Reflections on a Changing World

Image credit: The Subversive Lens Facebook page. I just became aware of this writer.

Back in March, when the idea of what a pandemic meant hadn't yet sunk into my consciousness, I was afraid of what I didn't understand. It has been my nature to believe that things will work out well, to avoid disturbing news and at the same time to feel responsible for everything and fear anything I couldn't control. Needless to say, it was a difficult balancing act. 

When I began to grasp the pandemic's enormity, I fluctuated between feeling like self-isolating was really not much different than the way I had chosen to live and a total, all-encompasing fear. I had always lived simply and privately so self-isolating wasn't going to be hard. But it was. I was afraid of so many things that not knowing "the answer" on any subject about how to live through the pandemic was paralyzing. Now, more than three months into things, my anxiety has receded, replaced with a growing bit of resolve. I am grateful for my familiar way of life even with its new restrictions. 

This time of Mother Nature firmly kicking our global butts with a pandemic has caused the fragile systems that were holding us together as a country to fray alarmingly. Political systems, health systems, racial inequity, climate change, economic inequity, social support systems, educational systems and more, each in need of attention and overhaul. And the timetable of need so out of sync with the timetable of the possible. Yet, what else is there to do but to press on? Giving up is not an option although getting tired is guaranteed. 

I don't presume to have "answers." At the same time my North star remains a future that is fair, healthy and sustainable. Maybe I'm asking for too much, but maybe we - all of us - haven't expected enough of ourselves in the past. Maybe we've waited quietly for others to fix problems we saw. Or looked away when seeing was inconvenient or disturbing. For sure everyone can't do everything, but each of us can learn more about existing problems and engage more to better the situation. Some changes may come in bursts, others may be incremental. All contribute to moving along the path to that North star. Yes, it's going to be exhausting.

The Plight of the Honeybee

Photo credit: ThePollinators.net

"The Pollinators" is a documentary covering how honeybees are transported across the country as migrant workers. They are a crucial part of our food system, responsible for pollinating the majority of what we eat. They are dying off in huge numbers. They need our help, They are our responsibility.

This new movie will be shown in theaters across the country in November. Learn about the project here and get tickets here.  If you like to eat, don't miss it.

The Opportunity in Garbage

Food in a dumpster. Photo credit: Wikipedia's Food Waste page.

By reframing a situation, you can see it in a new light. You take the situation’s facts and place them in a different frame in which they fit equally well, thus changing the entire meaning. It works, and dear reader, there is an opportunity to do that with garbage.

The common statistic about food waste (going to either compost or landfill) in the United States is that it’s an appallingly huge amount. We waste nearly half of what is grown to eat; a full 40% according to the National Resources Defense Council. Yet we have neighbors who are food insecure. Rather than eating healthily, they fill their diets with what they can, too frequently “fast food” or highly processed food because its available and affordable. This is a mismatch that mindful restaurateurs know exists and try to address.

A group of such Denver restaurateurs and folks who ran a demonstration project to reduce food waste talked about this at the Slow FoodNations event in July. They shared how they were reframing their situations to flip the facts of waste and food insecurity for the better. Of course, they didn’t expect to change everything, everywhere. But they are doing what they can, viewing the process as permanent incremental change. This constant focus on improvement brought to mind the quotes of anthropologist Margaret Mead (“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”) and author Edward Everett Hale (“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”).

One chef talked about how he looked at what he’d been trained to do in culinary school and in kitchens where he learned his craft. He was told much perfectly good produce was as something that should be trashed as “too bitter” or “not useful.” For example, parts of lettuce, onions, carrots and more. Once in his own restaurant and he started paying for them, he thought it crazy that “$75 worth of lettuce made about $5 worth of salads” so he found ways to use many of those “scraps” in creative ways to make dishes for diners. And there was the discussion of rather than looking at any remaining scraps as garbage to be sent to the landfill with other trash, as useful when diverted from the trash and repurposed into compost to circle back into more food production. And one of the big changes in those restaurant kitchens was recycling. Although not food, it was still a crucial part of the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality of throwing things in the trash. In fact, during the demonstration project, there was a dramatic increase in the diverting recyclable items from the trash to reuse.

At the beginning of the demonstration project, participating restaurants recycled between 15-20% of their trash by weight. By the middle of the month-long project, it had increased to 70%. And after the project, the demonstration project team – brave souls – hand-sorted the remainder of the trash and pulled out even more, increasing the recycled amount to 85-90% of the total trash generated. By reframing an item of “trash” to be a useful, valuable item that just goes in a different bin, they made a significant change.   

