No moos is good moos, according to Belinda Parmar, who complained to her readers in The Times of London this week that Farmville gives her nightmares. Farmville is the Facebook phenomenon that allows gamers to exchange virtual gifts of, for example, cows, ducks, hay, labor and a dizzying array of goods and services that exist only in the minds and hard drives of the 80 million or so Facebookers who play it. About 20 percent of the Facebook community is hooked on Farmville, and about one percent of all the people in the world play it. And there are six female players for every four males, according to Parmar. Why's that? Because it helps women stay minimally connected when they don't have time to be fully connected. It's like saying, "You're not important enough for me to visit today, or to call, or to write a letter or a long email, but here...have a sheep." Parmar is a bit of a Farmville non-fan, and you can read her comments here: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7137288.ece

     Crystal Yoder moved out of her comfort zone last year when she began her reign as dairy princess for Mifflin County, Pa. "I've become much more of a people person, more outgoing and less shy," she told Anne Harnish, Lancaster Farming food and family features editor. Yoder, the fourth youngest of 11 children, lives and helps out on her family's 170-acre farm, and traveled the county to talk about the virtues of the milk and milk products that start in the Yoder dairy barn, where 60 Holsteins are on a three-times-a-day milking schedule. You can read about Princess Crystal's year-long reign in Section B of our current edition, or you can see it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2978 


     How to move 40 tons of beef with just your voice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk2EkaB139E

    New! From Monsanto! Healthy French Fries! The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given Monsanto a GRAS (Generally Regarded as Safe) notification on oil produced from its Vistive Gold brand of soybeans. The bean produces oil with less saturated fat and reduced or no trans fats according to a news release from the company. Consumers looking for healthier alternatives should welcome products made from the newly approved beans, and growers should benefit from premium prices from the companies that make those products. No word in the news release about how much seed for the new variety will cost. You can read the news release here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/37210420/Improved_Soybean_Oil_Achieves_Milestone_That_Will_Advance_Development_of_Foods_With_Reduced_Saturated_Fat_and_No_Trans_Fats_Milestone_Enables_Food_Companies_to_Develop_and_Test_Foods_Containing_Oil_from_Vistive_R_Gold_Soybeans 

     Before you torch that charcoal, you might be interested in knowing how the beef in your fridge was like before it became the beef in your fridge. A group of FFAers from Berks County's Conrad Weiser High School got to know more about beef one recent afternoon than most of us get to know in a lifetime.  Christopher Raines, an assistant professor meat science at Penn State, used a side-by-side comparison of an Angus steer and a dairy beef steer, to demonstrate to the group the finer points of choice, prime, marbling, aging and other qualities. One surprising fact was the difference between the Angus and dairy beef carcass yields. Both animals had live weights of about 1,400 pounds, but the Angus cross carcass weighed 934 pounds, while the dairy beef animal came in at 764 pounds. Lancaster Farming correspondent Sue Bowman went with the students, and wrote a report about the experience for our current edition. You can also read it here:  http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2970

     A message for "LOST" fans: John Locke is coming, and he's coming for you. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/breaking-new-underwater-v_b_574170.html

     A Canadian construction crew has been working like beavers for the past 40 years or so to build one of the world's largest dams. Actually, they are beavers, and their 2,800-foot-long dam is in Alberta's Wood Buffalo National Park. The dam might still be undiscovered were it not for ecologist Jean Thie, who was searching Google's earth imagery from cameras in outer space. Thie said two smaller dams have been spotted being built out from the main dam, and could eventually result in a huge dam structure more than half-a-mile long. Typical beaver dams are more like 30 to 300 feet long and rarely reach 1,500 feet. The Wood Buffalo park rangers would like to get a closer look at the dam, but its virtually inaccessible by foot, vehicle or horse, and there's not enough open water to land a plane. You can read more about the dam at
http://news.discovery.com/animals/beaver-dam-canada-space.html


