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Post by lavandulagirl on Jun 23, 2008 19:43:37 GMT -5
Landarc - yeah, Andre is running the dairy plant in Sacramento that used to be Crystal Dairy. Hood owns it now. We will definitely check out those cheese outfits you mentioned. A friend of mine has a brother who makes traditional Irish cheeses, just for the family, but every once in awhile we get to be step-cousins, and we get a wheel. It's proof that God exists...
We leave for the new place this week. The packers came today, and the truck gets loaded tomorrow. Once I'm out there, I'll PM you, and maybe you can fill me in on the best food purveyors.
How goes the animal shelter project?
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Post by canadamike on Jun 24, 2008 0:33:29 GMT -5
Landarc, you are right, there are mounds of treasures when one goes in the countryside or or look for local good producers, organic ones etc... they are numerous. It is just we don't get it in the cities when we visit, and quite frankly the multinationals exports are mostly worth crap. Lav, I hate poutine  and I think I expressed clearly that there are many wonderful things down there. I feel very much at home when in your country, not in the big cities, but this applies to Canada and all countries too. I would not mind at all moving there if I had to, and would source out plenty of great local suppliers of fantastic food, furniture, tools etc... But they are not the ones controlling the game and you know it As I said, it is not the local producer, the small farm, the small companies that are at fault, it is this system controled by special interests( read big companies) and this rotten government that care more for corporations than its citizens. And it is sad we don't have access to the best when we visit. And feces fed beef is sad, and hormones in milk are sad ( and unhealthy for the cows) same for chicken etc... And them lobbies trying very hard to have us change our laws to accomodate their rotten ways is sad. And making pressure to convert James Bay into a fresh water expense by creating a giant barrier between it, receiving all our northern rivers water, and the rest of the Artic Ocean, to ship to thirsty California is sad too. They could grow tons of lettuce and californian produces in other parts of America where water is aplenty, but this huge move would look bad on their books for many years, corporations have to satisfy the ever hungry investors, and hyper-centralisation, although ecologically totally stupid, is good for the investor on the short term, and fuck the environment! We should clone Warren Buffet and put him in control of this sad farce... Flower, 200 cows is 4 times the average dairy farm in Canada. And your people can't live on it? It is disgusting. Anybody producing enough to keep 500 people alive should make a good living. And whatever the big corps are saying, despite the relentless agression from corporate america on our quota system, which inflates our prices or so they say, I pay my milk 3.98$ a gallon, and 5.46$ in a convenience store. Farmers get 70 cents a liter, a little more now I think, which makes over 2.80$ a gallon. The quota system needs improvement, but it has kept many farms alive, I have clients who milk 25 cows and make a decent albeit modest living. And it spreads the cows all over, not killing the ecology of a region by over-concentration of gigantic amounts of manure and anti-biotics in the environment. It keeps our countryside alive, although we also have lots of problems with farm survival too. Anybody here milking 200 cows will retire a multi-millionnaire, selling his farm, if he does so, for about twice the value of the quota, which is 35,000$ per kilo of milk fat daily ( roughly a one cow equivalent here, Ontario holstein genetics are the best in the world, especially eastern Ontario, which supplies many embryos and lots of sperm, and cows and bulls too to the States people, mainly Pennsylvania and Wisconsin I think), so it makes for roughly 14 million $. If the cows produce less fat, it might be less a bit. And this guy would be poor in your neck of the woods? Something is rotten somewhere... |
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Post by flowerpower on Jun 24, 2008 6:52:52 GMT -5
They have some sort of pricing system in the Northeastern US. A farmer here would be lucky to have 200 head. I think the avg would be 50 head (maybe?). Dairy farming is hard work. And even if you are growing your own feed, cows eat alot. They need tons of tests and vaccinations. Plus ya gotta mail order the sperm from Canada.  And the farmer makes nothing on them. And no one wants to dairy farm anymore. Its not the most appealing profession. I see more people tring to go strictly beef cows. I have seen both Black Angus and Longhorn farms now. I don't really like cows very much ever since I had one chase me. They are just so stupid. I do like oxen though, especially those Ayeshires (sp?). Huge things but cool looking. |
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Post by landarc on Jun 24, 2008 14:18:31 GMT -5
Yuppers, Lav, lemme know whats going on, sometime next month, the first batch of homebrew may well be done. The animal shelter is moving forward ever so painfully slowly. I have got to figure out a way to get paid for time spent waiting for bureaucracy. And no, once I figure it out, I ain't sharing it. As for food sources, I will keep you filled in. The Sierra foothills and Sacramento Valley have such great resources, there are a lot of exciting food opportunities to explore.
