Santa Maria Valley schoolhouse has roots dating back to 1875

Wanting to build a school closer to home in order keep their children from making the long trek to the Pleasant Valley School, the residents of the western part of town formed the Agricola School District in 1875. L.W. Blosser was chairman of the first board of trustees, while William Laird Adam served as secretary. The first recorded minutes, dated July 1, 1891, show that the board employed S.B. Schauer to teach a four-month term at a salary of $65 per month. Eloise F. Lawrence was offered the job of teaching the following five-month term for $60 per month, but when she learned that janitorial and librarian services were a part of her job, she turned the offer down. Sophia Fauntleroy took the job and remained at school for the rest of the year. When an addition to the school was built in September of 1898 at a cost of $410, trustees Chaffin and Adam personally assumed the lumber bill in the amount of $92.60 as a gift to the school district. Disbursements during the 1894-95 year showed a $10 payment for two cords of wood, and an $11 payment for the hauling of 44 barrels of water...Santa MariaTimes

Song Of The Day #067

Most are familiar with Johnny Horton hits generated after he signed with Columbia Records in 1955. First came his "honky tonk" era, with hits like Honky Tonk Man, and then his "historical" era, with hits like The Battle Of New Orleans.

Some may not know that prior to 1955 he recorded on Abbot and then Mercury records, and they were great pure country recordings. Today's selection on Ranch Radio is one of those early recordings, Betty Lorraine from 1952. It's available on the 4 CD box set The Early Years.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Kids and horses

Julie Carter

I was a kid once and yes, I had a horse. Only for a very few, and very short, periods in my life have I been without a horse. There is nothing like that kid-with-a-horse experience.

Loving horses isn't something you are afflicted with by choice. You don't just wake up one day and think, "Today I'm going to love horses."

Somewhere in the human genetic makeup is a signal switch that gives us a heart for animals and one more click of the switch focuses our love toward dogs and horses.
That's not scientific you understand, just my theory based on experience.

I hosted a 4-H Horse Show Clinic last week, and to my delight, a dozen kids on horses that showed up to learn.

Most of them had never seen a horse show, let alone been in one. A number of them were relatively new to riding and those that weren't, were new to show ring disciplines.

By the end of the day, thanks to the steady instruction of a great "coach," the entire bunch morphed into riders with a plan and horses with the same goal.

Kids are very adaptable and horses teach them as much as kids teach a horse. Put a kid on a horse and there is basic communication that rivals anything the high-tech world can provide.

There is an understanding between the horse and the child that defies description but with the naked eye, one can see the horse evaluating his rider while the rider thinks he is the one in charge.

As with people, the personalities of horses either jive with their rider or have no connection whatsoever.

A horse may, quite obviously, like his kid immensely, but won't be anything but a brat for an adult. It is a common personality grind that keeps mothers gritting their teeth and fathers determined to outlast it.

I'm not sure exactly what makes my heart swell more - a tiny girl on a big horse determined to do anything and everything the "big kids do," or a young boy who lopes off to meet the challenges of the day, riding his new best friend in the whole world.

In my distant youth, living very remotely from any real civilization, horses were my best and only friends. My only alternative was brothers. I whiled away long summer days, always with a horse as my company.

I'd sit on the top rail of the fence and tell my horse the burdens of my heart.
I'd often slip a bridle on him, slide onto his back and take off in a lope up through the meadows toward the looming mountain range with no particular destination in mind.

This four-legged best friend and I explored the world around us and watched Mother Nature in her rawest form. It was freedom at its finest.

It wasn't until many years later that I fully understood how much having horses in my life had taught me. Love, trust, forgiveness, patience, understanding, happiness, loss, confidence are all part of owning a horse ... and living a fulfilled life.

As I watched the horse clinic kids riding around the arena, my heart smiled. I knew something they didn't. I knew that this day, and every day, with their horses, mattered in their lives in ways they had no idea.

Mattered more than the fun they were having, mattered more than the lessons they were learning that day.

In all that, they were shaping their hearts for living and I was privileged to watch it unfold.

Julie can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com.

