Birds of Pleasantville

Bird of Paradise [plant] on right, and Hooded Oriole [bird] on the left at a friend's feeder, April 3, 2010. Click to embiggen.

This coming Friday will be the last day to count birds for the 2009-2010 season of Project FeederWatch, and I'm hoping for an oriole. I know they're in town. This most excellent Hooded Oriole was at a friend's home a few miles south of my place. Must rethink feeder placement...

Hello, tiny naked hatchlings! These little guys were in a nest hidden in a box in my friend's garage. Mom [a Bewick's Wren] was raging, so I left in a hurry.



Saturday was the Inland Orange Conservancy's Celebration of Citrus. [Yay, Old Grove Orange!]



House across the street, all pretty and spring-like:



And when I got home, there was a Black-headed Grosbeak in the feeder tray. I could only photograph him through the screen and into the sun [weeps], but still — first one this year for me. A good way to end a good afternoon. Fly north, orioles...!



Related:

Feeder Friday; Attracting Orioles

Want some drug-resistant germs with that pork chop?

From the five-part AP series When Drugs Stop Working:

[T]he overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year - more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs went to pigs, chickens and cows.

Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza are the excellent reporters who wrote When Drugs Stop Working, and if you missed it in December, you can read the complete series here. [The articles are in pdf.] The fifth article, Solution to killer superbug found in Norway, shows how MRSA [Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] can be controlled. Norway's solution? Cut [human] antibiotic use way, way back:

A spate of new studies from around the world prove that Norway's model can be replicated with extraordinary success, and public health experts are saying [MRSA] deaths - 19,000 in the U.S. each year alone, more than from AIDS - are unnecessary.

But what about the 24.5 million pounds of antibiotics fed to livestock in the U.S. each year? [So glad you asked.] Over at Civil Eats, you can watch this week's CBS Special Report on Antibiotics and Animal Agriculture:

In the report, [Katie] Couric visits a confinement pig operation, where she speaks to a farmer who believes using antibiotics is necessary. She talks to victims of MRSA, a bacteria infection that is resistant to antibiotics. And she visits similar hog confinement operations in Denmark that are taking care of their animals without the use of antibiotics. The Danish are proud to have transitioned, and scientists go on the record to talk about the decrease in antibiotic resistance in humans since the ban in that country.

Related articles [all from USC's ReportingonHealth]:
Q&A with the AP's Martha Mendoza
Covering outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant infections
Useful Resources: MRSA

Pork Magazine responds to the CBS report

From this blog:
"Taking the Lambs to Market"
Factory farmed pork safer than free range? In a pig's eye
Some Pigs

Boss Hog. Excerpt:

Smithfield's pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around[...] There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth.
[...]
The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

From Smithfield's point of view, the problem with this lifestyle is immunological. Taken together, the immobility, poisonous air and terror of confinement badly damage the pigs' immune systems. They become susceptible to infection, and in such dense quarters microbes or parasites or fungi, once established in one pig, will rush spritelike through the whole population. Accordingly, factory pigs are infused with a huge range of antibiotics and vaccines[...]

Read it and weep. If you still can't bear the thought of life without bacon, call a farmer with pasture-raised pigs. Or try "free-range, grass-fed, organic, locally produced, locally harvested, sustainable, native, low-stress, low-impact, humanely slaughtered meat" — which is to say, the kind you hunt. Whatever you do, though, please don't trot out the old "factory farms keep prices down for the consumer" lame-O excuse. Because no amount of savings justifies the cruelty inflicted on factory-farmed livestock.

Late night links

Too good not to share.

Dr. Lucy H. Spelman is a veterinarian and all 'round amazing and remarkable person, currently working with giant otters in Guyana. That's one of her charges on the left. Dr. Spelman's blog: Saving Otters.

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Storms are lining up and rain's on the way! Also: pretty maps! See Ken Clark's Western U.S. Weather Blog for all the deets. H/T: the awesome, essential Aquafornia.

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Wildfire in Yellowstone: NASA astronauts are there.

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What does it take to save a species? Sometimes, high-voltage power wires. From Green Lines, by Beth Daley of the Boston Globe:

Transmission corridors have long been considered symbols of environmental degradation, with their enormous steel skeletons and high-voltage lines slicing through forests, wetlands, and salt marshes; they divide the landscapes that thousands of species need to survive. Yet now they are gaining a new reputation: As critical homes for faltering species of birds, bees, butterflies, plants, and a host of other species.
[...]
“It’s hard to explain to conservation groups that [species] are being saved in the most unpopular and disturbed kinds of landscapes,” said Robert Askins, a biology professor at Connecticut College who has studied birds in transmission corridors. “I was shocked originally to be working in them myself.”

