Between a rock and a hard place. The art of being fair.

Is it fair for farmers to spread liquid manure, sludge, on the fields around Preble? Farmers have the right to farm but to what extent and who decides how far that right goes. Does it extend to the point where the land, air and water is polluted? Is it fair for the farmers, who are just businessmen after all, to practice their business to the extent that it adversely affects everyone else who lives in the town? Would we allow any other business to do what farmers have done to the water supply? Is the fact that Preble was once a totally farm community make it OK for modern day farmers to do what their predecessors NEVER did? Liquid manure is a recent process. It wasn't used a hundred years ago. Many-hundred-cow farms are new and have little in common with old time farms. In point of fact what some so called farmers are doing today, is not farming in the original sense of the term. They are huge businesses that pollute the air and water. They are a distant relative to farming with the phony name of 'Factory Farming'. They are not farmers, they are businessmen and they should not be treated or thought of the same as traditional farmers. Let's face it, we would not have a nitrate problem, we would not have a air stink problem, if there were only traditional farming going on in Preble. It is the NEW big business factory farming that is causing the problem. With that in mind perhaps it is time to revisit the rights of farmers and divide those rights between traditional farming and big business factory farming. They are different and they should not be treated the same way. We should allow the traditional farmers full rights as they have had forever but we need to look at and restrict the big business factory farms so our air and water are kept pure. That is not too much to ask. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want as long as it does not interfere with everyone else's right to do the same. The factory farms are polluting our air and water and they do NOT have the right to do that.

Therefore I call on the new town board to hold an open discussion on all aspects of sludge spreading - not just the science and economics but how it affects people and whether it's FAIR in the common sense meaning of the word - I think this would be in the true sense of democracy and how could the board refuse to do this on the issue, which is the biggest true issue in town?

Merry Christmas everyone.

I remember that Christmas many years ago. As kids we lived in a rented house in Scranton PA. A nice house with a fenced in backyard that had an inverted U-shaped bar for a clothes line, only one, the other broken and removed long before we moved in. There were trees on the right and an old flower covered fence on the left. The part of the backyard near the house was covered in flagstone. We used to swing on that bar like monkeys. My older brother Tom, by two years, and I were very close, or so I thought. One day we set up a chair near the bar and jumped from the chair to the bar to swing. Tom kept moving the chair further and further away and being older, had no trouble jumping to the bar. Egged on by Tom I made a valiant effort, missed the bar, and landed flat on my face on the flagstone patio. I sat up, somewhat dazed and brushed what I thought were small leaves from my face. When I saw the blood on my hand I started screaming for my mother. I was just a little kid after all. She scolded Tom and cleaned me up and soothed me as only a mother can.

But with the experience of that backyard fall and other similar experiences it was no surprise, or should not have been, about what Tom did on that Christmas morning so many years ago. We had a big tree set up in the corner of the dinning room covered with all the lights and decorations my mother saved from year to year. I especially liked the bubbling candle lights. Back then we saved everything from year to year. Big light bulbs on heavy wire were the rule of the day. No small 100 light strings with tiny bulbs for $5 back then. You saved everything, couldn't afford not too. It must have been a good year for my father because there were lots of presents for Tom and I under the tree. Because we were so close in age, almost twins, each of us had the same gifts, wrapped in the same wrapping paper. Under normal circumstances we would rush down in the morning, gulp down breakfast, and then everyone would gather by the tree and open presents.

But Tom got up very early that Christmas morning and snuck down to the dining room and opened all of his presents. Then he opened all of mine too. Then he played with all of the toys and broke some of them. Later he insisted that the broken toys were mine and that his were all OK. My parents didn't buy that story and Tom was stuck with the broken toys. I remember being upset by it for awhile but the thrill of having the new toys soon took away the sting of not opening my own presents.

Christmas is a time for children and the time for the family to get together. And it is the time to remember the past.

Merry Christmas everyone.

A disenting view from an irate reader.

From: Allison Nicole Ashley alley_cat5183@yahoo.com
Subject: The only stink in preble is you!
Date: December 24, 2003 6:38:46 PM EST
To: frank@prebleny.com

In case you haven't realized Preble is a farming community, and has been for many years. The farmers in the Town of Preble have done more for the community than people like you. If you are so concerned about the Town of Preble, why don't you get involved in the community, instead of whining about everything. What do you do for the Town of Preble other than complain about everything that goes on? Are you in the fire department? Are you on the recreation committee? Maybe you should move back to wherever you came from because this town has survived for many years without people like you.
Also if you haven't ever heard, if you have something bad to say about a farmer then don't talk with your mouth full.

Let's see if you put this on your web page!

Here you go Allison. And Merry Christmas to you too.


Note: This may be a bogus person. An email reply was returned with the following:

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

alley_cat5183@yahoo.com
SMTP error from remote mailer after end of data:
host mx1.mail.yahoo.com [64.157.4.78]: 554 delivery error:
dd Sorry, your message to alley_cat5183@yahoo.com cannot be delivered. This account is over quota. - mta118.mail.sc5.yahoo.com

However, as the email, bogus or not, represents a view held by others I have decided to publish it and my reply below.

