Government vs farmer

Img Source West Wind Acres

Starting yesterday,  began seeing this story pop across my facebook news feed

government attacks small family farm in Schenectady county New York

In checking the story it, it appears just what it seems to be, an overreaction from people who don't really know or understand a thing about agriculture.

I first went to the farm blog itself to see things directly from the farm

first, this post

"While getting the boys ready, I looked out to find a Glenville Police Officer and 2 animal control officers.  I greeted them in the front yard, where they asked a couple of questions about our dogs not all being licensed and then asked if I'd mind taking them to the farm to see the dogs.  I was hesitant as I knew the dogs water would possibly be frozen since I hadn't yet done afternoon chores, but in the spirit of transparency I offered to bring them to the farm.

Upon arrival we toured the farm, they witnesses a large steer stick his nose through the snow to access the running water below, I fed the sows, and then took them to the barn.  I had told them the water would most likely be frozen and it was.  I asked if they could do a hydration test on the dogs which they did, and stated that they were very well hydrated, seconds later the police officer handed me a ticket for failure to provide proper sustenance.  They also voiced concern over Thea favoring her left leg, and Julius being introverted.

I called Mandak Veterinary Services on Thursday morning and asked for a wellness check of the farm including a rabies vaccine for Julius, and a check of Thea's leg.  They came out Friday morning, I held off on doing chores until after the wellness check so they could see conditions at their worst.  See her right here

This Tuesday the boys and I left for a slaughterhouse in Rome at 5:30 am, because I would be returning at 10-10:30 I opted to do morning chores upon returning in lieu of 4:30 in the morning, also a neighbor was going to stop to check water for the piglets, sheep, and dogs.  We made our trip, dropped the boys at the sitters, and I headed to the farm to drop the trailer so I could go get water.  As I pulled up I noticed police presence, 3 police officers, a dog control officer, and a vet, were there to execute a search warrant of our farm, and the house.  The search ended at our house with the officers stating that more charges may be brought at court next Thursday evening.
"

Excerpt detailing the start of problems from the farm blog.

Now, some things to consider, this has been one of the coldest winters on record.

The farmer, independent of any government requirement, had a vet come to the farm and perform wellness checks on the animals.

This is from the vet:

Mandak Veterinary Services
67 Middleline Rd
Ballston Spa, NY 12020
(518) 885-7773

I was called to examine the animals at West Wind Acres during my rounds February 27th 2015. I was able to observe 4 dogs, a flock of sheep (15+) a herd of cattle (20+), 2 horses and a herd of 20+ pigs. All the animals appeared to be bright and alert and were in adequate body condition. The animals that were able to be handled had adequate hydration status. Adequate food stores were available and all animals had access to shelter or a wind break. The cattle, horses and some pigs had access to a spring where they could easily break thru a very thin sheet of ice to gain access to water (I observed cattle drinking from there during my visit). The owner explained he broke open the watering area daily with a tractor to prevent the ice from getting too thick.
The dogs and sheep were in the barn and had a water tub with a thin sheet of ice over it. Since my visit took place mid-afternoon, it seemed reasonable to assume that fresh water had been available earlier that morning but had frozen over the course of the day due to the extreme cold. The pig’s water situation was similar. The owner explained that all animals received fresh water at least twice a day during feeding time. Based on the health of the animals, I have no reason to doubt this. While this may not seem the ideal situation to everyone, it is common practice in the care of livestock in our extreme New York winter weather.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions or concerns.
Theodora J Smith, DVM

West Wind Acres farm was served with two search warrants, first on March 3, the second on March 15th.

The farmer is facing 12 separate charges, was arrested, and had to post bail.

Now, keep in mind, this is a small farming operation, open to the public, the farmer not only fully cooperated with police, but had an independent vet come out, as shown above.

The principle complaints seem to be animals outside in cold temperatures, and frozen water.  As the farmer and vet have  explained, the animals were watered multiple times a day, the water for the cattle had the ice broken open on it daily.

