Random thoughts and Octavio Paz

Sometimes I think my character flaws are most effectively mirrored in the words of those close to me. It isn't easy to see...kind of like the proverbial trees in that forest I just smacked into - painful, but necessary to enjoy the journey into the woods. So hiking baby steps toward becoming a better me...

I recently submitted my application to The Ohio State University for the Hispanic Linguistics graduate program. This an exciting event for me and I'm looking forward to re-entering the world of academia! It is also daunting to think of finances (more loans) and working....I'm not sure how I will juggle it all, but I'm counting on my friends for some hermit-prevention to offset my obsessive study habits....

Some days are better than others...I'm not sure where the fall went...the trees are so naked now, the branches seem so black and disappear so quickly with the sun at 5 pm. I read this poem today by Octavio Paz, one of my favorite author-poets from Mexico and thought I would share it in its entirety here...enjoy

Between going and staying the day wavers, by Octavio Paz

Between going and staying the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.

All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can't be touched.

Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.

Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.

The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.

I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.

The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.

Occupational Hazards of a Help Me Grow Service Coordinator...

10. Germs (hello h1n1)
9. Paper Cuts/carpal tunnel (from hours of stimulating paperwork)
8. Poor eyesight (from hours of staring at a computer screen entering ET data)
7. Second hand smoke
6. Roaches
5. Scabies (don't ask)
4. Lice
3. Pitbulls (no offense to Moose)
2. Psycho parents
1. Insanity (from all of the above)

photos, poetry, pieces of a perfect fall day

I love fall - sweater weather perfect for a brisk walk, a good book and a blanket, a cup of tea or coffee with Ella Fitzgerald playing in the background. There is no other time of year when I find myself so reflective, as if nature were echoing the transformation and growth, the changes in my own life. I wonder what is next...who I will be next fall...what transformations will have taken place...Just a thought...and now a Sunday patchwork of photos and poetry for your viewing pleasure :) Enjoy!




DESIGNED TO PERFECTION by Marcia Schechinger

Of simplistic nature
this bright autumn day
coffee warming the chill of morning
trees tipped with pink hue,
I breathe

How can the grass have
such a glow
or the trees limbs bend and bow
each so original in design

The art of this world surrounds me
yet, have I ever seen that rose before
tapering the neighbors brick
or the black squirrel
curling beneath the brush
pump in belly
from todays abundance of food

How I have worried about
the flowing of life changes
and quickly passed the bent branch
with the darkened hollow
where once a nest was made

Why have I not heard the weeping willow
with its green dreadlocks
touching my window
How many times has it tapped
before I noticed its defined braids

I have swallowed life
without chewing
drank wine forgetting
the grapes that riped for me

Today I shall begin again
like the school child giggling
remembering every leaf on the tree
has a meaning, a purpose

God, the artist, designed
life to perfection
and I have spent my days
looking at it
from way too far away
to see the subtleties
of His design and plan

Today I am not the critic
I am the the observer
the child in awe

The Silence by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

For Steve

Fall is my favorite time of year. Many a more eloquent poet has pieced together beautifully the words to describe the essence of autumn. It is a thoughtful, "romantic" time of year as my friend Melanie Fox says. So I will not attempt to capture with words what my senses try to capture as each precious day of fall slips by; but I do want to share some of the thoughts that swirl through my head like leaves on Riverside Drive. Fall makes me think of my brother Steve - more than usual. This is for several reasons - his birthday is October 7th, he loves pumpkin pie, and he is extra busy in the fall with extra cows to milk, crops to harvest, and he likes the chilly weather. So this poem is for my brother - one of my very favorite people and a true blessing from God.

The Man Born to Farming by Wendell Berry

The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
Descending in the dark?

This Is Where

I just wanted to share some wonderful lyrics from the Wailin Jennys - Enjoy :)

The wind howls 'cross the ice floes
Send the frozen snow skimming
A river on a river hardened over
It doesn't know the way it's going
Is it north or south or westward
It just glides across the shoreline 'til it's over

You came for me in fast forward
On a claim for something ordered
A way through and past the history that held you
I'd tell my own story through you
Tell it loud to never lose you
A moth caught be the flame it could cannot measure
And there we go again, wishing something bolder
Trying to push and pull inside this moment
Trying to mold this life within our hands

This is where the whole world keeps on turning
This is where we come undone...undone

Will they measure me by branches
Count the rings and take my ashes
Mark the ground where I fell and carry on
Or will we bite against the silence
Fill our days with noise and violence
Not recognize our hearts when we are done

There we'll go again wishing something bolder
Trying to push and pull inside this moment
Trying to mold this life within our hands

This is where the whole world keeps on turning
This is where we come undone

We don't know where it's going
Is it north or south or westward
It just glides across the shoreline 'til it's over

All that glitters is gold?: How dairy farmers have bought into the fool's gold of herd retirement and gender enhanced semen

