Fitzgerald's Family Farm is a mini farm located in beautiful Potter County, PA, known as "God's Country," dedicated to raising fruits, vegetables, and critters in an earth-friendly manner.
Today is the drawing for the Going Over 10,000 Views Giveaway Celebration! My daughter was so happy to put all the names in a hat and draw the winner for me before she ran off to school this morning.
And the winner of "Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte is ....
hoosier girl!
Congratulations! E-mail me at my address below to send me your address and I'll get the book right in the mail!
__________________________________________
Now, a message about ticks.
(May I add that simply looking for pictures of ticks made my lip curl)
We've had an unusually warm autumn and the ticks are horrible. The family went for a walk and we found ticks climbing up our pant legs! I went hunting, and even with all the necessary precautions, I still found a tick with it's head embedded into my foot.
How do you get out a tick that's embedded itself into you? In the past, I've tried the old standbys of putting a hot match to it's rear (didn't work) and putting Vaseline on it to smother it (I don't know about you, but I don't want to wait around for that nasty thing to smother - ugh).
I have found that the best way to remove a tick is to grasp the body firmly with a pair of tweezers and rotate counter clockwise (why counter clockwise? I don't know, maybe because I'm right-handed, but it seems to work) while very gently pulling away with the tick. You may have to rotate the tick body 5-7 times before it lets go. Disinfect the site.
I quickly run the tick to the toilet and flush it down because it seems that you can squeeze a tick really, really hard and it doesn't die! This method of removing ticks works well with your dogs and cats too - if you can get them to sit still (the pets, not the ticks).
Be sure to watch for infection of the site and particularly look for a telltale red bulls eye which indicates Lyme's Disease. See a doctor if either of these things happen.
Yesterday was "Deer Day." It's the first day of buck hunting season with a gun and a day off from school for the children. In the past, here in northern Pennsylvania, so many children missed school on the first day of deer hunting season that the schools decided to make it a day off.
I watched my Facebook and all around people reported not seeing anything. Of course all the people who come to our area and drive around spotlighting deer, tramp through the woods to find the perfect hunting spot, and spend Sunday shooting to sight in their rifles may have something to do with it. All those deer ran for the hills!
I hunted... or rather, I should say I took a very slow walk through the woods while carrying a gun. All I got was a tick in my foot. Sigh.
I came across this funny little poem:
Ode to a deer camp.
My wife I fear
Big racked deer
Cold cold beer
I'll stay here!
Tomorrow is the drawing for the book giveaway, "Carrots Love Tomatoes." Be sure to go back two posts and leave a comment!
This past weekend my friend and I hit two auctions. The first one we went to was for farm equipment. We went to look at the horse trailers, but they were one-horse trailers and wouldn't work for us. We figured a horse trailer would be handy if we ever get a horse, mule, donkey, etc. and it could replace our hillbilly trailer for hauling pigs!
The second auction was for household goods. There were a few things I liked, but I'm not very good at auctions and by the time I make up my mind the items are usually gone. I picked up a large batch of vintage magazines, though. The issues date from different months in 1911 until 1919 and the magazine was published in nearby Smethport, Pennsylvania. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do with them!
One idea I had was to frame the magazines with the front cover showing and with frames wide enough for me to paint a design, a picture, or something else that pertains to the picture on the magazine's cover on the frame. I really hate to destroy the magazine, so I plan to put the whole magazine in the frame. I think I could do something unique.
Don't forget to take a look at my last post. I'm giving away a copy of Carrots Love Tomatoes!
It's a great day to take a look at the Barnyard Hop at Homestead Revival!
My blog went over 10,000 views and I'm celebrating with a giveaway!
I have two copies of the book Carrot Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening by Louise Riotte and would love to pass one on to a reader.
You've heard of the Native American planting of the "three sisters" - beans, corn, and squash, plants who all benefit from being planted together? Carrots Love Tomatoes takes that idea even further.
Here is an excerpt from the book's back cover: "What Is Companion Planting? It's just planning your garden to take advantage of the fact that vegetables and fruits- like people- have natural friends they prefer to be with. And they help each other- like beets with onions or corn with pumpkins."
My copy is not in perfect condition (the copyright is 1975!), but it is in very, very good condition.
Blog readers leave a comment below this post and I'll draw names on November 30th. I'll e-mail or contact the winner for the address where they would like the book sent. Good luck!
I received both of these e-mails in one day and had to put them together. What do you think?
