8.21.08
Eli Smiles
There are moments that life melts your heart; stops you dead in your tracks and turns your heart to into something warm and mushy. For me, its an early spring morning with an early daffodil emerging through the thin layer of frost left by the still cold night air; a horse racing a cloud across a pasture on a bright blue day; and my son Eli’s smile.
Each of my children possess bright, beautiful smiles, I am partial to them all, but Eli has a magical smile. His smile is uninhibited. At 10, he has not mastered the false smile of polite society and niceties. His is the genuine thing. Like a rainbow after a summer rain, it is a gift.
A slow creeping grin; a gentle turning up of the corners of his mouth, a bright lightness coming from his eyes as they start to turn up at the corners. His freckles start a crazy dance across his nose and then he glances slyly at us before he can’t take it anymore and then the giggles begin; slowly at first, behind his hand or under the brim of his hat, the giggles bubble up from some unseen fountain of mirth.
As more come, they become finally uncontrollable; rolling out of the corners of his mouth. His freckles are frenzied now, his hand is at his mouth as if he could hold them in. His whole body joins the laughter as he rocks back and forth in waves of ecstasy. He is the audience Mel Brooks prayed for when he wrote his dialogue. The slapstick comedy of Laurel and Hardy were made for those of Eli’s ilk; slapstick comedy, parodies, animal funnies, and all the things boys find hilarious; we watch Eli, he watches the scenes.
Preparing dinner the other night, he was tuned in to some You Tube animal funnies, I was tuned into him. His giggles were sporadic, like a breeze playing with the wind chimes, sometimes gusty, sometimes soft. They lulled me into a peaceful mode, drew me in and held me tight. Laughter can do that. Before I knew it, we were all there, standing around Eli, drawing our chairs over, watching funny animal clips, listening to the laughter and smiling.
Eli turns eleven next week. His freckles arranged across his nose and onto his cheeks bespeak of boyishness; his face was made to smile and his mind was made to find the humor. God must place these people among us to keep the rest of us sane, to give us all some relief and release. I am thankful that God saw fit to place one here, in this house, in this family. We are certainly blessed!
Happy Birthday Eli!
Love Mom
7.28.08
The Dunes that are my Mother
The Dunes that are my Mother
There is a picture of my Mother that stands out in my mind. When she died, I searched her books and folders, hoping to find it, but in her confusion the last few months of her life, she must have thrown it away. Perhaps she found it as she was frantically searching for some ancient bill that she knew she had missed. She would have found it and it would have made her wonder who the woman in the photo was. She would have become angry. She would have crumpled it up and thrown it down.
It was a picture of her as a young woman. She was sitting on a beach blanket, with her knees casually drawn up, arms laced loosely across her knees. A fat baby lay on the blanket near her feet, oblivious to the beach, the overcast sky and the waves that licked at the shore near the woman’s back. She was caught in a rare moment of motionless, staring out to the wide expanse of dunes. Her face was serene and peaceful. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck and the hint of a smile played at her lips.
Maybe someone had just told a joke nearby and she had given a cursory laugh before turning away to stare at the dunes; the endless sand, slowly shifting this way and that, twisting continuously under the direction of the prevailing wind. The shooter of the photograph didn’t have her attention; she was looking away, away toward the sloping swells of sand.
They never left her; those dunes of her youth. She would often speak about them when I was growing up and how they used to all pile in the car and leave Chicago and drive up to the dunes and spend the day. The children would play; the adults would swim and share the stories of their week. They would eat and laugh, playing games of catch and swimming against the cold tide of the giant lake. She would drive; she was their ticket to freedom, a woman with a car and a driver’s license and no one to answer to. They would envy the freedom they saw. They couldn’t see the chains.
The windows would be down as the enormous car sailed up the highway, heading for the dunes. The women would have worn their hair up, tied with a kerchief or bow. The men would have sat straight in their polyester shorts and white button down shirts. They would have held their hats on their lap so that the wind couldn’t steal them out of the car.