Visual aids were used to show that in a well-functioning kitchen, true “landfill items” or truly unsalvageable stuff should be minimal. Just the gloves workers were required to wear prepping food, the blue tape that is used to label containers of food with contents and dates, the stickers from fruits and vegetables and the occasional container that cannot be recycled or reused. Other than that, everything a well-run restaurant uses can be recycled or composted. Since food is ordered based on demand and cooked to order so there should be minimal actual waste. Home cooks out there, what can you do to reduce your waste? And by the way, lest you think restaurants are where the most reframing can be done, presenters pointed out that home kitchens waste more than restaurants even though when asked, home cooks are confident they waste less than others.

Reducing food waste is primarily a function of being conscious of the impact of waste itself and the ripple effect of food insecurity. There are multiple right answers to the question of how to do this. Some tips and thoughts that were shared for restaurants and those involved in the waste/compost business:

·      Break down barriers to composting by working with properly sized (liftable) bins that can be handled safely.

·      Create space for compost or recycling bins by removing newly unnecessary trash bins.

·      Get over the “that’s unusable” mentality; get creative to use more of an item.

·      Stop gravitating toward doing “what’s convenient” to doing “what is the thoughtful and challenging” way to handle the situation sustainably.

·      Rethink what is rotting in a dumpster – no one should be food insecure in this country.

·      They were adamant that people not let anyone say donating restaurant food is illegal. There is a federal law enabling it. See the BillEmerson Good Samaritan Food Act of 1996. 

·      Use “ugly” food. To be nutritious and usable, bell peppers don’t need four lobes as the USDA requires to be top grade. Using “imperfect” but perfectly nutritious lower grades reduces trash.

How can home cooks work toward zero food waste?

·      Plan meals and shop weekly.

·      Buy just enough fresh food, cook it and eat it.

·      Freeze any leftovers and then eat them.

·      Support efforts to use “ugly” produce at home and elsewhere. 

Yes, it takes time to live this way. But that goes to the advice to move away from creating the waste that convenience leaves behind in the first place. To be more deliberate. More mindful. To change the way you live, right now. Help shape a sustainable future where everyone has enough to eat. It doesn’t really seem unreasonable, does it?

A bias for action...

Ruminate's co-hosts for their Midwest launch. Image thanks to Ruminate's Facebook page.

There is a new, national not-for-profit organization uniting diverse change makers and food-focused professionals to convene, discuss, and ideate change in our food system. They are launching their Midwest efforts in my backyard. Ruminate considers itself "part think tank, part innovation lab" and is hosting three, hands-on working sessions for food system professionals in Grand Rapids, starting in June. For people ready to put talk into action. 

These two-hour events are intentionally designed, solutions-oriented sessions. Attendees will tackle intractable food system issues. In these Ripe for Discussion sessions everyday leaders can roll up their sleeves, dig in and build immediately-actionable change. The will cover: 

• Building connections between producers and plates - June 23, 2019
• The true cost of food and consumer knowledge - August 18, 2019
• Who is responsible for balanced nutrition? - November 10, 2019

Talking is important for sure. But without action nothing changes.

Time to be healthy again...

Thanks to axtell.com for photo. Worth a look at all these great puppets.

When I was young I hated to listen to old people (i.e. any adult) tell me how much better things were when they were young. To this day I do not believe everything was better way back when. But I expect that some things really were. From where I sit now, there are things from my childhood that were better than what they have morphed into today.

Most adults when I grew up were closer to their food, whether or not they knew or valued it. Maybe this was because they gardened themselves, grew up on a farm, knew a farmer, ate mostly in season, cooked from scratch..., you get it. I benefited from this and it seems to me, my youth was just the time when agriculture was becoming enamored of technology and chemistry to alter traditional growing methods. It was being done as a way to improve the farmers' production, make them more efficient and drive down the cost of food. In fact according to NPR, "...our spending on food — proportional to our income — has actually declined dramatically since 1960, according to a chart recently published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As the chart shows, the average share of per capita income spent on food fell from 17.5 percent in 1960 to 9.6 percent in 2007. (It has since risen slightly, reaching 9.9 percent in 2013.)"

But as food became cheaper, it also became more processed, more corporately created, more carbohydrate-driven and more focused on convenience. In short, as convenience (much of it targeted to the increased number of working women) became a priority and how people ate started to change. Think pre-packaged meals rather than cooking from scratch. But who has time to cook these days, you ask? I believe it's a choice for most people, most of the time. Perhaps not an easy one, but who said cheap and easy eating beats healthy eating as something to shoot for for everyone?

