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By the way, western Oregon is full of delicious cattle and sheep. I haven't bought any meat from grocery stores in a couple decades except an occasional package of hot dogs or pepperoni slices. And my share of the animal is delivered to my door when the animal is butchered.

Go to the closest local farmers market, try out meat from various vendors, then check out their websites and see what it costs to pre-order a lamb, half lamb, steer, half steer, quarter steer, hog, half, quarter, or whole chickens or turkeys in spring for delivery in fall. There's a modest deposit. A quarter steer, for example, is all cut up and packaged and frozen, with your share of the various cuts. Butchered professionally, dry aged two weeks, cut, packaged. You give cutting directions for your share. I like burger, for example, and ask to have the round steak and stew meat cut into the burger. Like burger in one lb packages. Like roasts to be cut in the 2-3 lb size. Steaks 1.5 inches thick and two per package. Etc.

If you have more time than money you might go to any farm with just a few sheep or steers in spring and make a deal to buy a whole animal in fall and butcher it yourself. People with just a few animals are usually growing just for themselves and family members and a few people who happen to ask.The butcher fees usually come to about $1.25 or more per pound. Last time I ordered, A couple years ago, my quarter steer cost me about $4/lb, including butcher fees. And you could probably save a bit more than that because farmer will not need to transport that lamb or steer to the butcher or get meat back and get it to you. This will get you around the problem if things are backlogged at butcher. Make sure farmer has a way to weigh animal. And knows the likely dress out weight. Make sure you get to pick the animal. For grass-fed lamb or beef you want a big fatty animal. The beneficial ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids of grass-fed grass-finished lamb or beef is useless if there is no fat. The flavor, tenderness, and succulence depend on fat marbling in the meat. It must be both grass-fed and grass-finished to have the healthy omega 3 content. Hay fed is not grass fed. Even a little grain ruins the fatty acid profile. The grain changes the acidity of the rumen, which alters the bacteria that thrive there, hence the kind of fats produced.

For full flavored beef, the animal needs to be at least 18 months old when butchered. Most commercial as well as local grass-fed beef is butchered earlier. So you ask for the last butchery run, usually October here, the biggest fattest animal that is 18 months to two years and has been finished on good pasture, usually meaning irrigated pasture in oregon. Problem is, if the animal's feed quality deteriorates or it starts eating of hay the omega 3 levels cave. You also care about the breed. My beef raiser specializes in jersey steers that are a byproduct of the dairy industry. Jersey steers are very delicious. They have yellow fat instead of white, which the commercial meat industry disdains. Their loss. It takes an excellent expert grazier to get adequately fatty animals for good flavor on just grass. So sample their products by the cut package this winter before committing to a quarter next spring.

With lambs the big issue is getting a full sized fat lamb that is grass fed and finished, that isn't too old. The older the lamb, the more of that rank flavor that is so overwhelming in mutton that most Americans won't eat it. Technically, anything over 12 months is a sheep. But lambs can taste overly strong before that, depending on breed. Most lambs are butchered at about six months or under, whenever the animal has reached the right size and finish. Hair sheep such as Katahdin are mild-flavored longer because its the lanolin that has the objectionable flavor, and wool sheep make more of it. A lamb is finished when the inner thigh muscles have filled out and there is a layer of fat across the spine--enough fat across the spine so you can feel the backbone but it is level with the fat on both sides, not jutting out. Male lambs should have been castrated.

An advantage in doing your own butchering is you get to keep the head and hide. In addition you can cut to preference better. Given my druthers, for example, I would leave lots more meat on the soup bones and have a bit less burger.

Organic isn't an issue. The excellent grass-fed grass-finished meat is nearly all not organic. All that label does for lamb or beef is require that the pastures be organically certified, meaning a huge expense and paperwork which is not worth the extra price that would be required. Even most producers of pasture raised chickens and Turkey's don't bother with the organic certification. That certification can be useful for fruit and vegetables. Unfortunately, the organic movement early on was so strongly influenced by vegetarians that they established rules for livestock raising that ignore what really matters, such as grass-fed or whether pastured poultry is on pasture instead of 100% confined. Or on pasture of what quality. And have myriad expensive rules for stuff that doesn't matter.
 
