agri-Culture

Send us Fan Mail      And that's not the last time you'll hear those two words together, when you listen to the podcast.  Maybe I'm purposely misdirecting you, as the wild ass was the origin of the breed we now know as the domesticated donkey, but it's fun to say and makes me feel like a more exciting girl.  That said... The Donkey Welfare Symposium.  The recipe is like this: 1...

Send us Fan Mail The Heirloom Expo.        For a while now, this event has been held in Santa Rosa in the heart of a big community of artsy, crunchy, healthy people that like good food (and good wine, as all of you who have been to Napa and Santa Rosa can attest).  People from around the world come to swap seeds, listen to experts in the field, and find interesting new things to grow.      If you...

Send us Fan Mail Where we learned that Pennsylvania is not only the home of Penn State, but it has green pastures, wonderfully gracious and generous people, and steak to die for (sigh).  Dirt that made you want to take your shoes off and run wild. And Elara got to ride in the grain truck -- Rick the combine. Oh.  Any by the way, there were big, beautiful, fluffy, majestic Scottish Highland Cattle...

Send us Fan Mail      Temple Grandin is one of the most well-known and professionally-respected names in livestock production today, and has become a pop-culture icon.  And for good reason.      You might know many things about her.  She brought awareness to the general public of the issues relating to autism.  She has such a great story that they made a movie out of her story (Claire Danes in the...

Send us Fan Mail      Yak Butter Tea -- Three words you never thought would go in a sentence together.  And they do, albeit briefly, in this episode of the podcast.        We visit the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado to meet up with Steve and Anita Hill, who hail from Sunny Hill Ranch, a self-sufficient farm specializing in raising yaks 100 wild miles outside of Anchorage, Alaska. ...

Send us Fan Mail      Our food is alive - or can be.  And it's often better for us if it is alive, as the popular rise of probiotics has shown.  Science is now discovering that the human microbiome is an amazing place, and that each human being is a world unto itself for the creatures that inhabit it.  Even if the little critters do tell us how to think sometimes (yes, that's a real thin...

Send us Fan Mail      Of all the sheep we have seen, this one has to be the most unusual.  With bold spots and two horns or four (varied shapes, but reaching up toward the sky on the top set, curling in loops on the bottom set), this animal looks very much like something you would see on the tram tour at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.  It is thought by some to be the sheep mentioned in Genesis 30...

Send us Fan Mail      Agricultural events - one of Elara's favorite things to do.  Big or little, all shapes and sizes, there is usually no shortage of things to do, see, smell, pet, ride, eat and buy (but not necessarily in that order).      A smaller fair of 10,000 to 40,000 people is a much difference experience than a large, elbow-crowding, junk food bonanza of 500,000 to 2 million.  Both...

Send us Fan Mail Of the breeds we have covered in the podcast, this has to be one of the most endangered ones yet, in terms of population size.  With 400 individuals but only 250 breeding animals, the Newfoundland Pony is at a crisis point, if they are to be saved from extinction.  They came to Newfoundland over the last four centuries and numbered 9,000 in the 1930's, but the exports to Fran...

Send us Fan Mail      John and Bonnie Hall are two of the most down-to-earth people we have met in our travels.  They raise American Milking Devon Cattle (and produce amazing maple syrup) on Maple Breeze Farm in Westbrook, Connecticut.        The Milking Devons are called "American" now, but maybe that's because they no longer exist in their original home country of England.  And ye...

Send us Fan Mail      City Farmers Nursery is our idea of a good date.  This nursery (and feed store, and aquaponics center, and hydroponics supply, and compost source, and...) has been around since 1972, and is smack dab in the middle of San Diego, the 8th largest city in the U.S.  Owned and run by family members Bill Tall, Sam Tall and Rebecca Tall-Brown, the amazing business is often more like...

Send us Fan Mail      It's summertime, and the San Diego County Fair just finished it's annual run here in Del Mar, California.  Since the event started with agricultural roots way back in 1880, and since we had a great conversation at the fair last year with The Friends of Farming bunch, we thought we would sit down with them for a podcast.       Eric Larson, Executive Director of the S...

