Not Pigs, Sheep, Chickens or goats

Here is a new rescue, brought in very emaciated with lots of problems from nutient deficiencies. People buy reptiles for a "cool" pet. They do not understand the intense care, specific diet, light, temperature, and housing these animals require for survival in captivity. This Iguana can't wait to escape from his temporary pen.

Not really a farming post......................rather a reptile post. My son and daughter-in-law do not have children, just big lizards!! I don't carry around a grandma's brag book for Water Monitors or Iguanas. This lovely lady is Khronos, out for her daily walk about.

new website

A new website is being built for the farm. It has some standard info that is better served on a site than the blog. If you are interested check here www.willinghandsorganicfarm.com

Anticipating March

February is that little month sandwiched between the new year and planting season. I think of it as the frigid, gloomy, lack of sun month. A time to hibernate, except we humans are ever hurrying to get from here to there, as usual.

CSA payments are due MARCH FIRST, please. March means seeding. Thousands of tiny seeds will germinate, poking their necks through the soil blocks.

Stay Warm!

About La Vida Locavore

I found La Vida Locavore while doing research for my class. Since I did not have time to run through the site I was not aware of certain things. The post below has the word hate in the title, an adjective that is reserved for specific uses in scripture. I was going to post a comment on this but have discovered a more offensive selection in today's post on this site. Why our culture feels compelled to insert the f word to make a point is a strong indication of the decline our country is experiencing. Really-get a dictionary, increase your vocabulary sufficiently to express yourself.

A disappointment. This site pulls a lot of info into one place, a useful tool, now made distasteful for those of us who must be pathetically boring to the f crowd. If all this is mere drivel, and it does not bother you, then you probably can glean from the site.

More later...........

Chew On This

Ahh, Monsanto... What Would We Do If We Didn't Have You to Hate?

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 13:00:05 PM PST

Monsanto (whose first quarter profits are way up) made some headlines this week and not in a good way. Well, it's never in a good way with Monsanto, is it? First off, there's the fact that Monsanto and its biotech buddies are trying to profit from global warming:

The world's largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. BASF, Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont and biotech partners have filed 532 patent documents (a total of 55 patent families) on so-called "climate ready" genes at patent offices around the world. In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the Gene Giants are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves as climate saviours. The focus on so-called climate-ready genes is a golden opportunity to push genetically engineered crops as a silver bullet solution to climate change. But patented techno-fix seeds will not provide the adaptation strategies that small farmers need to cope with climate change. These proprietary technologies will ultimately concentrate corporate power, drive up costs, inhibit independent research, and further undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds.

Given that, what is Oxfam doing in bed with Monsanto? Especially when it's been found that organics beat GMOs for drought tolerance, and that organics can feed Africa! Looks like they are falling for Monsanto's bullshit PR strategy that claims GMOs can feed the world.

Even at the time of the Monsanto ads [that claimed GM would feed the poor], though, the company knew perfectly well that the only GM crops it had developed were designed to meet the needs of large-scale commercial farmers, primarily in the industrialized world.

So how did this extravagant pro-poor rhetoric around GM crops actually arise?...

[Researcher Dominic Glover] notes that during the 1960s and '70s, Monsanto senior executives recognised that they needed to radically transform a company increasingly threatened by the emergence of the environmental movement and by tougher environmental regulation.

Yuck - even the World Wildlife Fund is falling for Monsanto's BS that it holds the key to the future.

This info was copied from La Vida Locavore

www.lavidalocavore.org

15* One Ton Day

Blocking up the trays with the "20" cube
Part of the load from Lancaster Ag
Putting on snow to wet the potting soil
Grace taking a break from wrestling Max
Max taking a break from tearing up the beds
Digging and amending the beds

We have been fighting snow and low temps to get our work done. Yesterday a few beds got dug and then Max decided he needed to redo the job. Not funny. It was 15* outside so I let the dogs in the tunnel, something I have not permitted. Dogs get cabin fever too, so I brought them along. They have been itching to have a day out. They know when I am going to the plot and beg to come along. We brought wheelbarrow loads of snow in to put on the 2'x8' trays of potting soil. The tunnel temps were 80+ degrees so I figured it would melt by today. Onions were seeded into the ground.

Today we picked up various soil amendments and minerals. The fork lift set the pallet load into the back of the van, uh oh...............the van took a plunge. I thought a moment and asked if they could distribute the weight over the the whole cargo area. It still was very low. Needless to say, I drove very carefully with over 2,000 lbs packed solid.

The fun???? part was unloading all the 50lb bags by hand into the tunnel. Can you say backache?