Tag: Farming

Federal Government Seized South Mountain Creamery’s Bank Account

South Mountain Creamery is a farm here in Frederick County that sells pasteurized milk products and other produce at farmers markets. It recently had $70,000 dollars seized in its bank account because they made regular cash deposits from their farmer’s market sales last year that were just under $10,000. The Federal government is suing to keep $63,000, even though no charges were made.

Taylor’s Produce Stand on the Eastern Shore had a similar thing happen to them last year. They had $90,000 seized. In December, they received half of the seized money back. There were no criminal charges made. They will not see the rest of their money!

For articles on South Mountain Creamery:
http://citypaper.com/news/cashed-out-1.1301518
http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2012/04/feds-sue-to-keep-south-mountain-creamerys-structured-cash-deposits/

Pasture Raised Broilers — Dial-a-size with…

by Myron Horst

When you prepare meals for yourself and those who will be eating with you, do you use your computer to carefully formulate the percentage of protein, calcium, sodium, fiber, available phosphorous, metabolizable energy, vitamin A, C, D, etc, and select the right foods and quantity of each food to fit the nutritional requirements for each person? Unfortunately, for humans we do not know what the optimum amounts or percentages should be for each of those nutrients. When we eat, we focus on what tastes good and what we think is “good for us”. The health care industry basically ignores nutrition and focuses on drugs.

What we eat is very important for our health, strength, and vitality. What we eat has a significant effect on who we are and what we look like. That point was driven home for me this year as we discovered the reason why our broilers had been smaller last year and also the first batch this year. Being a small farm, we do not have a professional poultry nutritionist to carefully formulate our chicken feed. Unfortunately, those who are advising small farmers are basing their advice on the advice of others, who are basing their advice on old research.

What I found is that in the 12 years since we started farming, the poultry industry has been improving the genetics of the broiler chicken each year. They have been shortening the time it takes to grow out a chicken by one day each year. That means that the market weight of a broiler chicken at eight weeks of age 12 years ago can now be reached at a little over six weeks! To achieve proper growth, these chickens need more protein.

I was able to find a broiler manual for the breed of broilers that we raise and discovered that our feed was lower in protein than what was recommended. We got a computer program for formulating our chicken feed and can now accurately adjust our chicken and turkey feeds for the needs of the poultry. We increased the percentage of protein and increased the average size of the broilers by about 1 3/4 pounds.

Going back to the title, I realized that it is possible in raising chickens to “dial-a-size” to a certain extent with — protein! If you want an average of 3 lb chickens, feed them a low protein diet. If you want 7 lb chickens in the same amount of time, feed them a very high protein diet. It is amazing what 3 to 5 percentage points can make on the size of a broiler chicken. Earlier this year, another pastured poultry farmer was having a problem with getting too many 7 lb chickens in eight weeks. She was feeding them an incredible 29% protein the first three weeks (the recommended is 22-25% protein). She was feeding a mixture of something like two scoops of feed and one scoop of fish meal.

Protein is not the only factor in the size and growth of chickens. There are many other challenges for pasture poultry farms – hot weather, cold weather, too wet, too dry, stress from predators, etc. At our first farm, we had to set up “tents” over the feeders that were outside so that the broiler chickens would not be afraid of the huge “birds” (airplanes) that flew over our farm on their way to Dulles Airport.

With the hens, we found that they were getting too much calcium and it was reducing the percentage of protein in their diet. We reduced the calcium and increased the protein slightly. The hens have been laying well and have not dropped off as much in production with the hot weather like they have other summers.

Protein is necessary for new cells to develop and growth to occur. Protein and the growth of chickens is an important object lesson for each of us in understanding the role of protein in human health. It is important that children get the proper protein so that their bodies grow and develop properly. Protein is important when our bodies are repairing from an injury. Protein is important so that the cells in our bodies can be replaced to reduce aging and degeneration and to increase strength and longevity.

We started raising chickens twelve years ago, not because I liked chickens—I had said, “I’ll never raise chickens”—but because God had directed us to raise chickens. A number of years ago, I realized that our farm was a protein farm. Most small farms are vegetable farms, but we don’t sell any vegetables, just protein – eggs, chicken, turkey, and lamb. I thought that having a farm producing protein was interesting, but did not see the significance of it. Now with the example of the chickens, I see the importance of having a protein farm for human health and strength.

Chickens and eggs are an important protein source. Chickens are the best fed farm animal. Because of their short life span and rapid growth, scientists have been able to pinpoint week by week the nutrients that a chicken needs. Our chicken feed is formulated with many vitamins and minerals. Add to that the benefits of pasture-raising chickens and eggs and you get a superb protein source for your dietary needs. So now I know the rest of the story — why we were led to have a protein farm!

Sustainable Farming – The Farmer Has to Stay in Business

There has been a growing interest in local and sustainable agriculture in recent years. Most of the emphasis on sustainable agriculture has been on sustainable farming methods. But there is another very important part of sustainable agriculture. The farmer has to stay in business or it is not sustainable!

Last month the Pennsylvania dairy farm, Rainbow Acres Farm, announced that it was shutting down. Dan Allgyer and his Rainbow Acres Farm had been delivering raw milk, milk products, eggs, chickens, and other farm products to thousands of customers in the Grassfed On the Hill buying club here in Maryland for the last 6 years.

The following history of Rainbow Acres and the Grassfed on the Hill buying club is from the Grassfed On the Hill website: "The group started to gain momentum in the Spring of 2006, word was spreading about the good products from Rainbow Acres and Liz Reitzig and I had teamed up to run the group. She was passionate about her milk and was born and raised in Maryland and knew many fresh milk enthusiasts. She had previously been part of a cow share program in Maryland but the State shut that program down in 2006. Once Liz joined me, the group grew exponentially. The system we had in place could handle infinite growth provided the community would support more drop locations—which it happily did. By 2007, 200 households participated in the group; by 2009 it grew to 1000 households."

