Michigan

[Olive Hill]

Raz, Where are you in this discussion? This is good stuff and it just seems like something you would like to get your $0.02 into! Why are you guys on the computer on this beautiful weekend anyway? Isn't the weather nice in MI? I am stuck in a hotel room in Lost Wages, so that is my excuse!

Lost Wages... LOL!

I'm sitting on my deck in the sun. I SHOULD be planting and prepping beds, but I'm being lazy. Yep, that's the best excuse I've got.

 

[b737drvr]

Yep...Lost Wages, NV...people lining up here to lose their social security checks one pull at a time!

Hey, being lazy and sitting in the sun is a good thing. More people need to take the time to do that sort of thing. That garden isn't going to grow though if you sit in the sun taking it easy for too long. It'll still be there tomorrow right!

 

[Mom 2em All]

Yes, you should believe everything you see on TV and in undercover videos released by PETA and the HSUS.

Not everything I see do I believe. However, its rather hard to deny how animals are housed when its right there in my face. That part isnt edited. Im well aware the sad music, the dead, etc are edited to make a bigger impact. No denying that chickens housed in small battery cages are not like those raised on YOUR farm, though.

That's the point, it's not my job to educate you. If you want to talk about something like you know what's going on you should educate yourself first. If you don't want to educate yourself fine, then don't talk about it. I didn't sit around in front of the TV waiting for the next Food, Inc to come along and tell me how to farm. I sought out credible, peer reviewed sources to learn it myself. I invested in continuing education and still do. I took initiative. It's free, anyone can take some for themselves.


And I continue to do so. In fact, as part of earning my degree I had to read the book Slaughterhouse. I was able to pick out, for the most part, the hyperdrama. The added words for emotional response. Shoving a two-by=four up the rear end of a hog because you hate your job, but need the money? Part of educating yourself though, is to ask questions, ask people like YOU- who runs a farm, who does things differently than what I see on teevee, in reports, on the news. On Prme time special reports...right now everyone is running with the 'pink slime' story. Pretty nasty stuff, I think we all do agree on that. But the only reason it is being stopped, is because someone reported it. And got a response.


Those undercover videos are HIGHLY edited for shock value. I'm not telling you nothing bad ever happens in a livestock operation, I'm not telling you that slaughter is pretty. Bad things happen, slaughter is not pretty -- it's slaughter, of course it's not! What I'm telling you is that what you see on those videos and in those publications with a mission to take down commercial farming as we know it doesn't tell the real story. One of the most recent videos depicted a hog farm. Hog farms are common subjects of videos because they're very convenient for getting shocking footage. They love to overlay black and white videos of pigs in cages with the sound of a pig screaming its head off. What they don't tell you is that a baby pig will squeal bloody murder any time it's restrained. You can pick it up and craddle it like a baby and it's going to throw a FIT. It's a prey animal. Restraint = Death. DUH! They squeal. They love to show uterine prolapses, too. They just don't tell you that what they're advocating against doesn't cause uterine prolapse. But it's bloody and gets peoples emotions running high. They love to show buckets of dead piglets, too. They just don't tell you that dead piglets happen no matter what farm you're raising pigs on. My pigs run on pasture, under the sun, sleep under the stars, get regular belly rubs and behind the ear scratches. I sometimes have dead piglets. Where you have livestock, you have dead stock. Period. Farming is not all rainbows and sunshine, but you all want pork chops so someone has to deal with the unfortunate parts that come along with it.

YES, baby pigs scream bloody murder. I had to neuter them. I had to catch them,. hold them and castrate them. I know how they scream. I also know how they scream when I cleaned their runs out in the research facility. Scream and crap. Covered me in pig poop plenty of times.

Those videos of hundreds of dead chickens are not the norm. I'm not telling you that chickens don't die, of course they do. But if you spent even five minutes in the company of some poultry farmers I'm telling you right now what you would hear is them talking about what a disgrace those farmers who have been video'd like that are. You'd hear them talking about what a disgrace it is for someone who's not managing his stock properly to go out and blame it on anything but himself and make the public think that's how it's supposed to be. At a recent conference there was a man who was complaining about being told he couldn't keep chickens in a certain area because the ground was too greasy. You know what all the other farmers said? If your ground is greasy your birds are over-crowded, don't come here and complain about your poor management like it's some government entity's fault. They're just holding you accountable.