H/T: 3 Quarks Daily.

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"How is Jo, a former fighting pit bull, different from other dogs?" A Rotta Love Plus spells it out. Good read.

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"[R]esearch out of Purdue University is suggesting that female dogs and, interestingly, female humans, live longer if they keep their ovaries," posts Christie at Pet Connection. A good discussion follows, with terrific comments from the most excellent Heather Houlahan. I mean, comments #34 and #35? Perfect.

In somewhat related news: Nature's Harmony Farm no longer castrates their pigs.

The controversy surrounding castration [of piglets] is one of humane treatment. In North American swine production, castration is essentially universal, although in the UK and Ireland, for welfare reasons pigs are not castrated. Additionally, legislation passed in Norway and Switzerland that banned castration of pigs starting in 2009. The majority of male pigs in Spain and Portugal are not castrated. McDonald’s & Burger King in the Netherlands both announced that they will no longer sell products containing pork from castrated pigs. According to The Pig Site, "There is substantial evidence that castration is painful and highly aversive to pigs and so is a significant welfare concern. The most painful part of castration appears to be the severing of the cords and vessels supplying testis. An assumption is often made that the procedure is less traumatic to younger piglets although the contrary maybe true."

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Finally, via The Ethicurean: "When a recent UC Santa Cruz study asked grocery shoppers on California's Central Coast to rank their concerns about the food system, respondents prioritized animal welfare above the treatment of human workers on the farms." Bay Guardian reporter Caitlin Donohue reports on the irony of it all in Out of reach: How the sustainable local food movement neglects poor workers and eaters.

The average salary of the estimated 900,000 farm workers in California — the birthplace of the organic and farm labor movements in the U.S. — is around $8,500, more than $2,000 below the federal poverty line.
[...]
[Jon] Hall’s customers [at the University of San Francisco food court], college students who may eat three meals a day here, often approach him with questions about their food. Queries range from where to how the food was grown, but in no instances that Hall has been aware of, about the workers who grew it.

Labor issues are not the popular cause these days, at least in the sustainable food movement. Unlike the “eat local” and organic food movements, equitable treatment of farm workers has yet to spawn trendy slogans for tote bags or a book on the best-seller list.

One UC Santa Cruz study found that, when asked to rank their concern about food system related topics, Central Coast grocery shoppers assigned higher concern levels to animal treatment on farms than that of humans. But Hall is confident this will change as Bon Appetit and others continue to bring attention to the economically disadvantaged on the front lines of our local and organic food systems.

“This is the next frontier,” he said. “I can see it brewing.”

Somewhere, Edward R. Murrow is shaking his head in despair.

Link Liberation

Via my fave Logcabineer, a photo essay by The Selby on a home I could move into THIS MINUTE.

Rinalia over at For the Pit Bulls has a great post on "rehabilitating" fighting dogs. Go read it. Right now. Please. I love that Rinalia doesn't just talk the talk, as they say. She actually has a rescued pit bull, the most excellent Mina [and a terrific blog].

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Ranching, recreation collide in the great outdoors. If you're guessing the rancher loses, and his dogs [and many of his sheep] die as a result, you probably saw this item already over at Brent's blog. The story's a tragedy from any angle.

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I'm so envious of Daniel Hernandez I could just scream.

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Way cool tape art in NYC, from Indian by Design.

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Nina of the Nature Remains blog is in Indiana, photographing Sandhill Cranes. Photos here, here and here. So beautiful.

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How to fight. "Continue to shake it as much as you possibly can" LOLOL. H/T: Logcabineer.



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The Gray Lady has 1) an article on "the urban deerslayer" [see comments here], and 2) a gear test slide show featuring shotguns. Will wonders never cease.

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Last, but far from least: check out the fall colors at Indigo Hill. The joys of a 42' high birding tower...!

They paved paradise and put up a Heritage Park

With a big ol' historic schoolhouse and, yeah, a parking lot.

That's the schoolhouse, or a section of it, anyway, on the left. The local Historic and Scenic Preservation folks put it in the middle of my sheep pasture the city-owned property [a former dairy farm] where I kept my sheep for the last twenty-some years. "At its new location, the historic building will serve as an events hall and arts center and also act as a community meeting place for the city," said a local paper about the building that appeared in my pasture the "lot" overnight. Yippee.

