Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

FROM THE PHOTO ARCHIVES
New not previously published

With the nice spring weather I look back at the winter snow, I'm sure glad it is spring.



My favorite horse Paint looking for a better chunk of hay. Taken 12/19/2005.

USDA RELEASES BSE PREVALENCE ESTIMATE FOR U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced USDA's estimate of the prevalence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States.

"Our enhanced BSE surveillance program has been an enormous undertaking, but well worth the effort," said Johanns. "We can now say, based on science, that the prevalence of BSE in the United States is extraordinarily low. The testing and analysis reinforce our confidence in the health of the U.S. cattle herd, while our interlocking safeguards, including the removal of specified risk materials and the feed ban, protect animal and human health."

Four to seven animals is all they figure have BSE in the US. That's really good news. These statistical analysis always seem a little like witchcraft to me but i know most of the time they are valid.

The bigger question this brings up is, if the prevalence of BSE is so low in the US, why do we need the national Animal Identification System (NAIS) to track all animals? The original justification was the BSE crisis. If there is no BSE crisis, why track all the animals? I will tell you, to benefit the big corporations at the expense of the producers in this country. That's all NAIS is about. Animal health is not the driving force, it is the lie being used by the USDA/meat packers to drive this agenda.

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived. Sissela Bok

Crossposted to No Mandatory Animal ID

Taken 4/22/2006.

A lot of people are complaining about the profits the oil industry is making and have all kinds of solutions as to how to help consumers past this stretch of high gas prices. The stupidest of these I've heard is a $100 fuel-cost rebate for millions of taxpayers and suspending the federal 18.4-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax.

What good is $100 going to do me with gas prices the way they are? One hundred dollars doesn't go very far in the Last Best Place and the distances we travel. It's nothing more than a big joke. How much administrative overhead will there be involved in issuing this money out to people? The Government doesn't do anything cheap so I bet this will cost taxpayers at least twice what they receive to get their own damn money back from the government. Lastly how much fraud will there be since the government is handing out money? Offer money like this and fraud happens, pure and simple. Some criminally minded, enterprising individuals, will find a way to get extra money out of this ill advised scheme, guaranteed. Overall the $100 fuel-cost rebate is an idiotic idea.

Now on to suspending the 18.4-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax. Another monumentally stupid idea. Consumer usage of gasoline is, for the most part, dependent on the supply and demand equation. If prices drop for gasoline 18.4-cent-per-gallon all of a sudden, the consumer will just see lower prices and consume more gas at the lower price than if it was a higher price which will drive prices back up. Consumers just accept the tax as part of the price of gas and adjust their buying habits accordingly. So it doesn't do any good in the long run. It might give short term, couple of weeks, relief from prices but they will just drift back up due to demand.

Also, that tax money is all ready spent for highway projects throughout the US so suspending the tax means money going out to the projects still but no money coming in to the treasury. Yea, that's all we need, a bigger deficit to deal with along with high fuel prices. Not real smart.

The easiest way to combat these prices? try to adjust your driving habits so you use less gas. I have here on the ranch. Plant crops that require less farming with a tractor. Make every trip out to work count, plan more jobs per trip, so that you drive around less. Go to town less often and do more when you do go to town. These things are not a lot of fun but they are what you have to do to survive. Bitching and moaning don't get you very far, figuring out ways to cope does.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise. Victor Hugo

Consul: Japan beef deal near

Japanese and U.S. officials are in the final stages of negotiating an end to a ban on American beef imports to Japan, the Japanese consul general in Seattle said Friday.

"I can't say when, but it's only a matter of time," Kazuo Tanaka said during a visit to Billings.

I've been hearing enough mealy mouthed platitudes from Japanese officials about opening up their market to US beef, I call Bullshit on this one. I'm tired of their lies and deceptions. They are no interested in opening up their markets. They're just confusing the issue further. Kazuo Tanaka probably has brown eyes he's so full of shit.

QUIT LYING TO US. Either open it or say it will never happen. I'm tired of the game.

Like 81 percent of the American public, I am growing tired and weary of the Republican majority and the priorities of this administration. Corrine Brown

Some of the neighbors roping calves for the little branding. The wind was blowing like hell making it a very difficult branding day. Ropes don't sail to well in high wind. Taken 4/28/2006.

Well, we got them done. Overall the branding went well. We got them all in and got them branded. The wind blew like hell which made things.......difficult but not impossible. When I said yesterday the wind doesn't blow much here, that also means that when it does blow, it creates problems for us since we aren't used to it.

One big mystery from branding yesterday is how I cut myself. I got back from branding and took off my jacket and found my shirt sleeve soaked in blood. I rolled up my sleeve and there was a cut on my wrist that had bled for a while. I never felt it, or knew it happened. I really would like to know how it happened but I have no idea.

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. Epictetus

Busy, Busy, Busy. Busy getting spring work done. It's finally getting dry enough to farm a little so I am trying to get some of that done. I might have been able to get some done earlier but everything I want to plant this year, around 200 acres, has alfalfa with it and you want to wait when planting it until the chances of frost are a little lower. Don't get me wrong, we can have frost into the first part of June but it's getting late enough now to chance it.