"Also in 2009, we attracted the FDA’s attention. Dan received his first visit by the FDA, state troopers and armed federal marshals in Feb 2010. They didn’t have a warrant so Dan told them to leave. They returned in April 2010 with a warrant. They searched the farm and asked him questions which he refused to answer. The next day he received a warning letter from the FDA to stop transporting raw milk across state lines. We continued to operate as usual. The group continued to grow, providing nutrient dense, fresh milk to those who seek it and those who were willing to join a private buying group to access the food they choose." http://grassfedonthehill.com/grassfed-on-the-hill-history/ (Now unavailable)

The Food and Drug Administration convinced a federal judge to impose a permanent injunction on Dan Allgyer prohibiting him from selling raw milk to customers across state lines in Maryland. Judge Lawrence Stengel said that if Allgyer is found to violate the law again, he will have to pay the FDA’s costs for investigating and prosecuting him. Rainbow Acres and the Grassfed on the Hill buying club decided to close down.

Rainbow Acres was a "sustainable" farm. It was using sustainable pasture based farming methods. It had a very successful marketing and sales model. But it went out of business in only six years. It ceased to be a sustainable farm. It failed because it was doing something that was illegal. It was illegally delivering raw milk across state lines into Maryland.

The role of the consumer in the failure of a sustainable farm
A lot of focus has been put on the role of the government in shutting down Rainbow Acres and preventing people from receiving raw milk who were depending on it for health and nutritional needs. But the consumer also played a role in the failure of a sustainable farm. They asked the farmer to do something illegal for the convenience of the consumer. It was not illegal for Maryland residents to travel to Pennsylvania where raw milk can legally be sold, purchase raw milk and transport it back to Maryland. It was not illegal for small groups of families to take turns going to Pennsylvania to purchase raw milk and bring it back. Raw milk can be purchased in large quantities at a time and frozen, reducing the number of trips to Pennsylvania. But it is illegal for the farmer to deliver the raw milk across state lines to the families in Maryland. We too wish that raw milk could legally be purchased here in Maryland… someday it will.

It was the part that was illegal that was not sustainable and caused the farm to close. When a farmer does something that is illegal, it hurts not only himself but also other farmers as well. In the court case the judge set a precedent ruling that could in the future hinder other Pennsylvania farmers from selling raw milk to Maryland customers who then transport it back to Maryland. The Complete Patient website reports "He suggested in a footnote that individuals who traveled to Allgyer’s farm to pick up their milk and bring it back to Maryland would be in violation of federal law. He said that "the purchase of raw milk by one who traveled between states to obtain it, or traveled between states before consuming it or sharing it with friends or family member, implicates ‘commerce between any State…" http://www.thecompletepatient.com/article/2012/february/9/no-raw-milk-your-subterfuge-food-club-federal-judge-tells-md-members.

In recent years there have been a number of farms that have illegally transported pasture raised chickens across state lines into Maryland that were processed in other states under federal exemption. The federal exemption for on-farm processed poultry requires the poultry to be sold in the state where it is processed. The consumer can take it across state lines, but not the farmer. The federal exemption for on-farm poultry processing is a privilege that pasture based farms in America are fortunate to have. I hope that a few, who are not content to abide by the law, don’t mess up everything for the rest of us and cause the federal exemption to be revoked.

Not all sales are profitable sales

Another thing that the consumer needs to be aware of in attempting to support sustainable agriculture is that not all sales are profitable sales even if the dollar figure looks high. People will ask farmers to do things for them, thinking that they are supporting the farmer, but it is not a profitable sale. For example, it is not profitable for the farmer to drive a half hour to deliver $50 worth of products. Nor is not profitable to raise 10 chickens of a special breed for just one customer; chickens that take twice as long to grow, and have to be butchered separately. A special pen has to be built and a lot of extra labor goes into caring for those few chickens. It takes about as long to feed 10 chickens as it does 300.

Each year there are a number of new farmers markets that are opened to promote local agriculture. We are often asked to join a new farmers market. In my opinion, sales at most farmers markets are not profitable sales unless it is a large farmers market that attracts a lot of people. Farmers go to farmers markets because they are asked to sell there, they need to sell more products and people are not willing to come to their farm. I was surprised when I found out that the average sales at a farmers market was only $500 a week. It takes two people an hour or two to get the products ready and loaded to go to the market. Another half hour or hour to get to the market. Two people spend three or four hours at the farmers market, and then there is the travel home and unloading.  It can easily take 14-16 man hours to sell $500 worth of products. That may sound like easy money until you count in all the labor and expenses that went into growing the products, the equipment, land costs, utilities, packaging, and the 25% or so of unsold produce that was carried home and had to be thrown away. The poor farmer might only be making $5.00 an hour. That is why most farms today have off-farm incomes. One of the spouses works at an off-farm job, or they have retirement income or other investment income. If you go to a farmers market, support the farmers by buying their products. They really do need you to buy from them.

A sustainable farm has to get big enough to support a full time income for each of those working on the farm. Trying to make a living off of 200 hens or a half acre vegetable patch is like a doctor trying to make a living by only seeing two or three patients a day. We have seen a number of small pasture based farms start up and then close down because it was not profitable at the small scale that they were trying operate at. The homesteading mentality of having a few chickens, some cattle, a few pigs, goats, and a vegetable plot is not a profitable farming model to support a full time income. If a farm is too diverse it is hard for the farm to be successful. It would be like a medical doctor without any employees who saw several patients a day. He was also a certified public accountant and did a little accounting work for people. He ran a small roadside farm stand once a week where he personally sold produce that he bought from area farmers. He would mow a few lawns for people in town. Lastly, he had 50 laying hens to produce eggs to sell at his farm stand. This scenario sounds ridiculous but it is what many small "sustainable" farms are trying to do. They are trying to do too many things and cannot be successful at any of them like they should.

