Farming in the shade

Plans are coming together for our Annual Shearing Day on February 25, from 9 - noon. It's a Saturday morning, and we're hoping for decent weather. Not sure what kind of weather is best--perhaps frozen ground (for parking) with no ice (for falling). We're lining up the demonstrators (so you can see what is done with wool) and the shearers. We've got a good part of our helpful crew in place. But we could stand to have help with parking cars the morning of Shearing Day. If you've enjoyed shearing day in the past, and could volunteer for an hour or two that morning, would you email us? If we get several helpers, the shifts will be short. You can even come with your family and let them enjoy the activities for a couple of hours, while you park cars for part of the time.

Did you know? Total farmland in Michigan is approximately 10 million acres. There are approximately 56,014 farms in Michigan with farmers caring for those 10 million acres. The average farm size is approximately 179 acres. Production agriculture, food processors and related businesses employ about one million Michiganders. Michigan's agriculture is second only in diversity to California. Imagine that!

Soaking some yarn to make it "bloom" so that The Farmer can knit socks with it. Unwashed (as in straight off the cone) yarn is too crunchy to knit socks with. The past couple of weeks have been filled with doctors appointments, claim forms, and prescriptions. Man, are there a lot of people sick in my family. Honestly, The Farmer hasn't been truly well since before Thanksgiving. He finally succumbed to a sinus infection about two weeks ago. He still isn't well, even after a round of antibiotics. One of our daughters is dealing with a mild medical condition and another daughter is dealing with a slightly less mild medical condition. This leads me to wonder aloud why it is okay to take antibiotics when you have an infection, but not okay to give antibiotics to an animal when it gets an infection. Organic standards do not all make sense to me--especially those regarding animal care. Which is why our crops are organic and our animals are not. Would you or your family membe...

U.S. Consumers spend just 10% of their disposable income on food each year, while those in other countries spend much more.* Comparison to other countries: Pakistan - 50% of disposable income Jordan - 43% of disposable income Philippines - 38% of disposable income China - 32% of disposable income Japan - 14% of disposable income Of the 10% of disposable income Americans spend on food each year, 58% is for food eaten at home and 42% is for food eaten away from home.** * Based on a 5-year average of data from 2003-2007. **Figures for all other countries are for food consumed at home. As food consumed at home is less expensive, the gap between these countries and the U.S. would be even greater if food consumed away from home was added. --info from the American Farm Bureau Federation Food & Farm Facts booklet

This has been a full week of media coverage of farms and farm issues. Tuesday The Farmer and I went to a webcast talk by Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms fame. I have mixed feelings on Mr. Salatin's approach to farming--I love his article "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal" but have issues with how he "makes a living farming" by taking in unpaid interns and by earning honorariums speaking around the country. Today I read that agriculture and animal science are considered to be among the most useless college degrees (according to Yahoo, so I'm not giving it much weight, but still...). Within the last few weeks, I found out that two local businesses that we are involved with are sympathetic to the work of the Humane Society of the US. I can't tell you how much the HSUS leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Do your homework before you support them. HSUS is an activist group that is very good at raising money to promote its causes. Its causes include eliminating...