Indiana bats, desert tortoises and fringe-toed lizards are just a few of the endangered species threatened by wind and solar power projects. Wind turbines kill birds and bats without regard to their endangered status, and developers of these renewable energy resources are required by law to take into account the number of animals that will die so we all can have electricity. The cute little guy shown here is an Indiana bat, and he'd stand absolutely no chance against a wind turbine blade.
  Beech Ridge Energy, to its corporate embarassment, paid scant heed to the law when it proposed a 122-turbine project on a windy West Verginia ridgeline. Judge Roger W. Titus of the Federal District Court in Maryland, put a speed bump in the way of the project by requiring the company to apply for an incidental take permit. An ITP is an acknowledgement of the effect a project will have on wildlife. An independent study of the project site estimated that some 6,500 bats would be killed annually, and that many of them would be Indiana brown bats. 
  Whether or not that's too many bats is a question that the ITP process tries to answer.  
  “This is a case about bats, wind turbines, and two federal policies, one favoring the protection of endangered species, and the other encouraging development of renewable energy resources,” wrote Judge Titus in his ruling earlier this month. “The two vital federal policies at issue in this case are not necessarily in conflict.”
Solar projects in the Southwest also have endangered species to contend with, including desert tortoises and lizards.
New York Times writer Todd Woody took a look at this issue that's sure to strike more sparks as concerned environmentalists consider the impact of more and more green energy projects. You can read Woody's story here: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/judge-halts-wind-farm-over-bats/

  The Carey girls - lots of love for their lambs and each other. Madison, Chandler, Delaney and Brynlin, who range in age from 12 to 18, have all been showing market lambs - and collecting awards for their efforts - for years. They're Farm Show bound and hope to pick up more ribbons in competition with other contestants, including each other. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres visited the girls at their Montoursville, Pa., home and came away with a story you can read in our current edition. Or you can check it out here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2721


     And I'm afraid to ski...  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/on-location-shaun-white-snowboarding/17wgv6nqh 

     RFD...Detroit? John Hantz, whose $100 million net worth could buy up half his home town, has an ambitious plan for turning Detroit into an agricultural phenomenon. Where others see abandoned neighborhoods, crumbling infrastructure and a hopeless future, Hantz sees abandoned neighborhoods, crumbling infrastructure and a unique opportunity to turn the city into a miracle of urban farming. 
  And he's willing to put up a third of his net worth to make the miracle happen. Hantz drives a Volvo, but he's not giving up on Detroit. He lives in the city and his company, Hantz Financial Services, is headquarterd in Southfield, a northern suburb on the far side of Eight Mile Road (whose most noted homey is Marshall Mathers III).
  It takes Hantz 30 minutes to drive to work, and along the way he passes blocks and blocks of blight, likes the photos here. The once bustling city of two million people now has 900,000 residents, and urban planners expect the eventual population to sink to 700,000. Hantz wants to farm abandoned land, and he wants others join in. He wants zoning breaks, tax breaks and preservation easements. It's about money, of course, but maybe not all about money. If he does wind up owning downtown farmland, he's told his 21-year-old daughter, his only heir, that she's not allowed to sell it.
  Hantz is creating a stir. Some people like him, others think he's headed nowhere. But he expects to have seed in the ground this coming spring.
  It's a fascinating story, reported earlier today by Fortune Magazine editor-at-large David Whitford. You can read it here: http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/29/news/economy/farming_detroit.fortune/index.htm 


     Dreaming small about the meat business. Justin Severino would like to have a small business with a core of dedicated customers who appreciate the artistry and the history of charcuterie, a method of cutting and curing meat that goes back to Roman times. He's a chef now, in Pittsburgh, but has other dreams which he shared with attendees at a PASA-sponsored pastured pork field day in October. There's a story in our current issue, or you can read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2706 


     Revenge of the prairie dog. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/dramatic-prairie-dog-breaks-out/1abgbi77f

     The robots are coming! The robots are coming! And they're going to pick your apples, your oranges, your grapes and even your strawberries. Machines like the greenhouse tomato harvester being worked on at MIT will be more expensive than your kids, but maybe not as expensive as hiring outside help. That's the MIT tomato farm to the right.
     A story in the December 10 edition of The Economist takes a look at agribots and the challenges they face under actual field conditions. Factorybots have been on the job for decades, but they don't have to deal with swaying branches, sliding in mud or figuring out if a strawberry is ripe-red or just red. 
     Farmers who buy bots will definitely have to tailor their operations to accommodate their mechanical helpers, which have had significant impacts already on some crops. California raisin growers, for example, once needed 50,000 seasonal workers. Now, partly because of declining acreage but mostly because of mechanical harvesting, only 20,000 to 30,000 workers are needed. 
     To read The Economist report, click here: http://www.economist.com/search/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15048711 


     Every Friday is jinglebell day in Bristol, Vt. That's because Pat Palmer of Thornapple Farm comes 'round with his pair of four-year-old Percherons to pick up the trash. Jake and Jerry - they're the horses - pull a wagon through town to service the only known horse-drawn trash route in the country. Elizabeth Ferry, Lancaster Farming Vermont correspondent, paid a visit to Pat, Jake and Jerry and wrote a report for our current edition. Or you can read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2692 


     You should see the hare-brained idea they came up with for the dwarf kangaroo. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/troubled-zoo-makes-its-own-zebras/ufer54nq


     You will enjoy good health; that is your form of wealth. That's what the fortune in my cookie said today. Okay, but I could do with a case of the sniffles now and then. 

