Livestock Farming Quotes

Love is like farm work. It requires consistency, and imagination. Your body will ache and you will be fatigued, but there is no greater reward than seeing the fruits of your labor.

I wanted to make every moment intentional. Wake up intentionally. Work intentionally. Eat intentionally. And rest intentionally.

You have to have fun in the failures, especially when you’re reinventing yourself and trying new things. Your failures become your most memorable stories.

It’s funny how you can hear a song your whole life and it’s just words and music. And then one day that same song can take on a whole new meaning and knock the breath out of you.

There is a moment of absolute freedom that things that used to scare you no longer hold power over you anymore

Dreams are matters of the heart, things that pull you along as if they have hooked you someplace deep inside.

Michael Pollan likens consumer choices to pulling single threads out of a garment. We pull a thread from the garment when we refuse to purchase eggs or meat from birds who were raised in confinement, whose beaks were clipped so they could never once taste their natural diet of worms and insects. We pull out a thread when we refuse to bring home a hormone-fattened turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. We pull a thread when we refuse to buy meat or dairy products from cows who were never allowed to chew grass, or breathe fresh air, or feel the warm sun on their backs. The more threads we pull, the more difficult it is for the industry to stay intact. You demand eggs and meat without hormones, and the industry will have to figure out how it can raise farm animals without them. Let the animals graze outside and it slows production. Eventually the whole thing will have to unravel. If the factory farm does indeed unravel - and it must - then there is hope that we can, gradually, reverse the environmental damage it has caused. Once the animal feed operations have gone and livestock are once again able to graze, there will be a massive reduction in the agricultural chemicals currently used to grow grain for animals. And eventually, the horrendous contamination caused by animal waste can be cleaned up. None of this will be easy. The hardest part of returning to a truly healthy environment may be changing the current totally unsustainable heavy-meat-eating culture of increasing numbers of people around the world. But we must try. We must make a start, one by one.

Men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men.

Try. The want-to creates the how-to. And if all else fails, just fake it. But for God’s sake, at least try.

Do you want to be right? Or do you want to happy?

Think what it implies when you say that a country needs leaders. In your day-to-day life, you interact with all sorts of other individuals. And that's all society is: the collective name for lots of INDIVIDUALS. But for some inexplicable reason, we're taught to believe that one huge, arbitrarily chosen assortment of individuals (the "citizens" of one human livestock farm--I mean, "country") need some control freaks acting as intermediaries in order to interact with a different arbitrarily chosen assortment of individuals (the "citizens" of some other human livestock farm--I mean, "country"). Because gee, how could I and some random person in the middle of China possibly leave each other alone if we didn't each have a gang of narcissistic sociopaths claiming to "represent" us? Oh, wait a minute. That's exactly how and why pretty much ALL wars happen: because different gangs of power-happy psychos pit their pawns against each other in violent conflict, while claiming to "represent" subsets of humanity. One more example of how "government" is a problem posing as its own solution.

...was the kind of person that made you feel like big magical things were right around the corner, and you just had to be bold enough to make the turn.

I became a person that I liked.

There is a moment of absolute freedom when you realize that the things that used to scare you have no power over you anymore.

And I don't think anybody ever gets over loss. I think you get through it. You let it get through you.

Life is about constantly changing perspective.

When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that. —Eleanor H. Porter,

The nutritional composition of beef provides much-needed protein, vitamins and iron.... Let us also not gloss over what is beef's most obvious benefit: Livestock take inedible and untasty grains and convert them into a protein-packed food most humans love to eat.

The neighbor's flock has taken advantage of the chaos, and I think that's pretty smart.

But failure, and the response I got, made it okay to try things and fail. I felt safe.

It doesn’t matter what you do . . . so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Chaos, I think, is youth. Youth at any age. Because as long as you have chaos, you are free of responsibility. When you are in chaos, when you don't know what's going on, when you're an ignorant dreamer...when you're floating through space like that, you aren't supposed to get anything right, you aren't supposed to make sense, you're supposed to be...amused,,,and aware. It can't go on. Not unless you choose that life. A life of never settling down, never making a claim on who you are, who you love... Once you make those claims you become accountable. You have to get to work...Dreams end. That's one thing I'm discovering.

Lately, in this city I love, this neighborhood I love, all I seem to notice are the intrusions. Hot Air. Reeking garbage. Lunatic neighbors...I am inventing filters. Air filters. Stinking garbage filters. Lunatic-neighbor filters... Sometimes I imagine plugging a big air conditioner to the front of my head so I can block the rest of the world out. That's not right.

When a livestock farmer is willing to “practice complexity”—to choreograph the symbiosis of several different animals, each of which has been allowed to behave and eat as it evolved to—he will find he has little need for machinery, fertilizer, and, most strikingly, chemicals. He finds he has no sanitation problem or any of the diseases that result from raising a single animal in a crowded monoculture and then feeding it things it wasn’t designed to eat. This is perhaps the greatest efficiency of a farm treated as a biological system: health.

in settled populations, people with this same gene form have poorer nutrition. The same traits that make a nomad fierce enough to hunt and to defend livestock against raiders may hinder more sedentary activities like farming, selling goods at the market, or focusing at school.

Slaves, whose legal status was comparable to that of livestock, were expected to provide a farm owner with marketable children.

Livestock produce more greenhouse gases than global airplane and car emissions combined, and 65 percent of these gases come from cows.

The managed grazing of pastured animals is as good for land as factory farming is bad for it.

I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all. —Laura Ingalls Wilder, “A Bouquet of Wild Flowers

I want to push myself everyday, and everyday be intentional

There’s something about constantly moving in high gear—when you have the opportunity to stop, you almost don’t know how.

