Mother Nature vs Man, Round 1

I came in Tuesday morning after a three day weekend to find this:







Yes.  That's suppose to be a building.  And it's on its roof...                                  
                                                                                                                                                               

Look at what the high tensile wire did!  It sliced the roofing.  Talk about scary.  Apparently Vermont got some serious winds Sunday night, and everyone came to work to find that this entire building rolled over.  And the back of the building is even open, which was suppose to prevent it from flipping!







We spent a while on Tuesday bracing the building and trying to flip it over.  We only lifted it maybe a foot off the ground.  Are we going to be able to flip it back over!? Or are the yearling cows going to be stuck out in the elements this winter!? (Don't worry, I won't let that happen at least!) Mother Nature took Round 1.  Check back to see how Round 2 goes!

Sheep Preparation

This week we got our ewes ready for breeding!  One of the biggest things to do is to make sure that the ewes have nice, healthy feet.  Besides for their own comfort, the addition of ram mounting them adds another (I'd say) 30 lbs on their back.  Though it's only for a short time, it can be painful if they do not have good feet - the increase stress of pain and trying to avoid the ram can cause them not to come into heat.  No heat means no ovulation of eggs, which means no conception, which means no cute little lambs in April.  

It was a fun afternoon with the crew, doing something very different than the norm.   I showed everyone how to take down a sheep (and with our ewes being fat and weighing 250lbs it was NOT easy), what to look for on their feet, and how to trim their hooves.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy the experience.

This guy below is Earl - he's a wether (castrated male sheep).  We keep him around for wool.  He's also really nice and will follow you around the field when you go out there. 

The next day we put the ram out with the ewes.  He was so small last winter that he only bred two ewes of similar size.  But he has put on some weight this summer, and even as started acting like a ram and head butting!  To me that's a good sign, though not so much fun when you are out in the field with him.  I did see him do the deed with one ewe, so here are fingers and toes being crossed for at least 9 lambs next spring.

FarmHer

Check out this photographer, FarmHer recording women and agriculture!  Maybe I can get her to venture over here to Vermont.  Women have a huge impact in the growth of small, sustainable farming.  Lets not forget!

I'll be following her, that's for sure!

 

Learning to Understand

Addiction.  I'm having a terrible time understanding it and understanding the people with addiction.  Many residents at the Ranch have a substance abuse problem, whether its drugs or alcohol.  After multiple relapses in the community this past week, I'm fully admitting that I am becoming so frustrated and defeated by addiction.  

I can (and probably have) complain about it.  How am I suppose to help people who don't want to be helped?  How can I help people who over and over again take advantage of the staff who are trying to help?  All this makes me think more about how I prefer prevention rather than intervention.  What happens if these young adults had the support they needed when they were children - would they be where they are today?

It's a struggle.  And I loose my patience which doesn't feel very good either.  I suppose in a way it makes the whole thing kind of worse, because it allows the addict to believe that they are once again the victim.  But I am a human being too.  I want to tell them all, "You are hurting me just as much as you believe I am hurting you."  Do you think it would be wrong to say that sometime?

It's times like these I miss it just being me and my animals:  an early morning milking, collecting eggs from laying hens, a walk through the quiet woods with Ava.  In the mean time all I can tell myself that I need to have faith; that I have a purpose and my life is on track. 

FDA To Ban Trans Fats

Woo! This article makes me super happy!
article is courtesy of the Huffington Post: FDA To Ban Trans Fats 

PS: Contra dancing was AMAZING.  I will be doing more!!
 
FDA To Ban Trans Fats

By MARY CLARE JALONICK 11/07/13 09:21 AM ET EST

WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Heart-clogging trans fats have been slowly disappearing from grocery aisles and restaurant menus in the last decade. Now, the Food and Drug Administration is finishing the job.


The FDA plans to announce later Thursday that it will require the food industry to gradually phase out all trans fats, saying they are a threat to people's health. Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the move could prevent 20,000 heart attacks a year and 7,000 deaths.

