Earth Day

Hello all,

As you all know (from all the news on the TV, radio, and news paper), yesterday, April 22, was Earth Day. I heard of multiple accounts of people doing things for the environment, the president flying to a wind turbine plant for a tour and to tout wind energy, the Governors wife helping to plant trees with school children, and on the Price is Right all the prizes were eco-friendly. As I was sitting in the tractor going back and forth across a field spreading fertilizer, I couldn't help but think about what I was doing and how big a farce Earth Day really is. One day out of 365 days in a year to think about your carbon footprint, (one of the funniest and most obsurd libreral ideas, what a joke). It is just another liberal feel good day formed to try to convince themselves tat they are not bad people. I decided to list the anti-Earth Day activities that I enjoyed. I started my day with two eggs (poor chickens), shortly after breakfast I started burning straw piles in the field I was about to plow up. The straw was nice and damp underneath, so the plume of smoke was seen for miles in all directions and could be smelled from the highway, 2 miles away. When the piles finished burning, I tilled the field stirring the dirt and disturbing the earthworms home, kicking up dust, and burning the all poluting diesel fuel. After the field was satisfatorily black, it was time to feed the cows, you know, the methane belching black beasts that are depleting our ozone. It was then time to spread some fertilizer on the fields, some would think of this as an unthinkable act of environmental terror.

The fertilizer that I applied and the field work I did yesterday will be used throughout the summer by the wheat to be planted tomorrow, the wheat when harvested will then be used for bread, flour, and pasta. The methane belching cows are currently raising this years crop of calves. These calves will be fattened up in the next 12-18 months to be butchered for steaks, hamburgers, roast, and fine leather seats. The amount of fuel I burned pales in comparison to the amount of fuel burned by an office worker stuck in traffic going ten miles per hour. The fuel I burned will yeild a real tangable product at the end of the day, not paperwork to be filed away in some government warehouse.

Well for those so called experts who look down there nose at farmers and ranchers. I ask you this, where does the food on your table come from, the leather on your luxury automobile seats, and the basic fibers of the cloths on your back. It comes from the country side, grown and raised by farm families. The only true environmentalist, the one who celebrates Earth Day, everyday. There is not a moment that passes when a farmer or a rancher is not thinking about what they can do to improve there environment, the soil, the water, the wildlife, and there livestock. Yes we use the land to our betterment, but city folk just don't realize that we are also making sure the next generation of farmers have the same chance we do to make a living off the land.

Maybe everyday you (everyone individually) should think about how your life can be changed to make it a little greener. It cannot be legislated into law, it cannot be forced, bought or sold. It must be done willingly.

Bryan Mauws

P.S. As most of you know I never write e-mails, or send much more than forwards, but sometimes you just gotta get it off your chest in your own words.