Mike, it may be a thing out west, dunno, but most of the top restaurants in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco urban areas focus intensely on local, small farm and/or natural foods for their preparations. Many see it as the influence of Alice Waters, although others correctly see it as the influence of her love of traditional rural French and Italian food attitudes. At least where I am from, some of the best and most original thinking on food and technique is happening in the Cities.
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Post by canadamike on Jun 24, 2008 19:30:11 GMT -5
Yhat's wonderful. I think restaurants owned or with chefs are always at the forefront and end up being followed. Good news...
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Post by winter unfazed on Jul 5, 2008 11:45:24 GMT -5
Heh, we're so used to being fed shit down here that we probly can't even tell.... Figuratively, but this is the LITERAL stuff. |
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Post by winter unfazed on Jul 5, 2008 11:47:42 GMT -5
Rabbit's have a special poo that they eat when nobody is looking. Keeps them healthy. It's said that a rabbit will die of thiamine deficiency if not allowed to eat its feces for several weeks. |
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Post by winter unfazed on Jul 5, 2008 11:51:05 GMT -5
They have some sort of pricing system in the Northeastern US. A farmer here would be lucky to have 200 head. I think the avg would be 50 head (maybe?). Dairy farming is hard work. And even if you are growing your own feed, cows eat alot. They need tons of tests and vaccinations. Plus ya gotta mail order the sperm from Canada. . I don't understand why some cattle ranchers go through the hassle of AI and long mail-order of expensive sperm. It's not that hard to just find some bulls, for crying out loud. |
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Post by landarc on Jul 5, 2008 16:40:56 GMT -5
The most common reason given for not using bulls, is the risk of harm to the brood herd that a rancher has, in the use of a bull for natural breeding. A rancher or dairy farmer will have a significant investment in the brood stock, in may cases, with many proven bearers of high quality animals. A bull is too random a risk. Also, many farmers and ranchers are looking for a specific conformation of animal to breed to a certain cow, to hopefully breed a animal of superior genetics. You would not be able to have as many choices of semen genetics to to breed from if you had to keep the bulls, or stud them in.
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Post by canadamike on Jul 5, 2008 17:10:08 GMT -5
The holstein calfs in the world have a reduced number of fathers, this is not a rich genetic pool anymore, we have bred living factories. For some reason that eludes me, the main breeders of great bulls are in Ontario and Quebec. Their offspring are the highest milk producers in the world.
Now, the cows are having problems giving birth, which leads to useless expensive animals, and they are on the look out for bulls that produces good delivering mothers AND good milkers.
Forget the time where natural insemmination was the way to go. It was on another planet, sadly...
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Post by landarc on Jul 5, 2008 18:21:09 GMT -5
I am sooo sorry CM that you have forgotten what natural is like, I certainly still get to practice natural insemination and cannot fathom forgetting what it is like.
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Post by canadamike on Jul 5, 2008 19:30:51 GMT -5
Why would you say that Landarc? We are talking big industry here, not the people that make natural food the old fashioned way. What percentage of the milking cows in our countries are naturally inseminated?
Do we still have to point out everytime in this forum that we are small, mostly organic and that we disagree with a lot of big corps practices?
I think it is an undercurrent of this forum AND small producers in general, people doing things the right way out of principle and love and good stewardship.
I have forgotten nothing.
I have mot forotten the natural way
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Post by landarc on Jul 9, 2008 12:04:19 GMT -5
Mike, reread that last post of mine, leave the cows and bulls out of it, think of it as a joke...
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Post by canadamike on Jul 9, 2008 20:10:11 GMT -5
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Post by Alan on Jul 9, 2008 22:44:33 GMT -5
LOL, classic landarc, remember though, according to Mike, in his own words he is hung like a mouse! LOL.
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and I think I expressed clearly that there are many wonderful things down there. I feel very much at home when in your country, not in the big cities, but this applies to Canada and all countries too. I would not mind at all moving there if I had to, and would source out plenty of great local suppliers of fantastic food, furniture, tools etc... But they are not the ones controlling the game and you know it
And the farmer makes nothing on them. And no one wants to dairy farm anymore. Its not the most appealing profession. I see more people tring to go strictly beef cows. I have seen both Black Angus and Longhorn farms now.