Livestock go outside in the winter, it happens. in many small operations, including the farm in question, shelter is provided, but not forced.

Now, granted, I do not know this farmer personally, I have not seen the conditions of the farm personally, but the blogger that posted the original link has and does.

This seems to be nothing but "animal rights" activists that understand neither animals nor agriculture, law enforcement that again has poor understanding of agriculture, and NY states vague animal abuse laws that rely heavily on the judgement of individual police and animal control.


From the University of Wisconsin regarding cattle outside in the winter:

Can dairy cattle stay healthy and comfortable outside during a Wisconsin winter? The answer appears to be yes, with careful management, according to findings from the first year of a two-year CIAS outwintering study. Ed Brick, a civil and environmental engineer, studied 33 management intensive rotational grazing dairy farms across Wisconsin during the winter of 1996-97 to observe conditions and interview farmers about outwintering.
Of the 33 dairy farms that he visited, 16 outwinter milk cows. The farms range in size from under 20 to over 1,000 milk cows. Brick visited most of the farms twice, during early and late winter 1996-1997. He made observations and interviewed farmers about animal condition and comfort and recorded outwintered stock numbers and types, feed and water sources, bedding types, location of cattle, and windbreak type.
Participating farmers “feel they can demonstrate their cattle were healthier and happier outside than in,” said Brick

 Full link, with more information, granted, specific to dairy operations, but it still has general applications.

Another post re livestock in winter, this one from Agweek
regarding cattle in North Dakota winter.

It is fairly common practice for animals to be at least semi outside in the winter, including the common use of calf hutches that allow both outside access, and provide shelter from wind and snow, allowing cattle and other livestock to go outside prevents health problems that being constantly in a barn in the winter can cause, such as pneumonia and other respiratory ailments


Find out how you can help below:
West Wind Acres Legal Defence Fund
West Wind Acres website
Friends of West Wind Acres Facebook

I encourage all of you reading this, if you are familiar with farming, get involved and support this farmer in this wrongful attack.

If you are unfamiliar with agriculture and would like to learn more, some good general sources are below:

Dairy Carrie, a general farm blog written with a focus on public education re the dairy industry

Your local Cornell Cooperative Extension or it's equivalent in your area

Visit with a local farmer, most smaller farms especially are very willing to work with and educate the public about agriculture is and how it works

Oneida County Dairy promotion or your counties equivilent

Other good places for information include 4H or FFA if they have a presence in your area

Edit/Update: Another link with further information, very well written piece
Gofundme! Save West Wind Acres From An Orwellian Nightmare

Assemblyman William Magee, Chair of Agriculture Committee

Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, 111th district representing Schenectady County

State Sen. Patty Ritchie, Chair of Senate Agriculture Committee

State Sen. Hugh T. Farley, State Senator representing Schenectady County

Glenville Town Court

Email Glenville Town Supervisor ckoetzle@townofglenville.org

Schenecteday County District Attorney

 

An open letter from a principal

I came across this letter this morning to the NYS legislature and found it well worth sharing.

The quote that, in my mind, best sums up the letter:

"I did not then, nor do I now, understand why you would want to be in the business of evaluating teachers. Teachers are employed not by the State of New York, but by their locally elected school boards. I do not believe that our legislature has created systems to evaluate police officers, school superintendents, firefighters, the custodians who work in government offices, SUNY professors, or the men and women who take tolls on our bridges and tunnels. I suspect that you would recoil at the thought of legislating how every public servant is rated. And so you should. The good people of New York did not elect you for that purpose."

Click for the full post: My letter to the NYS legislature on APPR

Ultimately, in my mind, education should be a local matter, each individual student learns differently, and you cannot create a cookie cutter standard that attempts to shove all education into the same box.  State and Federal guidelines are all well and good, they have a place, but they should be limited.  The further you remove control of education from local districts and parents, the more each individual student suffers.