Look, I'm fond of intensive rearing either, it's why I do what I do; but I don't go around biting the hand that feeds me and I don't spread lies about the people who are farming that way. Why? Because they're simply doing what is demanded of them by most of the population. If you want change, it's very simple: vote with your grocery dollars. Farmers are running businesses. Processors are running businesses. But if you're going to go to your local big box store and load up your cart with groceries you have no leg to stand on, coming back with your full belly and complaining only makes you a hypocrite. Everything that is done in the production of a food animal is done for a reason, most of those reasons are a direct result of consumer demand. Food Inc and Grist and PeTA and HSUS aren't going to tell you that, because then you wouldn't listen to them anymore. It's horribly inconvenient to be the cause of something you're so fond of kvetching about and the messenger who tells you so isn't going to popular. I'm not concerned with being popular, I'm concerned with the truth.

So what I am getting out of this is not all farmers do this, but there are the ones out there that do. Either because of demand, or for the greater profit- turn it out faster, bigger, etc get money quicker/easier/ etc.

So, yes, I agree that not all farmers or farms do what I said. But some do. That it may no longer be the norm, but it still occurs. Just not at the level that I indicated. So I was wrong, but I was also right.

This is why I get my beef from my brother in law. Our cow is raised on his pasture, and taken to the small local slaughter house.
Same with our pork./ Comes from the hog that was raised by him.
Mainly because I cannot stomach the idea of eating the beef inside the grocery stores. And the pork. Traumatized myself with research, with video, with news reports. and with the book Slaughterhouse.

However, I remain a hypocrite. Because I do eat at other peoples homes, and at restruants.

And I am thankful for the farmer who is like you, Olive. Because I do not have the resources to eat only food that I know was raised and cared for properly, and humanely slaughtered. If I could purchase it as easily as I can the food where I have no idea where it came from- i would be a better person, and less of a hypocrite.

 

[Olive Hill]

LOL! I've been there once. Wasn't impressed enough to ever want to go back. I gambled away one whole quarter in a slot machine in our hotel and that was about it. Lions at the MGM were neat, enjoyed the comedy show we saw, but was glad to get home.

Does it count as productivity if I'm looking at Gardening stuff on Pinterest? LOL!

 

[Mom 2em All]

LOL! I've been there once. Wasn't impressed enough to ever want to go back. I gambled away one whole quarter in a slot machine in our hotel and that was about it. Lions at the MGM were neat, enjoyed the comedy show we saw, but was glad to get home.

Does it count as productivity if I'm looking at Gardening stuff on Pinterest? LOL!

I LOVED Vegas! I sort of gamble like you, though. Little more. I limited myself to the slots...the penny slots and the nickel slots..and the MINUTE I lost a set amount, I was DONE.

The tigers were amazing. Got myself too drunk though, missed the entire show. Live and learn. lol

 

[b737drvr]

LOL! I've been there once. Wasn't impressed enough to ever want to go back. I gambled away one whole quarter in a slot machine in our hotel and that was about it. Lions at the MGM were neat, enjoyed the comedy show we saw, but was glad to get home.

Does it count as productivity if I'm looking at Gardening stuff on Pinterest? LOL!

Unfortunately I don't have a choice if I want to ever come back here or not. I have been out here 3 times in the last four weeks, and I am sure I will continue to be here frequently. Once you have been here once, there is no need to ever come to Sin City again. I am not a gambler, and I am happily married, so this town really has nothing to offer me!

That is is how I have been working on my coop and garden as well! I shop online at Gurneys, and Burgess, and Sand Hill, and Home Depot, and TSC...and I look at Townline, Meyer, and MurrayMcMurray, and it is just amazing how much I am accomplishing from right here in the hotel room!

 

[RaZ]

Raz, Where are you in this discussion? This is good stuff and it just seems like something you would like to get your $0.02 into! Why are you guys on the computer on this beautiful weekend anyway? Isn't the weather nice in MI? I am stuck in a hotel room in Lost Wages, so that is my excuse!

I've been outside trying to catch up on some yard work. I just took a break to come in to give my back a rest. I can feel the circle of pain starting to spread. I need to go back out and finish up the clean up. Might have to go get some more gas though...

I'm not getting into any discussion where the emotions start running high.

I went to Vegas to marry my third wife...it was the biggest gambling loss ever!

 

[Mom 2em All]

Some of my hatch...





Look at this little micro-showgirl SOOO tiny compared to the others:

 

[b737drvr]

I went to Vegas to marry my third wife...it was the biggest gambling loss ever!

 

[Olive Hill]

I LOVED Vegas! I sort of gamble like you, though. Little more. I limited myself to the slots...the penny slots and the nickel slots..and the MINUTE I lost a set amount, I was DONE.

The tigers were amazing. Got myself too drunk though, missed the entire show. Live and learn. lol

We did it just to say we'd done it. Put the quarter in and DH and I both pulled the lever together. If I'm going to gamble, as in actually gamble, it's not going to be slots. I'm not leaving it ALL to chance. LOL! I do enjoy a good game of poker though.