NM ranchers worry that sick cows could cross to US

Longtime New Mexico cattle rancher Judy Keeler is keenly aware of how tough it is to raise livestock in the dusty desert near the U.S.-Mexico border. Drought, intense heat, security and illegal immigrants who cut down ranchers fences and drink water meant for livestock are constant concerns. But Keeler and fellow ranchers now have another worry. The border fence, installed by the Department of Homeland Security to keep cars and people from crossing into the United States illegally, isn't so good at blocking cattle in some places. The new fence replaced previous livestock fences at some points, and some stretches are so low that cows can step right over it. And because regulations in Mexico are less strict, Mexican herds are more likely to have bovine tuberculosis and other communicable diseases. "It's kind of a hodgepodge of fencing," said Keeler, president of the Hidalgo County Cattle Grower's Association in Hachita in southwest New Mexico. "The inconsistencies along the border is what I'm trying to get them to correct." Some of the Mexican border states don't have the bovine TB-free disease status enjoyed by most of the U.S. border states, said Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association in Albuquerque, N.M. That could lead to disease spreading to U.S. cattle, threatening the nation's beef industry, although no infections blamed on Mexican cattle have been reported recently...AP

Nestlé Recall Leaves A Mystery in Its Wake

Federal microbiologists and food safety investigators have descended on the Danville, Va., plant that makes Nestlé's refrigerated cookie dough, trying to crack a scientific mystery surrounding a national outbreak of illness from E. coli 0157, a deadly strain of bacteria, which has been linked to the product. Health officials and food producers puzzled yesterday over how E. coli 0157, a bacterium that lives in the intestines of cattle, could have ended up in a product that seems so unlikely to contain it. "It's a fascinating outbreak," said Craig Hedberg, an expert on food-borne diseases at the University of Minnesota. "By just looking at package labeling, there is no reason you would expect an event like this to occur." The outbreak, which has sickened at least 65 people in 29 states, is the latest worry for consumers in the Washington area and across the country unnerved by a wave of food-borne illnesses, including botulism associated with canned chili and infections from salmonella linked to peanut products. With cookie dough, like peanut butter, being a favorite of children, the latest outbreak is particularly alarming because the young and the elderly are more likely to develop severe complications if infected with E. coli 0157. More than two-thirds of the 65 victims are younger than 19, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. None has died...WPost

Utah Town Unsettled by Doctor’s Suicide and an Inquiry on Indian Artifact Looting; 2nd Suicide is Santa Fe Man

For 30 years Dr. James Redd was always on call to care for the Mormon and American Indian families who share the remote canyon lands here in southeastern Utah. Upon his death on June 11, people found themselves mourning a man who provided not just medicine but a measure of common ground. “I’ve been in his office when it was clear full of Native Americans,” Robert Carroll, who is 77 and a member of the Mormon Church, said after attending an emotional funeral service for Dr. Redd at a Mormon center here last week. “He took everybody.” Yet even as residents of Blanding have joined in grief, the circumstances of Dr. Redd’s death have shocked this tidy little town and threatened the delicate cross-cultural balance here that he helped preserve. Dr. Redd, 60, was found dead of a suicide a day after federal prosecutors charged him, his wife and 22 others with stealing, selling and trading Indian artifacts from the ancestral lands that stretch out from here in every direction. On Friday, a second defendant, Steven L. Shrader of Santa Fe, N.M., was found dead of two self-inflicted gunshot wounds behind an elementary school in DeKalb County, Ill., according to the authorities there. Mr. Shrader, 56, had turned himself in to law enforcement officials in Albuquerque after being served a warrant in the case. The events have resonated deeply here in Blanding, the home of 16 of those charged and the site of a federal raid in the case. Many defendants have surnames — Lyman, Shumway, Redd — that have been prominent here since Mormon pioneers explored the area in the 1880s with plans to bring their education system to Indians. Resentment of the federal government has long run deep among whites and American Indians here, for many reasons, but the arrests have prompted a particularly sharp backlash...NYTimes

Suit accuses TSA of unreasonable airport detention

A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Transportation Security Administration alleges a Ron Paul supporter was unreasonably detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying about $4,700 in cash. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Bierfeldt, director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an organization that grew out of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. The organization had hosted an event in St. Louis that included the sale of tickets, T-shirts, stickers and other materials and Bierfeldt said he was carrying the cash proceeds in a metal box when he was detained at Lambert Airport for about 30 minutes on March 29. The lawsuit does not seek money but asks the court to declare the TSA's actions unconstitutional and to prohibit the agency from similar searches when there is no evidence aircraft are endangered. "It's obviously important that the safety of flights be ensured," Bierfeldt said in a telephone interview. "But subjecting innocent travelers like me who are doing nothing wrong - I think it diverts TSA away from its core mission of safeguarding air travel."...AP

