Geek.Farm.Life

Comment by Jeannine from Pittsburgh

April 21, 2008 @ 10:43 am

Yes to Tom on next week’s show!! Love those bzzz-casts!

Comment by Libbye

April 25, 2008 @ 10:35 am

Loved the herding video from your trip! If you’d be interested in a explanation of the herding terms let me know. I use a dog to handle our flock most every day.

Believe me, those sheep aren’t trained. A good working dog just makes them look that way. This is made readily apparent to me every time I get the bright idea to move sheep around on my own without Buzz’s help !

Comment by andrew

April 25, 2008 @ 10:39 am

We’re working on it Jeannine!

Libbye, Yes that would be great! It would seem to make a great call to the farm phone no? Here would work as well of course.

Comment by misty

April 25, 2008 @ 10:54 am

Thanks Libbye! That would bew awesome. Would you consider being a guest on the show to talk about this?

Comment by Jeannine from Pittsburgh

April 25, 2008 @ 9:33 pm

Hi Misty and Andrew,

Loved the podcast! And Misty, I loved your input about the whole food vs fuel debate. You’re right on the mark. I still stand on my opinion that less corn in our Western diets isn’t a bad thing. However, the push for corn for fuel has certainly hit the world’s food market in ways that I really didn’t anticipate. Certainly in terms of corn prices for animal feed, this has had a very real effect that small farmers like you can certainly appreciate in practical (ie price of animal feed) terms. This has also made an impact in the shift away from other grains that are incredibly important to commodity prices and grocery bills, namely the price of wheat and other grains that are now perhaps being underproduced. Combine this with the adverse weather that the past season has had on wheat crops world-wide (in particular the UK) and the price of animal feed and wheat has certainly been affected. As to the issue about the corn prices for ethnic groups like hispanics that depend on corn for a large part of their diet–the corn that is being grown for ethanol is probably a totally different corn than what is raised for making maize meal for tortillas, but the shift into ethanol-making corn away from human-consumption corn is indeed a very real affect of this trend. Anyway, I’m certainly not an expert on world commodity markets, but the corn for fuel vs corn for edible consumption is definitely a world issue. (Where the current rice shortage is in all of this I really don’t know, but it is a very crucial issue in world markets and diets at the moment.) Anyway, without getting political on these issues (I certainly don’t think this goes along any political party lines, since it’s pretty much ignored in the campaign debates) I love the fact that you guys think and talk about these things in very real, practical ways. It certainly puts a different perspective on these topics that us “”city folks” might not consider.

Looking forward to your next podcast! Hope the votes convinced Tom to join you. (I’ll still be listening regardless!)

Jeannine (from Pittsburgh)

Comment by Libbye

April 27, 2008 @ 10:26 pm

I’d be happy to talk about using a dog to help around the farm if you think it would be of interest. Sure makes dealing with sheep easier!