On the homestead

UPDATE: Food regulation, Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009

gr8scot — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:53:59 +0000

Two bills have taken center stage on the continuing push by the government to regulate the American food supply. While their intentions may be good, their broad reaching legislations are going to put unnecessary and costly burdens on America’s small farmers. This may very well put many small farmers out of business. These bills, if they become law, could effect all of us who raise food and animals for personal use.

H.R. 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 Read the text of this bill, and be aware of how it might affect you if you raise animals or food. This bill does incoporate the (NAIS) National Animal Identification System into it. This Bill has passed the House!

S. 510 FDA Food Modernization Act , the Senate version is equally sweeping in it’s proposed regulation.

Read this article from Farm-To- Consumer Legal Defense Fund

Read this article from the Cornucopia Institute

Read this article from Slow Food Land and Sea Blog

Then contact your legislators and tell them not to support these Bills!

“Living with the Trinity”

gr8scot — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:29:05 +0000

KERA channel 13 in Dallas is going to air a program about the Trinity River and its history. From the website, “Living with the Trinity“, it looks like it’s going to be a great program. It will be airing at 9 pm.

Duck…Duck…Duck…Drake!

gr8scot — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:04:06 +0000

Several months ago we bought 6 ducks from a local farmer. It was “luck of the draw” when it came to sexing the ducks, but we decided to take our chances. Ideally, we would liked to have had 5 ducks and 1 drake for our flock.

Only time would tell as to how our luck had fared. As we have watched our flock grow over these past months, it slowly started to appear that we had prevailed in our hopes for the flock. Almost. Now that the fledglings have grown, and their “adult” feathers have grown out, we find ourselves with 2 drakes and 4 ducks. We have 4 Khaki Campbell, and 2 Cayuga. Not bad at all.

Now, we look forward to some of those farm fresh eggs. During our time in Washington state, we had neighbors that raised ducks for their eggs, and we enjoyed them much more than chicken eggs. Our flock has decided not to stay in the pen and house that we built for them. I think that they were a bit older than we would have liked, so they never took to their designated pen. But actually, I think it better this way. Now I can call them “free range” ducks. They spend their days floating, and foraging around the pond, and sleep in the low brush and grasses around the tank. Now, we wait. I’ll post when we get our first batch of eggs.

Texas raw milk law to change

gr8scot — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:58:41 +0000

If you are a consumer of raw milk or raw milk products in Texas, you should be aware of pending law changes regarding the sale or purchasing or raw milk products.

The Texas Department of State Health Services is working on new rules Governing milk and dairy products in Texas. It is important that everyone who cares about having access to raw milk and farmstead cheeses speak up during this process!
Continue reading the article.

Stop NAIS!

gr8scot — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:07:58 +0000

In January, the USDA proposed a rule (Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096) to require farms and other properties where animals are raised to be registered in the federal NAIS database for existing federal disease control programs. The rule also sets the stage for future mandatory animal identification. If you haven’t already submitted comments on this proposed rule, please be sure to do so before March 16!

If you are a small scale livestock farmer, or raise flocks of birds,even for personal use, you need to research this NAIS. READ THE REST OF THIS IMPORTANT ARTICLE!

HR 875 – The Federal Take-Over of Food Regulation

gr8scot — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:01:36 +0000

The Federal Governments non stop push into every aspect of our lives continues with this Bill introduced in February 2009. Federal control over our food supply, would now classify small farms as “food production facilities” bringing them under rules and laws that apply to “Food establishments.”

While the proposed legislation tries to address the many problems of the industrial food system, the impact on small farms if the bill becomes law would be substantial and not for the better. HR 875 is a major threat to sustainable farming and the local food movement.

Continue reading the article.

ETA to TOFGA

gr8scot — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:19:38 +0000

I’ll be on the road for 2 hours and 39 minutes this AM as I make my way south east to Diboll, Texas for the East Texas Organic Workshop put on by TOFGA. I hope to learn much from this event that is focusing on small scale farming and gardening. I missed out on the TCOOPS in Killeen back in early February. I had registered for that event but ended up getting sick, so I had to cancel. This should be a fun day, hope I meet some more microfarmers.

The drought in Texas

gr8scot — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:49:17 +0000

As the Texas drought diminished soil moisture and dried out pastures and rangeland, wildfires reports have heated up, according to the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Forest Service.

Read the Article

Is organic good for the soil?

gr8scot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:04:33 +0000

Here’s a great article I came across from July 2007 on the USDA website.
The article explains how scientist who previously thought that organic farming practices were not beneficial to soil, found that it actually improves soil composition.

Organic farming can build up soil organic matter better than conventional no-till farming can, according to a long-term study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.

Thrift store book bargain

gr8scot — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:48:25 +0000

A recent trip to the local thrift store yielded a pretty exciting find for us. Amongst the disorder and chaos of the book shelves we uncovered this book. It’s a bit old and outdated, published in 1978, but it has a wealth of information about all types of tools. I mean moldboard plows have remained basically unchanged since the 1980′s. The book covers old, early, and hard to find tools and implements that were used or are still used on farms. From hand tools to tractors, seeding to harvesting it’s in there. We were happy to find it, and to spend only $1.00 was even better. So keep an eye out at your local thrift stores, you never know what you may find.