Kids are not numbers, they are not statistics in a database, they are individual people, as are the teachers who teach them.  Allow each local school district to address its own individual needs and stop meddling.

NYC vs Upstate

It is well past time for a serious discussion about "The City" and the rest of the state parting ways.  We'll even let New York City keep the name New York

Different regions going their separate ways is not new in this country, most people know about West Virginia parting ways, but it doesn't take a civil war for regions to go their own way.  Kentucky also split ways from Virginia, what is now Tennessee split from North Carolina, and Maine from Massachusetts, and of course, Vermont from NY.

There have also been several movements in other states for regions to go their separate ways, most notably the state of Jefferson in northern California, which arguably would have been successful had it not been overshadowed by Pearl Harbor and WWII.  Most recently, 11 counties in Colorado considered a nonbinding resolution to form a separate state, with five counties voting in favor.

The discussion has happened on and off in NY since the Civil War, but has never really gained much traction, mostly because people brush it off and declare it impossible, even if they may support the concept in principle. Until now

Lets consider a few things, first, lets look at registered voters

According to the NYS Board of Elections, in 2014 NYS had 11,806,472 registered voters. 4,568,362 residing in NYC, 7,238,110 "outside"

Of those voters, "Outside" NYC is fairly balanced, arguably heavily GOP depending on where you draw the line for upstate/downstate.
In contrast, NYC is overwhelmingly Democrat.  In a statewide or presidential election, this disparity effectively silences the Republican and conservative voters of Upstate NY, nearly 2.5 million voters who increasingly feel their votes do not matter, who feel ignored by the state government, and feel dominated and bullied by the political whims of an urban population that does not understand rural needs.

If we look at election results, we often see two separate pictures, but due to the nature of winner take all elections, NYC dominates and Upstate is left out in the cold.

Issues such as the SAFE act further divide the two regions, while if they were to go their separate ways, downstate could happily have strict gun control if it should so choose, while upstate could happily have gun laws that better fit a rural population. On a related note to the SAFE act, a major upstate employer, Remington Arms, is expanding into operations in Alabama and scaling back it's operations in Illion NY, and several other firearms operations have left the state due to the controversial legislation.

The upstate economy is reeling and has been for years, with little hope of change seen in a future tied to urban downstate policies that do not fit well in the upstate economy, Coumo's proposed fixes include casinos and the shady at best startup NY tax free scheme.

Meanwhile NY has the highest tax burden in the nation.


NY is ranked #49 for state tax business climate

The economic policies forced on Upstate NY have crippled the economy, and when local communities seek to explore options such as fracking in the Marcellus shale, they are shut down by a statewide ban on what should be a local matter.

The discussion is happening, and needs to keep happening, be it in the form of home rule;  joining Pennsylvania;  or creating separate regions as the New Amsterdam movement advocates

Realistically, perhaps creating a 51st state is not the most viable of options, the current political environment would likely never allow it, as the politics of Congress place the needs of the party above the needs of the people.  But the above choices are all good, outside the box options that can help free rural Upstate NY from an Urban, dominant downstate.

Here's to a future where a New Amsterdam, or whatever name we may choose for ourselves, is a reality.  In the mean time, lets have the conversation, lets not quit before we start with a defeatist "it won't happen" attitude.

It is the American way to seek our own path, it's well past time we remembered that

Image source: http://www.newamsterdamny.org/

 

The worst call

I'm really, really bad at doing this blogging thing consistently, but that's not the purpose of this post.

Recently, I was part of the something that any first responder or healthcare provider dreads, an infant full arrest.  I still haven't really processed it, I don't know that I ever fully will.  My heart breaks for the family, I grieve that we did all we could and it wasn't enough.  I don't post this for your sympathy, if anything, have sympathy for the family, pray for them.

