the cattle graze, he watches over the cattle daily. He wants to ensure their cattle leave Grant County in better shape than when they arrive.

“I want these stockmen, like Doug, and their cows to prosper while they’re up here under my care,” Schwanebeck says. “If they’re improving their bottom line, I’ll be doing the same.”

Stockmen are, “always, always welcome but never obligated to come up and look at their cattle,” he says.

Yes, it’s a long trip up to Grant County, more than 300 miles and a six and a half hour drive, if everything goes right. Zillinger made three trips in three consecutive days to bring his cow herd home.

The Phillips County stockman plans to travel north to the Sand Hills again next April – his fourth trip.

“I really look forward to bringing my cattle up there,” Zillinger says. “I hope I can bring more up next April. I feel really comfortable leaving them in Derek’s care and knowing they’ll have one of the best sources of green grass and all the water they can drink.”

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

“No Escape” is the kind of movie that makes me feel a little bad about being a critic. It’s a strong effort that, with a little more polish and consistency, could have been something special. That’s easy to say and its easy to look at a scene and “armchair quarterback” what could have been done differently. It makes me feel a little bad, but I don’t think I’m wrong.

“No Escape” starts with a wonderful ambiguity that is difficult to find in modern cinema. It started with the trailer and the complete lack of buzz around this film. I knew almost nothing about it going in, which doesn’t really happen to me. Next, the film is intentionally vague in its opening act. Specifics are withheld which effectively increases the tension and adds to the chaos when the situation becomes dire for our characters. Unfortunately, the vagueness ends up being more of a gimmick than an artistic decision. The difference between a gimmick and a solid artistic direction is so often the level of commitment. “No Escape” fell into gimmick-land because it didn’t stick to its guns. The lean plot looses its mobility when it packs on some extra weight in the form of heavy-handed plot turns and incredibly non-subtle thematic messages.

My primary reaction throughout almost the entire film was one of toppling. I wanted “No Escape” to be what it perhaps intended to be, I wanted it to be what it could have been, but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t going to. I guess its better to teeter on the brink of being a good or bad film than simply being an outright bad film. There are moments to enjoy and thrills to be had in “No Escape,” but their inconsistent and punctuated by eye-rolls and long sighs when loses its way.

3 of 6 stars

After two years of planning, the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce is pleased to facilitate the first ever Community Cruise, a unique tour of Hays highlighting future development projects and opportunities for our elected officials.

Partnering with the Hays Convention and Visitors Bureau, Downtown Hays Development Corp., Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development, we are excited to share more information about how we four Welcome Center entities work together for the betterment of our community.

Many of you are aware that one of the Chamber’s roles is to advocate on behalf of our local businesses. However, advocating doesn’t always equal lobbying. Taking firm stances can be polarizing with our members, and our resources don’t allow for us to financially support trips to Topeka or Washington.

This is why we at the Chamber believe so strongly in providing quality and timely information, whether through election forums or seasonal Eggs and Issues. With this year’s Community Cruise, we hope to aid those high-level community decision-makers with important information and awareness of various happenings throughout the city.

So, on Sept. 23, we will be connecting city and county commissioners with Hays USD 489 Board of Education members along with key representatives from Fort Hays State University and North Central Kansas Technical College. Our tour through Hays will show current and future development projects and opportunities.

This event might seem simple in nature, but we believe it will be beneficial to our guests as well as fruitful to all of our Chamber members.
We are always exploring ways to provide more value to our area businesses, so please let us know if there are other ways we can work harder, smarter and more effectively for you.

Tammy Wellbrock is executive director of the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce.

From 60 to 75 percent of college students change major at least once, depending on the region of the country and the schools they select. This greatly undermines the expectations that students should graduate in four years as well as public school beliefs that career tracks are important.

“G-O-T” or graduate-on-time is a common expectation of legislators and administrators. For several years, we have seen proposals across the United States for only providing state support for four years of public university education (in those states that are still providing some support to higher education). The presumption is that college students who take longer are malingering or partying down.

