Showing posts with label Agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agriculture. Show all posts

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Saturday, March 13, 1875. Sheep.

M.E. Post was noted as having added five thousand sheep to his flock on Pole Creek by the Cheyenne Leader.

Last edition:

Friday, March 5, 1875. The death of Andrew Johnson.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Monday, March 13, 1775. The Westminster Massacre.

William French and Daniel Houghton were killed by a sheriff's posse, after a crowd occupied the Westminster Courthouse to protest the evictions of several poor farmers from their homes by judges and other officials from New York.

Some regard it as a battle of the American Revolution.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 5, 1775. The Boston Massacre.

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Monday, March 2, 1925. Delta Air Lines. . .

Huff Daland Dusters Inc., a crop dusting company, which would ultimately become Delta Airlines, was founded.

The United States and Estonia signed an agreement for mutual most-favored-nation treatment in customs.

Last edition:

Monday, March 1, 1915. Locusts.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Sunday, February 1, 1925. Balto, the future King Zog, wild party in Laramie.

The final leg of the serum run began with Gunnar Kaasen setting out with lead dog Balto.  The Norwegian born Kaasen is the only musher who became famous due to the event.

The story made the first page of the Tribune:


A party in Laramie had apparently gotten out of control.


Ahmed Zog became the first President of Albania. He'd later be its first king. . . sort of a cautionary tale there.

Irish President W. T. Cosgrave appealed to the United States for food aid as the country's potato crop had been severely reduced due to excess rain.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 31, 1925. Leonhard Seppala and Togo.

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

In Memoriam. Jimmy Carter.



James "Jimmy" Carter died on December 29. He was, of course, the 39th President of the United States.

I'm late to noting his passing and therefore everyone has already read tributes to him.  Even Donald Trump, to my surprise, lauded him and indicated he'd attend his funeral. Carter did, it might be noted, feel that the early criticism of Trump was unfair.  I don't know what he thought about Trump later.

I've listed to a lot of the audio obits and read a few, and what I'll note is that, as so often, they approach being hagiography and tend to omit somethings that should be of real interest.

I'll start with the biggest.  Carter was a failure as a President.  Coming into office with an American public sick of inflation (sound familiar?) and disgusted with the Republicans due to Watergate (sound unfamiliar?), and also fatigued by the Vietnam War, he really didn't accomplish much.  He proved incapable of tackling inflation, which would fall to Reagan, and the US military, probably not surprisingly, lapsed into a weakened state, which Reagan also would address.  

While he was not a success as a President, he was one in life, however.

Carter, it was often noted, was from a peanut farm in Georgia.  What's oddly less often mentioned is that he was a Naval Academy graduate and a submariner.  To enter the submarine service you must be an engineer and a genius.  He was both.  He may be the smartest man to occupy the office since the Second World War. 

He was certainly the most moral.

He was a dedicated Baptist Christian, which nobody could rationally doubt.  The degree of his devotion was such that its almost surprising that he was elected, particularly as he gave an interview to Playboy during the height of its influence, noting how deeply Christian he was.  After he lost his bid for reelection, he devoted his remaining long life to public service, often to the poor.

Like the law, politics is an occupation that frequently initiates people into compromising their morals and attracts a certain percentage of people who are willing to do so.  And power, as is so often noted, corrupts.  Carter was unique in that he was a deeply moral man and the office did not change him.

Friday, December 27, 2024

USDA Forecasts Higher Retail Egg Prices for 2025

 What the crud?

USDA Daily Radio Newsline

December 27 Stories

USDA Forecasts Higher Retail Egg Prices for 2025

Census of Aquaculture Reveals Top Selling Seafood Types

Top Ten Weather Stories of 2024 – Southern Plains Wildfires

Top Ten Weather Stories of 2024 –Western Wildfires

Actuality: Notable Western Wildfire Season

Higher egg prices?  Donald promised to lower prices.  That simply can't be true.  Prices must go down.

Friday, December 20, 2024

Saturday, December 14, 2024

Blot Mirror: This is why we can't have nice things. This National Crime.