As they left the city of big shoulders, the landscape would start to change, traffic would thin out and the sound of the engine would be lost in the roar of the wind through the windows; glimpses of the lake would urge them onward until they came to the turn off for the picnic area that they had chosen. Piling out of the car they would stumble under the loads of blankets and heavy coolers; feet burning on the hot sand would hurry them along. They went almost every weekend through the summer. Gas was cheap and cars were big.
In the nursing home, her room had a window that looked out toward a slow, green hill. Sitting there, she would stare out at the hill and see her dunes and she would lose herself all over again in the simple patterns and gentle swells of sand that were always being blown about in an ever-changing landscape. The view was never the same, it was always shifting. She was drawn to clouds that way also; staring up for endless minutes trying to capture an image to hold on to.
What had she been thinking? Maybe it was the bliss of nothing. The baby was quiet and the rhythm of the waves had lulled her day thoughts into a dreamy, waking blur of nothing. These moments were rare in her life indeed. Peace never found her during her time on earth, her last few months were lost in a confused, drug and pain induced stupor. The dunes out her window were perhaps the only peace she found during her final days.
I never got to see the dunes. I was not even the baby on the blanket; my birth was 18 years later. The pictures that she painted for me in my mind are the ones that I carry with me. The dunes, like her life; a still portrait by an unknown artist tucked away in an attic box, lifted out carefully for inspection on rainy days and then tucked neatly back into the old newspaper with the faded headlines and dates from days long past.
We all have our “dunes”; the place that frees our soul. I still search for the picture of her that I know I will never find; looking for hard evidence that she found moments of solitude and tranquility in her life of many hardships and angst. Perhaps we should all be so fortunate to have such a place that can free our earthly thoughts. These are the dunes that are my Mother.
Andrea J.
7.19.08
James Family Farm: Summer 08
Greetings from James Family Farm!
Summer is upon is and now is the time for some really fresh food from the garden. If you have chickens reserved for July, remember to mark your calendars for pick up:
Friday, July 25 or Saturday, July 26
If you didn’t get your reservation in for July and would like to order chickens, we still have some available. Please let me know how many and how you would like them: whole or cut up.
We also have a variety of new potatoes, red onions and French Filet green beans. As always, ALL of our garden goods are grown from certified organic seed or seed stock. We use no chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides of any kind. Our well water is tested every spring and fall to ensure that there is no ground water contamination when we have to irrigate the garden. Our fresh produce will be available during chicken pick up.
We will have fresh whole hog sausage available in August. Sage breakfast sausage in one pound packages and patties will be available, as well as Italian and plain bulk ground pork and links. If you would like a side of pork, reservations are being accepted now for September processing.
If you would like to reserve a side of beef, please let me know ASAP. Beef is sold in quarters, halves and whole cow. Processing dates are already on the calendar, beginning in late August. If you are interested in trying our beef, contact me and I will get a sampler package ready for you. We have a limited amount of beef cuts still in the freezer: Ground beef and sirloin steaks, if you would like some individual cuts. Just let me know.
A few turkey halves were found during a freezer cleanout. These were last year’s birds and are offered at 3.75/lb. Excellent on the grill or in the smoker! Everyone loves the turkey halves for their convenience!
For a special summer treat, we are offering 2 suckling pigs for a superb backyard barbecue! If you have always wanted to roast a whole pig, one of these might be just the ticket. These young pigs are prepared for the spit, whole or halved. Raised on non-GMO corn, milk and greens, these pigs will be a delicious entrée at your next get-together. Each will weigh between 75-125#. Contact the farm for more details.
Thanks! Andrea James 217-496-2160
Jamesfamilyfarm.com
6.24.08
Boneless chicken?????
Skinless/ Boneless
“Cute shoes”, I thought as her legs swung out of her car. This will be a quick tour. I introduced myself. Her significant other stepped out of the little sports car and shook my hand quickly. I was acutely aware of the dirt under my fingernails from the garden work I had just finished.
