I've been mulling over something a very smart co-worker said to me this week: time is relative.  It moves faster or slower depending on your age, your work load and enjoyment of whatever you're doing at the moment.

If you are my approximate age and grew up on a farm, you probably remember how long summers used to last when you spent day after sweaty day walking beans or de-tasseling corn.  The start of school (and an end to the 12-hour chore days) seemed to take forever.

For proof of the "relativity of time" theory, look no further than your children.  Every mother thinks time stands still when faced with a colicky infant, sleep deprivation and potty training.   But what about when they're teenagers?  Every time I look at my daughter (now 13 and taller than me), I'm convinced she should still be five, holding my hand to cross a parking lot and totally in love with her parents (sigh).

According to psychologist Philip Zimbardo, it's not just 13-year-olds who need to sloooooow down; it's us (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/time-is-relative/?emc=eta1). We probably don't need some psychologist brainiac to tell us all that we eat too fast, work too long, worry too much.  We spend too little time sitting down to dinner together.  We sacrifice our friends, our family and our sleep in order to "get ahead" in our jobs.  According to the latest statistics, only 20 percent of households sit down and have dinner together.

One thing is for certain: as fast as time goes by at our age (mine anyway), there IS no going back.  So, as we look ahead to 2011, how about making a couple resolutions to help us all make time a little more meaningfully.  Here's my short list of 2011 Resolutions:

1)      I resolve to do everything slower: walking, talking, breathing, praying; you know, the Big Stuff.

2)      I resolve to tell my family members every day that I love them.  Let me just say that anyone with a surly teenager at home knows this can sometimes be harder than it sounds (sigh).

3)      I resolve to let my dog take his time to check out evvvverrrything on our morning walks.  At least once a week, anyway (sorry, Spot).

4)      I resolve to chew my food.  Slowly.  No more burgers wolfed down at my desk while I "work through lunch".  Sure, it's not practical every day, but a recent dinner with friends at a new French restaurant in Des Moines (http://tinyurl.com/2wuojrj) convinced me that there is beauty in planning and enjoying a slowly and carefully-prepared meal.  I need to take time to actually taste and enjoy my food!

5)      And finally, I resolve to share even more stories of Iowans who DO take their time doing what's right in the name of putting food on ALL our tables: farmers.  Farmers, more than anyone else, understand the theory of "relative time."  Their technology has evolved faster than our nation's space program, yet the raw materials at their disposal remain unchanged: soil, water, work ethic.  Technology can shorten a growing season, increase yields or improve the nutrition of a chicken egg, but it can't change values.  Values of good farmers don't change.  Let's hope we all resolve to remember that in 2011.  Happy New Year!

Laurie Johns is Public Relations Manager for the Iowa Farm Bureau.                        12/31/2010

Now that school is out, my 13-year-old daughter is embracing her new schedule. In short, she doesn't do anything. These last few days have found her on the couch, TV blaring, i-pod headphones in place and reading an e-book on her Nook. I can't help but think that although my childhood on the farm was difficult, there were lessons learned by all those hot, summer days spent bean-walking at dawn, fence-painting at noon and manure-scooping at sunset -- lessons she'll never learn.

Although this is a short-term blip before her sports, church and academic summer camps begin, it still seems like those camps, wonderful as they are, can't possibly teach the life skills I learned growing up on a farm.

I learned how to be strong by hoisting hay bales; I learned how to be tolerant walking beans--getting up before dawn, cutting weeds out of steaming, muddy fields that stretched for miles; I learned how to be fast by chasing pigs that got out of the feedlot; I learned to be gentle but firm while holding squirming baby pigs for vaccination; I learned about the circle of life when animals we raised from birth were sold to market (regardless of my tears and months of bonding). All are skills unlearned by today's Iowans, now three or more generations removed from farming.

Not only are too many suburban-dwelling kids like my daughter removed from the character-building value of the sweaty, dirty, heavy-lifting jobs which are a part of farm life, they're uneducated on modern food production. How can we be surprised when they are seduced or recruited by animal activists who claim food today comes from cruel practices or polluters? Many kids have never been on a farm to gain the experience to discern the truth themselves.

But, I propose we find a way to get these suburban "couch dwellers" to a type of Farm Camp, where they can spend a week or two pulling weeds, painting fences, chasing pigs, scooping manure. They just may learn that it takes more than a trip to the grocery store to put food on the table. And, who knows how that knowledge can be applied to benefit parents everywhere; I have a feeling that if nothing else, these suburban kids will come away from livestock chores thinking they have no reason to complain when Mom tells them to pick up after their dog in the back yard, you know?

Laurie Johns is Public Relations Manager for the Iowa Farm Bureau. 6/15/2010