From Gene Logsdon

If this story didn’t have a happy ending, I would have blamed my son and our custom hay baler. We put bales in the barn last summer that were so green and heavy with moisture that I was sure they would spoil. I moaned and groaned but I was assured thatthis time the oldtimer was, like the hay, all wet. So, despite the fact that I almost got another hernia from lifting the bales, I dutifully followed new-age orders from new-age farmers. The hay did not overheat and did not get musty or moldy. It made first rate, green, leafy feed. There were actually bales from two different cuttings. One was hay that had been not quite ready to bale by oldtimer judgment, but almost. It made just about the best hay I have ever fed.

The other, from third cutting, made late in the year (late September), was way too green to this oldtimer’s way of thinking, but cured out almost as well and the livestock seemed to have a special liking for it—they readily ate even the few lumps that were a bit off color. We put that hay up in the evening of the day after it had been mowed, tedded and crimped. We would normally have waited another day or two but rain threatened… [Go To Article]
~~

From Jesse Cool

Fresh, warm crust sprinkled with a little sugar and topped with fresh fruit and cheese—this, for me, is without question a sublime and irresistible dessert.

4 small prebaked pizza crusts (6″ diameter)
3/4 cup (6 ounces) vanilla or strawberry yogurt
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 small apricots, pitted and sliced
1 medium peach, pitted and sliced
1/3 cup cherries, halved and pitted
1/3 cup blueberries or raspberries
2 figs, quartered
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 450ºF.

Place the crusts on a baking sheet. Spread the crusts generously with the yogurt.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon evenly over the yogurt.

Arrange the apricots, peach, cherries, blueberries or raspberries, and figs on the yogurt. Sprinkle with the basil, lemon zest, the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Top with the cheeses.

Bake for 7 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and the pizza is warm throughout. Remove from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

(Kitchen tip: Organic frozen fruit can also be used. Thaw it first, and if the fruit is juicy, cut down on the amount of yogurt.)

Makes 4 servings.
~
See also: Rosalind’s Spring Pizza Recipe
~~
Jesse Cool is author of Your Organic Kitchen and lives in Menlo Park, California.
Jesse’s current book is The Really, Truly, Honest-to-Goodness One-Pot Cookbook.
Photo by Lisa Koenig
New edition of Your Organic Kitchen available soon
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From Dave Smith

Willie Nelson says “Take Action. Support a Better Farm Bill.” From Mother Earth News
Family farmers have always understood the direct connection between healthy soil, healthy food and healthy people — that’s why they take great measures to improve and protect their soil. The key to strengthening this fabric that holds our country together is to keep family farmers on this land, from coast to coast. It’s a solution to many of today’s most important concerns — climate change, fossil fuel dependence, childhood obesity and dwindling biodiversity. [This month], Congress will seal the next farm bill, legislation so broad in scope that it touches each of us in many ways. When you hear “farm bill,” think beyond the farm. Think food bill, renewable energy bill, nutrition bill, environmental stewardship bill, anti-hunger bill.

Take Action! Ask your Representative to make nutrition a priority in agriculture policy. (From Barbara Storper)
A great opportunity to invest in healthy food, a clean environment, and the future of small to mid-sized farms is drawing closer. As it does every few years, Congress will soon renew the “farm bill,” authorizing billions of dollars in agriculture-related programs this month. Decisions on how these billions are spent will largely determine the future of our food system. At present, most farm bill dollars go to relatively few large-scale, industrial-style operations that can pose serious risks to human health and the environment. Meanwhile, money is scarce for farmers and ranchers who practice more sustainable agriculture methods that reduce the negative external effects of farming. Passage of the farm bill represents an opportunity to turn away from outmoded programs and start investing in the agriculture of the 21st century. Write to your members of Congress today and demand that farm bill funding be redirected to a new generation of innovative farmers who sutainably raise high-quality food products while caring for our health and environment.

Organic School Lunch Program
Marin Organic acts as the liaison between the farmer and the schools, as a fiscal sponsor, as well as the distributor of these foods to the public schools. So far, over 50,000 pounds so far of local, certified organic products have been gleaned and delivered to participating schools, adressing 12,000 kids each week. These include: potatoes, winter squash, spinach, leeks, beets, carrots, arugula, lettuces, and yogurt.

Autism caused by IGF-1? (From Jeff Cox)
Conclusions: Children with autism/ASD had significantly higher levels of many growth-related hormones: IGF-1, IGF-2, IGFBP-3 and GHBP. These findings could help explain the significantly larger head circumferences and higher weights and BMIs seen in these subjects. (Also see Jeff’s earlier post: It May Be In Your Milk, and it May Be Doing You Harm)

Organotins and Obesity
A study published in the September 2006 issue of Molecular Endocrinology (Vol. 20, No. 9) linked organotins, a class of environmental contaminants, with excess weight gain and fat cell aberrations. Organotins are ingredients in many household products, including pesticides, and are persistent compounds found in low concentrations in most humans and animals. In the study with mice and frogs in vitro and in vivo, U.S. and Japanese scientists examined organotins for their endocrine-disrupting effects, implicated in contributing to weight gain and obesity.