 

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

I think, sometimes could be real. The battle for land and people owning that agricultural landscape. The pretty views that we have, the clean water that comes with it, the beautiful tall grass that’s waving in the wind. I mean, they want to buy it because they like that. And then they put a house on every 40 that we used to run cows on.

Montana rancher commenting on a big influx of people into Montana because of the claptrap soap opera, Yellowstone

It's not just Yellowstone, the moronic dipshit Western melodrama that has caused this, by the way.  A River Runs Through It, which is one of my favorite movies, had the same effect, as well as making fly fishing something that locals just did, along with using spinning rods, into some sort of elite yuppie thing in some quarters.

Here's the thing.  A lot of it has a lot to do with the lack of proper land use laws in the US.  Large blocks of land really shouldn't be owned as huge yards for hobbyist or the wealthy, but for agricultural production.  Agricultural land shouldn't be owned by anyone other than those who work it.  People who admire the wilderness, of any type, ought not to be building houses on it.

Blog Mirror: This National Crime

 

This National Crime

Friday, December 13, 2024

Friday, November 29, 2024

Get real.

 I see goofball crap like this all the time:

LAND OPPORTUNITY: 5 acres for livestock or veggies with housing – Summerland, BC

Posted by Haley Schonhofer on November 26, 2024

We always have new land opportunities coming into our inventory, some of which aren’t on our blog yet! Get in touch with a Land Matcher at bclmp@youngagrarians.org to learn about the latest opportunities and to access free B.C. Land Matching Program services in your region.

Five acres?

Your crop would have to be a really premium grade of marijuana or opium poppies to make it on so little ground.

And livestock?

What, maybe a pygmy cow?


Sunday, November 24, 2024

Tuesday, November 24, 1874. Barbed Wire Patented.

 


Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which would revolutionize livestock production and methods in North America.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 3, 1874. The Election Massacre of 1874.

Friday, November 1, 2024

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Top Saving

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Top Saving: Over the years, sugar beet harvesting has gone through different stages. In the early days, the foliage on top of the beets was saved and fe...

Friday, October 25, 2024

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Back in the Saddle

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Back in the Saddle: The day finally came for me to get literally back in the saddle.  I have hardly ridden a horse this summer. New responsibilities have played...

Friday, October 11, 2024

Inflation. A needed primer.


Seeing as I see so many posts, some from people running for office on this, a reminder.

Inflation going down just means the rate of inflation, goes down.  Prices still rise, just more slowly.

The U.S. Government targets inflation to be at about 2%.  It's 2.4% right now, which is basically a return to the pre Covid rate of inflation.  It goes up a little and down a little.

Personally, I don't like it that the government targets inflation for a perpetual slight rate.  I think the ideal rate is 0%.  Economist dispute that, but I'm not an economist, except in the amature, and distributist, sense.

Some people, such as Jimmy Akin, blame the government for inflation itself, and to some extent that's warranted.  But the recent inflationary cycle reflects world events, a war in Europe's grain belt between to oil producing entities being a big part of that.  Ironically, recent drops in the rate of inflation have been partially caused by Iran being a menace.

Anyhow, politicians who keep suggesting that "prices will go down" if they are elected are either lying or economically ignorant.

Prices can go down, of course, and for a variety of reasons. Technological advances cause the price of some things to go down, although they cause the price of some durables to go up.  Political actions can impact the price of things, but it tends to only occur very moderately over a prolonged period of time, or due to something dramatic, like deregulation of a very heavily regulated industry, or like busting up a big monopoly.

When prices really go down, that's deflation.  Not a decrease in inflation.  Once again, a decrease of inflation means that prices still rise, just not as much over a given period of time.  Deflation means they actually drop.

Deflation is pretty rare in a healthy economy and when it occurs in a healthy economy, it tends to only be for a month or so.  A general prolonged deflation only occurs in a depression. 

Depressions cause deflations.  People are out of work, so they don't have money, so they don't buy things, so prices drop.

And there you have it.

Monday, October 7, 2024

Mondays


 There is nothing so dispiriting as coming into your "good" office job after a weekend of working cattle.

Friday, September 27, 2024

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Shipping Calves

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Shipping Calves: Fall is calf shipping season in the Rocky Mountain ranch world. I got my first call to lend a hand at the Borgialli Ranch about 25 miles eas...