Land And Water U.S.A.




Wednesday, August 24, 2011

MY RESPONSE TO SIERRA CLUB'S "FARMING" EXPERIMENT

By Roni Bell Sylvester

If these little darlings "HAD" to plow, grow, harvest, can, get kicked by a cow, charged by a bull, pecked by a feathered not so friend, slapped in the face by a manured tail, try to drive the tractor with a loaded hay wagon down a hill without having it jackknife, hay or harvest wheat in 100 degree temps where you get to enjoy the chaff scratching the hell out of your sun burned "red neck", meet with millions of regs made by these smart ass city people, deal with Mother Nature year around, stand for hours in a furnace kitchen to can corn, beans, peas, peaches, cherries, beets, carrots, tomatoes, jams, jellies, bake bread every day, forgo any normal high school activities because you have to milk the cows in the morning BEFORE you go to school...then get right home to gather/sort/milk the cows and scrub the gutters and clean the bulk tank every night, sew every pedal pusher you wear, drive your bike into town for piano lessons, grease the zerks in the combine blades, hoe row after row after roe of corn without rest/Perrier or IPod, and teeter on top of the silo silage praying you won't loose your balance and fall to sure death, they wouldn't think farming is just a romantic romp in a meadow!!!
In 1966, I read "Between Parent and Child" by Hiam Ginott - and it was the first time I'd ever heard about asking a child "How do you `feel' about blah, blah, blah."
I asked my Mom "I don't remember us ever talking about `feelings'- on the farm. Did we?"
She was hoeing - slowly she turned around, leaned on her hoe, looked at me with complete astonishment and thoughtfully answered, "Why Ronita. No. I never thought about feelings. When you had to go down to the barn and milk the cows, I never thought about asking, `how do you feel about bundling up and making your way through blizzards, electrical storms and monsoons to milk. Work never stopped and waited to see how we `'felt'. It needed to be done...and we all just did it."
We're into the generations of people who were given "choices" and they chose "not to work." Now they get to "play" in the fields of fluff, where they'll stay disconnected from reality, and subsequently keep choking the life out of us resource providers.
As Chuck (my farmer husband) keeps saying, "We have a nation full of baby birds in a nest, beaks wide open chirping, `feed me, feed me, feed me, YOU take care of me!!!"'
They're so damn stupid they don't know they're killing the very source of their gifts!!!
What a touchy, feely crock of a school! Completely misleading (like Michelle Obama's garden) unrealistic!!!!
I "feel" sick about the whole lie!

Here's the article "My Response..." is in response to... :-)
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http://www.greenrightnow.com/dfw/2011/08/22/students-plow-their-way-to-the-top-of-sierra%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98cool-school%E2%80%99-rankings/
Students plow their way to the top of Sierra’s ‘Cool School’ rankings
August 22nd, 2011
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Want to know what’s going on at the nation’s greenest colleges?
Just follow the young adults in the flannel shirts and rubber boots. No, those aren’t the latest fashion trends. That’s farm attire, practical togs for students plowing the land and exploring nearby swamps, streams and forests as part of their sustainability program.
Look more closely and you’ll find undergrads tilling the soil with oxen at Green Mountain College, processing grapes at University of California, Davis, getting in touch with their inner Thoreau in the Adirondacks via St. Lawrence University and wandering like John Muir across vast acreages of green space at Stanford and Cornell.
“The pendulum has really swung back to the age of these kids grandparents or great grandparents,” said Avital Binshtock, lifestyle editor of Sierra magazine, which just released its 5th annual Cool Schools rankings identifying the top green campuses.
“They’ve taken up knitting. They want to have chickens in their backyard and learn how to plant a plot of land.”
Grandparents, yes. But even moms and dads reared in the 1960s and ‘70s might recognize a lot of what’s going on as a renewal of the back-to-nature movement they participated in when “ecology” was the catchall term. Today’s young people, though, may be even deeper in the, um, compost, as they follow their professors into the field, literally, to take part in academic courses in sustainable land use, food production and green energy generation.
This modern tilting toward more earthy classes is just one part of a matrix of changes taking place as campuses try to improve their carbon and food footprints, move to more efficient energy use and attract the top students, who are increasingly looking at whether prospective schools are walking a green path.
Binshtock, who oversaw the 2011 Cool Schools project ranking 118 campuses for their climate-cooling practices, says research from multiple sources shows that a university’s commitment to sustainability is part of what students consider in selecting a school.
And once on campus, today’s students are not shy about demanding increased academic offerings as well as more eco-friendly operations. If they don’t like what they see, she said, “they get activist about it.”
That means schools that already are going green are impelled to transform themselves even further, like the University of Washington, which claimed the No. 1 spot in the 2011 rankings with its three farms, collection of LEED Gold-certified buildings and greener energy program relying on hydropower.
Not all universities are moving as swiftly to change, Binshtock said, but at many campuses there is a “perfect cocktail” of student desire for sustainability both in the curriculum and in operations, which is reinforced by compatible faculty and administrative goals, Binshtock said.
That’s resulted in a blossoming of sustainability course offerings and the growth of the nature- immersive courses, as well as the expansion of organic and local food offerings in cafeterias and changes in infrastructure.
Several of the schools at the top of the rankings employ co-generation power plants that have helped them reduce their reliance on coal or nuclear power.
Students are no longer silent on such issues. At many campuses, they have protested their school’s dependence upon coal power, with its heavy carbon pollution, providing yet another reason for universities to find alternatives and pushing the green movement into almost every arena of campus life.
“So it’s student led. It’s campus led. It’s also faculty led,” Binshtock said. “They’re forward-thinking people, and they would like to see the world going in a better way also.”
The Cool Schools rankings are based on a survey designed to measure a university’s progress on sustainability in 10 areas: energy supply, efficiency, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, administration, financial investments, and a catch-all called “other initiatives.”
All 118 schools that returned a survey were ranked. Weightings and considerations are explained in the report’s methodology section.
Copyright © 2011 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

