One week before farm day and the farm simmers. (It does! Or, well, not exactly. Its a metaphor! Geez.) We have so much to do! So many goings on!

I am going to tell you a story:
This morning I was quite rudely reminded that spring is a season of transition as I shivered up the road. Will and I walked up the dark lane with our hands thrust deep in our pockets, shoulders hunched to keep warm. We both had somewhat fitful nights of sleep. I was in Dallas yesterday and drove home late, getting to bed at about 1 am only to awaken at about 5:45 am from the cold. Will is suffering from an extremely nasty case of poison ivy (I believe this may be the much looked for pandemic... or at least the farmdemic. Whatever. We all have it, some more than others.) and so woke up scratching as one is wont to do when one has the dreaded PI.

We are only milking five goats at the moment so after a quick milk, (Milking? Milky?) I glanced at my timepiece and, at 7:05, I think we set some sort of milking record. We cleaned up quickly and, after wrestling the goats out to pasture (you think I'm kidding) and saying "Hello!" to the moms and kids, I left Will to milk out the moms and proceeded down the road to feed our rabbity friends. After about fifteen minutes of hacking at the freezing, wet grass with a machete I realized that I no longer had my timepiece or, in normal speak, my phone had fallen out of my pocket.

Now, the farm is a big place with lots of places where a phone could fall and be lost amongst manure of all kinds. I was worried. I retraced my steps, sweeping the wet grass around the barn, the gross hay in the kid barn, and then walking through the clover and rye grass which fills our pastures, getting wet to the knees, my shoes full of water.

I did not find my phone.

However, this afternoon the sun came out as it tends to do on the miraculous April days. Miriam and Jessica were kind enough to accompany me on an excursion to find my phone. We used one of these:

We here at the farm believe in appropriate technology so when the time comes to find your keys or your cell phone amongst the grasses and gardens, a metal detector is the way to go!

Unfortunately, it barely works, but we found it anyway. Timepiece successfully recovered!

el fin.


P.S. FARM DAY IS COMING!!!! FARM DAY IS COMING!!!! FARM DAY IS COMING!!!! ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!!! GET READY!!!! (Oh, and bring cash or check because Peter has been doing some amazing things with the store and you are going to regret it if you don't.)

American Politics

Disclaimer: This blog entry does not reflect the views of World Hunger Relief as an organization, just one of it's "liberal" interns.

Was anyone paying attention to Obama's speech addressing race and politics last week? I was. And I was impressed. It's refreshing to hear a politician speak with eloquence, intelligence, and courage on an issue as volatile as race relations in America, and frankly, it's about time someone did. Obama spoke of the justified anger and bitterness of black Americans, specifically the ones who have memories of the pain and humiliation of segregated life in America before the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960's. He also spoke of an anger and resentment festering and growing among white Americans as a response to affirmative action programs and false allegations of racism. Obviously this issue is incredibly complex and these last two sentences I have written carry baggage that I'm not willing to unpack in a blog. But, I agree with Obama: Americans of every color experience anger under society's current structure, and our nation needs to heal. And after listening to his speech, I am beginning to think that Obama is someone who can quicken the healing process in America.

My primary criticism of Obama is that he is not radical enough (hey, I already told you I was "a liberal," didn't I?). And I understand that radicalism is almost impossible for any legitimate candidate for the United States presidency because of the necessity to appeal to enough people to actually get elected. But maybe Obama is radical. It's well documented that he doesn't accept funding from federal lobbying groups, right? And if you compare the funding of Obama, Clinton, and McCain, you see that the amount of money he receives from "idealogical/single issue" funder compared to "business" funding is inversely proportional to those of his opponents. If you're not into website links as verification for radicalism, then just go to the source. During his speech the man said some radical stuff. For example:

"We want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit."

Is Obama ready to stand up to the corporate domination system that exists in the United States? Or how about:

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students. "

Did Obama just implicate the public education system run by the United States government as a contributer to the educational-racial divide in America?

Maybe Obama is a supporter of radical change. And while I remain skeptical, mostly because every President in my lifetime has participated in international injustice in one way or another, it seems like Obama has the potential to lead America in a better direction. At least, as Jon Stewart recently put it, he "talks to us like we are adults." Click on this link if you want to watch/listen/read Obama's speech for yourself.

Footnote: This is not an endorsement; it's a blog.


And if anyone is interested in what happened on the farm this weekend, I'll tell you that, too.

1. Rasputin, our two-week-old buckling, is still really cute. He climbed up on a picnic table for the first time on Saturday evening.
   
2. Big Mama, our 10 year-old goat, has been quarantined for an abscess and is out of the milking rotation. But Peter, Kristine, and I have continued to milk her and that milk tastes as good as ever.
3. Elliana Cole turned one year old on Saturday and her mom and dad threw her a classic birthday party with grilled hamburgers, blankets spread out under our giant cottonwood tree, frisbee throwing, and cupcakes.
4. Multiple people bought seed packets from us on Saturday which means people are gardening! I'm so stoked that people are gardening.

That's it. Thanks for reading.
Love,
Will

Farm grown beef on its way!

Hey, for all you meat-lovers out there, here is some great news for you! Coming this next week we will have our very own beef to sell from our freezer. After she enjoyed several months of grazing on our lush winter pasture we took our first heifer to the butcher. She weighed in at over 1,000 pounds! So, if you are interested in some really great beef, you should come by the farm and check out what we have in our freezer.

Along with that we will also have goat from our farm including goat sausage. The sausage was a really big hit last time and so we are bringing it in again.

Thanks for stopping by our website and I hope to see you out at the farm this weekend!

How You Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm?