The impact of the laser focus on convenience had an unintended consequence of changing not only how, but how well people ate. According to Harvard's T. H. Chan School of Public Health, "..it’s more important to eat carbohydrates from healthy foods than to follow a strict diet limiting or counting the number of grams of carbohydrates consumed." In other words, put down the processed, packaged dinner and pick up some "unprocessed or minimally processed whole grains, vegetables, fruits and beans." What are unhealthy carbohydrates you ask? Harvard says they include: "...white bread, pastries, sodas, and other highly processed or refined foods."

It's not too late to learn from the past, claim the good and move on.

Local Resiliance

Thanks to Alice Waters' blog for this image. She is the mother of the local food movement in this country.

Readers of this blog are likely all aware of the goal of local, ethical sourcing. Eating closer to home and seeking out the farmers markets, farms and restaurants that share that philosophy. But Naomi Klein talks about why a decentralized, multi-provider food system is a good idea. In her new book, The Battle for Paradise, she takes on the idea of disaster capitalism and how things like monocropping and concentration of power can result in negative outcomes. 

During the years when not only Michiana but the entire country underwent a food revolution, food sources moved from small local and regional growers and producers to more and more regional, then national and international growers and producers. Food became an industry. Rather than being able to rely on local products, consumers, institutions like schools and hospitals and restaurateurs began to be channeled into national brands, low cost producers and food items created for their simplicity and ease in shipping rather than their taste and nutrition.

Now as more and more individuals and businesses seek out local items, possibly even those that are foraged, or choose to make their own breads, sausages, beers, soups and more, they face a different challenge. Amid plenty, there are local food deserts.

Unlike the kind of food deserts that occur when there is no access to healthy food, these food deserts result when there aren’t enough local producers to fill the desires of eaters and restaurateurs for local products. Goals of “eating local” can only be satisfied so far until supply catches up with demand. And can only genuinely be satisfied when diners’ expect and enjoy changing menus, reflecting precisely what’s available rather than what one “has a taste for.” Eating with the seasons means that change is inevitable.

Such eaters and local-focused institutions are reclaiming the specialness, freshness and taste of local. They are working as quickly and as much as the situation permits with farmers, producers, foragers and suppliers to eradicate their local food desert. The goal: rebuilding a food system rooted in a specific place.

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Thanks to NPR.org for image. See related story below in the "confusion" link.

Untangling Confusion from Distraction

Confusion invites distraction.  Confusion - for me, the state of not being aware of and/or comfortable with what to do next -  isn't fun. I don't think it's fun for anyone. Spending time "what-iffing" is only so helpful. Often it leads to ruminating or being in a mental rut that blocks out productive inquiry or action. So when confused and beckoned by distractions, it's easy to say, "Sure, I'd love to spend a few minutes on something other that this thing that's making me unhappy/crazed/stuck (fill in your word...)." Then hours/days/months (fill in your word...) later, you look up and time has passed, confusion is still in the same place, solid and unchanged. If it's gone, you may find someone else made the decision for you, replacing the old topic with a whole new one.

In all candor, sitting with confusion is not something I gravitate toward. Confusion isn't comfortable and I want it over, gone. Being confused feels like I'm failing to figure out what to do and since we're all responsible for our lives, I'm failing at life. I've learned I feel this stuckness and reluctance to act because of things that happened to me decades ago when growing up, most likely not due to anything in front of me now. And intellectually I know that whether I like it or not, some things can't simply be thought through. They require engagement; they have to be lived and worked through. Acting with imperfect information, taking reasonable risks and possibly making a mistake, equal learning and progressing. Being distracted can cause decision making to be unnecessarily deferred, engagement postponed and attending to the results of our actions (learning) to be missed.

Untangling distraction from confusion and holding it while letting distraction go is a skill. It pays to learn it.

Further thoughts on confusion and distraction.

Prying one's fingers off the old is my first step. Sometimes the saying that "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't" plays repeatedly in one's mind, resulting in stuckness, an inability to move. Its actually a misconception that all potential devils are equal. Of course, some absolutely are scary and to be avoided. Taking an action that has the likely result of harming health certainly is.  Or acting vindictively, selfishly or ruthlessly is too. But when trying to take a step that is simply uncertain, holding potential that isn't fully formed or guaranteed, I've always found it's a bigger risk to do nothing.

A long-ago poem below is newly relevant: it's not possible to hold onto the old while trying to shape the new.

