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.  

Connections

I'm sorry I've been so M.I.A the past week!  I've been working like crazy on a paper I'm writing for school.  "Which stage of development do you think you're in a why." Yeah, it's really lovely analyzing and critiquing my life.  Because I don't do it on a regular basis already.

Work has been pretty tough the past couple weeks too.  We have gotten some pretty rough residents who are not in a good place.  So much energy is devoted to them.  I'm trying to be patient, but I don't know how long I can last to be honest.  Am I really cut out for this type of work?

When I can't connect with residents, I connect with who I can - animals.  This little girl is named Dotty (for obvious reasons).  I haven't felt this way about a pig since the beautiful pigs we had in NY (specifically Diana).  She loves to be pet.  It one picture she is just flopped on my feet and I spent 10 minutes rubbing her belly!  I don't really want to send her away for bacon.  Maybe she'll be the start of our breeding program!  It's crazy to think that when we got these pigs in June they were so frightened of people.  Now they can't get enough of the love!


 

Fall is Here...the Vet!

Fall brings a whole new list of things that have to get done on the farm.  This week the vet came for vaccinations, castrations, and pregnancy checks.  All 9 cows are pregnant (2 of those being first calf heifers), all the boys were castrated, one little girl had to get de-horned, and fortunately and unfortunately, the mommas were separated from their babies in order to take better care of their pregnancies.  I know, it's hard to watch, hear, and believe me, do.  And there's debate on whether or not it's for the best.  But right now it's done.  And according to our vet, our calves are definitely on the chubbier side of the scale.

Here are our calves on their own with the yearlings:

 

And here are the momma cows - at the lower barn and totally annoyed.  They are starting to mellow out some, but unfortunately they'll be a little sad for about a week. 

Little Chicks

The time has come for some new chicks on the farm.  It's a little late in the year, but it'll be perfect timing for some egg production when the days start to get longer in April/May.  They are Barred Rocks, who will eventually look like this when they are full grown:

 

In the mean time, they look like this! 

 

 
So cute right!? I don't know what that little white one in the picture below is all about, but we'll see in a few months when her (hopefully, we did order a straight run) adult feathers start to come in.

Fall is Still Here...Manure!

Fall is still here.  And I've spent the last week doing this:

Spreading manure! Yum!

After roughly 24 loads, it's done, spreading it on about 3 acres.  It was a little tough because I had to drive fairly far from the barn to the field.  And breathing in diesel exhaust isn't terrible fun either.  But it's done, and the barn is half way completed for the cows to hang out over the winter.  Tomorrow will be spreading the last little bit I couldn't pick up with the bucket of the tractor, and then spreading bedding.  The vet comes next Tuesday for vaccinations, the dreaded castrations, and weaning the calves. 

It's been so absolutely gorgeous this Fall!  I can't believe the colors!  Here's the weekly foliage shot:

 
My foliage shots are really not helping you show the colors here.  Seriously.  Reds and oranges, it's amazing.  Maybe I'll break out my fancier camera and take a picture.  

I hope everyone is enjoying their Fall, and finding beauty in the surrounds, even if it's corn being mowed down ;)