Meeting Fellow Birdies

Also known as tweeps.

It's no secret I'm addicted to Twitter (@brandibuzzard) - I recently said it in an interview with Cattle Network. Through my addiction, I've had the opportunity to 'meet' a lot of great people in the "twitter-verse" but haven't actually met many in real life.

I am excited to say that I finally got to meet one of my fave tweeps on Sunday night. Kelly Rivard - agriculture agvocate and communications extraordinaire - (@kmrivard) had to come to KC for business and decided to visit MHK the weekend before. Kelly, Jodi Oleen (@jodioleen), Sheridan Wimmer (@Sheridan_W) me and a few boys got together Sunday night at Little Apple Brewing Company for beef, beer and fellowship. It was fantastic fun - BONUS: I got to have dinner with Kelly on Monday night at Hibachi Hut. She's uber smart and creative, hilarious and sarcastic - we get along pretty great. It's nice to know there are people out there who think just like me, whether that's appropriate or not isn't up for debate.

The Little Apple Gang:

l-r: Brandon, Jodi, Kelly, Me, Sheridan and Randell

(check out Randell and Sheridan's cute prom pose)  ;)

Everyone in this picture is awesome - even the boys because they put up with our random chatter for a few hours. We all appreciate ag, sarcasm, good food, beer/margaritas and we all love MHK. Tell me if there is a way to be more awesome.

For all you non MHK folk, feel free to hit me up if you visit Kansas!

Until next time,

~ Buzzard ~

Above the Shoulders - 101 in 1001

I hope I have your attention.
I haven't done a 101 in 1001 update since October/November so I figure it's about time. I don't do updates very often because I don't want to update you, faithful readers, unless I have actually completed some worthwhile goals. So here they are:

First up, goals in progress:
Run/workout 3x a week for 2 months
Celebrate one of life's little achievements once/month for 12 months (1/12)
Celebrate our 1 and 2 year wedding anniversaries in a unique way
 -- Successfully did the 1st year anniversary uniquely - Hyatt took me to the Cottage House Bed & Breakfast in Council Grove and to dinner at the Trail House Museum. Council Grove was a point on the Sante Fe Trail (I think) so the dinner the restaurant was set in the 19th century and had a bunch of cool historical things and facts from that era. We're history nerds and we love it.  For gifts, (first year is paper) Hyatt got me Eli Young Band tickets - my favorite! I bought him a bunch of books and a big vintage world map for us to keep track of our world travels and also to pin spots we'd like to visit in the future. He did a great job of spoiling me and it was a lot of fun!

Hyatt and his map

I was pretty excited about those Eli Young Band tickets (they were awesome in concert - you should go sometime).

Watch 5 movies that Hyatt loves that don't interest me (Apocalypse Now, Papillon, X-Men,)
Call /visit my grandparents once/month for 12 months (6/12)
Attend 6 of Kristy’s sporting events/school events/4-H stuff - (Bourbon Co. hog show, Bourbon
     Co. beef show)
Defend my thesis by May 2012 - My defense date is set for April 20!
Promote agriculture at community meeting or conference - 3x (2/3)-- This one I am pretty excited about. My first experience was with the Australiasian Pig Science Association Conference in November in Adelaide, SA, Australia. I was invited to speak about agvocacy in agriculture, specifically in the swine industry. It was only to about 75 people but it was very well received.
-- The second time was just last Thursday at the Berryton, KS Kiwanis Club meeting. I am a speaker for Operation Main Street (I did my training with the Food For Thought in Jan 2011). I haven't heard much feedback from the NPB yet, but I had a blast!

Speaking to the Berryton Kiwanis Club about modern pork production. They were a great audience and I had a blast!

Pay off my small credit cards - Maurices, Victoria's Secret
Purge and donate old clothes from closets at least three times (1- 7/2011, 2 - 1/2012)
Learn how to make Grandma’s fried chicken, chicken n’ noodles and divinity candy
Volunteer once/month at a breadbasket, food pantry or other comm. service 6 times (5/2011 -
        Red Shield Appeal;)
Donate 25,000 grains of free rice through Freerice.com (5110)
Say 'I love you' EVERY day for entirety of 1001 days
Attend church once/month for 12 months (6/12)Read the books from this list
Play golf 3x in the 1001 days (2/3)
 -- This one was a lot of fun too, both times I played while in Australia. Our friend Doug Albright came and visited so during some downtime during an afternoon in Alice Springs we checked out the links. I also played once in Melbourne on a rainy day.

