agri-Culture

Yak Butter Tea -- Three words you never thought would go in a sentence together. And they do, albeit briefly, in this episode of the podcast. We visit the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado to meet up with Steve and Anita Hill, who hail from Sunny Hill Ranch, a self-sufficient farm specializing in raising yaks 100 wild miles outside of Anchorage, Alaska. At the show, we got to see these very hairy and very different anima...

26 Aug 201940min

Our food is alive - or can be. And it's often better for us if it is alive, as the popular rise of probiotics has shown. Science is now discovering that the human microbiome is an amazing place, and that each human being is a world unto itself for the creatures that inhabit it. Even if the little critters do tell us how to think sometimes (yes, that's a real thing). Christopher and Kristen Shockey, fermentistas extraordinaire, sat down with u...

19 Aug 20191h 21min

Of all the sheep we have seen, this one has to be the most unusual. With bold spots and two horns or four (varied shapes, but reaching up toward the sky on the top set, curling in loops on the bottom set), this animal looks very much like something you would see on the tram tour at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. It is thought by some to be the sheep mentioned in Genesis 30, hence the origin of "Jacob" in the naming of the Jacob American Sheep. That Bibli...

12 Aug 201953min

Agricultural events - one of Elara's favorite things to do. Big or little, all shapes and sizes, there is usually no shortage of things to do, see, smell, pet, ride, eat and buy (but not necessarily in that order). A smaller fair of 10,000 to 40,000 people is a much difference experience than a large, elbow-crowding, junk food bonanza of 500,000 to 2 million. Both types of experiences have something wonderful to offer, but at a smaller fair ...

5 Aug 201945min

Of the breeds we have covered in the podcast, this has to be one of the most endangered ones yet, in terms of population size. With 400 individuals but only 250 breeding animals, the Newfoundland Pony is at a crisis point, if they are to be saved from extinction. They came to Newfoundland over the last four centuries and numbered 9,000 in the 1930's, but the exports to France for horse meat in the 1970's and the rise of the machine age took the numbers down to the very, very low s...

29 Jul 201927min

John and Bonnie Hall are two of the most down-to-earth people we have met in our travels. They raise American Milking Devon Cattle (and produce amazing maple syrup) on Maple Breeze Farm in Westbrook, Connecticut. The Milking Devons are called "American" now, but maybe that's because they no longer exist in their original home country of England. And yes, the yummy Devonshire cream you may have heard of comes from these animals. ...

22 Jul 201933min

City Farmers Nursery is our idea of a good date. This nursery (and feed store, and aquaponics center, and hydroponics supply, and compost source, and...) has been around since 1972, and is smack dab in the middle of San Diego, the 8th largest city in the U.S. Owned and run by family members Bill Tall, Sam Tall and Rebecca Tall-Brown, the amazing business is often more like a field trip than a supply run. It's a good date because you can get ...

14 Jul 201942min

It's summertime, and the San Diego County Fair just finished it's annual run here in Del Mar, California. Since the event started with agricultural roots way back in 1880, and since we had a great conversation at the fair last year with The Friends of Farming bunch, we thought we would sit down with them for a podcast. Eric Larson, Executive Director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, was kind enough to have a conversation with us about th...

8 Jul 201934min