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Sunday, December 21, 2008

Christmas without Cash


Is a concept, which, although tough on the merchant economy, has its upside




And its downsides

(No animals were harmed during the filming of this post
Or during any of the quilt making activities
Although there were times....)


As you can see, Alan and I have been makin' blankets, with some help with the quilting and provision of supplies by the girls.(If you are a pair of blue jeans, Northview might be a good place to avoid, as a seven-year collection of old worn out jeans has gone under the scissors this week.)


There has been pinking.



Filing of the pinking shears.



Sore fingers
Bruised knees
Blisters and bumps from too much gnawing away at stiff, stubborn fabric with not quite sharp enough scissors, (particularly the pinking shears from hell)
Much swearing at bobbins in general and the one currently on the machine in particular.
One large quilt is done.
Lap robes are emerging rapidly from the tangle of tattered denim.

Oh, and there is fresh apple pie jelly too. (See below)

I have one of these blankets that I made over twenty years ago. It is the warmest thing you could imagine.

Sunday Stills


Toast and jam
Lunch for Becky.
Bread by Liz, Jam by mom




See more at Sunday Stills

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Free Snow


Here is part of an ad that ran on Craigslist yesterday.
I was so glad I took a second to click on the free stuff tab.
Wish I'd thought of it first!


I have placed several feet of almost new snow at the end of my driveway
Never skied on never peed on
come and get it
first come first serve


Here is another good one. (Have I mentioned that I love Craigslist...thanks Teri)

To the gentleman who helped my Blue Pontiac out of the ditch today off of Albany Shaker today. You were so nice to pull my car out with your tow truck, even though I offered cash you refused and did for free. Thank You! This spirit is what the season is all about! I will pass it along...Merry Christmas to everyone! Bless all of you nice people!

Friday, December 19, 2008

Mandy's Heart


Rurality has been posting really neat photos of animals with heart markings. Mandy's isn't quite perfect but we love her so much that it seems that way....

Yup, It's Farm Side Friday

Again

Writing was an adventure this week. When I started Tom Vilsack had not yet been announced for Secretary of Agriculture, but he was clearly going to be chosen. I wrote a whole bunch based on that premise, then, right in the middle of the hours before deadline, it was announced that he was the one. Can we say rewrite?

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Photo Meme

This seems like a fun sort of meme and I don't have much for you today so I am going to give it a shot.
Thanks to Mrs. Mecomber for this one.

Here are the rules:
1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture.
3. Post it on your blog and tell the story that goes with the picture.
4. Tag 5 friends to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog telling them about it.



The story behind the photo:
Liz took me to a PBR rodeo a couple of years ago at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona NY. It was an amazing amount of fun. We met Cord McCoy for the first time that day. He is really a great guy and remembers Liz from that day, which is pretty cool.
In this photo, taken with the little camera, workers are driving the bucking bulls right across the carpeted aisle of the casino with crowds of people looking on. Neat.

I almost never tag people for memes because I don't want to feel like they have to do them just for me. However, I would be delighted if any of you care to do this one. Just leave a link in the comments and I will update this post with a link to your blog.

Linda is doing this one!
As is Joce.
And Liz
Not to mention Deb
Ed too!
Also Jinglebob
And Aussie Oklahoma



Moving Heifers



We brought a bunch of springing heifers into the cow barn today. Over the next few weeks we are expecting a number of babies. Didn't go too badly, but not much fun either. They are nervous about going in stalls for the first time, except for the really tame show heifers, which of course aren't the ones we wanted.




This is Broadway. She will be needing a stall soon, but didn't get one today. She is half milking shorthorn and half Holstein. She will be the first one of this cross that we calve out and I am quite interested to see how she turns out. She will be having a half Jersey calf, which if a heifer might make a nice homestead type cow. Time will tell.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Milk Jars



I have been trying for a while to get a video of the two lines of milk surging into the receiving jar in the milkhouse.

Meanwhile Deb has milk in jars too.

She also has a new baby over at Tyler Farm that you might like to go see.
Anyhow, I still don't have my splashing milk video, but here is a little milk magic any how.


Milk jar


Now you see it, now you don't.


Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Someone Else's House


Nighttime view from my Sunday chair,
which of late is also my supper chair. If you click and look out into the dining room you can see a towering pile of books, threatening to overwhelm the chair they occupy. That is the norm for this place. Books, books, everywhere and not a place to sit......

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Word Verification

The Jectists went crawk when they saw the slylow. It is considered unfoom tusign a recatist that way!

I used to hate doing word verifications on blogs where I comment. I know how miserable it is to be comment spammed all the time, but I never could read or duplicate those complicated constructions of incongruent consonants. Now many of them are almostwords and they are so much easier. I saved up up a few this week to tell you a story using them...and what fun I had! (But watch out for those unfoom recatists. They are rough on rats, I'll tell you!)
(Of course the red bolds are word verification "words")

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Moonlighting



Yesterday was one of those days. Lately a lot of them are. The grain company piled the bags of cornmeal and calf feed they delivered in the manger in front of the cows instead of toting it back to the feed room. We have told them and told them. Ralph was right up behind the barn if they wanted to ask where to put it. I was right over at the house (didn't see them come.) It was a mess. The cows tore up a lot of bags and two cows ate their fill of corn meal. This will not be good for them.
Then Alan's chain flew off his chain saw. Didn't hit him, no harm done and we are grateful, but still.

Just one of those days. Read the dairy market outlook. Wish I had left it for Monday. It is so bad I don't even want to think about it. Dang.

We were going to go up to Romana's for grinders but said the heck with it and made hot dogs instead.

On the way in from the barn Alan asked me to come up to the stove with him while he filled it. Usually I do. We have a nice few minutes of camaraderie and it is pleasant up there. Some nights I am too darned tired or I need to get in the house and adjust dinner in some way. Then I don't. I wasn't going to last night. I was tired, discouraged and somebody needed to cook aforementioned hot dogs.




But I did.
I was glad. The full moon sparkled on the snowy mix of snowsleetandfreezingrain that fell during the day and looked like that flocked stuff they used to put around the toy trains in store windows. It seemed unreal, but it was breathtakingly serene. We practiced our coyote howls at that big silver moon and sent them echoing out across the smooth expanse of snowland to see who might call back at us. No coyotes answered but we didn't care. You could see every bush out there on the hills, picked out like a charcoal drawing. We worked on owl calls too for a while.
Who cooks for you!
Who cooks for you Sam Cook!!

It was fun.
I suppose I am too old for such stuff and I felt a little self conscious about howling and hooting at the moon, but I did it anyhow. Then I went in for the camera while he went in for his hot dogs (which Becky very sweetly cooked so I didn't have to).



(You can see the sparkles a little in this collage if you click)

My pictures didn't come out all that great but I will have them to remember howling at the moon with my favorite son at least.

And although I am by no means a slender little thing, that shadow is certainly not accurate....really it isn't....c'mon you guys, be nice....



Friday, December 12, 2008

Chicks and Balances

Farm Side Friday

Marvelous Mountains



When I saw the small version of this photograph of some mountains in this article, I thought they were mountains...you know regular mountains. Then I read the caption. They are not regular mountains, they are special mountains. The story doesn't have any surprising revelations, but the picture just astonished me...and made me say, "Holy...you know what!!"


***I wonder what kind of tax the EPA will put on the emissions from a pile this size!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sometimes PBR Riders

Deal with things more challenging than the bulls. Read Reese Cates' blog on PBR (I was already afraid to fly but good grief.)

We have liked Reese since we first saw him...he is quite a rider.

Was the EPA Cow Tax a Fairy Tale?

Here is a pretty good story by a young man who writes for the same paper that I do. He did a nice job trying to find a balance between what was being said last week about this nefarious little sneak attack on farming and the "oh, no we never said that" crowd that is scurrying to retrench today. The folks he interviewed are good people and personal friends and acquaintances.

For a little background.... every farm publication you can think of raced into action around Thanksgiving because several Farm Bureaus put out alerts that the EPA was planning to tax cattle, hogs, corn and soybeans by way of placing regulatory fees on green house gas emissions. Carbon dioxide is expected to fall under that mantel and amazingly enough cows breathe. Exhale even. Farmers were up in arms. (I wrote about it here and in the Farm Side.)

