Locavores are self-indulgent, self-defeating, dogmatic do-gooders who may or may not have jumped the sustainably raised organic-chub-fed shark. Whoa! Where did that come from? Was that Glenn Beck? A Sara Palin Rant? No, actually. The self-indulgent part came from Stepen Budiansky, an op-ed contributor to yesterday's New York Times and the author of a blog called liberalcurmudgeon.com. Budiansky, of Leesburg, Va., grows a lot of stuff in his backyard garden which is about as local as you can get. Just 42 steps from his back door and he's got a handful of spinach. He's annoyed that New Yorkers consider it a sin to buy a California tomato, but it's okay to buy one from a lavishly heated greenhouse in the Hudson Valley. He has no problem with the locavores' sentiments. He just wants them to get their math straight. He gives some examples, and you can read them here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html?th&emc=th. The jump-the-shark goodie came from here: http://jcarrot.org/has-locavore-jumped-the-sustainably-raised-organic-chub-fed-shark. The jcarrot.org blogger was astounded when he read in yet another New York Times story that a company in San Francisco will actually come to your house to plant and tend to your garden throughout the growing season. The writer comments that "locavore" was named Word of the Year for 2007 by the Oxford New American Dictionary. His pick for the next word of the year? "Lazyvore." 

Don McNutt, of the Lancaster
County Conservation
 District, addresses
the hearing in Rock Springs.

     Can farmers dodge the EPA hammer? Matt Ehrhart, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Pennsylvania office told a meeting Wednesday that his state's farmers have made tremendous strides in reducing the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus entering the Chesapeake Bay watershed. He said the agency should not be treating every cleanup effort like a nail that needs to be hammered equally, and that agriculture has already taken more than its share of pounding. Pennsylvania ag sent a lot of its biggest guns to Ag Progress Days at Rock Springs for a joint hearing of the State House and Senate Agriculture and Rural Affairs committees. Ag Secretary Russell Redding testified on behalf of farmers, as did Penn State Dean of Agriculture Bruce McPheron. They were joined by other commentators. Lancaster Farming special sections editor Charlene Shupp Espenshade attended the hearing and wrote a report that will show up with your paper in the mailbox tomorrow. Or you can read it now in our online edition: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/APD-heading


     The thing that puzzles me is: Why are numbers 43 and 44 smiling? http://www.flixxy.com/presidents-morphing.htm