Tricia and RFK Jr.

Here's a photograph of my wife with RFK Jr. taken a couple of years ago in Lake Charles, LA.  He was in town to tape a podcast, and Tricia is a big fan of Children's Health Defense Fund that he founded.  RFK Jr. was working on a case for a friend of Tricia's and she invited Tricia with her to go meet him.

When we learned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had dropped out of the presidential race today, we wanted to be sure that we listened to his speech.  It was quite a speech.  In the event that you didn't get a chance to listen, I've linked the video below.  All you have to do is click the arrow below to listen.  I think it's worth your while.

Several things about the speech:  I agree with a whole lot of it.  I liked the way he communicated the fact that he doesn't agree with President Trump on everything, but said they agreed to work together on what they were aligned on and agreed that they had the freedom to debate and disagree on the points that they weren't in agreement on.  RFK Jr. desires an open debate and a free exchange of ideas without censorship.  He also desires to commit to vigorously fight to push forward the things they agree on.

Seems... very reasonable to me.  I'm not in alignment with RFK on several fronts.  I'll bring up climate change for one.  I consider myself an environmentalist.  We are good stewards of the land, producing most of the food we consume at each meal from meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, herbs and milk and honey produced right off this 5 acre piece of land.  You'd be surprised at how little electricity we use and how little trash we produce and how much topsoil we produce.  The thing that grinds my gears about the climate change issue is the asymmetry of it all.  It appears that the climate change elites fly around the globe on private jets, live in multiple, large mansions and have a gargantuan carbon footprint.   They don't practice what they preach and issue edicts in authoritarian fashion, knowing full well that what they prescribe as cures to the problem inordinately affects the poor in adverse fashion.  

I would hope that RFK Jr. would have a change of heart on that.  But I will wholeheartedly support him on things like the First Amendment and restoring Freedom of Speech in line with the true classic liberal quote, "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."  I'll support him on the de-weaponization of Federal Agencies against fellow Americans.  I'll support him on reducing the corporatocracy that has infected both parties.  I'll support him as he fights against the FDA, Big Pharma, and Big Farm who have wreaked havoc on our nation's health.  I'll support him on ending the forever wars that have caused so much death and destruction.  Finally, I'll support him on trying to solve the chronic health issues that plague our country such that health alone (or lack of it) is an existential threat to our once great nation.

Last year my son had a traumatic injury that threatened his life.  We depended on the Good Lord and good doctors to provide critical care and healing.  I'm two weeks and two days out of heart surgery.  Again, the Good Lord and skilled doctors were there to provide healing.  I want to tell you that I have strong faith in God and had it been His Will that I receive an eternal healing in Heaven, I would have been fine with that, too.

But the fact of the matter is, having the most advanced healthcare in the world doesn't do much for you if we are poisoning ourselves with ultra-processed foods, seed oils, refined grains, and chemical-laden foods that addict us, fatten us, and kill us.  Those that survive are on a plethora of pharmaceuticals that ALL have side effects.  Too many Americans are on anti-depressants.  Kids are medicated to enable them to sit in classrooms.  The number of vaccines given to newborns boggle the mind.  The thing is, this is a relatively new phenomenon.  The rate of obesity in our country, autism, diabetes, auto-immune diseases  and other chronic illnesses are epidemic.  Our grandfathers and grandmothers didn't see these problems at these rates.  50% of Americans are obese!  Can you imagine the medical cost for treating this malady alone?

Our country has a lot of problems, but I am hopeful after today.  I pray that men and women of goodwill can come together to work on solving difficult issues so that our children and grandchildren will have a better future if the Lord tarries.  If you have 45 minutes, give a listen to the speech.  I was pretty much impressed with what RFK Jr. had to say and the passion with which he delivered it.  And in the spirit of his message, even if we disagree on things, we can agree to work together on items we do agree on.

Robert F. Kennedy closed with a quote that was powerful and reminds me of one that Golda Meir once said.  RFK said it like this, "Ultimately, the only thing that will save our country and our children is if we choose to love our kids more than we hate each other." 

How in the World Did we Begin Milking Cows?

If you've been following our blog, you know we milk cows.  We started down this path many years ago.  I know that I might have talked about, at some point or another, about the genesis of this decision, but for some reason, (perhaps to justify to myself), I'll attempt to explain again today.

