May 2010 Blog Posts (10)

Just as a filthy cold spring is delaying planting the summer garden, it's time to get ready to plant your winter garden. The winter garden feeds you, your family, and possibly your laid off friends through next fall, winter and spring with fresh delicious veg. That eight months of food you grow yourself provides fresh food when it is most expensive and most likely to be imported from California, Mexico, China and Chile. Personally, I wish Chile all the best in a changing world, but tying a… Continue

http://scratchandpeck.com/index.php

check it out! local, organic, chicken feed and soon other animal feed too!

Great news. visit the web site and contacy them directly with and questions.

Greetings friends,

Over the weekend I had the intriguing opportunity to take part in a Radical Democracy seminar. It was exciting, educational, and somewhat frightening - much like the experiences I usually find through Transition!

I would summarize the message of the seminar thusly:

• Our country's foundational documents proclaim Democracy - power in the people, but our legal history has instead given the power to…

Continue

A recent review of childhood deaths shows that the number of deaths among children less than 5 will drop below 8 million for the first time in 2010. In 1990 there were 11.9 million deaths in this group. The decline in the US is slower than all other wealthy nations, it is on a par with Kazakhstan and Angola (really and literally) with 6.7… Continue

A few years ago, just as the local food movement was popping on to the radar, Joel Salatin, farmer and writer, wrote a passionate book titled, "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal". Salatin's point is that a half century of consolidation, increasingly large food processors and "eliminating the middleman" has eliminated the middleman. Nearly the entire local food processing and distribution system has gone out of business or been buried in regulations. In some cases, the regulations are aimed at… Continue

There comes a time in mid spring in the edible forest garden, when the impulse to reproduce is strong among plants, insects, & animals. I often witness this in May, just before the main roses & peonies bloom, and just as many of the fruiting trees & shrubs have gone from blossoms, to tiny fruits (smaller than peas). During this time I sense a high need for water & nourishment from many plants all at the same time.…

Continue

To the Best of Our Knowledge radio: "Sacred Nature"



Bill McKibben lays out a model of how to survive on our changed planet: think small and local. Kurt Hoelting set out to spend a year living within 60 miles of his home (Whidbey Island). Gordon Hempton is one of the world's leading audio ecologists (Olympic Penninsula).… Continue

As you buzz about happily planning your garden, give thought where your seeds and starts come from. If you are going to the effort of growing your own, grow the good stuff. No point in working that hard for the same tasteless cardboard tomatoes you can buy in the supermarket. When you buy seeds and starts, look for heirloom varieties. Heirloom seeds are open pollinated seeds that have been passed on for years, sometimes decades or centuries. Heirloom and open pollinated seeds can be saved…

Continue

* * * Many of us are interested in accurate information on the ning-com-corporation and their ethical & privacy policies. Please share if you have found something helpful. * * *.

 

quote: "There is a lot of Transition Movement action going on in social networks all over the world. This is great; keep it up (as long as it's not detracting from…

Continue

Spill Baby Spill?

by Bill McKibbon, 350.org

Dear friends,

The oil spreading across the Gulf is a test, pure and simple.

Think of its twisted outline as a Rorschach ink blot for a society--maybe for a whole civilization. Will we respond in ways deep enough to matter? Or will we see nothing wrong in the devastating

images of the oil slick, and continue on this path of…

Continue