Chris Hardie

I have completed my quinquennial agricultural legal reporting duties with a week to spare.

There are quite a few Chris Hardie’s in the world – or at least a few others that share the same name.

I don’t play the lottery and don’t frequent casinos, but if I were a betting man, I’d lay odds that sometime in the next few years I will be involved in a deer-vehicle collision.

It’s always with a mixture of sadness and hope when we move past the holiday season and face the bleakness of January.

I am blessed to live in the country where the solitude of the woods and the wonders of nature and animal life are literally just feet from my doorstep.

One might be tempted to quip something like “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” but trust me, I have never been on that pedestal.

I will fully admit that I am a procrastinator – if you ask me tomorrow. I agree with Mark Twain who said: “Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”

The older I become the more I appreciate the little things about Christmas and cherish memories of Christmases past.

A lot of time and money has been spent in our country coming up with increased security and contingency plans for the possibility of a terrorist or cyber-attack on our electrical grid.

Thanksgiving has come and gone but perhaps this can be the year that we turn a day of thankfulness into a holiday season of gratitude.