When you have a miscarriage, there's no funeral. There's no right for your grief. You mourn alone, even when entirely surrounded by people.

And as things bloom and grow and live here, we are constantly reminded what a gift it is to put our hands in the dirt and connect with the land and each other through Mischief Farm.

A farm is a peculiar problem for a man who likes animals, because the fate of most livestock is that they are murdered by their benefactors. The creatures may live serenely but they end violently, and the odor of doom hangs about them always. I have kept several pigs, starting them in spring as weanlings and carrying trays to them all through summer and fall. The relationship bothered me. Day by day I became better acquainted with my pig, and he with me, and the fact that the whole adventure pointed toward an eventual piece of double-dealing on my part lent an eerie quality to the thing. I do not like to betray a person or a creature, and I tend to agree with Mr. E.M. Forster that in these times the duty of a man, above all else, is to be reliable. It used to be clear to me, slopping a pig, that as far as the pig was concerned I could not be counted on, and this, as I say, troubled me. Anyway, the theme of "Charlotte's Web" is that a pig shall be saved, and I have an idea that somewhere deep inside me there was a wish to that effect.

Scientists have found that nomads who inherited the form of a particular gene linked to extroversion (specifically, to novelty-seeking) are better nourished than those without this version of the gene. But in settled populations, people with this same gene form have poorer nutrition. The same traits that make a nomad fierce enough to hunt and to defend livestock against raiders may hinder more sedentary activities like farming, selling goods at the market, or focusing at school.

When you find a community that nurtures you and your family, it isn't enough to just live in it; you must also nurture and protect that place and all the people who give you respite, solace, joy, and just enough hell to keep life interesting.

The oak was, of course, a great stealer of the surrounding pasture—its only value to provide shade for the livestock—but it was a magnificent tree. It had been there at least as long as Luxtons had owned the land. To have removed it would have been unthinkable (as well as a forbidding practical task). It simply went with the farm. No one taking in that view for the first time could have failed to see that the tree was the immovable, natural companion of the farmhouse, or, to put it another way, that so long as the tree stood, so must the farmhouse. And no mere idle visitor—especially if they came from a city and saw that tree on a summer’s day—could have avoided the simpler thought that it was a perfect spot for a picnic.

Our industries, our trade, and our way of life generally have been based first on the exploitation of the earth's surface and then on the oppression of one another--on banditry pure and simple. The inevitable result is now upon us. The unsuccessful bandits are trying to despoil their more successful competitors. The world is divided into two hostile camps: at the root of this vast conflict lies the evil of spoliation which has destroyed the moral integrity of our generation. While this contest marches to its inevitable conclusion, it will not be amiss to draw attention to a forgotten factor which may perhaps help to restore peace and harmony to a tortured world. We must in our future planning pay great attention to food--the product of sun, soil, plant, and livestock--in other words, to farming and gardening.

These days, there are so few pure country people left on the concession roads that we may be in need of a new category of membership, much as sons and daughters of veterans are now allowed to join the Legion. A few simple questions could be asked, a small fee paid and (assuming that the answers are correct) you could be granted the status of an "almost local." Here are some of the questions you might be asked: Do you have just one suit for weddings and funerals? Do you save plastic buckets? Do you leave your car doors unlocked at all times? Do you have an inside dog and an outside dog? Has your outside dog never been to town? When you pass a neighbour in the car, do you wave from the elbow or do you merely raise one finger from the steering wheel? Do you have trouble keeping the car or truck going in a straight line because you are looking at crops or livestock? Do you sometimes find yourself sitting in the car in the middle of a dirt road chatting with a neighbour out the window while other cars take the ditch to get around you? Can you tell whose tractor is going by without looking out the window? Can people recognize you from three hundred yards away by the way you walk or the tilt of your hat? If somebody honks their horn at you, do you automatically smile and wave? Do most of your conversations open with some observation about the weather? Is your most important news source the store in the village? Have you had surgery in the local hospital? If you hear about a death or a fire in the community, does the woman in your house immediately start making sandwiches or a cake? Do you sometimes find yourself referring to a farm in the neighbourhood by the name of someone who owned it more than twenty-five years ago? If you answered yes to all of the above questions, consider it official: you are a local.

Witches Brew Keep in mind that this recipe is from the 1980s!        6 tea bags of your choice (I use a spice tea)        1 can frozen orange juice        1 can frozen lemonade        3 cinnamon sticks        1 tablespoon cloves        Grab the biggest pot in your kitchen and add 4 quarts of water. Bring to a slow boil and add the tea bags. Let steep for 7 minutes. Remove the tea bags and add the frozen juice, lemonade, cinnamon sticks, and cloves. Simmer on medium heat for at least 30 minutes. To serve, strain out the spices and ladle into a teacup. Splash in a healthy dose of whiskey to make it interesting.

Rousseau saw the invention of farming as one big fiasco, and for this, too, we now have abundant scientific evidence. For one thing, anthropologists have discovered that hunter-gatherers led a fairly cushy life, with work weeks averaging twenty to thirty hours, tops. And why not? Nature provided everything they needed, leaving plenty of time to relax, hang out and hook up. Farmers, by contrast, had to toil in the fields and working the soil left little time for leisure. No pain, no grain. Some theologists even suspect that the story of the Fall alludes to the shift to organised agriculture, as starkly characterised by Genesis 3: ‘By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.’29 Settled life exacted an especially heavy toll on women. The rise of private property and farming brought the age of proto-feminism to an end. Sons stayed on the paternal plot to tend the land and livestock, which meant brides now had to be fetched for the family farm. Over centuries, marriageable daughters were reduced to little more than commodities, to be bartered like cows or sheep.30

Hilarie’s Magic Potion 8 ounces apple cider vinegar 8 ounces beet juice 4 ounces lemon juice Water In a large jar or pitcher, mix together apple cider vinegar, beet juice, and lemon juice. (I keep this in the fridge, and it lasts a little longer than a week.) Each night, fill a glass half full of the mixture and then dilute it with cold water to fill the glass.

