How Great The Yield From A Fertile Field

Random musings from an old farmer about life, agriculture, and faith

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Vacation

The old farmer and his extended family spent the past week relaxing along the Lake Michigan shore. I did a lot of being lazy. Life was good. The weather cooperated and the evenings provided us with beautiful sunsets over the lake. Below are pictures of 3 separate evening sunsets taken from our condo balcony.


We always try to take a group photo when we are all together. Here is this year's group. Only two nephews and their families were missing.


The all important beach (to some) seen from atop the bluff. The trail down and back up made for good exercise.


And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. Mark 6:31


Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Food for Thought

Modern ag production gets called all kinds of nasty things from "factory farming" to raising "frankenfood".

Here are a couple of interesting articles about food safety.

Study shows more pathogens in antibiotic-free pigs

Research at The Ohio State University indicates that meat from free-range hogs raised without antibiotics carries more pathogens and parasites than meat from conventionally raised hogs fed low levels of antibiotics. More than half of the pigs on antibiotic-free farms tested positive for Salmonella and two tested positive for Trichinella spiralis. Full story.



Natural toxins in organic foods



People who eat organic foods are about eight times more likely to be attacked by the deadly E.coli bacteria than are people who eat mainstream foods. Organic consumers are at increased risk from natural toxins produced by fungi, some of which cause cancer. Organic foods also carry far more dangerous bacteria (salmonella, campylobacter and Listeria) that kill thousands of people every year. Full story.

I have said this before and I'll say it again.
The production practices of the modern American farmer yields the safest, cheapest, and most abundant food supply in the world! But there never has been perfection and there never will be. We rich whining Americans (thanks, Phil Gramm) expect the government to deliver perfection into our laps (or mouths).


And we forget that life is temporal and we are just passing thru.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Fragrant Meat

Dog meat off the menu during Beijing Olympics
Restaurant staff told to 'patiently' suggest other options for diners


updated 11:24 a.m. CT, Fri., July. 11, 2008

BEIJING - Canine cuisine is being sent to the doghouse during next month’s Beijing Olympic Games.
Dog meat has been struck from the menus of officially designated Olympic restaurants, and Beijing tourism officials are telling other outlets to discourage consumers from ordering dishes made from dogs, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.
Waiters and waitresses should “patiently” suggest other options to diners who order dog, it said, quoting city tourism bureau Vice Director Xiong Yumei.
'Fragrant meat'
Dog, known in Chinese as “xiangrou,” or “fragrant meat,” is eaten by some Chinese for its purported health-giving qualities.
Beijing isn’t the first Olympic host to slap a ban on the dish.
South Korea banned dog meat during the 1988 Seoul Olympics by invoking a law prohibiting the sale of “foods deemed unsightly.” After the Olympics, the ban was not strictly enforced.
Dog meat is also eaten in some other Asian countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos.

The old farmer has tried a lot of different foods and meats, but this is one I haven't tried yet. I guess now there is no reason to go to the Olympics this year!

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Skunk Trap

So far the skunk trap has caught 8 opossums and 1 cat.
But no skunks.
Maybe all the commotion has caused him to move out of the area.
We can hope.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Entertaining Angels

When my older sister was in high school, she memorized a dramatic speech that was adapted from a book by Dale Evans Rogers. It was a very touching oration. I was reminded of it in church today when we read Hebrews 13. Here is a description of the book.

Entertainers Roy and Dale Evans Rogers were thrilled when their little daughter Robin was born. But their excitement turned to concern when they were informed that Robin was born with Down Syndrome and advised to "put her away." The Rogers ignored such talk and instead kept Robin, and she graced their home for two and a half years. Though Robin's time on earth was short, she changed her parent's lives and even made life better for other children born with special needs in the years to come. ANGEL UNAWARE is Robin's account of her life as she looks down from heaven. As she speaks to God about the mission of love she just completed on earth, the reader sees how she brought her parents closer to God and encourages them to help other children in need. This book, which changed the way America treated children with special needs, is now available to a new generation. It is the perfect gift for parents of special needs children, parents grieving the death of a child, or anyone whose life has been touched by a special child.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews 13:2

When I was a child, our family would often go to Glen Oak Park on Sunday afternoons in the summer for a picnic. We often would stay into the evening to listen to the free band concert at the outdoor bandstand. After we got married and our kids were little, we would try to do the same in the summer. But we hadn't made it there in years. Today, with no plans and beautiful weather, the old farmer, his wife, and oldest daughter went on a picnic to Glen Oak and stayed for the band concert. It was a nice evening and an enjoyable, patriotic concert.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Independence Day

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. Romans 6:22

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Wet Walk

We were going to do a walking tour of the historical downtown Charleston one afternoon. We parked our car in the visitor center parking deck and headed out. Market Street is a wide street with open air pavilions down the center of it for 3 or 4 blocks. Inside the pavilions are vendors selling all sorts of merchandise, art, and souvenirs. Originally they probably sold animals, fruits, vegetables, and other staples. It was about a mile from where we parked.

While browsing through the pavilions, a heavy rainstorm moved in and started a downpour. After a few minutes, when it didn't let up, the vendors started scurrying around and packing their wares and taking them to vehicles or piling them on tabletops. We asked what was going on and were told that the storm sewers couldn't handle heavy rain and the water would soon start rising in the streets. We thought we would be safe under the shelter of the pavilions. As the water rose in the street I started looking for a way to get to higher ground, or a way to get a ride back to our car. My wife didn't seem too worried and thought we should just wait it out. When the water came over the curb and onto the sidewalk, a vendor told me it could get up to knee deep inside the pavilion. Now I really wondered how to get out, but my wife was still willing to wait it out. The Police now blocked the street to vehicles.

There was a commotion towards the other end of the pavilion that we were in, and a vendor chuckled and said, "The rats are starting to climb the walls looking for higher ground - - that always happens when it rains this much!" At this point my wife was interested in an immediate evacuation. So, off came the shoes and socks, I rolled up my pants to my knees, and we waded out of there. It was still raining, but we headed back towards our parking deck taking temporary shelter in doorways and under canopies as we went. By the time we got back to our car we were drenched, and as would happen, the rain had stopped. It was too late to do any more touring for the day, so we drove back to our condo to clean up.

Meanwhile at home, my sons were making trips to West Quincy/Taylor to help work on the levees. I guess I got in on some flooding but missed out on an opportunity to serve.

And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
Genesis 9:11