17 comments:

  1. Great one Roni ...
    America will not be great again with all these weak hearts and minds around ...
    Really spoiled non-senses with all the unqualified touchy feelings...
    DS

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  2. Roni,

    I'm thinking that I'd like to send this out to the over 250 women who have gone through (a certain program) Are you ok if I edit it?
    As an aside, all of these women are struggling to "have a life." They come into work early, struggle with the challenges, restructuring, take overs, politics, etc., and work late into the evening and on weekends. Their stress levels are astronomical and they don't have time to spend with their husbands and kids.
    Even with all of the challenges of farmers and ranchers, in some ways you're living a better life. Your families pull together to support each other and one another.
    JM

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  3. You've got to quit holding back Roni. Let it all out!
    Loved your rant.
    Take care,
    RE

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  4. I can add that when these panty waisted idyllic neophytes have had to birth a calf about 3 a.m. after having to shove the breached calf back in the cow a full arm deep and having the cow spew urine and manure down their back, over their neck and under their shirt after spending the day lifting angry red fire ant infested bails of hay that have spilled out biting and stinging every part of their bodies including under their arms and crotch then having to cover their red chigger bitten legs in nail polish to kill the bugs and have hot match-heads applied to their skin to pull of the ticks then do the business books balancing the ranch budgets at the end of the week and realize their profits were market driven, cut into by interest rates on their PCA loans and restricted by the types of regulated chemicals and other taxes at every level combined with rising fuel costs they can't control, then they will understand what the rest of us have been fighting and dealing with for generations as we've watched our grandparents hard work and dreams be decimated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Sorry to be so long winded in a single sentence, but that article is just too cupcake icing gooey for me to not rant!!!!!
    RF

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  5. Good work. Did you send it to the Green School kids?
    Let them mow the grass, trim hedges at their schools, too.
    Lois

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  6. Right on Ronnie....I dont EVER remember my parents asking me about my "feelings"...they did ask me about what I had DONE...there were always chores....not discussions.
    SS

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  7. Roni, dear, now tell us what you really think! Thank you for your significant contributions to others and to America, Roni.
    In the meantime, politically correct is killing us.
    Gratefully, Barbara Fallon

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  8. Roni,
    Please remove me from this mailing list.
    James Thompson
    Regional director Sen. Michael F. Bennet

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  9. Just loved your story – took it home and read it at the dinner table to ___and ___ Now it’s especially funny to us because….. I am the Queen of, “How do you feel….!!!!!” But of course I add hard work and accountability – but so enjoyed and loved your write up and the stories about your Mom – hope you're storing work for your book! SA

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  10. Roni: Thanks for your feedback. I, too, grew up in a harder environment than that of many modern American kids. Though I didn't have to milk the cow. We only had one and my step-dad did the milking, before heading to his office job.
    Still, I would think that getting out and getting back to the land would be a good thing, something someone like yourself could endorse.
    When we fight each other across social boundaries -- rural vs. urban, poor vs. middle class, we accomplish nothing.
    Would I rather have these relatively spoiled children NOT going outdoors and experiencing nature and learning how hard and rewarding it can be to grow things and nurture animals. No, that's not a good alternative solution.
    Barbara

