As we head into the Christmas Season, THANK YOU for all the success we have had at Oswegatchie! 

As a culture, as a tribe, as a nation, the Oswegatchie community has been tremendously supportive in all our efforts!

The 2013 short list includes:

• 713 campers making it to Oswegatchie for a great summer camp program.
  
•  47 weekends a year being booked in Sutliff Lodge.
  
• 100 students attending ELPs in November
  
•  The construction of Foster Lodge which was spurred on by teacher contributions in dollars and volunteer labor.
  
• The major sponsor ship of the building by Daryle Foster who in turn will receive naming rights for the building.
  
• And every drop of financial and sweat equity 
  

Many of you remember the depressing days of fiscal and physical ruin Oswegatchie experienced in the past. It has been your contributions that ended those days. Now we move further into a promising future!

The Season of Giving!

As we enter the Christmas season, we would like to share with you our list of needs we have organized. 

We are prioritizing 3 specific wood working tools needed for projects in Sutliff. These 3 items range from $300 to $400, and can be picked up by us at Home Depot. Without adding extra pressure on these donations, this is ideal for a chapter or small organization interested in making a charitable purchase.  

• Thickness Planer
• Sliding Compound Miter Saw
• Compact Job Site Table Saw

Our Other Lists…

Foster Lodge Update – a good read!

Our Wish List – filled with the miscellaneous…

Our Funding Priority List – filled with the small and progressing to the BIG!

Thank you once again, and we look forward to seeing you back at Oswegatchie!

Excelsior, 

Bill Waite
Program Director
Oswegatchie Educational Center
Croghan, NY 13327
(315) 346-1222

www.oswegatchie.org 

All I ever wanted to be was a farmer.

I grew up on a farm, and that’s not just a cliché.

I was born in 1968 and my dad started running the Pitts Farm in 1969.

It was all I ever knew.

Dad ran the farm like it was his own, the whole thing looked like a park and they were the best apples and cherries and peaches.   He was a great farmer and a smart businessman, not much of salesmen, but amazing for a guy who stopped going to school in the 8th grade.    He was the business manager and HR department and public relations officer and shipping clerk, all those things that farmers have to be that no one ever thinks about. And it was so cool, that’s what I wanted to do.

I remember driving my little toy tractor, pulling a little toy plow around a radish patch I had in the front yard.

I remember being a little bigger and riding my John Deere pedal tractor around the yard pulling a wagon that I had laid a garbage can in to make it my spray rig.   Back and forth, across the yard, just like dad with his big tractor in the orchard.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table with dad as he went over his spray records in a big binder.  I made my own note book, where I drew pictures of plows and discs and drags and explained how you used them in that order to get ready to plant apple trees.   I was trying to show my dad that I was ready to work on the farm.

I remember being there when they planted apple orchards and what an exciting time it was.  My dad and his brothers where there along with my grandfather and some other old timers.  The rows had to be perfect, “so you could shoot the whole row with a rifle at once”

I remember riding on my dad’s lap on the old Ford Major as he pushed brush or pulled a sprayer putting Etherol on the Wealthys and Early Macs.  I remember how he could split an apple in half with his hands.

I remember picking up rocks, lots of rocks.

I remember my dad's best friend seemed to be a man who brought his family to pick apples every fall,  he didn't work for my dad,  he worked with my dad. And even though his family had darker skin than mine and lived in Florida or on the road following crops,  they became our family too.

When I got older, I learned how to drive tractor myself.  I learned how to mow an orchard, and weed spray and cultivate.   I learned how pick apples and cherries and thin peaches and load trucks.   Learned how to drive a stick shift on a dump truck and plow a field almost straight.  I didn't learn how to trim apple trees; I just knew how to do it.   It’s something  you can’t learn that, you either know it or you don’t.  I think it’s a recessive trait, like blue eyes.

And then when I was in high school I learned something real important. 

A good thing doesn't last forever. 

I got home from school one day, and my dad didn't have a job anymore.  For some reason, Mr. Pitts decided he didn't want to farm with my dad anymore.   The only job I’d ever know for my dad and the place I’d grown up on wasn't there anymore.  At 59 years old, my dad was out of a job.   My brother and he signed up for unemployment.   The people at the office couldn't believe that my dad hadn’t been unemployed since 1945.

 Dad wasn’t out of work long, another farm owner knew a good thing when he saw it and hired my dad to work for him on his farm.  And summers and after school, he hired me too, and I learned some more.  

