There has been an email circulating this year calling for a new American Christmas Tradition. I tend to support the ideals and principals contained in this email so I am reprinting it here for your enjoyment.

Today is Black Friday. Maybe if we all were to consider these gifting ideas, we wouldn’t have to risk pepper spray down at the Walmart this year!

Christmas 2011 — Birth of a New Tradition

As the holidays approach, the giant Asian factories are kicking into high gear to provide Americans with monstrous piles of cheaply produced goods — merchandise that has been produced at the expense of American labor.

This year will be different. This year Americans will give the gift of genuine concern for other Americans. There is no longer an excuse
that, at gift giving time, nothing can be found that is produced by American hands. Oh…. Yes there is! It is time to think outside the
box, people. Who says a gift needs to fit in a shirt box, wrapped in Chinese produced wrapping paper?

Everyone — yes EVERYONE gets their hair cut. How about gift certificates from your local American hair salon or barber?

Gym membership? It’s appropriate for all ages who are thinking about some health improvement.

Who wouldn’t appreciate getting their car detailed? Small, American owned detail shops and car washes would love to sell you a gift certificate or a book of gift certificates.

Are you one of those extravagant givers who think nothing of plunking down the Benjamins on a Chinese-made flat-screen TV? Perhaps that grateful gift receiver would like his driveway sealed, or lawn mowed for the summer, or driveway plowed all winter, or games at the local golf course.

There are a gazillion owner-run restaurants — all offering gift certificates. And, if your intended isn’t the fancy eatery sort, what about a half dozen breakfasts at the local breakfast joint.

Remember, folks this isn’t about big National chains — this is about supporting your home town Americans with their financial lives on the line to keep their doors open.

How many people couldn’t use an oil change for their car, truck or motorcycle, done at a shop run by the American working guy?

Thinking about a heartfelt gift for mom? Mom would LOVE the services of a local cleaning lady for a day.

My computer could use a tune-up, and I KNOW I can find some young guy who is struggling to get his repair business up and running.

OK, you were looking for something more personal. Local crafts people spin their own wool and knit them into scarves. They make jewelry, and pottery and beautiful wooden boxes.

Plan your holiday outings at local, owner operated restaurants and leave your server a nice tip.

And, how about going out to see a play or ballet at your hometown theatre. Musicians need love too, so find a venue showcasing local bands.

Honestly people, do you REALLY need to buy another ten thousand Chinese lights for the house? When you buy a five dollar string of light, about fifty cents stays in the community.

If you have those kinds of bucks to burn, leave the mailman, trash guy or babysitter a nice BIG tip.

You see, Christmas is no longer about draining American pockets so that China can build another glittering city. Christmas is now about caring about US (We the People), encouraging American small businesses to keep plugging away to follow their dreams. And, when we care about other Americans, we care about our communities, and the benefits come back to us in ways we could not imagine.

THIS is the new American Christmas tradition!!

Forward this to everyone on your mailing list — post it to discussion groups.
– throw up a post on Craig’s List in the Rants and Raves section in your city.
– send it to the editor of your local paper and radio stations, and TV news departments.

This is a revolution of caring about each other, and isn’t that what Christmas is about?

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For Android: (you can find these for iPhone, iPad & Android tablets as well. Some may not have the same name but you should find a similar app for each device if you search.)

Remember the Milk
Evernote
Dropbox
Google Maps
Weather Bug
Pocked Cow Card – DC305
World Newspapers
RealCalc
Smart Tools
Distance & Area Measure
UltraChron
Team Viewer
Google Translate
Alarm & Timer
Flashlight
Instant Heart Rate
Chase Mobile
CamScanner
Craigslist Notifier
Cleartune

For iPad:
Flipboard

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To read Don’s Obituary please click here.

Rosary
Thursday, Aug 25th.
6:30 PM
St. Brigid Catholic Church
200 East Florinda Street, Hanford, CA 93230-3726
Corner of Florinda & Douty
(559) 582-2533 ‎

Funeral
Friday, August 26th
11:30am
St. Brigid Catholic Church
200 East Florinda Street, Hanford, CA 93230-3726
Corner of Florinda & Douty
(559) 582-2533 ‎

Grave Site
Calvary Cemetery
10th Avenue Hanford, CA 93230

Celebration of Life Luncheon
Friday August 26th
2:00 PM
Fraternal Hall
1015 North 10th Avenue
Hanford, CA 93230

In lieu of flowers, friends may contribute in Don’s memory to:

The Hanford Sons of Italy
Scholarship Fund or Charities Fund
9550 Sixth Ave.
Hanford CA, 93230

Kit Carson School
9895 7th Avenue
Hanford, CA 93230-8802
(559) 582-2843

or a local charity of your choice.

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Picture Stolen from LA Times

I have been trying since May 6, 2011 to get this letter published in one of the LA newspapers but was unsuccessful. Since today LA unified voted against chocolate milk in school lunches, I figured I can post it to my blog.

Here it is. Let me know what you think about the issue.
———

Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to Jamie Oliver and John Deasy, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and anyone else who thinks about things like chocolate milk in our schools. I’m a fourth generation California dairy farmer, a father, and a local school board member. I happen to agree with Jamie Oliver that there is too much sugar in chocolate milk. But I appeal to Jamie and the LAUSD to not throw out the proverbial “baby with the bath water.” Now’s the time to use your clout and the national spotlight to help move dairy processors toward producing low-sugar flavored milk so that kids can still have access to all of the great nutritional benefits of milk.

I have no doubt that Jamie is a reasonable man who sincerely wants to help America in its fight against childhood obesity. I applaud him for his efforts. There are many causes behind this epidemic and I’m willing to consider all of them, including chocolate milk.  However, it’s simplistic to demonize one food and ban it completely, especially a food that delivers so much nutrition. The good news is that when it comes to flavored milk there is a middle ground, and I hope Jamie is listening.

We face a conundrum here. In our land of plenty we have children who don’t get the recommended nutrients of importance for healthy growth. One of these nutrients is vitamin D, as reported in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient because it promotes calcium absorption that leads to healthy bones. Milk is the number one source of calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus in children’s diets.1 Chocolate milk represents, potentially, the last hope for parents trying to provide nutritious foods to their family without facing epic battles. Flavored milk contains the same nine essential nutrients as white milk – calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins A, D and B12, riboflavin and niacin.

In schools, low-fat chocolate milk is the most popular milk choice and kids drink less milk – and get fewer nutrients – when it’s taken away. Also, while dropping chocolate milk from the menus of children who have healthy diets may be fine, for many children this one serving of chocolate milk at school is the most nutritious food they consume all day. It’s sad, but true.

The dairy industry has been working to develop a “smarter” chocolate milk. We’ve done this because leading health and nutrition organizations such as the American Dietetic Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Academy of Pediatrics recognize the valuable role of flavored milk in the diets of American children.

The “smarter” chocolate milk I refer to is sweetened with stevia, a 100% natural zero calorie sweetener. I’ve tasted a version of this chocolate milk and it’s great.  Each serving has 71% less added sugar, 50 fewer calories, 13 grams fewer carbohydrates and 10 grams fewer total sugars than traditional chocolate milk while providing the same amount of calcium, vitamin D and protein.

There’s a precedent for the success of such a program. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, by switching chocolate milk in New York schools from whole milk to low-fat milk, 5,960 fewer calories and 619 fewer grams of fat were served to children in 2009 versus 2004. In addition, milk sales actually increased, showing that the students found the change acceptable.

Dairy farmers understand the problem with traditional chocolate milk and we’ve been trying for years to encourage processors to produce lower sugar chocolate milk. Now that solutions are available, it’s time to move.

Let’s get serious about working together to help our children. I implore Jamie Oliver and John Deasy to sit down with me to talk about this exciting new option in chocolate milk.  I believe we have a solution where everyone can be happy.

Thanks for your consideration,

Dino Giacomazzi
Giacomazzi Dairy
www.dinogiacomazzi.com
@dairydino

1. Murphy M, Douglass J, Latulippe M, Barr S, Johnson R, Frye C.
Beverages as a source of energy and nutrients in diets of children and
adolescents. The FASEB Journal 2005; A434,275.4.

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The current buildings on our farm were built in 1937, the same year the Golden Gate Bridge was completed, yet the equipment inside has been modernized. Over the past year I have been honored with awards by the University of California and the US EPA for work and research in developing sustainable ways to grow feed for cows that require less input in the field. We now use only three tractor passes for two annual crops versus the 14 passes it used to take. This reduces both diesel usage and emissions. We import much less synthetic fertilizer because we use cow manure, which is just as important as the milk our cows produce. We also recycle the water used on our farm an average of four times and have to meet the highest air quality standards in the country.