So I sold the last of my ewes today, and the feeders and the water troughs and some meds and a drencher, and for the first time in a quarter-century I have no sheep. It doesn't feel at all like the end of the world [one door closes, another door yadda yadda], but it does feel kind of weird.

Good thing: the last eight ewes went home to San Diego County with a border collie person I've known forever. I'll miss my Cheviots [weeps]. I won't miss the hay bills. Should have taken more photos of the place back in the day. Good times, those.

Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot [Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon]

Ikea chicken-coop hack

A masterpiece of Swedish design. Photo from ikea hacker.

All the cool kids these days are busy with their chickens and their bee hives, and here I am without so much as a barn cat or a bird feeder. Wait, I have sheep! But they're down at the farm, and I need something here, dammit.

In the meantime, up above is a cool Ikea chicken-coop hack from, well duh, ikea hacker via the Ethicurean via Urban Chickens. I could do this.

And if not — on to Plan B:

How cool would this look with a little paint? From Street Use via Make.

Related:
Poultry posts from Raised by Wolves
Chicken posts from Smartdogs' Weblog [Fort Peepage...LOLOL]
Spring chicken raisin' - one of many chicken posts by Gina at Pet Connection
Chicken posts from Team Chicken at Sunset Magazine's One-Block Diet
Bee posts from Birdchick

Of cow parts and dog parts

Body part puzzler of the day: why is it cruel to dock cows' tails, but kind to cut out the reproductive organs of young puppies?

I'm talking about the mandatory surgical removal of a puppy's reproductive organs — and you better get it done by six months, sez California's SB 250, because the minute your pup is six months old the existence of his reproductive organs will transform your irresponsible self into a for-reals dog breeder who must pay the state higher licensing fees on account of all the unplanned-for and unwanted puppies you'll be dropping off at the pound, you heartless witch, you. [Apologies for posting the SB 250 link: it's mainly a mashup of AB 1634 materials brought to you, once again, by Judie "if you have an intact animal, you're part of the problem" Mancuso.]

I'm wondering about the irony of it all because I'm not convinced dairy cows need their tails more than a Rottie mix, say, needs his balls. Cows use their tails to swat flies, which is certainly important. A Rottie needs his [or her] reproductive organs until he [or she] is at least a year old, to ward off a greatly-increased risk of bone cancer. Very, very important. [Don't take my word for it: read the PubMed link.]

I'm wondering because over in enlightened Scandinavia, Norway's Welfare of Animals Act prohibits the spay/neuter of dogs "unless it is necessary from a medical point of view." Sweden's Animal Protection Act concurs: it's unethical to spay/neuter without medical cause.

So what's up with animal welfare in the US? How is it that being a "responsible" pet owner here in California might soon involve mandatory surgery on your pet rather than, you know, actual responsibility? What kind of state mandates removal of your dog's reproductive parts - then turns around and punishes people for cutting tails off cows?

"The ASPCA does not support local laws that mandate the sterilization of all cats and dogs."

I would love to ask State Senator Dean Florez about all this, since he opposes the docking of cow tails and is the author of SB 250 -- the "Pet Responsibility Act" -- but the senator is a very busy man. Seriously, a state senator has so many things on his plate that he needs aides and lobbyists to help him examine all of the issues in depth, or "in depth."

Jennifer Fearing, a lobbyist for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) [...] and her boss, HSUS president Wayne Pacelle, sat down with Florez in December to talk strategy.

"Twenty years of attempting to pass modest reforms on animal welfare have gotten us nowhere," Fearing said. "Does it really have to be this way? We posed that question to Senator Florez as someone who had really supported Prop. 2."

Senator Florez reads Michael Pollan and comes to his position as chair of the Senate Food and Ag Committee with a farmworker's perspective, and I think that's great. Such a perspective is badly needed.

But Senator Florez may not know that the HSUS leadership opposes animal agriculture. I suspect that when the ag industry reps worry about Florez, it's because they understand the HSUS goals and ideology better than he does.

And I'm not sure Senator Florez knows what it means to dog owners when HSUS CEO Pacelle tells author Ted Kerasote, "I don’t want to see another dog or cat born." When dog owners protest bills like Florez' SB 250, we are protesting, among other things, the involvement of lobbyists like Pacelle in decisions that should be left to individual dog owners and their veterinarians.

