Farm of the Future

Now the following "short" story I wrote and posted on a Ning website about green living a few years back and this article   http://www.anh-usa.org/genetically-engineered-food-alters-our-digestive-systems/#.VNtBImUMUlw.google_plusone_share   Made me decide to repost it on my blog.  So here it is:

Farm of the Future

The farmer walked out to his field shaking his head, looking at the corn crops all dead; and not knowing why. This has been the first time this has ever happened as far as the farmer knew. He had been growing corn for about five years after his father stopped and gave him the farm. As he looked around even across the street he could see those corn fields dead as well, and those weren't his fields.

As far as he knows all the corn fields are dead, the only place he had heard of any growing still was on a tiny farm about five miles away. He knew though that he couldn't grow that corn, it would kill him. About a year ago someone had gotten into the county grain silo some of that corn, and it had mixed into the rest of the good corn. It was a disaster, all the livestock fed that corn died and so did the people whose food was tainted by it.

The farmer shakes his head thinking about what else that farm was growing. What was a tomato anyway? He had never heard of such a thing as a tomato, and what were beans? The only food that existed (at least as he grew up knowing) was corn made or processed meat. Everyone who grew food grew either corn, chickens, or cows. So what weird kind of food were those people growing?

He could not believe it, as he was offered food from those people the one time he went over to there. He was sick for a week after and the doctors gave him five bottles of pills to get rid of what ever was in that food. He was told by the doctor later that whatever that farm grew it did not have the one thing that all life. It was a a non-modified food, the farmer had never heard of such a thing before. His father when he had asked him told him that when he was a kid they had such foods. Also that people had only started eating the modified foods.

So he guessed someone must have hid those seeds when they were destroying all the non-modified seeds. It didn't matter now if there were as now people could only eat the modified crops now, same with the live stock. The farmer shakes his head again, his dad's childhood days were over 50 years ago, it must have been an odd time.

 While yes, this is not going on now; we do not know the future affects of GM products. What if... one of the future side affects is that anything fed with them can then only eat them? What will happen if humanity becomes dependent on those alterations in the food to survive? It would change our genetic code, and then people who stayed away from them would be a different species from the “normal” humans. While this might not happen, we just don't know. We need more study of these products before humans should ingest them in any form. Even 2^nd hand form.

Piggie!

Hello I'm Rivenfae, and I'm pig paranoid. We just got Strawberry our new cute 3 month old piggie, and she has shown us numerous times how stupid us humans really are.

 By not once but twice getting out of her brand new temporary pen (until we build the permanent one). All on the first day in it. So that night she spent in a kennel in the house till I could prevent her escapes from under the fence. Mind you , we have rebar stakes all along the bottom of the fence to keep her from rooting out of the pen. She still managed to find a way to squeeze under the fence and avoid the rebar totally.

So the next morning I added some heavy rocks around the pen and put her back into it. Once she figured out she could not get out the way she had she squealed bloody murder. I thought I won! The next morning (Monday), I went out to feed her, the rabbits, and the birds and she's standing in the rabbitry right next to her bed on the wrong side of the fencing. Well, she proved me wrong didn't she? I put her back in give her, her food then look around. Seems Silver forgot to staple the fencing to the back of the rabbitry where she sleeps and she squeezed out that way during the night.

She did have a full night too rooting all around the chicken coop trying to find a way into it. Good thing we had dog and fox proofed the chicken coop or the chickens might have had a long night. She spent all Monday sleeping in her bed the contented piggie.

I now have one FULL day of no escaped piggie! So now I am paranoid. I just know she'll find another way out.

My tomato seeds have sprouted and I am still waiting on my peppers and I have all my seeds that I need now for my Spring planting. We also got 26 new chicks today for my flock and we're thinking of this summer (after a few roosters get invited to dinner) hatching some of our own and seeing how it goes.

 Hope everyone is staying warm and those in all that snow, I hope your weather improves soon.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

I have Sprouts!

So my tomato seeds have started sprouting, I just now have to ensure the in house temp stays warm enough for them to grow properly. My older daughter came come with some info on a free gilt through her ag teacher. I am hoping as they go back to school the little one is still available. Seems it is a heritage breed but has a bad back leg. Shrugs A injured back leg does not mean she would not grow well or even be able to breed depends on how she handles the leg as she grows.

We have to spend part of today working on cutting more firewood as we're behind on it. Weather is ugly temperature wise today but we have to do it. We are also going to start working on our homestead projects as well. One of which is a storage building for hay and straw, our outdoor kitchen as well.

I still have to butcher some roosters in my flock, the Leghorn roosters are beating each other up, granted it's only 2 of the three of them doing it. The two Turken roosters are behaving, so I'm not sure why they are.

Not much else going on.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...