Because of efforts like these, California dairy has been paving the way in sustainability practices and I’m proud that California milk is one of the most sustainable food products you can buy. In fact, due to innovation and efficiencies, the overall “carbon footprint” of a glass of milk has shrunk by 63 percent over the past 65 years.

I was fortunate enough that my family took care of the land and sustained it for more than 100 years so I could return to the dairy. I have a responsibility to do the same for my son and future generations. I hope you’ll support me and other local dairy producers by celebrating Earth Day – today and every day – with a tall cold glass of Real California milk.

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Most people would be amazed at the amount of paperwork farmers, and more specifically California Dairy Farmers have to do. We have massive amounts of regulations. And all these regulations require tons of paperwork. It can become overwhelming. Many farmers, like myself, are also engaged in a lot of off the farm activities such as school boards, farm bureau, trade associations, church groups, etc. These activities generally require a lot of reading.

The following information is designed to help farmers use the latest technology to simplify their lives, eliminate paper clutter and lost information, and allow us to spend less time at the office and more time at home. So here it goes.

The Paperless Office in three easy steps:

Step one:
Buy a Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 scanner.

With this scanner you can drop a stack of papers in it, it will scan both sides in crystal clear color directly to a PDF in a matter of seconds. I have one at the dairy and I am now completely paperless. I love this machine almost as much as I love my son.

Step two:
Sign up for Dropbox.com
Dropbox.com is a service that synchronizes files between all your digital devices. Your computer at work, your computer at home, your laptop, your iPad, your blackberry, or iPhone, or Android, everywhere. You simply scan your papers with the scansnap into your dropbox folder and within seconds they are available on all your devices. You can also share specific folders with other people, which is really great for collaboration. This is also a form of backup so your files live in multiple locations. That way, if your office computer dies, all the files are still on your other devices.

Dropbox also allows you to save your other documents like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and other PDF files. In fact, you can save any file type you want and access it from anywhere, including the web.

Step three
Get an iPad or Android Tablet
It is a lot easier to read on an iPad than it is on a desktop computer. This is optional but I think your life will be much better for it. Imagine that entire stack of papers on your desk, scanned to a tiny device you can carry with you everywhere, and categorized so you can find whatever you want in seconds.

I have an iPad and Motorola Droid android phone. I view my dropbox documents on both devices but the iPad is much better. The nice thing about having access to them on your phone is that you can email or share documents with people from the phone so you can do it from anywhere.

That’s it. Total elimination of paper in 3 easy steps.

Do you have any suggestions for helping farmers get organized? Let us know in the comments below.

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I have been planning on writing an essay on the problem with corn ethanol, but then I came across this comment from a guy named Jake from Ohio. He wrote this in response to an AP article on Yahoo! finance titled Higher food prices ahead after corn reserves sink. Jake’s comments sum this issue up really well and so I am going to post it here for you.

Jake, if you are reading this, way to go buddy.

Jake from Ohio writes:
Want to understand why ETHANOL if the largest contributor to run away food prices?

35 BILLION dollars PER YEAR. 1/30th of a TRILLION dollars PER YEAR…..

That’s HOW MUCH the American taxpayer is SUBSIDIZING the CORN-BASED ethanol industry just so we can be rewarded with skyrocketing food prices with no end in sight. Actually, food inflation is only just beginning. (Read that twice and you’ll see we are being ripped off TWO ways…… first through the ethanol subsidy and second, through food inflation).

During the fermentation process, two primary products are produced. The HIGH CALORIE carbohydrates are “cooked” out of the corn to produce Ethanol for internal combustion engines. The left overs from this process, the LOW CALORIE proteins, known as corn meal, is fed to livestock.

Before Ethanol, 100% of an acre of corn production went into the human food chain.

With Ethanol, an acre of corn now yields the rough equivalent of ONE-HALF acre of human food with the OTHER half acre being made into ethanol.

Corn is found in more than 50% of all grocery items. Corn has nearly doubled in price in the past six months – and this is only the beginning until something is done about Ethanol. Why? Because approximately HALF of the CALORIC VALUE of corn is going into Ethanol production – and no longer reaching the human food chain.

Additionally, the contracting of corn for corn-based ethanol production is displacing millions and millions of acres of other grain crops (wheat, oats, barley, beans, – you name it) and causing scarcer supplies of these farm products as well. Scarcer grain supplies of all kinds means higher prices for ALL food items – milk, eggs, cheese, breads, cereals, meats and the list goes on and on.

It should be a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY to burn the world’s food supply in internal combustion engines!!!! Here in the U.S. we will suffer more and more from higher prices to feed our families. In other parts of the world, higher prices due to corn-based ethanol production is literally causing starvation and death.

