Whatever

Hey Maner!

 

In

 

The attitude comes and goes rn. Doing my best though.

 

I think Imma take the day off today.

 

You better not call in sick

 

Then Ill call in not well.

 

Just go to work Shadwick

 

That's such a shame about the corporate farms.
Thankfully, the farmland around here is not conducive to large scale farming.
It's better for small scale mixed farming. Family farms still predominate.
Mennonites have large families, and whenever a farm comes up for sale, they band together to buy it and set up one of their own young men to farm it.
Their main competition is developers, but that's not so very much as far as acreage goes...
PA and MD both have policies (and dairy subsidies) intended to preserve family farms.

I'm no expert on this, but it seems policy at the national level is schizophrenic.
On the one hand, you have agricultural subsidies, which the corporate operators game for all they're worth. They get the bulk of the subsidies.
On the other hand, there has been little to no protection for small, specialized farms.

For example, I recall when Greece joined the EU, they got a tremendous subsidy for raisins.
Which crashed the price for American raisin producers.
Small raisin producers in California were wiped out and the corporate operators snapped up the land.
The small producers are almost completely gone.
And the government did nothing for them.
Something of value was lost, and the social effects have been damaging.

My family left the farm for two reasons:
My Mom wasn't born to the life. She was a southern girl raised in Birmingham, Alabama. (Yeah, wartime marriage.)
And my Dad injured his back and my Mom had to milk the cows mostly by herself for months. Among other tasks.
I wasn't told, but I conjecture that she said: "No more, I'm out. Come with me or stay".
So he went back to University and then got a job with the Dept of Agriculture.

He couldn't give it up completely.
He bought a "farmette", with farmhouse, barn, and six acres with a small stream running through it.
He planted an apple orchard, a big garden, and fenced the rest off as pasture for a few beef cattle.
And every year he and I would slaughter one for our own consumption.
He even bought a John Deere model B to play with.

I still remember the turn of the seasons on a farm.
Particularly this time of year as harvest time approaches.
The golden light and the breeze rippling the crops. Butterflies and the sound of a million crickets in the cornfields.
The feeling of deep peace.

If I'd been older, I may have taken over the farm.
My Dad rented it out for years rather than selling outright, hoping I would.
But it wasn't meant to be. We left when I was too young and the connection was broken.
I still remember though.

 

Why tho

 

What else you gonna do? It will make you feel better

 

Sitting at home is not going to keep you busy, just gonna make you wallow.

 

Song of the day for Shad
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oZQw1f7TY

@NunyaBizness

 

Good to see ya

 

Im not wallowing

 

Gotta finish the job

 

COOP!!!

 

Go to work...

 

Mornin Shauna

 

Fine... dont have to yell at me... jesus.