Study: Cornfield in a snowstorm

Another day of snow and crappy driving. The best thing to do is stay in the house and play with snow pictures. I like the middle one best. Its starkness reflects the reality of a late-February snowstorm, after an entire month of gray and dreary and snowstorm upon snowstorm.

Which one do you like best?

3 years ago:

Commando farming

1 year ago:

Entertainment

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Ag Speedlinking: 02.28.08

Toward a sustainable Cohasset: Rekindling a love affair with food

“Americans worry more about food and derive less pleasure from eating than people in any other nation surveyed.”

*****

With your cloned meat, a side dish of safety

“A survey by Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, found that 89 percent of Americans want cloned foods to be labeled and 69 percent said they have concerns about meat and dairy products from animals.”

*****

Dems work to keep subsidies for agribusiness

“It’s as if the Congress is operating in a vacuum, completely ignorant of what the market is doing.”

*****

Posted in Ag Speedlinking | Comments Off on Ag Speedlinking: 02.28.08

So cute I can't stand it


Ducks cuddling with calves


Snoring piglets.


Olivia in her first year of volleyball.


The little uniform! The little kneepads!


The little “Green Devil” socks!

2 years ago:

Before and after

1 year ago:

Powered

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Ag Speedlinking: 02.27.08

Non-GM Breakthroughs Leave GM Behind

“…you’ve missed the great unpublished story of 2007 – all the non-GM answers to precisely the problems (drought-resistance, salt-resistance, biofortification, etc.) that proponents claim only GM can solve.”

*****

Five minutes with Ken Meter, sustainable ag pioneer

“He is currently working with some 28 local foods initiatives in 14 states, and despite a myriad of challenges – from land-use issues to political inertia to economic uncertainty among farmers themselves – he says he’s “excited about the emerging possibilities out there” to build stronger, more viable, local economies by using local foods as an economic development strategy.”

*****

Reading, writing and agriculture; Effort underway to educate children to save farming

“Educating future consumers through the mandatory teaching of agriculture in schools could breed a generation of citizens that embraces the importance of farming to the local and national economies.

*****

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Ag Speedlinking: 02.27.08

Maddog's Hogs: Chapter 1


Cute, little sleeping piglet butts!

This is a guest post from Madeline, age 12

Hi. I’m Madeline and my mom said that I should write about my babies (my pigs). So here it goes.

Well first of all they already are really tame! Thanx to me! So that’s good. I’m sorry to say, though, that we have lost one! She was the biggest gilt. She died by drowning.

See, we have this nipple water and a baby feeder. The feeder has 3 sections to it and an open top where you pour the feed. Then our nipple water is a 5 gallon bucket with a plastic nipple in the side and you fill it with water. I figured that they were smart enough not to go on top of it and get the water that way!

Well I guess I was wrong, because when I came up from playing in the basement to check on them I saw her butt up. I went over there and gasped! Of course the rest you could probably figure out if you know me personally! I went over there with my mouth opened big and eyes bugging out. I poked her butt and when she didn’t move that is the part where I shed, well, let’s say more than one tear.

At that time Olivia was over by me and when I started pulling her out (the pig) she said, “Okay, okay wait,” and she ran to the other side of the room. My mom was really the only one that made an attempt to comfort me. Once she heard the tractor over by the garage (because I was loading my baby up) she came downstairs and asked what happened. Once I told her what happened she said “Oh that sucks!”

So yeah, that was an upsetting day.

My dad of course only said, “So…I heard you lost a pig!” And my dog Ava wasn’t much comfort either, because the next morning I saw the pig up by our front porch…what do you think that means? Now thanx to my dad’s great thinking we have a lid on the bucket. So for all of you first or second or even third time pig lovers/owners MAKE SURE YOU PUT A LID OVER YOUR BUCKET!! Or else they might drown!.!

Anyway, I have to open the garage door once a day at the least to air out the stink in there! I also have to scoop out their pen once a week and I give them straw whenever they need it. We have heat lamps for them, too, just in case they get too cold.

They truely are the babies of the family!

Thanks for reading our blog…and for those of you who purchase our meat, I will be having some meat for sale (pork) but I just wanted to let you know that they had antibiotics put in them before we got them and they haven’t had vegetarian food. But I do have meat for sale if anyone feels like making a little girl very happy!

Love,
Madeline*

3 years ago:

Q & A: Blood spots

2 years ago:

What’s in your butter dish?

1 year ago:

Bad ice storm!

Posted in Maddog's Hogs | 8 Comments

Ag Speedlinking: 02.26.08

First seeds placed in Arctic global seed vault

“Blasted deep into the frozen rock of an Arctic mountain, the collection stored in the vault could prove indispensable for restarting agricultural production at the regional or global level in the wake of a natural or human-caused disaster.”

*****

Breadbasket Inflation

“So: High food commodity prices will create an economic incentive for transgenic crops, which if handled carelessly, could cause disasters far more catastrophic than a few thousand poisoned pets. There’s a happy thought.”

*****

Posted in Ag Speedlinking | Comments Off on Ag Speedlinking: 02.26.08

How to Cook : Ribs

Another day, another day off school. And then the predicted storm totally missed us. The good thing to come of it was that the girls’ dance classes were cancelled, so I had time today to cook ribs and blog about them. Just for you!