As I understand it the outcry was tremendous and widespread.
Of course it was.
Such a fee or tax or whatever you want to call it would devastate the farm economy, which is already staggering under an insane commodity price roller coaster.

However, this week stories began to emerge wherein folks connected to various industries and to the EPA, said basically, "Who, us? We would never propose such a thing. We never did propose such a thing. Go home. Calm down. Don't worry. Trust us here in government to have your best interests at heart....it's okay now. We won't tax your cow emissions, never, never....ever."

To quote the title of an excellent blog across the river, Yeah Right!
And if you believe that I have this bridge in Brooklyn for sale (or maybe a Senate seat in Illinois). I am of the firm belief that the EPA had every intention of proposing such a rule and that they probably still do. However, when the trial balloon was so resoundingly shot down, they dragged themselves back to the drawing board to see how they could adulterate, and or hide, their agenda. At least thanks to the strong response by farmers and by Farm Bureau, they know someone is awake, aware and keeping an eye, or in fact several thousand eyes, on them. And that is as it should be.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Four and Twenty

Black birds sitting in a tree


(Or more likely four-hundred and twenty starlings and one lone red-tailed hawk over on the left side. He likes this tree despite the crows going after him all the time.)






And these teeny, tiny seedlings came from this fruit on my Easter cactus. I am so excited and hope I can grow them up!



It is raining and miserable today, with frozen mud and ice under the standing water puddles. Everyone is cranky and I am kind of enjoying the fact that nobody but me is home.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Is it April Fool's Day or what?


Only here

Our favorite veterinarian was here yesterday to do herd health, mostly a LOT of preg checks, but also one DA surgery and some vaccinations. We are going to set up a program for Liz to vaccinate because we always seem to be falling behind on them. Time will tell how that will work out.

We were really happy with the outcome of the preg checks, especially that three heifers we had despaired of getting bred in fact are bred. It was also neat to see the little embryos on the ultra sound machine, although it is a good thing I am just the farmer. I could barely tell a cystic ovary from a wiggly little calf.

My favorite heifer, Encore, is pregnant for which I am much more grateful than you might imagine. We had a lot of trouble getting her that way and it was looking as if we were going to have to sell her. I really didn't want to.

We have two older cows, my Beausoleil cow and Bubbles, bred to SWD Valiant. He is another old time bull not much in use any more. However, we used a son, Walebe Jewelmaker, that the boss bought in Pennsylvania, that got us some of the best cows we ever bred, including Liz's grand champion Holstein, Dixie. I am especially excited about Bubbles (by Ocean View Extra Special) as she is a nice looking cow who did well at the shows herself. Hope she has a heifer. Blitz is bred to Roylane Jordan. Crunch is bred to Citation R Maple. The Maple daughter I have now (England) is a good cow and we have been trying for years to get another heifer. Maybe this time we will get lucky.

But then there was night before last. I was peacefully reading, grudgingly holding on to the last few seconds of my "day" off (really just a few hours) before Becky and I went out to milk. I kept seeing something moving in the darkness, just at the edge of my vision. This place is not so very well lighted, with chandeliers with single bulbs and a few table lamps and it is hard to see small, moving things. As I was alone I only had one lamp and the kitchen light on. Suddenly a piece of darkness broke away from the mass of the night and flew right at my head.
It had sort of a sweeping motion, with a smidgen of fluttering thrown in....an uncomfortably unidentified flying object.
It had wings.
I hoped it was a starling.
I really hoped it was a starling.
It was not a starling.

It was a bat! A great big, brown bat, with Elvis hot on its heels. I won't tell you how it kept flipping by me doing figure eights just over my head. I won't tell you about putting a sweatshirt over that same head to keep it off me. I won't describe how stupid I must have looked, broom in one hand, flashlight in the other, with Liz's barn shirt draped over my head. I am not generally bothered by bats, but it was just plain disconcerting to have it sweeping through the house like that. I won't tell about putting the cat in the crate where he stared intensely at the darned thing when it hid on top of the cupboard.
Or calling Becky, the only one of the young ones home, to come to my aid. Sending her out into the zero degree cold to find her dad and get a can of ether. (I won't tell you either how rare it is for me to holler for a man to rescue me.) Or how long it took us (even with ether) to catch the darned thing. Or about how the porch freezer smells like ether now because we saved it in case it should need rabies testing or something.