I'm opposed to the docking of cows' tails. I think it's terrific that Senator Florez has authored a bill to phase out the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in animals meant for human consumption. I, too, read Michael Pollan. And as the granddaughter of Mexican migrant workers, I'm glad that Florez [who, like my dad, grew up picking crops] has a voice in California's ag policy.

I also love dogs. I adopt dogs and train dogs and read about dogs and spend lots of money on dog care. I wish there were some way I could sit down with Senator Florez and explain why the AVMA, the CVMA, the ASPCA, No-Kill leader Nathan Winograd [pdf link] and countless other groups and individuals - responsible, caring, educated groups and individuals - are so opposed to mandatory spay/neuter.

Because no matter what Judy Mancuso and Wayne Pacelle say, MSN doesn't work. It hasn't worked anywhere, and it doesn't help animals. All the spin in the world won't change that.


Oh, and did I ever tell you about the Aussie that I pulled from the pound up in Hanford? She was wormy and her coat was falling out and no one wanted her, but she was quite wonderful and now she lives a fine life with a nice man in San Diego and by the way, she'd been spayed before she wound up at the pound. Perhaps by the same "responsible" owners who never came looking for her, if such a thing can be believed.

Then again, I'm just a border collie & pit bull person who favors late spay/neuter and shudders at the thought of politicians telling me what medical procedures must be performed on my dogs, so what do I know.

Now living the life of Riley - thank you for your help, SoCal Aussie Rescue!

Link to AVMA position statement on dog and cat population control. Excerpt:

The AVMA does not support regulations or legislation mandating spay/neuter of privately owned, non-shelter dogs and cats. Although spaying and neutering helps control dog and cat populations, mandatory approaches may contribute to pet owners avoiding licensing, rabies vaccination and veterinary care for their pets, and may have other unintended consequences.

Link to ASPCA position statement on mandatory spay/neuter laws. Excerpt:

To the knowledge of the ASPCA, the only method of population control that has demonstrated long-term efficacy in significantly reducing the number of animals entering animal shelters is the voluntary sterilization of owned pets (Clancy & Rowan 2003; FIREPAW, 2004; Secovich, 2003). There is also evidence that sterilizing very specific, at-risk sub-populations of companion animals such as feral cats and animals in shelters can also contribute to reductions in overpopulation (Zawistowski et al., 1998; Clancy & Rowan 2003; Levy et al., 2003; Lord et al., 2006; Natoli et al., 2006). In contrast, the ASPCA is not aware of any credible evidence demonstrating a statistically significant enhancement in the reduction of shelter intake or euthanasia as a result of the implementation of a mandatory spay/neuter law.

Where avocados come from

Pauma Valley, CA: Carol and Bill Steed's avocado groves.

They come from beautiful SoCal and the beautiful Central Coast, and just thinking about the Pauma Valley and good fresh guacamole [with cilantro!] makes me feel better [cough, sniffle].

Visit Avocado Central here to learn more about the best fruit ever. And how about a delicious avocado shake? Nectar of the gods, and good for what ails you, believe me. Just look at it...!

Cinco de Mayo 1 - swine flu 0. Aguacate and mescal recipe here.

Eject, Porkins!

Guess which city "introduced a broad series of public health measures to contain the flu within two days of the first reported cases"? More here.

From the swine flu H1N1/2009 front, here are several links that may prove of interest. The first is Swine flu: the overreaction overreaction, from the most excellent public health blog Effect Measure. Excerpt:

The irony is that the overreaction backlash will be more severe the more successful the public health measures are. If, for example, the virus peters out this spring because transmission was interrupted long enough for environmental conditions (whatever they are) to tip the balance against viral spread, CDC and local health officials will be accused of over reacting. It's another example of the adage, "When public health works, nothing happens." On the other hand, if local officials do nothing and things get worse, they will be accused of being slow.

It's not just the current reputation of local officials that concern me, however. If this virus does wane with the summer months (something we expect to happen), it's current mildness and its disappearance may lead citizens and decision makers back into the kind of reckless disregard of public health facts that has produced our current weak and brittle health infrastructure. But flu season will come again next fall, and it would be no scientific surprise if this strain is part of flu's repertoire.

And from the Orange Satan comes H1N1: Why Do Schools Close, And When Do They Open? Money quote:

[I]mplementation likely needs to be early enough to preclude the initial steep upslope in case numbers. That's the answer to "but there's only one case! Why are we doing this?" If you wait for "the steep upslope", it's too late to matter.