To begin, I've shown below LuLu, one of our two Jersey heifers.  She's a pretty little thing.  She's healthy and playful and looks to be a great addition to our mini herd going forward.

To the left of LuLu on the other side of the bale, is Rosie.  That's LuLu's mother.  She's getting up there in age.  Clarabelle (not pictured) is the mother of Elsie (not pictured) and she's getting up in age as well.  Our intention is for LuLu and Elsie to replace Rosie and Clarabelle on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

LuLu was born on 6/14/21 and currently weighs 440 pounds.  Elsie was born on 4/7/21 and currently weighs 514 pounds.  About every other year, Rosie and Clarabelle give us calves.  When they are bulls, we raise them for a year and a half and then take them to be processed.  They provide meat for our freezer.  Grass fed, no hormones, no antibiotics, and about as natural as you can get, although not organic.  When the calves are heifers, we generally keep them, but have sold them on several occasions.  There is a good market for Jersey cows.  Their milk is rich, having the highest butterfat content in relation to other breeds.

So what made us start this?  Although I was raised on a farm, we didn't milk cows.  Tricia was raised in a city and certainly didn't milk cows.  Prior to getting cows, we got laying hens and daily collected fresh eggs.  It was always a great thing for kids.  I recall my children going out to the chicken tractor with a basket and collecting eggs.  It was a fun thing.  But milk cows?  Tricia and her quest for health, was the catalyst for this decision.  She wanted a milk cow and, well, I got her one.  Buttercup, who we always just called "Mama Cow," (with a calf by her side) arrived and was greeted with much excitement.  One day later after milking, or attempting to milk Mama Cow, Tricia cried, saying, "Can we do this, Kyle?"  Many years later, we're still doing it, so the answer was in the affirmative.

But let's go back and expand on the why.  We had a number of health issues in our family that Tricia researched in the area of gut health, and determined that drinking raw milk provides beneficial bacteria to the gut as well as other nutritive benefits.  Pasteurization heats the milk, killing off good bacteria along with the bad.  We didn't want to do that.  There are many people who are like-minded and seek out raw milk for the exact same benefits.

While we are talking benefits, let's talk about more of them.  Milking cows is a pastoral, peaceful thing.  Many mornings, especially cold, rainy mornings, we don't want to go out there and milk, but once you get out there, you are glad you did.  The cows are glad to see you.  The barn is cozy.  The routine is relaxing.  We hand milk, and that takes about 20 minutes.  When you sit on the stool and begin to milk, it is the PERFECT time to pray.  While the milk squirts in the bucket rhythmically, we talk to God, thanking Him, confessing our short-comings, and calling out our family member's and friend's names in prayer.

A family cow is a great way to teach kids responsibility.  They need to be fed and watered.  They need to be cared for.  Our kids showed livestock.  The nice thing about a dairy cow is that the cows are a continuous project.  You show the same animal year after year.  A bond is made between the child and the animal and a tenderness and sense of care results. 

Having fresh milk is a benefit in the kitchen, having fresh cream for coffee or whipped cream or butter making, having milk for drinking or making ice cream or sour cream, being able to make kefir or cheese, having the by-product of whey for lacto-fermenting.  It is a life long endeavor and we still learn things.  The book, "Keeping a Family Cow," was a great resource for us when getting started.  Living in a small rural town, there are many families that have dairy cows that are a library of knowledge when we have had questions or problems.

There are some drawbacks, to be sure.  Cows don't take weekends off.  Or holidays.  They have to be milked every day.  Vacations must be planned.  Excursions or day-long family events are always planned with the question, "Do we milk before we go or after we come back?"  We've milked many times very late at night.  Although it only takes 20 minutes to milk, you must come back to the house from the barn and pour the milk and sanitize the bucket and rag we use to filter the milk through.  Cows are hard work.  They can be stubborn and hard-headed.  They step on your toes.  They swish a urine soaked tail across your face from time to time.

Cows and calves sometimes die.  As they are around for more than a decade, you develop a sort of friendship with these gentle animals and it is hard when they die.  But that's life.  The positives definitely outweigh the negatives.  We try to live a simple life and milking cows hearkens back to the rural, family farms of times past, and I like that.