     The USDA awarded a $25 million contract to Unisys last Thursday that runs for five years, with with an indefinite amount of work to be done and no definite time for it to be finished. Unisys, headquarted in Blue Bell, Pa., has 26,000 employees, works around the world and consults with government agencies and businesses on information technology issues - hardware and software and all the people and processes that are involved in IT.
     This latest contract is for Unisys to operate, maintain and enhance the USDA Reural Development Guaranted Loan System, and Guaranteed Underwriting Systems, which process billions of dollars in loans each year for rural businesses and individuals. Unisys was on board in 1999, when GLS and GUS were first started. The new contract includes a base year, with four one-year options, which are renewable at the discretion of the USDA. 
     The agency also awarded Unisys a five-year contract to maintain and enhance the USDA's Program Funds Control System, which is a key component of the American Recovery and Reinvestmen Act.
    Apparently there's a lot of paid consulting going on in Washington, and not just at the USDA. It's a bit bothersome to think that these kinds of management tasks are handed off to private firms. But then, if the private companies were'nt doing the work, government employees would shoulder the tasks. That could be more expensive in the long run, because government employees don't operate with five-year contracts, they tend to stay around for 25 or 30 years.
     Unless they're elected, then they stick around for life.


     Bats eat bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. So, in spite of the mystery, the mythology, the mistakes surrounding these flying mammals, they are actually a valuable part of the ecosystem. And they're dying by the hundreds of thousands. They're succombing to a fungal disease, white nose syndrome, in a plague which has wildlife experts very worried. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres talked to bat experts about the problem. You can read his report in our current edition, or you can check it out here:    http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2697


     What's really amazing is how fast this guy moves.  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/amazing-3-d-paper-design/1ab2lao1a

     One out of every 10 acres of Iowa farmland is owned by a single woman over the age of 75. Michael Duffy, an Iowa State economist said that fact, plus the aging of the state's working farmers, should see some change in land ownership over the  next several years. 
     For 2009, Iowa farmland prices dropped by 2%, spurred in part by declines in corn, soybean and livestock prices. The average price for an acre of Iowa farmland is now $4,371, the first drop since 1999. In the past decade, that price had risen by 145%, significantly more than the 128% increase posted by the consumer price index. 
  Duffy said the drop wasn't a surprise, but noted that earlier in the year he thought the drop would be closer to 5%. The price of farmland is especially important in Iowa because it is the state's largest single asset. Duffy made his comments to Dan Piller, a reporter for the Des Moines Register.
  He said the future is a ttough nut to crack, and a lot depends on whether or not inflation kicks into the US economy. For Dan Piller's full report on Iowa land prices, click here: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009912170349


     It's like acid on his soul, John Hines, told a group of agribusinessmen, describing his feelings about the mainstream media view of farmers and the environment. Agriculture is not the issue he told the monthly meeting of the Ag Issues Forum in Lancaster. Hines is deputy secretary for water management at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and has been particularly watchful of the state's agricultural community as it struggles to deal with Chesapeake Bay pollution.  He told the group that Pennsylvania's monitoring stations have, with one exception, recorded drops in the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment being borne by the Susquehanna River to the bay. A report on Hines's remarks by yours truly appears in the Lancaster Farming edition due in your mailbox on Saturday.


     So you say you like your fish already frozen, eh?  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/wacky-ice-fishermen-go-to-extremes/1ab87nln3

     And you thought you knew everything about leafcutter ants. Well, you didn't, and you're not alone. Lots is known about them because they are one of the most intensely studied of all insect species. They have complex societies, they create and maintain underground fungus farms, and they look cute carrying around those bits of leaves. Unless the leaves happen to come from your tangerine tree.
     Using their expertly farmed fungi for food, leafcutters have become one of Earth's most successful species.
  Scientists have published thousands of papers about the leafcutters' farming success, but until recently, nobody had ever asked the question, "What do they use for fertilizer?" There are about 250 ant species that live on farmed fungus, but most of them live in colonies of a few thousand individuals, and their garden plots are small.
  Leafcutters inhabit colonies with millions of individuals, and can have farms that produce a ton or more of edible fungus in a year. This puzzled scientists. For humans to farm on a comparable scale, we need to load up our fields with nitrogen, a limiting factor in plant growth. Scientists who looked into the question discovered that leafcutter fungus farms are inhabited by a microbe, Klebsiella, that fixes nitrogen from the air and makes it available to fungi. Rhizobia bacteria perform a similar function with legumes.
  Cameron Currie, a University of Wisconsin bacteriologist who participated in leafcutter studies, says the ants' tricks could help humans develop more efficient ways to get nitrogen to commercial crops. There's a story about the study, written by Brandon Keim, at Wired Magazine's web site. You can read it here:  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/ant-gardening/ 


     Is that asparagus local? Sure. In Santiago.  A 260-seat Washington, D.C., restaurant called Founding Farmers received tons of good press, including enthusiastic mention in Lancaster Farming, for its commitment to buying from local farmers. Turns out the restaurant wasn't living up to its commitment, and was busted by the Washington Post. That upset some people, including our regional editor, Tracy Sutton, who took a look at the situation and wrote an editorial for our current edition. Be sure to check it out.


