99% Farms Family Owned

Here is another story about AFBF annual convention and some remarks from NY Farm Bureau President, Dean Norton, on family farms.

"About 99 percent of America's farms are family owned, Norton said, so the idea that there are these large corporate farms engaged in factory farm is really a myth.

"Sure there are bad apples," Norton said. "There are bad apples in every bunch, but people never look at the good stuff. They only look at the bad stuff. Only the bad stuff makes the news."

"American farmers have fed and clothed American families for more than 200 years and we're the leaders in the world in providing food and fiber," Norton said. "We're not going to let people not part of our industry tell us how to raise our animals healthy. We're already doing that."

Thaw

!Drip!

We are in the midst of a little one and it is truly a delight. Went out yesterday (several times) with no coat. Birds are everywhere; doves hang like delightful diamonds on all the dangly wires and branches. Dozens of gold finches, house finches, juncos and field sparrow (thanks to all who helped us with that identification) white-throated sparrows, and all the other common bird folk chink and cheep and flutter by. The yard is fearfully barren when they leave to glean the fields.

Lines of geese are flying urgently up and down the valley. When geese go somewhere they are very earnest about it, shouting out to one another and stretching their necks out eagerly toward their destination...even when they don't really have one and are just circling the river trying to decide where to land. Alas, the cove across from the house is frozen now, so I can't hear them when I wake up at night. They are all hanging around on the lawn down by the state transportation building instead. These are not migratory geese but rather residents, but they make a warm day feel like spring even though you know it isn't. I stood out in the yard with the dog, yesterday at midday, watching them flow by with the sun on my head and soft air moving slowly across my cheek and just reveled in it. It will get cold again...too soon...but I am going to enjoy this weather for all it is worth.


This is my garden pond (for FC, who has ice too...ice which I envy very much). Those marks are where I tried (and failed) to use my trusty hatchet to chop a place to set the venting heater...guess I waited just a little too long this year....

American Farm Bureau

Resolution on Cap and tax Trade.

"The delegates approved a special resolution stating that cap-and-trade legislation would raise farmers’ and ranchers’ production costs, and the potential benefits of agricultural offsets are far outweighed by the costs to producers. Due to these and other concerns, the delegates strongly opposed “cap and trade proposals before Congress” and supported “any legislative action that would suspend EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

“As Congress returns to the issue of cap-and-trade this year, the message of Farm Bureau will continue to be: ‘Don’t Cap Our Future’ agricultural productivity and food security,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “We will now send that message even more strongly.”

“Congress should focus on renewable energy that is better for the environment and our domestic energy security,” he added, “but it should not tie the hands of U.S. producers, whose productivity, historically, has provided the world’s food safety net. We should not shrink U.S. agriculture at the very time when many are concerned about how to feed a growing global population.”

New York Chainsaw Massacre

No humans were harmed in the destruction of this very expensive, perfectly tuned and sharpened, well-loved by its owner, chainsaw. I am very thankful for that.

Sure wish the boss had a better aim when felling trees though, and so does Alan, whose best saw this once was......sigh.......

Just When We Thought

....that the dairy industry might be beginning...just baby steps mind you...to crawl out of the terrible pit it has been in for the past year, comes yet another threat.

Favorable climate gives NZ farmers a huge advantage in dairying as their cows remain on pasture year round, expensive buildings are not required, and supplemental feed costs are negligible. Last time we got involved in trade talks with them and dairy was on the table, they got to send us Cheddar cheese, we got to send them cat food. Not so advantageous for our struggling industry.

Wordless Wednesday

Why

Was the calf in the kitchen? Well, it is pretty cold here still, although much warmer than last week's deep freeze. This guy was born either two weeks early or ten days late (not sure, but I am going with late) and he was walking around the barn when the boss and Liz got there Sunday morning.

It was cold.
He was wet and cold
His mama is a first calf heifer who had no clue what to do.

So Liz washed him with hot water in the milk house, dried him as best as possible, buckled him into a calf coat and then replaced that coat with a fresh, dry one when he was all dried out.

He reacted by getting out of the collar she tied him up with and falling in the gutter behind the cows while they were over at the house.

He was soaked, filthy and shivering so Alan gave him a second bath...however I didn't figure the calf coats were going to be sufficient to warm him. And although the Blitz cow was willing to be a substitute mama when he was just wet, this new form of wet was not so interesting to her.

Thus the kids carted him over to the house and put him in the big dog crate overnight so he could get truly warm and dry. As of last count he was fine, back at the barn, drinking up his bottle eagerly, so far none the worse for his adventures.

This is the house

And this is the kitchen............................................


What the heck is that calf doing here?

Sunday Stills...best shots of 09

A recent favorite

And one from way back last winter

For more Sunday Stills....