Send us Fan Mail Beef!  Bar-B-Q! Texas!      Join us, as we visit with John and Debbie, two ranchers that raise the Texas Longhorn - a quintessentially American animal.  We felt that our visits to Colorado and New Mexico to see this awe-inspiring creature were a fantastic way to celebrate America's Independence Day.        This animal is the epitome of some of the issues that arise with herit...

Send us Fan Mail   What do fly fishing, blue eggs, the fashion industry, and the Romans in Britain have in common?  Dr. Tom Whiting, of course.  Our visit to Whiting Farms in Delta, Colorado was an eye opener.  With about 100,000 chickens in one place it's an ear opener too, we can attest.   This quietly brilliant man pushes the edge of what new and old chicken breeds can bring to the table,...

Send us Fan Mail We are Penn State (rah, rah)!      So says Dr. Liu (backed up strongly by Dr. Dechow), in our 2017 interview with the mad scientists of the Penn State University, College of Animal Science.  We spoke with them about their fascinating study on Holstein genetics and the impact of the Y-chromosome, which sounds like it could be a bit dry but was definitely not!     The good doctors g...

Send us Fan Mail      Most people would think the Dos Equis Man is the Most Interesting Man in the World, but we think it's very possibly Bob Quinn.  Organic farmer, mad scientist, author, gardening aficionado, trombonist, savvy businessman, farming activist, philosopher, and all around tinkerer and out-of-the-box idea guy - that's Bob.  And he cooks a mean lunch.     Please join us for...

Send us Fan Mail We traveled to Bishop, California for the 50th Anniversary of the Bishop Mule Days and boy what fun we had. Every Memorial Day weekend since 1969, the town of Bishop, nestled on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, comes alive with the annual presentation of Mule Days. There is no way to actually describe Mule Days. It is part mule show, part test of skills, and part...

Send us Fan Mail On this Memorial Day we'd like to post a short interview with Dr. Cary Fowler and a story of remarkable bravery. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail The continuation of our delightful conversation with Doug Crabtree and Anna Jones Crabtree of Vilicus Farms in Havre, Montana.  We talk about their efforts to establish and maintain an apprenticeship program to find and train new pioneers on one of the last farming frontiers left in America. Support the show

Send us Fan Mail We visited the frontier - or as close as we've been to it so far - for our visit with some of the organic farmers of Montana.  Our visit with Doug Crabtree and Anna Jones Crabtree of Vilicus Farms was a kitchen table discussion about diversity, dryland farming, organic land management, and the deeper understanding of the possibilities of how to work with natural systems in ou...

Send us Fan Mail After visiting the Mother Earth News Fair in Kansas, we were lucky enough to take a walk through the fields of Prairie Turnip Farm and with Hank Will.  Hank is an experienced agriculturalist, marketing specialist, soil preservationist, tractor aficionado, and to top it all off he is Editor-In-Chief at Mother Earth News Magazine.  He has been involved with conservation of land and...

Send us Fan Mail We were lucky enough to catch up with Adam in Albuquerque, New Mexico as he was teaching one of his many workshops. Adam Danforth is the James Beard award-winning author of two books, published by Storey Publishing, about slaughtering and butchering livestock. Adam trained at the professional meat processing program at SUNY Cobleskill, one of the only such programs in the United S...

Send us Fan Mail We had the great pleasure to interview Dr. Cary Fowler at his Over the River Farm in upstate New York. Dr. Fowler is perhaps best known as the "father" of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, described by former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as an "inspirational symbol of peace and food security for the entire humanity." The Seed Vault provides ultimate security...

Send us Fan Mail Elara and I traveled to Paonia, Colorado, which sits fairly close to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Our interview is with Eugenia McGuire, otherwise known as "Oogie". She raises Black Welsh Mountain Sheep on her farm, which sits high above the town of Paonia. Oogie sells pretty much everything sheep, including mutton, horns, and wool in various forms lik...

Send us Fan Mail We recently had the great pleasure of traveling to New York to visit Isabella Rossellini at her farm on Long Island. She is an actress, activist, author, and scientist. She recently earned her Masters Degree in Animal Behavior from Hunter College. She is beautiful, witty and a very talented artist. Support the show