The fact that more students must now work while going to college has convinced some lawmakers that maybe we must allow students 5-and-a-half or six years to graduate. Use of the 6-year average generates graduation rates of roughly 75 percent for the selective private liberal arts colleges and 50 percent for public universities.

Community colleges graduate about 25 percent of students who wanted to pursue an Associate degree over any time period. And according to The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s Annual Report released in March, Kansas does have the highest rate of all states of students who complete a community college AA degree and then go on to finish a 4-year bachelors degree: 25.2 percent of the one-fourth.

In a second report released in July, The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center followed
3.6 million students who entered college in 2008 through 2014. Two-thirds or 2.4 million had transferred between colleges, and often more than once. Some sought easier or cheaper courses and some changed career paths.

Most states are now using retention and graduation rates to evaluate higher education institutions.
This migration of students and changes in major completely undermines these “performance-based funding” schemes and turns this system of rewards and penalties into nonsense.

What is not discussed in academia is the difficulty students face in deciding on a career.
The youngster who strolled down the streets of Laredo in the 1800’s could easily walk among and observe the handful of jobs that were available in a Western town. Today the variety of job specialties numbers in the tens of thousands. Some children do not really know what their parent’s do at work.

Society is far more complex today. We isolate students in schools and few ever really know what goes on inside a hospital, courtroom, auto garage, factory, etc. In this aspect, our K-12 schools have become prisons, isolated from the world of work. Farm kids are probably the one significant exception, but they now make up less than one percent of the population.

Educators who assert that there are plenty of classroom materials and media on occupations, not to mention television shows, fail to recognize the ineffectiveness of these abstractions compared to real life experiences. Media images of police focus on the few minutes of adrenalin and ignore the hours of paperwork and routine interactions. The fact that most police retire without ever having fired their gun at a criminal does not match the false media image.

Henry David Thoreau observed in his time that: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Far too many people are stuck in jobs that they do not like. The “60-75 percent change majors” figure indicates how important it is for all universities to have a wide range of talented professors, each one promoting their subject as the most important discipline.

Universities are the setting where our students are mature enough to explore and discover their “goal in life.” Here is where you hear teachers advocate to students: find the job you love and you will never work a day in your life. You will want to go to work every day. And the paycheck is incidental.

Unfortunately, we are imposing career tracks in the K-12 curriculum in an attempt to leverage more student motivation to study. Ask little children what they want to be when they grow up and they may likely say princess or doctor or batman. “Career tracks” that attempt to channel students starting in middle school are well-intentioned but premature and destined to be ineffective. That is why 60-75 percent of college students change majors at least once.

Remember the old TV show called “Sometimes Kids say the Darndest Things”? Welcome to my version of that show called “Sometimes Critters do the Darndest Things.” My brother Joe recently told me a story that fits right in with my story line this week.

He owns 200 acres in southeastern Ohio that is nothing but forest, and could easily be off-the-grid if he wanted it to be. He has a nice cabin way off the road, and as all good cabins should, it has a covered porch running its entire length. The driveway is ten feet or so below the porch, and at the bottom of a steep drive lays a creek which is another several feet below the main driveway.

At the bottom along the creek is a deer feeder built atop railroad ties to keep it safe from the resident wild pigs. As the crow flies, the deer feeder is probably seventy-five yards from the porch and is the gathering place for all manner of wildlife morning, noon and night. Most visitors are welcome at the feeder with the exception of raccoons, which are bullies and will pig-out on the easy meal if allowed.

One evening recently Joe stepped out onto the porch after dark to investigate a skirmish at the feeder below, to find a raccoon slurping up the easy meal of corn spit out by the feeder. He shot the coon and heard it splash backwards into the creek and went to bed. The next morning while enjoying his coffee on the porch, he noticed something rolling and splashing in the creek below. He walked down to the creek and there were two big snapping turtles, each attached with a death grip to opposite ends of the raccoon carcass. They would fight and roll until one got the upper hand and was above the water. When the other turtle finally needed air, the fight was on again until that turtle was above water, and so-on and so-forth; seems like a fitting way for the raccoon to go!

