[near horse]

Make sure we’re talking about the same thing – discing the soil isn’t the same as plowing with a disc plow. Disc plows are basically setup like a moldboard plow minus the moldboard/shares etc. Instead they have a large concave disc (maybe 24″ diameter?) that is angled like the moldboard would be to the direction of travel – the disc(s) slice into the soil which should break up without turning over completely. It always “appeared” like it would have more draft than a moldboard – maybe I’m wrong. I’ve never really seen one in action and or even pictures of one hitched up!

It takes a frickin’ long time to build more topsoil – what’s the rule of thumb? Like 100 yrs per inch or something? Tim, help us out here. Is that assuming “natural” soil development alone or is that the best we can do?

I’m no soil scientist but the way I understand it, most of us are really talking about increasing soil tilth not just breaking up the hardpan. The additional humus in the soil affects how soil particles aggregate and, in turn, how the soil holds water. The trees we have in our area don’t seem to do much for the soil’s tilth – if they end up blowin down, it’s surprising how small the root ball is for such a large tree and the soil fractures into chunks along the root lines but those chunks are rock hard. So I guess I am agreeing that the fibrous root system(s) of grasses may be the best bet for increasing soil “health” – at least in this area.

[near horse]

I don’t know if this is in conjunction with the terminator gene but I thought there was seed, corn I think, that you can save the seed from BUT it won’t germinate UNLESS you treat it with their patented growth promoter – maybe an enzyme?

With regard to the law suit stuff, wasn’t there that landmark case in Canada about the RR canola that crossed into a farmers nonRR canola. I thought he eventually won, sort of (didn’t have to compensate Monsanto). I know it was big news. People talked about counter-suing for “criminal trespass” of RR canola onto his property – I think that’s fair.

There needs to be some ruling (I know how much many folks don’t like more laws but …) that says, you can plant and grow RR crops under the following conditions:

1) if your RR crop contaminates a neighboring field, you will be held liable for damages incurred to his/her crop.

2) if your RR crop contaminates a neighboring field, Monsanto or other patent holder is NOT entitled to any compensation nor say so in the end use of the neighbors crop/seed as long as the neighbor does not take advantage of the patented gene (EX – not spray Round-Up on the crop).

3)The user of RR seed (or other GMO) is REQUIRED to clearly label and identify all products for sale or trade as a “product of genetically modified seed”, including products that come from the consumption of the GMO – in other words, milk – meat – eggs – wool – veggies – …..

I know that there are other serious concerns about allowing GMOs loose in the environment but the 3 conditions I listed AT LEAST allow fair treatment of those who don’t want to use Monsanto’s GMO crap as well as allowing the consumer to decide whether they want to purchase GMO stuff with their dollars. See how a free market might fix their little red wagon!

The worst of it all is much of this GMO crap comes from our own “land grant universities” where the gene jockeys get nice fat grants from Monsanto to look into this stuff – the universities are proud of how much money these guys bring in AND Monsanto, DuPont etc get the patent rights. This stuff is “dirty” science. You (and anyone associated with the project) are required to sign a confidentiality agreement that you can’t release information regarding the study without approval from the company. That’s why when stuff doesn’t work the way company wants, you never hear about it. I’m speaking from experience on this one.

[near horse]

Again, lots of food for thought here so I’ll try and add something. First – since soil microbial activity seems to be pretty important, do we know which groups or species predominate in “healthy” soils w/ good tilth? And, if so, how easy would it be to do an estimate of soil microbe presence or populations – instead of having an N P K soil test (probably better in conjunction with NPK)? Kind of like thinking of your soil like your compost pile – is it active? why or why not? what needs to change? ….

The other part of this is the question about the sustainability of trying to maintain the result of such disturbance, if the disturbance is required to provide the result.

This kind of speaks to the dilemma of farming and harvesting in general. These actions aren’t natural. For example, the nutrients in a hayfield or a tree would never leave the site en masse as when we harvest those materials and it is also highly unlikely that fields would naturally be plowed and turned over in such short order (like a few days when we plow). So, what to do? We can try, as Carl says, to mimic natural processes as best we can and I think some of the forestry practices discussed on this site are great examples. But it us truly THE challenge before us to

walking the line where human interests meets ecological parameters.

.

In “The Plowman’s Folly” (mentioned here at DAP by others), the effect of inverting the topsoil with a moldboard plow is unnatural, even if it doesn’t bring up subsoil. Instead, they encourage using a disc plow or now, a chisel plow. But they require increased HP in their use. The same can be said of the “No-till” drilling systems being pushed out here in the west. I think the engineering has come from the top down – in other words, “here’s this problem with moldboard plowing AND we have a 350 HP tractor at our disposal, so what can we do?” WE need to think, as Carl mentioned he does, “here’s this problem and I have draft animal power at my disposal, what can I do?”