However, recently, me and a friend have been discussing miracles, God, and assorted related things.  He shared with me a blog post he wrote about miracles in his life, The day we fell. It broke my heart, made me cry to be honest. We have had differing experiences in life, we have come to some differing conclusions, but we have both come to that place of "I don't understand"

I wrote something up that night, I hadn't slept yet, I was still reeling, I wasn't sure if I should share it or not.

But I'm going to.  This is written from a perspective of faith, shaken faith perhaps, but of faith all the same.  You don't have to agree with me, but I'm sharing this because I know I'm not the only one with these questions, struggling with the "why God?" issues this life brings.

There's some typos, and at least one curse word, but I'm going to leave it as is, just as I wrote it.  I hope it helps someone.  Above all, especially to any first responder reading this, you don't need to deal with things alone.  Don't bottle in the hurt, talk to someone, don't ignore the pain.  It's ok to not be ok

That said, here is my unedited, sleep deprived thoughts:

Miracles.

Such a loaded word.  The dead rise, crumbled bones healed, the blind see. And God does them, but only when He chooses to, and if He doesn’t, well then suck it up and believe that He had other plans that might or might not make sense, if you tilt the picture the right way.

Let me explain, I’m an EMT and a firefighter.  I’ve seen bad things happen, to good people, bad people, and everyone else.  Death, well, it sounds cold and jaded, maybe it is, but death doesn’t faze me much.  Don’t get me wrong, it sucks, and I hate it, but I’m used to it, people die, it’s part of life.  I’m not heartless, I mourn, it hits me even harder than most I think when someone close to me dies, because then all the pain, sadness, and grief that I push away day today can’t be hidden from, it comes up, hard, and smacks me around for a bit, and then I move on

But today….today was different….today someone died, in spite of everything we could possibly do, all of our combined training, our expensive equipment, none of it mattered, “it was their time to go” possibly one of my most hated true sayings of all time, especially today

Today, we were dispatched for an infant, not breathing, CPR in progress.

Those words come over the radio, everything stops.  Your adrenaline kicks into overdrive, your blood runs cold, you sprint to the ambulance, you drive as fast as you’ve ever, ever driven to get to the call….

I won’t go into details, for a few reasons, only two of which you really need to know, first, I haven’t really even processed any of it in my mind yet, I haven’t even really slept yet, and I need to sleep, but I’m so tired I’m not tired, and I wanted to write this out, I think some of our most true to us thoughts, the real honest, unfiltered true, comes out when we are tired.  Second, I really truly ethically and legally shouldn’t, it’s unfair to the family, and you really don’t need to, and don’t ever want to, know the intimate details.

Just trust me in saying that when you see CPR being performed on a tiny, tiny chest, desperate CPR, and not on a training doll, but a real, human, baby.  It changes you.  Something dies in side of you.  You beg God, the devil, anyone that will listen really, to just make it ok.  Kids, especially babies aren’t supposed to be sick, and they most certainly aren’t supposed to die.

Afterward, at the hospital, everyone is silent, everyone asking someone else if they are ok, making sure everyone collectively knows that we can talk about it if we need to, and we will, because we all know we need to, in our own time, we will deal with it, because we all know, all too well, that if we don’t, it will literally kill us.  But none of us want to right now, we all are dealing with it differently already,  one by making sure everyone else is ok, another by cleaning anything, so on so forth, anything to try to not be overwhelmed by the knowledge that a baby just died, and there was nothing we could have done differently, and there was no miracle, a healthy, loved baby just died, and we failed to stop it.

Old people die, accident victims die, drug addicts die, sick people die, babies, they grow up, they play, they cry, they giggle, they change the world, no, babies don’t die

but this one did.  And, a loving God, why, He’d swoop down and make it all ok, because babies don’t die.  That is what miracles and faith and prayer are for! Right?

Well, yes, kinda, but no

You see, babies do die, kids die everyday, all over the world, and we just don’t care, we aren’t directly impacted by it, so, I mean it’s sad, but can you imagine how crippled we would be daily if we mourned every kid that died?  It’s not a heartless thing, its just a coping thing.