“I am here for chicken and some fresh eggs,” she drawled.
“I have both,” I replied and we went into the house.
Sitting at my counter, she questioned me about how we raised our chickens. She had, she said, a moral issue with the way birds were currently being raised without even a place to move about.
I laid a whole, frozen chicken on the counter as she continued with her story. I turned back to the freezer to get another bird; there was dead silence behind me.
She cleared her throat, “Do you have any without the bones?”
I turned around. Huh? I know I must have misheard. I looked outside at the rows of pens lining my hillside with young chickens pecking eagerly in the grass looking for bugs. Boneless?
“No.” I knew we were headed for trouble.
The silence was awkward. “Maybe I will just take one,” she fingered the frozen bird, then went on, “how do you cook this?” She was looking at the whole chicken rather quizzically and I knew she was struggling not to look anything but composed.
I closed the freezer and began to explain how to cook a whole chicken. I then handed her the eggs; one dozen, fresh from the henhouse. I am always proud of our eggs, they are just beautiful.
She laughed nervously as she flipped up the carton to peer inside. “Will these have chicks in them?”
“Only if you incubate them for twenty-one days.” I tried to reassure her, but she was past reassurance. She wrote a hasty check and headed to the car. Her significant other followed close behind his eyes never leaving the little hand-held device that ordered his life.
What have we become? I wondered as I watched the dust kicked up by the wheels lift gently in the breeze as her car whizzed down our drive. When did we become Skinless/ Boneless? When did we come to expect that? When did we stop growing gardens on our backyard and sharing our bounty with our neighbors? We are totally reliant on everything external.
In the case of the skinless/ boneless chicken we are dumb to the fact that the chickens lining the freezer display were even animals. I am sure that if Tyson could grow birds without bones and skin, they would, it would be that much less to process. These things disturb me deeply. The generation that grew food and put it away for the coming season is aging and their knowledge is dying with them. Like our war heroes from World War II., these folks are disappearing rapidly. In our age of techno glitz, we simply cannot be bothered with the menial tasks of growing or preparing our food.
We are trained and conditioned that easy is better, that cheap is the order of the day, that skinless/ boneless is the norm, not the exception. So, we march on down the aisles of the local super food center and grumble and mumble as the prices turn upward. Perhaps we should be marching down the lanes of the local garden center. The price of seeds is still less than two dollars per packet.
Hmmm…
Taking your seeds home, the TV could remain silent as you go the garage and find the spade sitting back behind the bikes and the mower. A small space in the back corner of your yard where the sun shines through is all you need for your little garden. As you turn the earth, you notice the life that is in it; the little black beetles, the curled up white grubs, small earthworms and ants. Life is being lived right there in the soil, blind to the daily drama that unfolds in the house beyond.
Tuck the seeds in gently, pat them down and look at the sky. Perhaps it will rain soon and the hose can stay coiled up a little longer. Within a week or two, small green shoots will be pushing little tendrils skyward, seeking sustenance, the miracle of life. Perhaps your children will become interested in the life tucked away there in the corner of your yard.
Maybe next year, you will make it larger, just a tad bigger, you think as you munch on your fresh lettuce. Next year, you think to yourself as you survey your yard, you will cancel the green lawn chemical company that comes to kill the weeds and the grubs. Perhaps you can try some more challenging foods, maybe even start some seeds inside, in February, when the winds still blow cold outside. It might be nice to see them inside, little seeds growing, and beckoning spring.
It is time to reconnect with our beginnings, take back the power that we have given away to the large corporations and government entities; the power to grow our own food, the power to know our food source and the power to survive hardship.
Skinless/boneless has no place in the natural world. It resides only within the realm of convenience and smiling check-out girls with stars and stickers on their name badges, wishing you a nice day as you wheel your cart out into the bright sunshine. So, take that first step, you won’t be sorry.
Andrea J.
