Pennsylvania Dept of Ag releases new raw milk guidelines

Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture released its new guidelines for the production and sale of raw milk. My home is one of just ten states where it is legal for farmers to sell raw, unpasteurized milk from their cows. Penn State University's Department of Animal Sciences has also released an explanation of the official guidelines.

Highlights of this document for milk producers:
-Raw milk permits begin 1 September and end 31 August, and need to be renewed each year.
-You don't need state-regulated milk bottling equipment on your own farm, if customers bring their own containers.
-Your farm's water supply must be tested. Probably something you should be doing anyway, what with all the Marcellus Shale fracking going on.
-Advertising, delivering, or exchanging raw milk is considered "selling" under the law, and doing any of these things without a permit carries a stiff penalty.
-Your Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture played a big role in making this legislation possible, so thank them!

Highlights for consumers:
-Raw milk sold by Pennsylvania permit holders is randomly tested for several different types of bacteria throughout the year. This gives you more assurance that the milk you buy is safe to drink than many other distribution programs can offer.
-Cows whose raw milk will be sold for human consumption must be tested annually for several different bovine diseases and certified healthy by a veterinarian, a requirement that pasteurized milk producers do not have to meet.
-Pennsylvania raw milk is also tested for pesticide residue, an assurance you can't get from even most organic produce.
-You can check the permit status of a PA raw milk dairy online at any time.

only important things

Away from major cities and the Interstate, winter traveling in Colorado is an adventure waiting to happen. Will that mountain pass be closed due to snow or avalanche? Will it close behind us after we pass through, blocking our route home? Is 4WD enough, or do we need chains? And maybe also a hi-lift jack, a winch, and a fairy godmother?

Well, folks, this family happens to be the proud owner of a 150,000+ mileage Land Rover. And as the narrator in this episode of BBC World proclaims, "Land Rovers only do important things." I can think of few things more important than a poor man's weekend adventure. When we realized that one of the remote getaways featured in this month's Rovers North magazine was less than two hours away from us, we were sold.

Temperatures in the single digits? Wind at hurricane speed? Snow drifts and ice without a single tire track? Land Rovers were meant to go where no one has gone before. Well, at least no one in their right mind, in the last 24 hours.

We made camp near treeline beneath Kite Lake, a few miles east of Breckenridge. The older dog, quite used to winter camping, snuggled down under her thick down dog blanket and fell asleep immediately. The pup, on the other hand, couldn't seem to stop wiggling. "I don't want to be covered up. No, wait, it's freezing, let me in! No, I've changed my mind, I don't have enough room to stretch my legs. Oh, actually, it's cold again..."

Leaving our miniature farmstead for a weekend getaway is a luxury we'll enjoy while we can. We left extra food out for the cat, made the chickens stay cooped up away from predators, and of course the dogs came along. The more animals we add, the more difficult such escapes will be. But never fear, I am planning to tap all of my extended family members for a weekend of farm sitting every now and again. (So if you're reading this, start preparing your list of demands in exchange for this work.)

this is going to require my adventure pants

Wall Street wants your military pension

The Young Farmers Coalition recently put out a fantastic report about the barriers that keep young people from starting farms, and how these affect America's food future. With the average U.S. farmer around 70 years old, some estimate that a quarter of our nation's food producers will retire in the next ten years. Recruiting new farmers is crucial, yet these young farmers cite lack of capital and poor access to healthcare as their primary struggles in starting new enterprises.

T and I are fortunate enough that we likely won't have to worry too much about either of these things. When I deployed to Iraq a few years ago debt-free, I put my entire tax-free paycheck for a year and a half into savings, a substantial amount that will likely be the down-payment for our farmland. And next year, T will hit 20 years in service and will be able to retire at the ripe old age of 38. We will have access to affordable healthcare through the Tricare for Military Retirees program, which charges a premium of about $500 a year for the entire family. We will have a small but steady monthly income from that pension, which will ensure that we'll have enough capital flow to buy gasoline and salt and coffee while we get our farm into the black. In short, the sacrifices we've made for the Army over all these years will translate into the perfect combination of benefits for starting a farm. We've earned them.