Nutritional Plus for Organic Kiwi
A research team at the University of California at Davis has found organic kiwi fruit had much higher levels of total polyphenol content than conventional kiwi fruit, resulting in higher antioxidant activity than their conventional counterparts. Study results, published online March 27 in the peer-reviewed Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, also showed that organic kiwi fruit had higher levels of vitamin C. The kiwis studied were from nearby vineyards on the same farm in Marysville, CA. ~From The Omama Report.

Fear Everything?
I don’t want to instill a constant fear into my children about their food, but at the same time I want them to be aware that Aspartame is a cancer causing agent, that preservatives aren’t health foods, that partially hydrogenated oils are bad for you, and that processed MSG isn’t “natural” and never was.

Organic food helps revive fortunes of Europe’s farmers
In recent years, European consumers have shown themselves willing to pay more for organic produce, reflecting an aversion to chemicals and a growing preference for natural farming techniques over the high-intensity production that has been blamed for crises such as BSE and foot-and-mouth disease. Recognising this fact, Brussels will now provide higher levels of subsidy for organic farming, than that given to non organic fruit and vegetables.

Is eating fresh organic food worth it?
Despite the costs, Friedrichs believes more people would convert to organic foods like he did if they could experience the tangible benefits.

Greenergy pest control products (From Jeff Cox)
The Company’s commercial products are targeted at fruits, vegetables and selected row crops, are ideally suited to IPM practices, unlike most conventional insecticides, the compan’s products are non-toxic, leave no harmful residue and do not contaminate soil or groundwater according to the company. (For information only. No endorsement from OrganicToBe.com or its sponsor is implied and no fees were accepted for inclusion).
~~
Dave Smith is author of To Be Of Use and lives in Mendocino County, California.
Photo Credit: Mother Earth News – Sam Emerson/Getty Images
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From Dave Smith

In a recent article, author Sandra Steingraber writes: “By directing our food dollars toward organic farmers, we help build healthy soils, sustain rural communities, defend the ozone layer, prevent cancer, protect drinking water, and keep our children healthy… According to the most comprehensive study to compare conventional and organic systems, organic farms produce yields comparable to those of conventional farms, and they consume far less energy and natural resources to do so. They also leave soils healthier for future generations.”

Marilyn Diamond, in her American Vegetarian Cookbook writes: “The prices for organic food, though sometimes higher than conventional food, are fair in terms of giving the farmer a chance to make a living, making organic practices not only sustainable agriculturally but also economically. The price we pay for organic food allows the farmer to put more back into the soil, rather than using the fastest and cheapest “fertilizers” (which do the opposite of making the land fertile). The organic matter used by organic growers brings fertility back to the soil by building up the soil, creating stronger, more disease-resistant plants. When we request and buy organic produce we are lending our support to the replenishing of the lands that yield our food… an investment in the future. ”

How do organic practices differ? From Fatal Harvest: “For an organic farmer, controlling weeds requires formulating a multiyear strategy. Unlike a conventional grower, who simply treats his fields with tons of toxic herbicides each year, an organic farmer must remove the weeds using a plow or a hoe. He also plants cover crops that suppress the weeds, and he manually or mechanically removes any weeds that do arise before they mature enough to produce seeds. Organic pest control is similarly strategic. “Everyone asks, ‘What do you do about bugs?’” says Carol Ann Sayle of Boggy Creek Farm near Austin, Texas. “Well, mostly we leave them alone.” Organic farmers typically plant habitat crops that attract predatory insects, which, in turn, eat the insects that feed on the vegetables. Boggy Creek Farm also applies natural Bt to control worms and employs workers to inspect the crops and remove harmful insects by hand.

“We usually find… that when we see aphids, for instance, if we just back off and wait a few days, the beneficials, like lady bugs, will come to our rescue,:” says Sayle. “And we concentrate on our soil, believing that a healthy soil yields a healthy plant, able to resist most insect attacks.”

Organic farmers have found that they do not need chemical-based pesticides, fertilizers, or lab-modified seeds to produce high-quality vegetables… For organic farmers, keeping toxins and chemicals out of vegetable farming simply makes sense. Not only does it protect the health of consumers, but it also maintains the health of the land and ensures that farms will continue producing crops for many years to come. “Making a living off the soil entails taking care of it, preserving it, and returning it to the richness that allows us to be nourished from it… for generations.”
~~
Dave Smith is author of To Be Of Use and lives in Mendocino County, California.
Photo Credit: Fatal Harvest
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From Gene Logsdon

Ohio’s politicians are considering a bill that would allow giant tractors to go 40 miles per hour on the highway. At present farm tractors are not supposed to be driven over 25 mph on public thoroughfares. The State House of Representatives has passed the bill unanimously and I presume the senators will do about the same. This really cracks me because of a fond experience of my wild oats days. But the law also amuses me considerably just on the basis of its own merits or demerits. For those urbanites who might not divine the reason for this law (if the politicians know, they aren’t spelling it out publicly), farming has become such a wide-ranging enterprise that farmers often rent land far from the home place. The old saying of “trying to farm the whole county” needs to be updated to “trying to farm the whole state.” Getting to the next field sometimes takes more time than getting it planted. Therefore tractors must move faster on the road, (not to mention in the field) or America might starve to death. If that’s not amusing to you, you need to improve your sense of humor.