     Santa's going to be bringing this guy a huge electric bill.  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/guitar-hero-holiday-light-display/1ab3c6wp5

       We'll know by Thursday whether or not Wisconsin's state legislature will go ahead and name Lactococus lactis the state microbe. Representative Gary Hebl, one of the lead authors of Assembly Bill 556, said when he was first approached about adding the microbe to the state's officially sanctioned symbols, his first reaction was, "Uh...why would we do that?"
Uh, because, Gary, without L. lactis, (that's the little charmer shown here) there would be no cheese, and without cheese, the market for those hats that cheeseheads wear to football games, backyard picnics, Sunday school and funerals would just totally fall apart. We can't have that. Not in Wisconsin.
  Actually, the Badger (official wild animal) State has reason to boost the cheese business, and agriculture as a whole. The Honeybee (official insect) State has as its official domestic animal the Holstein cow, and the Trilobite (official fossil) State even has a state soil, which is Antigo silt-loam. The Red Granite (official rock) State, also known as the Galena (official mineral) State, has thousands of jobs, millions of dollars worth of infrastructure and $18 billion in sales every year coming in from cheese.
  So let's give a cheer and raise a glass of the Polka (official dance) State's other favorite beverage (courtesy of Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in a toast (courtesy of GE) to everything cheese in Wisconsin.
  And actually, I have a suggestion for the Assemblymen the next time America's Dairyland (official license plate slogan) is looking for a symbol. My suggestion is...the holes in Swiss cheese. They could call it Wisconsin's Official Nothing.


     Speaking of which (Wisconsin cheese, not "nothing"), our food and family features editor, Anne Harnish, included The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin in a roundup of suggestions for the farmer's bookshelf in our current edition. There are books about canning, cooking, gardening, gophers and a whole tome devoted to Ice Cream U, which, if you have to ask where that is, we're not about to tell you. Buy the book. You'll find Anne's suggestions, just in time for Christmas, in our current edition.


     If Santa likes cute, he's going to bring this little guy whatever he wants. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/i-m-yours-by-jason-mraz/5x7hh2f

     The New Zealand government and the country's Federated Farmers group are at serious odds over bringing cows in from the cold, or their mountain pastures, and housing them in "cubicles." Prime Minister John Key said putting cows into tie stalls for eight months of the year could tarnish the country's international free-range dairy brand. And Agriculture Minister David Carter is seeking advice on how keeping cows in barns fits in with New Zealand's animal welfare code.
     Federated Farmers is backing a plan that would see 16 new farms in the central South Island's MacKenzie basin, with a total of 18,000 cows in stalls. Farmers are saying their "factory-farming" methods cut costs, produce happier, healthier cows and are environmentally friendly.
     Not so fast, say the government and, it seems, an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders. A Facebook page for opponents of the cows-in-stalls idea has 9,142 members. TV New Zealand has a story about the dustup here: http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/govt-farmers-odds-over-factory-farming-3242481?page=9&pagesize=5
     If you'd like to see what the Facebook crowd is saying, go here:   http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=220398793091


     "It depends." That was the answer again and again to farmers' questions about conservation easements at a recent meeting in Richmond, Virginia. Lisa Anne Hawkins, a Harrisonburg attorney who specializes in conservation easements, led a workshop on farmland preservation at the annual meeting of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation. Turns out there are so many variables in preservation that definite answers for an individual situation are hard to come by. Lancaster Farming correspondent Andrew Jenner covered the workshop, and his story is in our current edition. Or you can read it online here: http://lancasterfarming.com/node/2419 


     I just want to see what their spacesuits look like.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3lcgYNyCvU&feature=topvideos  

     G. Why didn't I think of that. Chris  Jagger, who owns and operates Blue Fox Farm in Applegate, Oregon, has turned a 1940s Allis-Chalmers Model G tractor into an all-around electric powered workpony for his approximately 20-acre organic setup. Even with a gas engine, the G isn't exactly a work "horse", but Jagger likes the small tractor's nimble ways around row crops.
     It's clean, quiet, can run really slow and doesn't burn fossil fuels. He does have a conventional tractor for heavier work.
     Jagger isn't the only organic farmer to turn to an electrified G. And he's not the first. Ron Khosla started the trend in the winter of 2001-2002 in his farm shop in New Paltz, New York. He said his interest was driven purely by efficiency and economics, rather than an overwhelming desire to save the planet, but he's happy to do his part. After he posted his methods on the internet, other farmers converted their Gs and told him about it. He stopped counting the conversion stories after he got to 100.
     Jeff Bernard wrote an Associated Press story about Jagger and took the photo you see here. You can read his story at:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120800205_2.html
     The Blue Fox Organics website is here:  http://bluefoxorganics.com/about/
     I couldn't find Ron Khosla's original instructions, but these guys seem to have covered the subject fairly well:  http://www.flyingbeet.com/electricg/ 


