mastodon.online is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A newer server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Server stats:

12K
active users

Are you guys ready for the buck-wildest agriculture story I've ever heard

Let me set the stage: Umnak, the biggest island in the Aleutian chain.

Some guys thought it would be a good idea to ranch cattle there.

At first that sounds like a nuts thing to do.

And then you look at the map and you think, Oh! That's on the same latitude as Ireland. That's not so bad.

Nice long days in the summer, cool rainy maritime climate, lots of green grass. Cows love that!

And you'd be right!

A cool thing about ranching on islands in Alaska is in the winter, when there's less grass, is kelp season. Kelp loves the cold & kelp forests really get going in winter.

Then winter storms pull lots of it off its stalks and pile it onto the beach, where the cows can graze it.

Another cool thing about ranching on islands in Alaska is this quote is technically true!

So, here's the thing.

They're way out in the North Pacific. That "cradle of storms" thing is real.

Those big waves that surfers love on the North Shore of Hawai'i?

This is where they come from! Storms in the North Pacific! They're still huge after they make it to HAWAI'I

That's how all that kelp gets onto shore. Big storms, big waves, tearin' up the kelp forests & dropping them on the beach.

So you'll still get occasional 20, 30' waves even after a local storm is over.

When it's otherwise calm & the cows are out grazing on the beach.

So the thing about cows is they're kinda just a fermentation tank on legs.

Their body is a big hollow barrel with a lot of gas in it (mostly lungs, some CO2 & methane in the gut).

They float GREAT.

So yes, sometimes they get whacked by big waves when they're grazing on the beach. But don't worry, they don't drown! They float! They can swim!*

Sarah Taber

*Well enough to cross a river. Not well enough to get back to land in the North Pacific.

Cows are not a maritime creature.

So.... someone has figured out that there's a magic island that occasionally drops cows into the ocean.

Turns out orcas love steak.

And this quote is technically true! There are no natural predators ON Umnak Island.

The article doesn't mention the orcas. I got that info from a colleague involved in attempts to acquire the ranch.

Turns out running a ranch in the Aleutian Islands is, like, logistically not recommended- as I understand it's no longer in operation.

This ranch is a great case study in "Just because you can ranch cattle here, doesn't mean you should."

There's also a caribou herd there that AFAIK doesn't wander down into the wave zone to graze, because they eat lichen in the winter. It helps to be adapted to the local area!

In conclusion, Yeehaw

ps. I'm running for Commissioner of Agriculture in North Carolina. Whale tales aside- I'm here for solving rural areas' economic challenges. And I can't do it alone, so if you can, help me win this thing!

Website: taberfornc.com

Donate: secure.actblue.com/donate/mast

@sarahtaber oh my godddddd

also my discord thanks you for your story.

@sarahtaber I don't think I can do much from Scotland other than boosting your post, but my best wishes. Good luck!

@sarahtaber
The Vikings starved in Greenland because they tried to grow cattle and sheep didn’t they?

And refused to ask the Inuit how they’d been surviving all this time?

Shakes head at arrogant Norwegian ancestors

@AccordionBruce @sarahtaber
The Norse made it a few centuries on Greenland with their farming techniques from Iceland.

But yeah, the the climate shifted to Greenland being like today, and there's no sign of them adopting anything from the Inuit who lived to the north. Some contact must have existed, but no nothing learned, no intermarriages.

/have read up on it a few times since high school iut of interest.

@AccordionBruce honest question from someone from the other side of the Equator: how do the inuit do it?

@sarahtaber I wish my local candidates had campaign ads as good as this!

@sarahtaber I just donated! If you happen to be doing any text banks or postcarding please toot that too.

PS Thanks for being active here in the #Fediverse. I was a longtime follower back on Xitter.

@alienghic @sarahtaber I have perished from laughter induced asphyxia.

@alienghic @sarahtaber I must say... the kelp-making machine that brought cow-me to this story-beach was a big set up by the Diane-orcas for the precise goal of making this joke.

@earth2marsh @sarahtaber

I don't think I have ever managed to make a pun as perfect as this pun before.

@sarahtaber

"I'm going down to Cow Town
the Cow's a friend to me
lives beneath the ocean
and that's where I will be
beneath the waves
the waves
and that's where I will be
I'm gonna see the Cow Beneath the Sea"

youtube.com/watch?v=u91t0_wfL6

@enantiomer - I have learned two amazing things today.

@sarahtaber but it seems the orcas are not really the problem; they are not eating any cows that are not already doomed, are they?

So they seem to have more of a scavenger than a predator role, here.

@sarahtaber I knew the fuckin’ orcas would figure it out.

@sarahtaber They really are just ... amazingly adaptable death machines.

@sarahtaber 🫢🫣😬
I am so glad I started reading this thread!

@sarahtaber If, later on in your life, you think, Hey, why did that Patrick Johanneson guy follow me, anyway?, well, it's because of this thread, and specifically this post.

@sarahtaber I swear to God, there’s a rule now that every major David Attenborough series has a bit where this one bunch of Orca have learned to kill and eat other creatures using unusual cunning and coordination, which hadn’t been filmed before, and I can’t even be upset because every time, “yup, that’s Orca for you”.

@skington @sarahtaber sooner or later they're going to figure out how to build the reverse of submarines

and then we are doomed

@sarahtaber

OOC: I am amazed that I, a lifelong Alaskan, had never heard of this story before. Spectacular. Thank you!

@sarahtaber so long and thanks for all the… cows?

@sarahtaber "Cows are not a maritime creature" -- this is the moment where my abs started vibrating

@sarahtaber a couple of years ago when we had bad flooding in Cumbria, a herd of cows were washed away and found, fit and healthy, on a golf course 25 miles away!

@sarahtaber this feels like a setup for one of the old Far Side cartoons