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Aloha, Mark
That article is so damn biased, it makes the longshoreman look super bad, they completely leave out any facts of all this to support their anti union agenda against the men and women who are doing the lions share of the work!

let me break it down some so that folks get the truth of it!
each terminal that a ship can dock at can handle only a certain number of gantry cranes to load and unload at time, 5 being the normal maximum, that's not a lot, and yet they will move around 150 containers per hour, each, Max. There is only so much room for each ship, and only so many cranes and operators, and normally they only operate a single 12 hour shift! Nights, Weekends, and holidays are more money because your extending the hours each person can work, and let's not forget, there are lots of other moving pieces that have to work together through out this evolution! Blaming the crane operators is bullsh!t, they are only a small part of what makes a port run. You have the truck hostlers who take the cans from the ship to one of 4 holding areas, Customs inspection, storage, temp hold, or dispatch! Then you have the hyster operators who unload and stack the cans from the hostlers, or load them to take the cans to/back to the ship. Then you have the road trucks who que up to take the cans that have cleared customs and are sent out to distribution centers! As ships get bigger, it takes longer to unload them, and it also takes a very careful plan to keep track of what comes off in what order( for safety as well as many other logistical reasons) the bigger the ship, the more man hours that are needed against a set number available up to the fed mandated maximum before a 36 hour reset! Keep pushing and you will run against the clock and force a shutdown that cannot be broken no matter what POTUS commands!
It gets better, not all the cans on board ship will stay in that port, so the ship also needs to be loaded, some of which had to be removed when it arrived, that also takes time and works against the clock! For those truckers to complain and lay the blame for all this on the shoulders of those crane operators is not only a flat out lie, but it's also very wrong, and will cause the Longshoremen to strike, taking things to a whole nother level of suffering and expenses far beyond anything we have seen so far! Long story short here, the problem isn't what the MSM is saying it is, not the trucker blaming everyone else, it's the simple fact that there is only so much room, so many folks, and so many hours, and the entire logistics train must not be changed or even messed with or the whole thing will come to a grinding halt!
 
From the article…

"We need to start looking at this as a national security issue and need to be more reliant on American-made products so we aren't beholden to ports, shipping lines, and China,"

Well seems to me the evil orange man was doing just that, but the democrats don't want America to be independent nor sovereign nor energy independent…. Remember that next time you cast your ballot.
 
@Ura-Ki , your post is very interesting. But I still don't understand why the port is empty. I understand from what you say why it would take a fixed number of hours to unload a ship of a given size with a given number of containers given only five cranes that can work on the ship at once. But that makes it seem that the bottleneck is with the cranes. I don't understand why the port is empty. How long does it take to unload a really big ship? What do you mean "force a reset?" Is the port empty because shipping companies are refusing to pay crane operators the 1.5X it would take to get them to work on weekends? Or are the crane operators already working the maximum hours they can and there are simply no more crane operators hours available? Is the bottleneck at the crane or something else?
 
Another problem is California's absolutely assinine emissions crap that blocks a huge portion of the country's semis from entering the state.

Copypasta from an insider post over at M4C:

"California's truck emissions regulations are issued by the most powerful bureaucracy in the country: CARB. The restrictions on drayage trucks began in 2008 with CARB banning engines build 1988 and before. In 2010 CARB banned model years 1989-1993 outright and non-retrofitted engines 1994-2003. As of 2012 all drayage trucks must meet 2007 emissions regulations that require a particulate trap and urea injection. Add to that the $10.00 fee on 20 ft. containers or the $20.00 fee on 40+ft. containers that drivers must pay and fewer drivers want to bother with hauling from California's ports."

So basically you have "48+Canada" (excluding Hawaii; you ain't longhaulin' over water) trucks and then "California trucks."
 
