Weeds

It’s the time of year when all of the farmers bring out their sprayers in their endless and ever failing attempts at killing everything that is unpleasant to them. Yesterday I was out walking in the field along the trees hunting for dog food and watching the army of high wheeled John Deere spray rigs and Terra-gators leaving their ugly tracks behind in every field, as well as the fleets of semi trucks hauling tank loads of spray and the several airplanes that are flying almost every day somewhere near, spraying their way from one field to the next. It brought to mind the little verse that Rudyard Kipling wrote that’s so fitting.

At the end of the fight

Is a tombstone white,

With the name of the late deceased.

And the epitaph dr’er,

A fool lies here,

Who tried to poison the weeds.

I am not a poet and I cannot find words that express it better. They have been trying to poison both weeds and insects for quite a few years now and the weeds and insects are still here!

God made the weeds and the insects along with the whole earth and He put us in dominion as stewards over all of it. Something else brought to mind is the parable of the man that built a vineyard and then put it under husbandmen (Matthew 21:33) Read it and see for yourself if most farmers today aren’t behaving remarkably similar to the wicked farmers in the parable. Frankly, I think the way most farmers (both grain and livestock) run their operations is an insult to the Creator who placed them as stewards. Sadly this goes for many organic farmers too, they may not spray death carrying chemicals all over everything in their path, which is a step in the right direction, but they don’t bring health and life and vitality to everything in their small dominion.

I spoke with a large (in my opinion) cattle rancher not too long ago and he was lamenting the fact that he just couldn’t make any money in the cattle business. I wanted to tell him that treating his cattle like machines was a fine way to ensure that they would behave like a machine. Machines break down and crash for no apparent reason all the time as anyone who uses a Windows operating system on their computer knows from experience. I didn’t say that however and instead asked him why it was that with 600 cows he couldn’t make a living. He said the costs were taking all of the profit and I couldn’t help but notice his brand new diesel pickup. I asked him where the worst financial drain was in the operation and he said without a doubt it was the vet and medications bill. I find that interesting because after discussing it a little with him I found that he spends more on veterinary and chemical costs on one calf than I have spent on all of my animals combined in the past 10 years! This times 600 comes out to financial ruin on his ranch. I would expect that with this much money going out to fight disease, promote health and have good clean pastures he would have a herd of cattle that was the picture of health and vitality as well as lush green pastures that were weed free and healthy. The fact is he has disease in most of his cows, looses calves every spring to health problems and his pastures are unfit to be called pastures and should be called either deserts or leafy spurge farms depending on the location. Now he spent a great deal of money going to college to learn how to properly do this ranching thing so he must know how to do it, but if this is the proper way I’ll keep my old fashioned ideas. They say that herbs don’t work but I have had great success treating my animals with herbs and I gathered them myself from the woods and fields so it was free. My animals are pretty healthy, I never feed them farm store things, in fact all that the cows had to eat last winter was whatever they could find in the woods and snow for water along with a pile of old weed hay (all of the good hay that I had went up in smoke with the barn fire) and they never starved to death or got sick. Right now they look great and I never spent a dime on medications or vet bills. Animals are naturally healthy creatures unless we do something to cause an imbalance or douse them with chemicals. Part of the problem with the herbivore livestock is that we tend to lock them up in tiny little pens with nothing green or growing inside. They eat old moldy hay and grain instead of green growing grass and herbs (weeds by most people’s standards) and they get no exercise to speak of. It’s a similar plight for the dogs and cats around, though the cats seem to have it better because they usually get mice and other such raw foods so are able to keep a semblance of health. In my thinking, god didn’t provide us with a dog food factory when he gave us dogs so why do we think we have to feed them processed (and expensive) little pellets of a substance that we have no clue as to what it is because we cannot pronounce the ingredients list. What’s wrong with feeding them what a dog was designed to eat from the beginning? The dog I just got is 4 years old and won’t eat meat. I can put a steak in front of her and she doesn’t have a clue as to what to do with it! fortunately it is extremely healthy for most animals, especially dogs, to fast for days at a time so she is going to go hungry until she figures out that raw meat with a bone still attached is much better than that artificial chicken flavored concoction she is used to. She is so fat that she can barely run anyway so a few pounds lost would be a really good thing.

I’ve got a long way to go in building good quality and healthy pastures for my animals. It’s a matter of adding fertility to the soil, encouraging the herbs to grow and planting hedgerows here and there. I have a lot to learn in the process so it will be a fun and educational project!