But the rising price of oil necessitates ethanol production, right? WRONG!

Here in U.S. even with a rising demand curve, we sit on a proven 82 year supply of American Natural Gas right under our feet, and more is being discovered every day. One estimate places a 9,000 year supply of natural gas crystal hydrates are locked up on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and recoverable with advancing technology. Forget that for now – we have 8 decades of proven natural gas reserves. It’s abundant, useable, cheaper – and IT IS OURS!

The point? Convert transportation and farming to American Natural Gas, do away with imported oil – and END corn-based ethanol production. Until this happens, spiraling out of control food cost will continue…. and continue.

A side benefit? Ending dependence on foreign oil and using our own natural gas could pay off HALF the national debt in 12 years.

By using our own natural gas for transportation and farming, WE DON’T NEED ethanol from corn OR sugar cane OR sugar beets OR the always evading cellulosic ethanol technology.

Please understand I am not against all ethanol production, but CORN-BASED ethanol production is unwise at best – and INSANE at worst!

We’re running out of time, folks…………..

Contact your congressman and senators to pass legislation to ABOLISH CORN-BASED ETHANOL – and to ramp up American Natural Gas production, distribution and compressed natural gas vehicles. Battery power isn’t going to carry us into the future anytime soon. The technology most of us need for long distance travel in battery power just isn’t there right now.

“Waste not, want not.”

By the way, I am retired from the agricultural seed business.

Thank you for taking the time to read and understand this.

Only those involved in the SUBSIDIZED ETHANOL RACKET will give a thumbs down to this.

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Hi Dino,
I have always loved cows (to look at ) and their dairy products. Do you have a suggestion as to how I can get my spouse to stop eating meat? If you suggest therapy for him, it won’t happen. Thank you and I like your blog idea.

Respectfully,
Ginger

The answer to your question is you can’t. First, there is that whole thing about not being able to change who people are. I have been married for five years and my wife is learning this lesson the hard way! What I am going to attempt to do here is help you appreciate the many benefits of eating the meat that comes from dairy cows.

Cows are the most amazing creatures. I interact with them every day and I never get over the beauty of their design. The symbiotic relationship between cows and humans is like no other relationship in nature. And what is most interesting is that as society changes and becomes more modern, the cow actually becomes more useful. In fact, the cow is largely responsible for humans’ ability to leave the farm to create modern societies. (Has to do with nutrient dense foods and transportation, long version in another post.)

So what is so magical about these animals? The Rumen.

Side note, the wikipedia article on ruminants claims animal agriculture is responsible for 20% of the worlds green house gasses. This statistic has been debunked by multiple university research projects including those by Dr. Frank Mitloehner: UC Davis, and Dr. Jude Capper: Washington State University. The actual number is less than 2.5% and the authors of “Livestocks Long Shadow” have accepted this statistic and are reworking their study.

Because the cow has a four chambered stomach they are able to break down cellulose through fermentation. That allows a cow to eat all kinds of things humans can’t and turn it into something very, very good for us. Not only do they convert things we can’t eat into things we can, they also produce other extremely valuable products which will be listed below.

One of the most obvious ways cows become more useful to humans as we modernize is in what they eat. Cows eat literally millions of tons worth of trash that humans throw away every day. Cows divert massive amounts of industrial and food byproducts away from land fills and convert those waste products to food and fertilizer.

A couple years ago I went to India. One of the most interesting things I saw was how some neighborhoods had central concrete bins where people threw their trash. Much of their trash is cellulose based, like bowls made of leaves, etc. The cows and goats roam around the streets and eat from the trash left behind by the humans. Cheap trash collection, cheap milk.

In the US, we have a similar system but it is a little more modern. Some of the many things cows eat that have little use to humans are:

Corn Stalks – after corn is harvested for grain (for lots of other things) cows can eat the dried stalks

Wheat Mill Run – Making wheat into flour produces a waste product often called flour sweepings

Orange Peels/Orange culls – When Minute-Maid and others squeeze oranges for juice, the cows get the peels, they love them.

Distillers Grain/DDG – Ethanol is produced by grinding corn and turning it into whiskey. After the sugar is extracted from the corn, cows get the leftovers. If it weren’t for cows, billions of pounds of ethanol waste would occupy land fills. One of the criteria for building an ethanol plant is weather or not there are cows around to eat their waste.