Wanting, Waiting, Wondering

Wanting, waiting, wondering.
Hanging on as the trapeze that is my life
Swings back and forth in an apparently unchanging arc.
On the other side opportunity, new perspectives, excitement beckon.

Wanting, waiting, wondering.
What does it take after years of back and forth
To risk, exert myself, reach out                                                          
For that bar swinging toward me?

Wanting, waiting, wondering.
Deep breath, concentration, timing.
Now in the air, unprotected, reaching for the future -
Timelessness and space

 A firm grasp and I'm there.

 Copyright Paula T. Bartholome, 1998

Photo credit: lifehacker.com.au

Time Off for Thinking

It's been quite a long time since I've posted anything. I've been stuck. Trying to figure out which way to turn and what's next in this life. Having rebooted and redefined myself multiple times, each time thinking it's the last, it's rather surprising to find that I'm about to do it again. But that's what's on the horizon. After fruitlessly trying to hide from Life V. 11.0 - yes, when I sat down and figured it out it will be the eleventh time I've picked up and started over in some way - I am now, as they say, "leaning in."

While I don't know what this version is going to be just yet, I can only say that it feels good to claim it. And I'm looking forward to discovering where this new journey leads. More later.

I'm back! And with a message from a NY Times columnist that really resonates with me. Here it is:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/opinion/trump-liberals-armageddon.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

It's not a pretty link, but I hope you will read it!

November 10, 2016

This little, very occasional blog is going dark. At least for a while.

It's gotten longer and longer between posts. There are certainly still things to write about. And my interests haven't changed all that much, so the topics are still possible. But for the moment other things feel more pressing, more necessary to do. So they are where I'll spend my time.

Maybe somewhere down the road I'll pass by again and pick up where I left off. Maybe this branch in the road won't circle back. Whatever happens, the fork in the road calls.

This little fellow looks just like the picture (out of focus) I took of the bee on my walk.
It came from the web, credit to keepingbee.org.

 It's been a long time since the last post. Lots of reasons, none of them particularly good.

It appears that the weather is going to be less than perfect again this year. Is my memory of spring accurate? Was it so much better when I was a child? So much more delineated as a season in my youth? I think it was. For sure, the bees weren't dying off then.

I found one on the front walk today. A honeybee dead. Was it lured out with the little bit of warm weather we've had and then not able to find enough food when the weather turned cold and rainy again? Or was the bee killed because the firm that takes care of the lawns uses a toxic herbicide? Or is there some sort of infestation in the hive where the bee resided? Whatever the reason, it was sad to see.

Spring is when things are  supposed to start blooming and thriving. Not dying. I hope it isn't a precursor of what's in store...

The difference between immoral and illegal

Source: Wikipedia "Junk food" page. This image is a poster at 

Camp Pendleton’s 21-Area Health Promotion Center that describes

the effects of junk food that many Marines and sailors consume.

I've been scratching my head for a while about this. If profiting from misery is immoral, and being malnourished is misery, then those who produce unhealthy ("junk") food are acting immorally.  Right?

What is the difference between immoral and illegal? According to Dictionary. com, immoral is defined as "not conforming to the patterns of conduct usually accepted or established as consistent with principles of personal and social ethics." On the other hand, illegal is defined as "forbidden by law or statute."  While society is involved in both as one reflects "social ethics" and the other is the result of societal action, from a spiritual standpoint, being immoral may result in a condemnation in the next life; breaking a law may result in a conviction in this one. 

Today, unhealthy food is not only legal, it is profitable.  It's profitable because its produced cheaply, easy to prepare/consume, accessible and - dare I say it - addictive. In the minds of many, producing junk food is in the process of becoming - or already is - immoral. What is unhealthy food? My definition is: most anything that's processed in a factory rather than cooked in a kitchen if it contains lots of salt and/or sugar and high levels of fat and/or things I don't recognize or can't pronounce.

Chances are unhealthy food will be legal for a long time. However, it's legal because we allow it to be. And sadly, because some of it really tastes good. We can work to change laws or, as the Mayo Clinic suggests, tax the potentially bad stuff. The tax money could fund research on epidemics that have been linked to food (e.g. diabetes) or education on recreating more self sufficiency in producing and preparing food. Slowing down the pace of life wouldn't hurt either...

A long time ago, a commercial featuring a man answering tough questions (tongue in cheek) hit the nail on the head. When asked what the difference between ignorance and apathy was, he, for once, quite wisely said: "I don't know and I don't care." Can the difference between immoral and illegal can be summed up similarly?

