The University of Wyoming Extension service provides research and education to farmers and ranchers; funded by federal, state, and local sources:
Agricultural production and management: The Extension service provides information and resources on topics such as crop production, livestock management, and farm business management.
Soil and water management: The Extension service offers expertise on soil fertility, irrigation, water quality, and conservation practices.
Pest management: The Extension service provides resources and support for integrated pest management, including information on insect and disease control, weed management, and pesticide safety.
Youth education: The Extension service offers educational programs and activities for youth interested in agriculture, including 4-H clubs and competitions.
Community development: The Extension service works with local communities to support economic development, tourism, and natural resource conservation.
The Extension service also offers consultations, workshops, field days, and other events to help farmers and ranchers stay up-to-date on the latest research and technologies in agriculture.
“The Water Is Wide” is a traditional folk song with deep roots in the British Isles, particularly Scotland and England, before it became a beloved American folk song. Its origins are complex, as it evolved through oral tradition, with variations in lyrics, melody, and title across regions and centuries. Below is a detailed explanation of its origins and journey to becoming a classic American folk song with summer associations.1. British Isles Origins (17th–18th Century)
Earliest Roots: The song likely derives from a Scottish or English folk ballad dating back to at least the 17th century. It is closely related to ballads like “Waly, Waly” (sometimes spelled “Wally, Wally”), a lament about love and loss. The earliest known versions appear in Scottish oral traditions, with references to broadsides (printed song sheets) from the 1600s.
Melody and Structure: The melody associated with “The Water Is Wide” is a modal, haunting tune typical of Celtic folk music. It shares similarities with other traditional songs like “O Waly, Waly,” which was collected in Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917). The song’s structure, with its simple, repetitive stanzas, made it adaptable for oral transmission.
Lyrics and Themes: Early versions focused on themes of unrequited or lost love, with the “wide water” symbolizing an insurmountable barrier between lovers. For example, a common early stanza is: “The water is wide, I cannot get o’er / And neither have I wings to fly / Give me a boat that will carry two / And both shall row, my love and I.” This imagery of rivers and separation resonated in pastoral settings, often evoking summer landscapes.
2. Transmission to America
Colonial Migration: The song crossed the Atlantic with British and Scottish immigrants, particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries, settling in regions like the Appalachian Mountains, where it became part of the American folk tradition. Scots-Irish settlers, in particular, brought ballads like “The Water Is Wide” to the American South, where they were adapted to local contexts.
Appalachian Influence: In the Appalachians, the song’s lyrics and melody were shaped by oral tradition, with variations emerging in different communities. It retained its melancholic tone but often incorporated local imagery, such as American rivers or landscapes, which tied it to summer’s reflective, open-air mood.
African American Influence: Some scholars suggest that African American spirituals influenced the song’s evolution in America, as its themes of longing and crossing water paralleled spirituals like “Deep River.” This blending enriched its emotional depth and melodic variations.
3. Documentation and Revival
Early Collections: The song was first formally documented in the 19th century, with variants appearing in folk song collections. By the early 20th century, collectors like Cecil Sharp and Francis James Child (known for the Child Ballads) noted versions of “Waly, Waly” and related songs in both Britain and America.
Folk Revival (20th Century): “The Water Is Wide” gained prominence during the American folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Artists like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and The Kingston Trio popularized it, often performing it at summer folk festivals. Seeger’s version, in particular, standardized the modern American melody and lyrics, emphasizing its gentle, summery river imagery.
Adaptations: The song was adapted into various forms, including gospel, pop, and classical arrangements. Its inclusion in school songbooks and campfires further cemented its place in American folk culture, with its river imagery evoking lazy summer days.
6. Historical Significance
Oral Tradition: The song’s survival through oral tradition highlights its adaptability and emotional resonance, key traits of folk music.
Cross-Cultural Exchange: Its journey from Scotland/England to America, with influences from African American traditions, exemplifies the blending of cultures in American folk music.
Modern Legacy: Today, “The Water Is Wide” remains a staple in folk repertoires, performed by artists across genres and taught in music education, often evoking summer’s reflective mood.
