As Long as There Are Mountains is a young adult fiction book about all the horrible things that can happen to you as a farmer, and why you would want to farm anyway. The main character is Iris, who is probably 13. She lives on a dairy farm in Vermont with her parents and her older brother, Lucas, although he is away at college when the book starts.
1) Grandpa gets crushed when the tractor rolls over (this actually happens before the book starts, but there are some references to it).
2) Barn burns down, most of the cows die.
3) While out cutting trees to build a new barn, one kicks back and injures Pa's leg. Iris and Lucas save him but the leg has to be amputated.
Aiya.
All Iris wants is to be a farmer and feels jealous that it's assumed that Lucas will take over the farm. Her narration describes her love for the cows and for the work, despite the lack of huge financial gains. She also describes her desire to be seen as worthy to farm, even though she is a girl. Lucas, however, wants to be a writer. His description of the frustration he feels at getting slapped in the face with a shitty tail while milking is so right on.
I thought the family in this book was really well written and I especially identified with Iris' frustrations at being overlooked because she's a female. (Happening in real life at about that time: My husband's grandmother wasn't allowed to watch cows being bred when they started doing AI breedings at the farm. It was thought that women were too delicate to watch that. My husband's grandmother is a bad ass, FYI.) I feel like that still happens some now, too, in a time 50 years after this book takes place. Aside from people who come to the farm where I work and ask for my husband (he's at home making dinner) there is also the example of the otherwise great book The Town that Food Saved which profiles the work of a new group of agricultural entrepreneurs who are all men.
I wonder if there are writings or interviews with women out there from that time who were farmers, not just farmers' wives (not to say that they didn't do just as much work) and what their experiences were.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
get your hydrometers ready
The weather has been perfect for making the sap run. Warm sunny days and clear freezing nights. Steam is billowing out of every sugar house I pass. Even though I'm not sugaring this year, I hope the season is great for those who are.
barnheart
My new favourite farm blog:
cold antler farm
It's written by Jenna Woginrich, who has also published this lovely article in Mother Earth News. (Here's the link to the original, which has a picture of her sheep)
There’s a condition that inflicts some of us and I can only describe as Barnheart. Barnheart is a sharp, targeted, depression that inflicts certain people (myself being one of them) as harsh and ugly as a steak knife being shoved into an uncooked turkey. It’s not recognized by professionals or psychoanalysts (yet), but it’s only a matter of time before it’s a household diagnose. Hear me out. It goes like this:
Barnheart is that sudden overcast feeling that hits you while at work or in the middle of the grocery store checkout line. It’s unequivocally knowing you want to be a farmer — and for whatever personal circumstances — cannot be one just yet. So there you are, heartsick and confused in the passing lane, wondering why you cannot stop thinking about heritage livestock and electric fences. Do not be afraid. You have what I have. You are not alone.
You are suffering from Barnheart.
It’s a dreamer’s disease: a mix of hope, determination, and grit. Specifically targeted at those of us who wish to god we were outside with our flocks, feed bags, or harnesses and instead are sitting in front of a computer screens. When a severe attack hits, it’s all you can do to sit still. The room gets smaller, your mind wanders, and you are overcome with the desire to be tagging cattle ears or feeding pigs instead of taking conference calls. People at the water cooler will stare if you say these things aloud. If this happens, just segue into sports and you’ll be fine.
The symptoms are mild at first. You start glancing around the internet at homesteading forums and cheese making supply shops on your lunch break. You go home after work and instead of turning on the television — you bake a pie and read about chicken coop plans. Then some how, somewhere, along the way — you realize you are happiest when in your garden or collecting eggs. When this happens, man oh man, it’s all down hill from there. When you accept the only way to a fulfilling life requires tractor attachments and a septic system, it’s too late. You’ve already been infected. If you even suspect this, you may have early-onset Barnheart.
But do not panic, my dear friends. Our rural ennui has a cure! It’s a self-medication that that can only be administered by direct, tangible, and intentional actions. If you find yourself overcome with the longings of Barnheart, simply step outside; get some fresh air, and breathe. Go back to your desk and finish your tasks knowing that tonight you’ll take notes on spring garden plans and start perusing those seed catalogs. Usually, simple, small actions in direction of your own farm can be the remedy. In worst-case scenarios you might find yourself resorting to extreme measures. These situations call for things like a day called in sick to do nothing but garden, muck out chicken coops, collect fresh eggs and bake fresh bread. While that may seem drastic, understand this is a disease of inaction, darling. It hits us the hardest when we are farthest from our dreams. So to fight it we must simply have faith that some day 3:47 p.m. will mean grabbing a saddle instead of a spreadsheet. Believing this is even possible is halfway to healthy. I am a high-functioning sufferer of Barnheart. I can keep a day job, long as I know my night job involves livestock.