You think he should turn to dairying and livestock,” Kathleen said. “It would be easier and more profitable than trying to farm lowland clay.” “You may be right,” she told him ruefully. “But in this part of England, breeding livestock is not considered as respectable as working the land.” “What the devil is the difference? Either way, one ends up shoveling manure.

The harder farmers push animals beyond their natural limit, and the more closely animals are confined, often the greater the risk of disease and the heavier the reliance on vets to keep herds alive. Their weapon of choice is antibiotics. According to Dil Peeling, who qualified as a vet in the UK but spent much of his career working in developing countries:   A vet’s worth is now measured by his or her ability to deliver on production and animal health – not welfare. It is difficult to persuade vets who have invested so much of their careers in propping up intensive farming to turn their back on such systems. You’re asking the high priests of the livestock ministry to reject everything they know. As far as they’re concerned, this is how things have always been done.   Now

A good family farm produces more, in net terms, than the farm family consumes. The good farmer has secured enough land to grow crops and support his or her livestock. The extra production beyond the farm family’s own consumption can be sold and traded for other goods and services—TVs, clothes, books. Some countries are like good family farms, with more bio-capacity than what it takes, in net terms, to provide for their inhabitants. Compare this with a weekend hobby farm, with honeybees, a rabbit, and an apple tree, where most resources have to be bought from elsewhere. Presently 80% of the world population lives in countries that are like hobby farms. They consume more, in net terms, than what the ecosystems of their country can regenerate. The rest is imported or derives from unsustainable overuse of local fields and forests.

At the time when the lines begin, in the mid-18th century, life expectancy in Europe and the Americas was around 35, where it had been parked for the 225 previous years for which we have data.3 Life expectancy for the world as a whole was 29. These numbers are in the range of expected life spans for most of human history. The life expectancy of hunter-gatherers is around 32.5, and it probably decreased among the peoples who first took up farming because of their starchy diet and the diseases they caught from their livestock and each other. It returned to the low 30s by the Bronze Age, where it stayed put for thousands of years, with small fluctuations across centuries and regions.4 This period in human history may be called the Malthusian Era, when any advance in agriculture or health was quickly canceled by the resulting bulge in population, though “era” is an odd term for 99.9 percent of our species’ existence.

But her no leather - no fur policy drew fire. Critics charged that faux hides, many of which are petroleum based, were more damaging to the earth than the real stuff. Bull, said McCartney. "Livestock production is one of the major causes of ... global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity", she shot back, with more than fifty million animals farme and slaughtered each year just to make handbags and shoes. Conventional leather tanning employs heavy metals such as chromium, which results in waste that is toxic to humans.

Peasant families were close-knit. However, as the Black Death swept through village after village, it became difficult for young peasants to find spouses. The fragmentation of families by illness, coupled with new economic mobility, led many young men to move to the city. "In England, many noblemen encouraged this migration by converting their land to raising livestock rather than farming, evicting their tenants and closing down entire villages ... "...Sometimes a village was abandoned because the surrounding soils were depleted and ceased to yield good crops. In other locations, the decline in populations caused by the Black Death lowered food prices and made farming unprofitable. "But whatever the reason, once a village was abandoned, most of its peasants headed for the city to try to make their living. And as migration increased and the cities grew in size and importance, many noblemen decided to move their too ... however, in the city, nobles discovered that their relationship with the lower classes had changed. Men had opportunities for advancement regardless of social class; the manorial system did not exist in urban centers of growth and progress.

...Most peasants never traveled farther than twenty-five miles from the village of their birth. They had strong social ties to their communities, and could not imagine living anywhere else. "In many places, peasant villages were located within a noble's estate, which was called a manor. Manors could be as small as one hundred acres or as large as several thousand acres and typically encompassed a mixture of cultivated and uncultivated land. Forests provided wood, nuts, and berries; pastures and meadows offered grazing for livestock; and lakes and rivers gave water and fish. But the largest acreage was devoted to agriculture, apportioned among the peasants and the noble, although the noble did no farming himself. Instead the peasants collectively worked both his land and theirs.

You look at the history of any sentient species and what do you find but tableaux of violence and slaughter. It’s finger-painted on the ceilings of caves and engraved into the walls of temples. Dig a hole deep enough on any world and you’ll find the skulls and bones of adults and children fractured by crude weapons. All of us were fighting long before we were farming and raising livestock.” He held up a hand before anyone could voice an objection. “All of you are exceedingly well educated, and you’re going to start rattling off the names of species and societies where that isn’t the case. And my answer is that those aren’t the beings or the star systems we need to worry about. It’s the rest of them. Violence is hardwired into most of us and there’s no eliminating the impulse—not with an army of stormtroopers or a fleet of Star Destroyers. That’s why we’ve embarked on a path to a different solution. We have a chance to forge a peace that will endure for longer than the Republic was in existence.” “Peace through fear,” Reeva said. “Yes,” Krennic told her, and let it go at that.

Et supper?" Foote asked. "No, sir," Stoner answered. Mrs. Foote crooked an index finger at him and padded away, Stoner followed her through several rooms into a kitchen, where she motioned him to sit at a table. She put a pitcher of milk and several squares of cold cornbread before him. He sipped the milk, but his mouth, dry from excitement, would not take the bread. Foote came into the room and stood beside his wife. He was a small man, not more than five feet three inches, with a lean face and a sharp nose. His wife was four inches taller, and heavy; rimless spectacles hid her eyes, and her thin lips were tight. The two of them watched hungrily as he sipped his milk. "Feed and water the livestock, slop the pigs in the morning," Foote said rapidly. Stoner looked at him blankly. "What?" "That's what you do in the morning," Foote said, "before you leave for your school. Then in the evening you feed and slop again, gather the eggs, milk the cows. Chop firewood when you find time. Weekends, you help me with whatever I'm doing." "Yes, sir," Stoner said. Foote studied him for a moment. "College," he said and shook his head.

