[Gabe Ayers]

I don’t think he would accept the pope job, besides he’s a Baptist…

I suspect he is content living on his own small farm, tending his flock of cheviots, his team of horses and a colt or two coming along and working in his woods…. and writing of course.

I think the discussion on the sustainability thread is a great support for most of what he says in this essay and many others.

You are welcome DAP folks, I enjoy most of what he writes and figured most of you would too.

[Gabe Ayers]

Great job Carl. You put it all in a realistic perspective based on your real life experience. Mentors are the key….that is why we use the mentor apprentice network to train new Biological Woodmen…

Most impressive for me was the lack or absence of nostalgia and romance for the past….and a view for the future…. good job man. The fellow with the Suffolk horse looked good to, or I guess they were Suffolk.

[Gabe Ayers]

We just buy them from the Amish in widths of 46 and 48 inch double tree and beast yoke combination. We buy the whiffle trees to be 28 inch wide each to keep the front side strap from wearing the hide off the top of the horses forearm.

These breast yokes are round tube steel 1-1/2 ” and the whiffle trees 1 ” – and tough. We get them through Log Cabin Sales, PA. The double tree is channel or square tubing Dale Stolfus (sp.) sells them.

Spreading them further apart helps eliminate tongue slap on the two wheeled arch using the d – ring harness adjusted properly. It also keeps the team cooler in hot weather and still makes them slightly wider than the arch which helps keep the arch from hanging on saplings and trees in the course of skidding.

[Gabe Ayers]

Fred,

What does HVAC stand for?

I live in a old timey geothermal passive solar home, which I think back in the eighties meant half underground and insulated from the outside or what they called ecto-insulated at the time. It is a combination of earth contact on a portion of the floor, but the walls insulated. We put a series of plastic pipe (4 inch diameter) in the floor and connected it all to a one foot square column that goes to the top of the ceiling in the house and allows for cool air to be pumped into the top of the house for cooling and warm air to be pumped into the bottom for heating.

Maybe there is a better way and system now, we seldom use this as the home is comfortable passively without any active assistance requiring electric fans.

Educate us a little more Fred. Thanks for sharing this exploration in better building and living.

Al Gore says we have ten years to change….if he is as wrong about that as his climate change predictions we may really be in trouble.

[Gabe Ayers]

Carl,

I went to Vermont Channel 3 TV web site and couldn’t find a link to the video stream, can you post that address or how to find it on the net?

Looking forward to seeing you on the tube….

[Gabe Ayers]

Received this email tonight:

July 15, 2008 from nonais.org
USDA Sued To Stop NAIS

Legal Defense Fund Files Suit to Stop Animal ID Program
Suit Targets USDA and Michigan Department of Agriculture

Falls Church, Virginia, (July 14, 2008) – Attorneys for the Farm-to-Consumer
Legal Defense Fund today filed suit in the U.S. District Court – District of
Columbia to stop the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the
Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) from implementing the National
Animal Identification System (NAIS), a plan to electronically track every
livestock animal in the country.

The MDA has implemented the first two stages of NAIS – property registration
and animal identification – for all cattle and farmers across the state as
part of a mandatory bovine tuberculosis disease control program required by
a grant from the USDA.

The suit asks the court to issue an injunction to stop the implementation of
NAIS at either the state or federal levels by any state or federal agency.
If successful, the suit would halt the program nationwide.

“We think that current disease reporting procedures and animal tracking
methods provide the kind of information health officials need to respond to
animal disease events,” explained Fund President Taaron Meikle.

“At a time when the job of protecting our food safety is woefully
underfunded, the USDA has spent over $118 million on just the beginning
stages of a so-called voluntary program that ultimately seeks to register
every horse, chicken, cow, goat, sheep, pig, llama, alpaca or other
livestock animal in a national database-more than 120 million animals. It’s
a program that only a bureaucrat could love.” she added.

Meikle noted that existing programs for diseases such as tuberculosis,
brucellosis and scrapie together with state laws on branding and the
existing record keeping by sales barns and livestock shows provide the
mechanisms needed for tracking any disease outbreaks.

She said the suit charges that USDA has never published rules regarding
NAIS, in violation of the Federal Administrative Procedures Act; has never
performed an Environmental Impact Statement or an Environmental Assessment
as required by the National Environmental Policy Act; is in violation of the
Regulatory Flexibility Act that requires the USDA to analyze proposed rules
for their impact on small entities and local governments; and violates
religious freedoms guaranteed by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“Other mandatory implementations, which weave NAIS into existing regulatory
fabric and programs, have occurred in the States of Wisconsin and Indiana
where premises registration has been made mandatory; in drought-stricken
North Carolina and Tennessee, where farmers have been required to register
their premises in order to obtain hay relief; and in Colorado where state
fairs are requiring participants to register their premises under NAIS,”
explained Judith McGeary, a member of the Farm-to-Consumer Fund board and
the executive director of the Farm and Rancher Freedom Alliance.

“We are asking the court to immediately halt implementation of the program
nationwide before more farmers and ranchers are strong-armed into
participating in a program that the USDA has called voluntary.”