Its not that often that The New York Times runs an op/ed by a farmer, so in the spirit of agricultural camaraderie we thought we should give him some dap.  You probably haven't seen much in the news lately about the Farm Bill, there must be something else going on I guess, but it is still an ongoing issue.  You can catch up on the latest news at Bread for the World.  However, this letter by Minnesota farmer Jack Hedin, who operates a CSA at Featherstone Farms, is a good reminder to all of us who care about local food production (and a myriad other important issues) as to why we shouldn't allow the Farm Bill to recede so quickly into that dark night.  Here's an excerpt:  

. . . . The federal farm program is making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic vegetables. . . . Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.

Give it a read and since the current state of things in the local food production/small farm world is maudlin at best here is a wonderfully melancholy version of the titular song by Andrew Bird to put you in the mood as you read the whole piece in the NYT - just push the play button.

You can help your local farmers out by going here or here.

*Picture:  just some of the locally produced, organically grown little sprouts that have now made their way out of the greenhouse and into the garden and are growing like gangbusters.  

We've got kids!

Ruthie and Leona (above) give a big "Hello!" from the farm. They were born on Feb. 13 in the wee hours of the morning and are quite a pair! Leona, who has ears that go up, is an explorer and has figured out how to get out of her pen. She enjoys visiting the other kids and taking naps with them.

I just wanted to share with all of you out there who enjoy babies the most recent additions to our goat herd. With 14 new kids around things are a little more lively and exciting around here. I enjoy watching them play with each other, climb up on their moms, chase the chickens, snuggle together, and then, of course, holding them nice and snug in my arms.

During the first 24 hours or so the moms produce milk called colostrum. It is high in antibodies that help the kid fight disease. After kidding they are standing up within about 5-10 minutes and learning how to nurse from their mama. The kids nurse while standing with their heads tilted up (as you see Leona doing) and this helps their digestive system develop properly. Goats are ruminants, meaning they have 4 stomaches (like cows). They do an excellent job of digesting tough plant material which we, as humans, are unable to do. They are quite amazing!!

Saturday was great with the rain we got (a total of 1 inch from Fri-Sat... seemed like a whole lot more than that!!) but made for a chilly day for the kids. I ended up bedding some of them down in another pen that was a little more out of the weather. With the sun shining today they were having a blast! I hope you all enjoyed it too and took the opportunity to do some of your own romping around in the great outdoors!

We have already named them all, thanks to the great input of those on the farm, and started doing some disbudding. Disbudding is the term used for the process of searing around where the horn starts to grow. The buds feel like a little bumps on their head in between their ears. Keeping their horns from growing helps prevent injuries that could occur from fighting with each other or getting stuck in brush or fencing. So, the orange holes you see on their heads are from the disbudding iron and a little iodine to prevent any sort of infection. After the whole process I was amazed at how they immediately got back to playing around as though nothing had happened. As their main caretaker I am excited about watching them grow. Please feel free to stop by the farm and see them. They will brighten up even the most dull of days.

Why Your Hamburger is Increasingly Becoming a Moral Dilemma

This has been in the news for a couple of weeks but just in case you missed it here is a quick editorial from the NY Times that points to the light recently shined on the recent, and ongoing, happenings in the meat processing industry. Suffice it to say that if you have a weak stomach, a sympathetic bone in your body, any shred of decency, or the merest glimmer of a soul don't click on the video they provide. No, on second thought, if you have any of those things you should by all means click on that link, because as awful as the reality that these things are happening is it is AT LEAST equally shameful that we turn a blind eye to them and by our choices and lifestyles we passively (yet decidedly) both support and encourage them. We sell locally produced, grass-fed beef here at our farm and would love to sell you some as an alternative to purchasing beef that comes out of the soul-less conventional industrial meat processing complex but if you don't buy it from us, buy it somewhere and struggle with us all as we attempt to see beyond the bottom line and into the reality of the ethical dimensions that encompass something as mundane as a burger and fries.

If you want more info on what conventional meat production looks like this interview with Michael Pollan is a good place to start and you can check out our previous post here.

Update: Don't say we didn't warn you

Green Revolution, Redux?

Glad you stopped by - there are a lot of links in this one but hey, its supposed to be chilly and rainy this weekend so you've got nothing better to do. There have been a number of pieces floating around lately on the coming (or is it here already, hard to say) green revolution in Africa. To say this is a complex issue would be an understatement - we're not going to go into all of the pros, cons and minutiae of the green revolution here so be sure and check that out for yourself (suffice it to say that the relief and development world is no more free from Newton's third law than the rest of the universe). However, with President Bush heading off to visit a few countries in Africa this weekend it will probably be in the news some more so we thought we would point you in the direction of a few pieces to see for yourself what all the hubbub is about. You can get a quick audio overview with this piece from yesterday's Marketplace broadcast on NPR. There is also this good piece from The Wilson Quarterly. Now, for a decidedly pro-viewpoint you can peruse the aptly named African Green Revolution website and for the counter argument check out this piece from the Grain website. Lastly, I'll point you towards a favorite blog of mine by economist Chris Blattman and a post he did a while back focusing on the same topic but pushing aid and development workers to think not just subsistence, not just food in the belly, but long term development as well, food in the cupboard if you will.

Remember, the question here isn't whether or not its a good thing for hungry people to have access to more food, nobody is against that. But how do we get to that point, what sacrifices (if any) do we make along the way, who gets to make those decisions and finally, a question all development agencies ask themselves (or should at least) - how can we do the most "good" while doing the least "harm."


Ok, I just saw the forecast for tomorrow and there is a 90% chance of rain, so here is one more article that I was reminded of when typing that last sentence which is a good illustration of the dilemma. You know that picture is intriguing you . . . .