Dougie Phresh and I

Alice Springs' golf course wins award for best scenery - middle of the Australian outback

Now for the fun stuff... goals I've completed since the last update:
Run/workout 3x a week for 1 month -- some of my closest friends can't believe this. Even hubsy and his best friend had an over/under bet on how many times I would work out (hubsy took the over for 5, lucky him)
Have a date night with Hyatt each week for two months
Watch Food Inc. -- this was difficult to do but I felt I must. If I ever find the notes I took, I'll write a summary/opinion post
Fly first class (even if it's only from KC to Dallas) -- this was not on purpose but on a recent flight to D.C. for a job interview (the company paid for the seats) I found myself with uber leg room and at the front of the plane. Success!!

Design and print our Christmas cards for 2011 - this was hard because we had so many great pictures from Australia that I wanted to include but here was the final product.

Clockwise from top left: A day out at Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary in Healesville, VIC, AUS; Hyatt and I infront of Uluru/Ayers Rock in the Northern Territory, AUS; goofing around on the Great Barrier Reef before snorkeling; one of our great wedding pictures from Grant Watkins Photography; a romantic/posey moment in front of the Sydney Opera House, Sydney, AUS; scuba diving off the cost of Matamanoa Island, Fiji, during our honeymoon!

Earn someone's respect -- this has been made extremely clear to me over the past few months so thank you to everyone for the kind words.

Drastically change my hair -- if you hadn't picked up on it in the picture from the pork presentation, I cut 6 inches off my hair. It is currently ABOVE MY SHOULDERS. My hair hasn't been this short since I was 13 and growing out the bowl cut I sported from age 9-13 (true story). Here's a better picture for ya. It looks a lot longer here because I'm kind of leaning forward but it's way short. Also, I had no less than 10 people tell me that my Fake Patty's Day shirt (pinch me and I'll punch you) was very fitting to my personality. Go figure.

Goals completed to date: 23 (in less than a year - go me)!
Goals left to complete: 101 minus 23 (I suck at math).
Days left to end of challenge: 663 (I used this website to figure that)

Well, that's all for this update. There will probably be another in June. Or not.

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

Pink Slime - It's Meat

******First off, I want to say that yesterday a fantastic commentary was written about the pink slime issue. which you can read here. I was given a lot of praise and credit for apparently writing it but I want to make it clear that I didn't write it - my husband, Hyatt Frobose, wrote that as a member of the Food For Thought blog squad. Just giving credit where credit is due - he did a great job and has seen first-hand how LFTB is processed and made.******

 Ok, on to the regularly scheduled post: there's been a lot of buzz about pink slime recently, which is a moniker I dislike so I'll henceforth be referring to it as Lean, Finely Textured Ground Beef (LFTB). There is a lot of negative buzz about LFTB but there are also a lot of facts and truth behind it which need to be pointed out:

- LFTB is completely safe for consumption.
- LFTB is NOT made from beef parts intended for pet food. It is made from meat that is extracted from the external and KPH (kidney, pelvic, heart) fat from cattle. Part of the process involves using ammonium hydroxide to ensure the product is free from bacteria and microorganisms. The ammonium hydroxide mist evaporates and is not present in the final product. Therefore, it's completely safe for consumption.
-- LFTB helps us meet consumer demand for safe, affordable and nutritious food - Dr. Russell Cross, Head of the Department of Animal Sciences at Texas A&M

There are many other very well written and informative factual-based commentaries about LFTB and I encourage you to read up on the facts.

Q & A about ammonium hydroxide in food

Is Pink Slime Dangerous to Consumers - written by my hubsy, Hyatt Frobose (@frobose on Twitter)

Pink Slime is a Myth - great resource

Engineering a Safer Burger - Washington Post article about LFTB production

Pink shirts, pink ties and pink slime - Common Sense Agriculture by Jeff Fowle (@JeffFowle on Twitter)

Also, I was asked by a contact I made in Australia if I thought the US would adopt irradiation in meat processing. I wrote about this a year ago or so and hope you'll check that link out, too. Although I don't see irradiation being adopted/accepted anytime soon, unfortunately.

