Publisher’s Note - Spring Issue 2026

Spring has arrived!  Not that we have suffered through months of grueling winter: we are enjoying a late season snowstorm at the moment… Spring is the season of new life, it’s a time of hope as the land wakes up and blooms again. New life is sprinkled across the landscape with calves, lambs and foals arriving in pastures; and the sun stretches days into warm weeks. 

Yet it is hard to know what lies ahead for our country and our economy as we have entered into an unsettled season across our world. Uncertainty seems to be the rule anymore. Though, in that uncertainty, we find it assuring to see small business owners trying to continue to serve their customers well, hold true to their missions and do what they can to make the community around them a better place. We feature several of those businesses in this issue.  

We visited Adam and Sarah Pedone from Edgar who have learned how to use drones to battle noxious weeds and are having great success in hard-to-reach areas where no other method of eradication has been successful. 

We visited Miller’s Horse Palace, a venue at Laurel, that caters to horse-related events five days a week with ropings, cuttings, barrel racing and youth rodeos. The place has become a gathering place for the horse community. 

We feature a family-run dairy in Cody providing milk and cream to their customers with just 11 cows.  It is a labor of love, but for the Nelsons, it is all about fresh and delicious. 

And enjoy our story about a flower farm outside of Great Falls operated by the Daughtery family: a husband-wife team and their children who sell fresh flowers all summer but offer their customers beautiful tulips during the winter months.   

We delve into the question of whether native bees or honeybees are the best pollinators in our backyard flower gardens - the truth stings a little. 

Be sure to read our story about Kailey Kerns, the cobbler at Al’s Bootery in Billings who gives second and even third lives to beloved boots and shoes that their owners can’t bear to retire.  

And check out Jean’s Cuisines - she’s been out foraging and gives some great ideas on how to prepare a forager’s bounty – including dandelion pesto! 

As we move into spring months, we will continue to pray for the moisture the countryside desperately needs.  We also will be praying for resolutions that will lead our country to peace both within and outside of our borders. 

And as always, we want to thank our readers.  We are ever grateful for you allowing us the opportunity to try to serve by bringing a story or picture or thought that might somehow brighten your day.   

“How great are His signs, and how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and His dominion endures from generation to generation.” Daniel 4:3