Time: 10 am – 4 pm
Vendor List:
Buck Naked Farm – Lathe Demonstration
*Parking $5, No Dogs Allowed,No Smoking, we encourage carpooling & to come later in the day*
A funny video and a good song, especially for kids in school.
First off, full disclosure. This is not a farming related post. On our farm we do home school our children so I guess you could say this is a home school related post instead.
Second, this video is done by Weird Al Yankovic, not one of my favorite artist. He’s had a few flash in the pan successes but frankly I didn’t even know the guy was still alive. And to see he looks exactly like he did from the 90s, including the long hair, doesn’t make me feel like he’s progressed any. However for some reason I clicked on the link for his new song and I have to say I’m glad I did. Like all of Al’s music, it’s a parody of a famous song, this time Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines which became famous apparently for being a video where the models were partially naked. Don’t worry, that’s not the version I linked above.
Weird Al’s version is “Word Crimes” and has a clever video that mocks the current generation’s inability to write appropriately. You know, “C U LTR” and the like. Sorry, I had to hunt for something as an example, I don’t even know how to write like that. SWMBO and I both are sticklers for proper grammar in your writing. Not to say that I don’t play fast and loose with the words and sentence structure on occasion and goodness knows, I make enough typos to flunk English, but we do have the knowledge and the habit of writing clearly and properly. In fact what I hear often when I meet someone who has followed our blog for some time is a compliment on my writing style which always baffles me because I don’t have a style, I just write.
Anyway, I think we may have found our theme song for discussions with our kids when they start texting; which based on my current feelings should be when they hit 30 or so. Maybe 40 for the girls, or after I’m dead. Whichever comes first.
A repost of another blogger I follow, on angry vegetarians.
I’ve followed Jenna at Cold Antler Farm for some time. I like her style of writing and enjoy reading her stories. She only has a small farmstead, 6.5 acres vs. our 84 acres but despite that we do share a lot of similarities in how we raise our animals and I often learn something new when I read her blog posts. Jenna’s quality of writing is something that I’d like to achieve myself one day, assuming I ever spend more than 10 minutes on a blog post which isn’t happening anytime soon.
Recently Jenna posted an open letter to angry vegetarians. You see, her blog is much more widely read than mine so she is dealing with the public in general whereas I am dealing with mainly friends and direct customers at this point, people who know how well we treat our animals and if they were to question our practices would do so directly vs. anonymously on the internet. I’m not to the point of dealing with people who enjoy attacking others on the internet yet, thankfully. I’m sure some day people like that will show. When they do, I’ll point them to Jenna’s post about killing her own meat.
Children who live on dairy farms much less likely to develop allergies, etc.
Keeping everything spotless and sanitized isn’t helping your kids, it’s hurting them. Selling Clorox wipes is a big business and it’s sold to parents with a marketing fueled fear of bacteria. Kids need to be grimy and develop their immune systems if they are to be healthy.
I note that they specifically mentioned dairy farms. I wonder if they will see if the kids drink their milk raw or pasteurized. I’ve yet to meet a dairy farmer that pasteurizes their own milk for consumption.
Greek yogurt, and the whey surplus that it is creating
I read the following article on greek yogurt and whey, and some of the uses for whey. It was a good article with lots of nice tips. It was interesting to see that the rise in Greek yogurt has caused such a rise in whey production which is a problem for the dairy industry. However industry’s problem is a small operations bonus. If you are making yogurt or cheese and find yourself with too much whey left over, there are some good tips on what to do with it.
A post script on the truck restoration
For Father’s Day, Cassia came by and delivered a framed picture of my favorite picture from the wedding. This was after just about everything was done with the wedding and just before I drove her and Johnathan off to start their new life. Of course the truck is in the picture but what I really love is the beautiful lady who’s been a weekly part of our lives since she was 12. Of course this new picture had to go on my desk at work (yes, I have a day job, don’t all farmers?) right next to the picture of the rest of the kids.
Now it feels like I have ALL my kids on my desk. Thank you Cassia for the great picture.
An article on the history of red meat consumption in the US
I read an article recently that was shared with me by Darlin’ Wifey. She’s ever on the hunt for things farming related that she thinks would be of interest to me and to you.
The article (link here) is based on the book The Big Fat Surprise (picture below). It shares an interesting look at meat consumption in the US and some of the fallacies of history that shape our modern conversation on diet. It’s an interesting read and a good primer for buying the book if you want to go further. Growing, hunting, and killing your own meat certainly seems to be a better way to feed yourself in my opinion. I also know that before I had a John Deere to harvest my crops, having a cow or pig do the foraging for me and then all I had to do was harvest the animal was a simpler way of getting my food. Tasted better too.
Results from the great flood of spring 2014
We received about 7 inches of rain in a short amount of time last week. I took the occasion to go down to the back pasture and see if there was any water coming onto our land. In all my years on the farm, which include multiple hurricanes, I’ve probably seen the pasture flooded 8-10 times in any way. I’ve seen it flooded till it covered the pond once, after a hurricane. I’ve never seen the water flowing like a river and I’ve never seen what we saw last week.
Daily thought from Sugar Mountain Farm
I subscribe to Sugar Mountain Farms daily blog. Its a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone trying to farm. At the end of each days post, he has a “daily spark” which is usually thoughtful and uplifting. Today was a little different.
Daily Spark:
What doesn’t kill you leaves you weak and exhausted.
What doesn’t kill you leaves you for another day.
What doesn’t kill you leaves you alive.
What doesn’t kill you leaves you hunting it down
to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Starting up a new business? It’s not so easy in the US
Rankings like these are always circumspect. Sure Rwanda ranks ahead of us, but what about graft, extortion, etc? What’s it like to hire qualified workers in Rwanda? However, that’s enough reality, it’s much more fun to poke at our government and point out how hard they are on business because brother, I don’t need a ranking to tell you that they are hard on business in the US.