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Sometime around 2 a.m. last night, I woke to the sound of something rummaging in the dog food bin. I threw back the sheet, pulled on my robe, and let Belle, our Border Collie, slip through the screen door. She took off in hot pursuit of whatever creature had been tempted by the temporary location of the pet food. My headlamp beam exposed kibble spilled onto the ground, but the only eyes reflecting back at me are Mooska the cat's, and she's not large enough to have caused the mess.
Belle trots up, wagging her stump tail. I wonder what she chased off. I right the plastic bin and snap the cover securely. I switch the headlamp off. I take a breath. The coolness is a relief after the unusually hot temperatures we've had since I returned from Vermont. Then I look up, and I'm stunned. The Milky Way stretches broad and dense as a frothy spring river, cutting a swath of light across the sky. A part of me wishes to never move from this spot.
Movement. I'm smack in the middle of re-adjusting to the pace and rhythm of ranch life. A sixteen-day trip elsewhere means that when I get back, there've been changes, because life here doesn't halt and wait for me to get home. In some ways I approach it all a bit awkwardly, feeling like a stranger on my homescape. Tinnie the milk cow finally had her calf, a big bull that our intern Kiki named Wiley. She's now nursing him and two dogie calves and they seem to have worked out their mixed family dynamic without too much fuss. A few of our partners came to help finish branding the last few calves. The house is freshly painted, inside and out. I pulled up a few of the potato vines and we enjoyed the incomparable taste of new potatoes for first dinner. It's full-on fly season now. The rains we've been expecting haven't come. Today is Kiki's last day of work, and she'll be headed back to Kentucky on the 15th. Sam's nephew Owen is here to help until our next intern arrives near the end of August.
It's hard to re-fit myself into these working parts that have moved smoothly in my absence. MFA in hand, I no longer have to divide my time between schoolwork and ranch work. It should feel liberating. While I'm looking forward to swapping desk chair for saddle seat, I feel in my absence that I've missed something special. One-on-one time with Kiki before she heads back to her last semester of college. The birth of a long-awaited calf. The last branding of the season, always a milestone. The bright magenta cholla blooms have withered, and there are two lovely teal, brown-speckled eggs in a curve-billed thrasher's nest that was completed during my travels. The sunflowers in my garden have grown a foot, raising their heliotropic faces in a bright statement of joy.
Tucked in the quirkily illustrated text of a new book on untranslatable words, the Swedish "resfber" snagged my attention: "The restless beat of a traveler's heart before the journey begins, a mixture of anxiety and anticipation." This exactly describes the tension I feel about my journey onward. The forward trajectory of the life around me is visible, and I must move with it.]]>
The roadsides are so green that I'm wearing sunglasses. True, the sunshine is pouring down on a perfect late June Saturday afternoon, but the lush greenery we pass feels overwhelming. I'm off the ranch for almost two weeks, midway through Massachusetts on my way to Vermont. After this trip, I'm not sure when I'll be back.
It's the fifth and final segment of my two and half year low residency program. By 4 p.m. on July 5, I'll have an MFA in fiction writing. My graduation garb is in the suitcase behind me. Traveling, I'm still in that transitory space I experience when my rural / minimalist / rancher life and my urban / social / academic life intersect. I love the balance between my two worlds, but sometimes adjusting to the pace of living elsewhere catches me off guard. I realize how much I appreciate simple things, like ice cubes, a corner store, hearing a rich blend of languages on the streets. I know that I'll eat as much seafood as I can stomach, and I'll probably lug a gallon of maple syrup back in my checked bag when I fly home.
Home. Right now, that's the culmination of a storage unit in Springerville, Arizona; odds and ends packed into a spare room in Corona, New Mexico; and the contents of our tiny home camper, which will be emptied in the very near future as we ready to move into the renovated house at Cow Camp Two in July. When I get back home, the novel I've been working on needs to sit for a while before I start (another) round of edits. My garden, which this year includes potatoes, beets, lettuce and leeks, should be ready to sample. We'll have Sam's 17-year-old nephew Owen back for the third summer in a row, to help complete the final section of the steel pipe corrals. Family will be trickling in around August, and we're in the final stages of hiring our second intern for fall.
Somewhere in the midst of all this business and excitement I have to figure out a way to keep writing. After spending two years in a program structured to facilitate furthering my creative work, I have a pretty good idea of what I am capable of producing. The question remains, however, if I'll have the long-term commitment to keep up a writing schedule once school deadlines are a thing of the past. I wonder if I can resist the temptation to connect with a virtual world before I've put in some early morning pages, my best time for creative thought.
It's going to take some discipline and conscious thought to preserve a time of day to do art and write, every day. Practice makes perfect, a horse trainer once said, and perfect practice makes perfect work. While that seems lofty, I identify as a writer now. If I want excellence, I will have to commit to my art. Sometimes it seems that hauling water from the well, cleaning out stock trailers, and watching that cow you've been trailing all afternoon jump the fence is the most important thing. And right in the moment, it is.
Writing and ranching are ways of life built on discipline and a commitment to excellence.
That's how I'm going to approach keeping a space in our busy ranch life for painting, writing short stories, and crafting novels: by allowing myself to stop unproductive multitasking habits, I can stay present in the various sectors of my life, and give my full attention to whatever is at hand.]]>
In the broad region straddling the 100th meridian, where land use shifts from grain farming to livestock grazing, the discussion of new farming and ranching practices has been percolating for years. Meanwhile, lucrative corn profits and federal aid had tilted the advantage to grain over the last two decades, as millions of prairie acres in the Northern Plains were plowed and broken.
But in the late 1990s, about a dozen farmer-ranchers formed the South Dakota Grasslands Coalition, in an attempt to find a less destructive way to farm. The coalition now boasts close to 300 members, and similar grassland groups have sprung up in North Dakota and Nebraska. When I first learned about this developing movement, I figured its protagonists were mostly newly minted hobby farmers, or maybe small organic growers. I was wrong.
The coalition consists of second-, third- and fourth-generation farmers and farmer-ranchers – established, respected operators, with large operations of up to 5,000 acres and more.
One coalition member I visited, a visionary farmer-rancher named Jim Faulstich, runs an 8,000-acre Hyde County spread just east of the 100th meridian. This sweeping landscape, interrupted by well-placed shelterbelts, stretches out as flat and far as the eye can see. As we toured his place, he surprised me with a simple statement: "We watch birds to monitor how we're doing with the land." Then Faulstich rattled off the birds he looks for – bobolink, grasshopper sparrows, sharp-tail grouse, greater prairie chicken and ring-neck pheasant.
"If the birds aren't doing well, we're not doing something right," Faulstich said, sounding more like an environmentalist than a farmer. "When you run your operation in tune with nature, wildlife prospers and the land prospers, too."
He described how he plants more cover crops, pays attention to soils, picks cattle breeds that conform to his landscape and climate, and tries to carefully use and safeguard surface water.
On adjoining properties, there were piles of rock heaped up along road ditches and fence lines, evidence of grasslands that had been transformed into grain fields. The Corn Belt has rapidly pushed west, gobbling up native prairie in its path, but my host – like many others in the Grassland Coalition – is doing exactly the opposite. Faulstich pointed from his pickup to hundreds of acres he has already removed from grain production and restored to prairie.
"We've got a ways to go," he admitted. "But we're on that right path now."
It's interesting to note that this emerging movement, which tries to naturalize an approach to agriculture, didn't begin in Indiana or Iowa, with farmers growing corn, and then spread west from those states. Its genesis came from shortgrass prairie ranchers of the Western Plains, and it moved east from there.
The South Dakota Grasslands Coalition says that 1.8 million acres of grasslands were lost to grain in South Dakota between 2006 and 2012. Coincidence or not, rural areas in the state also saw population losses as grasslands disappeared. Meanwhile, wetlands and sloughs have also disappeared at an alarming clip. The prairie pothole region contains one-tenth of North America's habitat for breeding waterfowl, and 50 percent of the continent's game ducks breed there as well. Farmers in the Corn Belt's western reaches have been destroying ponds and sloughs at the rate of 15,000 acres per year.
Coalition members are self-sufficient and conservative by nature, and they prefer to live quietly rather than being confrontational. Yet they say their kinder-to-the-land practices are attracting attention in farm country.
"There's not many of us right now," said Rick Smith, a coalition member whose farm borders a natural lake and mantles the rolling, fertile terrain of northeast South Dakota. "It's hard for someone to admit that they've been doing it wrong for many years. But once you start paying close attention to how your farming practices affect your ground and water resources, you recognize that you need to adjust and change.
Smith and other coalition members survived skimpy crop prices in the 1980s by cutting expenses, and that led to reducing pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers. That's when they found that their land and soil improved, and many, like Smith, never went back.
"I'm still studying, still looking for better ideas," he added. "My evolution as a farmer is far from over. I'll keep learning new things, and keep improving my operation. My goal is simple. Not only do I want to pursue what's profitable, I want to do what's best for my land, and for the planet."
So, in 1999, Garcia joined a complaint filed by six other parents with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency against the California Department of Pesticide Regulation for re-licensing methyl bromide, a fumigant linked to lung and kidney damage as well as neurological effects. The complaint, known as Angelita C., alleged that pesticides were used more heavily around schools with high Latino populations – a potentially discriminatory practice under civil rights law.
In 2011, after a decade-long investigation, the EPA made its first-ever preliminary finding of environmental discrimination and negotiated a settlement: In exchange for admitting no wrongdoing, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation agreed to put an additional air monitor near the school. For Garcia, the agreement was out of touch and out of date: In the 12 years it had taken the EPA to resolve the case, methyl bromide had been replaced by methyl iodide, a new pesticide linked to other health problems, that the settlement didn't address. Garcia and two of her children sued the EPA in 2013, alleging it mishandled the civil rights investigation and calling for the settlement to be invalidated and for the EPA to complete a new inquiry into the case.
