#but it would be steep enough to include a facility custom built for them

[kedreeva]

Do you know things about peacock pheasants that you could share? (Any variety, I think they’re super cool and would love to keep some someday maybe)

I do not know very much about peacock pheasants, since I've never kept nor wanted to keep them, but I know that they are a very uncommon, expensive, difficult-to-keep pheasant regardless of which species. I have a friend that keeps a pair, or was keeping a pair of palawans (I think she lost the hen this winter), and even though she keeps peafowl and a few other types of fowl, and has kept himalayan monals before even, these were worse. My understanding is that they need a lot of space, and are delicate, wild birds.

Unless you have a lot of experience keeping pheasants in general, I'd pick a different, hardier breed that is a bit cheaper, like some mutant ringnecks or even varieties of golden pheasant. They're both sought after for pelts and/or meat, and pretty widely available. Even silver or amhearst are easier finds, easier to keep alive, and cheaper to acquire than peacock pheasants (and I mean like, there's a COUPLE of peacock pheasant breeders in the entire US and babies are HUNDREDS of dollars and you'll be on a waitlist, vs if you have $5-20 and are willing to lose sleep for a night you can go get a ringneck or a golden pheasant morph from a bird swap or livestock auction basically every weekend in the summer here) and less of a loss to the community of keepers as a whole if you make mistakes and lose a bird. Obviously no one wants to lose any bird, but the impact to the breeding pool for peacock pheasants is so much greater a loss than it would be for the others, it's just not worth the risk to try to start there, both for you and for the birds.

[newstfionline]

The Nuclear Power Plant of the Future May Be Floating Near Russia

By Andrew E. Kramer, NY Times, Aug. 26, 2018

MURMANSK, Russia--Along the shore of Kola Bay in the far northwest of Russia lie bases for the country’s nuclear submarines and icebreakers. Low, rocky hills descend to an industrial waterfront of docks, cranes and railway tracks. Out on the bay, submarines have for decades stalked the azure waters, traveling between their port and the ocean depths.

Here, Russia is conducting an experiment with nuclear power, one that backers say is a leading-edge feat of engineering but that critics call reckless.

The country is unveiling a floating nuclear power plant.

Tied to a wharf in the city of Murmansk, the Akademik Lomonosov rocks gently in the waves. The buoyant facility, made of two miniature reactors of a type used previously on submarines, is for now the only one of its kind.

Moscow, while leading the trend, is far from alone in seeing potential in floating nuclear plants. Two state-backed companies in China are building such facilities, and American scientists have drawn up plans of their own. Proponents say they are cheaper, greener and, perhaps counterintuitively, safer. They envision a future when nuclear power stations bob off the coasts of major cities around the world.

“They are light-years ahead of us,” Jacopo Buongiorno, a professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of the Russian floating power program.

Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear company, has exported nuclear technology for years, selling plants in China, India and a host of developing nations. But smaller reactors effectively placed on floats can be assembled more quickly, be put in a wider range of locations and respond more nimbly to fluctuating supply on power grids that increasingly rely on wind and solar.

The Russian design involves using submarine-style reactors loaded onto vessels, with a hatch near the bow to plug them into local electrical grids. The reactors will generate a combined 70 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 70,000 typical American homes. Rosatom plans to serially produce such floating nuclear plants, and is exploring various business plans, including retaining ownership of the reactors while selling the electricity they generate.

The bulky, rectangular structure resembles a big-box store, only with a nuclear emblem of an atom emblazoned on its side. Inside, the floating reactor is a warren of tight corridors, steep staircases, pipes, wires and warning signs in Cyrillic letters.

Officials plan to tow the vessel to coastal cities in need of power, either for short-term boosts or longer-term additions to electricity supply. It can carry sufficient enriched uranium to power the two reactors for 12 years, before having to be towed, with its spent fuel, back to Russia, where the radioactive waste will be processed.

A rotating crew of about 300 Russians, including private security guards, will operate the plant. Rosatom is considering a work schedule where they will remain on board for four months at a time before taking a four-month break. The Akademik Lomonosov will start out serving Pevek, a remote port in Siberia about 500 miles from Alaska, next year.