****For those of you who share my conservative leanings make sure and check out AKA Angrywhiteman's comment. I laughed so loud I scared the cat.

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January 2010 Have You Herd… … According to the National Dairy Council (NDC), the new Fuel Up to Play 60 program, which incorporates both good nutrition and physical activity, is helping kids develop better lifelong habits. Read more here. … Skirt steak is an inherently less tender beef cut that needs a little help from a tenderizing marinade. Look for naturally acidic ingredients, such as orange juice, wine or vinegar. … Crowding steaks during skillet cooking will impede browning and create unwanted steaming. Watch For New Ads Starting this month, leading trade media publications such as BEEF, Beef Today and Dairy Herd Management will feature new producer communications ads with the theme “Producers can’t be everywhere, my beef checkoff can.” Watch for testimonials from O.D. Cope (beef producer) – Missouri, Dan Javor (veal producer) – Michigan, and Ken Nobis (dairy producer) – Michigan. Tell Your Story The Dairy Producer Communications Forum and lunch will be held Jan. 28 during the Cattle Industry Convention. This year, dairy producers and state beef council executives will be asked to put on their thinking caps as CBB producer communications Trade Media Manager Melissa Slagle and Dairy Management Inc. Vice President of Producer Relations Stan Erwine will lead them through an interactive working session designed with the future of dairy beef operations in mind. It is more important than ever before for producers to establish positive relationships with the community. With that in mind, this session will introduce attendees to some new skills and provide them with a number of tools to help communicate about their operation, including the beef checkoff-funded MBA program and dairy-checkoff “Telling Your Story” program. For more information, email Melissa Slagle. Training Costco Staff A seminar was recently held with Costco staff in Mexico to instruct them to be better advocates of U.S. beef. The seminar trained nearly 40 Costco meat buyers and wholesale managers so that they could answer consumers’ questions about U.S. beef nutrition and the necessity for meat in a balanced diet. Mexico is the largest export market for U.S. beef. Read more about Mexico. Beef And Dairy Partnership For the third consecutive year, the checkoff-funded Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) program is partnering with the Dairy Calf and Heifer Association (DCHA) to promote beef quality assurance to growers of dairy bull and heifer calves. The partnership helps extend the BQA message into this often hard-to-reach segment of the cattle industry. In addition, it allows the BQA program to access some of the most progressive players in this segment of the industry and to help develop targeted BQA best-management practices for calf growers. For more information about BQA, visit http://www.bqa.org. Reminder: MyBeefCheckoff Blog Later this month, be sure to follow the latest Cattle Industry Convention updates via the MyBeefCheckoff meeting blog. We will bring you information from the meeting, including live interviews, presentations and much more. Don’t worry – if you can’t attend, you can still get the virtual recaps! Producers Telling Their Story Through checkoff-funded programs like the Masters of Beef Advocacy and Food Fight, producers have been encouraged to share their stories whether it be eat a local meeting, in the grocery store or on the Internet. Here’s an exciting blog that will give you insight into life on a dairy farm in upstate New York, written by “… Not your average stay at home mom....what with the tractor bearings and shotgun shells on the kitchen counter and the cow tie chains on the floor in the parlor...oh and cow magnets, the kind you put in their stomach, on the fridge... All opinions are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of anyone else.” Another great example of producers telling the dairy beef production story and having a little fun while doing it.

The Long Reach of this Cold Weather

There is more than discomfort contained in these harsh, cold days. Southern farmers are racing to protect their tender crops from the exceptional low temperatures. Surprisingly fish are among the hardest hit by the adverse weather conditions. Interestingly so are Florida iguanas, which are invasive in the sunshine state and unable to withstand the freezing temps.

Western and Central farmers and ranchers are struggling to harvest corn in snow too deep for combines. Many may wait until spring to harvest.

Besides making farming and ranching more challenging for those who participate, this affects everyone else as well. Fruits and vegetables will cost more. Anything made with corn will cost more. (A lot of things are made with corn.) Products produced by animals which eat corn will cost more. With the damage being done by water restrictions in California I will be surprised if we don't see a spike in overall food prices, although prices recently declined for the fifth straight month.

I hope wherever you are the weather is kind and that this winter doesn't overdo it and break any more low temperature records.

***and if you think we have food supply problems read this on dairy processing in Zimbabwe.
And this on iodine tainted soy milk originating in Japan.

****Weight loss foods which may surprise you (although if you follow research that is NOT done by anti-agriculture animal rights type groups you will probably already know)

What Birds?

Help! What are these weird little birds? They are the size exactly of English Sparrows but aren't...Are they some common sparrow we are too dumb to recognize or are they a hybrid? They look like tree sparrows, but there is no trace of a central breast spot and they are just not quite right....