Barnheart is a condition that needs smells and touch and crisp air to heal. If you find yourself suffering from such things, make plans to visit an orchard, dairy farm, or pick up that beat guitar. Busy hands will get you on the mend. Small measures, strong convictions, good coffee, and kind dogs will see you through. I am certain of these things.
So when you find yourself sitting in your office, school, or café chair and your mind wanders to a life of personal freedom, know that feeling is our collective disease. If you can almost taste the bitter smells of manure and hay in the air and feel the sun on your bare arms, even on the subway, you are one of us and have hope for recovery. Like us, you try and straighten up in your ergonomic desk chair but really you want to be reclining in the bed of a pickup truck. We get that.
And hey, do not lose the faith or fret about the current circumstances. Everything changes. And if you need to stand in the light of an old barn to lift your spirits, perhaps some day you will. Every day. For some, surely this is the only cure.
We’ll get there. In the meantime, let us just take comfort in knowing we’re not alone. And maybe take turns standing up and admitting we have a problem.
Hello. My name is Jenna. And I have Barnheart.
cold antler farm
It's written by Jenna Woginrich, who has also published this lovely article in Mother Earth News. (Here's the link to the original, which has a picture of her sheep)
There’s a condition that inflicts some of us and I can only describe as Barnheart. Barnheart is a sharp, targeted, depression that inflicts certain people (myself being one of them) as harsh and ugly as a steak knife being shoved into an uncooked turkey. It’s not recognized by professionals or psychoanalysts (yet), but it’s only a matter of time before it’s a household diagnose. Hear me out. It goes like this:
Barnheart is that sudden overcast feeling that hits you while at work or in the middle of the grocery store checkout line. It’s unequivocally knowing you want to be a farmer — and for whatever personal circumstances — cannot be one just yet. So there you are, heartsick and confused in the passing lane, wondering why you cannot stop thinking about heritage livestock and electric fences. Do not be afraid. You have what I have. You are not alone.
You are suffering from Barnheart.
It’s a dreamer’s disease: a mix of hope, determination, and grit. Specifically targeted at those of us who wish to god we were outside with our flocks, feed bags, or harnesses and instead are sitting in front of a computer screens. When a severe attack hits, it’s all you can do to sit still. The room gets smaller, your mind wanders, and you are overcome with the desire to be tagging cattle ears or feeding pigs instead of taking conference calls. People at the water cooler will stare if you say these things aloud. If this happens, just segue into sports and you’ll be fine.
The symptoms are mild at first. You start glancing around the internet at homesteading forums and cheese making supply shops on your lunch break. You go home after work and instead of turning on the television — you bake a pie and read about chicken coop plans. Then some how, somewhere, along the way — you realize you are happiest when in your garden or collecting eggs. When this happens, man oh man, it’s all down hill from there. When you accept the only way to a fulfilling life requires tractor attachments and a septic system, it’s too late. You’ve already been infected. If you even suspect this, you may have early-onset Barnheart.
But do not panic, my dear friends. Our rural ennui has a cure! It’s a self-medication that that can only be administered by direct, tangible, and intentional actions. If you find yourself overcome with the longings of Barnheart, simply step outside; get some fresh air, and breathe. Go back to your desk and finish your tasks knowing that tonight you’ll take notes on spring garden plans and start perusing those seed catalogs. Usually, simple, small actions in direction of your own farm can be the remedy. In worst-case scenarios you might find yourself resorting to extreme measures. These situations call for things like a day called in sick to do nothing but garden, muck out chicken coops, collect fresh eggs and bake fresh bread. While that may seem drastic, understand this is a disease of inaction, darling. It hits us the hardest when we are farthest from our dreams. So to fight it we must simply have faith that some day 3:47 p.m. will mean grabbing a saddle instead of a spreadsheet. Believing this is even possible is halfway to healthy. I am a high-functioning sufferer of Barnheart. I can keep a day job, long as I know my night job involves livestock.
Barnheart is a condition that needs smells and touch and crisp air to heal. If you find yourself suffering from such things, make plans to visit an orchard, dairy farm, or pick up that beat guitar. Busy hands will get you on the mend. Small measures, strong convictions, good coffee, and kind dogs will see you through. I am certain of these things.