Having grown up on a dairy farm, spending countless hours milking cows, I was appalled when I heard about the "herd retirement" being done by CWT (Cooperatives Working Together). "The Herd Retirement Program reduces milk production by reducing the number of cows in the national dairy herd. This is done on a voluntary basis in which farmers wishing to get out of the dairy business bid to do so. If their bid is selected, their cows are permanently removed from milk production. CWT has executed six herd retirements since it began in 2003, removing a total of 276,000 cows that produced over five billion pounds of milk" (http://www.cwt.coop./about/about_whatis.html). CWT is part of an attempt to help create a more stable price for milk by decreasing milk supply, therefore increasing the demand, and subsequently, the price farmers receive for milk. However, according to a recent piece on National Public Radio, the price farmers are being paid for raw milk is currently at a 40 year low, making this slaughter of whole herds of milk cows, many in their prime, seem not only repulsive, but senseless and unjustified (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112002639). Part of CWT's seeming futility is due in part to the increasing use of sexed semen in the dairy industry, which is tipping the scale in favor of more milk cows on the market, not fewer.

Many of the very same producers who pay into CWT use sexed semen, also known as "gender enhanced semen." Sexed semen is a fairly new phenomenon that has emerged in the dairy industry in the past 10 years, allowing farmers to purchase, albeit at an elevated price with a lower conception rate, semen that produces 90% female offspring. The price difference between traditional semen and sexed semen continues to become more equal, and its use is on the increase, with technology improving its quality and affordability at an astonishing rate. Soon sexed semen with a lower percentage of female offspring, but still significantly higher than traditional semen (75% compared to 30%-40%), at both a comparable conception rate and price, will be on the market and readily available to dairy farmers.

Now, you may wonder, what does sexed semen have to do with herd retirement? Well, the simultaneous slaughter of mature cows and birth of new heifer calves to replace them hardly seems an intelligent endeavor: farmers who are both paying into CWT and using gender enhanced semen are canceling out the price stabilization efforts of the herd retirement project.* Not only that, but sexed semen is producing replacement cows at a greater rate than cows are being "retired," arguably contributing to not only the alarmingly low price of milk, but also to the reduced market value of replacement heifers, meaning dairy farmers are facing bottom-low prices on two fronts - the price they receive for raw milk and the price they receive for any extra cattle they might have sold for a profitable price in the past.

So the question begs to be asked "Why do we (dairy farmers) shoot ourselves in the foot?" Well, I posit, like many people who find themselves in an economically vulnerable situation, farmers tend to think about the short term: how to turn the greatest profit in the quickest time. Farmers tend to think with a "me" mentality instead of a "we" mentality (like most Americans for that matter - we are after all an individualistic society, not a collectivist society). In the past an excess of heifer calves was every farmer's dream; it meant enough replacements for cows lost due to old age, unexpected illness or injury, or those culled for personal reasons ( - I just didn't like that one!) and the ones that weren't needed as replacements were a valuable commodity to be sold for a noteworthy profit to help pay the bills or buy that new piece of equipment you had your eye on. Unfortunately that is hardly the case these days when the price difference of an extra heifer and a mature cow is so insignificant that farmers are selling cows they would have kept in the past simply because it makes more sense to keep the newer model than the older one that has a few more miles. So back to the point, the price of replacement heifers, like the current price of milk, does not (or just barely if you are an exceptional manager) cover operating costs and slaughtering more herds of productive milk cows is not going to change that if those cows that are taken off the market are quickly replaced by
new ones being brought into the world at an unnatural rate.

Returning to the previous theme, I bet you are wondering about my statement on the "we" vs "me" way of looking at the world, right? Well, I would like to suggest that perhaps, just perhaps, if farmers would think about how our individual pursuit for survival might affect the industry, and in return, each farmer, we would be better off. For example, sexed semen if only one farmer used it would mean he/she would have a valuable commodity that would be a significant benefit for his/her operation. However, when a notable number of farmers are using gender enhanced semen to the same ends, those ends are very different - the market, as sensitive as it is, tips in the favor of the middleman because now there are too many replacement heifers and too much milk, driving the price down to the point where it ceases to be a living wage for farmers. Farmers have fallen prey to the promise of abundant heifers and high milk prices - and now both milk and heifers are abundant, but prices are slim. Let's hope next time the industry puts the common good before individual greed.

If you would like to read some more on this topic, there is an interesting article in the Journal of Dairy Science on the impact of sexed semen on the dairy industry (http://jds.fass.org/cgi/reprint/91/2/847.pdf , J. Dairy Sci. 91:847–856 doi:10.3168/jds.2007-0536). The author is hopeful that the impact of gender enhanced semen will be temporary - let's hope he is right and that the market finds its balance before it is too late for many farmers to recover.


*It is my opinion that slaughtering whole herds of cows indiscriminately is a despicable act, regardless of its profitability.