CONDITIONING.

To play just about any competitive sport, one must first go through conditioning. This is the period of time before practice begins where the coaches force their players to run––nay sprint––infinity laps, lift infinity weights, and push themselves to their absolute physical limits in order to get in shape for the rest of the season. In farming (a career arguably as demanding as any sport) we affectionately refer to conditioning as "Springtime."I remember my first year interning at Bugtussle. That April, the month I started at the farm, was the hardest physical month for me. And not that the rest of the months weren't incredibly physical, hot, long, painful and impossible, but that I wasn't used to it until after the Spring. I first needed to make a couple thousand soil blocks and transplant them into the garden; I then needed to cultivate those transplants after every rain (and, being Spring, rain was a rather frequent event); I needed to help the Smiths collect firewood, get a little sunburned, and I needed to get used to getting up earlier. In other words, in order to have a successful year I needed to get in shape, and the Spring was happy to oblige.Every year since then I've enjoyed the physicality of Spring. I imagine that the Summer would be really hard on a farmer if they weren't in shape going into it––if it weren't for the Spring. But by the time Summer strikes, we will all be used to getting up at five, and working until dark. We will be prepared to haul basket after basket of tomato or squash from the field in the blistering heat. The hot days spent with a hoe in hand will be manageable, maybe even enjoyable, because of how much cultivating we accomplish in April and May. By the end of Spring we will have pushed ourselves to the limit, and in the Summer we will stay at that limit for four straight months.I remember when I was younger and played sports how much I dreaded conditioning, but always later enjoyed my ability to play hard for longer periods of time without wearing out. So that's what I keep in mind now, that as sore and tired as I am these days, I'll be thanking myself, and the Spring, later on.- Jesse.

THIS & THAT.

A big roundup of random photos from the past week.Opal and the little leghorn. A new crop we are growing this year - yacón!Santos loves the bourbon barrel. The almond bugs are out (they really do smell exactly like almond extract!)New goslings that will someday be protecting the Bugtussle chickens. Baking in the Smith's outdoor kitchen. Outfit envy. LETTUCE FINALLY!

MOREL SUCCESS!

It hasn't been a great mushroom season so far, but some is better than none, right?

TRANSPARENCY.

It seems that about every year or so we hear of a new ”ag gag" law somewhere looking to prohibit activists from surreptitiously filming the treatment of animals inside conventional farming situations––feed lots, confinement hog farms, CAFO's, etc.. Recently, Kentucky was that somewhere.As a Kentucky farmer who has livestock, I would just like to say our farm has nothing to hide. We are proud of how we manage our animals and if someone wanted to come and film our treatment of them we would not protest, nor would make them feel they have to film anything secretly. In fact, people do come film. Openly. People come visit our farm often and we are happy to show them the animals, and talk about how we manage them. I don't think I would do any job I wasn't proud of, or that I'd be willing to let someone film––boring or not.But I also have to ask, as much as I despise these laws that prevent activists from protecting animals: How many more videos of animal abuse and unbelievable health conditions do we actually need to see before we stop eating conventionally raised meat? We can't keep blaming the farmer. We must accept some, if not most of, the responsibility. Hannah and I have a lot of really wonderful conventional farmer friends and most are just honest people looking for a stable way to make more money. And if there remains a stable living in raising animals in a confinement situations, there will be farmers doing so. Many are just chasing the dollar, and the dollar just so happens to be in cheap meat.I believe people should be allowed to film farms––especially if they feel there's injustice or abuse occurring––and I also believe that farmers shouldn't farm any way they wouldn't be proud to show the world. But we have to start taking the hundreds if not thousands of videos that exist and actually learning from them. The true injustice isn't that the Big Agriculture is trying to stamp out these videos––should we expect anything less?––but that there is still an incredibly vibrant market for cheap meat despite all the videos and documentaries and books and information that already exist. We all know that every McDonald's Burger and every steak Doritos Taco from Taco Bell (sorry), endorses the cruelty. Be it chicken, beef, turkey or pork, to support cheap meat is to actively invest in the mistreatment of animals, and the degradation of our environment. Buy more organic, local food and less big meat and conventional farmers will take note and change if that is where the money is. Because we don't need more videos, just a lot less tragedy to film.- Jesse.