6.11.08
Springtime
( Hoop barn flattened by strong winds. Spring 08)
There are nights that I fail to see the sunset; nights that I am to worn out to look up. Sometimes, I realize later that I have missed something. Sometimes it is the sunset; sometimes it is a hug from my children. Too busy with life to stop for a moment and to tired when that moment comes. Life is like that in the spring.
“I don’t want to do anything today,” my sleepy eyed 13 year old told me yesterday morning as he pulled on his boots, still mud packed and wet from the rain storms the day before. He leaned back on the bench, obviously tired. That has such a nice ring to it and for a moment I was in complete agreement. Do nothing. Do what? Nothing.
“Gotta do something,” I replied and sighed. “It isn’t the worst thing you will ever do.” I tried to sound encouraging.
“It could be,” He retorted with all the knowledge of one who has seen twelve summers.
Hmmm, I grabbed my milk pail and headed out the door. I wouldn’t win any arguments here today. I wouldn’t even try. My friend in St. Louis told me that when her children were young, they started music lessons and then, when they lost interest, she didn’t make them go on. Later, they both came back to music and now are both accomplished musicians.
It’s not like that on a farm. We both agreed that one cannot simply lose interest and quit. Animals would go hungry, weeds would run amuck, people would have to go to town and take jobs there. Certainly, though, a job at Lowes would be easier. Nine to six and then you hang up your red jacket and head for home. You aren’t awakened in the night by customers banging on your door telling you that the lumber in aisle 8 needs restacked. You go home, you are done. Farming isn’t for everyone.
A small farmer is at home and his home is his work, and he is never done. There are always animals to be fed, fences to be repaired, mowing and planting and chopping and grinding; chickens to be watered, eggs to be gathered, gardens to be weeded, milking to be done. A farm is like a baby, it slumbers sometimes, but it awakens often and needs constant attention. One cannot simply take a vacation or a weekend away.
Spring days revolve around mealtimes. Without a break for lunch or dinner, we would never sit down. Lunch time will see an anxious foot tapping impatience to return to the task at hand, Dinner time will see one propped up, elbows on the table, one hand rubbing a forehead the other absently shoveling in whatever is on the plate. Mealtime mumblings about a grievance encountered or a task uncompleted are the order of days in the Spring.
A slab of concrete could be no more comfortable than a soft, down bed when exhaustion overtakes you. Dreamless nights, mornings of heaviness; another day, storm clouds on the horizon. Spring breeze becomes a wall of wind, rain comes, heavy drops, water rises, the creek gobbles up the pasture, hoop barn collapses.
Anxious eyes are on the sky, waiting and watching. Perhaps there is more. Not today, the storm moves off and we are thankful and stuck; stuck behind a fallen tree that was weakened by the creek waters and pushed over by the wind. The massive Ash will no longer provide protection to the creatures of the creak lane. It will instead, provide warmth to the people who stand awestruck that such a massive being could just fall.
Exhaustion trumps thought and another night brings more storms. Cummings wrote of the springtime that it was “mudluscious” and “puddle-wonderful”. I reason that he didn’t live in the Midwest and he certainly didn’t reside on a farm.
The storms will pass as will the Springtime that brought them. People will gather up the pieces and take stock, make plans, and make do. The seeds of stories as yet untold will be formed in minds. They will grow with the tellings and retellings and the rapture of the listener will water the seeds with awe and wonder. “ Remember the Spring that….” And we will return once again, together, to this busy spring where so many events have shaped these long days.
Andrea J.
5.20.08
Priveleged
I woke early this morning to a gust of wind that blew a cooling breeze across my face. I lay there with my eyes closed as the first rain drops landed on the porch roof signaling for others to follow. The rain must have jolted the rooster awake. His complaints quickly joined the pattering of the rain drops on the roof. Down in the lower pasture the low moaning voice of a cow was singing a duet with the wind that was now blowing with some ferocity through my open window.