Meanwhile, to the north, come reports of the first pig cases:

There is much concern that pigs infected with this H1N1 might become infected with a dangerous influenza virus from fowl, like the H5N1 that causes avian influenza, leading to a dangerous superbug. But [Christopher] Olsen [a swine influenza researcher at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Madison] says this is unlikely on large hog farms. "Most modern swine production facilities are single species. The days of a small farmer having pigs and fowl and other animals all mixing together is really unusual in terms of modern commercial swine. My opinion is modern swine facilities have better biosecurity than old-time farms."

I'd add some thoughts of my own, but I've been sick all weekend and am currently coughing up a lung, so maybe tomorrow or whenever. I'm not sick enough for it to be H1N1. I'm not sick enough for it to be H1N1. I'm not sick enough...

Related:
H5N1 - News and Resources about Avian and Swine Flu [H/T: Effect Measure]
The Swine. Influenza in Mexico City [H/T: H5N1]
Intersections [Daniel Hernandez in el D.F.]
Smithfield, you’re forked now: Photos of Granjas Carroll de Mexico pork factory are sickening, even with no flu connection [The Ethicurean]

Factory farmed pork safer than free range? In a pig's eye

Maybe you saw the NY Times op-ed by James E. McWilliams, author of Just Food: How Locavores Are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly.

"[S]cientists have found that free-range pork can be more likely than caged pork to carry dangerous bacteria and parasites," warns Professor McWilliams:

Free range is not necessarily natural. And neither is its taste. In fact, free range is like piggy day care, a thoughtfully arranged system designed to meet the needs of consumers who despise industrial agriculture and adore the idea of wildness.

To equate the highly controlled grazing of pigs with wild animals in a state of nature is to insult the essence of nature, domestication and wild pigs.

I wasn't under the impression that anyone was equating wild pigs with domestic pigs raised in a free range environment. But if McWilliams is suggesting that the choice is between the very real horrors [moral and environmental] of factory farms and "piggy day care," I'll vote for "day care," thanks. For anyone truly hell-bent on insulting pigs and domestication and the essence of nature, factory farming is the way to go.

And those dire warnings about "dangerous bacteria and parasites"? Marion Nestle to the rescue:

The study on which McWilliams based his op-ed is published in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. The investigators actually measured "seropositivity" (antibodies) in the pigs' blood. But the presence of antibodies does not necessarily mean that the animals--or their meat--are infected. It means that the free-range pigs were exposed to the organisms at some point and developed immunity to them. The industrial pigs were not exposed and did not develop immunity to these microorganisms. But you would never know that from reading the op-ed. How come?

Guess who paid for the study? The National Pork Board, of course.

Read all about it here: "Sponsored Science" Strikes Again, by Marion Nestle at the Atlantic Food Channel blog.

It's California: water, and a wolverine

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much." [Alan Paton]

He had me at "California drought."

Ari Kelman of the most excellent Edge of the American West responds to "several requests for some California drought blogging," and I am so there. West coast water is a topic near and dear to my heart. We used to depend on well water every summer up at the cabin, for one thing. For another, I love roses. And hate high water bills.

Ari turns the blog post Parched over to "a friend who works on state water issues and writes about water and climate change at On the Public Record." Both "Parched" and "On the Public Record" are good reads.

"If you’re a salmon in California, this drought could well be the end of you. This year’s salmon returns were historic lows, and tepid reduced rivers may finish them off. However, if you’re a wildfire in California, dying forests in the Sierras are waiting for you!"

Excerpt:

If you’re a farmer in California, or dependent on farming, the story is very different. The combination of drought and enforcement of the Endangered Species Act means that farmers are getting almost no water from the water projects this year (that may be revised to getting 5% of their usual water, because of the February rains). For many of them, this drought means putting in wells and fallowing everything but their orchards. Cattle and dairies are thinning their herds, because dry pastures are too sparse to feed their cows. Farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley are taking the hardest hit, with unemployment over thirty percent in some towns.

I'm not dependent in any financial sense on my livestock, and don't have enough sheep to talk of "thinning the herd," but I'm giving up all but a few of my Cheviots — I can barely afford to feed them. Hay prices are unreal.

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Drought? But... but... there's snow in the Sierras! Which isn't the same as "snowpack," unfortunately. You can see the white stuff in this short vid of a wolverine posing for a camera trap northwest of Lake Tahoe. Video from YubaNet.com, where you can read more about the handsome critter. I heart wolverines.



