Friday Roundup

It's a busy, busy time of year in the Rural Republic, so we've been kind of on again and off again with our daily roundups. We'll try to keep this site somewhat responsive to our readers' interests, so if you feel something's missing on the days we don't post a roundup, please let us know. Conversely, if you'd rather see us focus less energy on roundups and more on something else, we'd like to know that, too. We're a no-budget, volunteer outfit here, but we aim to please!

So, for your consideration, here are some stories that caught my attention today.

The U.S. government has been pouring a lot of money into expansion of rural broadband recently, but not all broadband is created equal. Apparently, some of the broadband connections in rural areas of the United Kingdom are inferior to a much lower-tech solution: carrier pigeons! The BBC has a report on a competition held in which ten pigeons with USB drives strapped to their legs took on a five-minute video upload. Seventy-five minutes after the pigeons were released and the upload was started, the birds had reached their destination 120 km away, while the upload was only 24% complete.

Moving back across the pond and heading north, a column in The Williams Lake Tribune details a British Columbia feedlot's creative attempt to find a niche market. Seeking to "produce a product that is equal to Japan’s Kobe beef, where Wagyu cattle are fed a beer a day and massaged with saki before they are slaughtered," Bill and Darlene Freding are experimenting with feeding each of their cattle a litre of wine every day. Reportedly, the results so far have been delicious... and, as the author says, "the cattle aren't drunk, just happy."

Some other cattle that may not have been so happy were reported having been "rustled" near Chadron, NE. KRVN tells us that, while cattle rustling is no longer the hanging offense it was in the "Old West," the state of Nebraska still takes this crime very seriously. Thirty-year-old Jacob Otte was convicted of two different instances of stealing about 10 head of cattle and reselling them in another part of the state. The penalty: two consecutive 3-5 year terms in prison, plus about $17,000 in restitution (mainly to the insurance company that covered both ranchers' cattle). Don't mess with Nebraska cattlemen.

And don't mess with Texas... or, at least, the Texans in Hemphill County in the northeastern corner of the state's panhandle. The Texas Observer has an interesting article about the residents of the county and their confrontation with billionaire T. Boone Pickens, who has been systematically buying up water rights in rural Texas to sell to the state's sprawling cities. In another "water is for fighting over" story, the county is ground zero for a legal battle in which Texas courts will decide whether or not groundwater is - like oil and gas - owned in place by the person with rights to that water and, if so, whether a groundwater management district placing restrictions on pumping is an uncompensated "taking" of that property. It obviously gets complicated with legal jargon, but read the article: the people trying to sell their water rights are somewho both victims and victimizers in this scenario. The same story will no doubt be played out across the High Plains in the coming years.

So long for now, and have a great weekend. I hope sometime soon, we all get a little time to relax!

Tuesday Roundup

Back after a few days of hiatus, driven mostly by really, really slow news days (or at least news being focused elsewhere), it's your daily roundup.  

First, thanks to everyone who's followed our page on Facebook.  We're now at 100!  It took us just over 5 weeks to get to the century mark.  How quickly can we get 200?  If you like what we're doing, recommend us to your friends. 

I'll start with the quirky story, and save the controversy for the finish. 

Dekalb County, Georgia, is suing a resident for growing too many crops on his property, apparently against county zoning regulations.  From the story, it sounds like he's got quite the variety of crops, and does quite well for himself and his neighbors.  Unfortunately, the proverbial overzealous regulator (I like to think of the bad guy in the first Ghostbusters movie), combined with the tightening of government budgets everywhere due to the economy, resulted in his being highlighted as someone they could probably get some fines off of.

Corn harvest is moving along.  Brownfield Ag News reports that 13% of Indiana's crop is already in the bins, and moving along.  Meanwhile, the Nebraska Corn Board has compiled pictures and reports from FFA students across the state, depicting the trends toward harvest in the Cornhusker State. 

Finally, once again, water is for fighting.  Only this time, in the Land of Enchantment.  The New Mexico Environment Department filed a petition to designate 1,450 miles of waterways, 29 lakes and about 6,000 acres of wetlands in federal wilderness areas as "Outstanding Natural Resource Waters."  The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association filed for a restraining order to prevent the designation of that land until more information could be gathered.  However, the State Supreme Court rescinded that order, and it looks as though designation hearings will go on apace.  The fight isn't over yet, as the petition will now be heard Water Quality Control Commission. 

According to the AP story, the only two areas currently under the "outstanding natural resource waters" designation, the Rio Santa Barbara and streams in the Valle Vidal area.  A quick review of the Google and a little local knowledge make me tend to agree with those to designations, at least on the surface.  Both areas are high-mountain watersheds in the Sangre de Cristo range, and probably do little but make good camping areas and then get that water somewhere else more useful.  There's no information on where all of the areas listed in the new petition are, so I can't comment on that one, although there are bound to be more than a few that might infringe on grazing lands (despite claims from the Environment Department that grazing will be unaffected).  It's also not exactly clear whether all of the land is contained within "federal wilderness areas," or if that just refers to the location of the wetlands.  More to follow, to be sure. 

Whether it's grazing in federal wilderness areas, or farming and ranching on lease land around on military-owned land around a military range like Pinon Canyon or elsewhere, it's going to be an incredibly touchy subject.  After all, peoples' livelihoods are at stake, however not only do they not have property rights, but the land is owned by the folks who make the rules, run the courts, have bottomless pockets, and always have eminent domain to fall back on.  Sometimes, it seems land is for fighting, too.