Happy New Year 2017!

Back in 2011, I made the New Year resolution to blog every day during the year. I intended to write mostly about my rural neighborhood, rural life and how politics connects to food. I was struggling for language to communicate to urban folks what's going on here. And, of course, starting on January 1, 2011, I had no idea what the year would be like. I thought I'd talk a little about the weather and how it affects my diverse farm and ecosystem--vegetables and livestock, mostly, and better-than-organic when it comes to management. Surrounded by neighbors raising soybeans and corn, mostly GMO. I am a locavore, and I thought I'd put a few recipes into the blog. But, OMG, what a year it turned out to be! Egyptian Spring! Occupy Wall Street! And here in the Midwest...Occupy St. Louis!! It was a great year, citizen-action-wise, and the protests were mostly peaceful. I'm a big fan of peaceful demonstrations and have written a lot about them. For more on the peaceful protest during the St. Louis Democratic Convention, 1916, see my book The Golden Lane, How Missouri Women Won the Vote and Changed History, published by the History Press. It may have been the first silent protest in the world, and it changed the fight for suffrage. The Golden Lane turned the tide and eventually moved men to give women the vote. Anyway, with the excitement of 2011, my locavore hints and recipes were thrown under the bus and I got completely swept away by the politics, the democracy of it all. Now I'm going to try blogging again. With recipes and hints this time. And with politics. I'm inspired after a fun evening last night with a bunch of local musicians, college guys, who came over for a supper of yummy meatballs with my husband, the fiddler, and me. They loved the meatballs, then hung out and traded tunes for hours while I indulged in the musician-wife secret pleasure: lounging in a cozy corner with a good book while wonderful live music and chatter drifts through the house. So that's the hint on how to spend New Year's Eve and here's my meatball secret: Don't buy that nasty ground beef from the big-box store. It's bad. Even if it's marked "organic," it might come to you with all sorts of environmental or social-justice bad baggage. I buy from a neighbor and I watch how he handles his animals and his pastures all year long. He takes it to my local processor, I pick it up, pay for it, and know what I'm serving my family and friends. And, yeah, I also buy for my friends, so they can enjoy the same good stuff that I do. So if you don't know a farmer, buy from a farmer's cousin. The point is that you want to have complete traceability back to the pasture. Here's the politics: A couple of months ago, consumers lost the right to know even what country our beef comes from. There had been a rule called Country of Origin Labeling--or COOL. Farmers and ranchers fought to keep it because COOL meant that consumers could tell if they were buying meat from the U.S. or from another country. South America is big on beef raising. South America's economy is pretty much in ruins. They're eager to export and they'll sell it cheap. Our processors like to buy cheap. So there ya go presto change-o. The beef at the store becomes NOT beef from the U.S. but beef from (mostly) South America. The next link in the evil chain will be the end of the small-farm beef industry in the U.S. If they can't compete, they'll be selling out and the big growers will be around to buy. As the industry is consolidated, we'll see fewer cows on pasture and more in feedlots. And more land in the hands of big growers. Meaning less land for the young farmers. OK. That's all for today. Much love and happy new year!!