On May 11, an appeals court sided with the original court ruling and affirmed the EPA's 2011 settlement, despite what it called a "lamentable" delay. Last year, the EPA tried to make amends for past missteps by launching a new initiative focused on bringing environmental justice to "overburdened communities." But critics say that structural problems and entrenched politics within the agency make them skeptical that it will make any difference.
The EPA's new plan, "EJ 2020," outlines how the agency will make "a visible difference in environmentally overburdened, underserved, and economically distressed communities." Those efforts include a new mapping tool, which allows regulators to see which communities are excessively burdened by pollution, and commitments to "integrate environmental justice into enforcement, rule-making, and permitting efforts" and "increase collaboration with communities and states."
The plan does very little, however, to strengthen the one tool that advocates say would be most effective at actually addressing environmental racism: Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The provision gives the EPA the authority to ensure agencies that get EPA funding — like the California Department of Pesticide Regulation — don't act in a discriminatory manner. But according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, the EPA's Office of Civil Rights has dismissed nine out of every 10 claims alleging environmental discrimination. And in its 23-year history of processing such claims, the office has never once issued a formal finding of a Title VI violation.
"The EPA created a separation between environmental justice and civil rights enforcement," says Brent Newell, the legal director for the Center for Race Poverty and the Environment (CRPE), a California-based advocacy firm that helped represent Garcia and others. He noted that EJ 2020 contains no concrete details on how the agency will reform its civil rights enforcement.
Newell blamed the omission on institutional politics, which came to light in a CRPE report released last month that examined EPA emails and memos generated during the Angelita C. investigation. Combing through 29,000 documents, Newell and the CRPE team revealed that the EPA's Office for Pesticide Programs blocked the agency's Office for Civil Rights from getting more stringent protection for Latino children from ongoing pesticide exposure. The documents, says Newell, suggest that within the EPA, civil rights law has been relegated to "non-existence."
All government agencies must perform their responsibilities while ensuring those duties do not violate the Civil Rights Act, but according to advocates, the EPA has created the "perception of conflict" between those two missions: On the one hand, it regulates pollutants and sets safety standards. On the other, it's supposed to investigate instances where regulations didn't protect vulnerable communities. So when one arm of the agency, such as the Office for Pesticide Programs, approves a certain chemical for use, agency politics make it difficult for the Office for Civil Rights to rule that its own rules are permitting the very pesticide found to unduly impact a particular racial group.
"That's why our clients in Oxnard were denied justice," says Newell. "The way the EPA enforces environmental law essentially trumps civil rights enforcement."
Those types of politics result in the kind of contradictions present in the Angelita C. settlement. By the time the EPA settled, an international treaty – the 1989 Montreal Protocol – had already banned the use of methyl bromide, drastically curtailing its use. In its place, growers used other highly toxic pesticides approved by the EPA's Office for Pesticide Programs. According to the internal communications examined by the CRPE, the EPA knew this but they kept the investigation into Garcia's complaint focused on the now-defunct methyl bromide.
Documents obtained by the CRPE also reveal how the Office of Pesticide Programs objected to mitigation measures suggested by the Office of Civil Rights, such as impermeable films or buffer zones, since those would call into question the long-term exposure threshold established under its own regulations.
The EPA acknowledges past issues in the Office of Civil Rights and has been working to improve the program. In December, Acting Deputy Stan Meiburg addressed some of the steps the agency was taking to strengthen the complaint process in a blog post. Where possible, however, EJ 2020 states that the agency will try to address the concerns of the affected communities outside of the civil rights enforcement process.
In an email response, the EPA explained the rationale: "There are many environmental justice issues that may not be addressed through Title VI" and noted that the civil rights complaint process is just one of the many tools available to address environmental justice issues.
For advocates, however, the EPA's proposed rule to eliminate the deadlines for investigating the civil rights complaints it receives undermines the agency's efforts to improve its environmental justice focus. (According to the EPA, the rule change is necessary to account for the often lengthy scientific process of determining how pollution can impact people.)
"It's ironic that the one rule they try to advance is to take away the one measure of accountability for conducting a civil rights investigation," says Marianne Engelman Lado, a lawyer for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.
Still, change may come to the agency as it faces mounting pressure from other directions: Last July, communities in five states, including New Mexico and California, sued the EPA for failing to finish investigations that have dragged for more than a decade. The lawsuit, filed by Earthjustice, challenged what it called the agency's "pattern and practice of unreasonable delay…" which has forced residents to endure pollution from dirty industries, including landfills, oil refineries and power plants.
For Engleman Lado, no community should have to wait that long for a resolution. "Until the EPA actually prioritizes Title VI enforcement, it will keep sending out the message that they aren't really serious about civil rights."
Sarah Tory is a correspondent for HCN. Follow @tory_sarah]]>
Since my last Ranch Diary, I've participated both in an ag convention, and my first meeting on the board of the Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance. When I mention that to people, some seem puzzled. Doesn't the AgriFuture conference, hosted by the state of New Mexico, and the alliance, a small non-profit with an emphasis on grassfed production, stand in direct opposition to each other's core values?
There was a time in my life when I would have agreed. I had put real time into the family garden, saving seed, growing heirloom varieties, and learning about the importance of diversity in my food. I was skeptical of Big Ag topics like genetically modified crops and feedlots, and was awfully judgmental of anything but my view of progressive agriculture: Organic, natural and small-farm-raised was the only way to go, and that everyone else was doing it wrong.
I've since relaxed my polarized view, and I think both conventional, commercial ag and small-scale niche market farms and ranches do share common values: quality food production, a superior product, and the desire to serve happy consumers.
I, and many other producers, have found that niche markets are worth pursuing, for reasons other than health or land benefits. Any producer, traditional or nonconventional, is interested in making a premium return on their livestock. Selling grassfed beef, like I'm doing with Big Circle Beef, is just one way to do that. At AgriFuture, I heard about several other interesting ways to make it in the industry. One young producer shared how he maximizes the land base available to him by breeding and raising a modest herd of show cattle, and selling weaned calves for such a high premium that he can support the higher costs associated with operating without economies of scale. Another enterprising young man started his own jerky business, turning cuts of meat that are naturally more sinewy into a high-dollar item. Sam and I did a brief presentation about our path to Triangle P Cattle Company. The room was full of young faces and spirits were high.
I felt that again sitting in the meeting room with my new Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance partners. How to get some diversity into grassfed advocacy, someone asked. How can we take advantage of programs tailored to conventional ranchers and farmers, someone else added. There were adjectives tossed around to describe what about grassfed tastes good to a public with shifting needs. There was a unanimous agreement that the alliance needs to be part of bridging the imagined gap between producers, partnering with folks who don't see eye-to-eye on everything but share the same core values.
This, I thought to myself, is what agriculture is all about. Coming together to problem solve for the future. It may include making concessions to our strong opinions, and being humble enough to realize the division between traditional and progressive agriculture is more imagined than real.]]>
The settlement stems from a 1999 class-action lawsuit, filed by Marilyn and George Keepseagle, ranchers from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. The case claimed the USDA Farm Loan Program illegally discriminated against thousands of Native American farmers and ranchers during the previous two decades, denying them opportunities to receive farm loans, technical assistance and other services routinely offered to white farmers and ranchers. Since many tribal farmers have only partial, or fractionated, shares of parcels due to 20th-century Indian land policies, families often lack land equity and struggle to get loans or credit access for farming — even without facing discriminatory practices. The Obama administration originally settled Keepseagle v. Vilsack in 2010, agreeing to pay $680 million to class action claimants.
"It was a strong case and the government knew that," says Sarah Krakoff, a University of Colorado law professor. "The settlement is very significant and an important recognition by the government of past harmful practices."
But three years later, a whopping $380 million was still unclaimed. The USDA lacked documentation of original loan applications in cases, while Marilyn Keepseagle and others claimed Indians' lack of trust in the government likely discouraged individuals from filing claims. The government threatened to reclaim the unused funds, while plaintiffs asked for more money. A judge instead forced the parties to work on a negotiated settlement, which led to the April announcement. Of the remaining $380 million, $77 million will augment initial payouts to farmers and ranchers, and $38 million will go to nonprofits identified by lawyers, with a "fast-track process" now open to applicants. The remaining $265 million for the endowed trust will be administered by tribes and distributed primarily to nonprofits over 20 years; it's considered the largest ever philanthropic fund for Indian Country.
Ross Racine, executive director of the Montana-based Intertribal Agriculture Council, calls the trust "the fairest and best long-term use of that funding," despite some plaintiffs' criticism of the settlement terms and the amount of money going to nonprofits. Racine anticipates the trust will fund new and existing educational programs and credit-access and lending projects on reservations. For instance, the 1993 American Indian Agricultural Resource Management Act established an educational assistance program for Native American students pursuing agricultural and natural-resources careers, but it never received federal dollars. The Keepseagle trust money could finally launch and fund the program, with a nonprofit group as administrator.