People still assume that farmers are so aware of nature, working with the seasons …

I have to add that “if that’s the case, why are they trying to keep all that nature off of them in their A/C cab with digital surround-sound stereo and plush bucket seats, riding 8 feet off the ground at 8 mph?”:(

I guess my point in this is we are changing an ecosystem by doing what we do. We are continually resetting “natural succession” to a stage more desirable for our needs. For example, the 60 yr old forest plantation Carl mentions wouldn’t become a pasture or cropland on its own. It would likely become a climax woodland of whatever species fit in that area. But that’s not what he needs it to be and that’s fine and I’m sure he recognizes this.

Unfortunately, as bad a rap as moldboard plowing gets, it’s still something I really enjoy doing with my team. Perhaps I can keep it to skimplowing in green manure crops or something?:o

[near horse]

Anuther misconception I get is that yields were less years ago because farmers were “stuck ” with horses.. Crock to that I say. Horses are more than capable of handling modern crop volume

Hey John,

Tell your modern farmer neighbors that the development of dwarf wheat varieties is what changed yields the most- before that the plants were much taller and heights were not uniform so a lot of energy of the plant went into growing the stem (straw) – they also had a lot of lodging issues. In this area of WA state, it’s held that wheat yields doubled by switching to the dwarf wheats – it made a lot of farmers here wealthy. BTW – here on the Palouse, horses often overwintered on the straw stacks left over from the stationary thresher – it might actually be considered a benefit that those threshers sent some grain out the back end with the straw, at least from the horse’s (and I would say teamster’s) perspective.

[near horse]

Where do I start? Lots of ideas and comments to make. In relation to Old Kat’s Kubota vs horses story – therein lies one of the benefits of using animal power you can add HP as needed (or borrow). Not so with the tractor you bought. So the modern solution is overkill – buy the biggest tractor you can afford, even if most of the time you’ll not be using that extra HP.

I am considering a break down of the different energy centers, if you will, those points in the machine where the energy produced by the motor is reduced. Not so much a comparison of how efficiently horses or tractors utilize the intake fuel, but some comparison that can show the power apportionment.

Carl and others – isn’t the Nebraska test number essentially the end product ( like the 1KW in your electricity example)? So are you just wanting to figure out what the input is that is required to generate that end product (the 2KW in your example)? So we could measure the mount of fuel consumed do do the work and calculate how much E is in it. The difference btwn how much E we burned and how much was necessary to do the work should be the amount lost in the ” inefficiencies” of the tractor – wheel slippage, heat, friction …..

Is that what you were thinking?

The fly in the ointment is the “time component”. It takes the same amount of energy (calories) to walk a mile as it does to run a mile. Just takes longer to walk the mile. But we are always get concerned with how much work per hour or day can a tractor or a team do.

I think the alternative E crowd sees the need for new ways of providing E but they’re stuck trying to fit it into the current, massive and entrenched infrastructure already present. I don’t see us getting away from the means of transportation we have in place BUT we can look into other ways of powering those vehicles. And maybe draft power could fit in here – if say folks drove electric powered cars, there still needs to electrical input from somewhere to charge the batteries – if it comes from the grid then you’re really using coal, natural gas or nuclear power. But why couldn’t we use draft power to generate the electricty to charge the batteries? MAybe something like a pulley setup (like winding the bucket up out of a well).

An interesting sidelight for horse afficionados – there was a pretty neat research paper written back in the early 80’s called “Why Horses Change Gait”. As you might expect and they show very nicely with graphs in the paper, within a gait (like walking), as a horse increases energy spent on locomotion it increases speed to a point. At some point it becomes more efficient to switch to another gait. Easier to see in a graph than my explanation.

Sorry about the rambles – couldn’t seem to get my thoughts straight tonight.

[near horse]

Well, I’ll add something from the NW. We’ve had maybe 3″ of snow since the first of the year. For at least the last 2 weeks highs in the mid to upper 40’s and sunny. I’d take this weather 2 months from now!! People are starting to worry about the summer water situation but what’r you gonna do?

[near horse]

Carl –

I agree that testing is not a true measure of intelligence anymore than IQ scores tell us anything more than how well an individual is likely to perform in school (interpret as “how well they’ll take tests).

Believe me, I have some serious issues with public education after spending time teaching in a couple of different school districts. I’ve had administrators tell me I was wrong about some 9th grade students that couldn’t read because the district reading test scores were in the 70th percentile. My response was ” if flames are shooting out the windows of your house but the smoke alarm hasn’t sounded, is your house on fire or not?” MAybe that’s why I’m not in education anymore:D

If our society was more accepting of manual dexterity, and physical aptitude, and spatial understanding as measures of intelligence, then we could have institutional assistance for these career choices, and we might even entice students who are mindlessly striving for academic accomplishment into more fulfilling, stimulating, and appropriate career choices.

