5!

It took a while to collect all the papers parents dropped off last Friday. Part of it was because some kids don't separate their papers for Mr. E and me, so I have to dig through his bins to find all my papers. The other part was I got distracted talking with Mrs. E who had been working in her classroom. It was fun to catch up and see another person 'face to face' even though we were far apart.

My kids are excited this is the last week of school and also stressed that they only have five days to do their work. During morning devotions, they asked me to pray that they don't get to stressed and that they get everything done by Friday. Yes Lord! Please! Over half the class has been slacking on filling out their check-in forms. Four kids didn't fill out a single check-in all last week. Four more forgot to do Thursday and Friday's form. Only four of them have faithfully filled it out every day (three of them have done it on time).

I got really angry with Junior Scholastic today. Their May issue arrived and the cover story is as follows:

Never before have they published an article with such obvious bias and agenda-pushing. The article talks about how eating beef is bad for the environment and by going vegetarian or vegan you can help save the environment from greenhouse gas emissions. I am for sure writing a letter to them. 

They're only telling one side of the story. The beef industry (especially in the US) is a very small part of greenhouse gas emissions (most studies say it's 9% of the US's emissions, worldwide agriculture averages 26%). Also, that 9% includes transportation/industry costs for the animal's entire life from birth to the customer's plate. 

If you are concerned about your impact on the environment, cutting down on personal driving would be a much better way to reduce your impact than leaving beef out of your diet. Another option is to buy local where your food hasn't had to travel large distances to get to you. Or cut processed food from your diet; that industry also uses fossil fuels to produce those products and processed food doesn't help the environment like cattle do. 

Farmers want to take care of the environment and help their animals be as productive as possible. Cattle benefit the environment they are in by helping fertilize the ground, "control invasive plant species, restore habitat for threatened and endangered species, control soil erosion from water runoff, reduce wildfire threats, and increase biodiversity." Don't forget, May is beef month. Let's celebrate what farmers are doing to help the environment instead of labeling the entire industry as irresponsible.