Hay4sale, & Gita-nagari Ratha Yatra date

[Guest guest]

Hmmm... This is a very tricky question. I will be very interested to see what

we learn from the suggestions of others on this conference.

 

Certainly, it's not ideal. And at one point, I was also one of the ones who

was adamantly against the idea of even selling hay for outside animals, given

that they are all headed to the slaughter house eventually.

 

But, again, I feel that my perspective has shifted over the years. I'm

thinking maybe that viewpoint is too fanatical.

 

It seems to me that based on my last impression of Gita-nagari, there is a good

likelihood that if this neighbor does not do the haying, it will not get cut at

all -- and all the fields will begin to be overgrown and unuseable. I know

that my husband has a tiny plot of land that used to belong to his grandfather.

I remember that when we were just married in the 1970's we would walk over the

potato field there. But eventually the grandfather got old and died and the

field was allowed to be covered, first with weeds, then bushes and now it has

many trees growing on it -- some are pine trees that have 8 inch trunks (20 cm)

and are 15 feet (2.5 meters) tall.

 

For our purposes, this is alright, because the area around that property is

being developed, and the trees sheild us from the neighbors -- but if that

happened to Gita-nagari, it would be quite ashame to ruin the fields like that.

 

So from a practical perspective, I think it's better for the neighbor to keep

cutting the hay and paying Gita-nagari for it.

 

And, putting things in perspective, it's my feeling that he won't keep doing it

for many more years. Within 10 or 15 years I would expect that the price of

petroleum will be too high for him to afford to run his tractor and continue

harvesting the hay.

 

>From the perspective of permaculture, it has to be considered whether or not

the nutrients he is hauling off the land in the form of hay are being replaced.

Do the devotees still spread manure on the fields in the winter? Does the

neighbor or the devotees spread lime on the fields? What measures are being

taken to make sure that the nutrients are not depleted from Gita-nagari's rich

soil?

 

I'm definitely interested to hear about this -- and also I'm interested to hear

what others think is the right thing to do in this situation.

 

****************

 

On another topic, my family is hoping to join one of our neighbors for a treck

to Gita-nagari for Ratha-Yatra this summer -- but we haven't been able to find

the date. Is it July 23 or July 30? My daughter Maharani says that a number

of gurukuli's from Satya's ashrama in the 1980s are hoping to have an informal

reunion at Gita-nagari's country-style Ratha-Yatra. But we can't find any

information about it online. Do you have any information, Pandu Prabhu?

 

your servant,

 

 

Hare Krsna dasi

 

-

"Pandu (das) BMS (Gita Nagari, PA - US)" <Pandu.BMS (AT) pamho (DOT) net>

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 11:00 pm

Hay4sale, was ... RE: Horses on ISKCON owned or rented land

 

> >

> > Noma T. Petroff [npetroff (AT) bowdoin (DOT) edu]

> > Tuesday, April 26, 2005 11:14 PM

> > Cow (Protection and related issues)

> > Re: Horses on ISKCON owned or rented land

> >

> > Since I was one of the main people who pushed for the section

> prohibiting

> > cows

> > meant for slaughter from grazing on ISKCON property, I'll contribute

> my

> > feelings on the question.

> >

>

> What do you think about selling hay to outside farmers? Currently

> GitaNagari has a contract with a local farmer who cuts hay for his

> animalsand for sale. Presumably the animals who eat the hay

> eventually get

> slaughtered, and it's doubtful that they get very good treatment in

> general (though I don't personally know the animals in question).

> Thosein favor said that sale of the hay generates needed revenue;

> and that we

> are not cut off from the world with other things, and this is no

> different. The subject generated a heated debate over several issues

> that the situation touches.

>

> Hare Krishna

>

> Pandu das

>

>

>

>

>

> -----------------------

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>