The Boondocks blog, No. 62 for the week starting March 31, 2008.
Strange illness makes beekeeping a challenge
Waterfront Farmers Market may remain indoors this summer
Farmers Cut Back on Corn and Add Soybeans - New York Times
Corn costs to drive other prices up
April Fool's: New England Suffers Maple Woes
Toyota Confirms Scion Pickup Based on Tundra
Iowa Concerned About Lead from Deer Hunting
Why rear-wheel drive is coming back - By Mickey Kaus - Slate Magazine
Immigration Issues Effecting Farmers
Officials satisfied with efforts at farm
Celebrating New York's Wine Industry
Energy looks at high energy prices and our future.
Enviroman looks at man and the environment.
Hayseeds looks at politics and life in our nation.
Individual looks at myself and how I'm changing
Outblog is all about my outdoor experiences.
Transit looks at the changing ways we get around.
Truck gives you stories and trips in my Ford Ranger.
““Bees were much healthier back then. We didn’t have to worry about these serious health issues. Now, we have to worry about things like mites, beetles and colony collapse,” he said.”
“The Waterfront Farmers Market will remain indoors this summer due to expected construction in and around its regular outdoor home in the parking lot of Hedley Park Place, off River Street.”
“Strong worldwide food demand, and the accompanying higher prices, are beginning to influence American farmers.”
“Farmers are expected to plant less corn this year, which could mean continuing higher costs for consumers at the grocery store.”
“An ethanol production plant costing up to $350 million and capable of producing 165 million gallons of the corn-based fuel annually is planned for 18 mostly vacant acres at the Port of Albany.”
“A downturn in the maple syrup market is having harmful side effects for trees in northern New England. For the first time in decades, the maples are remaining untapped, with sometimes-dangerous results.”
“"The full size truck segment is facing strong sales headwinds this year and we have extra capacity to build pickups. In order to sell 200,000 Tundras this year we need to think outside the box. Scion is the perfect solution and a perfect match to achieve this goal. Scion buyers have been asking for a full size pickup," said Ms. Fursten.”
From the article:
The Iowa DNR is contacting food pantries to begin collecting samples that can be analyzed for the potential of lead contamination that might occur when an animal is harvested through firearms hunting.
More than 25,000 deer have been donated to hunger problems in the last five years representing more than four million meal servings. HUSH is a cooperative effort among deer hunters, the Food Bank of Iowa, meat lockers and the Iowa DNR to reduce the deer population while providing red meat to the needy in Iowa.
There have been no reports of lead poisoning in Iowa related to consumption of venison. Anyone who is concerned about the safety of venison in their possession can choose to wait until sample results have been analyzed for further guidance. It is not necessary, nor recommended to dispose of any venison at this time.
Read Iowa Testing Venison.
While it's in Spanish it's great.
“And why rear-wheel drive is coming back.”
The New York Times looks at one farmer in Pennsylvania which is getting out of the tomato business, as the supply of workers dry up with Congress' inability to pass immigration reform, and a lack of workers to pick tomatoes.
This year, however, the new politics of immigration — very much on the mind of many of Pennsylvania’s voters, even if overlooked by the presidential candidates campaigning in this state and around the nation — has put him out of business.
State, local and federal crackdowns on illegal immigration have broken his supply chain of laborers. Most of those were Hispanic men who had come every year for decades, and whose immigration status Mr. Eckel recorded with the documents they provided to him. He kept them all in the file cabinets at his neat farm office — the Migrant Seasonal Farm Worker Protection Act forms, the Labor Department’s I-9 forms, the H-2A agricultural visa privilege forms — though he knew that, for the most part, it was a charade.
“It’s a ludicrous system,” he said the other day, sitting behind his desk in a light brown windbreaker that matched the fallow hillside beyond his office window here, 10 miles north of Scranton. “If the national statistics are correct, 70 percent of the documents in those cabinets are fraudulent.”
See Immigration Issues End a Pennsylvania Grower’s Season in the New York Times.
“Authorities monitoring a Johnstown area goat farm where about 40 dead goats were found March 20 said Monday they are satisfied with the progress the owner is making with animal care and cleanup.”
“The Kayaderosseras Creek is technically open to fishing year-round, but many anglers still observe the long-standing fisherman's new year: April 1, the traditional opening day for freshwater trout and salmon fishing.”
According to the USA Today, about 10% of all commercial pilots now are allowed to carry in flight.
More than one in 10 of the nation's airline pilots are cleared to carry a handgun while flying, and the number will continue to grow, according to a Transportation Security Administration projection.
The TSA, which has declined to disclose the number of armed pilots, revealed in a recent budget document that 10.8% of airline crewmembers were authorized to carry guns.
The Federal Air Marshal Service, a TSA agency that runs the armed-pilots program, reports that 85,000 to 90,000 pilots and crewmembers flying domestic passenger and cargo planes are eligible to carry a gun. That puts the number of armed pilots at about 9,500 — a figure Air Marshal spokesman Nelson Minerly did not dispute. The marshal service keeps the exact number confidential.
Let's hope that will help improve airline security.
Read More than 10% of pilots allowed to fly armed on USATODAY.com.
“It is Wine Month in New York State, a chance for wineries, retailers and restaurants across the state to showcase a product that is growing in production and popularity. WAMC's North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley has more.”