My morning schedule saw me first in Cannan’s office, conferring with my advisor, but our meeting was interrupted within minutes by Narian, who entered without knocking and whose eyes were colder than I had seen them in a long time. “I thought you intended to control them,” he stated, walking toward the captain’s desk and standing directly beside the chair in which I sat.” He slammed a lengthy piece of parchment down on the wood surface, an unusual amount of tension in his movements. I glanced toward the open door and caught sight of Rava. She stood with one hand resting against the frame, her calculating eyes evaluating the scene while she awaited orders. Cannan’s gaze went to the parchment, but he did not reach for it, scanning its contents from a distance. Then he looked at Narian, unruffled. “I can think of a dozen or more men capable of this.” “But you know who is responsible.” Cannan sat back, assessing his opposition. “I don’t know with certainty any more than you do. In the absence of definitive proof of guilt on behalf of my son and his friends, I suggest you and your fellows develop a sense of humor.” Then the captain’s tone changed, becoming more forbidding. “I can prevent an uprising, Narian. This, you’ll have to get used to.” Not wanting to be in the dark, I snatched up the parchment in question. My mouth opened in shock and dismay as I silently read its contents, the men waiting for me to finish. On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

In the U.S., livestock farms often bar health officials from testing their pigs even though precursors of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic are thought to have kicked around U.S. pig farms for years before emerging in Mexico.

In addition to the stored foods, livestock—chickens and pigs and probably a few goats and geese—were penned on Sea Venture’s deck, both to provide fresh meat during the voyage and to help stock Jamestown’s farms.

contrast, people living right on the edge of farmland are understandably eager to see the end of farming that is noisy, smelly and messy, even if it’s all an essential part of a farmer’s livelihood — and even if the farm was there long before their subdivisions were. But deep in the public gut is a feeling that farmland is a community resource, not just a commodity, and one day we all might have to depend on our own local farms to supply a lot more of our food. Fields used for export crops and animals today are our insurance against food insecurity tomorrow. It’s a primal, practical instinct to protect ourselves against food shortages, however disconnected that might be from the reality of what’s being produced on farms on the edges of our cities. That might be horses, Christmas trees, ornamental shrubs, flowers, or produce and livestock for export — all completely unrelated to what we are eating today, but grown on land that could feed us tomorrow if we really needed it.

He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul…. —Psalm 23:2–3 (KJV) I grew up on a farm, doing chores after school and helping with garden or livestock during the summer. I worked hard as a farm wife and mother, and later held a demanding job with a church social service agency. Although I’m now retired, I’m still most comfortable with a never-ending to-do list. That’s why I said no when my husband, Don, asked me to attend a business conference with him. “There wouldn’t be anything for me to do,” I explained. “The resort brochure lists golf as the main draw, and I don’t play.” Don didn’t give up, so I reluctantly packed my suitcase and off we went. The hotel was surrounded by the golf course. There were four swimming pools, but the daytime temperatures were in the low sixties. For the first time in years I had nothing to do. No schedule, no phone calls, no meetings. To my great surprise, I enjoyed it! I read the entire newspaper and worked both crossword puzzles. I ate lunch outdoors amid an improbable but stunning landscape of palm trees and pines, grape hyacinths, honeysuckle, and a dozen types of cacti. Afternoons, I walked the easier trails, sat in the sunshine, and watched ducks paddle around a pond. Since there was nothing productive I could do, I didn’t feel guilty about not doing it. The best part, though, was the lesson I took home: God speaks most clearly when I don’t do; I simply be. Heavenly Father, thank You for teaching me to still my soul. —Penney Schwab Digging Deeper: Ps 46:10

On this Thirtieth Day of May in the First Year of Cokyrian dominance over the Province of Hytanica, the following regulations shall be put into practice in order to assist our gracious Grand Provost in her effort to welcome Cokyri into our lands--and to help ensure the enemy does not bungle the first victory it has managed in over a century. Regulation One. All Hytanican citizens must be willing to provide aid to aimlessly wandering Cokyrian soldiers who cannot on their honor grasp that the road leading back to the city is the very same road that led them away. Regulation Two. It is strongly recommended that farmers hide their livestock, lest the men of our host empire become confused and attempt to mate with them. Regulation Three. As per negotiated arrangements, crops grown on Hytanican soil will be divided with fifty percent belonging to Cokyri, and seventy-five percent remaining with the citizens of the province; Hytanicans will be bound by law to wait patiently while the Cokyrians attempt to sort the baffling deficiency in their calculations. Regulation Four. The Cokyrian envoys assigned to manage the planting and farming effort will also require Hytanican patience while they slowly but surely learn what is a crop and what is a weed, as well as left from right. Regulation Five. Though the Province Wall is a Cokyrian endeavor, it would be polite and understanding of Hytanicans to remind the enemy of the correct side on which to be standing when the final stone is laid, so no unfortunates may find themselves trapped outside with no way in. Regulation Six. When at long last foreign trade is allowed to resume, Hytanicans should strive to empathize with the reluctance of neighboring kingdoms to enter our lands, for Cokyri’s stench is sure to deter even the migrating birds. Regulation Seven. For what little trade and business we do manage in spite of the odor, the imposed ten percent tax may be paid in coins, sweets or shiny objects. Regulation Eight. It is regrettably prohibited for Hytanicans to throw jeers at Cokyrian soldiers, for fear that any man harried may cry, and the women may spit. Regulation Nine. In case of an encounter with Cokyrian dignitaries, the boy-invader and the honorable High Priestess included, let it be known that the proper way in which to greet them is with an ass-backward bow.

Lucas looked around. “Where the hell are we?” Sam shrugged and looked at his phone. “I’d say in hell. I don’t have any bars.” Lucas growled. “Is that a bison farm?” “Look, dude, focus. We are in Hillbilly County. Someone is going to shoot your hairy ass if you chase livestock.” “It’s

Fuck this,’ says Rachel to Elliot. ‘Let’s go. Let’s get out of this pathetic, windowless, dirty, small-town excuse for a gym, full of people who are extremely up themselves given that they are basically just cleaners with clipboards and absolutely no future.’ She has the lungs for this kind of sentence now, because she is not a fucking beginner. She looks at Jordon. ‘You think you’re so fucking important, because your arms are bigger than some other guy’s? But you don’t actually have a brain, so why would you matter to anybody? Have you ever read a book? No. All you are is flesh and muscle, like a farm animal. You’re basically livestock. You’ve devoted your life to being artificially bulked up, like a fucking cow, like a sodding battery hen. And you know what’s really sad? You could have chosen anything, and you chose that, to be like all the rest of the pathetic cattle.

What about your servants? Don’t they know about farming?” “The basics, yes. But they knew only what we grew. Aveyron’s income came mostly from livestock.” “And that’s no longer an option?” “It still is a main source of income, but the taxes your sweet queen imposes on me do not allow for me to waste acreage. I must use all the resources I have available. We can’t keep doing what we always did. We have to expand and investigate other options. Like winter crops. This was the first season we successfully cultivated them since well before my grandfather’s time.” Cinderella turned a page in her book. “You should grow flowers,” Colonel Friedrich said. “Everyone from Erlauf is crazy about flowers.” “Mmm.” Cinderella scratched out a list of possible summer crops. Colonel Friedrich studied their darkening surroundings. “Any idea where the map books are?” “Before the takeover, I never in my life set foot in this building. It took me ages to find the agricultural section

My name is Joe Ward, from Gunnocks, Clonee, in County Meath. I have been asked to put down my recollections of the last two generations of the Ward family and the people who worked with them. . . . I have no qualifications for writing, other than a good memory. I will write these articles the same way as I talk: short, factual and to the point. Most of the events of which I will speak took place before the year I was born, 1909.

You might think this messy shambles couldn't possibly make any significant contribution to feeding the world, but you would be wrong. Allotments can be surprisingly productive. In fact studies by the Royal Horticultural Society and Which? magazine, which accord with historical records of food production during the world wars, suggest that a competent allotment holder or gardener can get yields between thirty-one and forty tonnes per hectare. To put this into context, a farmer gets about three and a half tonnes of oilseed rape or eight tonnes of wheat per year from every hectare of land, and will apply about twenty different pesticides plus fertilizers to achieve this. Thus an allotment holder or gardener can grow between four and eleven times the weight of produce that one might get from an intensively farmed arable field...Bear in mind also that only one-third of the UK wheat crop is good enough for human consumption, the remainder going for livestock feed. In contrast, 100 per cent of the allotment food is available for humans to eat.

The United States has lost one-third of its topsoil since colonial times—so much damage in such a short history. Six to seven billion tons of eroded soil, about 85 percent, are directly attributable to livestock grazing and unsustainable methods of farming feed crops for cattle. In 1988, more than 1.5 million acres in Colorado alone were damaged by wind erosion during the worst drought and heat wave since the 1950s.

In the following years, Andrew remained at his father’s side, assisting in the farm work and livestock breeding and continuing his experiments with ostensibly labor-saving agricultural contraptions. That phase of his life came to an end with the close of the century. In 1898, the sixty-five-year-old Philip took his third wife, a widow named Frances Murphy Wilder, twenty-five years his junior. Not long afterward, Andrew left home. Despite the best efforts of researchers, little is known about the next eight years of Andrew Kehoe’s life. Census records show that, in 1900, he lived in a boardinghouse in Ann Arbor and worked as a “dairyman.”17 At some point—at least according to his claims—he enrolled at the Michigan State Agricultural College in East Lansing. Founded in 1855 as the nation’s first educational institution devoted to “instruction and practice in agriculture, horticulture and the sciences directly bearing upon successful farming,” the college (which later evolved into Michigan State University) gradually expanded its curriculum to include training in mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering, Kehoe’s alleged major.18 Sometime during this period, he evidently made his way to Iowa and found work as a lineman, stringing electrical wire. He also seems to have spent time in St. Louis, attending an electrical school while employed as an electrician for the city park.19 Family members would later report that, while residing in Missouri, he suffered a serious head injury: “a severe fall” that left him “semi-conscious for nearly two months.”20

The Great War reduced western Europe to a shambles but proved to be a boon to American farmers. Desperate for basic agricultural products, war-ravaged countries turned to the US market, sending prices of cotton, corn, wheat, beef, and other commodities soaring. Between 1914 and 1918, the price of a bushel of corn rose from fifty-nine cents to $1.30, a bushel of wheat from $1.05 to $2.34, and hogs from $7.40 to $16.70 per hundred pounds.1 To meet the demand, farmers acquired more land, expanded their herds of livestock, and invested in new equipment, taking out loans on easy credit to bankroll their purchases. In the years following the armistice of 1918, however—as European nations recovered from the catastrophe—US farm exports plunged so dramatically that one scholar describes the market collapse as a “price toboggan.”2 By 1921, the price of “wheat, corn, beef and pork [had] all plummeted by nearly one-half.”3 Farmers, who had enjoyed unprecedented prosperity just a few years earlier, now faced financial ruin, defaulting on equipment loans, tax payments, and mortgages.

