Spent some part of this weekend with a good friend of mine over in Garrard County. We did our usual of talking a lot over some tea as well as talking some more while one or the other of us helped out. It was my turn this time, as he was planting some stuff in the garden. He and his family have finally gotten it going toward selling for a couple of different farmers markets around the area. Some of things in regards they had to go through for that are kind of interesting though.
Farm Subsidy Cuts
Proposed by President Obama in the not so far off past, cuts to farm subsidy programs, particular the Direct Payment program that seems to largely ignore market conditions would have cut payouts as proposed by the White-house by 9.7 billion dollars over the next ten years. Anyone that has read my stuff over on mephistos.com knows that despite having been a farmer and really being in tune with the rural lifestyle, I am very against the notion of farm subsidies of any kind and strongly felt that this cut effecting only farms with revenues over $500,000 seemed like a step in the right direction.
Farrier Freedom
As an aside, the word farrier is in the spell checker I am now using and is recognized as an acceptable word. You realize I have been using that word in various documents since at least around 2000, maybe slightly longer and none, not even the Microsoft Word dictionary, has contained that word. So my hats off to the folks doing this open source dictionary that I am using.
Slow Tomatos = NOT Salmonella
I am sure if you are alive, eat anything from the grocery store or from a food establishment that prepares it for you, unless you are currently under a rock you have heard about the the suspected tomato salmonella scare. Just in case you have not a brief bit of background. There were a bunch of cases of salmonella, over the weekend I believe. The FDA (though I believe the CDC was involved too) released warnings and recommendations to not consume certain kinds of tomatoes, specifically beef stake and roma or plum types. Since then the tomatoes have disappeared from fast food chains like McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and others, as well from the shelves at Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger, and so on. Today at some point the recommendation has been determined that it is safe now to eat tomatoes from 19 states of origin but you should still hold off from other states.
Viva La France!
My hats off to France! Long live the revolution! Okay, so I don’t even know what number of revolution we are on and I am most times more fond of the history of France in the 1st half of the Hundred Years War, when prior to Joan they were getting their butts kicked by the the English armies under Edward, Edward of Woodstock, and Henry. Beyond that I admit a fondness for the romantic imagery and notions, and of course from military history one has to appreciate the years under Bonaparte. The modern France though, well suffice it to say I generally disagree with the leadership there at most every turn.
Farm Bill 2008
For those that do not know there is currently a farm bill very slowly making its way through congress and eventually likely heading to the Presidents desk to be signed into law. The farm bill does create some new laws and regulations to farming, but mostly it is concerned with appropriations, who gets how much money for what. The current one has expired, but to give more time to congress the current levels of funding were extended back a few months ago. And the one that is under consideration will set funding levels for the next five years.
Willie Nelson – Farmers Hero
As I am waiting for a few thousand files to upload across the network so that I can move on the next step of something I doing for me on the computer end of things (which of course in turn allows me to put off for a bit longer what I need to do for the office between no and the morning) – I thought I would blog. Despite having a long list of blog ideas here on paper, as well as another list recorded in MP3 format – I was feeling particularly lazy. So, I thought for a bit and decided to write a bit about Willie and why he could be a hero.
Donkey Woes
As I was looking at my blog two things come to my mind. One, is though I have been writing things off and on since late November, especially starting at the first of the year, I have yet to write more then 30 posts. That seems to be just pathetic. Some of it is just getting busy with other things and yet some other part of are you write one entry and then want to hold off before putting another up so soon (at least my thought is to let the few people reading have a chance to read).
Nostalgia
I find myself sitting here at the computer, a few good bourbons with just enough coke to give it a darker shade, and I am cleaning out some old files, moving some to an archive, and generally looking at things I have not seen in three to five years minimum. Anyway, it was with a tinge of sadness that I came across the picture that follows. That ugly dog, and yes, I fully agree he was ugly, as that is what you get when a Australian Shepard is crossed with a Terrier. Anyway, his name was Walker. Walker Dog to be specific. He had a funny step that reminded me of my Tennessee Walker Horse at the time (another blog deserved to be posted about Special Dark, aka SD).
Roundup = Poison?
News flash (maybe not so much)… Monsoto is increasing capacity in order to produce more Roundup.
Read that in a week old RSS feed relating to agriculture current events this morning. Kind of scary when you think about it. Genetically manipulated and modified crops that withstand the application of the herbicide (weed killer for those that think like me) to the crop without harming the crop itself. It has been going on for awhile now which is scary in its own right. Now add to that the increased usage of such practices and it is even more scary. What is there to be scared about?