U.S. to Let Immigration Agents Make Drug Arrests

The Obama administration is preparing to give more U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents authority to make drug arrests to assist Mexico's bloody battle with drug cartels, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told senators today. The decision would end a years-long dispute between the Justice and Homeland Security departments, significantly increasing the number of federal drug agents, particularly in border areas. Holder said that he discussed the question with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last night and that they were ready to announce an agreement. By law, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have authority to investigate federal drug crimes, with the FBI concentrating on organized crime. Under an agreement that has not been updated since 1994, DEA also gave arrest authority to U.S. customs agents who make seizures at border crossings. However, since ICE took over customs investigations with the creation of the Homeland Security Department in 2003, it has pushed for expanded authority to match its bigger presence at the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the country. ICE has about as many agents as DEA -- about 5,000 compared with 4,800 agents. As of March, DEA had delegated about 1,300 ICE agents with drug arrest authority, ICE officials said, with a cap set at 1,475 agents...WPost

SAF Lawsuit Forces Change in D.C. Gun Regulations

Firearms regulations in Washington, D.C. are being amended today by emergency order in response to a federal lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation that challenged the arbitrary nature of previous regulations enforced in the District of Columbia. The District had adopted new handgun registration regulations following last year's landmark Second Amendment ruling that struck down the city's decades-old handgun ban as unconstitutional. Under the new regulations, which take effect immediately, the city essentially acknowledges the State of California's roster of approved handguns - upon which the District's own regulations were based - is inadequate. Citizens who had been previously denied an opportunity to register their handguns will be invited to re-apply under the new guidelines, which now include information from so-called "safe gun rosters" maintained by Maryland and Massachusetts. "This is a genuine victory," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, "because the city is admitting that its existing roster of handguns approved for registration in the District was arbitrary. The city has recognized that handguns had been removed from the California roster for administrative reasons having nothing to do with the safety of a specific handgun model. "Until today," he added, "the city had been disqualifying certain handguns based on such factors as color, even though they functioned identically to approved models. This ends that nonsense."...PressRelease

State court again strikes down Philly gun laws

A state appeals court ruled Wednesday that the city cannot enforce an assault weapons ban and a law prohibiting guns bought by one person and given to another, measures passed by City Council in an effort to combat persistent gun violence. The 6-1 ruling marked the latest setback for Philadelphia officials, who have fought for years for the right to pass their own gun legislation. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has previously upheld the state's exclusive right to enact gun laws. The National Rifle Association challenged a series of measures that were passed by City Council in April 2008 and signed by Mayor Michael Nutter. Both sides expect the case to end up before the state's highest court again. "The bottom line is, we won," NRA attorney C. Scott Shields said of the ruling. In Thursday's ruling, the court said the city could not ban assault weapons or pass the law prohibiting straw purchases, in which one person fills out forms and buys a gun for someone else — often convicted felons who can't legally own guns...AP

UK: White people held 'to balance racial statistics'

White members of the public are being unlawfully detained by the police in order to give "racial balance" to stop-and-search statistics, a report by the Government's watchdog on terror laws has found. Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he knew of cases where suspects were stopped by officers even though there was no evidence or suspicion against them. He warned that police were wasting money by carrying out "self-evidently unmerited searches" which were an invasion of civil liberties and "almost certainly unlawful". He said police were carrying out the searches on people they had no basis for suspecting so they could avoid accusations of prejudice...TheGuardian

Song Of The Day #066

Ranch Radio's gospel song today is the 1951 recording of Electricity by Jimmy Murphy.

Murphy's music is available on such collections as Electricity on the Starday label and Sixteen Tons of Rock & Roll put out by Bear Family records. I prefer the Bear Family collection, as it has the original recordings.

Since this is Fathers Day, our second offering is by Lester Flatt & Earl Scuggs, with Lester doing the narration on Father's Table Grace.

Democrats Back to Square One on Climate Bill

House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between Democrats “blew up last night.” A meeting between chairmen drafting the climate bill and Democrats on the Agriculture Committee “by and large blew up last night” over the issue of offsets, Peterson said. Specifically, he said, Agriculture Democrats rejected a concept pitched by bill drafters that would set money aside for a new greenhouse gas conservation program tied together with some offsets. “It’s a whole new concept being brought in at the last minute,” Peterson said. “Many didn’t like it. ... The bottom line is we’re not going to consider anything unless we actually see the language and have it for three or four days so we can figure out what it does.” Peterson said he hopes to find some resolution later Friday when he heads into another meeting with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), White House officials and farm groups...RollCall

Eleven Western Governors May Have Unknowingly Given Tax Dollars to Cap-and-Trade Project they Shunned