The water is wide, I cannot cross o’er,
And neither have I wings to fly.
Give me a boat that will carry two,
And both shall row, my love and I.
A ship there is, and she sails the sea,
She’s loaded deep, as deep can be;
But not so deep as the love I’m in,
And I know not how I… pic.twitter.com/kEyJAAJRfG
“By 2039, the US is set to have 650,000 fewer 18 year olds than it does today. For universities, that demographic cliff poses an existential challenge. Fewer teenagers means fewer college applicants. Fewer applicants means fewer enrolled students. And fewer students means that some universities may not make enough money to keep their doors open.
Katty Kay talks with Nathan Grawe, a Professor of Economics at Carleton College, about how difficult it will be for colleges to ride out this demographic drop — and what they will need to do to survive it.”
“Childless women may really believe that not having children during their healthiest childbearing years is the path toward their deepest happiness. But they don’t know it, and they’re almost certainly wrong.”
My father was 65 when I was born. Today he would be 112.
Here’s what having an “old” father actually gave me.
A man who had already lived.
Oxford Rhodes Scholar. Captain of his several sports teams. Squadron Leader in the RAF at 26. An OB/GYN who built a 60-bed hospital in… pic.twitter.com/M6tSNbOkZ0
What is an educational institution? Is it defined by its buildings, its curriculum, its credentials—or by the relationships through which knowledge, skills, and traditions are handed from one generation to the next?
“…in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and—from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone…” — William Faulkner
Our use of the term “Educational Settlements” captures the self-contained energy of these places — kindergartens, classrooms, quads, dining halls, dorms, and nearby squares buzzing with student life amid broader higher-ed shifts like the “demographic cliff” (declining traditional enrollments), AI integration, skills-focused curricula, and financial pressures. (Related: Agora)
“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority. We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.
Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter. We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting). Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.
1. Leviathan. We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress. Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.
We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level. We respond to public consultations but there it ends.
We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture. Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C. It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.
Michigan Great Lake Quilt
Michigan can 100% water and feed itself. Agriculture is its second-largest industry.
A technical standard may look like a collection of measurements, materials and engineering rules, but behind every requirement lies a process of persuasion, voting and institutional judgment. Allied Tube & Conduit Corp. v. Indian Head, Inc.exposed what can happen when commercial interests discover that influencing the standards process may be more effective than competing in the marketplace.
The case remains important because voluntary consensus standards frequently become something more: governments adopt them, inspectors enforce them and entire industries organize around them. With that influence comes responsibility. Participation must remain open, voting procedures credible and technical arguments distinguishable from economic self-interest.
The lesson extends far beyond electrical conduit or the National Electrical Code. Standards development depends upon confidence that competing interests can meet under rules strong enough to withstand disagreement. In that sense, the integrity of the process is itself one of the most important standards we maintain.
Meet Raley Kirk from San Saba, TX. Raising hair sheep and Spanish goats in the Texas Hill Country, Raley is proud to play a part in providing the food and fiber our country depends on every day.
For her, National Ag Week is about highlighting that meaningful work and ensuring… pic.twitter.com/9KKC4pzRgC
We examine the proposals for the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code; including our own. The 2026 National Electrical Code where sit on CMP-15 overseeing health care facility electrical issues should be released any day now. We have one proposal on the agenda of the International Code Council’s Group B Committee Action Hearings in Cleveland in October. Balloting on the next IEEE Gold Book on reliability should begin.
FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements. Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content. We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:
N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format.
Recap of the May meetings of the Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas. The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.
We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.
We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:
Codes & Standards:
While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO. Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”
Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles. The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235. Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful. A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.
Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:
Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:
NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility
NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals
Buildings:
Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction. UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.
This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid. Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies. Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.
Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids
District energy:
Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums. David Shipp and Sergio Panetta. Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.
Reliability:
Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.
Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points. Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.
Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter. The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts. For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain. It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades. Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions. Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.
Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.
Mike will update the campus power outage database.
Healthcare:
Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk. Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:
Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.
The Internet of Bodies
Forensics:
Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.
Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.
Ports:
Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports. Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.
A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT
Other:
Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,
Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development. Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno. Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)
Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing. All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.
Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.
Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons? Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