Providing financial and other support for individual and family tribal farmers meets a critical need, Racine says. Another high-profile tribal class-action lawsuit, Cobell v. Salazar, which alleged federal mismanagement of Indian land and mineral trust assets and revenue, was settled in 2009 for $3.4 billion. A large portion of that money, $1.9 billion, has been used to establish a Land Buy-Back Program to acquire tribal members' fractionated land shares and provide money to start a business, farm, or ranch, while also helping to sort out reservations' complicated land ownership issues. But those sales remove lands from family control to tribal ownership, further blocking farmers from building land equity.
"I don't see Cobell enabling individuals to buy land. That land is being bought by the government and being returned to the tribes," Racine says. That's among the reasons the buyback program is off to a slow start, with many Native Americans opting not to sell their land shares (as detailed in a recent HCN feature by Sierra Crane- Murdoch). The Keepseagle trust and settlement, on the other hand, will enable individuals to hold onto land and give them access to credit and other support to pursue enterprises on their family parcels. "This funding will fill a different niche."
Joshua Zaffos is an HCN correspondent in Fort Collins, Colorado. Follow him @jzaffos.]]>
For generations, the aquifer provided enough water to sustain the arid farming community. But beginning in 2002, a multi-year drought shrunk the nearby streams and water table. Farmers and ranchers began to notice the falling levels of the Rio Grande and the rapidly draining aquifer. Some wells throughout the valley abruptly stopped working.
The aquifer dwindled so much that the Closed Basin Project, a Bureau of Reclamation pumping effort that had long met downstream water diversions and delivered flows to the Rio Grande River to maintain the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge, failed to convey enough water to the valley's farms and ranches. "We operate in a highly over-appropriated system," says Cleave Simpson, manager of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, the main water management entity in the San Luis Valley. "Agriculture had overgrown and far outstretched water supply."
Without change, state water regulators could shut off thousands of wells. So the valley's farmers and ranchers, unlike other agriculture communities in the West, did something nearly unprecedented: They decided not to ignore the problem.
In 2006, the Rio Grande Water Conservation District and San Luis Valley water users created the sub-district project, an innovative solution for solving water problems. The plan would charge farmers and ranchers $75 per acre-foot for the groundwater they pumped, and in turn use the funds to pay farmers to fallow portions of their fields, limiting demand on the water supply, as High County News reported in 2013. The experiment began at sub-district 1, the valley's largest of six sub-districts, which sits at the heart of the San Luis Valley in aptly named Centre, just west of the Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Today, four years into the operation of the project after it launched in 2012, the aquifer is rebounding. Water users in sub-district 1 have pumped one-third less water, down to about 200,000 acre feet last year compared to more than 320,000 before the project. Area farmers have fallowed 10,000 acres that once hosted thirsty alfalfa or potato crops. Since a low point in 2013, the aquifer has recovered nearly 250,000 acre-feet of water. By 2021, the sub-district project plans to fallow a total of 40,000 acres, unless the ultimate goal of rebounding the aquifer can be reached through other conservation efforts, like improving soil quality and rotating to more efficient crops.
The plan's proponents say it provides a template for groundwater management in other arid communities whose agricultural economies are imperiled by drought. "The residents of the valley know that they are in this together, and that the valley has overgrown the water available to us," says Craig Cotten, Almosa-based division engineer for the Colorado Division of Water Resources. "This is a water user-led solution, which makes it unique. I really think this can be a model."
Crucially, the plan is state-mandated, which requires everyone to either participate in a district, fallow their fields or work with water engineers to develop their own augmentation plans, which in turn need to be approved by state water courts. Those choices — paying premiums for groundwater or scaling down operations significantly — have been tough for farmers. Nevertheless, Simpson says the valley's water users have gotten on board. "It's not comfortable but most everyone has really come forward," Simpson says. "It's a bit of a paradigm shift for farmers who are individualistic and don't typically work together — but by necessity they realize that we will bankrupt ourselves if we continue to stretch our water resource."
But water users in the San Luis Valley have also gone beyond the call of duty, says Heather Dutton, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District. While the SLVWCD helps include users in its augmentation plan as an alternative to joining the sub-district project, Dutton says that few water users have gone that route. That's partly because farmers and ranchers themselves have helped create the sub-district rules, through participating in public meetings and getting involved with the board of managers. "This has been a good exercise in self-governance," Dutton says. "It's been a success story in people coming together and trying things that my grandpa's era would have thought were crazy."
Although sub-district 1 has proved a success, the broader sub-district project remains in its fledging stages. In March, Colorado District Court in Rio Grande County mandated that sub-district 2, a cluster of a hundred or so wells between Monte Vista and Del Norte, unroll as phase two of the program. The second district is currently forming a board of managers to develop official rules for farmers and ranchers within the territory. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District is still working with valley residents to implement the remaining four sub-districts.
Still, the project's first phase has been encouraging for residents. Patrick O'Neill grew up in Central California's San Joaquin Valley and first came to the San Luis Valley in 1998 to work as an intern at Agro Engineering, a consulting company. Though he later returned to his family farm in California, he came to feel that the Central Valley, built on its own wasteful groundwater use, was not sustainable. He returned to the San Luis Valley in 2005, where he now owns Soil Health Services in Alamosa and works with area farmers and ranchers to improve soil health. "I chose this place in a very deliberate way for my home because there's potential for putting our water system back into balance," O'Neill says. "People here are much more conscious of how much water they are using."
George Whitten, a long-time rancher, says the drought has provided a tough but valuable lesson for the San Luis Valley. "It's a beautiful segue," he says. "The drought has caused people here to think about the future. Soil is no longer just a medium to put seeds in and water isn't endless. It may take awhile, but I think we will wind up as a healthier community because we had to come together to restore the aquifer."
This story is part of the "Small towns, big change" project through the Solutions Journalism Network.
Paige Blankenbuehler is an editorial fellow at High Country News. She tweets @paigeblank]]>
A recent study published in Nature Climate Change, by a researcher from Colorado State University and an international team of scientists, examined everything from meat consumption to smaller pastures to grazing and found plenty of ways ranchers, farmers, and consumers can make a dent in emissions.
Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock come from a variety of sources. About 1.6 billion to 2.7 billion tons of greenhouse gases each year – mostly methane – are produced from livestock digestion, according to the study. When cows eat grass, microbes inside their stomachs degrade the fiber, eventually turning it into methane, which is released when they burp (and fart, for that matter). Methane is the second-most prevalent greenhouse gas behind carbon dioxide, but has over 86 times the warming potential.
About 3 billion tons of nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas, comes from growing corn, soybeans and other crops for livestock feed. And another billion tons of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, come from clearing forests for animal pastures.
There have been many proposed fixes for consumers and farmers to reduce emissions, but most fall under one of two umbrellas: stop eating meat, or find technological advancements for farming.
"(We wanted) to think about ways to reduce emissions associated with both reducing consumption of livestock products, and the technical approaches," says Rich Conant, ecology professor at Colorado State who worked on the research, noting that the group was one of the first to compare options and combine solutions put forward by both camps.
The study analyzed data on soil carbon, livestock systems, and manufacturing processes and found that better management of land and livestock globally could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by roughly half or by over 2 billion tons a year.
"Greenhouse gas emissions are often a sign of waste in the system," says Conant. Most research, including this study, focused on the cattle industry because it emits so much methane. For instance, dairy cows burp methane even when they aren't producing milk. The same goes for beef cows that take a long time to fatten up. One way to solve that problem, the study found, is to have less cattle and intensify farm practices by speeding up the growing process. The challenge is how to do that in a way that's environmentally friendly and healthy for the animals.
Diet shifts could also cut into methane emissions. When cows eat corn or soy-based feed or overgrown grass, their bodies can't digest it as easily, leading to more burps. And the more fibrous cows diets are, the more fibrous manure they produce, which is another source of methane emissions. Some researchers add supplements to cattle feed like chemical compounds or oils and herbs, which kill some of the microbes that turn food into methane. It's been proven to work, says Ermias Kebreab, director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis, but at best, he says it could reduce methane production up to 30 percent. "We have to realize animal biology and microbes have evolved together for millions of years," Kebreab added. "You can only do so much."
A related focus of the paper was responsible grazing. Using herders or electric fences, ranchers can move cattle to fresh pastures every few days, or more frequently, allowing grass restoration. Research shows it also improves digestion because younger grass is easier to digest, which means fewer cow burps.
It improves soil quality, allowing soil to store more carbon. That's why well-managed rangelands can help offset greenhouse gas emissions from cattle, says Courtney White, co-founder of the Quivira Coalition, a conservation organization of ranchers, environmentalists and scientists. "If you can't do grazing management, I don't think you can change the methane issue," he added.
But there are systemic barriers that prevent those kinds of change in the meat industry, the study showed. There is little data on the conditions of rangelands, which makes it tricky to see which ranchers may need to change their practices.
And costs can prevent farmers from making other greenhouse gas-saving shifts: The researchers noted that adoption of technical solutions like anaerobic digesters that convert cow manure into energy is low because there is little incentive to put in the time and money.
The study also showed that consumers have an important role to play too. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American eats 71 pounds of red meat and 54 pounds of poultry each year, and changing their eating habits to emphasize more plant-based sources could reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly. But it's unclear if that will happen because as the global population grows, Conant says, meat and dairy consumption are likely to increase.