State taxpayer dollars may have been diverted by the staff of the Western Governors Association (WGA) -- against the wishes of many WGA Governors -- to help pay for a climate tax scheme written largely by California environmental activists that would dramatically increase families' energy costs, according to the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU). NTU has sent all Western Governors a letter on the findings of its investigation, which raised "serious questions about the use of taxpayer funds in this effort from states that did not agree to partner" in the project. The several-month investigation was based on voluminous documents released by the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Paul Chesser of the non-profit Climate Strategies Watch (CSW). CSW subsequently made the information available to NTU. "As an organization that receives tax dollars from both state and federal sources, WGA has a responsibility to operate with full transparency and public disclosure in terms of its fiscal activities, where it receives its funding and how and where it spends those funds," NTU President Duane Parde wrote to the Governors. "According to these documents ... WGA actively aligned itself with this effort and became intimately involved in a support role for the WCI's mission and objectives. It is difficult to see how tax dollars from non-WCI states did not subsidize this process." WCI is a collaborative effort among the Governors of California plus Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington that spent the last year-and-a-half developing a proposed Western regional carbon "cap-and-trade" scheme. While the work of the WCI was done in the name of those states' Governors, the WCI process was heavily influenced, and funded in part, by large "corporate-style" environmental groups and foundations. NTU's investigation uncovered a wide range of evidence that the WCI was largely run by staff of the Western Governors' Association, even though the majority of states in the WGA (Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming), specifically elected not to endorse the use of their tax dollar contributions in the project...NTU

Hat tip: Paul Gessing

Utah senator confronts attorney general on tactics used in artifact raids

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) on Wednesday grilled Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. on why more than 100 federal agents were needed to round up two dozen suspects accused of stealing Native American artifacts from public land. The day after last week's raids, one of the suspects, Dr. James Redd of Blanding in southern Utah, killed himself. Residents and officials in Blanding, where 16 suspects live, complained that authorities used unnecessary force to arrest nonviolent offenders. "They came in in full combat gear, SWAT team gear, like they were going after, you know, the worst drug dealers in the world," Hatch said, according to a transcript of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington. Then, alluding to Redd, he continued, "I have no problem with going after people who violate the law. But they came in there like they were the worst common criminals on earth. And in the process, this man, it became overwhelming to him, I suppose." Hatch's remarks came a day after Redd's funeral in Blanding drew more than 1,000 people. The Utah Republican also complained about how the operation was announced -- at a news conference in Salt Lake City featuring Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Deputy Atty. Gen. David Ogden. Hatch, noting that he had been in the Senate for 33 years, said: "I felt it was like a dog-and-pony show, to me, and I know one when I see it. And this has all the classic signs of one."...LATimes

This is from the Albq. Journal:

The attorney for longtime art dealer Forrest Fenn said Wednesday his client has done nothing illegal. Fenn's home at 1021 Old Santa Fe Trail was the subject of a federal search warrant executed June 10, in which some 20 federal agents descended on the house, looking for illegally obtained antiquities and records regarding their sale or purchase. Attorney Peter Schoenburg said the agents were armed, wore flak jackets and carried a battering ram. “They were prepared to knock down the door,” he said. “At (age) 78, Fenn let them in.” Vehicles in front of Fenn's home that day came from a number of federal agencies, including the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Department. Jones said the search of Fenn's home was part of the same case in which 24 people were indicted in a sweeping federal investigation into ancient artifacts stolen from public and tribal lands in the Southwest. The investigation originated in the bureau's Salt Lake City office and is being coordinated out of that office in conjunction with the BLM...

The R's were oh so quiet when under Bush similar tactics were used on ranchers Kit Laney and Wayne Hague.

Still, it's nice to see Hatch asking these questions. It's time the feds actions against western citizens receive scrutiny and are brought up for public debate.

The R's have complained the D's won't hold hearings on this issue. If they pushed hard enough I'll bet they could get the hearings. They also have the GAO, appropriations hearings and other vehicles they could use...if they want to.

