Flew the Coop

Yep, you read it right: "Backyard Chickens for Beginners" bitches!

I believe in the great educational institutions and huge agriculture of New York state like its' yesterday's news, and it totally is. We've been doin' this a very long time. Every once in awhile, I get a whiff of "Big Agra" out west trying to co-opt our rep as the so-called American Heartland, and here's the problem with that kind of thinking: a semi-arid desert does not a fertile river valley make. It really just doesn't make it. Oh sure, you can artificially prop it up as a competition with the use of freely given government hand-outs, but the thing is, we have all of human history on our side, like the way water flows downhill. It's a part of our nature, and I'd love to have you on board with me.

Special thanks to my peeps at Cornell (my oldest bro's Alma Mater for grad school) for keeping our history alive through these small, local satellite programs that serve as outreach to the community. We need you! And I will be in touch with you in the future about growing chickens for their fresh eggs in my backyard. Can't get more organic than that! Future neighbors, please take note now: hens do not "cock-a-doodle-do" at dawn like a male rooster, so know your stuff beforehand. Thanks friends, and please keep reading.  
You are my audience.

http://rocklandcce.org/ 

http://rocklandcce.org/events/2015/04/07/-backyard-chickens-for-beginners

Food: Farming

By now, we've read the articles and seen the news stories about GMO Frankenfoods that threaten our health, and contribute to a lack of biodiversity that is the agricultural form of extinction. Monsanto controls seeds and food production, Tyson muscles farmers through their production schedules, resulting in horrible food factories that don't even feel like farming to the farmers they pay, and the old lady who wants a pear out of season (the same one who clips coupons and haggles for a bargain), is the same person who eats produce that's traveled further than she will ever travel in lifetime, having been flown in exclusively for her consumption all the way from Chile. It's a bizarre mindset that needs to change, and it slowly has.

I've posted items on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Illuminations/371196022892113), with sayings like "Growing food is like printing your own money", and how collecting rainwater is now illegal in some states, to illustrate the growing separation between food production and our day-to-day lives. Do you want to cede that power to a huge business conglomerate? Would they have your best interests at heart? Of course not. Their executives aren't paid to do that like your family doctor is, because they're paid to sell you stuff.

Into the growing debate come visionary doctors who speak out, like Dr. Joseph Mercola (http://www.mercola.com/). It's in this very climate that I've begun to see the land around us as a huge opportunity for change. When I walked by a corn patch growing in front of a modest home last week, it reminded me that I grew up surrounded by farms: the small one next door to our house, my mother's humble garden, the little orchard that used to be part of the farm next door, and fruit trees in such natural profusion, that I still find apple and cherry trees growing right by sidewalks in town (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/06/nature-edibles.html, and http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-harvest.html).

We have a chance to redefine our access to fresh, local, in season and affordable foods by supporting local farms, farmers, and producers through frequenting nearby farmer markets with locally made goods. Which brings me to the next motto that's gathered steam: you have three opportunities to vote every day when you decide what to eat. 
We can't always make the best decisions, for a variety of reasons (economics, availability, poor health, etc.), but thinking precedes action, and by questioning our mindsets, we've already started down the path towards change.

What will you choose to eat today?

Community Gardens

Community garden on 5th Avenue

Urban centers for living are oft depicted in popular culture as towering babels of doom and gloom. Those of us who remember New York of the 1970s would agree—streets with bombed out wrecks of cars burned and pillaged, entire neighborhoods decimated by crack and crime, lost wastelands from a seemingly post-apocalyptic horror.

But times do change, and we can learn from mistakes of the past. Cities now have mixed residential laws that prevent entire blocks from becoming a ghetto during a fiscal crisis. Public buildings, businesses, and private homes occupy the same street, creating an economic diversity that's necessary to the health of any town.

One of the biggest trends right now is urban farming. Ever had a neighbor who had more tomatoes to give away than they could consume? You would see the benefit that gardening would have on a population: the cost benefits alone make any investor thrill. The investment in seeds and a plot of land versus food output is almost impossible to capture in a spreadsheet, it so outstrips any typical outlaying of cash. The need for food stamps would almost dissipate.

We already have beautiful community garden areas. Why not devote a corner to food production? Every week of the growing season (and in the Mid-Atlantic states it's a lonnnng season), gardens would give away a portion of its' growth by block assignment, much like the recent gas rationing in place after Hurricane Sandy. European countries already have their population on a car system for petrol rationing. In Germany, some blocks drive Monday through Wednesday, some have car use from Thursday to Saturday, and the entire community gets Sundays off. Gas consumption goes down, carbon emissions are reduced, the whole population reaps the health benefits of cleaner air and biking to work on their non-driving days. Trains are outfitted with bike racks for commuting to and from the station. Problem solved.

For food production, block assignments would work the same way as gas rationing. Blocks 1-3: pick up the gardens' tomatoes, if that's what's available. Blocks 4-7: OK, probably more tomatoes, but you see where I'm going with this. Each block would have its' week assigned for picking up whatever produce was available from the garden that week until food production ended. Our current system of "Haves" versus "Have Nots" is an artificial construction anyway that needs to be dismantled. There is sun, wind, air, soil, water, and seeds, and these belong to everyone. As we grow as a society, then so we shall grow together.  What ideas for growth do you have?