<HTML><HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY dir=ltr>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT
face="Times New Roman">What can I say about a month like June. How many days on
the wrong side of 100 degrees Farenheit? How extreme is the drought? How much
problem is this for our producers? </FONT>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Well the drought is extreme,
officially so, over half the state, and getting worse everywhere else. The fact
that we don't see giant dust clouds in the air is a testimony to what farmers
have learned since the 1930s, but the problems that drought presents to rural
producers and communities remain the same today as they were in the
1930s.</FONT><BR></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Right now the grass and hay
crops should be growing, putting on height and weight. There should be plenty of
grazing for cattle and other herd animals, the farm ponds should be full. But
the pastures are not growing. They are turning brown and dry. As hay crops
shrivel and die, those responsible for livestock look ahead to the winter
months, estimate the dwindling supply of hay in their barns and sheds, wonder
about what they will be able to cut this fall. . . and then they count their
cattle and try to figure out how many head of cattle they can afford to take
through this winter into an uncertain spring. Will the drought break this fall?
This winter? Next spring? Or is this part of a multi-year drought
cycle?</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">We in cities are not so
far removed from our pastoral ancestry, where wealth was measured in cattle, or
sheep, or goats, or horses, or some combination thereof. We are steeped in those
stories in the Bible -- the Hebrew word for cattle appears 56 times in the book
of Genesis! My father certainly measured his wealth in cattle -- the cattle
count was a regular feature of our regular round of chores. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">The number of mother
cows a producer can maintain is determined by how much feed they can produce
and/or buy. "Feed" includes pasture and hay crops (alfalfa, etc), it may include
some grain and/or soybeans. Cattle also require water, and in the heat of the
summer, that means more water, not less. All of this is true of other livestock
-- sheep, goats, pigs, I habitually talk about cattle because that's what my
family raised in southwest Oklahoma.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">During drought years,
the amount of feed produced on a given farmer's pastures and hay fields will be
less than a good year with sufficient moisture, unless the producer has access
to irrigation water, which is not the case for many Oklahoma farmers and
ranchers. There's also less water in the farm ponds and prolonged drought can
effect the underground water table that feeds wells. Less feed plus less water
equals fewer mother cows and fewer mother cows mean fewer steers and fewer
steers means less revenue for farmers and ranchers.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">This problem adds up
fast. Every mother cow sold into the marketplace is the destruction of
productive wealth. That mother cow will produce no more mother cows or steers.
The destruction of productive wealth is not good for farmers and ranchers and
its not good for rural communities and its not good for our urban communities
either. It's called "eating your capital" and it is a sign of desperation
wherever it occurs.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">What happens at your
house when there's less money? What happens if it becomes a permanent decline
because some of your productive effort is simply no longer there?</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">What can people in
cities do about this?</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">First and foremost, we
can buy food directly from our farmers. With less revenue in farm country, any
money siphoned off to the giant corporate food aggregators like Cargill and
Archers Daniels Midland is money taken out of rural Oklahoma to enrich giant
corporations. There is little enough going around this year anyway (this drought
also killed the Oklahoma wheat crop this year). Buying food from farmers
strengthens rural economies and that is good for everyone.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">Meats are among the most
well supplied items in our local food online supermarket. Ground meats of all
kinds, in particular, are competitively priced, high quality, and taste very
good. All of us need to increase our purchase of these food items in order to
support our farmers who are going through this climate crisis. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">And not only meats. I'm
encouraging everyone to look at what they bought from farmers a year ago, and
then increase that this month and every month left this year. Could you increase
your purchase by 10%? 20%? Don't forget the non-food items too, many of our
producers are making excellent body care products and they are such great values
that when compared straight on with supermarket products, the initial price
might be a bit higher, but since they last so much longer than store-bought
soap, the artisinal soaps of our coop producers are actually "cheaper per wash"
than anything in the big box supermarket.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">This is the month of the
