[near horse]

I realize that “social responsibility” has a huge grip on so many people, but how responsible are you going to be if you just slide into the hole with the masses. We have to learn about ourselves as Earth creatures with individual capabilities to survive with what we have in our immediate surroundings, and be able to allow those around us to fail without cutting our own throats and the eliminating the options for our children. The plant lets the dried leaves sluff off, and I am prepared to do that as well.

This is where that “stupid brain” I mentioned in an earlier post comes into play. We aren’t like other animals in the respect that we can see what our “choices” may bring and allowing “others to fail w/o cutting our own throats” is the problem. That hole your talking about is taking everyone in – personal sovereignty or not.

how responsible are you going to be if you just slide into the hole with the masses.

I think that making the effort to provide assistance to those who “landed wherever they happen to have been born” by no choice or doing of their own IS being responsible – not hunkering down w/ a few locals to protect MY stuff and way of life and pass on my genes. It’s how you live not how long you live that way. If the whole place goes up in flames, so be it. But the bunker mentality that all this personal sovereignty stuff begats is exactly what won’t work sustainably. This gets back to our differences on what constitutes community. Even if things get/got really bad, do you think that the billions of people you claim are sliding into the hole will just go down w/o battling for survival?

[near horse]

I would be happy to share specific info on the requirements and costs of horsedrawn grain growing if thousandhills (or anyone else) would like.

Erik,

I would like to hear about your experience growing grain w/ horses.

[near horse]

First of all high populations by themselves are not the problem, but how the community uses whatever resources are available, (ie. US uses 35 X resources per capita than people in countries like India).

I beg to differ on this account. High populations, let’s say 20 billion people, all using resources as conservatively as possible still can’t work – it’s just mathmatically impossible. On a different note – many of the billion or so folks in India would be willing and happy to take on a US lifestyle using 35x resources while most Americans wouldn’t think of living like most Indians. So we end up with increasing numbers of people trying to “make a better life” for themselves which requires higher resource use – can’t work.

I consider the biggest part of sustainability, personal sovereignty.

I don’t see the connection here at all. Historically, human communities have lived “sustainably” for centuries or more without each individual having personal sovereignty.

When you learn to see yourself as a sovereign individual, with unalienable rights, and personal responsibility and capability to provide for yourself, at the same time participating fully in your community without having to swallow all the pre-constructed opportunities then you are on the road to sustainable living

Are we saying sustainability = us living how we want for as long as we want to (not immortality but as long as we want to live that way) OR is it a concept that provides a place for future humans to continue living?

This seems to point towards the latter perspective.

that my kids,or others, can easily and successfully continue, and improve upon

BF –
As politely as I can put it, I agree that there are people/groups of people etc that are trying to manipulate public opinion for money and power BUT I don’t see any evidence that any group is smart or sophisticated enough to pull off the conspiracies that you cite from infowars. So that just puts infowars in the same group as those it claims to be fighting against. I guess that’s exercising my personal sovereignty.

[near horse]

Carl – in your last post you identify one of the key problems – options.

the lifestyle options available to our children are shortsighted and destructive

I believe that many more people would “choose different options” if those options were 1) readily available and 2) could smoothly transition into their lives. That is also where some of the hope lies – that all the “small sensible possibilities” that individuals employ become inspirations for others, increasing overall awareness. Once in a while, some one might expand on a process or idea to make it more available to the masses.

Everyone was happy, until they saw a copy of Vogue/Cosmopolitan.

or are even exposed to some method or technology that initially seems to help but alters the balance of their community forever. It is a dilemma – make life easier but alter the community’s balance with its environment.

Second it does nothing, in my experience, to blame the shortsighted decisions of others, or to target overpopulation, these people are all part of our human experience, here and now, and although we can definitely learn from what see around us, and around the world, sustainability has a huge amount to do with personal responsibility.

I think that you and others may have misinterpreted my comments about overpopulation – the control of overpopulation does have to do with personal responsibility and it starts with not having tons of kids – a shortsighted decision of others that does affect us all. Whether we as individuals can do anything about it is the problem.