Hamburg said that while the amount of trans fats in the country's diet has declined dramatically in the last decade, they "remain an area of significant public health concern." The trans fats have long been criticized by nutritionists, and New York and other local governments have banned them.

The agency isn't yet setting a timeline for the phase-out, but will collect comments for two months before officials determine how long it will take. Different foods may have different timelines, depending how easy it is to substitute.

"We want to do it in a way that doesn't unduly disrupt markets," says Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods. Still, he says, "industry has demonstrated that it is by and large feasible to do."

To phase them out, the FDA said it had made a preliminary determination that trans fats no longer fall in the agency's "generally recognized as safe" category, which is reserved for thousands of additives that manufacturers can add to foods without FDA review. Once trans fats are off the list, anyone who wants to use them would have to petition the agency for a regulation allowing it, and that would be unlikely to be approved.

Trans fat is widely considered the worst kind for your heart, even worse than saturated fat, which can also contribute to heart disease. Trans fats are used both in processed food and in restaurants, often to improve the texture, shelf life or flavor of foods. They are created when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil to make it more solid, which is why they are often called partially hydrogenated oils.

Scientists say there are no health benefits to trans fats, and they can raise so-called "bad" cholesterols, increasing the risk of heart disease — the leading cause of death in the United States.

Many companies have already phased out trans fats, prompted by new nutrition labels introduced by FDA in 2006 that list trans fats and an increasing number of local laws that have banned them.

Though they have been removed from many items, the fats are still found in processed foods, including some microwave popcorns and frozen pizzas, refrigerated doughs and ready-to-use frostings. They are also sometimes used by restaurants that use the fats for frying. Many larger chains have phased them out, but smaller restaurants may still get trans fats from suppliers.

As a result of the local and federal efforts, consumers have slowly eaten fewer of the fats. According to the FDA, trans fat intake among American consumers declined from 4.6 grams per day in 2003 to around one gram per day in 2012.

FDA officials say they have been working on trans fat issues for around 15 years — the first goal was to label them — and have been collecting data to justify a possible phase out since just after President Barack Obama came into office in 2009.

The advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest first petitioned FDA to ban trans fats nine years ago. The group's director, Michael Jacobson, says the move is "one of the most important lifesaving actions the FDA could take."

He says the agency should try and move quickly as it determines a timeline, "Six months or a year should be more than enough time, especially considering that companies have had a decade to figure out what to do," Jacobson said.

Geesh!

Geesh! I have not been very good at this lately have I?  

Transition is in the air at The Ranch.  Crew change has happened, so I have two new crew leaders.  Luckily I have one who I've been working with the past 6 months - my new niche.  I'm excited about the change, though it's adding more crazy to the crazy.  The old niche on the crew had been in the same position for two years.  He was difficult to work with though helpful too.  But in the end I'm happy he's gone - the negatives of working with him kind of out weighed the positives.

As I stated, it still has been pretty crazy around The Ranch...I don't know when it'll settle down, but I hope soon.

Besides transition and craziness, there's not much going on.  We sent our one lamb off to the butcher.  We started to clean our farm headquarters which I'm actually super excited about.  What is it about old men farmers?  Every farmer I've worked for or taken over for have been absolute pigs (though not really because pigs are really neat animals); they can't keep things organized for the life of them.  And November will brings sheep breeding, and I'm hoping that the Ram is a little more successful that last year - he only bred 2 out of 9 sheep. He has grown and is looking good, but so have our ewes.  Really.  Our ewes are fat.  And it's not like I gave them grain all summer - I gave them none!  They are just chubby mcchubbersons.  Hopefully they'll get bred.

Enjoying a relaxing weekend and plan on taking part of a New England tradition tonight - Contra Dancing.  I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.  I'm a little nervous but supposedly this is the best, friendliest dance in Vermont.  I'll let you know if those facts are true.