Some Piggies Don't Make it To Market . . .

I'm going to add a note from the editor here. We shouldn't have to have government regulation force us, to do what is right before YHWH.


This Little Piggy Went To Market. This Little Piggy Went...
by Linda Marte




"Workers say they are overwhelmed as they attempt to drag nearly 7,000 pig carcasses from a river in Shanghai...
"Meat producers in China sometimes sell animals that have died from disease, instead of disposing of them, amid lax food safety laws.
Around half of the world's 1.3m pigs slaughtered annually for meat are raised in China, many of which are reared in intensive farms which have been accused of promoting the spread of disease.
In 2007, an outbreak of high fever blue ear disease in pigs in China affected 50 million animals."
(Photo image and news credit: news.sky.com)


And this coming on the heels of discovering more than 3,300 dead pigs in the Shanghi River within a matter of days before this! We are blessed to live in a country where laws are enforced to prevent such things from happening here in the US... Right? And our laws protect us, because they are enforced, from the effects of such news stories that we are seeing happening in other parts of the world like China...Right?

"10.1
DISPOSAL OF DEAD ANIMALS
Commercial livestock operations are normally subject to mortalities and therefore generate many carcasses for disposal. Proper disposal of dead livestock is extremely important to protect the health of both people and livestock. Any animal carcass may contain bacteria and other disease organisms that can infect humans directly or through contamination of a residential water supply. Disposal of dead livestock must be in accordance with the Waste Materials Disposal Act. Mortalities must be kept in a secure and frozen state if not disposed of within 48 hours of the time of death. A secure state would be one where scavenger animals such as coyotes, wolves (in Labrador), dogs and birds are prevented from access to the mortalities. Disposal is specified to be by delivery to a rendering plant, burial, composting or incineration. Leaving mortalities outside for scavengers to feed on is not an acceptable method of dead animal disposal. Rendering Delivery of the carcasses to a rendering company is the preferred method for disposing of dead animals..." (source nr.gov.nl...)

"6 Any animal that has a separate hoof that is completely divided and also chews the cud, these animals you may eat. 7 But you are not to eat those that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof. For example, the camel, the hare and the coney are unclean for you because they chew the cud but don't have a separate hoof; 8 while the pig is unclean for you because, although it has a separate hoof, it doesn't chew the cud. You are not to eat meat from these or touch their carcasses." Deuteronomy 8 CJB

From 1980 to 2011, the number of hog operations in the U.S. dropped from 666,000 to roughly 69,000, yet the number of hogs sold remains almost the same.

About 70% of U.S. beef cattle come from farms with at least 5,000 head of cattle.

Ten large companies produce more than 90 percent of the nation's poultry.

"Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of manure, often generating the waste equivalent of a small city. A problem of this nature and scale is tough to imagine, and pollution from livestock farms seriously threatens humans, fish and ecosystems....

Facts about Pollution from Livestock Farms
Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of manure, often generating the waste equivalent of a small city. A problem of this nature and scale is tough to imagine, and pollution from livestock farms seriously threatens humans, fish and ecosystems. Below are facts and statistics that tell the story.
Livestock pollution and public health
California officials identify agriculture, including cows, as the major source of nitrate pollution in more than 100,000 square miles of polluted groundwater.

In 1996 the Centers for Disease Control established a link between spontaneous abortions and high nitrate levels in Indiana drinking water wells located close to feedlots.

High levels of nitrates in drinking water also increase the risk of methemoglobinemia, or "blue-baby syndrome," which can kill infants.

Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.

Manure from dairy cows is thought to have contributed to the disastrous Cryptosporidium contamination of Milwaukee's drinking water in 1993, which killed more than 100 people, made 400,000 sick and resulted in $37 million in lost wages and productivity.

In this country, roughly 29 million pounds of antibiotics -- about 80 percent of the nation's antibiotics use in total -- are added to animal feed every year, mainly to speed livestock growth. This widespread use of antibiotics on animals contributes to the rise of resistant bacteria, making it harder to treat human illnesses.

Large hog farms emit hydrogen sulfide, a gas that most often causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage. In 1998, the National Institute of Health reported that 19 people died as a result of hydrogen sulfide emissions from manure pits.

Livestock pollution and water pollution
Huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, are prone to leaks and spills. In 1995 an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing.

In 2011, an Illinois hog farm spilled 200,000 gallons of manure into a creek, killing over 110,000 fish.

In 2012, a California dairy left over 50 manure covered cow carcasses rotting around its property and polluting nearby waters.

When Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, at least five manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 lagoons were completely flooded.

Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss and other cognitive problems in local people.

Nutrients in animal waste cause algal blooms, which use up oxygen in the water, contributing to a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico where there's not enough oxygen to support aquatic life. The dead zone fluctuates in size each year, extending a record 8,500 square miles during the summer of 2002 and stretching over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 2010.

Ammonia, a toxic form of nitrogen released in gas form during waste disposal, can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before being dumped back onto the ground or into the water, where it causes algal blooms and fish kills. (source: NRDC)
I think this is "why" and I think it is safe to say all of the above information is the "cause & effect" of "Torahlessness." We were given all the "safe handling" and the list of "clean and unclean meats" according to YHWH's Laws. Will the US make teshuva (repentance)? Will the Chinese and the rest world repent? I think it is a pretty "safe guess" if we can say, No.

For more information regarding; "Facts about Pollution from Livestock" visit:
http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

Shalom in the Garden

I didn't realize until today, just how much confusion and sadness, I really want to "lock out" of the garden. As I see the end of days coming into place, in the midst of the confusion and fear, I must sound like a broken record. We need to begin a sustainable food supply. I'm not talking about hording canned goods, although a few canned goods on hand to share isn't a bad idea, but I'm talking about gardening. It has value far beyond just food.

A couple of years ago, I got a question from people who were just beginning to think about gardening and growing their own food and they wanted to know while they were making plans, where was the best place to store their seeds. That's the great thing about gardening! It doesn't take a great deal of planning. It takes some dirt, and it takes some work, prayerfully G-d supplies the sunshine and rain. So, in response to the question, I told these folks the best place to store seeds was the ground . . . Even if you're not ready to go "big time" yet, the "dividends" of one row of beans or a single tomato plant will yield food as well as multiple increase in seeds for next year.

With this idea of starting something, even if it's small, keep something very important in mind. We do reap what we sow. So we don't want to plant what we don't want to harvest, and that of course has been a valuable metaphor for years, but I have something to add, as these end of days unfold in our instant gratification society. Without sowing, there is no harvest. We have become so dependent upon cans on the shelves of the super-marts, many of our young people don't even know that groceries, well some groceries are actually grown in the soil.

Getting started is important and to begin with, the size of the plowed ground is not the point, however; the soil we sow into and the seed we sow is imperative to the harvest. It's truly time to take this truth literally as well as metaphorically. Just as GMO has proven that we can eat empty calories without nutritional value, we can also sow bountifully into poverty. We've been programmed to raise the wrong kind of green for too long. We may refer to money as green, but even economically it has no real value, and it certainly will not sustain our bodies. It's time to grow some real green, and that happens in the garden. To get your feet wet and your hands dirty, a.k.a. to begin with, the garden can be a window box, a flower pot, a bucket, or a small section of the back yard. If you have a place for a house plant, you have a place to raise something of nutritional value.

I want to take this time to share something I'm doing and I'll be honest, there is a degree of laziness involved in my latest endeavor, so be that as it may, I'll share what I'm learning. I do not like to dig potatoes and I'm not a huge fan of potatoes. I mean I like them, but if I had to choose between mashed potatoes & gravy or salad, I'd choose salad. If I had to choose between french fries and squash, I'd choose squash, and how often does anyone make home made french fries anymore, anyway? Yet, I digress . . . back to my plan.

I'll address the metaphor of sowing and reaping in next week's edition. This week, is the practical application of a literal space contained gardening option and you can grow something with it. Here's my way to have potatoes without digging them. I have a 5 gallon bucket with a few holes drilled in the bottom, filled with soil. I planted 4-5 potato eyes and covered them. Now, picture this, the potato eyes are about 2 inches beneath the rim of the bucket, so there is over a foot of soil beneath, which is where the potatoes will grow. I water it regularly and at the end of about 4 months, when the tops have died away, I simply empty the bucket and pick up the potatoes. I'm trying to figure out the timing, so I can just have a fresh bucket of potatoes every few weeks and rotate the growing cycle of each bucket. I tried this last year and there are more intense and complicated methods, of this potato bucket project, but this one worked well for me. Now all I have to do is time it so I have a bucket of potatoes ready every month.

This isn't exactly the most compact of patio gardening ideas, but half a dozen buckets rotating is a pretty nice crop of potatoes, and there is no digging! And, since the potatoes grow under the soil, you can raise chives, cilantro, dill, or many herbs in the bucket as well. There are many vining vegetables that will also grow in buckets on the patio. Just because you're not farming 40 acres, is no indication you can't grow something where you find yourself planted!