     A little more light in the henhouse, figuratively speaking, should result from new USDA rules that call for more transparency and basic protections for poultry growers who operate under contracts with feed companies. Which is just about everybody. Ag Secretry Tom Vilsack announced the new regulations from the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) would take effect on January 4. You can read about the announcement in our current edition, which also gives a website for the new rule, or you can read about it online here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2420 


If you don't care at all about cars, don't click on this link: http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1795775623405767594 

     Egg farmer struggles along on $8-a-dozen organic product. "Poor baby!" you might be thinking. With $8 eggs, you might be thinking about buying a second yacht. And when Alexis Koefoed began selling a few eggs to her neighbors in Vacaville, California, in 2005, she'd soon be selling, not just eggs but poultry meat at $6.50 a pound to consumers and gourmet restaurants in nearby San Francisco.
     Home cooks and chefs both like the taste and freshness they get from her 8,000-bird free-roaming flock. Koefoed and her husband, Eric, found out exactly how much their customers valued the product when an arsonist set a brush fire in September that destroyed two of their chicken houses and killed 1,200 birds. It was the end of their business, the Koefoeds thought.
     But almost before the smoke had cleared, customers, friends and strangers had raised $25,000 to keep the farm going. One weekend, 35 volunteers showed to up rebuild the chicken coops, and Soul Food Farms was back in business.
     After that show of support, she couldn't stop Koefoed told New York Times reporter Christine Muhlke. Not stopping meant more long days with early mornings and late nights. She and Eric both work hard and the farm operates on razor-thin margins. They're definitely not driving driving in a BMW.
     If you think you'd really like to be getting $8 a dozen for eggs, you might want to read the Koefoeds' story first. You can get it here:   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/magazine/29food-t-000.html?scp=6&sq=agriculture&st=cse

     Springerle cookies, anise-flavored "picture" cookies are a Christmas staple in many households with german heritage. The recipes date back to the 15th century, and many elaborate designs, like the one shown here, were stamped onto the confections with wooden molds. Lancaster Farming regional editor Tracy Sutton talked to bakers both in Michigan and Lancaster County about how to succeed with Springerles. It's complicated. Your can read her story in Section B of our current edition, or check it out online here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2414


     One more reason it's nice to live on a farm. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/caught-on-cam-woman-battles-subway-door/6256wp6

     Montana ranchers and developers are wrestling over water, and it may just be a sign of times to come. Groundwater supplies 94 percent of the water  for rural Montanans, and there are at least 80 ongoing studies, like the one shown here, to investigate the quality and quantity of the water coming from the state's wells.
     There are strict regulations on wells pumping more than 35 gallons a minute, which would include just about every conceivable agricultural or industrial user. Wells under 35 gallons a minute are exempt from regulation. 
     And there's the rub.
     Polly Rex, a rancher from Absarokee, about 50 miles west of Billings, grazes cattle on a 1,250-acre pasture with water rights that go back more than a century. Water for her herd comes from a natural spring, not a well. There is currently a subdivision with 80 houses going up next to her fields, and every house in the development will be using water from individual wells.
     At my house, with two adults, a 26-pound dog and occasional visitors, we use about 175 gallons of water a day. Sixty homes like ours would remove 10,500 gallons of water daily from the aquifers that feed into the fields where Polly Rex pastures her animals. If you add a shower-happy teenager or two to the household, water use could outstrip our consumption
     Is that enough to put her out of business? Maybe, maybe not. But Ms Rex is adamant about what she sees as a need to regulate all water users in Big Sky country. Associated Press writer Michael Brown wrote about the conflict in a story which appeared in yesterday's Washington Post. You can read  it here:  
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/03/AR2009120300302.html 


     Some retired thoroughbreds have been sentenced to life, and they are definitely not saying "nay" to their treatment. The Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation has place four retired racehorses with the Plymouth County Sheriff's Farm in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where they will be tended to by inmates. The hope is that the horses will help rehabilitate the prisoners, and teach them skills that could help them find jobs when their sentences are finished. A story about the program appears in the monthly Mid-Atlantic Horse section in this week's edition of Lancaster Farming.


     You gotta believe...
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/farmer-discovers-holy-egg/1ablf2leh

     A billion people will go to bed hungry tonight, 35 years after Henry Kissinger told the first world food conference in Rome that the planet was on the cusp of providing enough food for all its people. People who attended this year's United Nations Food Conference in Rome saw how horribly off-base Kissinger's prediction was. And it could get worse, according to a recent article in The Economist.

     There are plenty of technical problems to increasing the world's food supply to feed an expected nine billion people by the year 2050. How do we produce more food without more water (because there is no more water), and more land (there's almost no room for more cropland). 
     Complicating the sparsity of resources are the issues of climate change, political resistance to new technology - particularly genetically modified crops -  national protectionism and erratic markets.
     The food shortage nightmare isn't so much that people go to bed hungry, it's that too many of them don't wake up in the morning. To read The Economist article, go here   http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14915144
     
     While others my be confused by a public option for health insurance, the National Farmers Union is adamant in its support of the idea. Farmers are especially challenged by healthcare costs because they lack the group buying power of large employers. Farmers are also generally older and work in what insurance companies consider a hazardous occupation. Lancaster Farming regional edition editor Tracy Sutton sat in on an NFU teleconference last week on the health care issue, and prepared a report which you can read in our current issue. Or you can check it out here:  http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2402 
     
