Gold in the Woods

Candles and Thread

The Control of Cattle

“So long as they continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern. Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.” -- George Orwell, 1984

There’s Nothing “Neo” About Nazis

Which is Berlin, 1939 and which is Pierre, South Dakota, 2024?

Good News, Bad News

Good News: US per capita carbon emissions are now down to World War I levels. 

Bad News: The population of the US is more than three times larger than it was in 1919, which means CO2 emissions are actually three times higher.

See >> An Inconvenient Truth

My Father in Vietnam, 1972

My father in 1971, I think, while touring Vietnam as an overseas public affairs officer. I was 12 and listening to CSNY and Cat Stevens.

Numbing Numbers and Evil

The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread. 

When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!" When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. 

When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer. ― Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems

The Best Thing Is to Learn

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” ―- T.H. White, The Once and Future King

Tesla Is the Next Theranos.

Forest Words

Schroëdinger’s Egg Farm

Farming is famous for taking a lot of capital, requiring a huge amount of work, knowledge and skill, and paying very slim dividends.

And so it is with some skepticism that one should approach any claim of a small holder making much money in the farming game.

Take eggs.

The picture at top was taken this morning at Trader Joe’s in Ashburn, Virginia.

This is the retail price of a dozen “cage free large white eggs”.

I took the picture and then decided to look at production economics.

What’s the price of that paper egg carton alone?  

40 cents each from Uline at $80 for 200 cartons.

A single high-laying hen will produce 300 eggs a year, to fill 25 cartons costing $10.

What about feed?  

Chicken feed and grit will cost about 19 cents per day, based on a quarter pound of feed per bird per day.

So the 365 days of feed needed to produce 300 eggs will be $70.

Assume chick cost is zero.  

Assume zero chicken mortality.

Assume zero egg breakage.

Assume no capital costs, no insurance costs, no transportation costs, no licensing costs, no veterinary costs, no water bills, no maintenance.

Those 25 dozen eggs will cost $80 a year in feed and cartons alone, but will retail for just $70.

Impossible.

So how is it done?

Two ways.  

One way is to charge $8 a dozen for bespoke eggs advertised as “GMO, hormone-free, organic, pasture-raised, ‘girls on grass’”.

These are the eggs you sell to aroma-therapy enthusiasts who buy “smart water”.

This is the business plan of one of my farms — or at least it’s the business plan of the Potomac Village “natural food” store where their eggs are sold.

The other method is to scale up, so you’re not buying 400 egg cartons at a time, but 500,000, and you’re not buying feed in 50-pound bags, but in 50-ton railroad cars.  

With this kind of economy of scale, there’s no hunting for dirty eggs in the grass — instead, nearly pristine eggs roll down gentle slopes to conveyor belts that whisk them away to be cleaned, sized, individually labeled, and packed in cartoons quickly moved to coolers and transport trucks.

That’s how almost all of the 50 billion eggs (yes, 50 billion!) that are sold, bought, and/or used in ready-made foods in the US are created.

Is there a third way?

There is.  

These are the eggs produced by industrial scale mechanized egg production facilities, but which are relabeled and repackaged as “GMO, hormone-free, organic, pasture-raised” eggs.  

The big money is fraud; selling $2 a dozen eggs for $6 a dozen.

Is that done?  

Sure.  Some.

And why not?

Who will know?

You think that a restaurant that advertises that it’s using “locally-sourced cage-free, pastured eggs” is telling you the truth?

Probably not.  

Fraudulent restaurant claims for food sources is legion.  See >> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-bold-lies-made-about-local-foods.html?

How about those store-bought eggs that are advertised as being laid from “girls on grass”.  

Are they?

Maybe not.  

Egg fraud is a real thing and there’s big bucks in it, same as there is in olive oil fraud, coffee fraud, fish fraud, cheese fraud, and wine fraud.

See >> https://www.reuters.com/article/legal/pete-gerrys-settles-class-action-over-free-range-egg-claims-idUSL1N2DA32F/

See >> https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/manufacturing/free-range-egg-farms-fined-300000-for-misleading-free-range-claims/news-story/34eadaafc6ee8fa874b5c8c812bef0fb

See >> https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/mar/11/free-range-eggs-fraud

See >> https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/revealed-west-auckland-farmers-three-million-free-range-egg-fraud-ends-with-home-detention/CQVAT5NPN37ED7SDAGXP72XDSY/

Rationalization

You can go a lifetime without sex.

A month without money .

Three weeks without food.

36 hours without water.

But no one can go 12 hours without a rationalization.

Corn Dogs

We’re right between things here in Maryland.  

Most corn is off, but not all.  Soy beans are getting harvested or turning yellow, but there’s still some green fields.  A few places that harvested corn early are starting to see winter wheat just break ground.

Young male Red Fox are starting to go “walkabout,” looking for their own territories and mates.

The lives of our local Red Fox can be thought of as following a corn year:

▪️March: The cubs are born after a 53-day pregnancy. Their coats are dark gray -- almost black. The vixen generally stays to ground except to defecate. Food for the vixen is brought by the dog fox, who is sometimes aided by adolescent females from last year's litter.

▪️April: The cubs will start to toddle out of the earth, but they will not go very far afield. The dark coats of the pups are now beginning to turn a faint reddish-brown. The adult fox will begin to bring mice, voles, and moles to the den for the cubs to play with. 

▪️May: The cubs are beginning to look like adults, and they are beginning to show some independence. This is a period of rapid learning through aggressive play. The pups spend a lot of time toying with mice and other small carcasses brought to them by adults. 