We need small family farms, like Rainbow Acres, to stay in business. We talk about "sustainable" agriculture, which implies that conventional agriculture is not sustainable. Do we really believe conventional agriculture is not sustainable? If you believe that conventional agriculture is not sustainable, are you preparing for the day that it is not able to supply enough food? The news has not been reporting much about how unsustainable conventional agriculture really is. As I am seeing some of what is happening in big agriculture and the unsustainable things that are going on, I am concerned that one day some of the big players will be gone and there will be a shortage of food. A number of sectors of conventional agriculture are losing money right now. For example, the poultry industry is losing hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter. Feed prices are high, energy costs are high, there is an oversupply of chicken, and they can’t raise prices because other countries are not willing to pay the price. Here at our small farm, we have received at least 10 emails and phone calls from other countries looking for container loads of chicken parts. One lady that called was desperately looking for a shipping container of chicken wings. She asked Cathy if there was anyone that she could recommend. Cathy suggested Perdue. The lady told her that she had already contacted them and they were too expensive.  Several years ago, one of the largest poultry companies, Pilgrim’s Pride, filed for bankruptcy. A Brazilian company bought them out. Recently they have been losing over $100,000,000 per quarter. The beef industry is on a similar unsustainable course. 

We need more small sustainable farms that produce high quality nutrient dense food. A truly sustainable farm is one that uses sustainable agricultural practices, is using legal farming and marketing methods, is financially profitable enough to stay in business long term and is able to pass on a profitable farming operation to the next generation. That is sustainable agriculture.

Links to articles about Rainbow Acres Farm:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/13/feds-shut-down-amish-farm-selling-fresh-milk/?page=all#pagebreak
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/article/2012/february/9/no-raw-milk-your-subterfuge-food-club-federal-judge-tells-md-members
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/8181-amish-farmer-closes-raw-milk-business-after-feds-slap-injunction-on-him
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/sites/default/files/allgyerjudgedecision2.pdf

Poultry Industry Caught in "Perfect Storm"

There was an article in the October 29 edition of the Lancaster Farming Newspaper about how the conventional poultry industry is caught in a "perfect storm" of economic conditions which are largely outside of their control. Poultry companies are losing millions of dollars each quarter. There are a number of factors. One is the high cost of feed. Conventional corn went from $3.25 a bushel a year ago to $7.50. There is the dropping value of the U.S. dollar which affects exports. There are also high energy costs and the wholesale price of chicken is down because of reduced demand for chicken in the U.S.

It was stated that there has been nothing like this in the history of the chicken industry. According to the article, a major driver in the high feed costs is the production of ethanol. Ethanol production diverts half of the U.S corn crop into into fuel production and yet only offsets less than 1 percent of our petroleum imports. One thing that caught my eye was the prediction that corn will go up to $11 or $12 dollars a bushel next year. If it does, it will have a major impact on poultry, beef and pork production in the U.S. Hopefully this prediction is wrong. If conventional corn goes up to $11 or $12 dollars a bushel it could push organic corn up to $25 or more a bushel. That would hurt our farm as well. This year our small farm will spend in the neighborhood of $100,000 on feed! If feed costs continue to drastically go up our eggs and chicken will also have to rise in price as well.

Sustainable agriculture is not just about how we treat the land, but it is also about being profitable enough be able to continue to produce food. If a "sustainable" farm does everything right in how it treats the soil and how it treats its animals, but it fails to make a living wage, it is not sustainable. Most people here in America are disconnected from their food and what goes into producing that food. The assumption by many is that the grocery store will always be full and will have what they want at a cheap price. That may not always be the case. This next year looks like it is going to be an interesting year. Is our farm going to crawl in a hole and expect the worst? No! We are moving forward and hoping and praying for the best. Last week we received 1,100 new egg layer chicks to replace some of our older hens and to increase the laying flock. The demand for our eggs is still greater than what we can supply. Thank you for your support in these difficult economic times.

Steal, Kill and Destroy

I believe that in years to come, people will look back at many of the practices of the "health care system" of today as being as barbaric as the practices of witch doctors in the jungles of Africa years ago, or the practice of doctors in America 200 years ago in putting leeches on people to suck out their "bad" blood. We stand in awe and wonder at the many technological advancements of modern medicine and the amazing things that they can do, but we don’t often stop to think through what they are doing and if they should be doing those amazing things in the first place.

As I thought about the phrase in the Bible "Steal, kill and destroy", I realized that it describes far too many of the practices of modern medicine and modern agriculture. Fortunately, it does not describe every doctor and every practice. First, let’s look at agriculture and then at medicine.

In conventional chemical agriculture, chemical herbicides and insecticides are sprayed on the food and crops to kill the "bad guys" and produce a product that looks good on the outside. The food value is not viewed as very important. In true organic agriculture, the farmer focuses on building up the nutrient qualities of the soil and the plant so that the "bad guys" leave the product alone and so that the produce has high nutrient value to give health and strength to the person who eats it.

Steal

Stealing seems to be a strong term to describe modern medicine. But the extremely high cost of medical care can very well be described by the old phrase "highway robbery". In what other industry do you have someone do something for you and you have no choice in the cost, and then a month or two later they send you an astronomical bill and you legally have to pay whatever incredibly high price they choose to put on the bill? People are so afraid of getting sick and the doctors and hospital taking "everything that they have" that they go to great lengths to protect themselves. Health insurance has become a "must have" to protect one’s cash and home. Many people stay in jobs that they hate because of the health insurance that they have there. The cost of protecting one’s assets with health insurance has continued to rise.

About five years ago I broke my ankle in a car accident. The ambulance took me to the hospital where they wanted to go which was further away. One doctor charged $300 for asking if I was allergic to any medications. I told him I was allergic to hospitals. He called it a consultation. The total bill was about $15,000 for a broken leg.

The motel room (hospital room) cost about $5,000 a night and it was not very fancy. No better than Motel 6. It did not even have a decent bed for Cathy to sleep in.