Experts say setting realistic expectations is a first step, since there's no such thing as zero-emissions cattle. "We can't stop it," Kebreab says. "But we could drive it as low as we can."
Lyndsey Gilpin is an ediorial intern at High Country News.]]>
We are a tiny David compared to Harmoni Spice of Zhengzhou, China, the largest importer of Chinese garlic, and Christopher Ranch in Gilroy, California, the primary distributor of Harmoni's garlic. Harmoni and Christopher Ranch are the Goliaths of our industry.
All we did was file a formal request with the U.S. Department of Commerce for an administrative review of Harmoni Spice's anti-dumping rate, which is "zero." Duties are imposed in this country on some 300 products to raise the price of imported products so that they are closer to domestic prices. A rating of "zero" means that no duty is imposed.
At over 19 million metric tons a year, China is now the world's largest producer of garlic, while the United States is down to a mere 175,000 metric tons. Currently, the wholesale price of garlic in China is $1 a kilo, and this has enabled Harmoni Spice, the only garlic importer that pays no duty, to undercut U.S. producers for the past 10 years. Anti-dumping duties, which can run as high as $4.71 a kilo, would serve to level the playing field for U.S. producers, bringing the price of imported garlic in line with U.S. wholesale prices.
Harmoni maintains its zero duty rate through a loophole in Commerce Department regulations, which allows an "interested domestic party" of "like product" to ask for an administrative review and then to withdraw its request for that review. This is where the loophole comes in.
Every year for the past 10 years, the California-based Fresh Garlic Producers Association, of which Christopher Ranch is the largest player, has first requested administrative reviews of a number of Chinese garlic importers, and then, just at the deadline, withdrawn Harmoni Spice from the process. The result is that Harmoni's zero rate gets rubberstamped without review. Until now, no other growers have contested the situation, presumably for fear of tangling with the garlic Goliaths.
Ted Hume, a trade attorney with 40 years' experience, moved to Taos with his artist wife last summer, after staying in the B&B on our garlic farm. On my behalf (and later with Boxcar Farm), he filed a request for administrative review.
We expected some pushback, but Harmoni's lawyers have buried us in some 2,000 pages of filings with the Department of Commerce. They also filed what is patently a SLAPP suit – a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation – against a total of 21 defendants, including us. Recently, both Avrum and I were visited by a private investigator, who claimed he wanted to grow garlic in Texas. We didn't believe him.
The lawsuit and Harmoni's filing with the Department of Commerce are attempts to get us to withdraw our review request and thereby enable Harmoni to retain its zero anti-dumping duty rate. We think Harmoni is attempting to interfere with our constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances. And we realize that this may be a long, drawn-out battle, but we're hoping it will end in a level playing field for U.S. garlic growers.
Perhaps a larger issue is that that other U.S. producers have gamed the import duty system in a similar way, allowing them to profit from the funneling of cheap Chinese goods, both agricultural and manufactured. The Department of Commerce, in short, may be allowing millions if not billions of dollars to slip through taxpayers' fingers, destroying countless jobs in the process.
As trade attorney Bill Perry told the Los Angeles Business Journal, "The whole system certainly smells to high heaven."
International trade law is an arcane subject, seemingly remote from everyday life. But every time you stop into a Wal-Mart or Family Dollar, you're already knee-deep in it. And it is certainly true whenever you buy supermarket garlic. Think before you shop. Garlic should add flavor to life, not be part of a system that "smells to high heaven."
Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr user ilovebutter.]]>
I'm sitting at the tiny table in our camper sipping a mug of black tea. Mist hides Pajarita Mountain and the junipers are dark vague shapes in the rain. I'm tired and sore, with blisters on my hands from roping yesterday, and all I want to do is slip back under the down comforter to the hum of the heater and go back to sleep.
Sam, Jim (who is back for a second season to tend the steers in Lower Elk at the other end of our lease on the Mescalero Apache Reservation), and a friend from Luna, are out horseback in the drizzle, checking to make sure any cows and calves that got separated during yesterday's range branding have found each other. Three hundred and sixteen: That's how many calves we've branded so far, with a few more brandings to go. While we lost a few cows and calves to birthing complications, the herd is healthy and the calves are vigorous.
Triangle P's new four year lease agreement with the Mescalero Apache tribe includes a shared agreement to fix up the old house here at Cow Camp Two. Triangle P will pay for the labor, and the tribe will supply the materials. A check from the tribe has arrived at the local lumberyard, and materials are being put together for delivery to our camp. Preparing lunch for a crew of 13 in the tiny kitchen yesterday, I was reminded that my days of using the floor and sinks for holding surfaces would be over soon. While I can't wait, it's bittersweet to think about moving out of our little home.
But the camper will stick around, for now: It will become intern housing as soon as we move into the house. In the interim, we're setting up a wall tent for our first official Triangle P intern, a young woman from Kentucky who's arriving two weeks from May Day. A few days after we settle Kiki in, Sam and I are off to Las Cruces to share our stories at the AgriFuture conference for new producers, and we'll be attending our first Southwest Grassfed Livestock Alliance (SWGLA) meeting as board members the following week.
Ranching, and the resulting product, beef, is not all about cattle: It's about people, from producer to consumer. Since the Triangle P cattle know the pastures, gates, and water points now, this summer should not be as demanding as last year was. It's impossible to project, but barring major natural disasters, we're heading into the summer months in pretty good shape overall. Kiki, our intern, will be staying for eight weeks; Sam's nephew is coming for five weeks the third year in a row to help us out. This makes me happy, as I envision Triangle P Cattle Company to be a mini-community: Yesterday, with folks sprawled all over the porch and in camp chairs, balancing plates of sloppy joes and potato salad, it felt just right. Among the folks who helped us brand yesterday were three tribal members, a Cornell graduate, a veterinarian, a seven-year-old girl, the VP of the New Mexico Soil and Water Conservation Districts, and a milk buyer. There is room in ranching for everyone, and for the future here, it's my goal to facilitate a space where people can see that in action.]]>
Other farmers in the area were facing the same issues, so a local farmer-networking group called the Arkansas Valley Organic Growers decided they had to find a better way to support local food. In 2013, they leased out Excelsior Middle School in nearby Boone, which had sat vacant for two decades. Their idea was to use the building as a community food hub: Local farmers pay a fee to the organization to bring their food to the school building, where it's sold wholesale at an affordable price for consumers. That way, the hub can compete with chain grocery stores. Instead of traveling to markets every week and advertising their own products, farmers store their surplus in freezers there, and workers at the hub are responsible for marketing, selling and distributing the food to customers, hospitals, and schools in Pueblo and across the region.
The Excelsior Farmers Exchange now has a chile roaster, seed storage area, and a full commercial kitchen so members can process and prepare food, which allows them an opportunity to expand their product lines. And Hobbs, one of the first farmers to sell there, only has to drive five miles to drop off his produce. To yield a larger amount of crops, he now grows a smaller variety and sells for less than he did at markets, but he crunched the numbers – working with the hub is already paying off.
Nationally, the demand for local food is far outpacing the supply farmers can provide. As the general public becomes more aware of how distant we are from the farmers who grow what we eat, more organizations are emphasizing local food production as a means to support rural economies. But much of the increased access has been in urban areas; food hubs are one way for rural communities to have access to local food, too. To make it work, however, farmers have to shift growing practices and cooperate with local organizations, and governments may need to provide the physical infrastructure, if local organizations can't afford to lease on their own like the Arkansas Valley Organic Growers did.
Currently, there are at least 16 food hubs in the works or already functioning across Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado. The Valley Roots Food Hub in the San Luis Valley, for example, has an online market for meats, eggs and produce. They deliver and offer pickup at small distribution centers in Saguache, Salida and Alamosa. The La Montanita food co-op, which has been running community supported agriculture programs for 40 years, now brings together dozens of local vendors in a hub and distributes produce across northern New Mexico.
"A lot of small farms in our region have really been innovators, pioneers and early adopters of things, but they lack volume of production and scale," Hobbs says.
To help these rural food systems grow, the Department of Agriculture is putting more resources into food hub funding and research, building on older local food initiatives. In the 1990s, it tracked farmers market development, which increased in the 2000s with the agency's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative. By 2008, Congress had provided over $10 million to fund direct farmer-to-consumer sales like agrotourism and food cooperatives; and in 2014, amendments to the Farm Bill focused more on local food promotion, aggregation, and distribution. From 2009 to 2015, the department put about $1 billion into 40,000 local food infrastructure projects across the country.
Still, even though the department increasingly spends money on these types of programs, it pales in comparison to how much money they provide for large-scale or industrial farming. "USDA needs to represent all of agriculture," says John Fisk, director of the Wallace Center, a nonprofit that does regional food development and works with USDA on some local food initiatives. "Is [this] a large investment compared to commodity agriculture or other areas?" he says. "No. But it's a start."
To measure the impact of these local food systems, Colorado State University researchers helped the department develop a toolkit to assess the economic effects of local food systems, with guidelines for finance planning, marketing, and public-private partnerships.
The government also funded 10 food hubs across the country that will serve as case studies over the next three years to build out a baseline dataset about the effects food hubs have on rural economies and how they work best. In addition to the fundraising, coordination, and planning efforts they require within communities, they also need to meet certain federal or state standards to be able to scale up their operations. For instance, the Wallace Center is working with USDA to develop a program for hubs to attain food safety certification so they can access larger markets.