     From dairy cows to zonkeys and pumpkins. When dairy prices plummeted last year, the Norz family of Somerset County, N.J., made the difficult decision to get out of the milk business and into the education/agritainment arena. Norz Hill Farm dates back to 1920, when it was begun by Rich Norz, Jr.'s, grandfather. At one time, there were 700 animals on the farm, with 300 cows milking. The family won awards and produced some outstanding AI sires, but the herd was in the red. Norz says their new mission is to educate their neighbors about agriculture through their agritainment venture. That's where the zonkey - a cross between a donkey and a zebra - comes in. And the llamas, alpacas, peacocks, pumpkins, the corn maze and and other ventures. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres visited Norz Hill recently, and prepared a report for our current edition. Or you can read it here http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2966


     Canine mother of the year, blah-blah-blah-etc-etc. If she's got enough milk for 21 pups, shouldn't a breed association be looking at her genetics? http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/walrus-mom-baby-form-close-bond/263z29a4

They're high on Highland cattle. Teri Eberhart grew up on a dairy farm a few miles south of Bedford, Pa., where she now lives with her husband, Greg, and 60 or so Highland cattle. When she began dating Greg, he'd have to help her feed the cows before they left for the movie, and for Greg, the chore soon became a labor of love. When the couple married, they bought a farm and few Highland cattle. They appreciated the breed's gentle nature, easy birthing and low maintenance. The Highlanders graze on just about anything and, thanks to their warm, shaggy coats, the fat they grow tends to marble the meat rather than insulate the body. Lancaster Farming correspondent Linda Williams called on the Eberharts and told their story in our current edition. Or you can read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2972


     Another whey to produce power is being developed in, of all places, Greece. Georgia Antonopoulou, a biochemical engineer at the University of Patras, in the city of Patras, is working on a fuel cell that produces electricity from whey. Traditional fuel cells typically employ a catalyst, usually platinum, to oxidize hydrogen into water and free electrons. Microbial fuel cells, which is what they're working on in Patras, use bacteria as a catalyst. Bacteria within the anaerobic fuel-cell chamber metabolize the whey (or a wide array of other organic feedstuffs), which, in the absence of oxygen, creates an electrical current. Electrical output from the first microbial fuel cell experiments was dismal, with an efficiency rating of 2 percent. Dr. Antonopoulou and her crew discovered that there were microbes in the whey which interfered with the process. When they sterilized the whey, efficiency shot up to 25 percent. Amazing stuff. And they're just getting started. You can read a report of the work in The Economist here:  http://www.economist.com/science-technology/technology-monitor/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16152385


     Run for your life! It's Tyrannosaurus turtle!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwQ4hDsP_jg&feature=related

     There's a new bacterium in Craig Venter's lab. Its mom is a computer and its midwife is a goat. In a years-long, $40 million project, Venter and his team inserted an artificial genome made from artifical DNA into a bacterium that naturally infects goats. Maybe you recognize it in the photo to the right. The team bought strings of artificial DNA from a company called Blue Heron (http://www.blueheronbio.com/services), then, following a computer-generated sequence, combined them into a genome some 750,000 units long. (I'm not sure how long a "unit" is but I'm guessing it's a bit less than an inch.) Before they actually transformed the goat bacterium into what Venter is calling a new self-replicating life form, the team removed 14 pathogenic genes in case the new life crashed out of the lab and started chasing goats. Some people, like the Pope, think Venter is trying to play God. And President Obama wants a report on his desk within six months that will tell him whether or not the general populace needs to worry about new life forms, considering, perhaps, the problems we have with the current ones. Venter's news has caused hope in some quarters, despair in others, according to this report in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/21cell.html.
     Venter says he doesn't want to play God, all he really wants to do is make gas from algae. Part of the news the Times didn't see fit to print was the fact that the researchers actually encoded words into their genome, words like the names of all 46 researchers in the project along with quotes from James Joyce and others. Nice to know that scientists playing God can have a sense of humor. I've often thought that if I hadn't ventured into factory work and journalism, I, myself, might have been a scientist. And, light years ahead of Venter, I've been converting frijoles into gas ever since I can remember.

