Saturday, June 27, 2015

Farm Kings...

I chose to watch an entire season of the reality show “Farm Kings” for my field trip.  The King family own a farm in Pennsylvania, actually it’s the 3 oldest brothers who own the farm but the entire family helps to run it.  They are a family of 10 kids, 9 strapping, hard-working boys and 1 girl, along with their divorced mom, Lisa.  Each member of the family has a specific strength that they bring to the farming work.  The eldest, Joe King, is referred to as the boss man and is basically in charge of running the farm and all of the branches that extend outside the farm, including a donut shop and a produce market.  The 2nd in line is Tim King or the farmer.  He’s in charge of starting the plants so that they have something to put in the ground.  Third is Pete King or the human harvester.  He can pick produce like a machine, and is good with people, so is often the face at the farmer’s markets they sell at.  Fourth is Elizabeth “Bitty” King who they call the girl.  She took a break from the family farm but is now back and helping to run the bakery.  Dan King is the utility man and desperately wants to become part owner with his 3 elder brothers.  Luke King is the brain, John King is the jokester, Sam King is the ox, Ben King is the favorite, and finally Paul King is the fighter.  
Source: http://www.freedomfarmspa.com/
Without each one of the members of the family, the farm wouldn’t run properly.  With 200 acres to plant, water, and harvest, it is a monumental 7-day-a-week job.  Long hours for little pay.  They mentioned that they aren’t farming to be rich, but because they love it and they love to provide fresh produce and fresh meat (they have pigs, chickens, etc.) to people.  Farm fresh food is a big deal to them.  Knowing where your food comes from and what is in it is essential for living a fully healthy lifestyle.  
They talked a lot about the hardships of farming.  If the weather doesn’t behave when they’re trying to plant and the ground is too wet, they have to postpone planting time until the ground has dried out enough to be able to take hold of the newly planted roots.  They talked about the fact that it’s hard to get in lives outside of their work.  One can’t just drop everything during harvest season on a Saturday to jaunt off somewhere.  You are needed on the farm and without a fully staffed farm cew, there is no way all of the work will get done in a timely manner.  They talked about how family farms are a dying breed and they want to bring it back to the forefront and make it “cool” again.   
I was most surprised that the family was so close and enjoyed working next to each other.  I cannot see me being able to work 24/7 with every member of my family for weeks on end.  “Farm Kings” was a very eye-opening and sometimes fun look at one of the hardest jobs in the world.  It really made me respect what local farmers do and will get me buying local produced more often this summer.  

Works Cited

Farm Kings. Great American Country. GAC, Butler, PA. 2012. Television.

"Freedom Farms - Home of The Farm Kings." Freedom Farms. 2015. Web. 27 June 2015. 

Thursday, June 11, 2015

The Angelus

The Angelus (www.jeanmillet.org)


I chose to analyze a painting by Jean-Francois Millet, titled The Angelus.  Jean-Francois Millet was a French painter born in 1814.  The painter’s father, Jean-Louis had real artistic talent, but as a farmer himself, he was oft-times too busy tilling the fields and tending to the farm to do much with his talent.  Jean-Francois admired his parents piety and devotion.  He developed his father’s eye for the artistic and as a boy, Jean-Francois traced prints from the family Bible and then tried freehand.

An Angelus, in Roman Catholic terms, is a prayer or devotion said at 3 separate times during the day, often including a Hail Mary and signified by the ringing of a bell.  

Jean-Francois completed this particular work in 1859.  When asked in 1865 what his inspiration for the work was he said, “The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed.”  This painting was born of a childhood memory, which could also be constituted as folklore being traditional in nature.  

When I first saw this painting, I did not know the history behind it or what the artist was drawing from when he painted it.  To me it summed up the heart of the farmer.  Hard-working families who slave day and night over their fields and take pride in their work, but they never forget where their blessings come from and are quick to thank God for their bounty and ask him to watch over their life’s work.  To me, it shows the humble, hard-working farmer in a beautiful light. My assumption of what the painting was actually depicting was a bit off, but not by much.  To take time away from the exhausting work of farming to pray 3 times a day when you just want to get it over with and go to bed shows real humility and devotion.  

Works Cited

Millet, Jean-Francois. The Angelus. Digital image. Jean-Francois Millet - The Complete Works. 1859. Web.  

Samaha, Brother John M. "The Painting of a Prayer." The Painting of a Prayer. The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, 14 Mar. 2012. Web. 11 June 2015.  

Friday, June 5, 2015

Legislating of Nutritional Information On Restaurant Menus

A law has recently been passed requiring restaurants to include calories and other nutritional information for food items on their menus.  More specifically:  “Calorie and other nutrition labeling will be required for standard menu items offered for sale in a restaurant or similar retail food establishment that is part of a chain with 20 or more locations, doing business under the same name, and offering for sale substantially the same menu items” (FDA).  The deadline for the calories to appear on the menus is by December 1, 2015.  Some restaurants are already complying and including nutrition information.  

The purpose of this law is that we as the most obese nation in the world will have the knowledge of what we will be putting into our mouths before we order the menu item.  The thinking being, if we knew a food had 1500 calories and 70 grams of fat, we’d want to choose a better, lower-calorie, more-healthy alternative, rather than eat nearly a whole day’s allotment of calories in one sitting.  This has yet to be proven.  I’m not sure knowing what the calories in a food are beforehand are going to matter to the people who were going to eat it anyway.  Obese people are obese because they often have triggers of emotional eating, which never does take into account how many calories they are ingesting.  