Related:
California Drought: Snowpack Inspires Consumers, Worries Water Experts, from Circle of Blue | WaterNews.

Late afternoon at the farm

How quickly the light goes. There's a spot in this pasture that is markedly colder than the rest of the field — an eerie thing. A barn owl once flew at my first border collie here, when a friend and I were working our dogs at dusk.

Smoky's dragging a long line because I don't want him to start a rabbit and gallop into barb wire.

Incredibly cool sheep barn

For when I win the lottery.

In the city of Almere, Netherlands, 70F Architecture projected this beautiful sheep stable that can house from 100 to 150 sheep.

More photos and info at CoolBoom.

"Taking the Lambs to Market"

Butcher shop in Pinole, California. "Clarence Faria's Uncle Manuel, owner, on the right."

Fragments of Maxine Kumin's Taking the Lambs to Market have appeared in a number of links recently: here, for instance, in a fine essay on sheep, local slaughterhouses, USDA inspections and small-farm economics by Bill Fosher.

So I thought I'd post the whole thing. From the collection Looking for Luck:

Taking the Lambs to Market

All due respect to the blood on his bandsaw,
table, hands and smock, Amos is an artist.

We bring him something living, breathed, furred
and meet it next in a bloodless sagittal section.

No matter how we may deplore his profession
all of us are eating, even Keats

who said, If a Sparrow come before my Window
I take part in its existence and pick
about the Gravel, but dined on mutton.

Amos, who custom cuts and double wraps
in white butcher paper whatever we named,
fed, scratched behind the ear, deserves our praise:

a decent man who blurs the line of sight
between our conscience and our appetite.

And one I've posted before and will no doubt post again: Meat, by Thom Gunn.

My brother saw a pig root in a field,
And saw too its whole lovely body yield
To this desire which deepened out of need
So that in wriggling through the mud and weed
To eat and dig were one athletic joy.
When we who are the overlords destroy
Our ranging vassals, we can therefore taste
The muscle of delighted interest
We make into ourselves, as formerly
Hurons digested human bravery.

Not much like this degraded meat — this meal
Of something, was it chicken, pork, or veal?
It tasted of the half-life that we raise
In high bright tombs which, days, and nights like days,
Murmur with nervous sound from cubicles
Where fed on treated slop the living cells
Expand within each creature forced to sit
Cramped with its boredom and its pile of shit
Till it is standard weight for roast or bacon
And terminated, and its place is taken.

To make this worth a meal you have to add
The succulent liberties it never had
Of leek, and pepper fruiting in its climb,
The redolent adventures dried in thyme
Whose branches creep and stiffen where they please,
Or rosemary that shakes in the world's breeze.

Good eats and good reads: on raising - and killing - lamb for dinner

Louise Erdrich looked at the northern tallgrass prairie and wrote:

I would be converted to a religion of grass. Sleep the winter away and rise headlong each spring. Sink deep roots. Conserve water. Respect and nourish your neighbors and never let trees gain the upper hand. Such are the tenets and dogmas. As for the practice — grow lush in order to be devoured or caressed, stiffen in sweet elegance, invent startling seeds — those also make sense. Bow beneath the arm of fire. Connect underground. Provide. Provide. Be lovely and do no harm.

Provide. Here is California farmer Andy Griffin, author of The Ladybug Letter, writing about "the karma of meat":

[C]ooking meat is the way nature allows us to eat grass. By profession I’m a vegetable farmer, but as a hobby I keep a flock of goats and sheep along with a tiny herd of Dexter cattle and I think of them collectively as my “meat garden.” My animals eat cull vegetables, like over-ripe tomatoes, under-ripe winter squash and deformed beets, but mostly they eat grass from the hillsides around my home that are too steep and dry for me to farm. Remember the Dust Bowl? One of the most profound and long-lasting catastrophes of the “dirty thirties” was that speculation in grain caused vast tracts of arid, marginal land in the western Great Plains to be ploughed down for wheat. When the drought came there was no turf to hold the soil down and it blew away. That land should have never been taken away from the Buffalo and the beef cattle.

"Cooking meat is the way nature allows us to eat grass."
Andy Griffin

And when Andy says "beef cattle" he isn't talking about the "karmically-challenged modern beef steer" fattened on corn in a feedlot. People, there's a reason Isaiah says in the Bible, "All flesh is grass." [A reason that has nothing to do with meat for dinner, but still.]