     Sod in a week? Seed to grass? You betcha! If you could cut a year out of the time it takes to grow 200 square feet of sod, and reduce the weight of the final product by more than a ton, you'd think the world would be beating a path to your greenhouse door. But Jim Anderson, a Utah landscaper who has more than two decades of experience with the heavy stuff, is finding it a challenge to convince the market of the merits of his roots-and-blades-only product. That's it, in the photo, ready to roll. The sod is grown on trays in greenhouses, ready to be rolled up and put down in about a week. Regular sod takes a year to produce. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres visited Marvin King, a Manheim, Pa., farmer who is currently working with Anderson to perfect the growing technique and to devleop a local market. You can read the report in Saturday's edition, or you can check it out here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2969


     I don't know why this reminds me of a prom date. None of mine, of course. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/watch-man-and-gorilla-s-amazing-reunion/621j9tf

     Proposed remedies for global warming are like treating a nosebleed with a tourniquet around the patient's neck, according to Matt Ridley, a Brit who writes about science and money. He's written a book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, in which he says that human ingenuity will solve the problems bedeviling this planet with its growing population, limited resources and bumbling governments. There is one unlimited resource - human ingenuity - according to Ridley that will solve the problem of feeding an additional two billion people by the end of this century. And, he says, thanks in large measure to GMO crops, we could all be enjoying more and better food produced on less land and using less water and fertilizer than we use today. He thinks we could even return some current farmland back to wilderness. If you are looking for hope, and a reason to believe in the future, you may well find them between the pages of this book, which is available at Amazon.com. And if you're looking for a review of the tome itself, you can find it in the current edition of The Economist, here: http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16103826 

     A raw milk producer in Lancaster County drew the attention of FDA inspectors who visited his farm in February. The farmer, Daniel Allgyer, turned the inspectors away. They came back with a federal search warrant on April 20, looking for evidence that he was shipping raw milk across state lines. It's an interesting cat-and-mouse story, and you think you know who's the cat and who's the mouse, but then again maybe you don't. There's a story about Dan and his early-morning visitors on page one of our current edition, or you can read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2955


     I think I could vote for this guy just to see what would happen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7fhIO7DG0&feature=popt00us0f

     Ben Allnutt's family has been farming since 1763 in Maryland's Montgomery County but, he told a county planning board meeting in April, "It just takes one bad business decision to slam the door, put the 'For Sale' sign up and you're gone." Allnutt's farm is part of the county's 93,000-acre agricultural reserve, one of the country's most successful farm preservation efforts. The photo shows one of their more picturesque pastoral vistas. Although the county's farmers are in a perfect position to take advantage of the farm-to-consumer movement, they must deal with the sometimes brutal realities of economic cycles. A county task force is looking into the increasing conflicts between farmers and suburban residents, according to reporter Morgan Tierney. You can read her report on the Washington Post website here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/AR2010051203032.html

     Corn planting is ahead of schedule from New York to the Virginias, thanks to a warm April and excellent conditions for field work. A cold spell and even some frosty nights put the brakes on a bit earlier this week, but growers throughout the Lancaster Farming readership area report a good start. Staff writer Chris Torres reports in tomorrow's edition that 54 percent of the Pennsylvania corn crop has already been planted, nearly double the 28 percent that was in the ground last year at this time, and well ahead of the 47 percent five-year average. In New York, 40 percent of the crop has been planted, and in Maryland  and Delaware, the figures are 74 and 82 percent, respectively. And, as you can see from staff photographer Stan Hall's photo, haying has already commenced in much of the region. You can read the story online here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2957


     Yeah, but how good are they at fixing a top unloader? http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/sky-high-roller-coaster-fix/26vawwmj