I just won't tell you all that. It was one of those funny and not so funny at the same time kind of affairs that I would much appreciate not having to repeat. Ever. It is unfair that a bat should be flying around indoors in December when it is this cold. If I have to run around the house with frozen feet with a sweatshirt over my head, there should only be one cause....and that is the weather The bat was a gratuitous nuisance and, as such, should have stayed wherever it was sleeping. Worst of all, where there is one there are many and we have no clue how it got in. So I will probably be treated to an instant replay, hopefully at least not until next summer.

So now there is a dead, ether-soaked bat in the freezer on the bottom shelf among the squirrel tails (for fly tying). I don't know what kind of redneck that makes me, but I hope if we have company, I remember to tell them not to look in the freezer.
And I am going to call the past couple of days, the good, the bat and the ugly.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Sunday Stills Link

Here is a link to yesterday's Sunday Stills with the theme pet photos. Nice shots of lovely critters over there!

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Sunday Stills


Here is the best I can come up with this week. Critters were simply not in the mood to cooperate, not even the fish. You can read about this at Linda's blog or here.

***For those of you who remember, "He's Got a Knife", he has run through the house yet again with a steak knife extended in front of him, this time with Alan hot on his heels, and last night he got up to more mischief. Liz was on the computer and I was putting the last touches on stew for supper before we went out to milk the cows. Suddenly a loud and commanding voice shattered the dark stillness in the house, then people started wishing me happy birthday and singing to me. (BTW, my birthday is the 4th of July). It took us both a few seconds to figure out what was happening and to turn on the dining room light.

And there he was, sitting on the answering machine, watching the headlights of the skid steer as the boss fed the heifers. As it happened I saved the messages that the boss's dear, sweet aunt sent and the wonderful singing of my next younger brother, who sounds great even singing happy birthday....so the cat played them. And now the little stinker is on the windowsill next to me, hiding behind the curtains and batting at my elbows.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Two Tufted Titmice


Tippling in a tree...or would you believe swinging in a hanging basket?

Vandalism

Only in the NY Times could bombing the Pentagon be called vandalism....even extreme vandalism.


I am old enough to have been terrified by the Vietnam War too. The boss's best friend died within days after being deployed there.
We still visit his grave every year...but we somehow managed to avoid ever bombing anything, even so much as a mailbox. I would feel better if people who did commit such excessive, criminal, and to my mind reprehensible acts, weren't given such a positive pulpit.

Friday, December 05, 2008

This is Foolish to the Point of Duh

Putting the new animal disease research lab in Manhattan Kansas is about as smart as putting a housing development in a flood plain. Might as well put it in the other Manhattan...there are fewer cows there. Trust the government...or wait a minute, don't trust the government. When do they get anything right?


Update, Here is another scary story. 19 cows, most of them belonging to FFA kids die after being exhibited at fair. I had no idea that this disease even occurred in the US. I thought that
malignant catarrhal fever was an African disease but evidently it occurs in sheep world wide.

Here is a site
with some information on the disease.


In a few days I may post on just what I think about the introduction of exotic wild animals and domestic deer to agricultural areas. I was quite dismayed to hear that bovine TB has cropped up on a Columbia County deer farm....this in the wake of the introduction of chronic wasting disease to NY by another deer herd. NY spent years erradicating TB in the cattle herd and I truly hate to see this threat showing up again.

Even Short Days Sometimes Seem Long



Liz and I went to the Farm Bureau meeting and Christmas party last night. It was fun to see friends and talk farming and all, but if I participate in midnight it is usually because I woke up after several hours sleep and looked at the alarm clock.

Last night that was not the case.

The Christmas lights (photographed at the unGodly hour of eleven PM) were seen right next to signs that offered gasoline for sale for under two dollars a gallon. And that was here in NY where anything that moves is taxed, everything stationary is taxed and everything imaginary suffers that same exact fate as well.