Everything dies. If we are conscientious, the stock we raise will die with as little stress as possible after a comfortable life. And this beats being chased down and torn apart while still alive, or wasting away from injury and infection, or dying of some hideous parasite-borne condition on the African savannah, if you ask me. [Full disclosure: when an earnest vegan says, "I am someone who cares about preventing cruelty to animals," I want to say, "Dude -- like Battle at Kruger?"] As the man wrote, "No wild animal dies of old age."

All of this is by way of introducing some links to excellent posts on raising sheep [and other stock] for slaughter, and dinner.

First, from the always terrific Bill Fosher [owner/moderator of the Sheep Production Forum]: Honor thy meat.

I loved this:

Q: “How do you eat meat from animals you knew?”
A: “I don’t like to eat meat from an animal I didn’t know!"

True, true — the only lamb I used to eat, before free-range and grass-fed became trendy, was barbecued on a friend's ranch not long after being slaughtered. The person sitting across from me at the table could tell me everything about that individual lamb, from its grazing habits to the name of its great-grandma. I knew where that lamb came from and what care it received. Who do you ask about the shrink-wrapped ground beef at Whole Foods?


Ardi Gasna has been in my blog list forever, and back in April, California chef, sheep dairy owner and artisanal cheesemaker Rebecca King wrote about slaughtering lambs she'd raised:

I know some may find it morbid (although they themselves eat meat that someone else kills!), but I've discovered I actually enjoy slaughtering and butchering my own animals. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I was responsible for this animal from its birth until its death. I am also fascinated in the process by which a living thing becomes food that we eat. The lamb has been really delicious as well, some of the best I've ever had.

As it happens, Andy Griffin of Mariquita Farm and The Ladybug Letter has crossed paths with Rebecca and her sheep. Small blogosphere.

Farmer and Honest Meat blogger Rebecca Thistlewaite also has some words on lamb, specifically: "So the California raised grassfed lamb tasted better, but why does it cost so much more?" Read the rest in her post The Real Dirt on Lamb.

And what about the actual, you know, slaughter? How much easier it is for the animals when they are killed quickly at their own farm or ranch, without the stress caused by transport to a distant slaughterhouse! So why aren't there more MPUs?

That truck on the left is a mobile slaughterhouse, or MPU - Mobile Processing Unit. From The WSJ's Have Knife, Will Travel:

Scott Meyers of Sweet Grass Farm Beef [on Lopez Island, Washington] started raising Japanese Wagyu cattle on his grass pasture once the mobile unit was up and running. "It gave me access to the marketplace," he says. "Without that, I wouldn't have even considered" raising beef.

Mr. Meyers says the mobile unit offers his animals a "sublime" death because they avoid the stress of traveling long distances. Such care makes his beef taste better, he says, as he introduces part of his herd: "This one's Violet, here's Splits and Buttercup."

The Ethicurean has more on the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative here.

But that's Washington State. Are there any mobile rigs in California?

Sort of. Marissa Guggiana explains in Leading Lambs to Slaughter — In search of a kinder, gentler abbatoir:

Right now there are seven operating MPUs in the U.S., but none of them are in California. California’s lone MPU sits gathering dust in Monterey County. The MPU is operated by George Work, of Work Family Ranch. Work’s enthusiasm for the practicality of the MPU got it built, but it hasn’t been enough to overcome state and county bureaucracy, and a federal regulatory system that seems reluctant to change.
[...]
The general response from other meat processors, government workers, and members of the sustainability community to the MPU is a list of reasons why it does not work, has not worked, and will not work. Most of these focus on county regulations. For instance, in Washington, where [Bruce] Dunlop operates, he’s able to compost the non-edible remainders and return them to the pasture as fertilizer. In California this wouldn’t be tolerated. While each county has its legal peculiarities, there seems to be an overarching resistance rooted in a fear of decentralization, a fear that if we move outside the model of faster, cheaper, and more, we lose.

We'll see what happens once the new administration takes over, though I suspect MPUs are not high on the list of concerns at the moment.


Related posts from this blog, with much link goodness.

Hey, that'd be a good title for a book!

And finally, from one of the links above:

Keep in mind one of the oldest ways to get "free-range, grass-fed, organic, locally produced, locally harvested, sustainable, native, low-stress, low-impact, humanely slaughtered meat": by hunting it yourself.

