February, 2008 - ISSUE #16
Puppies!
Good health to you all!
We have great news - Jessie had 5 pups - 2 female and 3 males. Gorgeous little things. Fattening up with great mothering. Right now they are down snuggled in front of the new pellet/corn burning stove. There are now
7 Northwest Farm Terriers in the Eastern part of the United States!
We have had a rough windy season. Chicken tractors blown around and broken like matchsticks - taking out electric fencing on their way across the acres here. Our newly purchased dog kennels for the breeding turkeys smashed flat and the zipper destroyed on the front panel on the greenhouse. It was quite scary! Our neighbor has lived here over 30 years and never saw wind like we've had this year.
Our ping pong table green area downstairs is alive with growth. We even have Rutgers tomatoes and Anaheim chilies (been missing these!). Onions, parsley, lettuce, spinach, artichokes, celery, celeriac and more. We have several kinds of cold weather veggies to plant this week and then next month will be planting directly into the garden with anything that can go in then.
The eggs are overrunning us! The newest batch of chickens are done laying starter eggs and are filling our cartons as fast as we can collect them. All brown eggs. Our one rare chicken is gone - it was the sole producer of white eggs. The egg sign goes up in the front yard too this weekend.
It'll be a very busy season - so far we have hives full of bees and we've been able to feed them a few times w1hich may give them a decided advantage when the weather gets and stays warm.
The orchards are starting to put out their little nubs for leaves - we're hoping for no late frost this year. We'd really like to share peaches with all of you.
Everything is starting to show signs of life - next month it's baby goats. We will have several to sell in May and June.
On Legislation, regulations and farm life:
Every day we get emails from people needing goats milk for health reasons. They want the cheese that we make. But it's all illegal here in Kentucky. So many other states to get raw milk from farms. Quite a few states now turning down the government on NAIS - not accepting the money associated with this terrible program. We will seriously have to consider these things in the near future.
Are you aware that the government will now allow "roundup ready" beet crops for sugar?
here is an excerpt from the email article I received from the Center for Food safety:
About half of the sugar used in the U.S. is beet sugar (the other half is cane sugar). In the next few weeks, sugar beet seed farmers throughout the U.S. will be considering what type of sugar beets to plant, and food companies will have to decide what types of sugar they will accept.
A new option available this year is Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beet, genetically engineered to survive direct application of the weed killer, Roundup. Unlike traditional breeding, genetic engineering creates new life forms that would never occur in nature, creating new and unpredictable health and environmental risks. To create GE crops, genes from bacteria, viruses, plants, animals, and even humans, have already been inserted into our common food crops, like corn, soy, and canola. Now the biotech industry has taken aim at our sugar.
At the request of Monsanto, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increased the allowable amount of glyphosate residues on sugar beetroots by a whopping 5000%. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, sugar is extracted from the beet’s root.
If you don't want to eat Roundup in your granola bars, breakfast cereals, and other things with sugar, sign the petition to stop it!
Click here to sign the petition
What's Available??
I have provided a link on the website to show everyone what is currently available and what to expect in the upcoming months. I will also review it here:
Here is a list of what is available:
- * Salad Bar Eggs (from Pastured Poultry) - $2.50/doz.
To your Health,
P & M Weber
Weber Farms
Copyright © 2006 Patrick Weber/Weber Farms - All Rights