McGeary also questioned the accuracy of the existing database noting that an
attempt by the USDA to make the information in the NAIS database subject to
Privacy Act safeguards thereby removing them from public scrutiny was
suspended indefinitely in a ruling last month by the same federal court that
will hear arguments in the current suit. That suit had been filed by a
journalist seeking access to the database to determine its accuracy.

About The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund: The Fund defends the rights
and broadens the freedoms of sustainable farmers, and protects consumer
access to local, nutrient-dense foods. Concerned citizens can support the
Fund by joining at farmtoconsumer.org or by contacting the Fund at
703-208-FARM. The Fund’s sister organization, the Farm-to-Consumer
Foundation (farmtoconsumerfoundation.org), works to support farmers engaged
in sustainable farm stewardship and promote consumer access to local,
nutrient-dense food.

Editor’s Note: A copy of the suit filed against the USDA and MDA is
available at farmtoconsumerfoundation.org

###

Contacts:

Taaron G. Meikle
President, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and Farm-to-Consumer
Foundation
703-537-8372
tgmeikle@aol.com

Brian Cummings
Cummings & Company LLC
214-295-7463
brian@cummingspr.com

Susan Barackman Morning Light Studio
Paris, Texas 75462
esbee@1starnet.com
now on the net at … http://susanbarackman.freeservers.com

[Gabe Ayers]

We don’t have moose in the Appalachians, but we have plenty of white tail deer.

My elder son hunts here annually, and bags at least a half dozen, some big bucks, weighing maybe 200+ pounds. I don’t have a big place (75 acres), but some of it is steep and quite a ways from the house or road. We often use a single horse to drag the gutted carcass back to the barn where it is skinned and hung for a while.

I do use my oldest and most experienced horse, Wedge. He is always quite alert and somewhat worried about the job, which may be related to the smell of the fresh kill, blood and guts. But he does it for us every time. The point is that this horse is very experienced and has developed an attitude of he can do whatever I ask him to and is brave about it given my encouragement and comforting reassurance and positive driving. Of course with blinders once he is hitched he doesn’t know what he is pulling, it is just getting him to the carcass and hitched the presents some worry for him.

So it is a tricky question as to a really green horse doing such a task. It will probably depend on how far you progress in getting him to drive and respond to your signals prior to this request.

Maybe someone else will have advice on this question.

Good luck.

[Gabe Ayers]

This seems similar to what some of the European animal powered farmers are using, in particular the Polish horse farmers. It makes a lot of sense and could be manufactured on the farm. It seems that having an external rigidity would keep the animals from getting sore and lessen the likelihood of the collar collapsing from the animals pressing into a triangle.

Nice to see this forum taking on an international flare…….

Thanks for posting Bivol…

[Gabe Ayers]

Welcome Ralf,

I enjoyed your video. I don’t speak German, but think I heard the word diesel in the report, so I would suspect you are promoting the draft horse as an alternative to diesel.

It looks like a your forecart is ground driven and does a good job driving the tedder. Is this forecart manufactured in Germany?

Do you have any photos/videos of your work in the forest?

Glad you are here, look forward to hearing more about your work.

[Gabe Ayers]

This is a cut copy paste from the RH front porch, it may be good news…

USDA Ordered to Release NAIS Data
by: Karen Briggs
July 09 2008, Article # 12239

Agricultural journalist Mary-Louise Zanoni has succeeded in keeping the USDA from applying Privacy Act safeguards to information it has collected from livestock owners as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). These safeguards would have restricted access to the information by journalists as well as the livestock owners whose information might be included without their knowledge.

In a landmark ruling June 4, Federal District Judge for the District of Columbia, Emmet Sullivan, suspended indefinitely the USDA’s plans to protect the information under the 1974 Privacy Act.

The information in question is a list of farms and ranches collected through voluntary premises identification since 2004 and potentially through other means which sources say amount to data mining. In her suit, Zanoni sought a restraining order and alleged that not only has the USDA collected premises information from landowners who did not voluntarily submit that information, but it has failed to remove that information from the list when requested to do so by the landowners.

Len Brown, of the law firm Clymer & Musser of Lancaster, Pa., represented Zanoni in the case. He commented, “It boils down to a database created by the U.S. government in an inappropriate way. This created huge hurdles for journalists trying to write about NAIS.

“The rules say people being placed in a database such as this need to be notified, but the USDA has admitted to data mining from sources like state veterinarians and avian flu records, even entry lists from county fairs,” Brown stated.

Although Zanoni’s action against the USDA garnered a fairly swift response from the federal District Court, Brown said they’re still trying to get the USDA to release the database.

“We filed a motion for summary judgment on July 2,” Brown said “The USDA will have until August 9 to respond, after which we expect a decision within 60 days.

“Stopping them from converting to a Privacy Act was a really significant step,” Brown added, “but the USDA is still not responding as we think they should.