While on the vessel, the civilian crew will have access to a host of amenities, making the structure a sort of cross between the set for “The Hunt for Red October” and a cruise ship. Those aboard can swim in a pool decorated with pictures of a tropical beach, play squash or strangely, given the seeming importance of sobriety on such a vessel, have a drink at a bar.

Using nuclear reactors for marine propulsion, or on floating power plants, is not new. The United States used a barge-based reactor to generate electricity for the Panama Canal Zone from 1968 until 1976, and Westinghouse, the American reactor builder, planned--but never built--two floating plants off the New Jersey coast at around that time.

The idea of floating nuclear power won unexpected support after the 2011 Japanese tsunami. That disaster wreaked havoc on the Fukushima coastal power plant by flooding backup diesel generators intended to cool the plant in an emergency shutdown.

A floating reactor, supporters say, would survive tsunami waves at sea. And if an emergency shutdown were needed, it would retain access to cooling, something that is easier to do if it is already in the water, rather than relying on pumps. Rosatom, in a statement, insisted its plant was “invulnerable to tsunamis.”

Placing nuclear reactors on vessels could also help reduce the costs of construction. Cost overruns, as well as political opposition, have all but halted nuclear plant construction in the United States. Assembly-line efficiencies at shipyards would help reduce costs.

And then there is the potential climate change benefit. Nuclear power stations generate electricity free of planet-warming greenhouse gases and, unlike other clean sources of energy like wind turbines and solar farms, run around the clock.

Rosatom has so far not disclosed the cost of building the barge, or which countries are interested in buying electricity. The company estimates each floating plant will take four years to build, compared with a decade or so for many nuclear plants. The Sudan Tribune has cited that country’s minister of water resources and electricity as saying the government in Khartoum has a deal to become the first foreign customer. A Sudanese government spokesman, Mujahid Mohammed Satti, declined to comment on the report.

Others are also exploring the technology. China wants to build 20 floating nuclear plants, the first of which will start within two years. A French company has designed a reactor called Flexblue that would not float but rather be submerged on the ocean floor.

But some environmental groups--even those open to a role for nuclear power as a substitute for traditional power plants--are skeptical.

For one, they are not persuaded by Rosatom’s assurances of safety. Critics worry that during a tsunami, the 21,000-ton steel structure might not ride out the wave. In a worst-case scenario, they say, it would instead be torn from its moorings and sent barreling inland, plowing through buildings until it landed, steaming and dented and with two active reactors on board, well away from its source of coolant.

In such a case, Rosatom says, a backup power source and coolant on board would prevent the reactors from melting down, at least for the first 24 hours. “During this time we would consider what to do,” said Dmitri Alekseyenko, the deputy director for Rosatom’s floating reactor program. Regulators in the United States, however, require on-land reactors to operate for 72 hours in an emergency shutdown without external water supplies.

And the fact that the technology is well tested in Russian ships gives critics little solace, given a long history of spills and accidents involving nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers operated by the Soviet and Russian navies.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet Union dumped reactors in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic Ocean north of Kola Bay. Russian nuclear submarines sank in 1989 and 2000, while one Russian nuclear icebreaker caught fire in 2011 and the reactor on another leaked radiation that year, according to Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group.

[josephkitchen0]

Alabama’s Dayspring Dairy: Startup From Scratch

By Tim King

Starting an on-farm sheep dairy from scratch is a daunting challenge but it can be done: Greg and Ana Kelly, of Dayspring Dairy near Gallant, Alabama, are proof of it.

Neither Greg nor Ana had any farming experience before they decided to become shepherds and cheesemakers. Greg’s experience as an information technology manager certainly had not prepared him for his new career.

“Neither of us had any previous experience aside from the goat in my grandfather’s back yard,” Greg said. “We were both city kids, so we had a very steep learning curve, which we filled with a lot of traveling to learn, classes and reading.”

Ana’s years of work as a chef and food stylist has helped her as the cheese maker at Dayspring and her hobby was likely the seed that germinated into their family’s current business.

“Years before we dreamed of starting a farm I regularly made yogurt and yogurt cheese for the family,” she said. “We then started making mozzarella.”

