Farming in the shade

This is the time of year that many veggie farmers are offering sign-ups for CSAs. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture (read more  here ), and this membership structure offers a win-win situation for both the farmer and the member. The farmer receives income at a traditionally low-income time of year from membership fees—money that can be used to purchase seeds or pay a greenhouse heating bill, or just keep the lights on and everyone fed and clothed until the next paycheck comes. And the member is assured that all summer long he/she will eat well, usually at a lower cost than he/she would have paid to buy all those veggies individually.  Our farm is quite different from most market farms. We don’t raise veggies, and what we do raise is available off and on for much of the year. We continue to go to the markets all winter, as weather and our energy levels allow. So we aren’t so much in need of a CSA model for timely income. But we look at our veggie farmer frien...

The past few weeks, The Farmer has been milking cows for another farmer each weekday morning. The dairy farmer is dealing with a bad back, and can't do it himself. There are at least three other guys helping out, too, covering nights and weekends. It's hard to think about the sole proprietor being laid up in any line of work, but dairy farming is one of the most relentless jobs out there. We feel for our friend, who planned to work five or so more years before retiring. Now what? He waits for the results of tests... The other day I read a New York Times op-ed piece titled "Don't Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Farmers," quite obviously a play on the country music song, "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys." The author got my attention early in the article when he said: "The dirty secret of the food movement is that the much-celebrated small-scale farmer isn't making a living." And then he went on to share statistics...

Maybe some day we will spring for smart phones and keep all of our data in our pockets. Many farmers do. But for now, The Farmer's binder works well to keep track of Everything Sheep. And the large round bales are just the right height to work on. He records the dates of births, genders, family line, tag numbers and more. Each ewe has a page in the binder, so that we can easily see patterns (a single lamb, again?) and make decisions about whether a ewe will stay or go. If a ewe is not a good mother or has become too old to risk another pregnancy, she is sold. Some become food for people or for dogs. Others who still are able to carry lambs but only throw singles will be sold at an auction to become someone's pasture pet or lawn mower. Our farm is a business, and I don't believe we need to apologize for that. The reality of businesses is that they must turn a profit more often than not. And we can't determine if we are doing well unless we keep good records.

Michigan's agricultural industry remains as steady as a farmer's plow, bucking the norm in a state where manufacturing and other sectors of its fragile economy continue to shrink. Read more of this article from the Detroit News here.

Now Washington wants the power to seize any financial firms (not just banks) that look to be on the verge of failure.  "Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG's most troubled unit." Read more here .  I'd better go read the Constitution again. Don't remember anything in there about this...

A week ago, in the city newspaper, an article outlined the concerns of a truck driver-stringed instrument maker-former aerospace industry employee. He gave me a visual picture of a trillion dollars. Read about it here.

At the credit union, with the news blaring on a TV in the corner... Newscaster: "Apparently the FDA was unable to do its job of inspecting the peanut plant well. Perhaps they need to have additional financial resources..." Customer: "Oh, great! They screwed it up, and so the answer is to give them more money. Why is it that only our government rewards a job poorly done?" Teller: "Ah, but that's the way with everything. Schools are failing, so let's give them more money. The auto industry is going under, so let's throw money at it. It's just the way our government works!" (I noticed that she did not mention the banking industry by name.) Customer: "They must think that money grows on trees!" Teller: "And y'know, we have all those national forests, so we should be all set!"

At a Financial Aid Workshop last evening: "Why is the government the only one who can print money? How is that fair? C'mon..."

I'd like to recommend a book that makes basic economics understandable. It's written in simple enough terms that children and their middle-aged parents both gain knowledge about the basics of our free enterprise system. Many homeschooling families use it, and it's part of Sonlight's curriculum (which is how I stumbled across it).   Whatever Happened to Penny Candy , by Richard Maybury, is written as a series of letters from an economist to his nephew, Chris. History, definitions, quotes and statistics are sprinkled liberally throughout, and hold the interest of the reader well. I close with this quote which seems appropriate in these times: "The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people, who are under many uncommon difficulties and distresses at this time, so that all reasonable frugality ought to be observed." --John Adams, 1735-1826 American Revolutionary and 2nd President of the United States