     Nanu meets Jaws. Awesome.  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/killer-whale-attacks-great-white/26i337r7

       If you feed a chicken nothing but cottonseed meal, she'll die in a week. If you eat nothing but cottonseed meal, you'll die too. It'll just take a little longer.
     This is true even though cottonseed is a rich source of protein, and a widely used feed for cattle. The problem for non-ruminants, like chickens, pigs, fish and humans, is a substance called gossypol. Ruminant stomachs render gossypol harmless, and the animals are able to digest the protein in cottonseed. 
     Keerti S. Rathore, a researcher at Texas A&M University, has found a way to genetically engineer the cotton plant so the seeds, and only the seeds, contain no gossypol.  The stems, leaves and flowers in Rathore's genetically engineered cotton do contain gossypol, which serves as a kind immune system for the plant. Geneticists discovered a way to eliminate gossypol from the whole plant in  the 1950s, but those plants were ravaged by disease and insects. 
     Rathore points out that his genetic tinkering removes something from cotton's DNA. Because there's nothing added, as in the case, for example, of Roundup resistant corn, there should be no philosophical objections to its use as a crop. Which would be a good thing, because the cotton currently being grown in the world could fill the protein requirements for 500 million people.
     Betsy Blaney, a writer for the Associated Press, prepared a report on the potential impact of cotton as a food-plus-fiber crop. You can read it here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-farm-scene-edible-cottonseed,0,748979.story


     The price of farmland has dropped around Grove Hill, Virginia, making it affordable for younger farmers. Brad Foltz, two of his brothers and their dad recently bought 170 acres of flat bottomland along the south fork of the Shenandoah River. They'll be growing mostly alfalfa for the region's horses. They paid $4,300 an acre for the land, which would have sold for $10,000 just a few years ago. Lancaster Farming correspondent Andrew Jenner talked to the Foltz family and prepared a report which you can read in our current edition. Or you can read it here:   http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2409 


     Another 30 seconds and they could have changed the oil. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/funny-pompiers-fireman-car-crash-wash-goodspeed/30250F956DAF3941D44C30250F956DAF3941D44C
  
 
      

     Don't mess with his sheep. And don't be riding your bike past his flock, or hiking too close, and don't be a coyote or a bear or anything smaller than a raging bull elephant. 
     Sam Robinson, a sheepherder like his father and grandfather before him, uses white Great Pyrenees dogs, like the one shown here, to keep his 1,300 sheep safe from predators. He pastures his flock on grassland leased from the Army near Camp Hale, Colorado. That state has become a mecca for whose lives are all about outdoor recreation.
     However, if you happen to run - or in the case of Renee Legro, bike - into a flock of sheep being guarded by dogs, you could be in trouble.
     Legro, who lives in Eagle, a town near Camp Hale, was participating in a bicycle race when she was attacked by Robinson's dogs, who saw as a threat to their flock. Her ER doc said he lost count of the number of stitches he used to sew Legro back up.
     Although Colorado law exempts livestock owners from lawsuits based on dog bites, the Legros successfully sued the Robinsons for harboring dangerous dogs. There was anger on both sides, and both sides had their sympathizers. It's an interesting story about the right to ranch vs. the right to recreate. Los Angeles Times writer Nicholas Riccardi wrote about the conflict in today's edition. You can read it here:  http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-sheepdog-attack27-2009nov27,0,7742604.story


     Getting charged up over electric rates, a group of farmers from Lebanon County met recently to talk about pooling their buying power to lower their electric bills. Organized by the Lebanon Valley Chamber of Commerce, the meeting was prompted by the impending removal of rate caps on electric generation that have been in place in the region since 1996. Lancaster Farming correspondent Sue Bowman was at the meeting and prepared a report for this week's issue. You can also read her story here:  http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2406


     What? You stayed home today? And you didn't turn on your TV? Well, here's what you missed: http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/black-friday-begins-count-to-x-mas/65j4w4r

     If you're climbing the walls to harvest your  strawberries, lettuce and chives, then you're part of the newest trend in urban farming. Green Living Technologies in Rochester, N.Y., is expanding their successful green roof business into a purveyor and installer of edible walls.
     George Irwin, CEO and company founder, got the idea for edible walls after his young son and daughter asked him to plant lettuce seeds in a  2'x2' panel headed for a green roof project.
     Irwin was skeptical, but he planted the seeds. And got a bumper crop of lettuce. Now his company has built edible walls in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and other locations. The panels of either stainless steel or aluminum, are expensive, about $125 a square foot, but they can work in areas where space is tight. At a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, for example, clients tend a six-foot-high, 30-foot-long living wall that produces, among other crops, tomatoes, cucumbers and baby watermelons. 
     Watermelons? Just how "baby" are they, I wonder.
     New York Times reporter Ken Belson wrote about living walls, and you can read his story here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/business/energy-environment/19WALLS.html?scp=1&sq=green%20wall%20rochester&st=cse 

     What if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and then there's another tunnel? That's the question Manheim, Pa., dairyman Steve Hershey asked the audience at the monthly Ag Issues Forum sponsored by the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
     He said that while he and his two brothers are in fairly good shape, it's only partly because they sold a farm in 2009 to reduce their debt load and expenses.
     Two other speakers at the Forum, John Frey from the Center for Dairy Excellence, and Lowell Fry, an ag lender with Fulton Bank, agreed that the dairy picture is grim and nobody knows for sure when it's going to get better. One thing they all agreed on - not everybody is going to make it. There's a story about the meeting by yours truly in our current edition.