Once the Kellys decided to become cheese makers and livestock managers they faced two questions: Where would their farm be and what species of livestock would provide milk for their cheese?

To answer the last question the Kellys did some market research. “Looking around our area we discovered that there are already a number of cow and goat cheese operations,” Greg said. “Entering an already mature market and competing with established businesses was not a recipe for success. When we finally did visit a sheep dairy, we both knew that was what we wanted. We absolutely loved the cheese and the animals.”

But to continue their newly discovered love of dairy sheep the Kellys needed land with grass. Preferably low-cost land, since they had established a budget for themselves. The hilly land in northeastern Alabama’s piedmont region, near unincorporated Gallant and not far from Birmingham, was ideal.

“Our main requirement was finding good pasture land that would be ready for sheep,” Greg said. “We actually had very little choice, due to a limited budget. And were thrilled to find this farm within our budget.”

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Dairying with Friesian Crosses on Gulf Coast Native Sheep

But of course there was a problem: That rich grassy land in the southern U.S. was not a good location to raise North America’s most productive dairy breed.

East Friesian sheep, with their origins in cool Northern Germany, do well on grass, but aren’t genetically prepared to handle the heat and parasites of the southern United States. And worming the East Friesians was not an option: “An animal on wormers can’t be milked,” Greg says.

But, for the last three hundred years, southern shepherds have been developing a breed that is up to the challenge of the region’s hot and humid climate: The Native Gulf Coast Sheep, or Piney Woods Sheep, can take all the parasites the southern U.S. can throw at them.

So Greg and Ana chose to combine East Friesian’s high production genetics with the parasite and foot rot resistance of Native Gulf Coast Sheep.

“We got our first small flock of Gulf Coast ewes from a farm near Athens, Georgia,” Greg said. “We bred them to a Friesian ram we bought from the first sheep dairy we visited in Tennessee. They are considered to be ‘milky,’ so mixing them with the Friesians does lessen the milk volume, but not as much as would be expected. Given the parasite loads in the deep south it’s a strategy that has worked for us. Last season and this season to date, we have not used any chemical wormers on any of our adult sheep and very little on the lambs.”

Greg says the ram lambs are sold readily to various ethnic customers.

Gulf Coast Sheep, like East Friesians, do well on a largely forage diet. Dayspring farm is able to keep its sheep on pasture for ten months of the year. High quality alfalfa is purchased to get the flock through the other two months.

“We do provide a custom made feed to the ewes during milking, to make certain they have enough calories to produce their maximum amount of milk and stay healthy,” Greg said.

Greg says it was a great blessing to find affordable grassland in Alabama’s piedmont region, near enough to commercial centers like Birmingham, Huntsville and Atlanta to find plenty of buyers for their sheep dairy products.

Setting Up A Dairy Operation

Greg learned a lot about shepherding from Tennessee shepherd and cheese maker Sheri Palko. He also took classes at the Sheep Dairy School in Spooner, Wisconsin.

“The school was absolutely fantastic and really prepared me to run a dairy and care for the animals. Sadly, it’s no longer being offered,” he said.

Ana found mentors and organized classes to be helpful as well.

“Once we landed on starting a cheese business in earnest, I attended cheese making courses in Kentucky and Vermont,” she said. “I also worked alongside two southern cheese makers for mentoring.”

Ana says that learning to make cheese with cows milk is helpful but that there are differences between cow and sheep milk.

“The cheese making classes I took focused on cow’s milk since it is so readily available,” she said. “There are slight changes that have to be made when adapting a cow cheese recipe to work with sheep milk. Also, there are certain cheeses, such as mozzarella-string cheese, that don’t work with sheep milk due to the high protein content that interferes with a stretchable curd formation.”

As Ana and Greg were learning the art and craft of their new skills they also had to design buildings to house the milking parlor, the cheese making operation, lambing facilities and other aspects of their new business. Greg said that the biggest expense they faced when starting their business was the steel building.

“But it’s hard to beat the durability and flexibility of this building,” he said.

Greg challenged himself by doing most of the construction work himself.