I think a wiser approach would be to offer free community classes on the subjects of knowing where one’s food comes from and teaching about nutrition and how our bodies are fueled by the food that we eat rather than throwing out random numbers on menus to some people who may not even have an idea of what a “calorie” is and why it matters.  Having been overweight and obese at varying degrees since I was a small child and having just recently lost nearly 200 pounds, my motto will always be “everything in moderation.”  That includes a 1500-calorie meal on occasions.  On the plus side of the issue, my best education was the extensive research I did into calories in versus calories out, so maybe having the calorie number staring people the face will spur them on to do their own research on nutrition.

Works Cited

 "U.S. Food and Drug Administration." Questions and Answers on the Menu and Vending Machines Nutrition Labeling Requirements. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 26 Nov. 2014. Web. 4 June 2015.  

Friday, May 29, 2015

From Bitter Cocoa Bean To Glorious Chocolate

I had to research my favorite heavenly PMS-thwarting superfood, that of chocolate.  I can’t remember a time when chocolate wasn’t my favorite sweet treat on the planet, and I’ve never taken the time to research exactly how the stuff comes to be.  The process was eye-openingly grueling, all that had to be done just so I could stuff my face with the concoction of glory and goodness was more than I had ever imagined.


I knew that chocolate came from the cocoa bean, but I did not know that the cocoa bean trees only grow in specific countries, a narrow belt around the equator in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.  The cocoa bean prefers the tropical heat of the equator over the frigid ice of the poles.  Once the cocoa pod (each pod contains 40 to 50 cocoa beans) is fully grown, they are picked, after which they peel the pod and let the beans dry out for 6 or 7 days.  

Cocoa pods (https://www.infusionchocolates.com/aboutchocolate.php)

When this is accomplished, they are sorted, packaged, and shipped to chocolate-producing factories all over the world.  At the chocolate factories, the beans are cleaned, dried, and the shells removed, revealing a cocoa nib.   These nibs are roasted and then ground into a fine liquid, cocoa liquor.   Ingredients such as milk, vanilla, etc., can be added to the liquor, which is then rolled into a dough and ground into a powder.   The powder is put into a machine called a conch which plows the chocolate powder around, eventually giving it it’s velvety smoothness.  After it’s been tempered and cooled, it’s read to be molded and made into the chocolate concoctions that we are so used to.


That’s a long process just so I can spend 2 minutes eating a candy bar.  I have learned that I should never take for granted the food that we are provided with, whether it be the healthy stuff that keeps us alive and moving or the indulgent, once-in-a-while stuff like chocolate.  No matter what it is, someone worked hard to bring it to my plate.  


Works Cited

"DB Infusion Chocolates." Chocolate's Journey from Bean to Bar; Chocolate History, Health Facts and How to Taste Chocolate. DB Infusion Chocolates, 2015. Web. 27 May 2015.  

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Family Farms and Climate...

It was interesting doing research for this project as I wasn't aware of the ins and outs of farming within my family.  On both my mother and father's sides there were quite a few farmers.  My grandpa and grandma on my mom's side had a self-sufficient farm in Victor, Idaho from about the late 1930s to the mid-1960s.  My grandpa on my dad's side, as well as my aunt and uncle had farms in Driggs, Idaho from the 1930s up through 2010, when my uncle finally retired, wherein they grew and sold different crops to co-ops.  The genealogy going further back is rich with farming family members.

My grandparents on my mom's side planted and harvested acres and acres of hay, mostly to feed their livestock; cows, horses, pigs, chickens, etc.  The farm was for their own family's use.  They drank the milk from their cows, ate the eggs from their chickens, and butchered pigs, cows, and chickens for the meat.  As such, my grandpa could not support his family of 6 children on the farm alone, so had to work as a hired hand, and also other jobs during the long winter months in Teton Valley, Idaho.  Farming the hay in such an unstable climate with such a short growing season was rife with trials.  Grandpa sometimes could only get one or two hay harvests a season as opposed to 3 or 4+ in a much mellower climate.  Grandma had to work outside the home to support her children as well, even amidst a time where many wives were homemakers.  Though, in the early 1940s with World War II in full force, many women were forced to work as the men were off to war.  My grandparents quit farming in 1964 and moved to Rexburg, Idaho where they both got jobs at the college there.  Farm life was too difficult to support their children on and they wanted more opportunities for them in a bigger city as well.  

My dad moved in with my uncle and aunt when his father passed away when he was only 10, so grew up helping with the farm work.  They grew potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, hay, and barley and sold the harvests to co-ops.  While they never had issue selling their goods, they did have issue growing it in the Teton Valley climate.  Weather was unpredictable.  Sometimes frost would come and take out a whole crop during June or an infestation of insects would take a whole field.  Income varied widely, and sometimes some of the 10 children had to get jobs to help support the family in other ways.  In 2010, instead of passing on the farm to one of his children, my uncle retired and sold off his acres of land for a good profit.  It was getting increasingly harder to sell crops from a family-owned farm over the big corporate farms popping up all over, and he got considerable more money selling the land for building of houses and stores.

All in all, farm life in my family wasn't an easy living.  It was a high stress profession wherein my relatives were at the mercy of the weather in order to keep their families fed.  I'm grateful for the knowledge of my past, and the fact that my relations were never afraid of hard work.  They passed that legacy on to many generations to come.  

Works Cited:

 Wade, Dessa. "Family Farming." Telephone interview. 20 May 2015.

Wade, Rex. "Family Farming." Telephone interview. 20 May 2015.