One of the points we should acknowledge is that natural organisms are all motivated by an innate drive to live, to succeed, and in that they can continue to develop even as the resources that the depend on dwindle around them.

That is competition. There aren’t too many options – compete for the limited resources or perish.

Watch a plant in a drought, it can’t tell that there is no water until it has begun to die from drought.

Actually, what we see as beginning to die is the plant’s response to reduced water availabilty. When corn leaves roll up or curl in response to reduced water, that is reducing the surface area of the leaf exposed to the air and thus limiting water loss. Also, as plants grow, upper leaves shade out the lower ones and the plant will begin to shunt the nutrients away from those lower leaves and let them perish – kind of competition on the plant.

[near horse]

Look – I don’t want to get into religion bashing but the idea that god is punishing a city, continent or people for their sinful ways is ludicrous and arcane.

Christians have slaughtered plenty of people throughout history and I hope that your religion isn’t the only thing that keeps you from slaughtering millions or billions of folks already living here. My point was/is – stop over populating the planet because once we have people, feet on the ground, we’re stuck with or responsible for with taking care of them (like bull calves).

Anyway, I have digressed from sustainable energy. There is a point to be made though, we are part of a system with finite resources – some renewable and some not. When we deplete the non-renewable ones we better have a plan for utilizing renewables to take their place or we’re in serious trouble. Hence, using nonrenewable resources can not be sustainable by definition. But how do we address the use of renewables that we can use faster than they can be replenished? A good example would be trees – we can grow ’em and harvest ’em but we can harvest ’em way faster than they can regrow if we choose to (if the market says to). I know Jason is working on educating folks on sustainable timber management but when the dollar signs show up you’d be surprised how fast many will sell out to clearcutting.

[near horse]

Regardless of how many neat low E, low input gizmos we can fabricate – the bottom line is that there are too many humans on the planet and they all need resources – even if it’s only food and water – so until we can make food and water out of nothing, we’re not sustainable unless we’re talking very short term. BTW – I think of something being called sustainable as being able to be continued indefinitely.

It might be another 100 to 500 years but eventually we’ll hit the bottom of the slide. It is really ironic (maybe not the right word but…) that we can see what overstocking a pasture does to the environment but don’t recognize that the earth is our big pasture and we don’t do anything to reduce or limit the “stocking rate” – instead we spend massive amounts of money to “unnaturally” increase life spans and reproduction/fertility rates with rampant disregard for the longterm consequences.

Sorry firebrick but it doesn’t matter which god, if any, you believe in – people ARE the problem – because of our stupid brain. We have figured out how to tweak the laws of nature so as to allow us to occupy all sorts of places and ecosystems that we shouldn’t be able to inhabit AND wreck the place for other life on the planet as well as for ourselves. We sure are smart ain’t we?

Compromising so that a large number of people can absorb the change is not “sustainable” it is just workable. I am a victim of these days and times, as all of us are, and although I strive toward sustainabilty, I am still a long way off, but I do put a lot of thought into which systems have the greatest long-term practicality on this farm, and finding areas to isolate our unsustainable needs to ways that can be dropped IF/WHEN they need to be.

Carl – You may have it “righter” than you think. We are dropped into this world at a certain place and time and must work within those limits – like it or not. I’d love to never buy petroleum fuel again but I was born here and now in the society that developed here over the last 200+ yrs with no input from me. So the best I can do is compromise, trying to limit my usage of petroleum as well as my longterm impact on the planet.

[near horse]

Hi Jean

We’ve raked up green clippings w/ an old dump rake or scatter rake – there are tons of them around that no one wants or uses. They just drag the clippings until you dump them and then you can just fork onto a trailer. Pretty easy work for a single horse or small team since you’re not trying to make huge piles – like oldkat mentioned.

[near horse]

because of the actions of terrorists or a bumbling government (ours or others), maybe both or even due to other reasons

How about energy speculators like those guys that worked the Enron scam and then were hired by firms like Morgan Stanley to do the same with oil last summer? Glad we helped bale out old MS ’cause I’m sure they didn’t make near enough off $4.50 gas.