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Aloha, Mark
Well, duh. Biden making some proclamation that the port operates 24-7 ignores the fact that the port is already short staffed.
He might as well proclaim that all of those ships fly to Chicago and deliver the goods themselves:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
@Ura-Ki , your post is very interesting. But I still don't understand why the port is empty. I understand from what you say why it would take a fixed number of hours to unload a ship of a given size with a given number of containers given only five cranes that can work on the ship at once. But that makes it seem that the bottleneck is with the cranes. I don't understand why the port is empty. How long does it take to unload a really big ship? What do you mean "force a reset?" Is the port empty because shipping companies are refusing to pay crane operators the 1.5X it would take to get them to work on weekends? Or are the crane operators already working the maximum hours they can and there are simply no more crane operators hours available? Is the bottleneck at the crane or something else?
Pretty much exactly as you stated! Extra staff would require at the minimum, a shift deferential, plus any additional over time which before all this Covid nonsense was un needed, the ports were set up to handle a fixed inflow/outflow, and unless the shipping companies pay to have the added shifts, nothing will change, and the trucks will still be waiting!
How it used to work before Comrade Kilnton changed it all, the Longshoremen had different hours, basically what the working rule was, you worked as long as a ship was in port, if it took 3 days to turn the ship, you worked those 3 days, two 12 hour shifts per 24 hour, one on, one off, no over time! Holidays were the only catch, and it was double time and a half, and seniority took president! Had three ships show up back to back, you worked all three ships until they were done, then went back to the normal routine of work. They usually had it worked out that you worked 3 weeks on, got one week off, hourly labor was the same as Railroad, 12 on, 12 off, and after the max of 80 hours worked, mandatory reset of 36 hours regardless of overtime! You never wanted to push it to reset, no additional personal available to fill the offset, so it all grinds to a halt!
 
Well, duh. Biden making some proclamation that the port operates 24-7 ignores the fact that the port is already short staffed.
He might as well proclaim that all of those ships fly to Chicago and deliver the goods themselves:rolleyes::rolleyes:
The Ports are not empty, it's a long 'splain, but there are a whole bunch of components needed to make it all work, empty clean cans, empty serviceable chaisses to load and haul those cans, and and them there is the back log of cans awaiting forwarding to their distribution centers, see above! Not enough trucks or drivers, and customs inspections that delay things further!

Then there is the whole trucking company scam unique to this situation, basically the trucking companies own the contracts for haulage, they only hire drivers on a lease to own contract locking the drivers into a never ending lease agreement, pay way below the going rates, usually by the load, or cents per mile, and they own everything outside the ports! They own the trucks, the chassis's, and the deliveries.
 
The Ports are not empty, it's a long 'splain, but there are a whole bunch of components needed to make it all work, empty clean cans, empty serviceable chaisses to load and haul those cans, and and them there is the back log of cans awaiting forwarding to their distribution centers, see above! Not enough trucks or drivers, and customs inspections that delay things further!

Then there is the whole trucking company scam unique to this situation, basically the trucking companies own the contracts for haulage, they only hire drivers on a lease to own contract locking the drivers into a never ending lease agreement, pay way below the going rates, usually by the load, or cents per mile, and they own everything outside the ports! They own the trucks, the chassis's, and the deliveries.
My point was that it takes time to hire, train and deploy workers. Just saying they'll make the ports work 24-7 doesn't make it happen.
 
My point was that it takes time to hire, train and deploy workers. Just saying they'll make the ports work 24-7 doesn't make it happen.
Not only that, but they have to work with the port owners ( China) to convince them to allow it all! They then have to negotiate with the union to bring on additional employees for a set term and all that!

This problem didn't just crop up over night, it's been a serious and growing issue since the Covid lockdowns, and unless and until something changes bigly, it ain't going to change at all, no matter what Biden says or orders!
 
Not only that, but they have to work with the port owners ( China) to convince them to allow it all! They then have to negotiate with the union to bring on additional employees for a set term and all that!

This problem didn't just crop up over night, it's been a serious and growing issue since the Covid lockdowns, and unless and until something changes bigly, it ain't going to change at all, no matter what Biden says or orders!
Amen, brother!:s0155:
 
Not only that, but they have to work with the port owners ( China) to convince them to allow it all! They then have to negotiate with the union to bring on additional employees for a set term and all that!