"aliums and potatoes" in the coop; and I hope that when the order ends, there
isn't an onion or a potato left. Now is the time to buy onions for the rest of
the year. They will keep just fine in most air conditioned homes these days,
even without refrigeration. Localvorism requires "looking ahead" and buying when
the harvest is upon us, for eating later once the harvest is past.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">Everyone needs to work
together to mitigate the on-rushing impact of climate change/weather weirding by
reducing carbon footprints and fossil fuel usage. One easy and simple strategy
is to cook outside this summer! Sure, you can afford to air condition your
house, and cook inside, and just run your AC overtime to get rid of all that
heat and humidity -- but can the Earth afford it? Look at the brown and dry
pastures and fields throughout the state and tell yourself that what you do
doesn't matter, except that you won't believe that because you know it isn't
true. The truth of the modern dilemma is that EVERYTHING that we do matters --
for good, or for ill. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">Cooking outside isn't
the One Solution to climate change, but there isn't any such thing as the One
Solution. Instead, there are ten thousand little things that need to be done, or
done differently, and cooking outside is one of those. Do that, get good at it,
and then move on and do something else, meanwhile, tell others about how they
can save money and help the planet by cooking outside during the summer so they
do the same and can move on to something else too.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">Sometimes accepting this
kind of responsibility is scary. It was sure scary when we decided to build new
walls 5-1/2 inches inside of all of our exterior walls so we could 9 inches of
insulation in our walls and 14 inches in the attic. But we have never regretted
that work and that expense, not even once. It was, in fact, the best financial
investment I have ever made. It is certainly a better investment than the money
market account that presently holds my 403b retirement fund.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">It was scary when the
founders of this food coop came together and one day in the hot summer of 2003
decided, "OK, we are going to start this thing in November 2003." Is there
anyone who regrets that decision? Not me, even though it has hardly been a
smooth ride, indeed, it has often been a rough, bumpy, and contentious ride, but
that's fine, because the cause is just and the food is tasty and those two
things make it possible for us to persevere through times of
difficulty.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">And then there's the
"invisible structures" which make it easy to do harm and hard to do good. We
need fewer of the "easy to do harm" situations, and we need more structures
which make it "easy to do good and hard to do bad." For example. . . The state
of Oklahoma owns over 800 miles of railroad. Isn't it time we put that resource
to work and thus reduce our fossil fuel dependence? Wouldn't it be nice if our
producers could send their products to delivery day by train? What about
passenger and freight rail service uniting our regional cities with Tulsa and
Oklahoma City? There is much that could be done, but the squeaking wheel is the
one that gets the grease. </FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">So that's the story of
the July Bobaganda. Everything that you do matters. For good, or for ill.
There's very little neutrality these days. I'm hoping that more people will
decide this month that they are part of the solution and buy some food from
local farmers and then cook it outside to keep from working their AC so hard. No
pressure folks, just a frank realization of our own personal responsibility for
the consequences of our actions.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">Joining the Oklahoma
Food Coop, and buying some of your food from local producers,. is a HUGE part of
the constellation of solutions we need today. So thank you for that, and know
that this month, just like every other month, you can get from the Oklahoma Food
Cooperative -- for an honest and reasonable price -- good food that tastes good
and does good.</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><BR><FONT face="Times New Roman">PS. If you pray, please
pray for our farmers and ranchers and coop producers. Pray that they will
receive the grace of fortitude to make it through these hard times. Pray for
rain, and for protection for all life from the climate craziness that is even as
we speak come upon us, for the drought is as hard on the wildlife and birds and
bees as it is on the livestock. (I don't know about anyone else, but I have seen
very few bees and other pollinators this year.)</FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><A
title=http://bobaganda.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-still-summertime-and-livin-is-hot.html
href="http://bobaganda.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-still-summertime-and-livin-is-hot.html">http://bobaganda.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-still-summertime-and-livin-is-hot.html</A></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0px"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Bob
Waldrop</FONT></P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>