I was reluctant to shut it, even though the rain was now a mist coming through the screen. I pulled the covers up over my shoulders and recalled the day before. A gentleman had come calling. He was at my house to sell me a water softener. He had come later than what he had intended and had run into a mid day customer picking up her milk. He had grown up milking Jersey cows, he had said, after she left. He didn’t elaborate, he just shook his head and smiled at his memory.
I find them everywhere, people who once lived on small farms, now living in urban areas with strip malls and bright lights. It seems that almost every other person I meet has a fond memory of a farm in their family. Maybe they grew up on the farm, maybe it was Grandma and Grandpa or an Aunt and Uncle. Regardless, they are out there, scattered about our towns, checking groceries at the local supermarket, selling water softeners. How wistful is their look as they are pulled back to another place in their mind.
At one time, small farms populated the landscape. You can still see the ghostly remains of fence rows and foundations where people once lived; houses abandoned and boarded, broken windmills and barns blown crooked by strong winds. America was an agricultural society. Our food came from the country and everybody had a back yard garden. We grew our own food and provided for our own people. We were proud of our ability survive and provide.
Today, we are a nation of wistful thinkers. As our small farms continue to be gobbled up by corporate land owners, we find that we no longer have any ties to the land that feeds us and sustains us. Another generation and we will not even have memories of the land our families once held.
What happened? In a nutshell, it is greed, just pure unmitigated greed. There was a time, before farm subsidies when parity existed; when the small farmer was paid a fair price for his product. Food staples were not commodities to be brokered and the future was tomorrow and next week, not something to be traded against at the Chicago Board of Trade.
Farms were diversified and the economy was local, not global. Corn and beans were harvested and the farmer kept back his own corn for seed from his previous planting year and that was ok. It was expected. Now, it is illegal as those seeds are now patented by huge corporations. Monsanto and Cargill have taken over the local grain co-ops. Once farmer owned, they are now corporate owned for storage of corporate grains. Armies of row planters, cultivators and harvesters line up to be driven by those who know nothing of farming; pulling their heavy machines across land that bleeds chemicals tears into our waterways and wells.
Malicious traders run amuck, and the price of pork drops to below thirty cents a pound. Thirty cents a pound! Of course that isn’t reflected in the grocery store prices, the people never know and another small farmer has to move off his family’s land as the 2,000 pigs he was raising couldn’t be fed out for any profit when corn is at five dollars a bushel. They move into the city to take jobs in local industries or sales, but their heart is always on that farm.
I feel their pain and their longing for the land that once fed their children. I hear a wistful note in their voice when they talk about their past. Someday, they suppose, they will return, but they will never be able to go back. The small, diversified farm is a thing of the past; a nostalgic glimpse, a fond memory. Beef, pork and chicken come from industrial farms. Our factory food gleams in flashy packaging in aisle after aisle at our super food centers. Consumers are lulled into this paradise by soft music and smiling attendants with buttons that ask, “How can we help?”
Displaced farmers and rural folks that once made a living off the land, you see them every day. They are your neighbors and your friends. I suppose that change is inevitable, but the switch from our agrarian roots to an urban one leaves me unsettled. We are so dependent on the system for all of our food needs. A system now owned and operated by large corporations. How can that be a good thing? Corporations rise and fall like ancient empires. Money is the cog that makes the wheels turn and people are just cast aside.
I am, I know, privileged to be here, on this land that sustains my family and others. I am reminded almost every day that we are part of the lucky few. The wind has died down now, but the rain still falls. I must get up and get the milking started. Stubbornly and with more determination, my feet hit the floor. I am following in the footsteps of my ancestors; they stretch across the open fields and windy plains. Puddles of water gather in their footprints, and their voices are mingled with the laughter of my children as they race down our hill and up our lane. We are the reason they ever existed.
Andrea J.
4.27.08
An Army of One
She stands in the kitchen, hands on her hips, head thrown back, small stature, big words; she has all the power of a two year old that is clearly used to commanding others, “Aaron, stop that!” she yells. Aaron looks up, unfazed, chocolate lining his bottom lip, the fudge pan in his hand.
