Emily read these three chapter books in one afternoon. She is a great reader, even flying through all of the Therefores and archaic language in the scriptures with relative ease.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Emily the bookworm
Emily read these three chapter books in one afternoon. She is a great reader, even flying through all of the Therefores and archaic language in the scriptures with relative ease.
Guess who is 6 months old?
Colleen has jumped suddenly from sleepy infant to a chubby, mobile, graham-cracker-eating, communicating-by-screeches-and-lunges, and machine-gun-laughing person. She can push herself around, at least backwards and turn herself around. She laughs like a machine gun - all gutteral and loud. And best of all for me she is a Daddy's girl!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Omnivores Dilemna - Part two
OK, I can't just let go.
I think about the issues of sustainability and the environment and agriculture a lot because of my job and our hobby farm.
I work at a seed company developing popcorn hybrids. I am directly involved with the industrial agriculture community. I find it is full of people that are trying hard to make a living but also make it in the best way they can. There are a lot of chemicals used - pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and seed treatments. Mostly to prevent yield loss from pests, weeds, and diseases. We also grow some plots without most of the chemicals and it is such a difference. Weeds are the main problem. Controlling weeds without herbicides is a definite pain, with a lot of hand weeding, hoeing, and cultivating with the tractor it is doable, but difficult. It would sure be hard to farm 1000 acres that way.
I need more experience with organic production because my impression is that it is not feasible on a large scale and many of the rules are artificial. Their angry refusal to consider transgenic plants I also find hypocritical. They spray large amounts of Bt - bacillus thurigensis, but are opposed to transgenic Bt because it might be a health and environmental risk? I just don't get it. Morally you could say that it is because we don't want to mess with nature, but breeding already messes with nature.
At home we have a small acreage. I don't want to have 5 acres of grass to mow and so we have debated how to handle it. Last year we boarded some horses for our friends the Nef's. I think we may this year for a time also, but long term we would like it to be productive. This year our plan is to raise 25 chickens - a rooster, 12 brown egg layers, and 12 from the "Rainbow egg layers" - I am a sucker for reduced price mixes. We are also going to raise 3 pigs. Leila is going to have a huge pumpkin patch with 4 species and 6 varieties of pumpkin. We hope to have a U-pick pumpkin patch and plan to sell them for ~3 dollars each. We also have increased our garden patch and have started a small orchard.
That is our answer to the Omnivores Dilemna - we want to try a sustainable production at home. The question that still remains is whether we can pull it off. Chickens last year didn't go so great - we lost most to predators. Weeds are always a problem. We are going to try using the pigs to "rotatill" the plots for the pumpkins and we are going to spray herbicides.
I think about the issues of sustainability and the environment and agriculture a lot because of my job and our hobby farm.
I work at a seed company developing popcorn hybrids. I am directly involved with the industrial agriculture community. I find it is full of people that are trying hard to make a living but also make it in the best way they can. There are a lot of chemicals used - pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and seed treatments. Mostly to prevent yield loss from pests, weeds, and diseases. We also grow some plots without most of the chemicals and it is such a difference. Weeds are the main problem. Controlling weeds without herbicides is a definite pain, with a lot of hand weeding, hoeing, and cultivating with the tractor it is doable, but difficult. It would sure be hard to farm 1000 acres that way.
I need more experience with organic production because my impression is that it is not feasible on a large scale and many of the rules are artificial. Their angry refusal to consider transgenic plants I also find hypocritical. They spray large amounts of Bt - bacillus thurigensis, but are opposed to transgenic Bt because it might be a health and environmental risk? I just don't get it. Morally you could say that it is because we don't want to mess with nature, but breeding already messes with nature.
At home we have a small acreage. I don't want to have 5 acres of grass to mow and so we have debated how to handle it. Last year we boarded some horses for our friends the Nef's. I think we may this year for a time also, but long term we would like it to be productive. This year our plan is to raise 25 chickens - a rooster, 12 brown egg layers, and 12 from the "Rainbow egg layers" - I am a sucker for reduced price mixes. We are also going to raise 3 pigs. Leila is going to have a huge pumpkin patch with 4 species and 6 varieties of pumpkin. We hope to have a U-pick pumpkin patch and plan to sell them for ~3 dollars each. We also have increased our garden patch and have started a small orchard.
That is our answer to the Omnivores Dilemna - we want to try a sustainable production at home. The question that still remains is whether we can pull it off. Chickens last year didn't go so great - we lost most to predators. Weeds are always a problem. We are going to try using the pigs to "rotatill" the plots for the pumpkins and we are going to spray herbicides.
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