“I certainly think it’s adding to people’s suspicions about NAIS,” he continued. “And it begs the question, ‘who at the USDA did not consider the Privacy Act in 2004 and 2005?’ Someone will likely have to answer for that.”

[Gabe Ayers]

Michael,

I wrote a response to this yesterday and somehow it is not here now. I will write about it again later if there is not another response from another DAP member.

I think timing is the big issue here, this would be more successful in the spring.

I think your oxen can do this work.

[Gabe Ayers]

Erika,

I borrowed from the Farmer’s Home Administration to buy our place a long time ago (78). There happened to be a nice young guy that took over the district office, who I had gone to high school with his brother. I qualified for the low income limited resource program and borrowed under the farm ownership program for a 40 year loan at 5%. So I wouldn’t have been able to afford the farm without that program. I have borrowed operating money from FSA also.

The difficulty of working with the local agent is the key. Some are very reasonable and helpful, understanding and supportive. Other’s are beauracrats, that interpret the rules to make their job as easy and risk free as possible. It is an individual agent thing.

Even with a good local agent the details of a farm home plan are intense and satisfying all their requirements is just about a full time job in itself. After paying on it for several years and keeping up with the paper work, Mr. Bush decided to lock the interest rate in at 5% – because the prime dropped so low they were afraid farmer’s would ask for a lower rate and at that point the detailed reporting and plans were dropped. Now I just make my payments annually and will get it paid off when I am 82…. like I will live productively that long…. Get mortgage insurance in case you don’t live long enough to pay the loan off.

It is a hassle to deal with a government agency, but it is the only way this sharecropper’s grandson would have even owned a piece of land.

The agency needs clients to insure their own jobs, but interview them too….

I certainly am not recommending that approach today because it can be a hassle, but it is what we did years ago. Ideally it would be a great program if the folks that administrate it were experienced. The point is to keep some people actually farming….

But the hassles – For instance if you are late paying your taxes, you get a letter about a week later wanting to know why you haven’t…..(answer: didn’t have the money – duh). The farm home plan is a detailed eight page document that requires every piece of equipment photographed and a detailed plan for every penny of every year. Glad I don’t have to do that anymore….

I have avoided any further involvement with the government for the obvious reason’s mentioned by our fellow poster…. They offer all sorts of delayed payment deals, based on bad weather, crop disasters, but it just cost more interest to delay and we haven’t had to use them yet…

We keep hoping we will hit a big lick one day and pay some on the principle and pay it off early…it just hasn’t happened yet. Being sustainable doesn’t mean making a lot of money as everyone on this forum knows…Lots of FSA loans are paid off by subdividing the farm and giving up on farming.

Good luck.

[Gabe Ayers]

The only downside to tongue trucks is that they are not available everywhere. Lots of old mowers sitting around, but most of the double trees, breast yokes and tongue trucks are gone.

I have taken the advice of a fellow poster and asked the head dude at the scrap yard to keep a look out for anything that resembles them coming through as scrap. I offered to double what ever he was paying for it by the pound. Hope to find some soon. I printed some of Neils photos to take him.

Thanks everyone for working for a full understanding of all our mower options.

Meanwhile I am still making hay with mostly conventional equipment on fields a few miles from home. I just have to many horses and a big barn to fill. We hope to stockpile some this year. We will even make some round bales from some fields. The last couple or years have been very costly come March and April when we run out.

[Gabe Ayers]

We definitely don’t support clear cutting or high grading with horses or animal power.

The Amish clear cut on a pro rated per thousand basis in Kentucky and it is disgraceful and diminishes the value of animal power in a real way to anyone trying to practice good forestry. They simply can’t get other work so they do what they have to in order to make a living. I will quit logging before I do that. Yet it is true that animal power would create less damage than machines in that application, but it is not something I personally would do, unless there was absolutely not other option to working my animals.

We have had one fellow come through our training and then go out and high grade, claiming he had trained with me. This is just fuel to dismiss the value of animal powered forestry by conventional forestry interest and muddies the water for landowner’s that are considering their forest management options. This lead me to write an editorial article defining Biological Woodsmen as being far more than just horse loggers. This fellow finally got a mechanized skidder and got rid of his horses. We are glad for that.

Meanwhile we continue to develop local decentralized wood processing on a community basis. That may be the wave of the future, but there are lots of details to be worked out and a lot of capital investment that we are seeking from others interested in sustainable development other than the actual ground level workers. More on that later.

Hopefully we will continue to share this information and through this sharing, have the information available for anyone seeking a different direction in the care of the natural world.

[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Neal,

I moved my response and discussion to the Community page. I would love to come to Vermont in September. Last year we got about the same as we asked the Amish for and it paid for the rental car and gas. Carl and Lisa put us up in a lovely B & B in a village up the road. What beautiful country that is.

I also am very confident that there will be adequate cultural depth among the presenters, speakers and participants brought in by Earthwise Farm.

You may let me know what you think about the event beyond that. I would do anything I can to give my time to the culture or modern animal powered efforts, I just simply don’t have money to give. I think everyone understands that reality.

Thanks truly for the interest.

[Author]

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