[goodcompanion]

The State of Maine now has a response to those towns that passed the ordinance. You can read it:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1221/images/Whitcomb_Letter_Local_Food_Ordinance.pdf

I can imagine the next move of the towns, or at least one possible next move, a la American Flatbread. The town itself could host a local community dinner featuring a slew of locally prepared, uninspected products (like maybe a pig roast from a communally butchered pig), broadly advertised as such, charge $10 a head for the meal, and invite the Dept. of Ag. officials to attend. The DoA would have a written invitation and couldn’t ignore it. They would have to threaten and/or fine someone, but who? The organizers? The producers? The whole town who attends and consumes knowingly? Who exactly would State Law be protecting in this case?

[goodcompanion]

@Countymouse 26488 wrote:

Did the guy tell his team to “Get up”???:D

Arrrrgh….

[goodcompanion]

Don’t see why you would need shoes. My farm is similar to yours and I have never felt a need for them.

[goodcompanion]

The really intriguing thing about this document is that it makes the people of the town the actors, rather than an individual producer. This makes it hard to dismiss as just a trend in alternative entrepreneurship or what have you. This makes me think that a significant number of people in the region, not just farmers, are really connecting the dots.

[goodcompanion]

@blue80 26242 wrote:

Lots of old mowers out here have raw pine log as the tongue. Just square off the mower side with a chainsaw so it attaches to the mower nicely, and the pine pole tapers down to about 3-4 inches at the neck yoke end….

I’ve seen this too. Doesn’t look showroom pretty or anything, but it does the job. Also is proof that unbroken, straight fibers are what you need.

[goodcompanion]

I would think that most any straight-grained hardwood would do a fine job. Mahogany or teak, for instance. An ideal pole has perfectly straight grain with no knots or grain weaving in and out of the piece. Who knows, maybe you have some acacia or eucalypt locally that would fit the bill. White oak was used just because it was domestic, common, and had the basic properties needed for a pole.

I have a mower here that requires 3″x5″ at the socket. If you can get a good beam you can chalk a line for the taper and cut with a regular circular saw, flipping it over to finish the cut from the backside. Then finish with a jackplane.

[goodcompanion]

A goose is just a duck with the neck artificially stretched.

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 26172 wrote:

Jason, and others, Bob St. Peter, the founder of the Independent Food Project which sponsored those resolutions, may be the Keynote speaker at Rural Vermont’s annual meeting May 4th, 6:30-9 pm at the West Monitor Barn in Richmond, Vermont.

We are very interested in seeing how we can also try to keep the ball rolling here in Vermont.

Carl

Count me in. Reading this over though, there is no way in hell the powers that be are going to leave this alone. It will be very interesting to see to what degree the people who voted for this are willing to go to the wall for their food soverignty. The part at the end, under pre-emption, is this for real? The town will secede from the state if the state overrules it? Are they really ready to have the state call that bluff? Far out. We live in interesting times, that’s for sure.

Erik

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 26142 wrote:

I feel like it is coming to a point where we just need to do what we know is right, and what we know we have the rights to do in community with our neighbors. The legislative process is rife with compromises that basically tie up huge amounts of time and money, with little or nothing to show.

Like Erik says, I know folks(;)) who can get 20-30% more per pound for on-farm slaughtered meat sold directly to customers, than my friends who raise enough animals to be able to afford the slaughter/inspection pipeline. They also believe firmly in their right to farm and do business on their own terms (as long as they are not hurting others:)).

The question in my mind, is how do we as a community find a way to support these people so that the potential legal actions can be covered financially, and at the same time are used to make the change that logic requires?

Carl

I agree. The problems with the law are probably intractable as long as the VAA continues to try to recast our agriculture in terms acceptable to the USDA. Eventually they will probably have to prosecute someone for breaking some stupid reg or another. The whole community must be prepared to defend that individual legally and to make the resulting discussion open and public.

[goodcompanion]

Very good observations.

Here is the rub. While it may be legal for you to function as your own itinerant custom slaughterer, what are you going to do with those sides of meat? You don’t have a licensed facility to cut them up in. The only legal, acceptable thing you can do with that meat, according to the VAA, is cut it up yourself for your own use. Can’t sell it.

For that matter, if you hire an itinerant custom slaughterer (let’s say ICS for short), per the statute, to reduce your animal to sides of meat, then said custom slaughterer is also legally unable to do more than give you the sides to cut up yourself for your own use. You can’t sell it.

So your ICS owns an inspected custom shop in the same town? It’s illegal to transport the sides there to be processed. Animals must arrive alive (no downer law), at least domestic animals. Don’t ask me how this applies to deer, the bread-and-butter business of a typical custom shop, since they obviously don’t arrive alive.

However it appears that an ICS could slaughter an animal on-farm and then give the sides of meat to a buyer or buyers, and they could take the whole sides of meat home and cut them up there, themselves for their own use, dispose of their own renderings, make their own sausage, etc. Most buyers would prefer to hire the ICS to do this, either on-farm or in the ICS’s custom shop. But this is not allowed. That is not to say that the practice is not widespread, but it is an illegal trade, and many of those involved in it are fully aware of this (not that I know any personally ;)) As you rightly point out this practice is an extension of a very old local tradition and meets a strictly local need. It should not expose those involved to legal action by the VAA, but it does.

Seems to me that if the legislature were to draft an exemption to the no-downer law where it applies to livestock slaughtered at another location by the owner of a state-inspected custom shop, for purposes of custom sale only, then this would solve the problem.

[goodcompanion]

@sean518 25806 wrote:

I also started growing hops last year to sell and use in my homebrews.

Just starting larger-scale hops plantings here too. Also barley, if (being a brewer) you get interested in that, I have 16 old european landrace barleys I am propogating seed from. Maybe one will be the northeastern beer of the future, who knows.

Anyway, welcome.

[goodcompanion]

Very nice first furrow. I bet you are proud of that plow and the team that pulls it. We’re lonely enough in the northeast with such draft accomplishments as we can manage. But probably not one in a million, quite literally, in the UK can harness a team and open a land.

The landscape in the background is evocative too. It speaks of a human scale and benign patterns of use, in a way totally different from the landscapes of, say, the industrial ag of the (north american) midwestern plains. Except for those godawful utility towers that always seem to be in view…

[goodcompanion]

Thanks guys.

[goodcompanion]

Take your sled and chain it to a big heavy truck.

Then drive your horse, standing on the sled, down a nice straight road. Have someone in the truck drive behind so there is slack on the chain.

When your horse bolts, have the truck driver slam on the brakes. Your horse will not be able to run off pulling that truck. He will get the message pretty quick.

Do a few sessions like this and then you can graduate to a loaded sled. If you can’t stop the horse from running with a loaded sled, at least go for steering in circles and you will wear him out. You can add the truck for good measure if you are not confident.

Worked for me!

Most ideal are things like the truck where the load can be applied and removed depending on behavior. A sulky plow can work great too if you don’t mind randomly ripping up some ground. Just let it roll along with just enough of a set to keep it off his heels. When he runs, set that sucker deep.

[goodcompanion]

I’m interested in the same question. I have a bakery wagon that I have taken into town and tied to a makeshift hitching post. The horse would lost patience with it and get twitchy.

I am not sure exactly how good, patient standing while tied is best trained for. I would guess that tying frequently and for successively longer periods would bring about the right results? I’m interested in others’ responses.

Erik

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