Sunshine at last

I've been watching everyone else blog and report on the rain for the last few weeks, and we don't live on a flood plain or near one of the hugely overflowed rivers this week, but it has been wet here as well. But in an effort to avoid beating the dead horse, I'll refrain from elaborating on just how much water we've gotten. Needless to say, the breeze the last couple of days with 85F and sunshine has been a much-needed blessing and there is finally some hope of recovering the pastures and getting a vegetable garden in.

Record rainfall here for the month of April doesn't even begin to describe how soft the ground was getting, even in our yard. The dog finally started refusing to even go outside because she got tired of having to deal with the rain and stepping in the mud. Out on the farms, the pasture hasn't even been able to grow grass to keep up with the appetite and hoofprints litter the ground, damaging the roots of the plants so it's going to take a while to recover.

I remember a few years back when the dams almost breached because of the rain then, but that was on frozen ground with less absorption and increased direct watershed flow to the dam. This is different because the ground took everything it could first, before it started a mass migration according to the law of gravity.

But of course, our damage and the local crops not being planted long after they were due is nothing compared to the damage I saw today from the tornadoes in the South. It was unbelievable to see the footage from the tornadoes and even more astonishing to see the damage after. The South hasn't seen a swath of devastation like that since our very own Sherman marched to Atlanta and the resolve of the populace to bounce back is impressive. I saw a show this morning that highlighted the projects and groups who are helping to rebuild and those people should be commended for their efforts.

Hopefully this week we'll finally be able to start working the garden soil and planting all the starters my brother has going. Now if we can just avoid a long-summer drought or corn prices will be through the roof. It feels really good to have a hot sun beam down and to not have to run from car to building to not be soaked, but I worry that it won't be long before I wish that sun would be covered by some clouds again.

Manure production

Gene Baur pushed my limit today with his blog entry. I have a short fuse because Mabel stopped running this morning and I'm liable to not take anti-livestock agriculture sentiments well today.

My apologies, but my blog comment will be a summary instead. Gene, you spend so much time trying to pin livestock agriculture as the proverbial tail on a donkey of fault for the world's problems. You'd probably do better if you weren't distracted by the ass in your own mirror.

It didn't take me long to find some reputable information about the waste produced in the US. 4 lbs. every day x 300.000.000 people in the US adds up to a lot of waste every day. The waste production is a much larger problem than that of manure production in the US, besides the fact that manure is recycled by farmers whereas garbage is just dumped. Per a news article this summer about the mess the Mississippi River is experiencing, and topped by a slight BP spill this summer, I think Gene is out of turn in accusing the Gulf of Mexico's problems as the fault of livestock agriculture. The gulf has a significant problem, but this is the combined fault of many factors not the least of which is the wastefulness of Americans. Spend your time figuring out how to better reduce and reuse your own impact on the earth and please spend less time pointing fingers at environmentally responsible, governmentally regulated and audited farmers. We are doing our part to feed the world and care for the environment, what are you doing?

Do livestock farmers use a lot of water? Sure, but the water is recycled (something the Columbus Dispatch also conveniently neglected to mention in their despicable article on Sunday). Farmers are some of nature's recyclers and they use their water over and over again to help feed America and the world. Is the same true for that ridiculous oasis in the desert, Las Vegas?

For your mild entertainment I have included a video of some farmers who had a unique approach to telling people about their care for the environment.