But dad had learned too.   He’d learned he worked too hard for too long to make money for other people and to make their farms look good.  He didn't want that for me.   I had forgot a little of that little boy on dad's lap steering the Major, and thought I wanted to be a school teacher.   I went to college, dad paid my way, and I tried teaching a little, and then got a great job at a company that helps teachers.  I got to learn more, and see the country and even work with Ag teachers.

Dad finally retired a few years ago, now he’s 87.  He has 8 acres of apples and peaches that someone else takes care of, while he takes care of mom.  And we still talk about farming.  We go for drives to look at orchards and see what’s new, and what’s getting old.

I have a good job that pays well and I have a nice cubical, with a nice computer monitor and no windows and no fresh air.   I send e-mails and text messages and voice mails and talk on the phone. I'm stuck indoors, but I do get to help teachers daily, some of them Ag teachers with dreams of farming themselves.

I’ll be 45 this May, 3 years older than my dad when he started farming.  I wish I was as brave as him.  But there’s not too many apple farmers hiring desk jockeys and I can’t afford to buy my own.   Maybe I could start my own business, and do something in the Ag industry and build it up so I could afford a farm. 

 Or maybe I’ll just man my desk for another 30 years and get a nice send off some day, but right now, I’ve got kids to get into college and a mortgage and bills to pay.

I’ll plant a nice garden this spring, and grow some radishes, and do what I can to help Ag teachers and farmers whenever I can, and dream about fresh dirt and straight rows, and diesel fumes and fresh off the tree apples.

It’s the best I can do for now, and it’s a pretty nice dream.

All I ever wanted to be was a farmer.

Tim Montondo
Professional and Technical Services Manager
p: 585.321.9449
[email protected]

Tim Montondo has been with Ward's Science/VWR for over 22 years. With a bachelor's degree in Biology and Secondary Education from SUNY Oswego, Tim's talents and contributions have ranged from growing bugs and managing Ward's Live Materials and Assembly Departments, to sourcing and evaluating new products and managing Biology product lines in our science education catalogs. Tim is currently the Professional  & Technical Support Manager and uses his many talents, experience, and interpersonal skills to help teachers find answers to all types of questions concerning our products and services.   He also oversees Ag Science products and does workshops for Ag Teachers every chance he can. 
 
Ward's Science is a Career Development Event (CDE) sponsor for the New York FFA Foundation. The funds they contribute help agricultural students get closer to experience agriculture as a possible profession and career. 

Dear Ag Ed and FFA Leaders,

We’re almost there!  Because of your enthusiastic support, we are closing in on our goal of 10 million views of the RAM advertisement video. Thank you for all you have done to promote the ad, and please know it is very important that we do everything we can to continue to promote it. The visibility for agricultural education and FFA is overwhelmingly significant and positive.

Important for you to know is that our members must view the video at the official RAM Youtube site located here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMpZ0TGjbWE or at RAM’s official website here: http://www.ramtrucks.com/en/keepplowing. Viewing the video at other Youtube links will not count toward our goal of 10,000,000 views. Please share this as appropriate with your audiences.

As promised, we are including several links to news stories with responses to the ad. Our goal is to give you a sense of the impact it’s had and to share the media attention we are receiving. We encourage you to log on to the National FFA Facebook page to see the chatter related to the ad.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/god-made-a-farmer-super-bowl_n_2615081.html

http://www.freep.com/article/20130203/BUSINESS0103/302030287/RAM-resurrects-Paul-Harvey-s-God-Made-Farmer-Super-Bowl-ad

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/at-super-bowl-2013-god-made-a-farmer-and-tide-had-a-miracle-stain/2013/02/03/1ba244fc-6e7c-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_blog.html

http://www.kivitv.com/news/local/189745211.html

http://www.indystar.com/article/20130204/NEWS/302050303/FFA-will-harvest-cash-from-downloads-Chrysler-s-Super-Bowl-ad

As you know, this successful partnership with RAM through the National FFA Foundation will generate up to $1 million of new support for FFA. The funds will be used to drive the FFA hunger initiative “Feeding the World–Starting at Home” and support many other FFA programs and activities for our members.

There is one more way you can help. We need to ensure that in any conversations and correspondence we reference this as only RAM and omit any reference to Dodge or Dodge RAM. While you may recall a close connection between the brands in the past, they are no longer tied together and the RAM brand is our partner on this project.

Above all, this campaign is a major win for American agriculture and our producers and ranchers. The ad is elevating the image of agriculture in the public’s mind and it has tied FFA and agricultural education to the future of this important industry. We could not be more pleased.

Thank you for all you do!

Dwight Armstrong                                                                           Rob Cooper

Chief Executive Officer                                                                  Executive Director

National FFA Organization                                                            National FFA Foundation