Now contrast that to several stories I heard from one of my aunts on Labor Day. After my Grandma Horst died, they were going through the things in the attic of her house. They found a bill from the doctor for the home birth of one of my aunts. The cost was $1! For the birth of another aunt, the story was told of how on the way out the door, the doctor asked for one of my grandfather’s honey cured hams as payment for the delivery. That is a big difference from the high cost of health care today.

Kill

When you step back and look at the practices of modern medicine, many of them focus on killing something rather than making the body work as it should. We hear the terms so frequently that we don’t stop to think about what they are really doing.

Antibiotics – The word antibiotic comes from the Greek "anti" meaning ‘against’ and "bios" meaning ‘life’. The purpose of antibiotics is to kill, not strengthen. Antibiotics attempt to cure disease by killing or injuring bacteria. A major problem with antibiotics is that they not only kill the bad bacteria, but they also kill the good bacteria which fight infections in our bodies. The main purpose of antibiotics is killing.
Radiation – A procedure used to kill cancer. Radiation is also a potential cause of cancer.
Chemotherapy – Chemotherapy acts by killing cells that multiply rapidly. This means that it also harms cells that multiply rapidly under normal circumstances: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract, and hair follicles.
Surgery – A procedure used to kill by cutting offending tumors, organs, and parts of the body and removing them. Once an organ or part of the body is cut out, it will not re-grow or function again.

Last month my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. I went with my parents for their consultation with the oncologist doctor. He could offer her no real hope and gave her a relatively short time to live. He only had three tools in his bag – surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Three methods of killing, none of which offered much hope for her cancer.  We asked if there were any alternative methods. He did not know of any. He did not have a method that gave life.  He did not know what might have caused it – she has never smoked or worked in a smoke filled environment. By not knowing the cause, he did not know how to help prevent someone else from getting it. It would have been very depressing if we had not known of another method that works by giving life. My mother decided not to go with chemotherapy and instead went with the RBTI program. I will share about the RBTI program a little later.

Destroy

Not all procedures used by the medical industry work by killing. But most drugs and medications do have side effects. Side effects are usually not improvements in health, but in a broad sense are a decrease in health or a destruction of health, or function in another area of the body. Many times, medical procedures and drugs, while reducing the initial symptoms also destroy, to some extent, the health, energy, or personality of the person. When I broke my ankle, I got an ear infection from being in the hospital and receiving all those antibiotics. For the next three years I did not have the same energy that I had before the accident and medical treatments. After surgery, many people are never the same again as before they had the problem. They have limitations and/or pain for the rest of their lives. A certain quality of life has been destroyed by the medical procedure.

Health has been redefined to mean the absence of disease, rather than the positive – a restoration of original strength, energy, and life.

It is the ignorance of a solution other than the modern "health care system" that keeps most people trapped in the "steal, kill, and destroy" cycle, much in the same way that years ago people were trapped in the barbaric methods of the witch doctors in the jungles of Africa.

Our goal is to find the secrets of food, life and health, so that we and you can have life and have it more abundantly.

Raw Honey and Its Ability to Improve Brain Function

Another food that we produce here on the farm that is important for school students for success in school is raw honey. On the containers of raw honey that we sell here on the farm, Joel has this quote: "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good." Isaiah 7:15

I have often wondered why milk and honey would enable a person to be able refuse evil, and to be able to chose properly between right and wrong. The ability to make wise decisions is a skill that many children, and adults, lack today. Parenting would be a lot easier if you could feed your child food that would help them behave. School would be a lot better if kids didn’t have to be drugged so that they could sit still and behave. In Barnes’s Bible Commentary, commentator Barnes expresses what most people think: "As this translation now stands, it is unintelligible. It would ‘seem’ from this that his eating butter and honey would ‘contribute’ to his knowing good and evil. But this cannot be the meaning." But what I have found in my research is that milk and honey can have an effect on a person’s brain, and the brain’s ability to function properly.

Here are some pieces of the puzzle that I have been able to put together recently. I did a Google search for "calcium brain". What I found is that calcium is used by the brain cells to conduct the electrical signal using protein ions. Nitrogen (protein) is an electrolyte and conducts electricity in a liquid. Each brain cell has to have calcium in it for the electrical signal to work. Calcium is an alkaline earth metal and conducts electricity. The protein ions conduct the electrical signal from one brain cell to another to communicate messages. If there is not enough calcium, the brain will not function properly. If there is not enough protein the brain will not function properly. Raw milk is an important source of calcium and as such is an important food for brain function. So yes, milk can be a food that helps a person make wise choices.

I also learned that honey helps the body to absorb calcium. Therefore eating both milk and honey together helps the brain to assimilate and use calcium properly. The brain needs the calcium in order for it to make wise choices and decisions. One interesting piece of research that I found was on calcium and the affect of calcium on the honey bee in memory and learning. They found that calcium is crucial for long term memory in honey bees. When honey bees were deprived of calcium, they were not able to remember their food source. Within three days after receiving calcium, the bees were able to again learn and remember their food source. I find this interesting because this may be a clue for the decline of the honey bee in recent years. With Colony Collapse Disorder, the honey bees leave the hive and never return. It is possible that because of low calcium in the brain, the honey bee is not able to remember where home is. Because of acid rain, calcium is being depleted out of our soils. Our foods contains significantly less calcium than they did 60 years ago. It is likely that the honey bee is not getting enough calcium for it to function properly. I see what is happening to the honey bee is an important clue of what can be affecting us. They honey bee has a short life of only about 6 weeks. Our life span is closer to 70 years. Therefore affects on health will show up quickly in the honey bee, years before it will show up in our health. To read more about the honey bee and calcium:
http://insects.about.com/b/2009/06/22/calcium-crucial-to-long-term-memory-in-honey-bees.htm

After finding out about the importance of raw milk and raw honey in the ability of a person to make right decisions, I believe that the battle for raw milk is also a spiritual one, not just a legal one. Today, both milk and honey are pasteurized and the important function of helping teenagers and adults make right choices is destroyed or significantly reduced.