So when you find yourself sitting in your office, school, or café chair and your mind wanders to a life of personal freedom, know that feeling is our collective disease. If you can almost taste the bitter smells of manure and hay in the air and feel the sun on your bare arms, even on the subway, you are one of us and have hope for recovery. Like us, you try and straighten up in your ergonomic desk chair but really you want to be reclining in the bed of a pickup truck. We get that.
And hey, do not lose the faith or fret about the current circumstances. Everything changes. And if you need to stand in the light of an old barn to lift your spirits, perhaps some day you will. Every day. For some, surely this is the only cure.
We’ll get there. In the meantime, let us just take comfort in knowing we’re not alone. And maybe take turns standing up and admitting we have a problem.
Hello. My name is Jenna. And I have Barnheart.
Monday, March 7, 2011
how about all the tea-partiers get off the unions backs and start harassing the USDA?
So that's that, dear readers, the Missouri Milk Board would like you to eat your Kraft Fat Free American Singles and like it. The sad conclusion of Morning Land Dairy's trail was posted on their blog (uncheeseparty.wordpress.com) a few days ago. Three inspectors from the state milk board will come to the farm Tuesday and Wednesday to "supervise ... the destruction of the condemned cheese." (You can read my first post on the topic here: http://britchen.blogspot.com/2010/11/good-news-for-people-who-love-bad-news.html)
Although this cheese (or any other cheese from the farm in the past 30 years) has made anyone sick, nor has any of the cheese tested at the farm contained any dangerous pathogens AND although the USDA has just recently taken to advocating this kind of fucking bullshit ("Food Prices to Skyrocket Riots Could Follow Suggest USDA") about rising food prices and potential food shortages, all of this cheese will be going to the landfill.
And yet, when I read the summaries of the testimony on the uncheeseparty blog, I was a little shocked to read that their SCC for the past year was between 500,000-650,000 with one spike (it doesn't say how high the spike was) above the legal limit of 750,000. I do agree with the maligned witness from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (who testified) that this is a little bit high to be producing top quality cheese. (Again, the legal limit in Europe is 450,000 and I truly think that <250,000 is an achievable reality on just about any farm.) I don't think it really presents a hazard to the consumer, but it does cause me to want to know more about their herd and their mastitis protocol. The person writing the blog feels that it was really the testimony about the high SCC that condemned the farm and the cheese in the end, which is truly a pity. A high cell count can be lowered, a multigenerational farm with a flourishing business cannot so easily be rebuilt. Why wasn't there more testimony about this issue and were was the USDA to help the farm with lowering their SCC if it was such a critical issue?
This is a good example of a big problem I see with the USDA and the FDA here. They are seen by me and by lots of small farmers and food producers (and maybe big ones as well ... I just don't know that many people who work at Tyson) as groups interested in swooping in from nowhere and looking for any excuse to bust our asses, not as groups that are publicly funded for the good of the country to help farmers produce top quality food for America's consumption. The cheese making portion of the farm that I work on was recently part of a "study" by the FDA on small scale cheese producers that included a visit from 3 armed agents in biohazard suits swabbing everything except my butt-crack looking for listeria (they didn't find any).
This is quite different from the situation in France (that I learned about from a French representative of this agency) where the sort of equivalent of the USDA is much more an agency devoted to assisting farmers in making sure the products they are producing are safe and of high quality rather than looking to punish them for every possible infraction. (In France they also produce lots of cheese that, if you listened to the USDA, should have killed every single French citizen or at least given them crippling gi problems long ago). I feel that until we have a federal organization that fulfills this need, the destruction of small farms for questionable reasons will continue in America.
Although this cheese (or any other cheese from the farm in the past 30 years) has made anyone sick, nor has any of the cheese tested at the farm contained any dangerous pathogens AND although the USDA has just recently taken to advocating this kind of fucking bullshit ("Food Prices to Skyrocket Riots Could Follow Suggest USDA") about rising food prices and potential food shortages, all of this cheese will be going to the landfill.
And yet, when I read the summaries of the testimony on the uncheeseparty blog, I was a little shocked to read that their SCC for the past year was between 500,000-650,000 with one spike (it doesn't say how high the spike was) above the legal limit of 750,000. I do agree with the maligned witness from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (who testified) that this is a little bit high to be producing top quality cheese. (Again, the legal limit in Europe is 450,000 and I truly think that <250,000 is an achievable reality on just about any farm.) I don't think it really presents a hazard to the consumer, but it does cause me to want to know more about their herd and their mastitis protocol. The person writing the blog feels that it was really the testimony about the high SCC that condemned the farm and the cheese in the end, which is truly a pity. A high cell count can be lowered, a multigenerational farm with a flourishing business cannot so easily be rebuilt. Why wasn't there more testimony about this issue and were was the USDA to help the farm with lowering their SCC if it was such a critical issue?