Once again, in an outraged voice, “Get out of the chocolate!” She is yelling now. Aaron puts the fudge pan back into the fridge, not because she is telling him so, but because he has heard me coming on the steps. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he looks hard at his little sister, a look I catch as I stride into the room.
A look of triumph on her face, her bravado already melting, she runs to me, arms up- finally, back up has arrived! She does not have to handle the tense situation on her own.
Picking her up, I kiss her. My daughter’s smile can melt away even the worst of moods. The sun shines brightly every day in her world and its bright light reaches out, wrapping each of us up in its warm glow.
She is a little version of me, taking her queue from even the most menial thing that I say or do. Yet even as she seeks to emulate me, she stands out as her own unique person, constantly assessing the world and giving us a play by play every moment of the day.
One does not ever have to guess at what she is thinking or feeling. We are always kept up to date on broken fingernails, crumbs on the floor or errant lady bugs that land near by. She keeps a running dialogue from the moment her eyes open until sleep seals her lips. A bag of macaroni on her head and she becomes a queen, a stamp on the end of her nose and she is ready for the mail box.
She lives for the attention of her “buzzards”. Reading, playing, tossing, and teasing; the boys never stop. Battle lines drawn, positions behind the couch, weapons in hand, Nerf dart in the air, soldier is down- the girl falls, lurches, falls again and lays still. High drama as the medical corps rushes in with the lifesaving technique needed to save her. Pump, pump, pump on her chest, her head lifts slightly, she smiles, she is saved! The scene repeats itself over and over on most any given day.
She is the ultimate destroyer of any creation, and is the cause of much groaning, “Ughhh, she knocked over my card house!”, “Ughhh!, she wrote all over my school work!”, “Ughhh, she has been in the kitchen drawers again!” The groaner must go on, deal with the destruction, while the destroyer is already on to another area, another creation; always looking for ways to change and reorder her world.
We simply follow behind, repeating our oft heard groan, shaking our heads at the little army of one marching through our house. Surely if the military could harness the energy of toddlers, our enemies would be left exhausted, throwing down their arms on the battlefield, surrendering gratefully.
She is sweet only for her Poppy. Sitting on is lap, tugging his beard. “Read to me,” she intones in her sweetest little girl voice; Day of frustration soon forgotten as he picks up any book that she wants. Quiet for the first time all day she cuddles up to read, tendrils of feeling bind them together as they reconnect.
“We are just the same,” she tells Poppy one night as they sit in their chair. “Yes,” he nods, “Same nose, same arms, same legs…” “No,” she is no longer nodding in agreement, “I don’t have a beard on my legs.” Poppy laughs, tension melts away under the warm gaze of his little girl. The day is over, he is home and life is fresh and new and shiny through the eyes of his little girl.
Spinning in circles he holds her tight and then sets her down one morning before he leaves for work. Her feet do a crazy, drunken dance on the floor, arms outstretched, eyes looking for something solid. “What are you doing?” I ask her as I walk into the room.“I’m trying to hold onto the house,” she explains as she continues her lurching forward and back. We laugh, drawn onto her world again.
It is a wonderful place where God watches over the babies in the barn and “wish” washers clean up dirty dishes after dinner; Baby bunnies are soft and warm and hugs and kisses fall like a warm, summer rain after every bump and bruise. Bubble baths are a daily event and only ice cream has the awesome power to silence the waterfall of words.
Andrea J.
4.4.08
The Milk Myth
Perpetuating the Milk Myth
“ It’s just milk? What’s the big deal Mom?” Aaron looked at me, put his glass of milk on the counter and wiped his milk-stache off with the back of his hand. I just looked at him. It does seem so simple really, you milk an animal, you get milk. That’s that. No big deal right? Wrong.