AND
Theft in progress: Big Ag raids the treasury—with help from Congress
BY TOM LASKAWY
16 NOV 2011 4:17 PM
If the straight-up taxpayer swindle taking place in the supercommittee isn't making you angry, you're probably not paying attention. I'm talking about the attempt by agribusiness and a group of willing farm-state representatives to put billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of industrial farmers during the ongoing super committee Farm Bill negotiations.
According to The Hill, the moment of truth is upon us: The supercommittee is indeed poised to rewrite the Farm Bill behind closed doors and with no input from reform-minded congresspeople, let alone the public. Many of us have known this was going on, but the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found some new developments that are nothing short of shocking.
EWG reports on the new "shallow loss" subsidy which would protect commodity growers from small price drops via a "taxpayer-paid guarantee of getting no less than 90%[!!] of their income." This new subsidy is now considered a political hot potato thanks to coverage from sources like like EWG and Grist. As a consequence, only corn, soy, and wheat farmers -- those whose prices are now sky high -- will be eligible. So cotton and rice farmers want a consolation prize. They will get that and much more. The EWG writes:
... The rice growers, who don't like having to pony up some of their own money for crop insurance and don't have to worry as much about yield losses, would instead get higher price guarantees from the government. And cotton growers would get higher target prices and stronger revenue insurance.
Just for good measure, the current annual limits on how much any one farm operation can receive in subsidies would be eliminated. You read it right: unlimited subsidies for the largest mega farms despite year after year of record income [Emphasis mine].
America, land of the thieves and home to the greedy.
Not that Congress is completely neglecting those in need: It's throwing a French-fry and pizza party for low-income school kids across America by almost totally undoing the USDA's long-overdue reform for school lunch nutrition guidelines. Because pizza and fried potatoes are now the cornerstone of a healthy diet -- didn't you know?
But back to the Farm Bill: Let's put the scale of the misappropriation of taxpayer dollars in context for a moment. According to this story in the Wall Street Journal, income on big industrial farms is up 31 percent in 2011 to $103.6 billion; these are inflation-adjusted levels not seen since the OPEC Oil Embargo of 1973.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune reports that farmland prices are through the roof -- higher than they've ever been, in fact:
U.S. farmland prices in the third quarter surged to the highest levels in more than three decades amid an accelerating agricultural boom that has so far defied fears of a bubble about to burst.
Prices hit record highs in the U.S. Plains, where wheat and cattle dominate production, and jumped 25 percent in the Midwest Corn Belt, where bumper grain crops and recovering livestock markets put more money in farmers' wallets and enticed investors to bid up for the fertile ground, according to two Federal Reserve bank surveys issued on Tuesday.
Things are so good for industrial farmers these days that, as that WSJ piece found, they're buying back outlying suburban and exurban land that had been snapped up by developers for housing and are putting it back into production.
In short, these are the corn soy cotton salad days for Big Ag. And while they're reveling in their profits, they've decided to top it off by raiding the national treasury. And it's a very small group of senators and representatives who are handing over the combination to the government bank vault. In other words, even when we have the chance to "throw the bums out" in November 2012, most of us will be out of luck -- because our lawmakers won't even have been involved.
A 17-year veteran of both traditional and online media, Tom is a Contributing Writer at Grist covering food and agricultural policy. Tom's long and winding road to food politics writing passed through New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Florence, Italy and Philadelphia (which has a vibrant progressive food politics and sustainable agriculture scene, thank you very much). In addition to Grist, his writing has appeared online in the American Prospect, Slate, the New York Times and The New Republic. He is on record as believing that wrecking the planet is a bad idea.
I get SO very angry and feel so very powerless when I read this kind of stuff. I just hope the move towards more organic and "natural" foods in the stores (even Walmart) is the first baby step towards overcoming our skewed food system. I would love to get your input.
A few days ago a wrote a blog titled Christmas 2011 -- Birth Of A New Tradition about how we should try to make Christmas presents become more than buying a bunch of mass-produced junk made overseas. Much of what was written focused on using locally obtained services as thoughtful gifts.
But, children (and adults!) like finding presents under the Christmas tree. I wrote in Christmas 2011... "OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes."
Then, my friend asked me to "friend" her enterprise, Zephyr Art, on Facebook. Wow! I was blown away by the neat stuff on her site and in her Etsy shop! I love it and just couldn't help passing on the information about her very adorable and very unique handmade dolls, one of a kind doll-making kits, fun and funky earrings, lively watercolor prints, and more! They're handcrafted, artistic, and distinctive gifts - and they're made in the USA (with free shipping in the USA).
Zephyr Art
Art for Children and Adventurous Adults
Aren't these little guys and girls just charming?
Search for "Zephyr Art" on Facebook and Etsy - or follow this link to the Zephyr Art website.
