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. 

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.  

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.