I wonder if the lawmakers have thought this 40 mph rule through. When behemoth tractors could travel “only” 25 mph, it was easier to pass them in a car than it will be now that they are scooting along at 40. And if they are allowed to go 40, you know for sure they’ll be going 45 or 50 soon enough. That’s one thing but not the whole of the problem. It is daunting enough to see a machine big enough to straddle your car approaching you on the highway at 40 mph., but what if it is pulling some monstrous piece of farm equipment as it certainly will be. Today’s 30 and 40 row planters (or more) take up at least four lanes of highway when fully extended, so of course they have to be swiveled around sideways by the miracle of hydraulic power to be transported over a road. To pass something like that on a highway might take fifteen minutes at legal speeds. Disks and other cultivating rigs are even more daunting. Fully extended, these “tools” are also several lanes wide, so they fold up hydraulically, one wing or arm over the other for road travel. Today’s farm machinery has more hoses on it than a fire truck.

Alright. Now visualize a huge tractor coming at you at 40 mph, towing a towering folded-up disk. Awesome. Stories abound about what can happen in these situations. Rumor has it that one of our local farmers was barreling along, perhaps at the legal 25 mph. One of his disk wings hit the side of a bridge he was trying to pass through. The disk needed about a week’s worth of repair but the bridge fortunately was unmoved. If this happened when the “vehicle” was traveling at 40 mph, I would love to have a video of it.

I hear of homemade tractors now in operation that have upwards of 700 hp., about twice that of the biggest commercial tractors. Think of a hulk like that cruising along at 40 mph. A farmer, high up in the beast’s air-conditioned, sound-proof console cab, listening to Rolling Thunder, might run over a semi and not even know it.

I suppose the new speed limit will apply to self-propelled combines (grain harvesters) too, and that reminds me of one of my favorite true stories about modern farming. Again I will not mention his name, but it is common folklore in our county that a certain farmer, running into trouble with the law, was relieved of his driver’s license. No problem. He drove his combine wherever he needed to go. The law, at least at that time, did not require a driver’s license for operating a combine on the road. The farmer was known to pull out of a field where he was working and rumble off to the nearest town when he needed food or cigarettes. If that doesn’t amuse you, then again, I say, you need to improve your sense of humor.

But the reason I find the new law so amusing goes back to when I was young and foolish and working on a Catholic seminary farm where I was going to school. In the old monastic tradition, we were raising most of the food for the seminary. We fell into possession of a tractor that even back then (1953) could go 40 mph. I kid you not. We bought it because it was cheap. We did not yet understand the number one rule of life: when something is selling cheap, it is cheap. The tractor was factory made, but not of any major farm equipment company. As I recall, it had a Buick motor and an Oldsmobile transmission. On the hood was the word, “Zephyr” a perfect name for it. In lowest gear, it could barely pull a three bottom plow downhill but on the road, it was, yes, “an airy, insubstantial, passing thing,” as my dictionary defines zephyr.

I loved the Zephyr. I would get out on a country road, putt along at say 15 mph until a farmer would pass me up in his pickup doing his customary speed of about 35 as he checked out the crops. Then I would yank the throttle down on Zephyr, and we would shoot off like Comet and Cupid, passing up the pickup and its astonished driver as if they were standing still, while Zephyr and I howled in glee. Hey, when you’re in a seminary, you have to take your laughs where you find them.

I can’t resist adding that the Zephyr is one of the main characters in my new novel about seminary life, The Lords of Folly. I think the Ohio legislature should know that its law is way behind the times. We were tractoring around Minnesota at 40 plus over half a century ago and for the same reason. The farm we had rented was about five miles from the seminary. I must also add, for journalistic integrity, that we had not expanded our farming so far away for economic reasons but as an excuse to escape the monk-like strictures of seminary life for longer periods of time.
~
See also: Square Dancing Tractors (tip of the hat to Karen)
and Gene’s Big Tractor, Green Hypocrasy
~~
Gene and Carol Logsdon have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio.
Current Books:
All Flesh Is Grass: Pleasures & Promises of Pasture Farming
The Lords of Folly (novel)
The Mother of All Arts: Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse (Culture of the Land)
Photos:
Tractor Pull
Australia’s Home of Tractor Pulling
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