Voices From the Farm: Valhalla for Another Old Warrior and Planning and Plotting
That was the plan, but as we all know, “There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip!” My mind went back to an earlier lambing in 1993, when things didn’t go so well.
Author: GoodFood World
Voices From the Farm: Double Dip Lambing
Lambing of the mature ewes began in early April, and they were just finishing up when the young ewes started, so it was an intense six weeks. By the end of lambing I was thankful to be done climbing in and out of lambing jugs doing tags, tails, testicles, and tattoos… Yes, tattoos!
Sakuma Brothers: Unique Farm Worker Struggle in Washington State
Burlington is not a very old city center and got its start in 1902 as a logging camp. Today the small town of 8,380, located in the Skagit River watershed north of Seattle, does count with a prosperous fruit and vegetable agricultural industry. Of course, the industry relies on mostly migrant families for farm labor. This is especially the case during harvest work and strawberry crops present an opportunity for workers to seize the current condition of ‘labor scarcity’ and high demand for skilled pickers during harvest time to organize for their workplace rights. And that is exactly what has happened in the State of Washington, and not in the Yakima or Wenatchee valleys but on the western side of the Cascades where peri-urban farming is increasingly big business.
Voices From the Farm: Llama Antics
Frisco’s guarding surpassed my fondest hopes! One day the flock of 160 sheep and the llama were grazing the farthest pasture, next to the highway, when a passing dump truck suddenly backfired. Frisco instantly rounded up the entire flock, brought them in on the double, and herded them into a corner near the buildings where they would be safe.
Voices From the Farm: A New Venture – Feeder Lambs
As the time to sell the feeder lambs neared, Sean and his friend Dennis approached me with the idea that they might buy the feeders this year. I really tried to dissuade them, as feeder prices were high at the time, and I feared that prices could drop by the time the lambs were ready for market. However, they wanted to try it. Dennis’ uncle had a nice lot near Eitzen with a covered shed for feeding and Sean could build a Hi-Tensile fence around the lot, so they bought the lambs and moved them down to the lot.
Biology Defies the Nature of Patents
What began in 1930 as a restrained attempt to reward horticultural inventors like Luther Burbank (the self-educated, self-styled, plant genius of his day), has become a kind of free-for-none piñata hunt entrancing corporations and university IP offices for a decade. Everyone with an IP portfolio is blindly swinging over their heads, hoping they will get their reward when the prizes come raining down.
Voices From the Farm: the Llama Drama’s Happy Ending
Following the capture and return of Frisco, the llama, I was currently working daily on my plan to reconcile Frisco and Sheba to a working relationship. It took nearly a month, but it worked!
Plant Patents on Common Vegetables – What We Are Up Against
A small group of corporations control the largest portion of the world’s utility patents on plants, and there are big misunderstandings between these players and the public about exactly what these patents cover, and to what extent the bewildering flurry of claims are overreaching rather than legitimate.