Happy Cows

Cows on pasture...our pasture...in November

It's crazy what is happening out there in the food world. Fights over labeling, growing, feeding, preparing. Government agencies neck deep into peoples personal lives. The organic and sustainable want-to-bees cashing in where they see cash to be made. Farmers struggling to hold out to their land, their future, their children's future. False advertising, false labeling, false farms.

Yes, False farms.

A scary trend of the future. As folks have decided they are tired of spending hard earned money on food that is indeed making them sicker and instead adjusting their budgets in order to buy food with healthy origins...the doors for cheaters has swung wide open.

There have always been a few of them around, those who don't raise their own animals but pretend they have and rake in the benefits of such. We used to see it in 4-H but at the smallest and most innocent level. A child wanted to show a beef steer and would have grandpa raise it on their farm.

Not so bad if indeed the child was actively involved in raising it. But it worsened over time with the kids never laying eyes on "their calf" until it was unloaded at the fair grounds. Then injuries happened as kids who knew nothing about those animals they supposedly raised, got stepped on, drug around at the end of the lead chain or worse.

Now its seen on a bigger scale. The farmer who has decided they want a piece of the sustainable pie, the organic opal, the farm fresh free for all. So sad that a farmer will brag about his pasture raised cows when its a known fact his animals are raised in a feed lot a couple counties over. Or the pig lady who claims organic status at the farmers market but buys her grain from a conventional farmer we know.

10 years ago I was all up in arms about these practices often contemplating whether or not they should be reported to the agencies that regulate such. But sadly the agencies themselves have slid downhill in their ethics, looking the other way when massive dollars are at stake. Like with the huge organically certified poultry farms whose birds meet the "access to outdoors" by sniffing the earth's smell as it wafts through the employee doorway.

THAT is only a slight exaggeration.

So with our government being majorly corrupt in so many areas and our people as a whole looking only for what is best for THEM, not their livestock or their customers, what are a couple of middle aged totally jaded farmers to do?

The same thing as always. Feed the cows, milk the cows, call the cows by name and let the cows into new pasture and repeat. Our animals know we are real and that is all that matters.

PS In the midst of this blog post, Keith brought me a bag left in the farm store. A gift from ??? No signature. Inside some adorable green socks with happy dancing cows. Note how the post it note has the same title as my blog post.

You people are creeping me out!
Thank you for that.