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OK….time for a Devon picture….
….a Devon….pure traditional Devon English heifer….but not in Devon….in Georgia. One of our Traditional American Devon calves from earlier this year. She’s four months old now….the daughter of Essington Park Buttercup and Ashott Barton Millennium Falcon. She’s an embryo calf, of course, being raised at Doyle Unruh’s farm along with five of her brothers and sisters. Mom is getting up in years but she still topped a sale in England recently. Essington Park sadly is no more because of the retirement of breeder and good friend Brian Drake.
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An idea whose time has come….
….although I have to admit “bacon chocolate chip cookies” is carrying it a bit too far! http://www.neatorama.com/neatolicious/2013/08/25/All-Pork-Restaurant-Opens-in-Chicago/#!S0mCY
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Secret revealed….
….the real reason the French don’t get fat! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-real-reason-the-french-dont-get-fat/article18924862/ Thanks to Dr. Sue Beal for the link.
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Gotta get one of these….
….not. Here we have been spending all this time (and money) training Pokey to bring in the cattle and for $300 we could buy a drone to do the same thing. A few more bucks and it can be equipped with a camera that we could monitor on our iPhones! http://farmofthefuture.net/#/video/drone-range-0 Thanks to Dan Epps of Terra One for the link.
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Something else not added to Thistle Hill meat….
….another warning about the weed killer that is killing you: glyphosate. It’s everywhere….in fact, I see garden sprays actually bragging on the label in big letters that it’s in their mix. I think it is also important to mention in connection with those industry studies which “prove” that genetically-modified foods are safe”. One thing those studies never do is couple the testing of GM foods with the glyphosate that is almost always used in conjunction with genetically-modified farming. You just aren’t going to have one without the other. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/25/food-minerals-soil-health.aspx
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Who knew? Brad Pitt is a farmer?
Well maybe this is just a cheap ploy to get more “visits” for our website….but finally something good about one of the Hollywood types. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/05/30/brad-pitt-loves-farming-and-learning-about-land/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fentertainment+%28Internal+-+Entertainment+-+Mixed%29
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Speaking of microbes….
….as we were in the previous post: here’s a review of a new book that appears to be an interesting and comprehensive look at the damage being done to us by the indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Just about all the meat you eat….in a restaurant or from a grocery store….has been laced with antibiotics and the damage is enormous before you even get to the question of drug-resistant diseases. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229701.000-why-antibiotics-are-wmds-to-our-bodies-microbes.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Chealth#.U4m4EIcU-cy Thistle Hill meat, of course, never contains antibiotics (or anything else).
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Trust me….it’s really there…
….billions and billions of little bugs….Mycorrhizal Fungi…we’ve been spraying on our pastures for the past few days (when the rain let up). If you click on the picture and look at about 2:30 you can make out the spray….or right around the jet nozzle. Or you can just ask for a copy of my invoice. Actually, it’s not that expensive; about $15 an acre. The microbes are said to do all sorts of things to the soil and grass: release minerals, balance pH, increase yield, thicken stands, etc, etc. This particular product is Terra One and we’ve used it before with good results. It’s really easy to mix and I…
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Talk about a “giant step for mankind”….
the largest grain producing company in the world is changing course….and converting to grass fed beef! They put a pencil to it and decided industrial ag just isn’t sustainable (as we’ve been saying”. http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/23531 Thanks to Dr. Sue Beal for the link.
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More excitement at Thistle Hill….
…but nothing to do with calving. Grandson Church was graduated this weekend from Woodbury Forest high school. (All the graduates lit up cigars at the end of the ceremony.) Grandma Wooz managed not to go all blubbery and you know how grandmothers are about their first grandson! We’ve been fortunate that Church, a Texan, chose to attend a high school in Virginia. He’s not only great company, he’s a great help at the farm, spending holiday weekends and vacations with us. This weekend we put him right to work spraying microbes on our pastures. Unfortunately, we’ll lose him now to Dennison College in Ohio. Someday, though, this farm will be…