Trying To Help Others Through Our Successes And Failures
My name is Stephen Fahsbender, part owner of Attadale Farm, along with my wife Sandy. One of our biggest problems is not with the animals but with our ability to convey to others the superior benefits of raising animals with them in mind. We felt that perhaps, if I informed people every so often about our successes and failures out here and how that translates into the health and value of our animals, perhaps that might be an avenue to help people understand the value of nutrition and how that will figure into their resources. I have no idea how this is going to work out. I have no time to do this. Something tells me that if I spend just a few minutes every once in a while recounting my day, somehow someone will become a little more familiar and informed about the raising of Grass-Fed Beef, Grass-Fed Sheep and Pasture Raised Hogs.
The raising of the animal is quite important because how the animal is raised determines how that animal fits into the food supply and nutrition. Whoever consumes that animal will also experience the effects of how that animal is raised. Most animals raised for consumption in the United States are raised incorrectly if the ultimate goal is quality and nutrition. If the animals are raised with the primary goal of return on investment then they are raised pretty well. Unfortunately, there is a guaranteed price to pay for a greater return on investment as it pertains to the value of that animal's use as a food source. There is always a trade off between quality and quantity. Usually quality is sacrificed for quantity. Quantity generally translates into more beef for the buck. But the cow's existence will be modified with return on investment in mind. We'll develop this further in our next time together.
As always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. You are always welcome for a visit as well. See you next time. Enjoy your day!
NO TIME LIKE THE REAL TIME
It had become a brain dead,habitual practice of ours to follow the Federal Government’s “it’s best for you” twice yearly changing of time forward to Daylight Savings and then back again to Standard Time. It was always a disruption for us to gain and lose hours and took days to finally settle into our new position on the clock dial. We heard the Government’s reasoning to make the change to Daylight Savings. It was to give us more daylight closer to Midnight. It was to allow the end of the day to drag on and allow the late to bed more daylight in their lateness.
We also experienced the down side of the slight positioning of the shadow on the Sun Dial. Daylight came at a later hour so we could tack time on the other end of the day. It also provided daylight unnecessarily late in our day. When our egg layers in the pasture were finally heading into the mobil coop at 9:10 PM and I was headed back to the house at 9:30, it was much later than I really needed. Tack on to this the unnecessary discomfort of adjusting to Daylight Savings and I had an externally originated problem that was not worth the change. There was absolutely no financial, animal health or production benefit to pretending it was a different time than it really was. All that happened is that everything we did, fixed, fed or nursed was done later than before. Everybody and thing had to make the Federal Government shift for no viable reason.
We decided to omit Daylight Savings Time this year. It was very easy. We did nothing when it rolled around. Everything went on as usual. We are able to get a good early start and come in at the end of the day at a reasonable time. No animals or workers had to delay anything because people in Washington wanted them to. Getting started at the regular sun time (early for everybody else) helped us get it done sooner by the Daylight clock time. Coordinating with the crowd is easy. We just tell ourselves we have to arrive 1 hour early. If we have to get somewhere at 2PM Daylight Savings Time, we arrive at 1 PM our time.
We have found that there was and still is no upside to Daylight Savings Time for us. We have just as many daylight hours to work as anybody else. We work by the natural time of light of the sun and take advantage of God’s timing. We will never go back to Daylight Savings Time. It is a nonsensical manipulation of our clock and work schedules. It is of no benefit to us, the animals or our pastures. We finally decided to think and live for ourselves this year and are glad we finally did.