I have been putting seed right under the dining room window so they would come close....they have obliged, but every time I get one in the screen somebody slams a door or drives up the driveway and they fly away....dag nab it. So these are not the best, having been taken through the kitchen window, where I have to hold the camera over my head and hope I actually have a bird in the frame.....

Sweet

My daughters are singing together in the kitchen. The men are in the milkhouse yarning...Chores are done...it isn't too cold, there is a soft breeze blowing instead of a gale force wind. The sky to the north is lit up by the cities and looks like an Easter egg from the dark side. Things are calm and gently peaceful...what could be sweeter?

Jingle

Just came in from taking Nick out for his morning constitutional. I feed the birds just outside the kitchen window, a practice which this year has been exceptionally rewarding. It is unusually cold, the ground is frozen very hard and the sparrow-folk are hungry. They come in droves....if you fill it they will come....We have a lot of juncos, an entire flock of white-throated sparrows, a whole batch of puzzling LBB's (little brown birds...I think they may be tree sparrows, which are a constant around here, but no central breast spot is visible,) plus a song sparrow or two and all the other common feeder visitors. Guzzling gold finches, hungry house finches, chattering chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, dozens of mourning doves and over on the other side of the house, the dearly beloved mockingbird clan.

Anyhow as I stood on the edge of the porch (barefoot, the more fool me) I could just barely make out an entire ground covering of small black blobs, standing in ranks around the porch, the honey locust tree and the garden pond. There were dozens and dozens of birds dotting every foot of ground, neatly spaced as if someone had laid out a grid pattern for them..
They were waiting for me.
(and my trusty can of sunflower seeds.)
I could tell by the jingle.

Is Dairy Farming Really....

One of the five worst jobs?

This birthday greeting really stinks!

Chocolate milk is the devil and will kill you. There should be a war against it......(I beg to differ btw...I lived on the stuff when expecting Alan and look how he turned out.)

****There was no childhood obesity crisis when we were kids. Of course we were barely allowed in the house either.....

Kseniya Simonova’s Amazing Sand Drawing over at Dickiebo's

Dickiebo has and incredible post up today. It is awesome, moving, purely beyond description. Please go visit him and take time to watch it. I guarantee that you won't stop in the middle.

Word for Wednesday

Protractor ..or maybe compass

I Feel Better Now

After looking at this for a minute or two...

It was around seventeen degrees most of yesterday...calm with not too much wind .... it felt plumb warm.

Warm I tell you.

It is incredible how quickly we can adapt to adverse weather. Here in the Great Northeast November was quite warm. Then cold weather came in hard and fast, virtually from one day to the next. It was pretty miserable to adjust, but we can and do get used to nasty and cold. (I will never get used to it taking fifteen minutes to get dressed in the morning and that is just the indoor stuff...)

Last night after milking Alan, Liz and I were feeding baleage. We pull the bales apart, fork big piles into a double-axle wheel barrow and bring it inside to feed out by fork.

Alan loads

I wheel

Liz feeds out.

About five minutes into this job and I was shedding shirts and sweaters like confetti...Standing outside in the half-baked moonlight hatless and bare handed. I ended up carrying my outer shirt, my down vest, gloves and hat all into the house rather than wearing them. If you had told me that would happen on Sunday when I was sitting around trying to read with a hat on and a blanket over my head I would have thought you were joking. Amazing what happens when the wind goes down and the temp comes up....even a little bit.


I am putting this sheep shearer up on Craig's list today. It has literally only been used to shear two sheep. I quickly discovered that I stink at shearing and did it with scissors after the first time. We no longer have sheep so....

Update

We couldn't get the house above fifty degrees yesterday, which is far too cold. The outside air temperature wasn't that bad...maybe 8 above, but the wind was ferocious. Horizontal snow all day. I wanted to invite AlGore to visit and sit in the living room and chat for a bit. He deserves goosebumps the size of real geese just as much as the rest of us do.

What is with emails from certain people that vanish from my inbox just before I need them? I needed to send some money to someone for something, wrote them for their snail mail addy and their reply vanished. I know I didn't delete it...nothing in sent mail or trash. Same exact thing happened with the same person last year, so I think it is some program they have on their mail. Makes me look dumb as a rock, which is not an experience I enjoy very much...now I will have to write them again, second year in a row...maybe I should learn to keep a hard copy.

Planted some indoor lettuce the other day..We do love our winter lettuce. Usually it germinates in three or four days, but it is so cold...inside...that it is still just sitting there. We need a nice January thaw.

Everyone is in a horrible mood around here so I am just tip toeing around them and hoping they all get their kinks worked out and get back to normal.
Soon.
In the meantime I sure hope the Lord will grant me patience because I need a double helping and quick!

Sunday Stills...Food

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