Mephistos

Some quick updates since I have been away from the blog for a few days.  Lots of stuff going on in my life right now and I have purposefully put the blog aside for the past few days.  So a few quick things just to get them out there and get a post.  Speaking of posts, that is something to note.  If I don’t post the traffic flow to the website crawls to a sluggish almost stop.  I thought you dear readers hung on every word I had to say and checked in regularly just to make sure I had not said anything.  Guess I am wrong on that one. Read more…

I get updates in email newsletter form from the Kentucky Farm Bereau on occasion that are usually concerning with information of current commodity trends and occasionally has a bit information in regards to is happening with farming in the state.  The most recent started with a blurb talking about the American Farm Bereau was disapointed that California had passed the proposition 2 in the recent election.  The note suggested that the voters of the state really did not understand the nature of modern farming and the measure was going to have severe changes on agriculture in the state.  It went so far as to suggest that livestock functions in the state would begin to disappear and that it would likely move overseas. Read more…

I have so many things that I am wanting to write about her in the blog right now that I am almost shutting myself down with the thoughts running around here and there in my head.   I thought this evening I would just run with some short little notes about things.  Which is a good lead into the first thing I wish to bring to your attention, and of course, I have to do this as my favorite, a list. Read more…

I know that this is sounding like a broken record, but I just can’t help being  totally amazed by it.  The other night after Thursday Live, I had dinner downtown.  After dinner, I stopped by my favorite place to see who was there before I headed home.  There were a few people I knew casually, but no one I really know well.   I was just about to head on out when in comes these three guys.  Not guys that I knew, generally in their 20’s, the oldest maybe pushing 30, they all looked in general just like they may have come straight from the barn or fields of a farm.  Given that we were right downtown, not even a full block from Main Street, in Lexington it was intriguing.  I figured for at least a polite hello if not some casual conversation.

They ordered a beer a piece and the older one started talking about having to have sheared a few sheep that afternoon.  Having helped Read more…

I have new pictures from the morning of August 31 when they were starting to cut the field of tobacco that I have been doing a photo essay on for the last several weeks.  It is nice that I actually got the hands doing the actual job, though I am not sure it truly shows enough.  Again, a fond memory for me.  I admit to having done a large amount of this kind of work as a teenager.  Aside from putting in hay during the summer, actually cutting tobacco right before and even after school started was the best money making time of my youth.

I admit that I was never super fast, cutting Read more…

Earlier this week, I had another couple of days that had a lot of time occupied with meetings.  This one in particular was with this fellow from API hired to assist us jump start our strategic planning process that we are starting to put together for 2009 and apparently for 2009-2011.  What is relative to this blog though, is a discussion that was had in regards to generations.  The conversation itself was in regards to how that there some general characteristics from respective age groups that tend to influence how they view the news and community around them.

There was a book written not to long ago that talked about a cycle that is seen in generations.  The book is titled, Read more…

Recently saw an article in a competitors paper (recall or note that I work for a group of newspapers) about a farm somewhere in Kentucky, I want to say to the eastern side of it.  Anyway, the nature of the of the farm, with the little bit I read out of the article in passing, sounded a lot like a place for me.  The owners/operators are running the farm using draft horse power, growing some produce, all intermixed with solar arrays along the drive to power the parts of the operation that draft power lacks suitability.  The article made a point of referring to the 19th and 21st century mix that was involved with the seeming opposites of the operation.

I could so see myself doing just that kind of thing.  I do think, as I have hinted at before, there is savings to be had to both the environment and the overall bottom line of a farming operation that uses horses.  Of course there is also the huge satisfaction that is achieved with just using life animals with a living breathing soul.  I have often thought that having a farm with solar arrays to power the house and the needs of a small shop.  This leads me to the thought I have had a few times.  How much energy and non-renewable resources are used to create the typical set of solar panels to power a large size house?

I do not know the answer for sure, but I suspect that that the overall cost combined with the carbon Read more…

I liked the first ‘photo essay’ about tobacco so well, I have decided to follow through with an update with each major step in the tobacco process.  The change from exactly seven days is not much, as the only thing that has occurred is the blooms have been broken out in the lower 2/3 of the field.  This was actually done the day after I took the first photos and to help you blend locally, we would call that process topping.  Right after the tobacco was topped, it most likely sprayed with a chemical that retards new sprouts or buds from starting.  If not done, the tobacco would sucker out at the top leaf joints and spend all of its energy trying again to make seeds.  By application of the chemical spray the energy is instead spent on making the leaves that are present usually get larger, especially in width.  An effect of this application and the general turn toward the homestretch  is that bottom leaves Read more…

I recall from a few years back reading a book, I think it was titled The Complete Agrarian Reader, matter of fact I have read certain parts of it a 2nd and 3rd time since then.  Anyway, that is not the point - the introduction of that particular book was written by Barbara Kingsolver, of some amount of fame as an author.  I have, strangely enough, not read anything else she has written - though I probably should.  Anyway, in this introduction she speaks of being in college and having as fond memories the smells and sights of tobacco being harvested and being around the barns where it was curing with an unmistakable nostalgia - but yet a certain amount of shame over her own history and association with tobacco amongst her college friends.