through any structure without detection by his prey. He was a flawless assassin. It was just before five local time when Steven settled into the plush leather seating of the first-class compartment. The Deutsche Bahn Intercity Express, or ICE, was a high-speed train connecting major cities across Germany with other major European destinations. The trip to Frankfurt would take about four hours, giving him time to spend some rare personal time with his team. Slash was the first to find him. The men shook hands and sat down. Typically, these two longtime friends would chest bump in a hearty bro-mance sort of way, but it would be out of place for Europe. “Hey, buddy,” said Steven. “Switzerland is our new home away from home.” “It appears so, although the terrain isn’t that different from our place in Tennessee,” said Slash. “I see lots of fishin’ and huntin’ opportunities out there.” Slash grew up on his parents’ farm atop the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville. His parents were retired and spent their days farming while raising ducks, rabbits and some livestock. While other kids spent their free time on PlayStation, Slash grew up in the woods, learning survival skills. During his time with the SEAL Teams, he earned a reputation as an expert in close-quarters combat, especially using a variety of knives—hence the nickname Slash. “Beats the heck out of the desert, doesn’t it?” asked Steven. After his service ended, Slash tried a few different security outfits like Blackwater, protecting the Saudi royal family or standing guard outside some safe house in Oman. “I’m not saying the desert won’t call us back someday, but I’ll take the Swiss cheese and German chocolate over shawarma and falafel every friggin’ day!” “Hell yeah,” said Slash. “When are you comin’ down for some ham and beans, along with some butter-soaked cornbread? My folks really wanna meet you.” “I need to, buddy,” replied Steven. “This summer will be nuts for me. Hey, when does deer hunting season open?” “Late September for crossbow and around Thanksgiving otherwise,” replied Slash. Before the guys could set a date, their partners Paul Hittle and Raymond Bower approached their seats. Hittle, code name Bugs, was a former medic with Army Special Forces who left the Green Berets for a well-paying job with DynCorp. DynCorp was a private

The nitrous oxide that rises from industrial fertilization traps heat at three hundred times the rate of CO2 and stays in the atmosphere for a century and more. Fertilizers alone account for 2 gigatons of CO2-equivalent emissions. All told, more than 15 percent of the entire emissions emergency, around 9 gigatons a year, can be attributed directly to our food system—to industrial farming, livestock (especially beef cattle), rice production, and emissions from fertilizers and food waste.

Animals under early domestication received shelter, a diet altered by agriculture, and protection from predators through relative confinement. This reduced their sensory needs, facilitating further domestication. As our domesticated animals settled in for a life of reduced activity and stimulation, so did humans. As people provided safer, more sedentary conditions for their livestock, they did the same for themselves. The confinement was mutual. By moving out of nature and settling onto farms, we became in a real sense just another farm animal.

There was no guidebook on farming alien livestock.

For every death, there is a birth. For every winter, there is a summer. And as things bloom and grow and live here, we are constantly reminded what a gift it is to put our hands in the dirt and connect with the land and each other through Michief Farm.

This s real, this is who I am. This is what matters. There is a moment of absolute freedom when you realize that the things that used to scare you have no power over you anymore. I had the freedom to tell the truth.

All over England, fields and pastures once used in common by local villagers were seized by feudal lords, enclosed with walls, fences, and hedgerows, and incorporated into large private farms and sheep ranches. This “enclosure movement” turned feudal lords into landed aristocrats and turned millions of self-sufficient farmers into landless paupers. Rural English life was increasingly perilous as a result. Without land, peasants could no longer raise livestock, meaning they could no longer produce their own milk, cheese, wool, or meat. Since they had to pay cash rents to their landlords to use their fields and live in their cottages, most were forced to hire themselves and their children out as laborers. For the typical peasant family, this represented a huge loss in real income;

This isn’t to suggest that the modern Christmas doesn’t have wholesome and nostalgic comforts of its own; it’s just that “Christmastime” was associated with presents, vacation days, and gluttonous feasts of carved meats, stuffed birds, and decorative pastries long before the advent of Christianity, Santa, or even Christ, for purposes that were both practical and primal. Ever since the onset of farming and stock raising, December has been peak comfort food season because it meant winter was coming, which meant livestock had to be slaughtered before snow covered the seasonal grasses that made up their food supply and fresh meat and vegetables had to be either eaten or preserved before the winter frost.

I'm not a farmer. I'm a Burton. We're liars.

In a world where chaos abounds, making coffee is ceremonial and an act of self-care. Here are a few tips:

If a farm's livestock gets sick or dies, or the children in a family don't turn out well, or a farmer doesn't succeed in business, he won't look long for the causes of his misfortune, because then he would have to confront the uncomfortable knowledge of his own ineptitude and negligence.

Love is like farm work. It requires consistency, and imagination. Your body will ache and you will be fatigued, but there is no greater reward than seeing the fruits of your labor.

In 1979 the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, experienced a temporary shutdown when the reactor core overheated and almost caused a meltdown. The near disaster was well reported. Left largely unreported was the aftermath: livestock on nearby farms aborted and died prematurely, and households experienced what amounted to an epidemic of cancer, birth defects, and premature deaths.17 The aftereffects of Three Mile Island remain one of America’s best kept secrets.

Most livestock—an estimated 99% in America, 74% around the world—comes from factory farms.