After three years, the Excelsior Farmers Exchange has encouraged Pueblo residents to buy more food locally and helped farmers reach new customers in the region. But food hubs can't solve all of a community's food challenges – and they shouldn't try to. To stay in business, it's important to choose a goal, says Becca Jablonski, an agricultural economist at CSU. That could be improving profitability for small and mid-scale producers, supporting beginning farmers who want to break into regional markets, or enhancing food access for low-income populations. "Food hubs can take many forms," she says. "And they should, depending on what the community needs."
Lyndsey Gilpin is an editorial intern at HCN. She tweets @lyndseygilpin]]>
Amid a patchwork of regulations, marijuana is becoming a legitimate industry in the West, but there's still a lot of confusion about who can grow (or smoke) what, and where, and what sort of distinction should exist between recreational and medical usage. Proponents of medical marijuana are careful not to judge recreational users, but many do worry that issues in the recreational market could threaten what they see as a very necessary treatment for a variety of illnesses, ranging from multiple sclerosis to cancer to PTSD.
On the most recent episode of Range, we spoke with Eva Grossman, a patient who had such great results from medical marijuana that she became something of an evangelist, eventually selling her house in Florida and moving across the country to Nevada, where she now runs the state's first medical cannabis outpost, Sierra Wellness.
Homepage photo: Starbuds store manager Peter Mutty displays a marijuana strain called godfather OG in in Pueblo, Colorado. Photo by Brooke Warren]]>
My eyes slowly focused. The dark shape grew edges. It was a tiny black calf with a very strange face.
Then I remembered my friend telling me about a dogie whom coyotes had attacked. This calf's jaw was fixed partway open. I couldn't tell in the dark, but from the photos she'd texted me, this little guy was lucky to be alive: his rear had been chewed up, and his jaw was broken and infected when they found him. After steroids, antibiotics, and pain medication, the calf perked up. But how to swallow with a malfunctioning mouth? Like so many animal survivors I've seen, his will to live was remarkably strong, and he soon figured out how to manage a bottle nipple.
I had plenty of material to mull on during my two-hour drive home. The intersection between domestic and wild lives isn't always harmonious. In the years that I've been ranching, I've seen depredations by wolves, bears and coyotes. Raising domestic livestock has given me a picture of what happens in the wild. I don't want to see the picked-clean, nose-less skull of a calf still wedged in a cow's birth canal, her vulva eaten away as she struggled to give birth. Yet I can image a cow elk or moose in the same situation. I haven't had to shoot a domestic cow in this condition yet, but my husband has. I can only assume the end result for a wild animal mother is far less humane.
It's easy to valorize nature as the efficient machine that only takes what she needs to survive. But nature is not merciful. In addition to killing for survival, nature kills without conscience or remorse. Nature tortures, maims, and leaves the wounded. When we choose to ranch on a wild landscape, that's part of the risk we take. While we plan for a certain percentage of death loss to predators, it doesn't make it easier to find the aftermath of an attack.
I respect that I share a landscape with predators who play an important role in the ecosystem. As a young teen I had a summer job for a wildlife film company. I raised and cared for timberwolves, Arctic fox kits, and coyote pups. I loved and cared for them loyally, just as I now care deeply about each and every Triangle P calf that comes into the world.
But now I cannot be 100 percent neutral about depredation, because my job is to keep our cattle safe and make a viable living from raising them to maturity. As my responsibilities have changed, so, to some degree, has my relationship with nature. I love seeing wildlife, sunsets, and Pajarita Mountain peeking up through low hanging clouds, like it is this morning. It's stunning here. Yet somewhere out beyond the sunny juniper covered hillsides is some smaller being struggling for its life.]]>
Before subsistence-based living was cool, I was doing it, much to my twelve-year-old self's dismay. A compost heap sprouting volunteer tomatoes and monstrous comfrey plants sprawled at the edge of the backyard. Summer vacations were a marathon of weeding and watering two large and abundant gardens. The worst task was picking potato bugs off a thousand hills of potatoes. Beef was a luxury, so my siblings and I hunted to fill our freezers with wild game for the winter.
For years after leaving home, I hid that part of my past, embarrassed of my thrifty, make-do upbringing. During my first year of college, I cringed when my grandmother sent me a quilt made from feed sack fabric and a pair of mittens knitted in vibrant colors. Then one night at a potluck party in Billings, Montana, someone showed up with a duck — a freshly shot, raw one. Perhaps the beer left me feeling uninhibited. I took over the kitchen, and commenced to dress and then pluck the bird, ultimately roasting it with bacon draped over its knobby breast. Since then, I've accepted that subsistence-based ways are a family tradition I'm proud of. Yet the issue is complex: Subsistence doesn't mean sustainable, and sustainable isn't necessarily regenerative, a word I've been pondering this spring.
Here on the ranch, I like to think I'm doing a pretty good job with the sustainable part. We refill our 55-gallon water reservoir every three or four days. We eat beef we raised right here and pork from the neighbor ten miles away. I try to buy in bulk and I cook pretty much everything from scratch. I plan to have a larger garden this year. That seems pretty sustainable, and sometimes I get a little cocky about it.
But here's where I have my work cut out for me: adding "regenerative" to "sustainable." Regeneration means to "bring new and more vigorous life" to something. Am I doing that now? Can I stop getting hung up on the availability of natural or organic foods, and find a way to create healthy soil here so I can grow my own instead? Can I find a way to give back to the land if I take from it? Grazing can do this, if done with care. Perhaps I can find a fruit tree to plant once we move into the house, something the birds and I can both enjoy. Instead of lamenting that it's a three-hour drive to find my favorite clothing brands, I can be content wearing second-hand more, while making conscious, intentional decisions about what I do purchase.
Browsing a popular magazine recently, I was surprised by a clothing ad that claimed, "Clothes are an agricultural act." Until recently, I hadn't considered apparel agricultural, or considered its regenerative capacities. After hearing a talk by Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed last fall, I've changed my mind. I recently selected three colors of hand-spun, plant-dyed wool for my mother-in-law to knit into a sweater for me. Wearing something made completely by hand — from grazing sheep for land health to eliminating the effects of toxic dyes on the environment — can be regenerative, and something I feel I can spend my money on with a clear conscience.
In trading sustainable for regenerative, there's a shift from a "this works" mentality, to "this thrives." I eagerly await pictures of the sweater in progress. As I make my small changes, whether it has to do with being in my thirties now, being more self-aware, or a result of my struggle to reconcile my values with actuality, I'm feeling more grounded than ever before.
My grandmother's quilt is on my bed as I write, and the mittens are nestled among my winter clothes.]]>
Yet smart natural resource management benefits soils, plants, wildlife and people. So, as someone who has spent many years as a sheepherder, I want to cast some light on the issue of foreign herders, rather than turn up the heat.
For three years, my husband and I practiced the "world's second-oldest profession" – herding our sheep ourselves. We rose before dawn, made sure the animals had access to feed and water, rode around the flock to set the day's perimeter for rotational grazing, and tried to fend off predators. We partnered with our border collies, livestock guardian dogs, and reliable horses. In the summer, we rode out on horseback at first light. When the heat of the day settled in, the ewes and lambs napped until evening brought cool, and we napped, too. In the short winter days when snow covered the ground, we'd feed corn and extra hay to the pregnant ewes.
It was, and is, a vocation that follows the seasons, the sun and the moon, and the weather. It was, and is, a satisfying life. We still produce food and fiber with sheep, though these days our responsibilities include running a complicated ranch. I tell people, "We raise sheep, cattle, horses, dogs and children."
Our livelihood depends upon skilled sheepherders. They live much as we did, in sheep wagons that are moved on a regular basis, always following the seasons and the grass. They usually lack electricity and running water, but the wagons are nicer than they were in our day. They come with solar panels, DVD players and cellphones. Still, it is mostly a solitary life.
Our sheepherders come from Peru on H-2A visas, which allow them to live and work for three consecutive years. As non-immigrant employees, they must go home for at least three months before returning to the U.S. Most of our shepherds fulfill their three-year contracts and often return for many contracts. Many have children, and choose to leave home in order to provide an education and a better life for their families. In Peru, alternative jobs mostly involve mining under dangerous conditions, or working on the road crews that build access to Peruvian ports for the Chinese.
Herding sheep is a job that virtually no American citizen wants to do. A worker shortage in almost all agricultural production jobs has been the norm since the post-World War II years. The process to acquire the H-2A visas for these non-immigrant legal workers is so Byzantine that it costs the employer around $4,000 and the prospective employee around $1,000 just to get started.
The employee must be experienced and skilled in livestock handling. The employer must provide room, board, basic necessities, workers' compensation insurance, and travel to and from the home country. The wages are set by the Department of Labor.
Several groups, mostly with legal backgrounds, have made sheepherder visas their "cause célèbre." They accuse ranchers like us of being slavers, and seek out disgruntled former herders, some of them now illegal, to file complaints. They cite one ranch that has been notorious for abusing employees and characterize that as the norm. But remember: Herders are in the United States legally. They work under the protection of the law.
Recently, the Department of Labor enacted broad changes to rules and regulations. It mandated higher wages that come to around $1,200 per month before benefits. Most growers already paid wages higher than the previous minimum of $750. Now the Labor Department is slow-tracking visas, jeopardizing livestock and crops, farms and ranches, and the workers, stuck in limbo without jobs.
Groups like "Toward Justice" have filed a steady stream of lawsuits, but ironically, those involved in the litigation industry against employers have come full circle. Their allies include extremists who wish to remove all grazers from the landscape and those on the far right who want no immigrant labor at all.
Meanwhile, it seems that every category of food production is being attacked through public-relations campaigns and lawsuits. While local food production and farmers' markets can feed some folks, every aspect of growing food involves a lot of labor — labor that most Americans have neither the time nor desire to perform.
Attacking pastoralists serves no one. The charge that it is somehow unsavory to live a remote life while doing the ancient and honorable work of tending livestock is disrespectful to those of us who have chosen this path.


