By Jessica Domel I love aha moments. You know the kind. When something you've heard, maybe a dozen times before, just finally clicks in your brain and everything makes sense. My nieces had one of those moments over the weekend during the last days of the State Fair of Texas. My brother and I took [...]
By Julie Vrazel Not all farmers grow corn, cotton and grain sorghum. There are lots of specialty farmers, too. Like Mark Chamblee. He wakes up and smells the roses every day. That’s because Mark is a rose farmer in Tyler, where he and his family have been growing roses since 1953. Their nursery, Chamblee’s Rose [...]
By Julie Vrazel Budget, budget, budget. It’s an all-too familiar word in my house with a wedding less than two months away and winter feed bills for the cows just around the corner. But a large part of my usual monthly expenses isn’t directly related to our wedding or cattle. It’s my weekly trips to [...]
By Julie Vrazel Walk into a grocery store and you’ll find yourself wandering through the maze of food choices. Bright, bold labels help guide you to your selection—natural, GMO-free, local, organic, gluten-free. The possibilities are endless. But what do you really know about those buzzwords and the food you’re buying? Well, the farmers and ranchers [...]
By Julie Vrazel Let’s talk food, Texas. We’re overwhelmed with buzzwords, marketing ploys and labels, not to mention the vast array of choices. How do we know the truth and what’s really best for us? Organic, conventional, local, natural, GMO-free—we read the labels, but what do they really mean? As consumers, your decisions—and mine—shape our [...]