There are other things to do besides farming though. Tuesday we gathered up a few more pairs to take up to where the two-year olds are so we can brand "the little bunch" today.

Getting a few more pairs to take up to where the Two-year olds are at so we have enough to brand there. Taken 4/25/2006.

After we were done moving the cattle I jumped in the tractor and got some farming done. Normally I would have had the hired man do this but with him leaving there is no need to spend the time teaching him how to farm only to see him leave in a few days. Easier to do it myself and get it done. I hate sitting in the tractor farming but it needs done.

Yesterday I thought I could get a big day of farming in and finish getting the fields ready to plant. No such luck. Out checking water in the morning and a bunch of the drys are out in the wrong pasture wandering around. Everything that didn't have a calf on it when I finished kicking pairs out I put in a different pasture to sell later. Since I don't preg check there are drys in there along with stuff that has lost a calf and a very few left to calve. A bunch of these were in the wrong pasture and there was no water there so a good part of my day was shot getting them back in.

Getting the drys back in from their unauthorized excursion. It always shoots my plans to hell when critters decide to go exploring and need to be gathered back up. Taken 4/26/2006.

I still got some farming done but not what I wanted to get done. I hate it when my plans get shot. Today is the little branding. Just a couple of neighbors to help and get some branded. No big deal. I'm more worried about getting the farming done. On to that tomorrow. I will try to get a picture or two of branding today. No promises though.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing. Thomas A. Edison

Counties, cities seek wind bonds

More than 30 Montana cities and counties filed applications Wednesday for interest-free federal financing for wind energy projects, with Yellowstone and Cascade county commissioners coming to Washington to submit theirs and to lobby on rural issues.

Grab for those interest free financing whether you have the capability or not. I don't know about all the counties and towns on the list but Big Horn County and Hardin caught my eye since they are on the list. There is not enough wind around here to make wind power a reasonable bet so why in the hell are they applying for bonds for wind power?

To confirm my suspicion about the wind in the area I pulled up a wind map of Montana and sure enough, the area around Hardin is all white, not enough wind to classify and most of Big Horn County is white or brown which is marginal.

WHAT THE HELL DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE DOING?

I think I know what's going on, THEY LOST THEIR MINDS. But, I could have told you that about the local politicians a long time ago. Offer them money and they will grab at it, even if they are not sure what to do with it. Wind power around here, how stupid.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap. Napoleon Bonaparte

FROM THE PHOTO ARCHIVES
New not previously published



Nylon looking for some feed on a nice winter day. Taken 1/6/2006.

South Korea to Resume U.S. Beef Imports as Agreed

South Korea, which was the third- biggest buyer of U.S. beef in 2003, will resume imports from the U.S. after confirming a cow infected with mad-cow disease in Alabama was born before feed restrictions were imposed.

South Korean veterinarians confirmed the cow was born before April 1998 after visiting the U.S., the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said in an e-mailed statement today. The confirmation means inspections procedures that were suspended last month will be resumed.

Now if we could just get Japan to open up it's market again it would be nice. It wouldn't stop the downside of the market cycle we are on now, but it would help.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things. Thomas Carlyle

If Sen Burns has not done anything wrong, and was not influenced by Abramoff, and has not been contacted by the Justice Department in connection with the Abramoff scandal, why is he hiring a lawyer that specializes in "white-collar crime, the defense of government enforcement actions, political and congressional investigations, corporate internal investigations and antitrust?"

The suspicious mind believes more than it doubts. It believes in a formidable and ineradicable evil lurking in every person. Eric Hoffer

The sun breaking out from behind the clouds. Taken 4/19/2006.

Drinking lots of coffee doesn't harm heart -study

Go ahead and have that second cup of coffee -- or third, or fourth. A study published on Monday shows heavy, long-term coffee drinking does not raise the risk of heart disease for most people.

Well, this is a pretty good deal for me. I mostly drink coffee in the morning, 8-9 cups, but maybe I will have to start drinking more of it. Since I don't drink alchol or smoke, drinking coffee is okay for me. Yea!!!

Good coffee is like friendship: rich and warm and strong. Pan-American Coffee Bureau

Typical Montana weather. Saturday was a nice, warm, beautiful day. Air was clear, birds were singing, just a spectacular day.

Biscuit guarding the flower bed on a beautiful warm day. Taken 4/22/2006.

Then Sunday rolled in. Cold, light snow, low clouds. Kind of a miserable day. I won't say the moisture hurt but it wasn't a lot of fun.

Nice and warm yesterday, 75 degrees, and today was light snow and cold, never got above 35 degrees. Springtime in Montana. Taken 4/23/2004.

Just the way it goes I guess.

Earth teach me to forget myself as melted snow forgets its life. Earth teach me resignation as the leaves which die in the fall. Earth teach me courage as the tree which stands all alone. Earth teach me regeneration as the seed which rises in the spring. William Alexander

I have been wondering what "Baaxuwuaashe" meant ever since the signs went up last fall near Crow Agency. Now I know, translated from the Crow language it means flour mill and it refers to the Government operated flour mill that was built there in the very early 20th century.

Many of the early Non-Crow settlers in this area used the mill to grind their wheat but I didn't know the Crow name for the town was based on that. Learn something new every day and be glad for it.

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you. Barbara Sher