     Talk about fouling out...  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/marriage-proposal-rejected-at-basketball-game/83621A661DA53E6B11E283621A661DA53E6B11E2










     

   Saying he's "...tired of buying the same horse twice," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other Obama administration officials have pledged to not offer food aid to North Korea as an inducement to sit down for nuclear disarmament talks with Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.

    In the past, food aid has been offered on condition that the North Koreans talk, the aid has been delivered, and the North Koreans reneged. It happened 13 times during the Bush and Clinton administrations.

    But not this time, the administration is saying. Talk or go hungry. South Korea has already gotten tough on food aid to their neighbors to the north. Under President Lee Myung-bak's direction, the south in 2007 ended a decade-long run of food shipments, depriving the north of a million tons of food a year, and enough fertilizer to let North Korea grow an additional half-million tons on its own.

    Kim Jong Il, North Korea's "Dear Leader" can never be counted on for a rational reaction, but maybe it'll work if he ponders the idea of his countrymen starving to death. Or maybe not.

    Another question is this: Can we be counted on to withhold food as we watch North Korea's children starving to death?

    We already know the answer to that one.

    There's a story about the situation in yesterday's Washington Post by reporter Blaine Harden. You can read it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/18/AR2009111801532.html

    Privy bags come in from the cold tomorrow at a first-ever in the world/universe museum exhibit in Ephrata, Pa. The outhouse, long a staple of rural and small-town existence was no place for decoration until young women from Lancaster County developed this unique way to demonstrate their needlework skills. Privy bags were intended to hold a supply of paper and the occasional Sears catalog, but many of them never made it out to the back of the house. They looked too nice. Anne Harnish, Lancaster Farming food and family features editor, visited the Theodore R. Sprecher Museum for an advance look at the exhibit, and did a story for the issue due in your mailbox tomorrow.

A Hail Mary for the record books: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/-Trick-or-panic-NAIA-college-completes-the-w?urn=ncaaf,203690

     I signed up for Facebook's Farmville today, and it doesn't look like a whole lot of fun. I am in a definite minority. There are more than 65 million Facebookers signed onto the Farmville site. They do things like grow and market a strawberry crop in four hours. They exchange gifts. They help each other out - harvesting, planting, branding calves, slaughtering chickens, hacking rattlesnakes to pieces and hanging cattle rustlers.

     Actually, I don't know if any of that's true, because I don't have time, REALLY, to play massively online games (is that a MOG?), and I suspect that few of the roughly 960,000 actual u.s. FARMERS HAVE TIME TO DELVE INTO TIMESUCKEY COMPUTER GAMES.
     dON'T GET ME WRONG. i LOVE COMPUTERS. rEALLY. BUT IF I SPEND TIME ON MY COMPUTER, I NEED TO BE EITHER DOING SOMETHING USEFUL OR LEARNING HOW TO DO SOMETHING USEFUL. lIKE, IF YOU'RE A MECHANIC, DO YOU PUNCH OUT AND THEN GO JUGGLE YOUR WRENCHES?
     SOMETIMES THE LEARNING PART IS FRUSTRATING.
     DID YOU NOTICE, FOR EXAMPLE, THAT THE COLOR OF THE TYPE IN THIS POSTING IS WEIRD? AND THAT IT'S ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS? AND THERE'RE SOME STRANGE THINGS GOING ON WITH THE SIZES OF THE TYPE? i DIDN'T TRY ANY OF THAT. aND YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO POST IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE  

     IT'S JUST LIKE SHOUTING! IT'S RUDE!

     hOWEVER, TODAY WHEN i SIGNED ON TO BLOGSPOT, IT WOULDN'T LET ME TYPE IN UPPER AND LOWER CASE LETTERS. I DON'T KNOW WHY. I TRIED TO FIGURE IT OUT. EVERYTIME I COME HERE, I GET A NEW SURPRISE AND USUALLY I CAN FIGURE OUT A WAY AROUND IT. BUT TODAY, AFTER SPENDING SOME ANNOYING TIME ON FARMVILLE, AND THEN COMING OVER HERE TO BLOGSPOT AND MORE FRUSTRATION, I FIGURED, I'M JUST GOING TO DO IT THIS WAY. MAYBE I'LL HAVE BETTER LUCK TOMORROW.

     I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE, BY THE WAY, NOT TOTALLY ENCHANTED WITH FARMVILLE. THE FACEBOOK SITE CALLED "NOT PLAYING FARMVILLE" HAS 1.6 MILLION FOLLOWERS, ABOUT DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF ACTUAL FARMERS. MAYBE I'LL MESS AROUND IN FARMVILLE FOR A BIT LONGER, SEE IF I CAN CATCH THE MAGIC. I MIGHT EVEN TRY TO SEND YOU A GIFT.

     I'LL BE BRINGING IT 'ROUND IN A SPREADER.