The take home message – Eat homemade ice cream made with raw milk and raw honey. Dessert is important! You need to eat your dessert so that you can make the right choices of what to eat and what not to eat!

Trying to Stay Healthy Wrapped in Plastic and Living in a Sealed Insulated Box, Starving Ourselves From a Food We Can’t See

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Note: I have learned much about all areas of life from things here on the farm the last five or six years. Things that I probably would never have learned if we did not have a pasture based farm. This article shares some things that I have observed, learned, and that have been rolling around in my mind.

In spite of the technological advancements in modern medicine and a renewed focus on eating organic and eating healthy, Americans are still having a serious problem with major illnesses – cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Health care costs keep rising, indicating a growing health problem. We are looking at all areas of our lives to see what might be contributing to these problems. To continue doing the same things that everyone else is doing but hoping for different results for ourselves, is foolish.

When we first started our pasture based farm, I tried to find all the information that I could about raising chickens on pasture. Years ago, it was common practice for chickens to be true free-range. But when the poultry industry converted to confinement raising of chickens, there was much information lost about raising chickens on pasture. I went to the Library of Congress on several occasions and researched in old books about how to raise free range chickens. One of the things that I found in an old book was that the author had observed that chickens do best in the winter if at least part of the south side of the chicken shelter is left open all winter. He stated that chickens need plenty of fresh air and that totally closing the building to keep them warm was more detrimental to their health than the cold. I decided to try it and found that he was right. For the last eight winters, except for one year, we have left the south end of the chicken shelter open day and night all winter. I have been amazed how healthy the chickens have been through the winter months. On average, we have had few chickens die during the winter. When we have young hens that have started laying in the fall months we have had flocks that have laid 80 to 90% all winter without using artificial lighting (80-90% is the number of eggs per day that are laid per 100 hens).


This was during one of the big snows this past winter. Note how the end of the hoop shelter is wide open. The small building on the right is the nest house where the hens lay the eggs.

There were several winters that I felt sorry for the hens, with the end of their shelter open all night and temperatures below freezing. I closed up most of the south end of the shelter. One year we closed up the entire south end at night. But the hens did not do as well. In trying to help them be comfortable, a number of them got sick and died. When we had the same results the second time, I realized that my compassion was misguided. But I still did not recognize the significance of what we had observed.

Earlier this year, one of the things that stood out to me in a seminar that I listened to of Carey Reams, is that for both people and animals, 80% of our food energy comes from the air and sunlight. Only 20% comes from the food we eat. He further stated that of that 80% of energy from the air, 60% is taken in through our lungs and 40% through our skin. While I have not been able to validate that claim, it has made me do some thinking and researching about how our body uses air. We don’t see the air and the nutrients for our bodies that is in it, and so it is easy for us to overlook its importance. Air is a very important part of health and life. We can live for weeks without food, but only minutes without air. Air contains not only oxygen, but also many trace mineral elements. These trace minerals are put into the air through the action of the waves breaking in the ocean. One of the things that helped bring about Dr. Jordan Rubin’s amazing recovery from Crohn’s Disease was that he went to the ocean and lived on the beaches for a number of months. His lungs and skin absorbed minerals from the ocean air and from the sunshine.

One of the things that my mother taught me when I was a boy, was to NEVER get into an empty freezer or refrigerator. She told me that if I did, I could suffocate and die. Here recently, after finding out that the nutrients in the air are more important for our health than what I had realized, I got to thinking about how similar the modern house is to a super size refrigerator in being air tight. Is the modern house a dangerous place to live? In the interest of energy efficiency, houses have been built so that air from outside doesn’t get inside the house, and the heated or cooled air from inside does get wasted by going outside the house. When a house is built, there are multiple layers that seal the air from being exchanged. Outside is the siding. Under the siding, the house is wrapped in Tyvek. Next there is a layer of sheathing, either plywood or an insulation board, both of which seal out air. When I worked in construction, the insulation company even caulked the 2×4 walls where they met the floor and anywhere there were pieces of framing nailed together, to prevent air from getting through the cracks in the stud walls. Inside the house, the walls of each room are sealed with drywall. The only place fresh air can get inside the house is through the windows and doors. Windows and doors are being engineered to seal as effectively as possible to keep air from passing through them and we are being encouraged to replace older windows and doors with these more air tight windows and doors. What is energy efficient is not necessary in our best interest health wise.

Most people today run their air conditioner all summer and the heat all winter. The windows are seldom opened. The average person spends a significant amount of time in a sealed insulated "refrigerator" box of one form or another, living and breathing their stale exhaust with its depleted oxygen and minerals. They spend part of their day in their sealed insulated-box home. They drive to work in their comfortable "sealed box" car. Then they spend eight or more hours in the sealed insulated-box office.

We breathe a huge volume of air each day. The quality of the air we breathe is important. It is an important part of our health.

But there is more about air – the air needs of our skin. Our skin is the largest organ of our body, and yet it is easy to overlook its needs. I was listening to a recording from the 1970’s of a man talking about Iridology—the study of the iris of the eye. The different spots and coloring in the iris of the eye have been found to point to trouble spots and its location in the body. He explained how they could tell when women started to wear nylon stockings and then pantyhose because they could see trouble in those areas in the eye. What really got his attention was when women started wearing wigs as part of the fashion years ago, and it too showed up in the iris of the eye. He said that underwear used to be made with polyester or other synthetic fibers and it caused vaginal infections in women. The manufacturers quietly changed the crotch in pantyhose to cotton instead of nylon. Most underwear was also changed to cotton. I had thought that the reason that almost all underwear and t-shirts were now made out of cotton was because it did not last as long and it provided job security for the clothing manufacturers. I had several polyester t-shirts that had lasted 15 or 20 years.

All this has made us do some thinking and reevaluating of what our family wears. If a woman wears a very thin nylon screen (nylons) – which would appear to breathe – on her legs, and that shows up as a problem spot in her eyes, what about all the other synthetic fibers that we wear? Many clothes have a high amount of polyester in them so that they can be taken wrinkle free from the dryer. Almost all jackets and coats have polyester in the shell, lining, and/or insulation. Many leather shoes have synthetic materials for the insole and inside lining. Many sofas and chairs are made with synthetic fabrics and foam, so when we sit down, the back part of our body is covered with plastic which blocks out air. Our beds are made of synthetic fibers or foam, and we cover ourselves all night with polyester, either in the sheets, blankets, or comforter lining. Has breast cancer has become more prevalent in part, because most bras are made with synthetic fibers that don’t breathe properly? Are we preventing our skin from receiving the nutrients from the air by wrapping our bodies in plastic?

Some of my uncles and aunts and their families are part of a very conservative Mennonite group. They live clean lives. They don’t smoke or drink. They grow a lot of their own food. Many of them live on farms and breathe lots of fresh air, but many of the older people in their group are getting cancer and other serious diseases. One of the things they do, is dress from head to toe in polyester. They make their own clothes, and polyester lasts much longer than cotton. Is the fabric of their clothes contributing to their cancer and other diseases? I don’t know, but it makes me wonder.

Seeing what plenty of fresh air has done for our chickens and realizing the importance of plenty of fresh air for our own health has made our family do a lot of evaluating of what we wear. We do not feel like we have all the answers and we feel like we are merely looking through a keyhole into the next room. We are on a quest to find all the pieces that are needed to have true health and vitality. Eating right is very important, but it is not the whole answer. We would appreciate hearing any of the puzzles pieces that you have.

School of Hard Knocks

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Our farm is more than just a farm. It is a school where each member of our family is learning important lessons in life. The phrase “school of hard knocks” is an old saying used to describe lessons learned from life’s experiences as opposed to academic or college education. It is the hard knocks or difficult times in life that teach a person important lessons if the person is willing to learn.

We encourage each of our children to develop their own farming enterprise as they get old enough to do so. Our second oldest son, Nathan, is a true shepherd at heart and at 17 years old owns about 70 sheep. He also owns most of our breeding rams.

Several years ago he bought a purebred Texel ram for $400. The Texel breed is an old breed that does very well at finishing on grass, unlike many of the popular breeds that have been selected for their finishing on grain. The ram was an impressive, muscular animal. We divided the sheep into two flocks and separated them so that they could not see each other. The one flock had Nathan’s big Dorset breed ram. I once saw him ram one of our 700 lb steers and make him go on his knees! The other flock had the new Texel ram. The rams were with the ewes and bred the ewes for several weeks.

Then one day while we were away, a totally unexpected thing happened. Both flocks broke out of their fences and got together. The two rams battled it out, as male rams do, to see who would be the head animal. When we arrived home, the new Texel ram lay dead. Four hundred dollars gone! What a loss for a 15 year old. It was not only the loss of money, but the loss of valuable genetics for improving his flock. It was a lesson in the school of hard knocks. A hard knock from another ram can kill another ram. My grandfather used to say that it seemed like if something out of the ordinary happened, it often happened to one of his best cows.

To recover his losses, Nathan purchased some Texel ewes and another Texel ram who was the son of the one who was killed. However, the new ram was not as good a ram as the first one was. This spring Nathan’s Texel ewes gave him several nice ram lambs. The nicest ram lamb was Big Burr. His mother was nicknamed Mrs. Burr because she had found a burr patch and went into it, getting herself covered with burrs. Big Burr was the biggest ram lamb and he showed promise of taking the place of his grandfather who was killed.

At the beginning of July, Nathan noticed that Big Burr was missing. He had seen him two days before, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. There was no trace. We suspected that he had been stolen and reported him to the police and animal control. We also found out that a month before a 1200 lb cow and a calf had been stolen on Park Mills Road, several miles from our farm. Another place had 35 chickens stolen, and another two pigs stolen.

About a month later, one of the boys found a two pound sledge hammer in the front pasture where Big Burr was when he disappeared. The sledge hammer was a confirmation that he had been stolen. Another hard knock and another ram gone. Another hard knock in the School of Hard Knocks for a 17 year old. Not just the loss of a ram, but the loss of the genetics as well.

When Cathy heard about the hammer being found, she stated confidently that she was praying that Big Burr would return. I was surprised. We had found the murder weapon and she was still praying for his return. Nathan had also been praying for his return.

Several days later we got a call from Animal Control and they said that they had found a ram lamb with an ear tag that said Nathan Horst on it. They had picked him up on Bill Moxley Road near Mount Airy, about a half hour from our farm. The neighbors said he had been wandering around there for about a month. We picked Big Burr up from Animal Control that evening. He was in good health, although considerably thinner and very dirty. It was amazing that he was still alive. We wish he could talk and tell us his story. Did he escape from his captors? Did they dump him alongside the road? How did he escape from being killed by a dog or coyote in the month that he was wandering around? Where did he get water?


Nathan and Big Burr the night we brought him home. Note how dirty he was.

This was the second theft we had this year where the item was amazingly returned. The other time, Cathy left her purse in a shopping cart one evening and did not realize it until she got home. She immediately went back, but the purse was gone. It had not been turned in to anyone at the store. We prayed that it would be returned. It did not have much money in it.

About a week later, a man called one evening and said that he had her purse! His daughter’s friend had picked it up and given it to his daughter, and she had given it to him. Cathy met the man and got her purse back. Everything of importance was there except for a few items that a young girl might take: the pens, TicTacs, change, finger nail clippers, and an almost expired TracFone with only a few minutes left on it.

The lesson for us in these events in our School of Hard Knocks is that we have correctly named our farm. The literal meaning of the Hebrew words Jehovah-Jireh is “the God Who sees”. God saw what happened and returned the items. What a wonderful way to live. The School of Hard Knocks helps keep life interesting.

If I Had a Million Bucks

By Nathan Horst, age 11

If I’d have a million bucks,
I’d spend it all on sheep.
You wouldn’t catch me spending it
To buy a silly Jeep.

Of course I’d have to buy some land
And put in water tanks,
And then my sheep would smile at me
And baa their humble thanks.

My ewes would then have woolly lambs
That bounce and run all day,
While their mothers ate green grass nearby
And I would watch them play.

There is no other animal
That I like more than sheep.
That’s why I’d spend a million bucks
To get some sheep to keep.

Why We Do Not Raise and Sell Pork

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Pork is a main staple in America today and many people enjoy bacon and sausage with their eggs. However, just because "everyone else" is doing it doesn’t mean it is a good thing. With the poor health of the majority of Americans, we need to take a careful look at what "everyone else" is eating and make appropriate changes from what they are doing if we want to be healthy.

I mentioned the poor health of the majority of Americans. I say that because the number one industry in America is the care of sick people—what politicians call "health care". Americans are an unhealthy group of people propped up on prescription medications. The answer is not more doctors and more prescriptions. We believe, and most of you believe as well, that true health care reform needs to start at the food level.

The reform of our food to help others be healthy is the driving force behind why we are farming here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm. We are continually looking for ways to increase the nutritional quality of our eggs and meats.

So why don’t we raise pork? Pork is a negative energy meat that it causes your urine pH to go significantly acid. It takes six days of total abstinence from all pork before the urine pH return to normal. Pork affects one’s body pH for almost a week! Pork is also unique in that it can contaminate what it is cooked in or on, such as cookware or grills. The pork juice can not always be removed by washing the cookware and whatever is cooked in that cookware or on that grill will cause the pH of the urine to go acid! There are a number of people who could not get their pH’s to change until they got new cookware. We find that our urine pH often goes acid (5.5 pH) after we eat somewhere where pork has been cooked in the past, such as a grill, even though we are careful not to eat pork ourselves.

About a year ago Cathy’s mother had a cancerous skin spot removed. It was the same type of skin cancer that took her dad’s life. Her mom decided to go on the RBTI (Reams Biological Theory of Ionization) program.

Carey Reams developed the RBTI program years ago, and was able to help over 10,000 terminally ill patients whom the doctors had given up hope for. Many had cancer. Of the 10,000, he only lost five patients! Part of the RBTI food and mineral based program is to get the urine and saliva pH in the 6.4 range so that the body can heal.

About a month ago, Cathy’s mom went back to the doctor. He could not find any trace of the skin cancer or any of the precancerous spots that she has had for a number of years. She was ecstatic!

Several weeks ago she traveled to Alabama to attend a reunion and stayed in the home of one of Cathy’s cousins. She was served pork several times. When she got home she tested herself, and sure enough, her urine was very acid several days after she had eaten the pork.

Pork is in more things than I ever imagined. Pork is used to make gelatin. Unless the gelatin is kosher or specifically stated as being from a plant or bovine source, it is pork based. Medicine or herbal capsules are made of gelatin. That little capsule if made from pork, is working against your health. Even that small amount of pork in the capsule will cause the urine pH to go acid. Gelatin is in many products. Some are obvious, others are surprising. Jello is made from pork gelatin unless the box states that it is kosher. The Jell-O brand is kosher. Most marshmallows contain pork gelatin. Many candies have pork gelatin in them. Even the strong mints, Altoids, have gelatin in them.

Lard is another pork substance that is found in some potato chips and other foods, and will affect your pH. The Weston A. Price Foundation highly recommends lard and pasture raised pork. Their recommendations are based on copying the diets of primitive people groups, rather than from chemical tests of how the foods respond in the body. The Weston A. Price Foundation has a lot of good information. However, when it comes to pork, test it for yourself and see what happens. Use a small strip of pH paper that you can get at the health food store to test the pH of your urine. Then compare the color of the wet part of the pH paper with the color chart that comes with the pH paper to find the pH.

When a person’s pH goes acid it makes the body more susceptible to sickness, disease, and cancer. It also makes a person more irritable and have a tendency toward anger. We have noticed that in our family on numerous occasions after we have been somewhere that we ate pork or a pork ingredient. As a family we try to help each other out in avoiding pork, but we are not always successful.

Pork is not the only meat that will cause the body pH to go acid. Some of the other meats are tuna, shrimp and other shell fish (seafood), and the other meats that are listed in the Bible as unclean meats. There is a medical reason why they are listed as unclean meats. However, it is not for religious reasons that we avoid eating the "unclean" meats. We do not want to sell you a meat that will undermine your health and the health of those who eat at your table.

Instead of pork, we recommend our delicious pasture raised chicken. Cathy often takes leftover chicken and cuts it up into small pieces and adds it to our scrambled eggs or omelets. If you like bacon, get a type that specifically states that it does not have any pork in it and is nitrate free. For sausage, Cathy uses beef hamburger and seasons it to make into delicious beef sausage patties.

Simple Beef Sausage Recipe
1 pound hamburger
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp sage
1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 1/2 tsp Wright’s Liquid Smoke
Mix well and make into small patties.

An Incredible Substance – Raw Milk

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Raw milk is a much more valuable substance than what most people realize. Everything that we have fed it to has become more healthy. Our family consumes about 7 to 10 gallons of the stuff a week. The yogurt that we make with it is usually mild and not very tart. We noticed a difference in our children’s health one winter when our cow was not producing milk. The children had more sickness, colds, etc. than they had other years when our cows were producing milk.

We feed the baby chicks raw milk and it has made a significant difference in their health. The chickens grow much better and we have very few die. The milk also seems to make the chicken meat more tender. We have found that calves and lambs that we bottle feed do much better on raw milk than on milk replacer. Raw milk is one of the best protein sources for laying hens. We don’t give the hens milk very often because we do not have enough extra milk, but we have used it when a flock was not doing as well as it should, and they improved with the raw milk added to their feed.