▪️June: The temperature is now too hot for the fox to stay underground. Pups and adult fox abandon flea-infested breeding earths and rest above ground in thickets. The pups do not stray far from their parents, but begin to catch bugs and mice on their own. The corn fields are planted and grow rapidly. Young rabbits and groundhogs, as well as ground-nesting birds, represent a bonanza food-source

▪️July: Young adolescent cubs lie above ground and hunt with their parents. The young fox are gaining weight rapidly. Insect, bird and rodent populations rise. The young fox begin to hunt on their own. As the corn reaches four feet, adult and adolescent fox move into the center of the fields where they can rest in the cool shade during the day. Berries, mice, rats, frogs, snakes, young rabbits, baby groundhogs, and corn provide ready food. 

▪️August: The cubs are now catching food on their own, and they are sleeping apart from the adults. Adolescent fox remain in their parent's territories. Fox are rarely seen during the day, and generally leave the shade of the corn fields only in the evening. Mice and rat populations are the main food source, along with grasshoppers, fruit, corn, and scavenged roadkill. 

▪️September: Adults and sub-adults look very similar. Sub-adults may spar, and siblings may be spotted near each other, but they are now totally independent from their parents. The first corn fields are cut, but fox remain above ground as it is too hot. 

▪️October: Male foxes strike out on their own.Young males may travel considerable distances to secure their own territories. The corn has now been cut off the fields, and the fox are jungling up in the thickets again. It is still warm, and very few fox are denning. Evenings are cool, however, and winter coats start to come in. Food is plentiful as end-of-season berries and crops mature. 

▪️November: Young adults take over the territories of dead or weak parents. Several young females may reside in a dominant male's territory, but typically only one female will mate. The last corn is off the fields, and the last hay is cut. 

▪️December: Foxes defend their territories as the mating season approaches. Hormones rise, and females excavate and clean out old groundhog dens. New excavations in fields and hedgerows are a likely sign of fox, as most groundhogs are already prepared for winter. Fox dens will begin to smell slightly skunky. Pairs of fox will often be bolted out of the earth at this time. Many farms plow under their corn stalks. 

▪️January: The mating season is in full-swing, with male and female fox on the prowl. Dens will have a slightly "skunky" smell due to hormones in the urine of the vixen. Fox will pair up and remain paired for the next five months. This is one of the best months for terrier work, especially during inclement weather. 

▪️February: Dog foxes and vixens begin to settle down. The vixens will chose a breeding earth in which to whelp. February is a prime month for terrier work, as the dens are settled but the pups are not yet in residence. Fox are most likely to be home after a night of ice, snow or freezing rain, or when the wind is blowing.

The Continuing Crisis

A woman from Poulsbo, Washington, who began feeding local raccoons 35 years ago, called the police on Thursday, Oct. 3, after about 100 raccoons didn't let her enter her home.

Matter Slips Away, But the Energy Abides

“Death is not the ending of anything. I believe all of us are only energy that becomes matter. When the matter goes away, the energy still exists. You can't destroy it. It never dies. It manifests itself somewhere else.” — Willie Nelson

One Thousand Years vs 20 Minutes

Lessons From 2016

IT’S NOT OVER UNTIL TRUMP IS DEAD OR IN PRISON.  

This was the headline on this day in 2016.

Then James Comey broke every rule to tell a lie.

Never forget or forgive Comey. But LEARN from it.

Run through the tape and then insist Trump and his enablers are charged, tried, convicted, and punished.

It’s Fake News!

The Election Is Now

The election is not in November — it’s right now. Millions have voted already. You can too. 

Plan your vote. Register and vote early. Make sure your parents, children, and friends vote too.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Fumaroles In Yellowstone

The chance of dying in a pyroclastic event is low, but never zero.

Two Young Moose in Grand Teton National Park

When We All Know

When they make TV skits about your business model, it’s pretty hard to deny it even exists.

Hayden Valley Coyote

The Hayden Valley is a vast area that was once a lake created by a glacial dam that has since melted, leaving behind a rolling expanse of marshy grassland where Bison and Elk calf in the Spring, and where Wolves and Grizzlies predate.

At this time of year, the grass has mostly gone brown, and though we saw a large number of Bison nearby, none were in the valley itself. 

Elk? Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown. Apparently it is still too warm for them to come down from the high country above 8,000 feet.

I rolled into the Hayden Valley at about noon, whichpp is a terrible time to spot wildlife.  The area is so large it was a miracle that I spied a tiny dot moving in the yellow grass — a coyote mousing among the water hummocks.  

This coyote was very far away — these pictures were taken with an 83x lens and then cropped.

Amazing Yellowstone Geology

The entire park is an enormous volcanic caldera, hence the thousands of hot vents, geysers, bubbling pools, and clouds of steam in the lower park.

When the Yellowstone caldera has exploded, in the distant past, it has thrown so much matter into the sky that it has darkened the globe for years — think 28 to 250 times larger than Mount Pinatubo. 

The smallest Yellowstone eruption in the past was 280 times larger than Mount St. Helens. 

The biggest?  

If it happened again, it would end most life on earth.

The evidence of earthquakes and landslides are all over the park, as is massive volcanic flows ranging from basalt to mud and ash.

Over the whole thing has come glaciation under 4,000 foot sheets of ice — ice sheets that only receded about 11,000 years ago.

The bison and elk and native Americans came after the Sequoias, but before the Toyota Rad-4s.  

As far as the park is concerned, nothing here is old but the rock and water itself.

The three pictures, above, are of the same place, but with the basalt columns — which represent a single layer — emphasized.

A Land of Steam

Lots of steam activity this morning from geysers, fumaroles, mud pots, and pools.  There was so much steam coming over the road, I slowed down to walking speed with my lights on. Very much like going through a forest fire zone, but no smoke.

This Could Be Heaven or Hell

Either way, pull up a chair; Mother Nature and Father Time put on a hell of a show.