This problem didn't just crop up over night, it's been a serious and growing issue since the Covid lockdowns, and unless and until something changes bigly, it ain't going to change at all, no matter what Biden says or orders!
Actually it's been building to this point for decades... the 2014 Long Beach shutdown was the same class of big flashing red warning light as the Able Danger team's unheeded warnings before 9/11.
 
Pretty much exactly as you stated! Extra staff would require at the minimum, a shift deferential, plus any additional over time which before all this Covid nonsense was un needed, the ports were set up to handle a fixed inflow/outflow, and unless the shipping companies pay to have the added shifts, nothing will change, and the trucks will still be waiting!
How it used to work before Comrade Kilnton changed it all, the Longshoremen had different hours, basically what the working rule was, you worked as long as a ship was in port, if it took 3 days to turn the ship, you worked those 3 days, two 12 hour shifts per 24 hour, one on, one off, no over time! Holidays were the only catch, and it was double time and a half, and seniority took president! Had three ships show up back to back, you worked all three ships until they were done, then went back to the normal routine of work. They usually had it worked out that you worked 3 weeks on, got one week off, hourly labor was the same as Railroad, 12 on, 12 off, and after the max of 80 hours worked, mandatory reset of 36 hours regardless of overtime! You never wanted to push it to reset, no additional personal available to fill the offset, so it all grinds to a halt!
Okay @Ura-Ki . lets see if I've got this now. So the bottleneck is the cranes. But not necessarily the crane operator hours available but instead the lack of willingness of the shippers to pay 1.5X for weekends or overtime.

Now I'm guessing there is an additional missing piece, WHY the shipping companies are refusing to pay more to get the crane hours they need. Presumably they are shipping on terms pre-established, so how much they will be paid is already established. Assuming shipping is reasonably competitive, that means they will have much reduced profits or maybe even lose money if they have to pay much more for unloading the ship than they were expecting. Let's assume that the added expense of unloading the ship would mean that they actually ran at a loss. But how much would they lose compared with having the ship sit at sea for weeks? That depends on how much it costs to sit at sea for weeks vs suffer the loss of paying more than they expected to unload.

I read somewhere that it takes little labor to run one of those ships, and the cost of getting a loaded container ship's worth of goods from one port in Japan to another in Japan is only trivially less than the cost of getting the goods from the port in Japan to the US. That's because almost all the cost is at the two ports in loading and unloading the ship. The major cost in running the ship is actually the fuel. So it cost the shippers approximately nothing to sit at sea waiting for weeks except lost opportunity to pick up and transport a new cargo. But since they can't ship at a profit under their current shipping contracts given larger cost in loading and unloading, they have no reason to want to pick up another load. Their best and only sensible course of action is to sit there happily at sea refusing to pay more to unload until all their current shipping contracts at current rates can be cancelled and renegotiated , making it possible and profitable for them to to pay more for having their ships loaded and unloaded. If I'm guessing right, this would mean that the ultimate bottleneck is not the cranes or crane operators or willingness of shippers to pay crane operators more. The bottleneck in getting the port fully utilized isnt actually at the port at all. Its in the offices of the shipping company owners who are currently on the phone with their shipping customers trying to negotiate much higher fees so that they can cover their increased costs in loading and unloading ships. I'm speculating of course.

How's that sound?
 
Actually it's been building to this point for decades... the 2014 Long Beach shutdown was the same class of big flashing red warning light as the Able Danger team's unheeded warnings before 9/11.
Their is no other way out of this now, unless the POTUS acts desisively, and that time has likely already past! I don't think they can save Christmas, and I don't think we will see the end of this log jamb for some time! This could all have been avoided back in March 2020, but no, the Dems blocked Trump's plans in favor of allowing things to continue as they were under lock down mandates and controlled locally by state Gov'ners!
 
Okay @Ura-Ki . lets see if I've got this now. So the bottleneck is the cranes. But not necessarily the crane operator hours available but instead the lack of willingness of the shippers to pay 1.5X for weekends or overtime.