Ribs are another one of those things that, for a long time, I was intimidated by. I had many rib failures before finally finding a recipe that fits my lazy cooking from scratch lifestyle. Indeed the recipe is not only lazy, it’s perfect for a lazy weekend. Low and slow is the key here. Low heat and me cook you long time.

I’m starting to drool just thinking about it.

Above I have about 4 pounds of beef short ribs.

And here I have about 2 pounds of pork spare ribs. There’s another couple of pounds hiding outside of the shot. Allow about a pound and a half of beef ribs per person, or one half to one pound pork ribs per person.

First things first. The rub. The rub is one of the things that was missing from my early attempts at ribs. This recipe makes enough rub for all 8 pounds of the ribs I fixed today. If you’re going to fix fewer ribs, just throw the leftover rub in a ziplock freezer bag and throw it in the freezer for next time.

The rub includes a couple of tablespoons of Essence of Emeril. You can buy this in the store pre-prepared. But Emeril has been kind enough to share his essence recipe with you! So you can also make up a batch of that, and store the leftovers in the freezer.

One thing about living in the country is that if you’re out of a certain ingredient, you try to make do with something else rather than run to the store. I was out of some of the components for Emeril’s essence recipe. So I used “Organic Delta Rub” from Excalibur Seasonings instead. I was also short on cumin, so I substituted curry powder for some of that. Don’t be afraid, get crazy, get creative, experiment!

I sprinkle the rub over the ribs, and then pat and rub it in so that it sticks to the meat.

Wrap the racks of ribs in foil, and lay on cookie sheets. Stick in a 275 degree oven, along with a pan of water to keep them moist, and then just walk away. Read the paper. Clean something. No, on second thought, don’t do that. This is supposed to be a lazy weekend. Watch a movie. Or two. Whatever you do, leave these puppies alone for 4 to 5 hours!

When they come out of the oven they will be moist and the rub will be a nice golden color, fused right into the meat. These are the beef ribs.

And these are the pork ribs. Remove the ribs from the foil at this point.

Now you can stop right here and eat them just like this if you want. A friend of ours does this, and sets the barbeque sauce out so that people can choose to use it or not.

Or you can coat the ribs right now, both sides, with your favorite barbeque sauce. Then stick them back in the oven, without the foil, for 10 or 20 minutes. Just long enough so that the barbeque sauce heats up and starts to carmelize a bit.

Our favorite sauce is Famous Dave’s. However the first ingredient listed in Famous Dave’s sauce is – you guessed it – high fructose corn syrup. So then I was going to make my own. But they all call for ketchup, and any ketchup I looked at in the store had – you guessed it – high fructose corn syrup. So I threw my hands up in despair and used up the last of the Famous Dave’s I had in the fridge. My quest for the perfect sauce continues. If you have tried-and-true barbeque sauce recipes, post them in the comments or post on your blog and leave a link in the comments.

It’s all over but the crying now. And the moaning. And the unbuttoning of the pants.

(And I could really use some more vegetables on my plate, but the kids were complaining that they didn’t get enough so I had to sacrifice. Because who’s going to deny their kids when they ask for more veggies?!?)

Be sure to have plenty of napkins on hand. Nothing like gnawing your meat off the bone.

How to Cook: Ribs
3 T. brown sugar
2 T. Essence of Emeril
1 T. salt
1 T. ground black pepper
1 T. paprika
1 T. cumin
1 T. garlic powder
1 t. cayenne pepper

Mix together to make the rub. Sprinkle rub on both sides of rib racks and press into meat. Wrap ribs in foil and cook on a cookie sheet at 275 degrees for 4 to 5 hours. Put a pan of water in the oven along with them.

Remove ribs from oven. Discard foil. Coat both sides of ribs with barbeque sauce. Return to oven for 10 to 20 minutes, until sauce is hot and carmelized.

I would think you could also throw the ribs, wrapped in foil or not, into a crockpot and cook them on low for 8 hours.

Posted in How to Cook | 14 Comments

Ag Speedlinking: 02.25.08

Small food, farm business provide healthy future for Iowa

An op-ed piece from the Des Moines Register by my friend and mentor Penny Brown Huber, executive director of the Grow Your Small Market Farm program.

*****

Farm program aids immigrants

“According to the statistics, refugees and immigrants also comprise the largest and fastest growing population entering the field of farming today.”

*****

Speaker at organic farming conference derides corporate agriculture

““Do we treat anything that we truly care about primarily on an efficiency basis?” [Andrew Kimbrell] asked.”

*****

Posted in Ag Speedlinking | Comments Off on Ag Speedlinking: 02.25.08

Duck rainbow

The msucovy ducks I have presently are quite the pretty rainbow of colors!

I have a couple that are white with brownish heads and tail feathers.

This drake is grayish white with a gray head.

This one is a pretty chocolate color with striking white wings.

A pretty rippled chocolate-slate mixed coloring shows up in some of them.

And then there’s the rippling in a pure chocolate color, with some white showing up in the wings again.

A pretty bluish slate.

And one of my favorite drakes, black with a greenish shimmer and white wings. It was one like this that those idiot boys shot this winter.

Which one is your favorite?

3 years ago:

And everyday losses

Watch horse

Photo Friday: Rural

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Snowbound

Our little chicken house in the pasture sits snowbound. But before we know it the shed will be surrounded by fresh green spring grass, and busy with 3-week-old broiler chicks.

3 years ago:

Everyday miracles

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