Word of the day

Umbriferous – casting, making or providing shade; shade bringing;  shady.

Rural round-up

Excitement at wool levy possibilities – Sally Rae:

When Sandra Faulkner was a young girl, her father gave her a valuable message – ”don’t grizzle unless you’re planning on getting involved”.
The Muriwai farmer is now chairwoman of the Wool Levy Group, which is behind next month’s referendum seeking to reintroduce a wool levy.

”I guess it’s never really been an option to sit back and let somebody else do it. You gain the right to comment for being involved,” Mrs Faulkner said. . .

Farmhand pilot programme welcomed – Sally Rae:

Farming is the career path Emma Hollamby knows she wants to follow.

Ms Hollamby (25) was among the first intake of the pilot of the Farmhand training programme, launched in Dunedin last week.

The programme, which runs for 12 weeks, aims to expose the city’s disengaged youth to rural work opportunities.

For Ms Hollamby, who had previously worked on dairy farms and loved the outdoors, it was an opportunity to broaden her horizons and ”get a feel for sheep”. . .

Fonterra Farmers and Farm Source – together as one:

Fonterra has signalled a significant step-up in its relationship with farmers, rolling out Farm Source which will support farmers and their farming businesses and bolster the Co-operative’s connection with rural communities in New Zealand.

Farm Source combines service, support, rewards, digital technology and financial options for farmers together with local Farm Source hubs to support the major dairying regions throughout the country.

Speaking at today’s launch in Methven, Fonterra Chairman John Wilson said Farm Source’s seed was discussions with farmers and the “together as one” principle behind co-operatives.
Brothers show how they grow it in Kansas – Market to Market:

The Kansas prairie is well known for its fields of wheat, soybeans and irrigation rigs.

Tucked into the central part of the sunflower state near Assaria, is a farmstead known around the world.

Well, the world-wide web, that is.

What began as a tribute to the beauty of the Kansas landscape, quickly escalates into a rap parody as performed by the Peterson Brothers; college senior Greg, college freshman Nathan and high school junior Kendal.

Greg Peterson, Assaria, KS: “I was at Sonic and I was with my friends and a song comes on the radio and I’m like all right, it is that stupid song again. And I am going to change the words and my friends thought it was funny and I was like maybe I will make a music video out of that.”

That springtime idea inspired by LMFAO’s “Sexy And I Know It,” became a summer sensation “I’m Farming and I Grow It.” . . .

 

Process problems

How could this be right?

 A dairy farm worker fired for abusing cows has won a case against his former employer for unfair dismissal on a technicality, even though he was found to have mistreated cattle.

But he will only receive half of the compensation claim because of his actions.  . .

Proven animal abuse ought to be grounds for instant dismissal.

Process is important but there’s something wrong when a technical breech costs the employer so dearly even though the judge accepted the evidence against the employee and reduced the amount the employer had to pay.

Blogging lighter

For some time now the tension between blogging and other items on my things-to-do list has been increasing.

Something has to give, at least for a little while it will be blogging.

I’m not giving up completely.

At the very least the history and word of the day posts will continue and I’ll endeavour to provide a post with a quote or something else to stimulate thought and discussion, but there won’t always be anything else.

September 30 in history

1399  Henry IV was proclaimed King of England.

1744  France and Spain defeated the Kingdom of Sardinia at the Battle of Madonna dell’Olmo.

1791  The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Mozart, premiered at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna.

1791  The National Constituent Assembly in Paris was dissolved; Parisians hailed Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as incorruptible patriots.

1813  Battle of Bárbula: Simón Bolívar defeated Santiago Bobadilla.

1832 Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, American labour activist, was born (d. 1905).

1860 Britain’s first tram service begins in Birkenhead, Merseyside.

1882  The world’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) began operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.

1888  Jack the Ripper killed his third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

1895  Madagascar became a French protectorate.

1901 Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.

1903  The new Gresham’s School was officially opened by Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood.

1906  The Real Academia Galega, Galician language’s biggest linguistic authority, started working in Havana.

1921 Scottish actress Deborah Kerr was born (d 2007).

1924 US author Truman Capote was born.

1927  Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season.

1931  Start of “Die Voortrekkers” youth movement for Afrikaners in Bloemfontein.

1935  The Hoover Dam, was dedicated.

1935 US singer Johnny Mathis was born.

1938  Britain, France, Germany and Italy signed the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.

1938  The League of Nations unanimously outlawed “intentional bombings of civilian populations”.

1939  General Władysław Sikorski became commander-in-chief of the Polish Government in exile.

1943 Marilyn McCoo, American singer (The 5th Dimension), was born.

1943 Ian Ogilvy, British Actor, was born.

1945  The Bourne End rail crash, in Hertfordshire killed 43 people.

1949  The Berlin Airlift ended.

1954  The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus was commissioned as the world’s first nuclear reactor powered vessel.

1955  Film icon James Dean died in a road accident aged 24.

1957 US actress Fran Drescher was born.

1962 Sir Guy Powles became New Zealand’s first Ombudsman.

1962  Mexican-American labour leader César Chávez founded the United Farm Workers.

1962  James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi, defying segregation.

1965  General Suharto took power after an alleged coup by the Communist Party of Indonesia. In response, Suharto and his army massacred over a million Indonesians suspected of being communists.

1965 The Lockheed L-100, the civilian version of the C-130 Hercules, was introduced.

1966  The British protectorate of Bechuanaland declared its independence, and became the Republic of Botswana. Seretse Khama took office as the first President.

1967  BBC Radio 1 was launched and Tony Blackburn presented its first show; the BBC’s other national radio stations also adopted numeric names.

1968  The Boeing 747 was shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory.

1970  Jordan made a deal with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for the release of the remaining hostages from the Dawson’s Field hijackings.

1975  The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache made its first flight.

1977  Philippine political prisoners, Eugenio Lopez, Jr. and Sergio Osmeña III escaped from Fort Bonifacio Maximum Security Prison.

1979  The Hong Kong MTR commenced service with the opening of its Modified Initial System (aka. Kwun Tong Line).

1980  Ethernet specifications were published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.

1982  Cyanide-laced Tylenol killed six people in the Chicago area.

1986 Martin Guptill, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1986 Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed details of Israel covert nuclear program to British media, was kidnapped in Rome.

1989  Foreign Minister of West Germany Hans-Dietrich Genscher‘s speech from the balcony of the German embassy in Prague.

1990 The Dalai Lama unveiled the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights in Ottawa.

1991  President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti was forced from office.

1993  An earthquake hit India‘s Latur and Osmanabad district of Marathwada (Au rangabad division) leaving tens of thousands of people dead and many more homeless.

1994  Aldwych tube station (originally Strand Station) of the London Underground closed after eighty-eight years of service.

1999 Japan’s worst nuclear accident at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tōkai-mura, northeast of Tokyo.

2004 The first images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat were taken 600 miles south of Tokyo.

2004 – The AIM-54 Phoenix, the primary missile for the F-14 Tomcat, was retired from service.

2005 – The controversial drawings of Muhammad were printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

2006 the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Constitutional Act that proclaimed the new Constitution of Serbia.

2009 – The 2009 Sumatra earthquakes  killed more than 1,115 people.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia