Ranting....

*Warning - rant below.

Some of you might want to tune out right now. For some reason, today is an irritating day, maybe it's just me.

The day started out with a notice from our county. The notice tells us that by 2007, we need to have all the animals on our place, registered with the county. WTF? Instantly pissed off. Now, I have been active in NO NAIS movement, but now we have to fight our county level. This pisses me off on so many levels, I can't stand it. First of all, our county is one of the poorest counties in Wisconsin and it is also the one with the highest taxes, go figure. What do you suppose this is going to do to our taxes? Aren't they going to have to pay someone to go to each farm and monitor this shit? Lord knows, there are going to be plenty of people that are going to tell the county where to go and not register, which in turn, means there is going to have to be someone sent out to monitor. Who is going to pay this person? The taxpayers, of course.

That is one aspect. The second thing is just how ridiculous this whole thing is. My animals are not going anywhere but our freezer, we are not shipping any of these animals to any stores, we don't have any confinement operations, why in the hell would we have to register these animals? What this could mean for the small family farm is not good. As if it isn't hard enough to make it as a small, diversified farm trying to sell local, as it is, now we can guarantee we will have to pay some kind of bullshit fees to the county to be registered. I'm not doing it. It just so happens that the township we live in is quite rebellious. It is very much a township of 'stay out of our business' and this isn't going to fly very well. It will be interesting to see what happens.

The second thing that bothered me today was our local food co-op. Now, let me start by saying that this little co-op is where I do 75% of my shopping. I support this co-op, often at times paying more than I would in town, just to support them. We have noticed lately that the quality of their stuff is going down and the price keeps going up. We religiously go to the Board meetings and voice our opinion and vote when we can. The day they get their "truck" is on Thursday. Today is Friday. That would mean they just got fresh produce yesterday, right? So, I go there today (and this isn't a quick trip, it is at least 10 miles away), thinking since they just got their truck, they will have what I need. When I get there, the produce is crap. Half of the lettuce and salad greens are mushy and on the verge of spoiled, there is no organic milk or cream and the only fruit is apples and pears. Now, get this, they usually sell bags of apples (maybe 10-12 in a bag), now they are opening the bags of apples and putting them in separate bags with fewer apples in them and jacking the price. Today, there were bags of 4 apples for $3.99. WTF?? $1.00 per apple?? I don't think so. I have always been one of those people who refuses to do their shopping for organic products at CUB Foods or Rainbow or any other big corporate chain - but when the prices at your local co-op are beyond what you can afford for fresh fruit and veggies, what do you do? The celery they had today? You could bend it in half it was so rubbery and they wanted $2.29 each! Needless to say, the first thing I did when I got home was write a letter (as calmly as possible) and voice my opinion and disappointment.

We are huge organic supporters and we completely and totally support locally grown - but when you are faced with paying exhorbitant prices or going without fresh fruit and veggies - what do you do? I can't go back to conventional fruit and vegetables - I cannot eat them or serve them to my family knowing what is sprayed on them. Where is the line between supporting your local co-op and not being able to provide good food to your family?

Okay. I'm worn out now and I'm sure whoever (if anyone) is reading this is sick of the rant - so I'm done now. Maybe it was the snow storm we got today - 5 inches and counting! Any comments, good or bad, suggestions or rants of your own are welcome. Hopefully happier thoughts tomorrow!