Showing posts with label farmer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farmer. Show all posts
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Sunday, January 5, 2014
A Real Farmer's Wife
1/2/2014 3:14:00 PM
So, since I actually became a farmer’s wife, I haven’t had time to write about becoming a farmer’s wife.
Go figure.
I've got chickens to feed, eggs to gather, fields to consider, barns to take down, barns to put up, and a life to learn.
I guess when I thought about being a farmer’s wife, I didn’t think it would be so much work.
It’s like delivering the newspaper, or raising children, or having a good marriage – it’s just so daily.
But I love it.
I love waking up to space. Lots of it.
I love throwing a stick for my dog after I clean out the chicken coop. I love watching our two new mousers, Reep and Cheep, wrestle on our Cracker-Barrel-size front porch.
I’m mesmerized by the light of the sun as it glides across my porch and shines into our over-sized windows.
I’m content.
I’ve met a hard-working couple who raise chickens and cows and pigs. They’re fine people. On Christmas Eve, I dropped by their house to buy a gallon of fresh milk. That’s a tough act to follow.
We’ve been befriended by a young farm couple who stopped by our house during the Christmas holidays, bearing the gift of flavored popcorn. It makes me smile thinking about it.
We belong here.
It’s nice to have a place to belong. My heart still aches for friends and family in Florida, but I wouldn’t want to move back.
When Tom and I think of the future, if we’re not careful, we’re afraid. But we shouldn’t be. A hundred years ago, people lived from year to year and crop to crop like we’re doing now.
It’s a hard thing, but good, too.
It’s made us realize how dependent we are. Dependent on the weather, the land, the economy, but more than any of those temporal things – dependent on the eternal God.
As Americans, we sometimes forget that.
We shouldn’t.
It’s a new year. No one knows what this year brings. Not in my old house on a quarter of an acre in Florida – not on my 64-acre farm in North Carolina.
In 2014, I’m glad I’m a farmer’s wife.
We’re cultivating a dream.
And it feels good.
P.S. In the last week, we've added four to our family: Two kittens named Reep and Cheep, and two Great Pyrenees pups named Lacey and Molly.
Life is good.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Farmer Fights Back: Sues State of Oregon For Ban on Free Speech in Advertising Raw Milk
Health Impact News
An Oregon raw milk farmer is fighting back against Big Dairy and the state of Oregon for limiting her free speech.
The state of Oregon allows limited sales of raw milk from the farm. Based on a law passed in 1999, if a farmer has 3 or less dairy cows, with no more than two lactating, they can sell raw milk directly to the public.
Yet, in spite of these tight restrictions, the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association pushed for even more restrictions last year.
So, while it is still currently legal to sell raw milk from a 2-cow dairy farm, it is a criminal offense if you advertise your product. If a raw milk dairy farm even publishes the cost of their product online, they can face a year in jail and $6,250 in fines. All Oregon farmers who sell milk on the farm directly to consumers are prohibited from advertising the milk online, in flyers, via email, or on signs.
“I’m not allowed to put up an ad in my local health food store, or take an ad out in the local newspaper, or go to a festival and promote our farm. So when I have a new customer come to the farm, they can’t even find the farm because I am not allowed to put up a sign,” says Christina Anderson, of Cast Iron Farm in McMinnville, Oregon.
Being faced with the possibility of going out of business, Christina decided to fight back, with the help of the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm based out of Arlington, Virginia. This week they filed a suit against the Oregon Department of Agriculture in U.S. District Court in Portland, claiming farmers’ Constitutional rights to free speech are being violated.
The sale of raw milk by conscientious small-scale farmers directly to the consumer is a growing movement around the U.S., and as a whole, a huge threat to Big Dairy, and their dairy pools. They like to hide in back of the “safety issue” by promoting fear in favor of banning raw milk, but an honest look at the data easily shows that raw milk is no more dangerous than any other raw product sold in stores. The produce section and the meat refrigerated cases of your local supermarket are far more dangerous, based on a historical look at outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. According to a CDC survey done several years ago, the estimated raw milk drinkers in the U.S. was over 9 million, and probably a lot more today.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
