09 Dec 2004
Wulfie, RIP

Well, it seems pretty strange to put up an obit for a cow, but GOF Wolfram (her offical, registered name) was a special beast. She was exported from her birthplace in 1995 to Eagle Creek Cattle Co. in Warsaw, Indiana. We acquired her last year, despite her age (she was calved 6/1/1987) because we got a really good deal, and she was an awesome looking beast. She was also bred, which calf is now Hammerstead Chip - our herd sire.

This August, however, Wulfie developed a summer pneumonia , which she just couldn't shake. As the fall got damper, arthritis developed - but she was still trying, still had some fight in her, so we didn't do what, in hindsight, probably would've been the kindest thing. As long as she was fighting, we'd support her - and she didn't give up. Until last night.

I noticed this morning that she'd not eaten last night, and she made no motion to go for her fresh hay this morning. I took a farm tour around today about noon, and she was still in her stall, not really moving much at all, just standing and looking out. I fed the goats about 4, and threw some fresh hay to her, but she made no move for it. When I went back out at 5 to open the goat stall, she was dead.

We'll have a fine pair of drinking horns soon, but frankly, I'd rather have had her for a couple of more years, and would really have liked to have gotten a heifer out of her. Tomorrow I have to either find a renderer to haul the carcass away, or figure out some way for me to get a thousand pounds of dead cow into the back of my Chevy S10. Hopefully the former option will work out, but in any event, Wulfie will be missed.

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Top Court Considers Beef Ad Campaign Case

These programs are just obnoxious. Basically, organic and grass based farmers (like me) are forced to pay to subsidize advertising for the feedlots and factory farms: it's robbing the family farm to pay the corporations. Given the track record of other programs like this before the Court, I don't think this one has an ice cube's chance in the Christian Hell of surviving.

Good riddence!

A food fight broke out at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, with justices considering whether the government can force farmers to pay for ad campaigns with catchy phrases like "Beef: It's what's for dinner" and billboards featuring milk mustaches on celebrities.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Chicken Creche

Too bad I'm a Heathen, 'cause this'd be the perfect nativity scene for this place!

via Pagan Prattle, and actually for sale here, with many other very tacky sculptures.

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Outsource the CEO!

What a great idea!

All we need is a law that says "outsourcing is OK only if you start with the highest-paid executives."

(link) [Portsmouth Herald]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Farmers are free of the Walt Disney syndrome

This is one of the best essays I've run across on the realities of life on the modern family farm - note that the author works off the farm full time to makes ends meet. It's not a romantic life, but it's a real one.

Good old Walt, in his efforts to entertain, gave all his animal characters human personalities, and people have come to think of this as reality, as they have no other experience of animals to go on. What's more, they buy their meat at the grocery store; there is no connection between steak and the real world of raising cattle to butcher.

(link) [CBC]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link