To my mind the only economic stimulus this country really needs is signs like that, with a few of those Christmas lights thrown in as an excuse to spend the money saved on fuel. Just give everybody's budget a few weeks to get used to the extra left in the pockets after they pay to make the old Chevy roll down the road and they will get back to spending. You can already see it. Black Friday sales were up three percent, or so I heard, and Cyber Monday sales up a whopping fifteen percent. Was anyone in Washington listening? I guess not.




Anyhow, it is Farm Side Friday, so if you feel like reading, you can find it here.

Thursday, December 04, 2008

What a Fish Story

Missing class ring shows up inside 8-pound bass....I would be satisfied with catching a bass that big, let alone one that was packing jewelry!.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

I've Seen this Guy Around

Meth lab right across the river!
(And a pox on drug manufacturers who make it tough for us regular folks to buy cold medicine!)

100 Things


Liz's homemade bread

The boss's reaction to Liz's homemade bread


From Linda...and a number of my other good friends. I kept seeing this and thinking I should do it...so here goes.

1. Started your own blog
Three of them in fact

2. Slept under the stars
Yes

3. Played in a band
Yes, several of them

4. Visited Hawaii.
No

5. Watched a meteor shower
Yes.

6. Given more than you can afford to charity.

Yes

7. Been to Disneyland
No and Never will

8. Climbed a mountain
Cat Head for one and Kane as well

9. Held a praying mantis
Yes, often

10. Sang a solo
Yes, and I apologize to anyone unfortunate enough to listen

11. Bungee jumped
HELL no

12. Visited Paris
No

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea

Never been to sea, but I have watched some humdingers from the porch at the lake


14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
Yeah

15. Adopted a child
No.

16. Had food poisoning
Sadly.

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Almost all the way!

18. Grown your own vegetables
Every summer and lettuce in the winter

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
No

20. Slept on an overnight train
Never rode a train except the subway

21. Had a pillow fight
Back in the day

22. Hitchhiked
Yes.

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
I honestly don't remember

24. Built a snow fort
Many of them

25. Held a lamb
Yes

26. Gone skinny dipping
Yes, will never forget the canoe loads of teachers who showed up that one time...

27. Run a marathon
Only when chasing cows

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
No

29. Seen a total eclipse
Yes

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
Just about everyday..

31. Hit a home run
Probably not, but I certainly played enough backyard baseball

32. Been on a cruise
No

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
Yes, and I can report that it is scary as heck to stand beside it and feel the earth shake

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
Only the ones that were born here

35. Seen an Amish community
Surrounded by them

36. Taught yourself a new language
Bits and pieces of several from reading

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
I am satisfied with enough for the bills and every now and then it happens

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
No

39. Gone rock climbing
Sort of...see #8

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
No

41. Sung karaoke
HELL no

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
Yes

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
No!

44. Visited Africa
No

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
Tirrel Pond mighty fine view of the milky way there

46. Been transported in an ambulance
Yes

47. Had your portrait painted
No

48. Gone deep sea fishing
No

49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
No

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

No,

51. Gone SCUBA diving or snorkeling
Oh, yes!!

52. Kissed in the rain
Yes.

53. Played in the mud
Occupational hazard in my world

54. Gone to a drive-in theater
Yes

55. Been in a movie
No

56. Visited the Great Wall of China.

No

57. Started a business
Kinda, sorta

58. Taken a martial arts class
No.

59. Visited Russia
No

60. Served at a soup kitchen
Only my own

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
yes, but mostly 4-H cookies

62. Gone whale watching
I get sea sick

63. Got flowers for no reason
Yes, from my dad. It was great!

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
yes.

65. Gone sky diving
HELL no

66. Visited a Nazi concentration camp
No

67. Bounced a check
No

68. Flown in a helicopter
No

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
Yes,

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
Yes.

71. Eaten caviar
Take it off a cracker and put it on a hook

72. Pieced a quilt
Yes

73. Stood in Times Square
Yes, not a thrill to me

74. Toured the Everglades
Yes, keep your windows rolled up

75. Been fired from a job
Not really

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
No

77. Broken a bone
Yes

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
Not speeding but I have been on a slowing one.

