April 22, 2009 – Cloudy, cool. Sable is the farmer’s favorite cow. A Swiss Steer, she has been on the farm for seven  years, and he is so distraught at the thought of her leaving that he can’t even come into the barn.
  Watching this process raises a number of complicated emotions. Dairy farms are poorly suited for the age of corporatism, or for a country that will spend many billions of dollars to bail out banks while sending libraries and family farms right over the cliff. The farm is pressed by low milk prices and rising external costs. Also by the fact that banks refuse to extend credit to anyone, even good customers with good records and good credit. This is a screwy system. If the local bank would even extend even small loans, many of these farms could hang on.