You may already know that in this age of federal deficit, Congress has been considering cutting benefits for military retirees. (I guess the $1,200 a month we will receive after five deployments and two decades away from our families just isn't fair to all of the other taxpayers.) But you may not know that this idea, and other similarly ridiculous ones, is the brainchild of the Defense Business Board -- a closed group of highly paid, Wall-Street bred civilian corporate advisors to the Department of Defense. Today's headline article in Mother Jones magazine, "Inside the Corporate Plan to Occupy the Pentagon," says that "a report from the board argued that paying soldiers and their families for 60 years after 20 years of service was "unsustainable," adding, "The 'Military Retirement' sacred cow is increasingly unaffordable." The board called for scrapping the system in favor of a mandatory 401(k)-style account whose savings could "be invested in higher yielding equities and bonds."

Clearly, this bunch of Wall Street investors are selflessly attempting to save the government money by advising the existing military pension system be scrapped, and instead invested on Wall Street.

Right?

As to their argument that paying people for 60 more years after they serve 20 is unsustainable, I first of all disagree with their math. The youngest a person can retire after 20 years of service would be 37, and very few veterans will live to be 97 years old. But more importantly, I think that the all-volunteer force is hopelessly unsustainable without the 20-year pension. Many of our most experienced, senior leaders are soldiers who are only staying in "till I hit my 20." Changing retirement benefits to require 30 years of service -- or, as the DBB recommends, eliminating them all together in favor of a corporate-style 401(k) plan -- would cause many of our most seasoned veteran leaders to decide that sticking it out for five or ten more years just isn't worth it. Even if we instituted the wildly unpopular option of a draft, this wouldn't solve the problem. Recruiting has really never been a problem -- lots of young people in America want to join the military. Giving up four years of your life and possibly a major limb in exchange for an almost-free college education is a big attractor. The problem is retention. It takes a particular type of person to want to stay in an organization which requires extraordinary sacrifices that are simply not comparable to any civilian job, not even police or firefighters. We are already offering bonuses of $35,000 or more to try to entice leaders to stay in after eight or ten years of service.

But hey, I'm a beneficiary of the current system, so what do I know. If T lives to be 97, the total cost to the government for his pension will be about $850,000. When you consider that a single brand-new F-22 Raptor costs $350,000,000, cutting benefits instead is clearly the way to go.

Welsummers

Last spring, we bought eight day-old chicks from our local hardware store. They'd been shipped in from Who Knows Where, and even the store manager wasn't quite sure what breed they were supposed to be. They were listed as "Ameraucanas," which in many places, means that they are mutt chickens whose parentage is unknown. (Ameraucana is a recognized breed, but the standard accepts so many different varieties and colors that the name becomes a catch-all. Sort of like labeling every dog in the pound either a "lab" or a "terrier.") I think we paid $1.49 for each chick.

Now that they're grown and beautiful, I'm beginning to suspect that they may actually be Welsummers. I base this partly on their color and shape, and partly on the fact that the hens lay eggs with brown speckled shells. Our chickens are extremely docile and friendly around people, but also ferocious around mice and small predators. None of the other breed descriptions I've read quite describe our flock as well as the Welsummer does.

Of course, I really have no way of knowing what breed they might be, and couldn't sell their chicks as purebred Welsummer flock-starting stock. But I'll say that our quest to identify their breed has kindled an interest in this heritage variety from the Netherlands that I would probably have otherwise never known.

death by manure

I have to admit, of all the hazards associated with concentrated manure pits found in industrial livestock operations, death was not the first to come to mind. I initially thought this graphic would belongs in the over-cautionary menagerie at Safety Graphic Fun.

Apparently, death by manure is a significant hazard. Farm workers can asphyxiate quickly from breathing in toxic gasses from sealed underground pits, or from drowning in above-ground manure lagoons. What a way to go, eh? Nationwide, about 20 people die every year from breathing in hydrogen sulfide, a gas unique to concentrated manure pits that are not exposed to the air. Two years ago, this gas claimed the lives of an entire Mennonite family, as the father attempted to unclog a manure pit pipe, and after he collapsed, his family members died trying to rescue him.

That snippet of news also made me think of how many people believe that just because something is "Amish made," it is must be high quality and environmentally sustainable. I grew up around Amish communities, and know first-hand that they are not immune to the problems of the modern world -- things like drug addiction, teen pregnancy, and dishonest business practices. I've encountered Amish families who believe that animals are property, something God has given you to take care of but not care about, and for whom this belief translates into treatment of livestock that is much harsher than I would personally find acceptable. There are, of course, many outstanding Amish and Mennonite family farms, but a label identifying the town or religious preference of its maker does not automatically denote wholesomeness.

soul mates