     Warren Buffet's new train set cost a mere $26.3 billion. Buffett has Montana farmers worried, and he has environmentalists scratching their heads. Buffet's train set is called the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line and it has a virtual rail monopoly in Montana. The company owns 90 percent of the tracks in Big Sky country, and has tended in the past to act the way you would expect a monopoly to act.
     When diesel prices went up over the past two years, shipping rates for a bushel of wheat or barley went up, sometimes as much as 20 cents overnight. When diesel prices fell earlier this year, so did the cost to ship a bushel of grain. But it took awhile - four months, Allen Merrill, president of the Montana Farmers Union, and it didn't come down very far. A mere two cents.
     And the environmentalists? Well, sure, trains use less fuel per ton mile than trucks. But Burlington Northern's car are filled mostly with coal. So you're using a fuel-friendly method to move mountains of one of the world's biggest pollutants. That's almost as complicated a calculus as cap-and-trade.
     Merrill and his fellow growers are hoping Buffett will pay them a visit and listen sympathetically to their concerns.
     A couple of posts by Wall Street Journal blogger Michael Corkery outlined the concerns of farmers and environmentalists. You can read them here http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/11/04/maybe-buffett-just-likes-playing-with-trains/ and here http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/11/04/big-issues-with-burlington-northern-in-big-sky-state/

     Thieves have been hitting farm equipment dealers hard in recent weeks, with a couple of Pennsylvania dealers reporting losses of $100,000. According to Dave Close, operations manager for the Northeast Equipment Dealers Association, they are currently cooperating with a dozen police departments and 30 or 40 dealers who've been robbed. A surveillance camera caught these images of a tractor trailer pulling into a dealership and apparently making off with some pricey equipment. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres interviewed  area dealers about the situation, and prepared a report for tomorrow's edition.

     When chickens go bad, people can act like dumb clucks. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/when-chickens-go-bad/uf7f2sdc

     

     If Sam Mahon ever asks if you want a cup of coffee, say, "I think I'd rather have tea." Mahon is a sculptor in Wellington, New Zealand, who recently polished off a likeness of Nick Smith, the country's environment minister. Mahon's medium was dried cow manure from an organic dairy farm. The Associated Press story about the Nick Smith bust didn't go into much detail about the artist's method except to say that he first ground his medium in a coffee grinder.

     Mahon's starting point with the piece was his belief that Smith isn't doing enough to reduce dairy farm pollution. Mahon listed his artwork on TradeMe, a New Zealand auction web site. The item drew a torrent of comments, and a spirited bidding war. "Boxerlady" earned the right to put Nick Smith's head on her mantle with a winning bid of $3,080 of New Zealand's dollars, or $2,200 US.
     According to Mahon, he mixed the manure with resin and polished it with beeswax so it looks like bronze. It doesn't smell and should last forever, he said. And it's hollow. Which he says is fitting.
     Smith took the "tribute" with good humor, but called it crap art. And the picture that accompanies this posting? Yep. That's the straight poop on Nick Smith.
     And about that coffee grinder....
     A bidder asked Mahon if he still uses it for its intended purpose. Here's what he said:
     "yes. But we live in an old flour mill, and tainted coffee is small beans to the fact that we have a resident rat population who seem to think they are paying the rates. One walked past two nights ago while i was watching Friends. He was shuffling a bar of soap across the floor. I asked my partner if she would mind terribly if i shot him (the rifle is always close at hand:You know, dairy farmers; Ku Klux Klan) She said no, that it would wake the baby. Tainted coffee? No big deal."

     One way to deal with climate change could be to plant more crops, according to a study by researchers from Purdue University and the universities of Colorado and Maryland. According to their report, conversion to agriculture results in cooling, while conversin from agriculture generally results in warming. Urbanization and conversion to bare soild have the largest warming impacts. Their report is summarized in the current edition of Lancaster Farming.
      Waterbeds for cows? Next thing you know they'll be watching reruns of "HappyDays."
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vw5Gko78Y0


 

     






"A Song for the Horse Nation"  should have museum visitors singing the praises of Smithsonian Institution curator Emil Her Many Horses, a member of the Ogalala Lakota nation. The 98 artifacts in the exhibit include the horse mask shown here.
     There's also a narrative about the history of the horse in the New World, which begin and ends before there even was a New World. Originally native to the American continent, horses became extinct there. They were reintroduced first by the Spanish, the by the French, the Dutch and the English.
     The traveling exhibits opens for an eight-month stay at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City, after which it will move to the Smithsonian until 2013. Then it is expected too tour the country.
     You can read more about the exhibit in the Mid-Atlantic Horse section in the Lancaster Farming edition due in your mailbox tomorrow. Or there's an online story you can read here:   http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/a-song-for-the-horse-nation/
     Ohio voters on Tuesday cast a decisive vote for the establishment of an animal care standards board that will determine minimum standards of care for farm-raised animals. The vote was 64 percent in favor of a board, and 36 percent against. The board would consist of agricultural, consumer and technical members. For the full story, read the Lancaster Farming issue due in your mailbox tomorrow, or read the article by staff writer Chris Torres here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2370
     Baby has her cousin over for lunch.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH8MIKni3Dg






     