I also agree with some of what you say here. College, as it exists right now in the US, isn’t for everyone yet we say everyone should try and get a college education if they want a good paying job. Other countries seem to do a better “job” of providing alternative options (I saw something about how Germany provides meaningful and valuable alternate tracks for HS students).

The US culture values cheap food, and there are some people who end up making a lot of money providing this product, but in the scheme of things, it seems interesting that some professionals who merely provide services are easily accepted for the value of their service, while we seem to accept that food should be cheap, which in most cases is reflected in extremely low wages, and lifestyle compromises, that even teachers would never consider.

Cheap food is what drives most small farmers out of business so only the big guys are left – and they aren’t taking low wages or making lifestyle compromises – although their employees (who do all the actual work) are.

it seems interesting that some professionals who merely provide services are easily accepted for the value of their service

Providing a service can cover a lot of bases – from a psychologist to a diesel tech to a forestry management professional. Lack of understanding or education about what expertise a given service requires is where the problem lies. Work on your pick up, tractor or computer for awhile and then take it to someone who does it for a living – that will open your eyes!

I just don’t want some reading this to think education/knowledge = bad. Knowing stuff, however you come by it, is always better than not knowing because you can make better more informed decisions.

You may have heard this about higher education but I’ll throw it out there anyway.

As you get into graduate or professional school, you know more and more about less and less until, eventually you know a whole lot about nothing!:)

[near horse]

My opinion is that the tail is wagging the dog here. Corporate greed and profit are determining government policy. “If you don’t do such and such, we’ll break you.” Elected officials have to worry about getting re-elected and a well-funded disinformation campaign can wipe-out even the most forthright individual – not so with CEO’s. Many of them and their boards of directors aren’t even responsive to their own shareholders!

So what are you supposed to do as an elected official when you’re essentially held hostage by AIG, GM or whomever? Let them fail and we end up with even more catastrophic unemployment of average middle class Americans that did nothing to deserve it. Bail them out and reward them for corruption and bad management. Either way, as an elected official, you’re going to look bad.

I truly believe that corporations – those “too big to fail” – are dictating what we’re getting from our government.

So in the end Mark, you are right – few benefit and many pay. But I would rather try to push that benefit toward those with nothing rather than to those who already have everything.

The frustration comes from knowing we’re being screwed over by corporate greed and not being able to do a damn thing about it. One example – GoldmanSachs handed out bonuses equal to the total amount of money donated by the American public to provide aid to Haiti – 100 million dollars. That’s just contemptable!

No one is worth 1 million dollars per year, let alone have that added to your salary! A million dollars is $114/hr for every hour you exist during that year – asleep, in the shower, on the toilet ….

Converted to payment for a “normal” work schedule – $480/hr For that rate, at least do a better job fooling me!!

[near horse]

This thread was originally about the sad end for a fellow farmer and suddenly turned into “the government’s to blame”.

I would encourage anyone that is interested in trying to help out the remaining Pierson family and their farm to PM me. I’m not sure how I/we can help them but I think it’s worth pursuing. Leave the rants for another thread.

Thanks.

[near horse]

Hi Mitch
I agree and don’t see how any average American citizen wouldn’t be outraged at this ruling:

lots of corporate money to fund their elections, the supreme court has guaranteed that right because of freedom of speech

It’s what got some of them on to the court in the first place.

The most ridiculous part of the ruling is that corporations are still limited in how much they can give directly to a candidate but not in how much they can spend supporting that candidate! That’s 2 sides of the same coin!

What is the difference between me giving “Senator X” a half million dollars for his re-election campaign and me asking him what he wants me to spend a half million dollars on IN SUPPORT of his campaign??!!!

We’re done for if this thing stands up for very long. Pretty soon we’ll have “The Washington Monument brought to you by CitiBank” and the “RCA Capitol Dome – where congress goes to meet”.

[near horse]

Wow Jim – you are completely off base and making bold statements that you have provided no evidence for. For example, what data is there that shows this:

Take away citizen weaponery and watch crime go up 10 fold over nite.

And –

I think it is like laws in some countries where citizens are armed and evil doers get punished

We call those 3rd world countries.

No our health care system aint broken we have the best if not why do they keep coming here to get fixed if you take the money away the product will suffer.

People (US citizens) are actually going to other countries to get surgeries because they can get quality care for a lower price. We have the best health care THAT MONEY CAN BUY – unfortunately many folks in this country can’t afford it. Illegal immigrants are coming here to get work, make money and provide for their families – I expect that most of us (including you) would do no less for your family. Your ancestors did.