     Health insurance. 401-K. Vision care. Paid vacation. Fresh tomatoes. As corporations continue to tighten their belts and cut employee benefits budgets, one of the newest perks is a company garden. In Purchase, NY, at the world headquarters for PepsiCo, the company garden is in its second year. Last year, 200 of the Purchase location's 1,450 employees signed up for garden plots, but so far only 75 have committed to gardening, and a lot of those plots are still weedy. Kim Severson, writing in yesterday's New York Times, visited Purchase and also talked to HR departments around the country about employee gardens. These corporate plots of dirt spring from growing attention to sustainability and a rising interest in gardening, Severson found. They also reflect an economy that calls for creative ways to build workers’ morale and health. You can read her story here: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/dining/12gardens.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

     Sew...you like pincushhions. Until the mid-19th century, pins and needles were expensive and treasured by their owners. Around 1850, steel prices dropped dramatically and mass production techniques made these sewing necessities commonplace. Victorian women were enthusiastic about their sewing circles and projects, and pincushions became popular. Antique pincushions available today show how committed, and even competitive, Victorian women were with the homes for their tools. Lancaster Farming correspondent Linda Sarubin takes a look at pincushion collections in our current edition. You can read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2935


     Hope takes a taxi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXrSJpQ_tk&feature=popular

     If they call it a party, why is everybody so miserable? What you see here is a representation of a day in the U.S. Senate, in 1856, when Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with his gold-handled cane. Things are not quite so physical anymore, but they're not much better, according to Joe Reeder, a Washington lawyer and former assistant secretary of the Army. Reeder, writing in the current edition of the AARP Bulletin, has a remarkably simple idea that he believes would help to soften the bitterness across the aisle in both houses of Congress. His solution? Get rid of the aisle. Seat everybody alphabetically either by last name or by state. And if Arlen and Olympia can't get themselves settled and pay attention to Senate business, then maybe Olympia will just have to switch seats with Richard. Or Arlen with Debbie. Or somebody will have to go sit in the hall until Joe comes along and gives them a talking to. Not that Joe doesn't have HIS problems, as we all know. It's actually a neat, common-sense, no-cost real solution to a real problem, so you know it'll never get anywhere in Washington. You can fantasize along with Joe Reeder here: http://bulletin.aarp.org/opinions/othervoices/articles/opinion_break_up_the_political_parties.html

     WHAT'S FOR DINNER! Nicole Reynolds is a city-born-and-raised singer-songwriter who went to college and heard about all the horrible things farmers did to their animals and so she became a vegetarian. She's done well in the music world, with successful tours and four albums to date. It was while she was on tour that she heard of WWOOF, Worlwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. The opportunities are to provide unpaid labor in exchange for room and board. Reynolds worked on several European farms, then came back to the U.S. to work on Three Cheers Farm in Northeast, Pa. Three Cheers has a small sheep operation, and Reynolds learned that it is possible raise animals in such a way that she's comfortable using them as a food source. She's no longer a vegetarian. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres went to New Jersey to visit Reynolds. You can read his story in our current edition, or check it out here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2942
For a sample of Nicole's song stylings, go here: http://www.nicolereynoldsmusic.com/videos.html


    The news business - there'll always be ups and downs.  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/yo-yo-imposter-sneaks-onto-tv-show/6dgq8oq

     Jake Guest grows organic strawberries at his farm near Montpelier, Vermont. He hires about 20 local workers to help around the farm, but when it comes time to pick and weed the berries, he advertises for help in the local newspaper, plus one newspaper from each of two neighboring states, plus a newspaper in either Florida or Texas. He plans to hire two workers from Jamaica, spend $1,000 to transport them to Vermont, pay them at least $10 an hour and provide them with housing. The way Associated Press writer Lisa Rathke explains it, Jake Guest must be an awfully nice guy. And perhaps he is, and he might do all of the above and more even without the Department of Labor H2-A regulation covering the use of immigrant labor. Domestic workers, Guest says, won't do the work. He pays the price, he says, because..."If you've got strawberries to pick, you hire professional pickers." You can read Rathke's story here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-food-and-farm-farm-labor,0,6088431,print.story