Dear Allison Nicole Ashley,

I am very aware that Preble is a farming community, or rather it might be better to say it 'was' a farming community. In the twenty or so years I've been here the farmers have been selling off their land so people like me can buy it and move in. The land is still dominated by farms but I'm guessing that there are more non-farmers here than farmers. Preble is changing, like it or not, and there is nothing that you or I can do about that. For the last few years I have worked to keep Preble like it is and have tried to prevent bad things from coming here that would destroy Preble. Bad things like Flying J. But what have I done besides that? I was the VP of the Song Lake Association for two years and President for another two after that. I've maintained this site to inform people like you about what happens in Preble. It was this site and my efforts that informed everyone about the Nitrate problem so they could take measures to protect their health. No, I'm not on the fire department or the recreation committee but I could join. How about the Garden Club or the 4H Club? I could join them all and go to their meetings. Let's get serious, do you really think they would like me looking closely at what they are doing?

But you are right about one thing, and that is this town has survived without people like me. It has been run by a small group of people that do things that enrich themselves to the detriment of everyone else. I'm trying to stop that by exposing what they do. You call that whining. You would like me to leave and go back to where I came from because you don't like what I write about here on the site. Why do you read it then?

And your last comment about talking with my mouth full. Yes indeed farmers do provide all of us with food to eat. But they couldn't do that without engineers to design their tractors, factory workers to build them. Oil workers to provide fuel, doctors to take care of their health, druggists to provide medicine. Need I go on? We live in an interconnected society where everyone is important and no one is more important that anyone else. But to answer your question directly, I make teeth, crowns or caps as most think of them. And if it wasn't for me your farmers couldn't chew that mouthful of food. Doesn't that make me more important than them? No, of course not. We all need each other and the sooner everyone realizes that and stops trying to be held above the rest of us the better.

I am but the messenger of bad news, not the cause of it.

Frank Hogg

Preble Stinks part two

Here is the problem as it was explained to me. Manure sits in the snow over the winter, the ground freezes. In the spring the snow melts but the ground is still frozen. The manure is carried off with the melting snow and pollutes the water. The moral of the story is... What moral can their be? The farmers, who used to be the guardians of the land and water, are now the polluters of both. And while they have a right to make a living and to farm, they do NOT have a right to pollute our water AND they should be ashamed for doing so. Sadly, those who are in charge of protecting our soil and water, (Amanda Barber are you listening?) are farmers themselves and will do nothing to stop it. Instead they protect their own to the detriment of everybody else. I think that what surprises me the most is the callousness of the GOBs in Preble who claim that it is we who are against the farmer while at the same time they shield and protect those farmers who pollute and destroy the land and water. Where are their principles? Where are their morals? Where are their brains? It is we who work to protect the land and water and it is we who are chastised for doing so. So it is now up to you, it is now your duty to do something. Sure, you can sit there and just read this and think something is being done. That's easy to do. Just sit there, sip your beer, belch a bit and turn on the TV. Some day soon you will not be able to drink from your well and you'll have to keep your windows closed because of the stench. But hey, it's so much easier to just do nothing and let them crap all over you. By then you'll be so used to the stink and you won't even notice.

Manure Dumping in Preble 12/22/03

PREBLE STINKS! And here is the reason why. I guess some farmers wanted to give all of us a Christmas present by stinking up the town dumping manure on the snow. Now I could be wrong but I thought they were NOT supposed to dump manure on the snow. I could be wrong but I thought they were supposed to till the manure into the soil within three days of dumping it. I think it was Amanda Barber who told me that but I could be wrong. You can't till frozen ground as far as I know but I'm not a farmer so I could be wrong.

Today I was driving down Rt 11 when I spotted a huge manure tanker coming out of the Currie farm. I turned around and went down 11 about 1/2 mile past Preble Road and there on the left were two guys from the Currie farm dumping manure on the field. Those are the pictures labeled "CurrieDumpRt11" 1 through 7. Then I drove over Preble road to 281 south. Just a bit past town there was more evidence of manure dumping on the right hand side of the road. Those pictures are labeled "281lookingeast" 1 through 5. I named the pictures wrong, they should say west not east. I drove further down 281 and took a sharp right onto Steger Road and came back towards town. I took the pictures of the same field from Steger road and those are labeled "StegerRdLookingEast" 1 through 5. I don't know who dumped manure in this field.

If you wanted to know why the town stinks and perhaps why the nitrates are high this could be the reason. But, I'm no expert so I could be wrong. And as these fields are south of Preble they probably aren't the reason for nitrate problems in the town proper. But I could be wrong.

See the pictures here.

Anonymous American Soldier Named Time's Person of the Year

"The 2003 Person of the Year package, which hits newsstands Monday, focuses on a 12-person artillery survey unit stationed in Iraq to tell the story of the American soldier. Two Time journalists embedded with the platoon were injured in a grenade attack this month.

Three soldiers with the unit - Marquette Whiteside, Billie Grimes and Ronald Buxton - are shown on the cover. "