Become an investigator and find out the truth. The news isn't always true but science doesn't lie.

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

National Ag Day

It's National Ag Day and agriculturalists around the country are stating why they are 'Ag Proud' - so I'll jump on the bandwagon for this but you'll have to check out the NCBA Young Producer's Council Cattle Call blog to see what I said!

Happy Ag Day and remember to be informed and find out the real facts about your food! Don't forget it's also Kansas Ag Week - join in on the conversation on Twitter by following #KsAgWeek or @KansasDeptofAg.

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

p.s. Monday, there's going to be a 101 in 1001 update! Get excited - I am, I've got tons to share!

Breaking it Down - Farm Size and Efficiency

Today I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Kevin Stafford speak - he is brilliant and hilarious. The perfect combination. If you want more of a background on him read this.

He said something today that was very clear and made absolute sense to me but a lot of people in the urban world, and some in the rural world for that matter, have a hard time understanding. So I thought I'd put his ideas on here and get some feedback.

His ideas on why farms have gotten bigger while the number of farms has decreased (this is world wide, not just in the U.S.) are:

- If farm gate prices are too low then...
- Farm size must increase to support the family producing the food therefore....
- Animal production intensifies because more animal units require more management, feed and efficiency which leads to....
- More animals per person OR Engage in niche farming/marketing (natural, organic, grass-finished, etc).

I think this makes perfect sense - Dr. Stafford said that the size of the family farm in terms of animal numbers has nearly tripled in New Zealand due to cheap food prices and low support to farmers. The same has happened here except in the U.S., some farmers get some subsidies (but they're not getting rich, just to be clear on that point).

So what do you think?

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

Potatoes Say Good-bye

Geez, I love taters. I don't know if there are many other people out there who adore potatoes like I do. I love them fried, baked, mashed, crinkled, shredded, covered in cheese, boiled and even raw. They are their own food group to me - a delicious food group of starchy perfection.

Which is why I've decided to give them up.

But only until Easter - and then it's game on for Grandma Buzzard's fried chicken and mashed taters for Easter dinner.

That's right, I'm giving up potatoes for Lent and I think this may be an even harder challenge than when I gave up soda for Lent (a lack of Dr. Pepper almost killed me).  So what will I be eating instead? 

Well, I'm obviously not going to cut back on my meat consumption. I'll continue to enjoy lean beef, tasty pork and lots of different forms of chicken. But to fill the gap on my plate where potatoes used to go......

That's not an exaggeration, I generally am pretty strictly meat and potatoes.... and cottage cheese. I looooooooove cottage cheese. If you don't believe me, ask Hyatt.

To fill this void I'll likely be eating a lot more of the following things:

- Green beans - did you know one cup of green beans contains 30% of your daily Vitamin C req's?
- Corn - One cup contains a pretty significant amount of Thiamin and Vitamic C
- Rice/pasta - I'll try to eat whole grain options in this category. Whole grain foods are very heart healthy and by the way, so is lean beef!
- Cottage cheese - this obviously has a lot of calcium in it!

If you haven't noticed, I'm not a big fan of vegetables. However, I like lots of different kinds of meats so maybe I'll rotate some kangaroo or some other exotic meat in there to toss things up a bit!

Are you giving anything up for Lent? If so, what?!

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

Does PETA cross a line with new ad?

picture courtesy PETA

I think the new PETA ad crosses the line and is pretty bold considering it puts a different spin on a form of domestic abuse (disclaimer: I am not saying they promote/condone domestic abuse. So please don't flood my comment stream with stuff about how I am reading into things and exaggerating). I also don't think this type of advertising is successful in converting people to vegetarianism/veganism.  It's more for shock value, in my opinion. Read the short article and watch the video by clicking the link below.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/does-peta-ad-featuring-young-pantsless-woman-neckbrace-222920818.html

I can't find the ad on YouTube so hopefully you clicked the link and watched it.

What do you think?

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~