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Simon's Cat
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|Simon's Cat
The front cover of the Simon's Cat book.
|physical comedy, slapstick, sitcom
|Created by
|Simon Tofield
|Developed by
|Simon's Cat Ltd.
|Directed by
|Simon Tofield
|Voices of
|Simon Tofield
|Country of origin
|United Kingdom
|Original language(s)
|No. of episodes
|Running time
|Varies, usually 1–3 minutes per episode
|Production company(s)
|Simon's Cat Ltd.,Tandem Films, ChannelFlip
|Original network
|Picture format
|1080p 16:9 HDTV
|Original release
|4 March 2008– Present
|External links
Simon's Cat is an animated cartoon and book series by the British animator Simon Tofield featuring a hungry house cat who uses increasingly heavy-handed tactics to get his owner to feed him.
In January 2009, it was announced that Simon's Cat would be published in book format.[1] Canongate released the title on 1 October 2009 in the United Kingdom. It was later released in many other countries[2] and additional titles in the series were subsequently published.
In June 2012, Walt Disney Animation Studios began releasing specially-made shorts of Simon's Cat, while a Simon's Cat newspaper strip ran in the Daily Mirror from 2011 to 2013.[3] In August 2015, it was announced that Endemol UK had acquired a stake on Simon's Cat.[4]
In July 2016, Simon's Cat partnered with Sesame Street as part of their Love to Learn campaign.[5]
The series was animated with Adobe Flash software until 2014, then with TVPaint.[citation needed] The pictures are hand-drawn electronically, using an A4-size Wacom Intuos 3 graphics tablet.[6]
Creator Simon Tofield revealed that his four cats, called Teddy, Hugh, Jess and Maisie, provide inspiration for the series, with Hugh being the primary inspiration.[6][7]
- Simon's Cat: The titular character. His antics, often in the quest for food, vex his owner Simon. He loves cat food, but also enjoys birds, mice, and fish out of Simon's koi pond. A significant amount of the humour in the book comes from his efforts to capture birds, mice, and fish. Simon's cat has not been officially named, though writer Simon Tofield says that Simon's cat is based on his own cat, Hugh.[8]
- Simon: The long-suffering owner of the cat.
- Simon's sister's dog: A dog that first appears in the video "Fed Up," in which he is fed underneath the table by a family. The dog also appears in the book and loves to play fetch.
- The Bird: A bird who appears in "Snow Business." It provokes Simon's cat into a snowball fight. The bird also appears in various other episodes as a squeaky toy ("Santa Claws," "Hidden Treasure", "Cat Nap", "Suitcase" and "Catnip").
- The Hedgehog: A hedgehog that lives in Simon's back garden. Simon's cat loves to annoy the hedgehog by impaling objects such as apples, leaves, and tennis balls onto its prickles. The hedgehog also has children. The hedgehog appeared exclusively in the book until the release of "Cat Chat" on 7 October 2010.
- The Garden Gnome: A garden gnome similar to the one broken by Simon's cat in "Let Me In." The gnome is seen holding either a fishing rod or a net. Simon's cat often tries to get the gnome to help in his schemes to catch food. The cat considers the gnome a friend, apparently unaware that it is an inanimate object.
- The Bunny: A rabbit that lives in Simon's garden who can literally run circles around the cat.
- The Kitten: In October 2011, Simon brought home a new member of the family who, in spite of his tender age, appears to be considerably smarter than his adult counterpart.
- The Frog:The frog also lives in the garden. In the episode "Tongue Tied" Simon's cat annoys the frog by biting and hitting it.
- The Squirrel: The squirrel lives in a tree in Simon's back yard. He loves to pelt Simon's Cat with acorns when the cat chases him.
- The Mouse: Another creature that is often chased by Simon's Cat. Despite their adversarial relationship, the mouse aided Simon's Cat in an elaborate plot intended to impress a female cat in "Smitten." The mouse also appears as a squeaky toy in many episodes, such as "Hidden Treasure" and "Cat & Mouse."
- The Female Cat: A female cat who serves as the love interest in the Valentines Specials "Smitten" and "Butterflies". Demure and somewhat snobbish, she exhibits a finicky appetite, munching on a trail of cat treats but angrily refusing a mouse offered by Simon's Cat in the first film. Simon's Cat apparently loses interest in her after she unceremoniously devours a butterfly he gives her as a gift. In a recent episode of "Simon's Cat Logic", the female cat's name was revealed to be Chloe.
|Title (Simon's Cat in)
|Original YouTube airdate
|"Cat Man Do"
|4 March 2008
|Cat goes to extreme measures to get Simon out of bed in the morning. "Cat Man Do" won the "Best Comedy" award at the British Animation Awards 2008.[9]
|"Let Me In!"
|4 March 2008
|Cat goes to great lengths to get through the glass rear door until Simon comes to let him in.
|"TV Dinner"
|15 July 2008
|Cat just won't leave his master alone for a second as he attempts to watch television. The episode was shown on BBC2's The Culture Show on 15 July 2008[10] before being released on YouTube.[11]
|"Fed Up!"
|8 December 2008
|A lesson in over-consumption goes to an eagerly overeating dog and the family as they drop scraps to eat at the dinner table. The original title was "Simon's Sister's Dog in: Fed Up!"; it did not feature the cat. It ends with a message from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
|"Fly Guy"
|24 July 2009
|A game of Cat and Fly has undesired results for Simon.
|"Hot Spot"
|28 September 2009
|Cat has to find a way to get under the warm glow of his master's drawing lamp. It was released shortly before its book's release.
|"Snow Business"
|10 February 2010
|A day of play turns cold when Cat discovers that it is snowing. It is the first appearance of the bird.
|"The Box"
|18 August 2010
|Leaving an empty box unattended around Cat will produce undesired results.
|"Cat Chat"
|7 October 2010
|The last thing this hedgehog wants for a gabbing partner is a cat with a short attention span. First animated appearance of the hedgehog character.
|"Lunch Break"
|12 November 2010
|Cat's clever move of pulling the tablecloth out from underneath the dishes could use a little work.
|"Santa Claws"
|10 December 2010
|Cat's Christmas gives him new trees to climb and new ornaments to paw at.
|"Sticky Tape"
|28 February 2011
|Cat meets a new, transparent adversary.
|"Hop It"
|21 April 2011
|Cat tries to "Easter" into a new routine.
|"Hidden Treasure"
|16 June 2011
|A game of catch the ball turns into a treasure hunt when Cat's ball hides itself in the gaping darkness beneath the refrigerator.
|"Cat & Mouse"
|2 September 2011
|Cat messes around with the computer mouse.
|"Double Trouble"
|7 October 2011
|Cat gets a new hungry flatmate. First appearance of the kitten.
|23 November 2011
|The kitten nuzzles in on a sleeping Cat.
|"Fowl Play"
|14 December 2011
|Cat has plans for Christmas dinner.
|"Shelf Life"
|14 March 2012
|The cat causes mischief when walking along a shelf.
|"Tongue Tied"
|25 May 2012
|The cat meets a frog.
|"Window Pain"
|9 July 2012
|Cat and kitten thwart Simon's attempts to clean a window.
|"Ready, Steady, Slow!"
|4 August 2012
|The cat and friends cheer on a snail race.
|4 October 2012
|The cat scales to new heights in search of supper.
|29 October 2012
|The cat plays a disastrous game of fetch with an eager dog.
|"Nut Again"
|23 November 2012
|The cat is tormented by a playful but malicious squirrel.
|7 December 2012
|The cat tries to catch a fish trapped under a frozen pond, only to be thwarted by the kitten.
|"Feed Me"
|4 February 2013
|Cat can't wait to be fed.
|"Screen Grab"
|12 April 2013
|Cat, kitten, and a flatscreen TV.
|"Flower Bed"
|14 June 2013
|The cat waits impatiently to be fed while Simon plants a flower garden.
|2 August 2013
|The cat packs Simon's suitcase.
|"Mirror Mirror"
|13 September 2013
|Cat sees his own reflection in a mirror on a door.
|"Scary Legs"
|25 October 2013
|Cat tries to kill a spider, which Simon is afraid of, but the spider doesn't die. Halloween Special episode.
|"Christmas Presence (Part 1)"
|7 December 2013
|Cat finds a robotic singing Santa Claus dummy.
|"Christmas Presence (Part 2)"
|17 December 2013
|The Santa Claus dummy is used by Cat to get Kitten out of Cat's bed.
|3 February 2014
|Cat falls in love with another cat and decides to impress her.
|"Crazy Time"
|3 April 2014
|Cat causes another mess in Simon's home, this time from a sudden frenzy.
|5 June 2014
|Cat sabotages Simon's attempt to take a photo of the kitten.
|"Hot Water"
|31 July 2014
|Cat causes a mess in the bathroom while Simon takes a shower.
|"Washed Up"
|5 September 2014
|The Cat chases a spider into the laundry room, and then tries to take a nap, with disastrous results.
|"Scaredy Cat"
|9 October 2014
|Cat manages to terrify Simon during Halloween.
|"Let Me Out"
|6 November 2014
|The cat wants to be fed ruins his owners morning!
|4 November 2014
|The cat has fun with a catnip toy. Christmas Special Episode.
|12 February 2015
|Simon's cat tries to impress the female cat by bringing her a box full of butterflies. Valentine's Special Episode.
|"April Showers"
|2 April 2015
|Simon's cat tries to catch a bird in the lawn on a rainy day but Kitten scares the bird away and locks the cat outside. April's Fools Day episode.
|"Pizza Cat"
|20 August 2015
|The cat wants Simon's pizza.
|"Box Clever"
|1 October 2015
|The cat does everything possible to avoid a visit to the vet.
|"Pug Life"
|5 November 2015
|The cat has trouble eating around the cone of shame, and is annoyed by a friendly Pug
|"Snow Cat"
|3 December 2015
|Festive Special Episode
|"Tough Love"
|4 February 2016
|Valentine's Day Special Episode
|"Fast Track"
|7 April 2016
|Simon plays slot cars, the cat spoils the fun.
|"Field Trip"
|12 May 2016
|The cat is let loose in the wild.
|"Muddy Paws"
|3 June 2016
|The cat attempts to do some spring cleaning.
Simon's Cat Logic[edit]
A series of animated cartoons with embedded live footage, that explains cats' traits and behaviour and what can be done to keep them happy and healthy. It is introduced and narrated by Simon Tofield (animated intro, live throughout the episode) and features cat behaviourist Nicky Trevorrow (live). Each episode is illustrated with animations of cats and excerpts from Simon's Cat episodes.
|Title (Simon's Cat Logic)
|Original YouTube airdate
|"Why Do Cats Have A 'Crazy Time'?"
|28 January 2016
|Why do cats run wildly around the house, jump on and off furniture, etc.
|"Do Cats Fall In Love?"
|12 February 2016
|Do cats form lifelong relationships?
|"In or Out? Why Are Cats So Indecisive?!"
|21 April 2016
|Why do cats seemingly hate closed doors but lose interest once the door is opened?
|"Why Do Cats Love Boxes?!"
|19 May 2016
|Why do cats love to get into empty boxes and other small spaces?
|"Why Do Cats Sleep in Unusual Places?!"
|16 June 2016
|What draws cats to sleep in various odd places and do cats have dreams?
|Cat Man Do
|British Animation Awards
|Best Comedy
|March 2008
|Cat Man Do
|Festival international des Très Courts
|Prix Animation
|Cat Man Do
|Leicester Short Film Festival
|Best Animation
|Cat Man Do
|Bradford Animation Festival
|Special Jury Prize
|Let Me In
|Animae Caribe
|Most Outstanding Animation
|September 2008
All books authored by Simon Tofield.
- Simon's Cat (2009) ISBN 978-1-84767-481-4
- Simon's Cat 2: Beyond the Fence (2010) ISBN 978-1-84767-484-5
- Simon's Cat 3: in Kitten Chaos (2011) ISBN 978-0-85786-078-1
- Simon's Cat 4: Feed Me! (2012) ISBN 978-0-85786-277-8
- Simon's Cat vs. The World! (2012) ISBN 978-0-85786-080-4
- Wake Up! (2013) ISBN 978-0-85786-773-5
- Play Time! (2013) ISBN 978-0-85786-771-1
- The Bumper Book of Simon's Cat (2013) ISBN 978-0-85786-079-8
- Off to the Vet...and Other Cat-astrophes (2015) ISBN 978-1-78211-587-8
- ^ "Canongate buys Simon's Cat"
- ^ List of countries that released Simon's Cat in his very own book Archived 13 September 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Simon's Cat: The Daily Mirror cartoon strip at the Wayback Machine (archived February 8, 2012)
- ^ http://kidscreen.com/2015/08/17/endemol-shine-uk-adopts-youtube-star-simons-cat/
- ^ http://worldscreen.com/tvkids/simons-cat-sesame-street-collaborate-on-new-content/
- ^ a b Does Simon have a cat in real life? He has three cats - Hugh, Maisie and Jess. **UPDATE!** He now has 4 cats! at the Wayback Machine (archived March 4, 2010)
- ^ "Simon's Cat is revealed!". Your Cat magazine. 29 August 2008. Archived from the original on 31 October 2009.
Simon, who works for London-based Animation Studio Tandem Films, explains that the films are based on three of his cats, all moggies.
- ^ Interview with Simon Tofield at the Wayback Machine (archived January 18, 2011) (text and video)
- ^ British Animation Awards 2008 list of winners. (2008) British Animation Awards website
- ^ BBC2's Culture Show blog discussing the showing of 'TV Dinner'(24 July 2008)
- ^ Tandem Films' blog entry reporting the showing of 'TV Dinner'. (16 July 2008) Random Tandem blog.