[near horse]

Make do, do without

Carl, you left out the first part of this saying …. “Eat it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”.

[near horse]

Highway,

Sorry if I came off as a “know it all blowhard” – not intended at all. When feeding oats I assume you can get hold of some that are rolled or crimped or something other than whole. Whole oats will work but since horses (and cattle) are not efficient at chewing small grains, some of the whole grain just runs through intact and passes in the feces. Best of luck.

Sanehester – I should have tempered my statement regarding beet pulp and its protein content. It isn’t “high” in protein but neither are most cereal grains. High protein feeds usually exceed 20% protein while beet pulp runs around 9% and oats 13%. Cereals, at least in cattle, are fed primarily for energy – as is beet pulp.

Unfortunately, BP has caught on as a safe E feed for horses and thus costs more than oats, barley, wheat, corn or even pre-mix feeds. And Idaho actually grows sugar beets:confused:

[near horse]

black oil sunflower seeds which will add some fat without the excess energy

If you want to add weight then you have to add energy – either in carbs, fats or to some extent protein – those are your only choices with the difference(s) being 1) concentration of energy – fat has 2X as much energy per gram as carbs or proteins 2)how the energy is provided via digestion and metabolism – think of the EPSM concerns here regarding feeding starchy grains in large amounts. The advice is usually to add energy using fats and non starch carbohydrates (like beet pulp) as opposed to starchy grains like oats and barley. That doesn’t mean No barley or oats – just use fats to boost the energy level – we added 1/2 to 1 cup of corn oil to a bucket of soaked beet pulp each day to help our old horse put on some weigh coming off winter.

The “slow energy” associated with corn has to do with how the starch granules are arranged/intermingled with protein in corn vs other cereal grains. Also, the oil in the kernel (small as it might be) helps to slow down the digestion of the starch as well.

Beet pulp also has a lot of protein in it – not like soy but certainly near the levels of barley and oats ~ 12% I should go double check the number but when you see what beet pulp is – the remains of sugar beets after sugar is extracted – all that is left is fiber (not very coarse) and protein.

[near horse]

Standing (my definition) is a horse or a team, in harness with lines attached. Standing waiting until the next instruction to do something. They may be hooked to something or not. Someone may have the lines in their hand or not. Someone maybe standing in front of them or not. They are not tied up. Jason calls it Parked.

This is an incredibly important and useful skill for working horses, mules, and probable oxen. I think it is also often misunderstood or misused. I use it a million times a day to hook and unhook, to hook carts to other pieces of equipment, to rest, To examine hay, or nose into the shop and fix a loose bolt. I use it when tugs are tangled, or a neck yoke breaks

I have a practical (I think) “rookie” question regarding standing or parking. My team was pretty wells schooled in this regard (no thanks to me) and still do a nice job when it comes to something serious – Example(s) bolt broke on my double tree while plowing – no problem. Operator tipped over on sulky plow while driving:o – no trouble. Plus the obligatory tangled tugs – no sweat.

But when it’s time to unhitch they get antsy and want to walk off (start to take a step or two) before I’m done getting traces undone. I make them stop and then continue about my business but it starts again. Do I need to just make them stand quietly longer before I continue unhitching? I know there’s usually alot going on – other teams unhitching, drinking, eating etc but I don’t see that as any reason they can’t stand for me.

[near horse]

Here are 2 news briefs RE: NAIS. Note that they are from an industry periodical (BEEF). It seems pretty clear that the lobbyists for large production plants and facilities are saying “this is what we need to do to continue our poor quality control standards that make us a lot of cash. If that puts folks out of business who actually do a good and decent job of raising food then so be it.”

Voluntary NAIS Won’t Work, Says Former EU Official

A voluntary animal ID system in the U.S. “won’t work” and risks devastating losses to disease and lost export opportunities, the former European Union (EU) commissioner for health and consumer protection told a Lexington, KY audience last week, he said, according to Feedstuffs magazine

David Byrne, who led the EU through the BSE, foot-and-mouth disease and avian influenza epidemics, and put in place the EU’s animal ID system, says those experiences provided “a number of lessons.” These include the need for the rapid traceback of animals, feed and food to remove sick animals and unsafe feed and food from the system. He says authorities also learned that transparency is absolutely necessary.