“I grew up doing construction and carpentry type work with my dad and grandfather, but never having built something of this magnitude forced me to stretch my skill-set,” he said. “If you know where to look, you can see my mistakes. Rest assured I don’t point them out.”

Greg, who is responsible for milking duties on the farm, designed a double sided pit milking parlor as part of the multi-purpose building.

“Looking at pictures and notes from our travels and classes I sat down and drew one up,” he said. “The parlor is able to accommodate twenty-four sheep at a time. I knew we would have to start with bucket milkers, but eventually we would move to a pipeline system, so I designed it to allow that later on.”

Because a lot of small cow dairies have gone out of business in recent decades there is a lot of stainless steel milking gear available, Greg says.

“I was eventually able to purchase a whole pipeline system intended for cows including ‘Clean in Place’ (CIP) 7.5 horsepower vacuum pump, all of the stainless pipe, sinks and a host of fittings for only $2000,” he said. “I did have to drive to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to get it but it was well worth it. Adapting it to sheep was relatively simple with replacement claws and an updated pulsator system.”

Greg is primarily responsible for milking and livestock management at Dayspring Dairy. He says that milking, from prep to clean-up, takes about three hours.

By crossing dairy Friesians on “milky” Gulf Coast Native ewes, worming was all but eliminated, despite northeast Alabama’s short, mild winters, hot, humid summers and the Kellys’ largely pasture-based sheep operation.

Cheese Biz Strategies

Ana is in charge of cheese making. She says that she had a number of objectives in mind when they chose which cheeses to market.

“We wanted cheeses that would have broad appeal, be relatively easy to make with minimal labor, and have exceptional shelf life and storability,” she said. “Our fresh cheeses are pasteurized, which allows us to sell them right away for a rapid revenue stream. We do a few select aged cheeses from raw milk that have to be aged for a minimum of sixty days. But there again, they are simpler to make and can age for over a year.”

The fresh cheeses that Ana makes include Fresca spreadable cheese, Halloumi and Feta.

Halloumi is a unique cheese because it doesn’t melt. When it’s sautéed, grilled or fried, it forms a crisp, golden brown crust.

The three types of aged cheese that Ana makes are a Spanish cheese called Manchego and two types of Gouda, including one with truffles.

Ana’s previous work, as a food stylist, was helpful in creating the attractive product photos on the Dayspring website.

The Kellys sell their cheese at farmers markets in Birmingham, Huntsville and Atlanta, as well as at festivals, online at their website and from their farm store. Their farm store is part of their farm tourism enterprise.

“We really enjoy visitors to the farm. It’s a pleasure to see the reactions they have to seeing sheep and how everything is produced,” Greg said.

Farm visitors—everything from school children to groups of senior citizens—learn not only about cheese making but also about the making of Dayspring’s unique caramel, Dulce de Leche.

Many small-scale cattle dairy operations have gone out of business in recent decades, leaving behind lots of used but still very usable stainless dairy equipment at affordable prices. This 12-on-each-side pit milking parlor speeds the milking process and was all home built.

“My father is Colombian and I lived for many years in South America,” Ana said. “Dulce de Leche style caramels are basically the peanut butter of South America. It’s everywhere and every country makes different styles. Greg was the one that came up with the idea of making ours from sheep milk. As far as we know, we are the only ones in the entire country making it from sheep milk. The caramel production has actually been more difficult and technical than cheese, but the trade-off is a shelf stable product that is in a totally different category than cheese and is simply delicious.”

Shelf stability is important because Dayspring is a seasonal dairy. There are a few months of each year when they aren’t producing milk or making cheese. Sales of the shelf stable Dulce de Leche to the local Whole Foods store—and through other markets—provide an income stream during that period. Greg says that the Kellys chose to be seasonal so as to keep their sanity.

“In our travels, I met a lot of dairymen and women who were year-round milkers,” he said. “Many hadn’t left their immediate area in years. If you’re making a living selling fluid milk, year round is a requirement. However, with cheese, we’re able to buffer those few months with sales of frozen soft cheese, caramel and aged cheese. So sales don’t stop. We just get a break from production and may squeeze a vacation in. This is also the time of year that we do major improvements or repairs that may not be possible while producing.”