Our plans in the next several months is to wean LuLu and Elsie and, when they are breeding age, bring them and their mothers down the road to a neighbor that has registered Jersey bulls, for them to all be bred.  Then the cycle begins again!  It is a journey, for sure.  If anyone has any questions, post a comment below, and I'll be happy to try to answer them.

Colostrum - It's Not Just for Baby Calves

Luna, our new baby calf, has discovered where the milk comes from and needs no more help from us. She hits her head on Daisy's bag, making the milk drop and then she moves from teat to teat, drinking vigorously until she's full.  Luna can't drink the quantity of milk that Daisy produces, even though Daisy's milk hasn't fully come in yet.  There is still a bit of colostrum in the milk.  Once Luna shows us that she's bored, we know that she's got enough colostrum/milk in her belly.  At that point we gently move her out of the way, clean up Daisy's teats with a soapy rag, and then milk her completely out.

Colstrum/Milk mixture

When Daisy's milk comes in, we'll definitely get more than this, and it won't have the bright yellow tint of the contents of these jars.  On the second day after the calf is born, we like to milk out the colostrum and freeze it as a sort of insurance policy if we should ever need to thaw it and give it to a calf in the future.

Understanding that cow colostrum has health benefits for humans, we tried to drink straight colostrum as well, but I'll be honest, I don't like the taste or the consistency.  It has a thickness to it that fools you into thinking that it would be like drinking melted ice cream - except it is not sweet and is kind of "oily".

Colostrum for us

The colostrum is thicker than milk, like cream and rises to the top.  After a couple of days, Daisy is producing enough milk so that the colostrum in it can just be shaken up and consumed without really noticing, and that's just what we do.    

THIS ARTICLE gives a lot of good information on the health benefits of drinking colostrum.  It goes into great detail, but here is a quick summary of what colostrum does for you:

It builds, repairs, strengthens and restores:
~the hormonal system back to levels associated with youth
~the immune system to it's top fighting form
~the digestive system to it's optimal function
~and it even provides you with every basic essential nutrient known

The article goes on to say, interestingly, that when the Australian Olympic swim team won a bunch of gold medals in the 2000 and 2004 Olympics, they attributed part of their success to using colostrum supplements.  While we won't be swimming in the Olympics anytime soon, we are drinking colostrum in hopes of benefiting from some of the healing properties mentioned above.

Yellow Fat from Grass Fed Beef

We have been enjoying the beef from the steer we butchered back in April.  There really is a difference in the taste of grass fed versus store-bought meat.  We should have done this a long time ago.  The only thing about having a freezer full of beef that gives me pause is the fact that we don't have a generator to back up our deep freeze and with Tropical Storm Danny brewing way out in the Eastern Atlantic, it makes me a little nervous, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

We really like the beef short ribs.  Tricia will bring them to room temperature and add some kosher salt and pepper to them.  

She puts them in a cast iron dutch oven and sears them.

The picture below highlights the topic of this post.  Notice that the fat is yellow.

Why is fat from Grass Fed Beef yellow and why is the fat from store-bought (feed lot) beef a pearly-white color?  Good Question.

I learned the answer from reading THIS ARTICLE and it was what I suspected, but before we get to what causes the coloration, the article said this:

Fat can be a wonderful thing.

Fats can be the most nutrient rich part of your diet, or they can cause numerous diseases – depending on which fat we’re talking about.  What an animal eats will change the kind of fat in its tissues.  If an animal eats a suboptimal diet including grains and legumes, its fat loses much of its nutrient quality in surprisingly little time.  

That sounds like crazy talk, doesn't it?  We've been accustomed to hearing that fat is bad for you.  To avoid fat.  Fat is unhealthy.  But the above study runs counter to that.  Hmmm...  Also, verses in the Bible seem to confirm that fat is a good thing. Take this one, for example:

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do this: load your beasts and go to the land of Canaan, and take your father and your households and come to me, and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you will eat the fat of the land.’ - Genesis 45: 17-18

The Pharaoh liked Joseph.  He wasn't telling him that his family was going to get the scraps.  The fat of the land is a Good Thing.  Fat, if the animal ate a good, grass-fed diet, is a good, healthy, nutritious part of your diet.  I can remember being a young boy and we'd slice all the fat off of the meat.  My great-grandmother would sit at the end of the table and say, "You're not going to eat that? Pass that down here."

My great-grandmother was onto something!  The article mentioned above states that their study showed that grass-fed beef contains more Omega-3s and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) than grain fed meat.  There is also Omega-6, Cholesterol, and Transvaccenic Acid (TVA) as types of fat. Interestingly:

Trans-vaccenic acid is metabolized into conjugated linoleic acid, and performs similar functions.  It can speed fat loss, fight cancer, and improve brain function. It is technically a naturally occurring “trans-fat” but it does not cause the same the negative health problems that margarine or hydrogenated fats do.

Wow!  Fat from grass fed beef is good for you.  So finally, the answer to my question: Why is the fat from Grass Fed Beef Yellow?:

The grass-fed meat had higher levels of carotenoids, making the fat appear yellow.  Generally, the more carotenoids in a substance, the more nutrients it contains.  Yellow fat (like grass-fed butter) is a sign of high nutrient density.  One of the things you’ll notice when cooking grass-fed meat is the yellowish color of the fat.

More carotenoids = more antioxidants+nutrients (and more flavor too).

Generally, colors in food mean that it is healthier for you.  Speaking of colors, I liked the colors (and flavor) of the beef short ribs.  Here's a picture taken before Tricia stirred it all up:

Healthy AND Colorful!

To sum up the article (read it if you get a chance), their study said: 

When it comes to meat, grass-fed and grain-fed don’t even compare. Go grass-fed, every time.

We're sold on it.  Grass-fed Beef.  It's whats for supper.

Let's Grow

After just finishing getting the final seeds in the ground for the Fall/Winter garden, I'm excited.  I love to plant things, love to watch them grow, and love to eat fresh produce from our garden.  We're harvesting bok choy right now and the kale will be ready in a week or two.  Other items will be coming along shortly thereafter.

I plant a garden for several reasons:

1. It's in my blood: I grew up on a farm and have always loved agriculture.  The rural life, getting dirty, growing things, and caring for livestock has always been very attractive to me.

2. I like being somewhat self-sufficient: I've said it a million times: it is so invigorating to sit down to a meal that came from your land straight to your table.  You were involved from planting to harvest to preparation.  It is nice to not be dependent on the Global Supply Chain for your food.

3. The health benefits pay dividends:  Gardening is an activity that gets you outdoors working in the fresh air.  The produce you grow is devoid of chemicals, additives, preservatives, GMO's, and artificial colorings, flavors and it lacks all the enrichment and processing.  This food is good for you and is delicious!

4. It's a nice hobby that will actually help the family budget:  Over the years, we've been able to reduce money spent at the grocery store and this helps out with family finances.

Although I could post some photos of the garden, instead I'd like to show some infographics that I was able to find on this topic that interested me.  Please note that all of the data is not from the same year, but it is close enough in proximity to still derive meaningful information.  First, the percentage of US Household Income Spent on Food:

Image Credit

Citizens of the United States of America spent about $2,273 or 6.4% of their consumer expenditures on food in 2012 according to the USDA.  To put that into perspective, as a percentage of consumer expenditures, that is less than any of the 83 other countries the USDA tracks.  What does that mean? It doesn't mean that our food is cheaper as the USDA actually says that our food is more expensive. The average amount spent on food as a percentage of all our consumer goods is less than those 83 countries.

While it doesn't go into detail and state this, I think it is expressing what we all know is true.  We live in a wealthy country with many having discretionary incomes that allow us to spend money on lots of things, like consumer electronics, entertainment, clothing, automobiles, vacations, etc.  We are blessed and we have money to spend on other things beside food.

This graph from roughly the same time period gives a frame of reference against other countries.  If you are spending almost half of your household consumption expenditures on food, that doesn't leave much left over for discretionary items.  You are trying to purchase necessities.

Image Credit

We are truly blessed to live in America, but despite the fact that we pay relatively little for our food, who is to say that prices will stay this low?  The drought in California has sent produce and beef prices skyrocketing.  Have you bought a roast or even hamburger meat lately?  For this reason and others, many people are taking food production back into their own hands.

According to This Article 31% of Americans are gardening due to concerns about the safety of the food supply, the fact that homegrown food tastes better, and the ability to save a little money.  That is encouraging news.