subset: commoncrawl


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She is quite the oie, she enjoys making people laugh, when put with another Oie, they aren't good at conference calling. Very random and awesome person :)
My dearest Salonee is an oie !
door SHINSHIN 3 februari 2009
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A meeting held by the guy from the dark side, laced with contradictions, grammatical errors, mood twists, and Dum Dum blowing up to end it.
Guy, the work is horrible! On the other hand, the work is the bess I ever see!
by Claude November 26, 2004
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meetings, gatherings, or staff meetings. Often one person does the majority of the speaking in a broken dialect. Commonly everyone who partook in the viande feels a little less intelligent when they leave.
Boss: "Guy! Guy, we have a meet today, so stick around after break for a viande.
by Julian November 25, 2004


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Iona gets set for March Madness
NEWS12 WESTCHESTER: The Iona Gaels will be heading to their second NCAA Tournament in a row. (March 13, 2013)
Newsday.com now uses Facebook for our comment boards. Please read our guidelines and connect your Facebook account to comment.
Newsday recap: Donald Trump accepts the Republican nomination for president GOP convention Day Four recap RNC protests end with a song Cleveland police chief became cop on a dare Anti-Trump protest crosses Hope Bridge Giuliani to Clinton: 'We're going to kill you in upstate NY' Rudy Giuliani reflects on GOP convention Nassau police provide details about North Massapequa fire and crash North Massapequa house fire kills 1 at scene, pedestrian injured in nearby accident involving responders Cruz booed, flag burners arrested at RNC Newsday recap: Trump running mate Mike Pence speaks New York delegation upset by Cruz failure to endorse Trump


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KILLEEN (August 16, 2014) Dozens of people were displaced Saturday after a fire heavily damaged a Killeen apartment building.
The fire started around 3:00 p.m. at the Summer Place Apartments on N. College St.
Ten apartment units were evacuated.
Most suffered smoke damage.
Everyone living in upstairs units are displaced after firefighters opened the ceilings of all the first floor units to put the fire out.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
The Red Cross is assisting the apartment residents.


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Hightstown, NJUSA
December 29, 2012
.NET, VB, C#, Sharepoint, Azure
NJ.NET is a user's group formed to promote the education and advancement of Microsoft .NET technologies. Whether you are a .NET developer, Java developer, VB6/FoxPro/Access developer, college student learning about programming, or just someone is who is interested in technology, then our meetings are for you! We will have compelling presentations on current topics related to Visual Studio 2008, C#, Visual Basic.NET, ADO.NET, XML Web Services, Security, SQL Server 2000/2005, Architecture, and more.
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Hi there,
I am totally new to jquery and did manage to design a form and check fields on values (with a little help) with jquery. Now i also have 2 radio button options (gender), and at least 1 need to be checked. So i would like to validate this too before the form will be sent.
Here is my validation now, without the radio funtion:
Code://ckeck if inputs aren't empty var emailPattern = /^[a-zA-Z0-9._-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,4}$/; var fields = $('#first_step input[type=text], #first_step textarea'); var error = 0; fields.each(function(){ var value = $(this).val(); if( value.length<1 || value==field_values[$(this).attr('id')] || ( $(this).attr('id')=='Email' && !emailPattern.test(value) ) ) { $(this).addClass('error'); error++; } else { $(this).addClass('valid'); } }); //check radio buttons Here my radio buttons check
Does anybody know how to check if someone has filled in their gender? My radio group name ="gender". Furthermore if no radio button has been selected I would (really) like that the text within the spans, below, lights up red:
If someone could help me out with this, u would really make my day! Tried a lot, but can't figure it out..Code:
Male<input type="radio" name="gender" id="Male" />Female<input type="radio" name="gender" id="Female" />

Thanks a lot for your time.
Kind regards,


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Indiana Hoosiers vs Ohio State BuckeyesSun, March 2, 2014 - 12:00 PMAssembly Hall - IN in Bloomington, IN
We are sorry, the date for this event has already passed. This event took place on 3/2/2014. Click here to view upcoming events for Indiana Hoosiers.
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text:
Page - Home
The mission of the United States Brain Injury Alliance is to engage the community in preventing brain injury and improving lives.
USBIA Volume 3 Issue 2 2016-Jun
Kessler Foundation is one of the leading rehabilitation research centers in the world. We want to improve the state of care for traumatic brain injury, and we need your help. We're seeking volunteer research participants who are interested in new treatments for cognitive and functional problems after TBI. We're also looking for participants who can
Dysfunctional behaviors can be the most debilitating consequence of TBI, dramatically impacting family, social, and vocational relationships. Estimates of behavioral challenges among children with TBI range from 35% to 70%. Estimates among adults range from 25% to 61%.
Injury-associated deaths have substantial economic consequences. In 2013, unintentional injury was the fourth leading cause of death, suicide was the tenth, and homicide was the sixteenth; these three causes accounted for approximately 187,000 deaths in the United States (1). To assess the economic impact of fatal injuries, CDC analyzed death data from the National Vital
DONATE TODAY to make a difference!


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"We should not be afraid sometimes to confront beauty and horror."
"You can be terrified and screaming and hiding your eyes, but you're laughing, the worse it is, because it's just so over the top and cathartic to confront these things that are really disturbing. It's okay because they're fakes. It's all set up. It's functioning like a fairytale."
-Cindy Sherman


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Separate names with a comma.
...our first game and we want to share it with you.
Hospital Frenzy is a crazy, new time-management game, available NOW on the app store.
...our first game and we want to share it with you.
Hospital Frenzy HD is a crazy, new time-management game, available NOW on the app store....
...from Perú and I want to introduce you to my new project: "Ice Toss Frenzy - Featuring Pookie and Tushka".
This will be a action/fantasy game...
Wow, a 3-page feeding frenzy.
Hopefully this will put yet another media frenzy to sleep.
Apple would never intentionally create a demand and buying frenzy for the products....<wink, wink>
That review is pretty mediocre compared to the frenzy about it in the app store.
I'd like to see Castle Frenzy, Enigmo, Call of Duty Zombies and Field Runners on the iPad.
I don't understand the frenzy of the Birds game? Are you just essentially trying to get birds to shit on people or what?
Nigel tnx for the clicking frenzy earlier...
Work mode atm.
21 hours to go before the leap year dragon comes out... Keep your caves open for a breeding frenzy
Sent from. Tricia xoxo
On my my..the krakel frenzy goes on..I have requests for 4 krakels again ..:( ..does it ever end ?
Sent from my iPad GC ID:- Aishupoo
Dang, woke up a little bit earlier than normal hoping the JB frenzy had begun... guess it's going to be a some what unproductive day at work today :)
Hi! Welcome to the site!) As to the games - Vacation Mogul HD Lite or Farm Frenzy 3 HD, maybe these will suit you...
Mine went smoothly.. I'm guessing it's because I waited for 24 hrs after the iOS 5 release and the feeding frenzy had subsided a bit.
When the newness of the ipad wears off the feeding frenzy at the app store should slow down as well, mabey then we'll see some price reductions.
Thank you!!!
Ps. If you open the choc ice cream crate, I'll fill it for you. :)
GC - IRISHMICHELLE10 level 44
Your welcome, look out for any axes you can possibly find. Please
GC: u GoT oWn3d (level 51)
MathOpen Fruit Frenzy - kids learn math while playing :)
Another great game for kids to learn mathematics while having fun, called MathOpen -...
Yes, for you. You will get lots of Xp. I will add u
GC: u GoT oWn3d (level 51)
The right time
I guess I have to go at the right time when there are likely to be less people there. And it was in the middle of the iPad frenzy.
LOL. That's because for 99 cents, you get a great time-waster :D Now, imagine if it was free ;)
Sshhhh...thinking moon. I have had a sun and rainbow frenzy.
...and Apps from itune store to date, starting to slow down from the frenzy of the first few days of ownership. Will be very select on what I buy...
...iPad convert having avoided the apple craze I've succumbed to the frenzy and I'm glad I did I absolutely love my iPad 2 and take it just about...
Yes - the iPad2 has been available in China for some time now...
IPad 2 frenzy in China | Apple - CNET News
I agree. The guy is a cockhead and his post should have been ignored. I'll represent him if he pays me $100K upfront;)
There is a ipad verision of call of duty
If you're looking for something like FarmVille, you'll probably like Farm Frenzy 2. It works without internet and it's a single player game.
So I will promote my sale frenzy initiative tonight again lol. In 25 min I will place a few products I have spare at my stand as I need to empty...
Yes I got one from that too lol x x x
vicky x. GCID dragonville10 my sons GCID coxy 26
Lol I knew it wouldn't take you long poppy x
vicky x. GCID dragonville10
:D I do that every now and then too! :thumbs:
Ohhh... speculation in The Official iPad Jailbreak News Thread..?
It's a frenzy of excitement! :)
Fingers well and truely crossed.
Na, call of duty is so overrated...
...Tintin, prefer the comic books to the movie.
At home dvd i watched Frenzy by Alfred Hitchcock, loved it from begening to end and the dvd comes...
...Gonna take a break for an hour.. Before start opening easy crates frenzy again. 4 hours before the event end.. :/
I hope you guys got the boat...
Yes lol it's awesome!
Sent from my iPad 3 using iPF bribri070385 level 56!! thanks friends!
Oh no! I just kept clicking! I'm sorry!!! I'm used to the frenzy of the newspaper! Again, so sorry!
Your cheating on me!!! I'm seriously crying over here!!!!! Lol
GC iluvbree lvl 67 I'm a proud F.A.R.M ™member. F.A.R.M™ chooses you,...