Soy Bean Meal – Soy beans are primarily crushed for oil, not eaten in sushi restaurants. After the oil is extracted the bean carcases are fed to cows for protein.

Canola Meal – Same deal as soy meal, rapeseed is crushed, cows get the leftovers

Old bread and doughnuts – We call this bakery waste, cows love this too.

Almond Hulls and shells – Before an almond gets covered in chocolate and delivered to you it startes out inside of a shell, which lives inside of a hull. Whole almonds are sent to a place where they take off the hull and crack the shell to get the almond out. Cows really love the hulls for their fiber content and our cows sleep on the almond shells.

Cotton Seed – Your underwear is made from cotton. Cotton is basically a flower. The lint, which is spun into yarn, is attached to a seed. The ginning process separates the lint from the seed. The seed is fed to cows. Cotton seed is a very good feed item for cows, it basically has everything they need, fat for energy, protein, and fiber. All good stuff.

Peaches, Plumbs, Nectarines, Pomegranate peels, Onions, Carrots, sugar beet pulp, sweet potates, broccoli, and every other culled food item that is not fit for human consumption gets fed to our cows. This list is literally endless.

There is another thing cows eat that we can’t, grass. Grass grows over millions of acres of plains and foothill areas. Humans can not use this land to produce lettuce or french fries. Cows can graze on this resource and turn it into something useful to us.

So now lets look at what they produce.

Non-Fat Milk, 1% fat milk, 2% fat milk, 3.5% fat milk (aka whole milk), cheese (virtually thousands of varieties), butter, yoghurt with fruit & nuts, ice cream, cottage cheese, ghee, frozen yoghurt, keefir, cream, whip cream, clotted cream, sweet & condensed milk, lactose free milk, Crème fraîche, Smetana, sour cream, Cultured buttermilk, real buttermilk, whey protein powders, evaporated milk, ricotta, infant formula, quark, whey, casien, milk protein concentrates and isolates, hydrolysates, my favorite, Gelato, and many, many more.

I don’t think I need to go any further explaining why dairy products are good for you. We have millions of years worth of research and observation to prove it.

One of my favorite subjects when I give tours of the dairy is the “cycle of poo”. This is the process of recycling nutrients within our dairy system. We take all those cool human waste products, mix that with feed grown on our farm, give that to the cows, they produce milk, and they produce poo. We give the milk to you but we keep the poo and use it as organic fertilizer to grow our crops.

The crops take the free energy from the sun and transform the nutrients given to the soil by the cows into fibrous plants which in turn get fed to the cows and the cycle starts over again. Over and over again. This cycle has been occurring here on our farm for 118 consecutive years.

Like in any part of life, all good things must come to an end. And when a dairy cow is finished giving milk and producing natures greatest fertilizer she then gives us a whole list of other useful and beneficial products.

The obvious things she gives us are meat and leather. I could write pages on the things made with leather. I believe humans are meant to eat meat. It is part of the symbiotic relationship. Just like on the Savanna in Africa, the gazzelle eats the grass and the lion eats the gazelle. It is part of the larger cycle. (I believe Disney made a movie about it) We have just learned to manage this cycle more efficiently. Beef, especially lean beef is very healthy for you and one of the most important sources of protein and iron you can get.

Almost everything on a cow can be used. On a 1000 pond cow, 400 will go to meat and 600 to other products.

HERE ARE SOME:
Bone, Horn, Hooves, & Gelatin
Combs, gelatin candy (Gummy Bears), marshmallows, mayonnaise, gelatin, photographic film, steel ball bearings with bone charcoal, fine bone china, pet food, and vitamin capsules/gel coatings.
Hide & Hair
Insulation, paint brushes, glue for bookmaking and band aids, clothes, shoes, luggage, saddles, furniture, automobiles, volleyballs, basketballs, and baseball gloves.
Fats and Fatty Acids
Shampoo, soaps, shaving creams, cosmetics, deodorants, candles, crayons, floor wax, detergents, hydraulic break fluid, plastics, insecticides, paints, perfumes, and synthetic rubber.

Don’t forget pet food! 100% of the cow gets used for something. Just like the Native Americans and the buffalo.

I have a great amount of respect and adoration for these animals and I thank them every day for not only what they provide for me and my family but for what they do for the world.

So Ginger, I hope your spouse has an opportunity to read this long list of arguments to use against your pleas for vegetarianism. If you need any further assistance please let me now.

