Farming folks will appreciate these gifts

The end is near yet again and, if you are impressively organized, you’ve got your Christmas shopping done and have nothing to do but enjoy the upcoming couple of weeks of time and food and family. However, if you’re more like me and get distracted and delayed more than a little, there’s still a lot of decisions to make and things to get and do. As I’ve done before, I’ll do again, and so here’s some thoughts on what to get the agriculturally-involved associate for Christmas.

Since they’ve already got a fifteen-inch adjustable wrench, a portable espresso machine, and an electric grease-gun due to our previous discussions on the subject, how about something a bit less work-related? While a new pair of fencing pliers is always good because it is the only thing that might make one look forward, at least for a moment, to building and repairing the wire-strung menace that sometimes succeeds in separating livestock, what about the more recreationally-inclined? Many, especially the younger breed, enjoy a little distraction. For these modern souls, who have an endeavor other than the work, a likely option is a game camera. These remote sensing devices are fun and useful. Park one somewhere on your daily feed route, or the path you take to check all the sprinklers and wells. You never know what it will have seen while you were elsewhere. You are bound to catch images of varmints, critters, and trespassers — and since two out of three of those can be worth hunting, you’ve got something to look forward to with your friends when you get a little time.

Another option is to get someone a little unnecessary style. How about a holster for their favorite tool? If you got them the pliers last year, get them a handy holster so that they can carry it around and show it off. Did they overly injure their mobile communication device? Did it slip out of their pocket too many times? Maybe a more secure, more protective container is just the thing.

And, if they really do have it all, then let me propose that I know a thing that is extremely new. There are some books written by a local author and ag-adventurer that you might know from her columns in this very newspaper. I guarantee that not everybody has one of them yet.

Audra Brown knows what her people are getting to read this year. Contact her at [email protected]. Find her on the web at http://www.audra-brown.com.