This is a good example of a big problem I see with the USDA and the FDA here. They are seen by me and by lots of small farmers and food producers (and maybe big ones as well ... I just don't know that many people who work at Tyson) as groups interested in swooping in from nowhere and looking for any excuse to bust our asses, not as groups that are publicly funded for the good of the country to help farmers produce top quality food for America's consumption. The cheese making portion of the farm that I work on was recently part of a "study" by the FDA on small scale cheese producers that included a visit from 3 armed agents in biohazard suits swabbing everything except my butt-crack looking for listeria (they didn't find any).
This is quite different from the situation in France (that I learned about from a French representative of this agency) where the sort of equivalent of the USDA is much more an agency devoted to assisting farmers in making sure the products they are producing are safe and of high quality rather than looking to punish them for every possible infraction. (In France they also produce lots of cheese that, if you listened to the USDA, should have killed every single French citizen or at least given them crippling gi problems long ago). I feel that until we have a federal organization that fulfills this need, the destruction of small farms for questionable reasons will continue in America.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
if only i had his address ....
So ... is now the right time to write to Charlie Sheen and ask him for 500,000 dollars for my own farm venture?
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
clydesdales to the rescue
One time the milk truck got stuck at our house but they just pulled it out with a giant wrecker. This is much cooler.
http://www.youtube.com/user/roush61799#p/a/u/0/KTM-EzD4pgg
10 points for the farmer for hardly flinching when he almost flips the forecart at the end. But all's well that ends well.
http://www.youtube.com/user/roush61799#p/a/u/0/KTM-EzD4pgg
10 points for the farmer for hardly flinching when he almost flips the forecart at the end. But all's well that ends well.
everybody panic!!!
There is an excellent article in the magazine Farming about folks unexplained freak-out over rising food prices. You can read the whole article here http://farmingmagazine.com/article-6505.aspx Now if you live in the developing world where families spend 50 or 75 percent of their income on food, this is probably warranted and indeed a hardship. But in America, the article says, food prices have hardly risen at all, inspite of some increase in commodity prices. It's easy to say (as Sara Lee does) that the cost of flour for the company's loaves of bread has gone up 40% and make that sound dramatic. But in reality there's 11 cents worth of flour in a loaf of bread. The cost of that flour has gone up to 15 cents - well there's your 40% increase. If Sara Lee wanted to pass that cost on to the consumer, the price of a loaf of bread would go up 4 cents. The article quotes the Wall Street Journal in saying "the first 9 months of 2010 showed average annual inflation rate of .6 percent."
The author then goes on to compare the purchasing power of the dollar in 2009 to the purchasing power of the dollar in 1933. He does a good job explaining a few of the ways economists do this and then settles on the multiplier of 17. It took 17 dollars in 2009 to buy what 1 dollar bought in 1933. Then, using that, he does a few comparisons.
Gas
1933 gas .18/gal
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 3.06
Cost today 3.20
Electricity
1933 TVA power 1.6 cents/kwh
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 27.2 cents
Cost today 8.5 cents.
Milk
1933 cost of a gallon of milk in Atlanta GA 49.6 cents.
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 8.43 (that's what I'm talking about!)
Cost today 3 dollars
Eggs
1933 eggs 39.5 cents/dozen
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 6.72/dozen.
Cost today 1.49/dozen
The article has more examples and goes on to further enforce the point that food costs are not at an all time record high no matter what consumers want to believe.
The author then goes on to compare the purchasing power of the dollar in 2009 to the purchasing power of the dollar in 1933. He does a good job explaining a few of the ways economists do this and then settles on the multiplier of 17. It took 17 dollars in 2009 to buy what 1 dollar bought in 1933. Then, using that, he does a few comparisons.
Gas
1933 gas .18/gal
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 3.06
Cost today 3.20
Electricity
1933 TVA power 1.6 cents/kwh
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 27.2 cents
Cost today 8.5 cents.
Milk
1933 cost of a gallon of milk in Atlanta GA 49.6 cents.
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 8.43 (that's what I'm talking about!)
Cost today 3 dollars
Eggs
1933 eggs 39.5 cents/dozen
1933 cost in 2009 dollars 6.72/dozen.
Cost today 1.49/dozen
The article has more examples and goes on to further enforce the point that food costs are not at an all time record high no matter what consumers want to believe.
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