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I've read the article about meta-keywords being a waste of time and all that, but I do have a client who wants them anyway. I'm assuming these would pull from the "focus keywords" fields in each page/post?
I've checked the "Use meta keywords tag?" box, but not seeing any addition to the pages. Am I missing a step?
EDIT: never mind! I see that a new Meta Keywords field is made to appear and the keywords go there. Hopefully this clarification will help someone else.


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Read an Excerpt
A Silent Ocean Away
Chapter One
Friday, September 9, 1836
Richmond, Virginia
John Duvoisin watched the Raven labor from the landing stage. As her towboats released their lines, the cargo ship lost all momentum, and she sat indecisive for a moment. Then her canvas sails bellied out, harnessing the wind. She groaned as she cut across the current of the James River; her destination: three islands nestled in the northeastern waters of the West Indies. The islands, called Les Charmantes, were often considered the foundation of the Duvoisin fortune. To John, Les Charmantes meant much more. He tracked the vessel as she sailed off, and his mind meandered with the James. She was now but a toy on the wide river, and still, he stared after her as if, by mere eye contact, he could transport himself to her decks. A raging frustration had kept him from boarding the vessel this morning, his reward: bitter reflection, which chastised him for doing nothing. His internal war reached its pinnacle as the Raven traversed the river's bend and vanished from view. He drove rigid fingers through his tousled hair as if to liberate his turbulent thoughts, then strode from the bustling wharf, oblivious of Richmond's busy waterfront. He mounted his horse and turned it into the crowds, leaving thoughts of the Raven and Les Charmantes behind.
"We're moving! We're finally moving!" Charmaine exclaimed as she peered through the porthole of her small cabin. Turning, she smiled triumphantly at Loretta Harrington, who sat complacently on the only anchored chair. "Won't you come and see?"
"No, thank you, my dear," Loretta replied, returning theradiant smile. "I'll allow the ship to take care of itself and pray that my stomach does the same." It was the one reservation the middle-aged woman had about this entire trip: seasickness. But Charmaine Ryan was well worth any discomfort she might endure in the next four or five days, so she bent her mind to the task at hand. "Why don't we practice a bit more for the interview, Charmaine? It will take my mind off the rocking of the ship."
"I'm quite prepared," Charmaine replied, but she did as Loretta suggested and came and sat beside the woman who had become a second mother to her . . .
Charmaine had been welcomed into the Harrington house nearly three years ago. Marie Ryan had contacted the couple when she realized her daughter would not be talked out of her decision to leave home, and Joshua Harrington had taken an immediate liking to the sensitive yet talkative fifteen-year-old. In her large brown eyes, he saw a determination rarely found in one so young, and in her words, noted a firm conviction for what was right and good. After that first meeting, he was certain Charmaine Ryan would make an excellent companion for his wife, who sorely missed her five grown sons. He hoped the girl would become the daughter Loretta never had.
Within a fortnight, all the arrangements had been made, and Charmaine left one life behind to begin another. She moved into a pretty, whitewashed house in a residential section of Richmond, taking her meager belongings with her. She would live with the Harringtons during the week and spend the weekends with her parents.
Charmaine's only regret was leaving her mother to fend for herself. But Marie began spending more and more time at the St. Jude Refuge, drawing solace from the work there, content to shoulder the woes of others rather than dwell on her own, happy in fact. Thus, Charmaine found it strange when she grew unusually distant one weekend, surmising some misfortunate troubled her. Though Marie avoided the details, she said, "I used to think only the poor suffer, but I was wrong. Perhaps the greater the wealth, the deeper the pain."
Within the month, John Ryan decided to put a stop to his wife's "charity" work. Charmaine was determined to thwart him, thanking heaven her wages had exceeded what he'd expected her to earn and that she had had the good sense to secretly retain half. Now she insisted her mother use it. "Tell father the church is paying you," she conspired. "Then he will be happy you are working there." Sure enough, his grumbling ceased when the cold cash was placed in his hand.
Life with the Harringtons was a breath of fresh air. Under their roof, Charmaine felt secure. In this home, the husband treated his wife with respect and adoration. Joshua Harrington was everything a spouse should be. Likewise, Loretta was devoted to him. A dear and kind woman, she never had a harsh word for anyone. Charmaine benefited the most from the matron's fine character, blossoming in her affection.
"You are more than a companion to me," Loretta had said within the first year. "I consider you a part of my family, Charmaine."
Charmaine came to believe this, and it was only when the Harrington sons ventured home that she felt unhappy, envying the relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents, fathers and daughters. Although she was always included in their gatherings, Charmaine was careful to remain aloof, for this loving family didn't belong to her, not as long as her own parents lived. Her mother and father were a constant reminder of who she really was.
For two years, she guarded her background, frightened the Harringtons would send her packing if they learned the truth. Though her mother was a good woman, she was but an orphan whose only stroke of fortune had been her adoption and education at the St. Jude Refuge. Marie's parentage was probably no better than John Ryan's, and he was nothing more than white trash in the eyes of civilized Richmond gentry.
Loretta and Joshua pondered her pensive moods, which usually occurred after her visits home. They sensed she suffered, yet reasoned she needed time to overcome her reticence. Time, however, was not on Charmaine's side.
Her father confronted her one weekend. "You been workin' for them Harrin'tons gone two years now. When are they plannin' on payin' you more?"
Charmaine had received an increase, but since she continued to share half her wages with her mother, she'd set the additional money aside for herself.
"I'll ask them, Father," she blurted out, the vow apparently appeasing him.
Not so; her hasty response fed his suspicions, and for a week, he mulled it over. Then, late one Friday night, he decided to set things right. It took him a bottle of whisky to muster the courage to lumber up to the Harrington house on wobbly legs and pummel the front door. When the maid opened it, he pushed his way in, demanding to see Joshua Harrington.A Silent Ocean Away
. Copyright © by DeVa Gantt. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.


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Founded in 1964, Benihana is the leading Japanese Restaurant in the dining Industry. The key to our success is simple: Our ability and passion for hiring the
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Capital Rentals, Inc. - Sterling, VA
Required license or certification:. Maintain all types of construction equipment - large and small - and keep it "ready to rent"....
Field Service Professional
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_Our top Retail Sales Associates generate income ranging from $70,000 to $100,000 per year_. Ensure that each customer has world class service....
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Panera Bread - Fairfax, VA
We continually invest in and develop our cafe teams and tools to help execute flawless service and allow more time for interacting with our customers....
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Join one of the TOP TRUCKING COMPANIES in the industry and JUMPSTART your truck driving career! At Western Express, you can use our INSURANCE AND AUTHORITY or...
Automotive Parts Counter Person
Classic Cars - Sterling, VA
Position requires good typing skills. We want a pleasant, friendly person who works well with others and is highly professional....


text: Kosice, Slovakia The somewhat lesser known of this year's European Capitals of Culture is quite a gem in its own right. The second-largest city in Slovakia behind Bratislava is a melange of Gothic cathedrals, Baroque theaters and remnants of city walls dating back to the 11th Century. It's also teeming with artwork, which all goes on display for the Night Of Museums and Galleries celebration and the Use The City festival of public art, both in May. Though no longer as inexpensive as before switching from its koruna to the euro five years ago, Kosice and surrounding Slovakia are still the gorgeous and relatively undiscovered gems of Central Europe. Unless visitors enjoy a brisk day for sipping mulled wine and enjoying local beers, this Capital of Culture is best enjoyed between May and September, when it's slightly less gray and frigid. Prev 8 of 11 Next


text:
That Hybird West is dope homie!
NEWS: We Are Still Accepting Submissions for #YoungMoneyUnsignHype Vol.9 ARTIST Send Songs to email@example.com #YMCMB
Dope beats my dude checkout my freestyles lets network
Great music u have here!! Check me out when u have time:
Hi ;) if you use facebook "like" us on https://www.facebook.com/NuuMaKPaginaFans ;)
thanks for your friendship \m/
Nice sound. Keep them hits coming.
Great music. Im Dame Stacks the Producer CEO of Ben&Frank Productions, and im on a networking mission. We are looking for new artists to listen to and you got some official content. Fan back and come check out my new Website for some of the hottest Beats underground and Free Promotion. And to get beats today contact us on facebook or twitter. #Respect and we also offer free downloads on our Site as well. http://www.benfrankproductions.com/the-beat-vault.html
Thank you so much for the fan follow, I really appreciaate the support it means a lot. If you have time please check out the pages
Twitter @Official_Boozey
whats good J.Q 2 J.Q its all hood get back at me for some networking much respect mountain west music...
dope soundz my du.. propers


text:
Maritime Today
The Maritime Industry's original and most viewed E-News Service
Norwegian oil firm Det norske said it expected to reach full production at its Alvheim FPSO (floating storage, offloading and producing unit) overnight after a leak,
Damen Shipyards Group has announced its latest concept design: the Damen Decommissioning Series. The vessel will specialize in three core areas of the oil and gas
Cambodia advised a grouping of South East Asian nations to avoid using words that "would escalate tension between China and the Philippines" in a weekend statement,
Maersk Training, part of the Denmark based A.P. Moller-Maersk, is betting on the Indian training centre, reports the Hindu. India is one of the 10 Centre's that is making profits.
Weather Channel Forecasters are predicting a "near-average" hurricane season for 2016, but warn that an average season does not mean businesses and residents shouldn't prepare for the worst.
KVH Industries, Inc., (Nasdaq: KVHI), announced today that it is offering Videotel's new safety and training video about the Zika virus free to all mariners worldwide.


text:
Just a little bit of vector illustration to compliment an article I am currently working on, the duck will eventually teach an important lesson (I hope) :)
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