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
No

80. Published a book
Almost, do rejection notices count?

81. Visited the Vatican
No

82. Bought a brand new car
Yes

83. Walked in Jerusalem
No

84. Had your picture in the newspaper
Yes, every week in fact

85. Read the entire Bible
No

86. Visited the White House
Driven by

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
Many times

88. Had chickenpox.

Yes

89. Saved someone’s life
Possibly

90. Sat on a jury
No

91. Met someone famous
Yes

92. Joined a book club.
yes

93. Lost a loved one
Yes!

94. Had a baby
Thrice

95. Seen the Alamo in person
No.

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
No

97. Been involved in a law suit
Yes

98. Owned a cell phone
No but the kids do

99. Been stung by a bee
Lots!

100. Read an entire book in one day
More than one...average at least two a Sunday.

Okay people, your turns now!

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Not Much to Talk About Tuesday

One of the Easter Cacti set fruit and made seeds, so I opened one of the pods and planted them in some potting soil yesterday. Wouldn't it be cool if I get some!


Sunny yesterday...another storm brewing up today.



Who would ever suspect a border collie of left leaning tendencies, but Mike has 'em. It's the old dog vestibular disease at work and it doesn't make his life any easier...poor old guy...

Monday, December 01, 2008

Wood Run in Wild Weather


The past couple of weeks, my baby brother, whom you will see in the comments every now and then as Mappy, has been giving Alan and me slab wood for the stove. (His real name is Matthew, but our lovely Lithuanian landlady who owned the building where the antique shop was when we were little kids called him Mappy because that was the best she could do with it. She was a dear and it stuck..... I've forgotten why he calls me Fred but he does.)

Anyhow, the slabs of hemlock extras off his saw mill have been great. We have blocks of elm half again the size of my torso, but it is hard to get them going good. The soft wood fires them right up and we have great heat. Yesterday he called and wanted us to come up so we set off in perfectly fine weather to pick up a load and to see the new barn he and his wife are building. By the time we got there it looked like this.




It got worse and worse. We ended up only being able to go 15 mph on his road and about 30 on the state road. We got home in freezing sleet and drizzle and pounding snowy ice balls that stung when they hit your face. Still the house is toasty warm even this early in the morning and I know it will stay that way.




Thanks Mappy, (and Lisa) we love you!



Sunday, November 30, 2008

I am so not ready for this


But someone else is. He has been scouting for weeks for just the right one. This year we put it in a corner of the living room so it doesn't obscure the light from the big windows. I can't stand the gloom... being a SAD sufferer in a big way.

Due to the presence of the cat, the "good" ornaments will have to stay in their boxes this year, so we will have to get creative. So far some chili peppers tied in bunches and a metal coyote have made the cut....kind of Southwestern, don't cha think?

Friday, November 28, 2008

National Animal ID tags get lost in Britain

A number of farmer bloggers have long said that ear tags are a lousy way to permanently identify cattle. If you have cows and use tags, it is simply obvious that they get lost. Often. Sometimes in our yearling pens only one or two will still have tags even though they are all tagged as babies.


In Great Britain where animal ID rules are so stringent as to be absurd, that exact conclusion is coming to the fore.




This is still not good enough for authorities there who fined a farmer for having cows leave the farm with two tags and get off the truck with one.
And they were really, really ticked off when he won his court appeal.




I hope farmers here in the USA continue to fight national ID as hard as they can. The cost if the program is implemented is going to be staggering



Um, gee, that tagging thing really worked out good didn't it....at least for the ear tag companies.


And here is another good article on the cow tax....wherein you can see that this suddenly became a hot button issue because our new president elect is solidly on board with the big bucks for carbon trading, global warming bunch. He is threatening Congress with EPA action on this matter and using farming as a bargaining chip.


Here is what the Cattle Site had to say about emissions from dairy cows.


Here is something else that really ticked me off at the time (and is making me even less happy now). Our Dairy Check Off dollars (to the tune of six million of them) were pledged by our trusty leadership to fund an EPA study of emissions on dairy farms. We are forced to pay the check off out of our milk checks before we even see our money. It is supposed to be spent to promote dairy products, which is an admirable goal. It was NEVER INTENDED to be handed to a government agency to help them find a stick to beat us with.



DAT Farm Side Friday

(Day After Thanksgiving) Here