Now I'm guessing there is an additional missing piece, WHY the shipping companies are refusing to pay more to get the crane hours they need. Presumably they are shipping on terms pre-established, so how much they will be paid is already established. Assuming shipping is reasonably competitive, that means they will have much reduced profits or maybe even lose money if they have to pay much more for unloading the ship than they were expecting. Let's assume that the added expense of unloading the ship would mean that they actually ran at a loss. But how much would they lose compared with having the ship sit at sea for weeks? That depends on how much it costs to sit at sea for weeks vs suffer the loss of paying more than they expected to unload.

I read somewhere that it takes little labor to run one of those ships, and the cost of getting a loaded container ship's worth of goods from one port in Japan to another in Japan is only trivially less than the cost of getting the goods from the port in Japan to the US. That's because almost all the cost is at the two ports in loading and unloading the ship. The major cost in running the ship is actually the fuel. So it cost the shippers approximately nothing to sit at sea waiting for weeks except lost opportunity to pick up and transport a new cargo. But since they can't ship at a profit under their current shipping contracts given larger cost in loading and unloading, they have no reason to want to pick up another load. Their best and only sensible course of action is to sit there happily at sea refusing to pay more to unload until all their current shipping contracts at current rates can be cancelled and renegotiated , making it possible and profitable for them to to pay more for having their ships loaded and unloaded. If I'm guessing right, this would mean that the ultimate bottleneck is not the cranes or crane operators or willingness of shippers to pay crane operators more. The bottleneck in getting the port fully utilized isnt actually at the port at all. Its in the offices of the shipping company owners who are currently on the phone with their shipping customers trying to negotiate much higher fees so that they can cover their increased costs in loading and unloading ships. I'm speculating of course.

How's that sound?
Your pretty much dead on!

Here's the big catch though, the actual cost of shipping! Each container is worth a certain amount based on volume, cubic measurements, or pounds, both in terms of what it can carry as well as what the ship carrying it can carry ( follow me so far?) Say it cost me .50 cents per pound, against the total value of the cargo loaded into each container times the number of containers loaded aboard ship, that's what the shipping company charges, it's a economy of scale deal, the bigger the ship the cheaper it is per pound to ship it, and the real trick is getting it to port as fast as possible, and then getting to the final destinations in the shortest time possible, ships operating costs are usually pretty well fixed, so unless a port suddenly raises it's rates, or a ship gets delayed or diverted, costs adjustments don't usually effect things, much!
China owns most American ports, so they control their total costs very closely, which works out for them as they control most of the shipping from beginning to end, what they don't control is the labor, they are not able to add to it because of the unions, nor are they able to break the unions, but the unions are not able to break the ports ether, unless they strike, which may happen over this and the treatment they have received! If China could break the unions, they would still have the same problems with labor, so they would have to do what Rotterdam and Singapore have done and automate as much of the process as possible, but the catch is, the cranes, that takes very specialized training and requires very special people to do that work, and your right back to the beginning of the whole problem, a fixed number of cranes working at a time at an annual salary close to a quarter Million per operator per year, not including overtime!
 
Not only that, but they have to work with the port owners ( China) to convince them to allow it all! They then have to negotiate with the union to bring on additional employees for a set term and all that!

This problem didn't just crop up over night, it's been a serious and growing issue since the Covid lockdowns, and unless and until something changes bigly, it ain't going to change at all, no matter what Biden says or orders!
China owns the port of Long Beach? Yipe! How the F did we ever allow some other country to own our ports, let alone a communist one?

There are articles saying Trump forced China to sell Long Beach.

???
 
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China owns the port of Longview?
Not sure, I believe it was a part of the Port of Portland, but not entirely sure then or now, but all terminals are physically owned by the city or state, which then leases the terminals for a set amount over a very long term, like 99 years, so, basically China owns it, with out actually physically owning it, follow?
All that lumber being shipped out of Longview mostly goes one of three places, China, Russia, or Vancouver!
 

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