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  11. I like the idea of "Mother to Mother."
    One of the things (and I understand your vehemence) to be careful of with we city slickers and/or Democrats is the use of absolutes. Much of what I hear from the farmers and ranchers is that those you oppose (Sierra Club, Obama, Center for Bio Diversity) because they are absolutely "XYZ". You may feel that way, but those of us who hear it turn away.
    Do others use absolutes? Absolutely. :)) That turns me and a lot of my friends off too. ( e.g., I'm fearful of genetic engineering, but what I hear is that it's the best thing in the world or it's the most awful thing in the world. How can I see what's true when I know how studies are torqued?)
    There's got to be a place where many of us can meet. There's got to be a place where the passion for living a happy, healthy and safe life can be inclusive vs. exclusive.
    If you create "Mother to Mother," it needs to have a balance and educate with folks seeing both the pros and cons to things.
    JM

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  12. Glad you like Mother to Mother. But I can not take on any more projects. Maybe you can find someone to run with it. :-)
    Totally understand "turn offs." But what I don't understand is why those who harm others choose to be "turned off" by the facts of their actions, instead of choosing not to harm in the first place??
    I like calling things by their correct name. To me, a horse is a horse is a horse. It's not a "maybe" because it tilts its head a way uncommon to a horse.
    I must clarify your comment, "You may feel that way, but those of us who hear it turn away," by posing this question: If you were robbed, burglarized, or regged out of your personal property, how would you "feel" when you told law enforcement and they "turned away?"
    Please try to understand this. My resource provider friends have been subjected to extreme, inhumane abuse by governments and the favorite children (includes TNC, Sierra, CBD and more) they lavishly fund. When we ask them to please stop it, they laugh, then threaten, penalize and slap fines on us. Yes. This is fact; an absolute. They are CRUEL!
    A good recent example: A man shot a grizzly bear ON his property - that was threatening his children - and - guess what! The government threw him in jail and he now faces imprisonment and fines. In CO, a person can shoot a threatening person on their property - what's that called??? the home protection law or something?? - and anyway, it's understood.
    Last Tues a regional EPA director (HONEST TO GOD - I'm NOT making this up!) - took a little jar of sediment - shook it up in a jar of supposedly Sen. Feinstein's glass of luncheon water - and WALLA! Declared it "man-made pollution" and thereby all the waters in the U.S. should be regulated by him! They (Gov's Brown and Sandoval) signed such into law.
    Another: Feral horses steal forage from allotment owners (Ones allotment ownership agreement with government ON government land is written in law as a private property right!) - at an enormous loss of income to property owner. Yet feral horse lovers DEMAND the horses multiple and take over all the land. Government refuses to hold feral horse lovers accountable for their board, room, medical and subsequent euthanization and disposal. Instead, they choose to force this responsibility onto the private property owner.
    Governments lie and lie and lie to us...to the extent we no longer have our footing.
    And it goes on and on and on....
    This gives you a macro snippet of what your resource provider friends deal with minute by minute daily.
    Why just last night at a meeting in Waverly, I heard Schaffer feedlot had to spend time addressing a "smell" complaint. Seems those who want "country" can't take the smell...so they complain. Findings bore out Schaffer had complied with ALL the un-reasonable regs...and that he was guilty only of accepting the "rain" that fell on his feedlot. No one talked about how much time and money Schaffer was forced to spend trying to appease the city person not accepting of country smells.
    Another absolute: We've been subjected to behavior modification and forced fed political correct B.S. by the unseen PC police to a dangerous extreme. I tried to be a "good little girl" and play that game; but not anymore. It's an unacceptable, cruel and deliberate punishing manipulation by bad people. Fact.
    Besides, I never was very good at seeing things in gray. So I've returned to addressing it all in black and white; a proactive way of not getting sucked into their bottomless psychobabble quagmire.
    Actions are either right (healthy - necessary) or wrong (unhealthy- unnecessary).
    We have - as you well know - great workable solutions. But they don't want them, for that would end their games, control, power, money flow.
    Please be aware, the ripple affect of their ugly games negatively affect each of us...regardless our station in life.

    Roni

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. You got enormous patient and grace Roni ...
    Does this kind of demoncrats require actual wrath to fall upon their own fortunes and lives to permit you to say it like it is ...? DS

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  15. You ask a great question.
    Just back from hours of thinking on Barbie Tractor. The woods trail - and my head - are much cleaner now. :-)
    And - I recognize I missed the boat on this one. So - I shall take a Mulligan - and explain to these people that programs like their little "Cool Schools" already exist. They're called, 4-H and FFA.
    Roni

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  16. Every Sat. morning it was my job to clean out 4 box stalls in that big ole horse barn. I was so little that about every third forkful went out the window because it was so high up. Then bed the stalls with fresh straw in case somebody stopped by to look at the studs to see about breeding. We had to pickup bales of hay out in the field so fast that we did not have time to stop and pee. I was about 12 before we owned a hay elevator to mow hay with. Guess how we got hay up into that barn. I could go on and on. We all could. I would not have had it another way. No one asked about my feelings. Thank God I'm a country boy. Jeff

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