Last summer we discovered another valuable use for raw milk. In our garden, there were a number of different types of vegetables that were low brix. We tried different types of foliar sprays that should have raised the brix. Instead, they lowered the brix. The Brix Talk discussion board did not have any solutions. I couldn’t find a solution anywhere. So I asked God to show me what to do. He brought to my mind that in the Bible the Land of Canaan (what is now Israel) was called a land flowing with milk and honey. I always assumed it meant that it was a very productive area that produced a lot of milk and honey. This time the thought that came to me was, "What if milk and honey put on the plants would make them more productive?" I did a test and sprayed some milk and honey on various plants in the garden. About an hour later I tested the brix. To my surprise and joy the brix had risen 3 brix on most of the plants. The brix of clover raised from 8 brix to 13 brix. We have used the milk and honey spray on our garden this year with excellent results.

When the brix (sugar and mineral content) of the leaf of a plant is above 12 brix, insects will leave the plant alone. The high sugar content of the plant causes alcohol to be produced in an insect when it eats the high brix plant. It gives the bug diarrhea which results in dehydration and death. We had heard that when the vegetables in a garden are high brix, the insects will leave the vegetables alone and start attacking the weeds. We found it to be true. Insects attack plants that are low quality. In poor soil the weeds are higher brix and the vegetables are low brix. When the plants have the right amount of calcium and phosphates the opposite occurs. The weeds are low brix and are attacked by the bugs and the vegetables are high brix and the bugs leave them alone. Conventional agriculture mindset is to spray anti-life chemicals on the plant to kill the bugs, and then feed the poor nutritional quality vegetables to us. The following pictures show some weeds that the insects were eating.


The bugs attacked the weeds in the corn patch. The brix of the corn leaves was 15 brix.


Japanese beetles were eating on the weed in the center of this picture which was in the potatoes. We did not have any problem with potato beetles eating the potato plants. The brix of the potato leaves was about 12 brix.

We had a problem with the Japanese beetles eating our grapevines. After we sprayed the grapevines twice with milk and honey about a week apart, the beetles left. The milk and honey mix that we use is:
3 1/2 gallons of water
1/2 gallon of raw skim milk
1 cup of honey

I put the milk and honey spray in a pump up bug sprayer and sprayed the plants. It might be possible to get the same results without using the honey. I have not experimented with that yet.

Recently I read an article in a farming magazine, The Stockman Grass Farmer, about a dairy farm in Nebraska that had raw skim milk that was a waste product from making butter and cheese. To get rid of the milk, the farmer applied it to his pastures. He found that where he applied milk it made a significant improvement. It significantly increased the microbes in the soil and the growth of the grass. Further test plots showed that the raw milk applied once, at the rate of three gallons per acre, increased the yield of the hay by 1200 pounds per acre! Their conclusion was that raw milk could be worth two to three more times more money as fertilizer!


Several weeks ago we bought another cow – a Guernsey. Why a Guernsey?

One reason is that my grandfather had a purebred Guernsey dairy herd and sold "Golden Guernsey" raw milk. My father talked about how good the golden Guernsey milk was. We found that we like it better than our Jersey milk. But the real reason that we wanted a Guernsey is that some recent research has found that there are two different types of milk protein – A1 beta casein milk protein, and A2 beta casein milk protein. The A1 beta casein is what most people who have casein intolerance are allergic to. Goat and sheep milk are A2 beta casein. There is a "controversial" claim, based on 16 years research, that the A1 beta casein which is drunk by most people in the US could be a cause of diabetes, heart disease, autism, and schizophrenia in people with immune deficiencies. It is also claimed that the A2 beta casein does not cause these problems. Research has showed that 96% of the Guernsey breed of cows have the A2 beta casein, while the Holstein (black and white) breed from which most of the milk in the US is produced, has the A1 milk protein. Obviously this is very damaging information for the dairy industry and there has been considerable attempt to suppress the information about A2 milk.

For more information read
http://www.naturalnews.com/026684_cows_diabetes_protein.html or the
book Devil in the Milk by Keith Woodford.

Another use for milk is to help a person refuse what is bad and choose what is good. In the Bible, Isaiah 7:15 says that Jesus would eat butter and honey so that He would know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. That is one of the benefits of adequate calcium in the diet. I have heard that the proper type of calcium, according to a person’s body’s need, can help an alcoholic give up alcohol, or a smoker give up cigarettes. The proper calciums can also help children calm down and be well behaved without the use of mood altering drugs.

Raw milk can also be used to cure a number of chronic diseases. The Weston A Price Foundation has a very interesting article about raw milk being used to cure a number of different diseases. http://www.realmilk.com/milkcure.html Recently we purchased the book Milk Diet as a Remedy for Chronic Disease, by Dr. Charles Sanford Porter. It is a reprint of a book that was originally printed in 1905. This book goes into great detail about how to conduct a milk fast to cure sickness.

Raw milk can also be an important survival food. It is a food that can be produced fresh every day year round and consumed without further cooking or processing. This idea came from the Bible, Isaiah 7:21-22: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep; And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land."

Raw milk is a valuable substance. It is unfortunate that it is illegal to buy or sell raw milk here in Maryland. Perhaps some day…

Update, August 9th:

One thing I failed to mention in last month’s article is that the milk and honey foliar spray did not work for us on green beans. It actually decreased the brix. The foliar spray that we use on our beans is:
4 gallons of water
12 tbsp molasses – we use feed grade
16 oz. Cola soda – a source of phosphoric acid
4 tsp hydrated lime
10 tbsp liquid fish
4tbsp seaweed powder
8 oz. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sea salt

We also alternate the above foliar spray with milk and honey on our sweet corn. Our sweet corn was 26 brix this year. 24 brix or higher is in the excellent range.