Then death will be the cheapest way to treat the elderly and the sick I dont want that for my family or parents aint right/QUOTE]

With that thinking, death will always be the cheapest way to treat all health issues regardless of age- just shoot ’em. I think an aspirin is almost as expensive as a bullet.

It is the rich trying to enslave the poor

That’s true but the rich that are benefitting are shareholders in health insurance companies and their CEO’s. That’s why we need a public option.

It’s just sad that average hard-working people like Jim have been manipulated by big money poured into the media by corporations to twist the truth. They will benefit and have the rest of the public blaming other groups – mexicans, ilegals, liberals or what have you.

here if you have it you get treated they cant refuse you medical care here.

What? That’s not true. Why do you think they want your insurance info before you can be admitted to a hospital? And, part of the need for health care reform is that folks without insurance can’t/don’t get treated and eventually end up in the emergency room which drives up the costs immensely.

[near horse]

Carl

[This is because it is an ancient assumption. Even the Greeks considered that people who work with their hands, animals, and soil, are bestial, spiritless, and unfit for civic participation. Some philosophers even refer to this as “Social Predestination”. /QUOTE]

This was from an era when it was valuable to decrease the physical toll on one’s body – thus have servants/slaves do the work. Kind of like the ancient version of modern technologies to make life “easier”. Also a time when fat was a desirable look because it showed your wealth while lean and mean was a sign of labor. Now, we go to health clubs with personal trainers to get that look.

While there may be a stigma associated with logging/farming, it doesn’t seem to be associated with pay/income as long as you’re willing to play the game under the current rules. Commercial loggers here make pretty good money – more than teachers, store owners, etc. You just need to sign on with one of the big crews and cut,cut,cut. Farming is a little different but most farms here are big and make serious bucks as well. If anything, those with college degrees on average make less here, not more.

I think stupidity can be found in those that work with their hands, their minds or both. No one has that market cornered. As an old guy I used to work for once said “there’s a lot of competition amongst the failures.”

I think we are getting things crossed up when we draw the line between education and not being educated. Education is something that you own once you have it and you can do with it what you will. The same can be said of experience. Unfortunately, it takes much time and “recreating the wheel” if you’re only going to rely on experience. So we can learn from those who have gone before us (or those on this list!) and isn’t that a form of education? I do agree that there are issues with formal education but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

I am not surprised to know that a math instructor didn’t know much or anything about food production. But I wouldn’t be asking him/her for help with that type of thing anyway. Now if he couldn’t add, that would be another story!

In cuba and a many other places the ox is important, but I get the impression it’s seen as a sign of impoverishment rather than owning a machine is just not as economical for the small landholdings they farm.

Stable-man

Oxen are generally cheaper than horses in many parts of the world. The second half your comment about how animal powered farms are perceived demonstrates the need for a paradigm shift (I hate that phrase but it’s appropriate here) regarding animal power. Small land holdings and animal power can be viable (isn’t that what we’re about on this site?) and are only seen as a sign of impoverishment because big acre machine farming is seen as progressive – after all, that’s what John Deere, Cargill, …. tell us. The rest of the world is convinced that progress = Wal-marts, big TV’s and cars and debt, debt, debt. Ask China.

Just my opinions!!

[near horse]

Although my comments may seem to drift off-topic, please bear with me.

Mr. Pierson exercised a freedom that he had every right to – that is taking his own life. Yet society defines exercising that right as a sign of mental illness – “no one commits suicide unless they have mental problems” because that is not a behavior we are willing to accept. Bull s–t! Maybe he was unwilling to take that town job and

set on the couch and watch tv that is trying to sell the stuff they don’t need, as they/he head back to meaningless jobs soon to be replaced by computerized robots.

as Jason put it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating suicide as a solution but certainly let’s put it out there as a symptom of something wrong in the society/system rather than the individual – it’s just all too convenient to blame him because that requires nothing from us (society – look cheap milk!).

I don’t know Dean Pierson but I think he was likely a realist that saw what his future had in store and made his decision. As many of you have already said, the media or whoever likes to write this off as a guy with “personal issues” (read – not like us because that’s scary). It is tragic that friends and family will no longer have him around but I hope that they can see through to allow him the right to escape the pain, suffering and despair he must have felt. No one but he can know what he felt. Rest in Peace.

I did notice that a few other papers picked up this story – and also saw this headline – Gwyneth Pierson To Keep Copake Farm After Husband Shoots 51 Cows, Self – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/gwyneth-pierson-to-keep-c_n_434716.html

Perhaps we can help her out somehow.

[near horse]

I’m really sorry to see this happen.

[near horse]

Isn’t there a real general estimate in Lynn Miller’s “Workhorse Handbook” – kind of how much work can you get sone with a team, 3 head, 4 head ….?

[Author]

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