Share Life Farms

If you have been checking for a new posting it has been a couple of weeks since we have been up to my sister-in-laws to help out with care for her mother. There was some spraying next door to her house which prevented my wife from going up there. She had to have help to get in the house today and we are not sure how long she will be able to make it in here, so if this newsletter seems to come to an abrupt stop you will know why. I had to get her out of the area in a hurry.

Dave a business friend of ours used to make the comment that there was none as blind as those who would not see. I thought of that a lot this last week after an encounter my wife had this week. She suffers from Environmental Illness and is especially sensitive to the fungicide that many farmers in our area have used for the last three years. This is all applied aerially so one day we had four airplanes flying on three sides of our farm. Three years ago when this all started she was caught outside three times when the spray planes flew low over our house. This causes an illness reaction in her because of her severe sensitive to those chemicals. We called the airport and requested that the planes avoid flying over our house. We also tried to keep a sharp ear and eye so if we saw or heard them we tried to get Rosie out of harms way. For the most part it seemed to us as if the planes did try to honor our request. Last week we had an encounter with one. I was up in one of our upper fields when I heard what at first I thought was a fighter plane from Whiteman airbase. As I looked for the plane suddenly a yellow spray plane flew over not two hundred feet west of me and tree top high. He was headed directly over where Rose had been that morning. I immediately headed there to check on her but saw that she was in the house at the time. As I was walking to the house to check on her I could smell the odor of chemical in the air and my face started to burn a little bit so I went in the house and washed my face. After this Rose could not get outside the rest of that day and part of the next. This frustrated Rose so she called the airport and asked if they would please ask the pilot of that plane to avoid our house. The man at the airport was very rude to her. First he told her that the plane flying over could not affect her and then he told her that we all have to die of something.

I have known this man for most of my life and to my knowledge he has no more than a high school education from the late 50’s era. He is not a specialist in environmental medicine and does not have a medical degree. So where does he get off giving my wife medical advice that a chemical covered airplane flying low overhead cannot affect a severely chemical person. That is simply a pinheaded biased opinion from someone who knows nothing about the subject. He would be well to heed the advice of Benjamin Franklin when he said,” It is better to keep ones mouth shut and have people think you a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” After the second comment he had the nerve to tell my wife he had just got out of the hospital for I believe was treatment having to do with his lungs. My question is if he really believes we all have to die of something then why did he go to the hospital? Why did he just not stay home and die? Isn’t amazing when it is our own health we are talking about we are more willing to take corrective action than if it is someone else. He had just done the very thing he was so rude to my wife for trying to do, protect her health. Yes there are none so blind as those who will not see.

I would also like to clear up some misunderstanding about the difference between organic and commercial crops. Someone asked a friend of mine the difference and he told them that organic uses no sprays. That is not correct. There are some organically approved sprays we can use. The difference is in their chemical makeup and in their residual affect. Most if not all organic applications have no residual which means that they are easily removed from the plant, usually with water. Commercial sprays usually have at least a season long residual which means the product remains active all season long regardless of the weather. In the case of bt corn the only way to remove that chemical from the plant is totally reverse the genetic makeup of the corn plant. So if you hear an organic farmer mention spraying,don’t think he is lying about being organic. Just ask him what he was using and how it is safe to use.

Your friend in farming bringing you food with integrity.

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