I find a kindred spirit in what she has to say.  Having grown up on a farm raising and working in tobacco, not to mention the countless hours that I spent working in tobacco for other farmers in the general area where I grew up.  I find it funny that I spent 18 years Read more…

Slightly more then two weeks ago I went to Horse Progress days in Ohio.  I think I mentioned it in a blog here, at least to the effect that I was attending.  For those that are not familiar with the event, it is a get together of folks that farm with horses, having as the main idea an exchange of ideas and learning some of what we have lost in our knowledge.  I believe their were 11,000 people in attendance on the Friday I was there, a large number were Amish, but not all of course.  One amazing thing was the folks that I ran into up there that I knew from here locally.

One of the greater reasons that I attended was that Lynn Miller, author and publisher of Small Farmer’s Journal, was doing a presentation.  A topic that he has spoke of in the past was why horse farming?  Of course largely in the past the folks doing horse powered farming have been motivated by one of two things:  A restriction of usage of certain types of equipment based on religious believes or just a general eccentric pleasure of a small number of folks that just enjoyed doing things in a slower pace with old fashion ways.  Anyway, Lynn thinks that with the current conditions in both world markets, gas prices, and a turn toward more local food is going to be a driving force such that in the next couple of years to where we see a huge growth in the number of smaller sized horse based farms, an exponential growth according to Lynn.

To elaborate, Lynn, like many of us, believes that a huge part of the driving force will be the energy crisis that we are currenty facing.  The crunch on fuel prices is not going to go away, it is instead going to get worse.  Keep in mind, that one the largest input costs that a modern farmer has is energy costs or products that have high energy costs.  Diesel fuel, gasoline, and fertilizer to name just a few are the kinds of things I am talking about.  Right now, it has worked for the bigger farmers to afford these huge input costs, because right now the additional demand on corn for ethanol has pushed up the price on all the major grain crops.  However, that demand is likely to level off some in the coming years as other crops are used for ethanol and the over all price drops and the prices keep going up on the inputs the farmers are going to feel a squeeze.  The smaller farmers that are a more traditional in nature are already feeling the pinch from the higher input costs.  Lynn seems to think that the cost of fuel alone will start to push a lot of smaller farms to horse powered traction.

Lynn further believes that the smaller farm will become more of a functional need scattered about across the country.  This will be coming from the fact that the expense of trucking produce and grains across the country is quickly inflating the cost to the consumer at a rate that is going to start to make that impratical for the consumer to continue to afford such items.  This will of course then lead to many smaller farms closer to the end market that are producing those foods.   As that move takes place, there will of course be a higher demand on said local foods to be produced in natural ways, with minimum to no chemical inputs (less energy required right there) and what better way to produce naturally then with horse powered traction.

Lynn also thinks that given the current situations that have occurred with the food system in the last few years there will be an even greater move towards smaller farms.  I can see some of this occurring, with recent years problems over Spinach, tomatoes and onions, but I don’t think this will have as a large effect as the fuel will have on it.  The idea of local grown food is one that I have suggested as taking of this problem more then one time.  Of course that also means eating food that is grown seasonally in your local for the most part as well.  And while I think there will be some movement toward additional small farms to come about because of this one, I don’t think that it will have the same impact that Lynn thinks, especially in comparison to that of the energy crunch.

One last thing though, and on this one, I have to admit I was rather disappointed.  After Lynn gives a seminar speaking about the wonderful values of farming with horse power and how there will be a huge movement in that direction and that we need to be ready for the massive influx of farmers that are going to interested, I walked out to see a horse drawn haying demonstration.  Now I fully expected to see any baler to likely be driven by horses have some sort of fore-cart with an engine to supply the power, though I do hear of at least one company that has a model that can do the job from a ground drive system.  However, I severely disappointed to have seen every piece of equipment being pulled with the exception of one rake, having an engine mounted PTO fore-cart of some sort.  So much for using less fuel int the process - the net effect of that is more fuel to put up more hay to feed the horses that are then pulling the tractor that is then pulling the hay equipment - minus the horses, minus the need for the extra hay, that much less fuel used.  I don’t think this really fit well with the kinds of things I have read in the past nor do I think it was really in tune with most of his message - though one has to keep in mind, he was a guest speaker not the organizer of the met.