New books: Wolves, and a parrot

Querencia blogger Cat Urbigkit has a new book out: Yellowstone Wolves: A Chronicle of the Animal, the People, and the Politics. Cat and her family raise sheep and cattle in western Wyoming and she has been following the wolf situation in that area for years. [Click on Wolf Watch at this link to read more.] Stephen Bodio of Querencia has written an excellent post about Cat's book, which he reviews in his spirit wolf voice. I kid ;~) Yellowstone Wolves looks like a good read.

Another new release: scientist Irene M. Pepperberg has written a book about her decades-long partnership with Alex, the famous parrot who died last year at the age of 31. From today's NY Times review:

Her book movingly combines the scientific detail of a researcher, intent on showing with “statistical confidence” that Alex “did indeed have this or that cognitive ability,” with the affectionate understanding that children (and children’s books about animals) instinctively possess: that “animals know more than we think, and think a great deal more than we know.” While her training as a scientist keeps her from lapsing into sentimentality, her love for her longtime avian colleague keeps her from sounding like a stuffy academic.

Read the whole review here. The book is Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence — and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process.

This is insane

So my beautiful California is burning up — and both Laura and Heather claim it's... snowing. And they have photos — gorgeous, amazing photos — to prove it. Unreal.

Check out Laura's scary post on the worst South Dakota blizzard in 30 years — photos here. And the weather went all Andrew Wyeth [did I mention how much I love Heather's writing?] over at the most excellent Raised by Wolves. I swiped the photo above from Heather's blog because I love the colors. More of her snow scenes here.

OMG, I'm toast

Maybe this will help. [Garlic swag from Williams-Sonoma.]

Q fever is a potentially dangerous [potentially very dangerous, as in, sometimes fatal] zoonosis, which means, as I'm sure you all know, that it is a disease that originates in an animal species and is transmitted to a human host. Carriers include infected sheep, goats, cattle, dogs, cats, birds and even ticks, oy.

The Canadian [University of Guelph] blog Worms & Germs reports on a major Q fever outbreak in the Netherlands:

Animals often show no signs of illness, although the infection sometimes causes miscarriage, particularly in sheep and goats. Coxiella burnetii is also transmissible to humans. People are much more susceptible than animals to disease from Q fever. Even so, only about 50% of individuals that become infected show signs of illness, which can range from flu-like symptoms to pneumonia and hepatitis (liver infection). About 1-2% of infections in people are fatal.

Read the rest, including a list of precautions ["On dry, windy days, avoid farms or areas where sheep or goats are kept" — OMG OMG, I'm totally doomed] here.

Heads up

Goat playhouse at Underwood Family Farms, via Boing Boing. "They walk along planks above the visitors," writes the contributor. I would totally love something like this, if, um, I kept goats.

Some Pigs

Check out Honest Meat — a fine new blog I found via I Heart Farms. The author is Rebecca Thistlethwaite, and right now she is in the middle of three posts on CAFOs [confined animal feeding operations]: specifically, the pig factories of North Carolina's coastal plain.

I love bacon, but not so much that I can buy it in good conscience when pigs are factory-farmed and CAFOs are destroying the environment. Rebecca links to Waterkeeper Alliance's Rick Dove, who took the aerial photos for her posts, and who writes on the Waterkeeper site:

There are now approximately 2,500 industrial swine facilities raising 10,000,000 hogs in North Carolina's coastal plain. This is a radical change from conditions that existed prior to the mid-1980s. Then, there were approximately 24,000 family farmers raising a little over 2,000,000 hogs. Based upon a study of Dr. Mark Sobsey of the University of North Carolina that compared hog to human waste, these hogs are producing more fecal matter in Eastern North Carolina each day than is produced by all the citizens (combined) in North Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, New Hampshire, and North Dakota. This incredible amount of fecal matter is constantly being flushed from the confinement buildings where these animals are kept under what are often grossly inhumane conditions. [Boldface mine.]

Rebecca writes:

This post is supposed to be about the human health problems with these huge hog factories. But if a hog farmer (or vertically-integrated pork corporation) will treat animals with complete disregard, how do you think they treat their human workers and neighbors?

[Like this, I imagine.] The Honest Meat sidebar is filled with books, farms, industry links and culinary sites. You'll find I Heart Farms, Honest Meat and other link goodness in the SHEEP, FARMS/RANCHES, GOOD EATS AND MORE section of this blog's right sidebar.