     Ancient White Park cattle are a threatened breed, but that's a big step up from the critical category they were assigned to earlier in the decade. Sandy Lerner brought 31 cows and a bull to her Loudon County, Virginia, farm in 2003, and now has a herd of 160, with 55 cows and two bulls producing up to 65 calves a year. The animals are self-reliant, can forage for themselves, and the cows are good mothers. You don't want to get close to a White Park calf, especially if you're a predator. Lancaster Farming correspondent Shannon Sollinger reported on her visit to the Lerner farm in our current edition, or you can read her story here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2944 

     Here's a deer little kitty.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv_5M9LfSbc

     This just in! It's about your brother-in-law! We have met Neanderthals, and they are us. That's according to a just-completed mapping of the Neanderthal genome. The genome, as we all know, is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information, and carried in the DNA (except for viruses, which use RNA). It took five years and $3.8 million to painstakingly tease the genetic information from bone fragments of three Neanderthal women who lived in Croatia some 40,000 years ago. Comparing the Neanderthal DNA with that of modern humans, the researchers discovered that as much as four percent of Neanderthal DNA still reverberates in the majority of modern-day humans. "It is tantalizing to think that the Neanderthal is not totally extinct," said geneticist Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who pioneered the research project. "A bit of them lives on in us today." Robert Lee Hotz, a reporter for  the Wall Stree Journal, prepared a report on the project. You can read it here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703686304575228380902037988.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
     
     It takes a vision to join the burgeoning CSA movement. Blackberry Meadow Farm in suburban Pittsburgh is a Community Supported Agriculture enterprise that grew out of a vision shared by Jack and Dale Duff, brothers who bought a dairy farm in 1988 and, by 1992, had converted it to organic. They sold it to a group of dedicated-but-short-on-experience, but environmentally motivated Slippery Rock U. graduates who were looking for a place to sink their roots. Thanks in part to the Duffs' mentoring, Blackberry Meadow is a going, growing concern. You can read about it in the Rural Ventures special section of the Lancaster Farming edition due in your mailbox tomorrow.


     Four little puppies making piggies of themselves. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/pig-adopts-dogs/uf49a1gp

     It was all things sheep in West Friendship, Maryland, last weekend as the 37th annual Maryland Sheep and Wool festival drew a crowd of 50,000 visitors, 250 sheep-friendly vendors and 1,000 sheep representing 42 different breeds. Lancaster Farming reporter Michelle Kunjapu paid a visit, strolled the grounds, talked to some people, tasted some lamb and, we don't doubt, bought a woolen thing or two. Two contestants in the festival's blade-shearing competition are seen in the photo. You can read Ms Kunjapu's report in Section B of the issue due in your mailbox on Saturday.

     I'll just have whatever grows in a tree. Way up. In the highest branches. Should you find yourself in the Mexican town Mixquiahuala, some 60 miles outside Mexico, don't drink the water, don't eat the carrots and don't swim in the irrigation canals. Those canals are filled with plant nutrients that help local farmers prosper, but their prosperity comes with a price. The "black water" - that's what they call it - is the untreated sewage from Mexico City's 20 milliion residents. It stinks, it gives you boils and the flu, and it's terrible, terrible way to deal with sewage from one of the world's largest, most teeming cities. But many of the local farmers were upset to learn that Mexico City is developing plans to build a billion-dollar sewage treatment plant that will take care of 60 percent of the city's wastewater. They want to keep it flowing to their fields. It's a curious, unlikely story, reported in the New York Times on Tuesday by Elizabeth Malkin. You can read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/05/world/americas/05mexico.html
    
     Did we say sheep seem to be riding a wave of popularity?  http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1934500