Some friends of ours make crafts in a workshop attached to one of their big machinery sheds via a big door which they often keep open to provide a breeze while they work. For some time this summer a large toad had taken up residence in one corner of the workshop and was welcome as it basically ate bugs and stayed out-of-the-way. One day recently as they worked there, our friends wife kept hearing strange noises coming from that corner of the shop.

Upon investigation, they found a medium sized snake with the resident toad buried “legs first” in its mouth up to the waist where its legs began. The problem was that one leg was buried in its mouth but the other leg was outside, making it impossible for the snake to ever swallow the toad any further. The noises they heard came from the tug-of-war that was under way between the two. The toad would attempt to crawl away from the snake with its one operable leg, then the snake would try in vain to suck the toad deeper into its mouth. Back and forth they went until my friend killed the snake and removed the hapless toad, which then limped away, dragging its “swallowed” leg.

Yes, sometimes critters do the darndest things, and if we are blessed enough to be at the right place at the right time we can see quite a show. At least critters have an excuse; they do those things to survive, where we humans usually do them out of stupidity! Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

It sometimes takes a tragic event to remind us to use proper food safety practices. Once again, this holds true.
In April, a church in an Ohio community held a potluck dinner for members of the congregation. Unfortunately, because of a food safety mistake, one person died from consuming food at this church dinner.

The victim became ill with botulism, a food-borne illness that causes nerve damage and paralysis. Twenty others were hospitalized with serious complications. The source was identified as improperly home-canned potatoes made into a potato salad.

Community meals, such as church suppers and hunters’ breakfasts, are vital in every community big or small. They provide a time to get together with friends and neighbors and sometimes to raise needed funds. But, proper food handling is imperative to prevent tragedy from ruining the event.

Preparing food for the public, whether at a volunteer group fund-raiser, at a restaurant or concession stand, often means dealing with larger quantities of food than those used at home. With larger amounts of food, different food practices and special attention to detail become critical.

A basic food handler short course for food service employees and volunteer groups will be held on Thursday, September 10, from 1:30 to 4:00 pm at the Ellis County Extension Office, 601 Main Street in Hays. The cost is $7.00 per person and includes the Servsafe Food Handler Guide, a nationally-recognized food safety training resource.

The class covers food safety basics, personal hygiene, preventing cross-contamination, food allergens, time and temperature controls, and cleaning and sanitation. A certificate of attendance will be provided to each participant.

REGISTER AND PAY FEES by Thursday, September 3 at the Ellis County Extension Office to ensure adequate training materials and class supplies. Obtain a registration form at www.ellis.ksu.edu in right box under “Events.”
Please enroll for the Servsafe Food Handler Course at the Ellis County Extension Office this week. Drop-ins cannot be accommodated for this class. Enrollment is considered complete when fees are paid. For more information, call the Ellis County Extension Office, 785-628-9430.

The Top Five Causes of Food Poisoning
The US Centers for Disease Control list these top five causes of food poisoning as the food handling mistakes most likely to lead to illness:

· Inadequate Cooling and Cold Holding
More than half of all food poisonings are due to keeping foods out at room temperature for more than two to four hours, or not cooling the food quickly enough to chill a large quantity of food to a safe temperature.
· Preparing Food Too Far Ahead of Service
Food prepared 12 or more hours before serving increases the risk of temperature abuse. Preparing food just before serving reduces the need to cool and reheat foods, prime times for bacterial growth to occur if not done properly.
· Poor Personal Hygiene and Infected Personnel
Poor hand-washing habits and foodhandlers working while sick are implicated in one out of every four food poisonings.
· Inadequate Reheating
When leftovers are not reheated quickly enough or do not reach a high enough temperature, illness can result. All reheated foods should reach 165 degrees or higher before being served.
· Inadequate Hot Holding
The danger zone for bacterial growth is 40 degrees to 140 degrees. Hot foods must be kept at a temperature above 140 degrees to stay safe. Cooked foods which slip below 140 degrees can become contaminated with bacterial growth.

Linda K. Beech is Ellis County Extension Agent for Family and Consumer Sciences.