Appearing at the Alltech International Animal Health & Nutrition Symposium in Lexington, KY, last week, Byrne said the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) must be mandatory.

“There needs to be a level playing pitch – a law or rule that applies to everyone. If there’s a disease outbreak, the animals enrolled in a voluntary system would be traceable, but animals not registered would continue to spread the disease and undermine the benefits of identifying and tracing the former.”

Accordingly, without “a comprehensive system” in which all cattle, for instance, are enrolled and traceable, the only option to eradicate a disease might be destruction of the entire herd, Byrne says.

Additionally, countries that don’t establish national animal ID will find themselves locked out of many markets that will ban or restrict imports from those countries, he said. Moreover, if governments don’t impose restrictions, food businesses – driven by consumer desires for traceability – will.
— Muriel Elizabeth Hayes

USDA Sets Six More NAIS Listening Sessions For June

USDA announced an additional six public meetings in June to discuss stakeholder concerns on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). In addition to the June 1 meeting previously announced for Loveland, CO at The Ranch in the Larimer County Fairgrounds and Events Complex, new meetings are set for: June 9 in Jefferson City, MO; June 11 in Rapid City, SD; June 16 in Albuquerque, NM; June 18 in Riverside, CA; June 25 in Raleigh, NC; and June 27 in Jasper, FL.

USDA is seeking to engage stakeholders and producers to hear not only their concerns about NAIS but also potential or feasible solutions to those concerns. Info and ideas gathered will assist USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in making decisions about the future direction of animal traceability in the U.S., USDA says.

In addition to attending the meetings, comments can also be provided at: animalid.aphis.usda.gov/nais/feedback.shtml.
— USDA release

[near horse]

One last thing. With a swather we would cut the outside pass (first one in the field) counterclockwise and then the rest clockwise. That way when you’re baling the bale pickup can run in the windrow and not put you and the tractor in the fencerow. Then all subsequent passes are clockwise so the tractor is running in the already baled ground and the windrow being baled is toward the center. With straight mowed hay it probably doesn’t make a difference except which direction your rake rolls the hay – not into the fence!

Happy haying – achoo:)

[near horse]

Hey George,

Are you cutting grass or alfalfa or mixed? One issue with hay is to handle it as few times as possible but that is really most important with legumes (alfalfa). As far as when to cut AM/PM and all that, we just go with “make hay while the sun shines”. I know there have been preference studies about AM vs PM cut hay but my animals don’t get to choose which they prefer. They get what we’re feeding and do just fine. Rain is what can hurt your hay after it is cured by leaching out soluble nutrients (protein and carbohydrates). Not as bad if the hay has just recently been cut. With regard to Carl’s stacking system, the larger the mass of hay, the harder it is for water to reach all of it. So flat mowed is most exposed, then swathed, then baled or stacked.

I thought that one advantage of mowing over swathing/windrowing was more rapid and uniform drying. Even with the deflector plates wide open on the swather, I still get a windrow that drys pretty well on top but HAS to be turned or the underside will stay green as the day it was cut – and bust shear pins on the baler. I was hoping to mow, rake and bale – no tedding. I should say that I’m cutting grass – no legumes right now and my draft horse buddies claim that mowing fertilized grass w/ a mower is a headache – alfalfa is fine but heavy grass will plug the mower. I hope they’re wrong and just don’t have the mower adjusted and sharp.

For those who are baling, have any of you used the old sisal twine rather than the poly stuff? The sisal is or should be biodegradable and not leave you with a huge mass of spent twine. I’m thinking about giving it a go this year but baling/balers can be so tempermental that I’m a little concerned about changing anything. BTW – I did see in Hay and Forage Grower where they are starting to have poly twine recycling “centers” where you can haul all that stuff (and they make it back into more twine) – mostly associated with areas that have huge dairies.

Don’t talk about getting started on hay already – I need a few more weeks to make sure I’m ready to roll.

[Author]

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