     French farmers are always up in the air about something. But this is something they're happy about. It's a service that lets them analyze soil quality from orbiting satellite imagery. According to an article in the Nov. 5 edition of The Economist, a company called Sevepi provides detailed analyses several times a year of hectare-sized (about 2.5 acres) areas for about $15. Precise prescriptions for growing crops can be obtained quickly, and less expensively than with traditional methods, by measuring electromagnetic radiation reflected from farmland. 
    The spectrum of this radiation can reveal, with surprising precision, the properties of the soil, the quantity of crop being grown, and the levels in those crops of chlorophyll, various minerals, moisture and other indicators of their quality. If recent and forecast weather data are added to the mix, detailed maps can be produced indicating exactly how, where and when crops should be grown. To read the full article, click here http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14793411

     An NPR business reporter interviewed a specialty glass manufacturer last Friday morning as I was driving to a PASA conference in Chambersburg, Pa. The business owner is against the ropes. A collapsed economy took away his market - replacement windows for existing commercial and institutional buildings, and new product for new construction. At one time, there were 80 workers at his plant, operating the towering and expensive machines he needed to produce for his market.  He's going to hang on, he hopes, until business picks up. But he's never going to get big again, he said. Instead of 80 people, he'll got back to 15, tops.
     When I started writing about agriculture, way back in the last century, the  mantra you heard over and over again, was "Get big or get out." Some of the guys I knew, back in the day, got big AND got out, and not of their own free will.
      Sometimes I think in agriculture even when we know the history we tend to repeat it. Maybe the times they aren't achanging.


     For me, this video laid an egg.      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1439023/funny_chicken_video/

     

     You absototally need one of these credit cards. It comes with a concierge. That means that if you are anywhere in the world, and need to know where to pick up a pound or two of pate de foie gras (which is French - without the accents - for "chopped liver from a grossly abused goose"), then whoever answers the phone in New Delhi will help you find a source for your favorite mean meat. You might be on your own, though, if you need your pate purveyor to add a little lard and some truffles to your precious little market bag, hand-knotted of the finest hemp by a deserving mother in some tropical fair-trade enclave.
     Or maybe you're not in the market for pate. Maybe you need new inflations, a set of Tingley's for the ones the pig chewed, a 10-gallon drum of WD-40, or a tube of rust converter for your Sunday-go-to-meeting F-150.
     Call your concierge. Or if your barn help calls in sick some afternoon - call New Delhi. Maybe they'll send Ashley Shelton, their spokespersperson, whoever that is. All I know is Ashley must be a heckuva' guy and in the top one percent of all the people in America, because only the best of the best get to carry the Black Card. And for only $495 a year. Which is only slightly more - $495, in fact - than you pay for your regular card which doesn't even come close to having a concierge.
     Oh, and did I mention that the card is black because it's made with carbon? Actual precious-grade carbon that could be diamonds with enough pressure and time? But you don't have to wait a million or two years for your black card to pay off. And it's because that carbon is sequestered. So you know where I'm going with this, right? 
     I'm thinking cap and trade, baby! Cap. And. Trade.
     So what are you doing just sitting there reading this? Get out your checkbook. Make one out for $495. Send it in. You say you're worried about not being among "the best?" 
     Hey. You're a farmer, right?
     What could be better?
     For more information about this incredible offer, click here  www.youvegottabekidding.com  Or you could just Google Visa Black Card.

     
     If you want to race your goat in next year's Falmouth. Goat Race, you'll need an entry fee of $4 and you'll need a goat. Fido's owners here didn't quite get the goat message, but a good time was had by all anyway, because the point of the 30th annual Falmouth Goat Race was for a good time to be had by all. Because, when you really stop and think about it, what's the point of racing goats? Lancaster Farming correspondent Michelle Kunjapu stopped in to visit the merriment, took a few pictures and wrote a story. You'll find it in our current edition, and also here http://lancasterfarming.com/node/2347 


     This guy has a dog that dribbles. I have a dog that drools.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mIyMRPV8kg
 . 

     Fresh, local tomatoes stop D.C. traffic. First Lady Michelle Obama's visits to the Vermont Avenue Farmers Market also helped draw foot traffic and actual sales for the 19 vendors at the seasonal market.
     The market is the fifth in the city run by Freshfarm Markets. The nonprofit group had permission to close off a block of Vermont Avenue in the heart of the city from 1 to 8 p.m. Thursdays. 
     When the market opened for the first time in September, Mrs. Obama addressed the crowd of shoppers and vendors, and told them she had never seen so many people so excited about fruits and vegetables. She didn't say whether or not any of the produce had come from the White House garden. Before heading back home, she filled a basket with local produce, cheese and chocolate milk.
     If you'd like to pick up a few things for your fridge, better hurry. The market closes down for the season tomorrow. To read more, and to see a video of shoppers' reactions, click here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2009/09/17/VI2009091703565.html?sid=ST2009091704578
     

     This delectable confection looks like another inch on the waist, but it's actually a healthy pumpkin-cranberry spice bundt cake made with just a third cup of oil. You'll find the recipe - along with a whole batch of whole-grain recipes - in this coming Saturday's edition of Lancaster Farming. It's in the Food and Family section.



And you think American TV is bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYXObIS5_AM