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Here is the question:

Question; Heres one for you, been around for quite a while but could never seem to find the answer.
Now, Assuming a woodchuck could in fact , chuck wood, how much wood would he chuck in say,,,,,,, 15 minutes? Thats a number easily devisable into 60 making for an easy chuck- per- hour rate and a short enough time to observe the woodchuck at full chucking capacity without reaching its anaerobic threshold which would inevitably lead to it bonking resulting in a drastic decrease in chuckability . Might throw our numbers off. Im looking for MAX CHUCKABILITY PER HOUR here.
Answer should be in Board Feet as this is the standard unit of measure in the lumber industry. Mahalo, and thank you wise sir.

This question is a simple matter of math and figuring out a few conversions. Should be easy.

A Woodchuck, also known as a land beaver, weighs 4-9 lbs.

We can use the average weight of 7 lbs for the woodchuck.

According to http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc a 7 lb woodchuck would burn 4.8 calories in 15 minutes if it were engaged in chopping wood. Since healthstatus.com does not provide an option for chucking wood we can make an assumption that chopping and chucking wood would burn a similar amount of calories. Feel free to substitue any of the activities on the site and insert that caloric factor into the equation to fine tune the results to your liking.

4.8 calories is the same as .0191 BTU in 15 minutes or .075 BTU per hour. (British Thermal Units)

Now the other variable is the type of wood you are talking about. Different types of wood and different treatments have different mass. For example, properly seasoned oak firewood should have a moisture content below 20%. Freshly cut oak wood could be as high as 90%. So obviously the moisture content will play a large role in the amount of wood chuckable by the woodchuck. For this example we will use 20% moisture seasoned oak fire wood. Since woodchucks are native to the eastern part of north america we will use White Oak

A chord (128 cubic feet) of seasoned White Oak weights between 2880 – 3710 lbs We can take the average weight and use 3295 lbs per chord or 3295 lbs/128 cubic feet.

One board foot = a board that is 12 in × 12 in × 1 in

One chord = 1536 board feet according to Unit Converter Pro

So now we can divide 1536 board feet into 3295 lbs and know that one board foot of Seasoned White Oak is 2.14 lbs/board foot. 3295/1536=2.14.

Now here is where the math gets fun.

We know a 7 lb woodchuck will burn .075 BTU’s chucking wood for an hour. We also know the wood he is chucking weighs 2.14 lbs per board foot. Now the question is how many BTU’s does it take to chuck 2.14 lbs, let’s say 1 foot?

According to Newton’s Second Law of Motion, the net force on an object is dependent on the mass of the object, and its acceleration during the movement.

Force = Mass x Acceleration

The common unit of force is the Newton (N). One Newton is the force required to accelerate one kilogram of mass at 1 meter per second per second.

1 N = 1kg m/s2, lets convert our wood chucking to metric for a bit to figure out this conversion.

.97 kg = 2.14 lbs.

So the woodchuck would have to exert .97 Newtons in order to move the wood one meter.

If we divide this by the number of feet in a meter 3.28 we get .29 Newtons.

Now we know it takes .29 newtons to move 2.14 lbs of seasond white oak 1 foot.

All we have to do now is figure out the number of BTU’s in .29 newton and a quick look at Unit Converter Pro tells us that .29 newton = .00027486696489 BTU.

Now we know that it takes .00027 BTU to move 2.14 lbs or one board foot of Seasoned White Oak 1 foot.

We also know that a 7 lb woodchuck burns .075 BTU per hour chucking wood. Finally we simply have to divide these two figures .00027486696489 BTU to move one board foot one foot/.075 BTU per hour and we get:

.0036 board feet per hour

So there is your answer Mr. Broemmel.

Answer: A woodchuck would chuck .0036 board feet per hour of wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood! Or not!

UPDATE: Patrick. Your math would be correct if you were to apply “regular” math. I used “dairy” math for the final calculation. Diary math is a system that allows dairy farmer to continue operation for two or more years even though they are losing money every day.

I will go ahead and recalculate our final figure using regular math and provide that answer.

.075 / .00027486696489 = 272.859272

New Answer: A woodchuck would chuck 272.85 board feet per hour of wood if a woodchuck could chuck wood!

However, once you add the OSHA required safety equipment, the 2 – 15 minute breaks per hour and a 30 minute lunch outlined in the Woodchuck Local 269 Union contract, it seems the actual number would be much less. Ill let you do the math on that one.

Also Deene Souza correctly pointed out the environmental restrictions plus the potential for animal rights activists protesting your operation make it highly unlikely any wood would get chucked at all. This is all, of course, theoretical!

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