I sometimes click through the posts on Facebook regarding homeownership versus renting
I do want to eventually own my own land but I can’t make the math work comparing my small rundown apartment on the bus line – near parks and the library compared to buying a house and having to pay a lot more to heat it, maintain it and have to be reliant on an automobile to get everywhere.
Maybe buying a house makes a lot more sense if you are already renting a full house, or a high end apartment and are reliant on a car to get to work. But if you aren’t looking for the suburbanite experience and are currently happy with your existing living place it doesn’t make sense to tie up so much money in a hard to liquidate, non diversified asset which certainly can loose money.
For now, I’d much rather invest in the market and save for the time when I can buy my own land out in the country, in a freer state where I can have not only livestock but also the guns I want and the ability to have fires and do the self reliant things I want to do with my land.
Why do we care about manure? Manure is an organic fertilizer that contains essential plant nutrients. However, it can be a variable product, making it a challenge to match plant nutrient needs to the amount of nutrients in the manure. Like commercial fertilizers, we also need to be aware of the risk of losing nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) and affecting water quality.
What are manure nutrient “book values”? These nutrient averages are used for developing manure management plans, designing manure storages, creating best management practices for manure land application, and agricultural modeling. They show a range of nutrient values that can be expected from typical manure storages and encourage farmers to test their manure often. However, current book values are several decades old and may not reflect current production practices. Different animal diets, genetics, housing, and manure storage and handling practices can impact these manure nutrient values.
We are working with the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute to develop a manure nutrient database called ManureDB to create more accurate manure nutrient book values. In preparation for this project, we partnered with three Midwest U.S. laboratories to share data from approximately the last ten years. We compared those manure sample results to the estimated manure nutrient book values in Manure Characteristics published in 2004 by Midwest Plan Service (MWPS). We wanted to see if there were any nutrient trends and identify ways to make ManureDB useful and user-friendly.
Whitespoted Pine Sawyers look a lot like the Asian Longhorned Beetle. Fortunately the ALB isn’t common yet Upstate. That said, the presence of Pine Sawyers suggest that the pines aren’t exactly thriving either.
Everywhere you look there are threats to forest health but then again that’s not surprising as ecology is an always evolving process with species coming and going. Some changes good, some bad, at least from the human perspective.
Marks Dairy, located on the fertile plains of Black River is one of the biggest dairies in the state and became quite infamous for a while in early 2000s after a farming accident breached a manure storage pond leading to a massive fish kill in Black River for miles around Lowville. These false color infrared photos show the dairy in brilliant reds, due to the healthy legation from all the rich-manure and fertilization of the grounds, and excellent soils. I am not sure why the 1995 has those bright greens, they may have used a different type of false color imaging with the NAIP photos from the mid-1990s.
LEFT - Marks Dairy, circa 1995
RIGHT - Marks Dairy, circa 2018
It seems that Rob Astorino drives a Chevy 1500 while Andy Giulani drives a Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins turbo-diesel. It looks like Mr. Giulani’s pickup has a lift-kit and Fuel Off-Road wheels with 35s, but I could not determine the lift-kit from those pictures.
Mr. Giulani probably has commercial plates while Rob Astorino has passenger plates due to weight of the vehicle, although he could also have commercial plates. The big advantage to passenger plates is they can be driven on the parkway. Plus, gasoline is a lot cheaper currently in New York State then diesel.
