Saturday, June 23, 2007

Farm Ramblings

Someday, when Fidel finishes the crazy merry-go-round, called medical school, he's on, we're hoping to get a house with some land. There I am hoping to garden, maybe have a couple of goats and chickens, and dabble in all those things I've wanted to do for a long time.

Towards that end, one of the readings I do, is a great little magazine "Small Farm Canada".

This month (July/August) they had a great letter, from a former rural paramedic, in response the the last edition's article "Risky Business" (May/June 2007). He brought some very good insight into farm safety from his experiences of having to respond to farm incidents.

Farm Safety is a topic that is one of those issues that is dear to me. Not that I came from a farming background, or was exposed to it much, but I think it is because of the injuries and deaths that happen from incidents that could have easily been foreseen and prevented.

Sure, accidents happen in all work places, but legislation is such that most other industries have some pretty dandy safety regulations, yet farming seems to miles behind the standards. This combined with traditional concepts of the farm being a home, vice seeing it as two distinct environments: home and operations and treating each accordingly. Such deadly mixes.

Some good news - looks like Ontario is moving towards including large farms in its Workers Safety Insurance Board legislation. That is at least a step towards awareness, even though its legislated awareness.

WSIB fees/fines would likely be burdensome to small farms, yet it would be nice to see something similar.

Someday, I'd like to get more involved in promoting farm safety, somehow. I guess safety will always be in my blood and wanting to help others learn to "be safe".

Okay - now for some "Go Figure" tibits from page 7:

1200 - number of calories in cookies or potato chips that $1 dollar will purchase.

250 - number of calories in carrots $1 dollar will purchase.

450 - pounds of corn needed to fill 25-gallon tank of a pickup truck.

460 pounds of corn needed to provide necessary calories for one person for one year.

65 - percent of 242 tractors randomly inspected in the UK that had "something wrong with them" according to transportation officials. The UK is considering mandatory inspections in tractors.

4 comments:

deathsweep said...

I hope you've begun knitting some sweaters for the animals. How would you get one on a chicken though??!!

MedStudentWife said...

I should have started in another life.

I'm still working on the "Fidel Sweater Project", which I started two years ago with a projected finish date of 2010.However, upper management has moved the deadline to Xmas 2007 :0

May I can teach a goat to knit & it can help me with it.

Chickens are easy. They only need toques and scarves. Not sweaters.

Anonymous said...

When you knit a sweater for a sheep, do you still have to card the wool?

MedStudentWife said...

anonymous..
don't make me think so hard :p