News From the Home Place, Bush, BSE, and CAFTA

Howdy to all. I wanted to post something last night, but we had a state wide phone meeting for the NY Constitution Party at 9pm that used up what time I had. Leah, the boys and I built "pig fence" last night after milking. I took John and Noah over to pick out some piglets 2 days ago, and Larry said he'd save some for us. The boy's chicks are fast growing into chickens! We have settled on limiting the pastured broilers to 50 birds this year. We need to work on marketing and advertising. If it looks like demand will be strong we can raise more next time around. We will be ordering them and more layer replacements pretty soon. We have finally got some rain. Pastures are getting short, cows have almost made it through all the rotations already. We usually have more grass than we need, this year its just about right. Temp is cooler than normal. Its only in the 50s this week. The garden is ahead of what it usually is, so we're happy about that. Leah got a good deal on a pressure canner last Sat and we gave it to Rebecca for a late birthday present on Sunday after church. Getting canners in the hands of able bodied housewives is a good thing indeed! We ate some canned beef yesterday at lunch. If you've never done it you just gotta give it a try. We have some loin roasts in mason jars as well as stew meat. Get done late outside, no problem, just pop the top and heat it up.......so tender and what flavor! Every so often at butcher time we keep some out fresh and can it instead of freezing, time consuming work but well worth the effort.

I thought this was a good example of more Bush Idolatry ,brought to us by Lee R. Shelton IV.

As long as I'm going on about old Bush again, Why does he keep trying to open the Canadian border up for cattle and beef imports. Never mind for a minute that the border closing has helped the US dairy and beef farmers finally make a little money for once. Not having to compete with the highly subsidized Canadian beef and the flood of dairy heifers that feed the factory farm boys has helped out the small farmers here a great deal. But the real stinker of it is this, the beef ain't safe folks. Those pesky neighbors to the north have decreased BSE (mad cow) testing by some 28% since they found the 2 cows in January. They are doing every thing possible not to find any more positive cows while knowing full well that they have got many more infected. You need to read some of the stuff that R-Calf has put together Here. They had a press release in the Counrtyfolks newspaper that was really an eye opener. My big question is why dose Bush and his cronies in Washington seem to be so intent on opening up the border. Farmers in this country will suffer and the consumers will be eating beef that is infected with BSE. It just don't make sense.

CAFTA is another thorn in my backside lately. The big shots keep talking about all the exports we will be sending out. The combined economies of these countries is about the size New Haven Conn. Thats right folks, all we will be exporting is more jobs. This agreement stinks for us and them. The global corporations and agribusiness giants will be the only ones to win. Workers and farmers will continue to be exploited, all for the sake of our new god.....the Global Economy.


Wow, I'm quite a complainer today. Lets end this on a happy note. The boys have become avid fossil hunters. They are very proud of their collection. It is a lot of fun to set back and watch them digging through the rock piles. When they find a good one they come running over to dad and proudly show off the latest find. Perhaps I should spend a little time digging fossils instead of griping about the globalist elite so much.