But when we are personally affected, when its our kid, or a friends kid, or we are the people called to save the kid, well, then God must act! Then we demand, expect a miracle, because damn it, we believe, we have faith!

But, the kid died.

And we blame God for not providing a miracle.

Well, and this may seem kinda harsh, I suppose it really is very harsh, but it’s the cold, blunt, sleep deprived truth.  What makes you so fucking special?

Kids die, it’s not Gods plan for them to die, I won’t delve into all the deep theological discussions behind it all, but I’ll say this much to it.  It wasn’t God’s plan for that kid, or any other kid to die, it sucks, and I firmly believe that even God Himself is saddened everytime anyone dies, but beyond that, when I kid dies, an innocent, can’t even talk yet, doesn’t even know what sin or hurt yet baby dies, I think it makes God angry.

And yes, God, an all powerful loving being, could save them all.  He could reach down and grant a miracle, and every baby would live.

And it wouldn’t be a miracle, it would be the norm.

Fact is, we live in a broken world

Fact is, whether you believe the story of Eden is literal or not, we are broken, depraved creatures.  We live in a world of sin, a world of darkness

The devil didn’t always do it, and God doesn’t always fix it the way we have the faith to want it

But God did fix it

That baby is saved.  See, that baby is in heaven, with God.  I firmly believe that, seeing as the requirement of salvation, the fundamental Christian tenement to be saved, no matter your chosen flavor of the church, is that you choose Christ, meaning you must know the choice, and either choose or reject it.  That baby never rejected Christ. So, in my view, that baby would be saved.  Maybe I’m wrong, but if I am, then me and God will have an issue

See, which is the greater miracle, allowing Christ Jesus to be tortured, beaten, and brutally murdered, even sending him to hell for 3 days, to provide eternal salvation for a broken, screwed up, ungrateful race, or swooping in and saving him from it all? I’m sure Mary would have, at least in part, preferred the latter, “Save my son from this God!” I’m sure a part of her heart cried.  

Which is the greater miracle, allowing the, certainly strong of faith and deserving of a nice life Steven to be beaten and stoned to death, yet welcomed into the arms of Jesus and eternal salvation, or swooping in to save him from temporary, admittedly horrible pain?

If God had stopped Saul from tormenting, even murdering, faithful, devout, God fearing Christians, would he have ever become Paul?

Miracles are not for the deserving, see, to live is gain, to die is Christ.  No, miracles are to spread the glory of God.  Miracles happen, so that someone who would have died and had chosen, by rejecting Christ, hell, to have more time to make a different choice, and perhaps be saved

We scream and mourn and blame God “He didn’t deserve to die!” No, perhaps not, and it is natural to be angry at death, death is a result of sin, God hates sin, and, I think, is angered by death

But God has beaten death.  We are eternal creatures. This earth, this wretched, screwed up earth, is but a temporary home.  It wasn’t supposed to be, but we broke it.  So God fixed it, but, first we need to accept the fix, and accept that its broken.

Be angry at death, be angry at sin, be angry that innocent people suffer.  Be angry.  

But above all, be a light.  Help a sad person smile.  Make a child laugh.  Feed a hungry man.  Give a cold man a blanket, or a heated shelter.  Bring a thirsty man water

Not because they deserve it, but because they need it.  Because people loving is what heaven, I think, is, unconditional, unquestioning, love.

Hell is hate.

We have both of them, or glimpses thereof, before us, on earth

A baby died today, in front of my eyes, in spite of all of our efforts, in spite of our prayers.

I’m not ok with that. I’m angry about it, I’ve cried about it, I will some more.  And I can either become angry as a person, miserable, give up, and be consumed so much by my hatred of hate, so bitter that we live in a world that could snuff out an innocent life; or I can choose to love.  I can choose to be happy in spite of the pain.  I can choose to bring joy.  I can choose to do all I can do to ensure a better world for the babies that didn’t die today.  I can choose Christ