Clean Water Act Passes out of Committee

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the Clean Water Restoration Act by a 12 to 7 vote Thursday. Under provisions of the act, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association says farmers and ranchers would be required to obtain permits for common, everyday activities like driving a tractor near an irrigation ditch or grazing cattle near a mud hole. Tamara Thies, Chief Environmental Counsel for NCBA, says this bill has nothing to do with cleaner water. Instead, she says it reflects activists’ goals of having the federal government controlling our land use and waters. Thies called for the bill to be stopped. An amendment submitted by Senator Max Baucus received the support of the National Farmers Union Board of Directors. The board said by placing existing regulatory exemptions in legal statute and legislatively clarifying the exemptions for prior converted cropland - farmers and ranchers would be able to predict what resources are subject to Clean Water Act regulation with greater certainty...HoosierAgToday

Environment Groups Praise Senate Panel For New Clean Water Bill

Environmentalists praised Senate lawmakers on Thursday for approving legislation that more clearly defines which bodies of water are subject to federal regulation. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted, 12 to 7, to approve legislation sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., that would amend the federal law - Clean Water Act of 1972 - by replacing the term "navigable waters" with "waters of the United States," among other changes. This bill "is a careful balance of restoring and only restoring critical protections for the nations' waters that were in place prior to the Supreme Court intervention in 2001," said Jan Goldman-Carter, of the Wetlands and Water Resources Counsel for the National Wildlife Federation. Additionally, Jon Devine, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council's water program, said the council is grateful that the Senate committee has addressed concerns about below-par clean water protection. Ducks Unlimited, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited and Izaak Walton League of American were among other groups that expressed enthusiasm about passage of the legislation...DowJones

Inhofe Leads Opposition to "Biggest Bureaucratic Power Grab in a Generation"

U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, led the opposition to a bill that would have huge implications on Oklahoma and rural America. While the bill, S. 787, the Clean Water Restoration Act, passed out of the EPW Committee today on a party-line vote, Senator Inhofe said he believed the bill would ultimately fail on the Senate Floor. Earlier this week, in a YouTube video, Senator Inhofe called the bill the "biggest bureaucratic power grab in a generation." The little-talked about bill, seeks to "extend the scope and reach of federal water jurisdiction beyond anything that ever existed under the Clean Water Act." "The superficial changes made to this bill don´t change its underlying intention and ultimate effect: to radically expand federal power over farms, ranches, and private property," Senator Inhofe said following the business meeting. "We heard plenty of talk about a grand compromise to address concerns from rural America. Yet in the end, the revised bill, which passed on a party-line vote, still lacks support from a large swath of rural stakeholders. "I am pleased to support Senator Crapo´s hold on the bill. On the very outside chance this bill ever actually reaches the Senate floor, I will work closely with Senator Crapo and others to defeat it and ensure that we protect private property owners, farmers, ranchers, and all those affected by the bill´s regulatory overreach...AmericanChronicle

Expansive Energy Bill Advances In Congress

A Senate energy bill was voted out of committee yesterday, but not before losing the support of two Democrats and a dozen leading environmental organizations. The measure would be the third energy bill in four years -- not counting the huge energy provisions in this year's economic stimulus bill. Like the others, it is rife with controversy over new offshore drilling plans near Florida, the sharing of federal offshore oil and gas royalties, and a mandate for renewable energy that alternative-energy executives and environmentalists say is too weak. It would require 15 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2021, but would allow exemptions that would diminish that target. The proposed bill would also create a new "clean energy" financing agency that would extend subsidized loans and loan guarantees to a variety of projects, including nuclear plants. But a dozen environmental groups yesterday said they opposed it. In a joint letter to the committee, they called the renewable-electricity standard too lax because it allows noncompliance fees to go back to companies, exempts new nuclear plants and certain new coal plants from baseline calculations, and allows energy-efficiency savings to substitute for renewable energy. The groups also said allowing offshore oil and gas drilling so close to the west coast of Florida would "put Florida's coastal economies and wildlife further at risk." The environmental group Friends of the Earth, one of the 12 signatories, separately said that a lack of oversight could turn the "clean energy deployment agency" into a "giant slush fund for nuclear and coal projects."...WPost

Power company tells customers bills could go up 47 percent

Legislation before Congress could drive up electricity bills by as much as 47 percent, Grand Valley Power is telling customers in a letter. Grand Valley Power sent the letter as a part of a national effort by electrical associations around the state and country to alert their ratepayers to the potential costs of cap-and-trade legislation, which is due for a vote in the House of Representatives. The costs of cap and trade “will directly affect your electric bill,” Grand Valley Power said, urging customers to contact federal officials “on this significant ‘tax’ on your electric bill.” Those who stand to be most affected, “of course are the ones who can afford it the least,” Grand Valley Power spokesman Bill Byers said. “We think people need to be aware and voice their concerns if they have any.” The cap-and-trade measure is contained in a 946-page bill, H.R. 2454, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Ed Markey and Henry Waxman of Massachusetts and California, respectively...GrandJunctionSentinel