After the miscarriage I was surrounded by dead-baby flowers, dead-baby books, and lots of boxes of dead-baby tea. I felt like I was drowning in a dead-baby sea. My mother didn’t know how to help but knew that I needed her. She sent me a soft bathrobe and a teapot, and I wept for hours on the phone with her. Mostly, she listened as I sorted through all my thoughts and feelings. If I’m angry or upset about something, or even if I’m happy about something, it isn’t real until I articulate it. I need a narrative. I guess that’s something Jeff and I share. We both need a story to fit into. The Burton ability to turn misfortune into narrative is something I’m grateful I was taught. It helps me think, Well, okay, that’s just a funny story. You should hear my father talking about his mother and those damn forsythia bushes. My sisters-in-law sent me lovely, heartfelt packages. Christina sent me teas and a journal and a letter I cherish. She included Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Christina is a mother. I felt like she understood the toll this sadness was taking on me, and she encouraged me to practice self-care. Jess gave me the book Reveal: A Secret Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked by Meggan Watterson and some other books about the divine feminine. She knew that there was nothing she could say, but everything she wanted to articulate was in those books. Jess has always had an almost psychic ability to understand my inner voice. She is quiet and attuned to what people are really saying rather than what they present to the world. I knew her book choices were deliberate, but I couldn’t read them for a while because they were dead-baby books. If people weren’t giving me dead baby gifts, they wanted to tell me dead-baby stories. There’s nothing more frustrating than someone saying, “Well, welcome to the club. I’ve had twelve miscarriages." It seemed like there was an unspoken competition between members of this fucked up sorority. I quickly realized this is a much bigger club than I knew and that everyone had stories and advice. And as much as I appreciated it, I had to find my own way. Tara gave me a book called Vessels: A Love Story, by Daniel Raeburn, about his and his wife’s experience of a number of miscarriages. His book helped because I couldn’t wrap my head around Jeff’s side of the story, and he certainly wasn’t telling it to me. He was out in the garage until dinnertime every day. He would come in, eat, help Gus shower, and then disappear for the rest of the night. I often read social media posts from couples announcing, “Hey we miscarried but it brought us closer together." I think it’s fair to say that miscarriage did not bring Jeffrey and me closer together. We were living in the same space but leading parallel lives. To be honest, most of the time we weren’t even living in the same space. That spring The Good Wife was canceled. We had banked on that being a job Jeff would do for a couple of years, one that would keep him in New York City. Then he landed Negan on The Walking Dead, and suddenly he would be all the way down in Georgia for the next three to five years. We were never going to have another child. It had been so hard to get pregnant. I felt like I was pulling teeth trying to coordinate dates when Jeff would be around and I’d be ovulating. It felt like every conversation was about having a baby. He’d ask, “What do you want for dinner?" I’d say, “A baby." “Hey, what do you want to do this weekend?" I’d say, “Have a baby.

It was springtime on Mischief Farm. Babies were everywhere. Baby chicks at the feed store. Baby dairy cows in the field. Baby bunnies and foxes in our woods. But the things I used to delight in now served as a reminder of how broken I felt. Jeff was home, but I was avoiding him. We didn’t know how to talk to each other. The things I needed to hear, he didn’t know how to say; and the things he needed me to be, I couldn’t be. We moved around the same spaces, but not together. He wouldn’t enter a room until I left it. I wouldn’t tell him where I was going; I’d just leave and hide out in the garden or in town. I was just a vessel, and I was empty. Any energy I did have was going to Gus; I had nothing left for Jeff.

Coming home in May, I hit the ground running. I couldn’t feel anything if I kept busy, so I became the most task-oriented person in town. The garden I planted at Samuel’s was overflowing with blooms. Gus’s class snacks were lavish Pinterest-worthy creations. My garden was incredibly tidy. All the little sprouts of weeds were targets for my suppressed emotions. Kill kill kill. I worried Jeffrey. I knew I was a shell of myself. I knew that he could see it. So I avoided him. He found me down in the garden one day. I had collected a heap of rocks that were left over from a landscaping project. Pulling them out, one by one from the back of the Rhino, I was laying a path through our large vegetable garden that would allow me easier access to our snap peas, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers at the back of the garden. I’d pinched my hand between two large stones and blood caked my knuckles. “Talk to me," he said, hands shoved deep down in his pockets. “What are you talking about? I’m fine." I was angry. I’d wanted to talk months before. I’d wanted him to hold me in bed while I cried. I’d wanted him to not have been so difficult about getting pregnant in the first place. I’d wanted him not to disappear to go chop wood and then get resentful that I was doing the exact same thing. What’s good for the goose, right? I’d wanted him to know I was angry and then apologize. And these mantras of anger had been running around in my head for months. But then — “I’m sorry," he said. Jeffrey had finally seen me. We talked about our grief. We talked about how we both left like failures. We talked about how lonely we were. Suddenly, standing there with his hands in his pockets, Jeffrey was a different person. He was incredibly vulnerable. He talked to me about how much he valued me and that this was him home and that was worth any fight. And as we talked, he started helping me. He stood and went to get a whole bunch of rocks, laying pathways through the garden for me. Each path was a manifestation of what he was saying. We worked on this garden together.

The lawsuit against Smithfield turned out to be far more complicated than just trying to enforce the packer ban. By prohibiting vertical integration, the attorney general’s office was essentially suing Smithfield over the company’s business model. So Smithfield just cleverly changed its business model, without really changing it, and let the lawsuit try to catch up to it. At one point, Smithfield’s new Murphy Farms division simply transferred the ownership of all its hogs to a man named Randall Stoecker. Murphy sold all 900,000 of its pigs to Stoecker for about $79 million. Stoecker was hardly a millionaire, so Murphy loaned him the entire amount he needed. Stoecker didn’t have to put a penny down. Then Murphy set up a company called Stoecker Farms Inc., and he was then able to argue in court that it did not in fact own any livestock in Iowa. So the state’s ban on vertical integration didn’t apply. Attorney General Miller sued over the transaction, calling it a sham. So Murphy shifted ownership again to a member of the company’s board. The whole case continued in this way.