Have you ever Googled “FDA Raw Milk”? The first thing you will find is the FDA site: “Got Milk? Make sure it’s pasteurized!” Eggadds!! If I believed all the hype there, I would have likely yanked the milk glass out of my young son’s hands, and quickly washed that deadly white stuff down the drain! No wonder they don’t encourage mother’s to breast feed in this country- milk is deadly in its perfect, God created form.
Milk has created a controversy in this country for those who want to exercise their freedom to choose what they consume. The choice of fresh milk from a farm has been taken away in all but a handful of states. Why? The FDA would have you believe that milk is deadly in its natural state, swimming with pathogens and bacteria that will make you what? Maybe get diarrhea, or perhaps vomit? By its own admission, the FDA reports that food born illnesses are not generally life threatening.
Not life threatening. If milk related illness is not life threatening, what’s the big deal? Here are just a few facts. In the United States, alcohol related deaths are the third leading cause of preventable deaths.*1a That is direct from the CDC website. The key word here is preventable. Drinking alcohol is a choice. If someone chooses to drink excessive alcohol, get behind the wheel of the vehicle and wipe out an entire family on the way home from Grandma’s house, those folks are just out of luck. Someone else made that choice for them.
If a person chooses to drink fresh milk from a farm, that person (just that individual) may experience diarrhea or vomiting. In an extreme case, death might be the end result, but that same risk is involved with opening a bag of spinach from your local grocery store and consuming its contents.
The person who drinks fresh milk cannot arbitrarily kill an entire family and wreck countless lives after consuming a gallon of milk. Where is the common sense? If there was going to be a law against something that you drink, wouldn’t it make more sense to outlaw something, like alcohol, that kills indiscriminately across the board? A drink that not only has the potential to kill the user from either an act during intoxication or from long term health consequences, but one that also has the unique ability to reach out across the divided lines of the highway and injure and kill other unsuspecting people?
It just doesn’t make sense. If the government is so concerned with protecting our health and welfare, why don’t they outlaw something that really does kill? So, how deadly IS milk from the farm?
Let’s just take a look at the CDC website again. It seems that sickness from milk that was not pasteurized has some staggering numbers. Please remember, this is nationally and that the numbers are not in thousands. The U.S. currently has 303 million people living here. I will look at a ten year period from 1995-2005:
1995 – 3
1996- 01
997- 0
1998- 31
1999- 2
2000- 176
2001- 351
2002- 180
2003- 114
2004- 41
2005- 151
Staggering. Simply Staggering. Let’s take a look at some other reportable CDC risks:
435,000 deaths annually related to tobacco use (18% of total US deaths)*1
85,000 deaths annually related to alcohol use (3.5% of total deaths)*2
45,016 children’s bicycle injuries seen annually in Emergency Departments, nationally*3
60,000 horse related injuries annually, in the US*4
Why doesn’t the government regulate these obviously risky behaviors? It just doesn’t make sense. Or does it? Since 1990, the Dairy council has given over 26 million dollars in reportable campaign contributions.*5 Something tells me that there may be some greed involved.
I think that we don’t realize how many personal freedoms that we assume are there, are really just illusions. When we go to exercise our freedoms, like the right to choose non-pasteurized milk from a local farm over store bought pasteurized milk, we suddenly realize that it isn’t our choice, that someone else has made that choice for us.” Someone” being not an individual that cares for us, but a giant corporation with pockets deep enough to hold sway with the people we choose to represent us.
Perhaps someday, milk will have its day and cows will return to green pastures on small farms that dot the landscape. Perhaps I will live to see that day. In the meantime, I will continue to fight on, blowing away the milk myth. There is truth in numbers and the numbers tell it all.
Andrea J.
1a:MMWR: September 24, 2004 / 53(37);866-870. CDC. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm, Source: Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, pp. 1238, 1241. *3. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 154, No. 11, Nov. 2000 *4. NEISS 1997 Horse Related Injuries, www.eqgroup.com: *5: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?cycle=2008&ind=A04.