Ana worked as a food stylist in the past, so she was experienced in making good products more appealing to buyers. Her strategies in choosing products to make helped assure success in an industry familiar to few consumers and very few other farm operators.

You can find photos and videos of Dayspring Dairy products, as well as the milking parlor and the East Friesian-Gulf Coast crossbred sheep at their website, DayspringDairy.com.

You can also order the two varieties of sheep milk caramel or any of their aged or fresh cheeses at the same site. The dairy’s phone is 205-359-9955.

Originally published in the September/October 2017 issue of sheep! and regularly vetted for accuracy.

Alabama’s Dayspring Dairy: Startup From Scratch was originally posted by All About Chickens

[wearenorthernlights]

Essay 003 // Urban Policy & Decay

Urban policy was, and still is, one of my favourite policy areas I studied at university. It had me thinking of my hometown, Clydebank, and Glasgow as a whole. For decades Glasgow has been undergoing one regeneration plan or another, perhaps more programmes and money has been spent on Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK, even Europe. I won’t be looking at the entire city, rather, I’ll have a brief little look and ponder about Clydebank, where I grew up.

Clydebank, a relatively small town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Greater Glasgow area. It’s the kind of place that people from Clydebank will call themselves ‘Bankies’ to people from Glasgow. They’ll call themselves ‘Glaswegians’ to anyone from further afield. Despite the town’s relatively small size and obscurity, it had a far larger impact on the world than one would expect. That impact was largely due to the industry within the boundaries of Clydebank. The shipyards built alongside the River Clyde that snakes through the town built world famous ships. The QE2 was built here, some of the Royal Navy’s most famous ships were built here, including HMS Hood, that would sadly go on to garner more fame for being sunk in mere seconds by the Bismarck. The other big industrial power in the area was the Singer Corporation (picture above), that built the Singer Sewing machine. The Singer sewing machine became a popular sight, some 36 million in total were sold, and all other sewing machine companies combined could not top the sales figures that Singer had. Clydebank’s industrial power was enough to garner the attention of the Luftwaffe, the Nazi hierarchy knew the importance of the town towards the British war effort, and as such mounted the ‘Clydebank blitz’. At the time of the Luftwaffe’s air raids there were some 12,000 homes in Clydebank, seven of which remained unscathed.

Should Britain find itself under attack once again, Clydebank, would be far down the list of any potential targets. Shipbuilding was attacked by foreign competition, the British government’s eagerness to rid the nation of this industry, and went into steep decline. Time came to collect the Singer Corp. that at one time had seven train lines servicing its vast sprawling factory. Singers closed its doors in 1980 and all trace of it was gone in 1998 when the former factory buildings were demolished. Towns like Clydebank need industries like these, they are the lifeblood of small towns. Not many women did not work in Singers, men too, and generations of men in a single family would work in the famed John Brown’s Shipyard. Clydebank no longer had these industries, these certainties of employment, those vast industrial institutions that a ten year old child would know was their future. That may be bleak, but having nothing is only only bleaker. 

Vague attempts were made by the British government to correct this. The land which once housed the Singer factory was dubbed an ‘enterprise zone’ in the 1980s. Such areas were seen as catalysts for economic growth. They often came with lower rates of tax, incentives for those who set up shop there. Clydebank’s enterprise zone has been a stunning failure for decades. Vast office blocks stand empty, in my 23 years here one in particular has never had tenants, and the vast sign at its side has reduced its cost year by year, with no reward. Huge warehouses dominate the area, storing nothing but air. Governments rarely respond to failure, they respond to success, because to return to the site of a failure is to accept fault. As such, Clydebank has continued to dwindle. Improvements have been made in housing, in building new schools, colleges and sports, shopping and fitness facilities. But these offer little work and fewer hopes for a future for the citizens of Clydebank. 

