I'm very pleased to tell you that the Oat Newsletter is back on-line, after the GrainGenes servers were hacked back in May. Many thanks to Steve Michel, Taner Sen, and others at GrainGenes for getting us back up and running! There is still work to be done, however. In particular, the OatMail system is still not functioning. You can send any messages you want shared directly to me at oatnewsletter@gmail.com.

There's a lot of catching up to do. All of the information that would have been posted in the "Weekly Web Harvest" has been collected in one long document. You can find that here or by going to the "Community News" section.

A few messages were sent to newsletter subscribers during the disruption, and one of them announced the passing of George Fedak. An obituary for George has now been posted in the "Hall of Fame" section of the newsletter, or you can access it directly here. He will be sorely missed.

There was also an announcement of a field day hosted by Oat Global in July. Oat Global has new leadership, and more about that can be found here or in the "Community News" section.

Many other events have now passed, but there is a field day on September 13th in Albert Lea, MN, being hosted by the Practical Farmers of Iowa. The event will include a tour of a new farmer-owned grain milling facility called Green Acres Milling.

It's summer here in the north, and, in addition to field days, there are many fairs and festivals being held. I attended the Glengarry Highland Games this year and found a new-to-me purveyor of oatcakes called The Oatcake Society (although their product is more like what the British would call flapjacks). If you're Canadian, you might consider giving their oatcakes a try!

A lot more information remains to be shared, but that will be saved for the next update. In the meantime, your homework is to get ready for Whole Grains Month, coming up in September!

(Greg, owner of The Oatcake Society, poses with your esteemed (or not!) editor, Charlene Wight)