Some pull back. Some cry. Some scrabble for crying babies, rot-gutted women, soft-eyed men, shivering children clustered about us in the dim cold before dawn. To this death before death. To this selling. Nan and Cleo and my mother talked about what it was to be sold—we all did, since we heard stories about what it was like, stories carried from one farm to another, one work camp to another. Bog bottomed, the boy sent to trade scrap metal with our blacksmith said. Manacle awash, the man sent to trade livestock said. Smoked and sunk, the farrier sent through the rice counties to shoe horses said. Hell, my mother said, and more of us marching there every day.

My mum once told me that she believed the origin of our kind was a disease, born of power and colonialism. That one man once took so much of what was not his-took others' homes, possessions, livestock, farms, bodies-he stopped being able to nourish his own body with food, the thing it genuinely deserved, and was cursed to only be able to take what was not his for the rest of his life, which was extended to eternity. The disease spread until the colonizers and the colonized both were afflicted.

I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free. —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

I LIVE IN A part of the country that at one time a good farmer could take some pleasure in looking at. When I first became aware of it, in the 1940s, the better land, at least, was generally well farmed. The farms were mostly small and were highly diversified, producing cattle, sheep, and hogs, tobacco, corn, and the small grains; nearly all the farmers milked a few cows for home use and to market milk or cream. Nearly every farm household maintained a garden, kept a flock of poultry, and fattened its own meat hogs. There was also an extensive “support system” for agriculture: Every community had its blacksmith shop, shops that repaired harness and machinery, and stores that dealt in farm equipment and supplies. Now the country is not well farmed, and driving through it has become a depressing experience. Some good small farmers remain, and their farms stand out in the landscape like jewels. But they are few and far between, and they are getting fewer every year. The buildings and other improvements of the old farming are everywhere in decay or have vanished altogether. The produce of the country is increasingly specialized. The small dairies are gone. Most of the sheep flocks are gone, and so are most of the enterprises of the old household economy. There is less livestock and more cash-grain farming. When cash-grain farming comes in, the fences go, the livestock goes, erosion increases, and the fields become weedy. Like

long braids, used Ivory soap, and liked to stencil her walls with

David Hunter Livestock has guided about the Complete Beginner's steps to conduct to Sustainable Livestock Farming that livestock are raised in a healthy way and the produce is healthy for us human beings.

Agriculture involves growing of crops such as fruits and vegetables and rearing of livestock to produce food for public consumption. Without agriculture our existence as humans and livestock would be threatened. Whether one is practicing agriculture in a small farm or in a large farm, agriculture provides many benefits to the society.

All of us were fighting long before we were farming and raising livestock.

No matter what, farming is risky. But the cost of fertilizer, herbicide, and other inputs is both high and uncertain. Livestock rotation reduces input costs by rebuilding soil rapidly.

We are most sick most for the places we never known

Life is not what one lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it. —attributed to Gabriel García Márquez

We are homesick most for the places we have never known. —Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good—you will get that. —Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna

If the world’s 1 billion cows were a country, they’d rank third in greenhouse gases after China and the United States. Accounting for nearly two thirds of total livestock emissions, beef and dairy cattle dwarf the climate threat from all other farm animals combined, including pigs, chickens, lambs, goats, and ducks.

ancient Spartans wеrе skilled agriculturalists. Тhеу tended tо farms thаt thеу usеd tо produce thеіr оwn livestock, dairy, produce аnd grains. А Spartan warrior ate а diet thаt mаіnlу consisted оf whоlе grain barley, whоlе grain wheat, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, legumes, fish, quail eggs, chicken eggs, olive oil аnd meat. Sugar wаs unknown tо thе Greeks, sо thе Spartans nеvеr ate it.

When it (Self-management in revolutionary Spain) was not sabotaged by its enemies or hindered by the war, agricultural self-management was an unquestionable success. The land was united into one holding and cultivated over great expanses according to a general plan and the directives of agronomists. Small landowners integrated their plots with those of the community. Socialization demonstrated its superiority both over large absentee landholdings, which left a part of the land unplanted, and over smallholdings, cultivated with the use of rudimentary techniques, inadequate seeding, and without fertilizer. Production increased by 30—50 percent. The amount of cultivated land increased, working methods were improved, and human, animal, and mechanical energy used more rationally. Farming was diversified, irrigation developed, the countryside partially reforested, nurseries opened, pigsties constructed, rural technical schools created, Pilot farms set up, livestock selected and increased, and auxiliary industries set in motion, etc.

Of the entire terrestrial vertebrate biomass on earth, wild animals constitute only about three percent, humans one-quarter, and livestock almost three-quarters! On old-fashioned farms, animals had names, pastures to graze in, mud to wallow in, or sand to dust-bathe in. Life was far from idyllic, but it was appreciably better than it is nowadays when we lock up calves and pigs in narrow crates of stainless steel, cram chickens by the thousands into sunless sheds, and don’t even let cows graze outside anymore. Instead, we keep them standing in their own waste. Since these animals are mostly kept out of sight, people rarely get to see their miserable conditions. All we see is cuts of meat without feet, heads, or tails attached. This way we don’t need to ponder the meat’s existence prior to packaging. And here I am not even talking about the fact that we eat animals, only about how we treat them, which is my main concern. I am too much of a biologist to question the natural circle of life. Every animal plays its role by eating or being eaten, and we are involved at both ends of the equation. Our ancestors were part of a vast ecosystem of carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, ingesting other organisms and also serving as meals for predators. Even if nowadays we rarely fall prey anymore, we still let hordes of critters devour our rotting corpses. It’s all dust to dust.