As such, the town is in something of a stasis, and has been for as long as I remember. The aim seems to be to build a nice coffin for the citizens to rest in. My other fear is that Clydebank is increasingly being shifted to that of commuter town to Glasgow. There is vast enough space for new bars to spring up, places to eat, and land is currently being developed for ‘young professional’ homes. An influx of young professionals may offer something of an economic boost in leisure terms. People with more money to spend at the bar. But, in Clydebank’s strength of distance and short commuting time to Glasgow city centre, it is easy for these people to spend their money outside of the Clydebank boundaries, as I do. More so, the worry with such a plan is that it pushes natives out. A cheap, nice, and ever regenerating area with new kit houses means that said cheap prices will rise. Not so much for the young professionals, but for those who have went without work for years due to lack of opportunity in the area, amongst other reasons. They are pushed further back. It does not solve the issue for these people, it compounds it. 

I, have no fix for this, but I do not believe that those in power do either. Little effort is made to bolster the areas economic growth. The goal appears to be that of slapping lipstick on a pig. Some new paving, some statues, new lighting. These are all nice and welcome, but it doesn’t provide work, hope or opportunity. And the lack of these is perhaps the greatest issue. Those with the ability to escape Clydebank, will do just that. The government courts these people, and if they’re willing to migrate the government sees no need to work on the area. I often migrate Clydebank for work, university, social outings, and it is with a sense of sadness. If Clydebank offered what I need then I would remain. In the governments idleness they have split the population into guilty migrants and doomed souls. Economic growth is not easy, I would not claim otherwise, but the Enterprise Zone is an unmitigated failure. A government, any government, should have the decency to say ‘we accept this, we’re sorry, let’s move on and fix it’. That is not so bitter a spill to swallow, in fact they would be heralded for such a position. The enterprise zone, like former new towns were, could be a site for a larger company to call their home. A ready workforce is around it, transport links are there, the town is old but it would function in the way that new towns did. Towns built up around foreign factories, enticed in wth tax relief and sweet hear deals. These areas have had their issues, and had some nefarious undertones, but it could work, or couldn’t be any worse than the current situation. The enterprise zone as it stands now may no longer be fit for modern business means. A gradual approach may be better. A large site that is built upon as tenants are secured. A prospective tenant may be more likely to set up shop in a large area that has a few tenants, and the skeleton structures of those who are soon to join. Rather than trying to flirt with someone using an aged, vast complex of empty buildings. 

Most importantly, governments do not understand or take into account humans when they examine ways to garner economic growths. The average man of Clydebank wants to work, work with their hands. What clients the enterprise zone has brought are largely call centres, the denizens of Clydebank want no such work, it is engrained in them through generations to do ‘proper’ work, and it is unlikely that you would want an angry Bankie calling you at home. The result is a small industry that buses people in, rather than supporting the local area. Urban planning must consult with those it aims to thrust their ideas upon. You cannot take a man out of the shipyards, or a woman out of her engineering home of Singers, and tell them to call customers about their bank accounts. They are not built for this, not willing to do it and the result is no one is helped. Problem areas like this are littered around Britain. A country which largely had its industry eroded by those they elected. Service industries were courted and worked well, Glasgow is one example of a city now built on the service industry, but huge swathes of Britain are desolate. The government should aim to find industries in which Britain can become a world leader, areas in which it can compete, and give British people somewhere they can work with their hands. Products they can proudly point at when out with friends and family and say ‘I made that’. Otherwise, you have citizens born in areas they know they’ll never escape, or people who will do so. Leaving areas to rot and others to prosper. People the length of breadth of Britain should be born with an innate feeling they can prosper in their birthplace, to move would be a choice that does not induce guilt, but is for preference, and as they leave, someone will arrive from elsewhere to take up the prosperity they could have had. A circle of people succeeding should they stay or go. 

This piece may be in danger of preaching from on high, or demanding utopia from elected officials. I know that perfection is not possible. Not everyone can be born and guaranteed a well paid, interesting and worthwhile job, which is a shame. But, Clydebank had one enterprise zone built in the 1980s and failed soon after. The citizens deserve more, if only to know they have not been forgotten, their lives still matter. It is easier to believe in yourself when someone else does, and that is something the government can offer. ‘We have no quick fix, we have no silver bullet, nor panacea. But, we are here with you, we are trying and we will not stop at the next failure, we will start on the next plan. We’re not going away, we do not forget about you, and we would like you to work with us.’