But here is my favorite infographic of all. It is full of interesting information. If it is too small for you to see either click the image and it will enlarge or click HERE to bring you to a larger rendering.


The ranking of popular vegetable crops in US gardens was pretty much where I thought it would be, although where's okra?  Okra must be a regional thing! Look at the increase in households with food gardens from 2008 to 2009 - a 19.5% increase.  Most interesting to me was the economics. Americans spent $2.5 billion of seeds and other gardening supplies, but experienced a return on investment of $21 billion dollars.  So for an average garden of 600 square feet, people spent $70 bucks and that investment yielded a $530 return.

The last time I checked, you won't get that rate of return in a savings account or CD!  The numbers in the charts and graphs above are all about five years old.  I wonder how they might compare to today's figures?  There's just too many benefits to growing at least a portion of your own food.  Let's get growing!

Good, Simple Food (Part 2)

"People are fed by the Food Industry which pays no attention to Health, and are treated to the Health Industry, which pays no attention to Food." - Wendell Berry

Good, simple food is what we try to produce on our little 5 acre slice of Heaven for consumption by our Family and friends.  We like the idea that a big percentage of the foods we eat are wholesome, delicious, and freshly grown at most 300 feet from our back door.  We also like the idea that we can pronounce the names of all of the ingredients in most of our recipes.

Food from Our Maker's Acres Family Farm

As opposed to the ingredient list in Hot Pockets, for example, a brand that is a $2 billion dollar category of frozen sandwiches and snacks:

Quite an ingredient list in the Hot Pocket

Ingredients
Unbleached Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product (Water, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Casein, Modified Food Starch, Whey, Salt, Sodium Citrate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Food Starch, Natural Flavor, Citric Acid, Sorbic Acid [As A Preservative], Xanthan Gum, Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum, Lactic Acid, Artificial Color, Mozzarella Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes]), Pepperoni (Pork, Beef, Salt, Water, Dextrose, Spices, Lactic Acid Starter Culture, Oleoresin of Paprika, Dehydrated Garlic, Sodium Nitrite, Bha, Bht, Citric Acid), Tomato Paste, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil (With Lecithin, Artificial Flavor, Beta Carotene), Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product (Mozzarella Cheese (Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes), Water, Casein, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Food Starch, Whey, Salt, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Sodium Phosphate, Lactic Acid, Natural Flavor, Sorbic Acid, (As A Preservative), Artificial Color), Contains less than 2% of: Dried Whey, Seasoning (Spices, Salt, Garlic Powder, Maltodextrin, Xanthan Gum, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil), Modified Food Starch, Dough Conditioners (Calcium Sulfate, Mono- and Diglycerides), Sugar, Dried Egg Yolks, Salt, Yeast, Dried Egg Whites. (Contains 8.5% Pepperoni).

As touched on in the last posting, we've traded off good, home-cooked meals for convenience and we've paid a mighty big price in terms of our health.  I'm not a doctor and don't pretend to be one on TV, but a recent article I read What really causes heart illness? explores some of the things we've been told by doctors that have been flat-out wrong.  Doctors linked heart disease with high cholesterol and then prescribed medicines to lower blood cholesterol and put us on diets to restrict our fat intake.

Ingredient List: Raw Milk

From the article:

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.

Ingredient List: Carrots

Dr. Dwight Lundell goes on to say that cholesterol accumulates in the arteries because of inflammation. Inflammation traps the cholesterol and doesn't allow it to flow freely.  Inflammation is a normal reaction that the body uses to protect itself, but if we constantly expose our bodies to toxins or foods that we can't process, then chronic inflammation occurs.  Following the recommended diet low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates causes this chronic inflammation which leads to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity.  

Ingredient list: Potatoes, Real Butter, Rosemary, Kosher salt, Cracked Pepper

So what causes chronic inflammation in plain English?:

Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

The more we eat processed foods, the more we are poisoning our bodies.  There is but one solution: Returning to eating foods close to their natural state like your grandma and grandpa probably ate.  Eat fresh and unprocessed foods whenever you can. You'll make the pharmaceutical industry and the food manufacturers unhappy, but your body will thank you.

Ingredient list: Peas

If you can't grow your own food, get to your local Farmer's Market or get to know a local farmer.  We're passionate about the food we grow because it is GOOD and GOOD FOR YOU!