     First there was "Food, Inc.," now there's "Fresh." Director Ana Sofia Joanes is less judgemental than the folks who brought you Food, Inc., according New York Times reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis, but her movie is still an indictment of what many call industrial farming. Catsoulis says the "Fresh" is folksier than "Food, Inc.," and more focused on practical solutions. Will Allen, a Milwaukee urban farmer, is featured in the film for his attempts to broaden food choices in poor neighborhoods. And a name familiar to Lancaster Farming readers, Joel Salatin, is mentioned as a paradigm of small-scale agriculture. You can read the review here http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/movies/09fresh.html?scp=1&sq=fresh%20movie&st=cse
The movie has its own site, which includes playdates, here: http://action.freshthemovie.com/p/d/freshthemovie/event/events-display.sjs
    
     A beef-fed marathoner and one-time dairy princess had an impressive finish last month in the Boston Marathon. Marcia Itle, who grew up on a dairy farm in Cambria County, Pa., was actually sponsored in Boston by the National Beef Council. She started running in high school, figuring her daily two-mile run to feed the family calves had given her a head-start in the conditioning department. But there was a hard truth to be learned. After finishing in the back of the pack in her first season of track, she put her heart into training and eventually wound up winning. Lancaster Farming correspondent Linda Williams called on Ms Itle and prepared a report for our current edition, which you can also read here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/2929

     An ode to the second-most important tool on the farm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMZwa_WtSo8

    We show a lot of cows, pigs and chickens in our regular pages, but once a month, that most photogenic of farm denizens - the horse, of course - graces the pages of the Mid-Atlanic Horse.  Here's the front page off the May edition, featuring the photography of editor David Yeats-Thomas. Mid-Atlantic Horse is included in issues mailed to subscribers. Check it out in our print edition.

     
     Suppose you've bought a new refrigerator. Your new fridge has a regular handle, but it locks until you respond to messages displayed on a touchscreen on the door. The first message might be "Why did you buy this refrigerator?" Was it because: a - you liked the way it looked; b - you felt it was important to keep up with refrigerator technology; c - because a friend or neighbor recommended it to you; d - none of the above, please explain.
     My response would be: d - I just wanted to keep my stuff cold. And then the refrigerator might want to know where you bought it (as if it hadn't been there) and did you buy it from a retail store, mail order or from a vendor at a Phillies game? And do you want to buy all your milk from Walmart, yes-or-nor-and-if-no-why-not? And would you like fresh carrots delivered weekly to your door (offer not good in areas of high meat consumption.)?
Are you male or female or aren't you sure? What is your household income? How old are you, exactly. No, really, how old?
     See, that's silly. The kind of silliness I wish computer and software designers, engineers - I'll just call them software thugs - would learn to avoid. I'm on this rant after having spent a week trying to get a two-year-old Vista laptop to work and finally giving up, going to Staples and having a wonderful guy named Rick install Windows 7 on my machine. It was expensive. I also bought the anti-virus Norton 360 (which I installed myself), and a new router, because my old one had problems with Windows 7. And I needed no more problems.
     So I got the computer home, booted it up, got the router hooked up and scooted around some websites and a couple of email accounts. It was wonderful. Vista was like swimming upstream in a strong current. Windows 7 was like floating downstream. I loved it. And then the questions started popping up. Did I want to make Windows my sole media player for life? And my browser? Microsoft's browser? Huh? Did I want any of three-pages worth of Windows add-ons? Did I want Windows to hold my hand when I was troubled? To walk my dog when I was too tired?
     Switching computers and/or operating systems isn't the biggest problem in the world, but it can be one of the most annoying, especially when billion-dollar companies like Microsoft and Norton (which had it's own list of strong-arm queries) try to milk their customers for much more than they've already paid. Just give me the goods and forget about the sales pitch.
     
     Let's put a blankie down for baby, so he can take a little nap. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/baby-creates-chaos-in-time-lapse/1abyzm97g