Deconstructing grocery shopping

I went grocery shopping

Grocery shopping still conjures up images of me 50 years ago accompanying my mother to multiple stores, all small by today's mega-store standards. We would go up and down the aisles and she would purchase thing things that spanned a variety of categories: produce, fruit and meat (typically fresh), milk, ice cream, cottage and other cheese (even though we lived next door to a dairy farm and had previously had milk delivered), bread (typically day old because it was less costly), canned foods (beans, tomatoes, soups, etc. because they could be kept and used quickly - e.g. no soaking beans overnight), cake and pizza mixes, frozen TV dinners and pot pies (it was the time convenience foods were getting a foothold in the stores).  Rarely if ever do I recall purchasing fish other than during Lent and the fish were frozen sticks. I didn't like them. Although my mother cooked from scratch, canned and preserved it never occurred to me to question that these new, sometimes tasty, labor-saving foods might not - in the long haul - be good for all us eaters. We humans have a little problem with thinking about "the long haul." Over time food producers of all kinds researched the heck out of what we wanted (not thinking about what we might need) and food became saturated with synthetic (as well as natural) preservatives and additives that led to foods that were high in flavor and calories and low in nutritional value. I may be a member of the last generation to remember the groceries that primarily stocked other than highly processed food rather than fresh ingredients.

Fast forward to today. The choices are often mega-stores or specialty stores (like Trader Joe's). Then there are health food stores (which I'm sure were around 50 years ago but they were mostly vitamins and supplements, not food.) If you are in a progressive area, you may be able to shop at a co-op and get largely organic, vegetarian and vegan food with an emphasis on health. And then there are farmers markets. These have always been there but often obscure from visibility and perceived as for people with money. People have offered food items for as long as they moved away from everyone hunting and gathering on their own. It was only with the advent of the industrialization, mechanization and concentration of food growing and production that this practice began to wane. But it's rebounded as people want to know more about what they eat and are rediscovering the difference between a tomato bred for shipping and a tomato bred for flavor.

It didn't come from Walmart

So, rather than going to mega-stores for the convenience of one-stop shopping, or buying highly processed "industrial" foods that abound, I'm drawn the small shops that celebrate the skills and flavors that I almost let slip away from me as I grew up. When I ask about an item I find myself often listening in awe to young people who create or grow food using skills that I might have dismissed as too much work or beyond my abililty. And I remember my elders and am grateful.

Looking backward and forward...

goodpixgallery.com

It's been a very long while since I posted anything. So long, in fact, that someone nice enough to comment on my last post had their words held in limbo until I released them. Sorry about that! Somehow time just slipped by (lame excuse but true) and I didn't get back here as frequently as I needed to. It's been a weird year in many ways. One of transition.

Planned letter writing (yes, paper and pen style) that started the summer of 2014 after a high school reunion dribbled into oblivion in the summer of 2015. I dropped the ball there too. My correspondent was diligent and kept her word to write. Plus her writing was ever so much more interesting than the "it's been hot here" or "sorry it's taken me so long to write back" kind. It was honest, dealing with emotions in a healthy way, and yet somehow it left me hollow. Not her fault for sure, but it couldn't live up to the kind of writing I was longing for. The kind that comes from someone who really knows you and has known you for a very long time. I was silly to expect that from someone who I last knew 45 years ago. But I knew her from grade school through high school so thought, perhaps...

Clearly it's my own impatience with telling my story to someone who doesn't know me that deep way that has tripped me up. I want them to already know everything so they can help me figure out the fuzzy parts. But those people - the ones who have that type of deep knowledge - if they exist for anyone, certainly are few and far between for me. An accident of life I suppose; people go away for various reasons or don't pay the kind of attention that we think they do. The dwindling number of those who remain over the years have imperfect memories. And the ones with the best knowledge who I should have asked long ago have died and taken their insights with them.

Maybe that's why over the past few months I've finally become able to lay down the expectation that there are definitive answers out there that, if I just get them, I will get it right. Know for sure. Really understand. Its long been time I've been carrying the expectation that scrutinizing the ambiguity that runs through my life, the gaps in memory, the unanswered questions, even sussing out the questions themselves will change the past. It won't. Can't. Of course I've known this, but it took me til now to be able to be done worrying with it. I finally accept the imperfectness of the past, of me and more importantly, of the future.

And I now understand that an imperfect past doesn't hold me prisoner any more than an imperfect future means it will be bad. I have the opportunity to learn and change. To improve. And that's really so much more interesting than trying to climb up onto and maintain one's balance on the shaky pedestal of perceived perfection. Maybe I should go back and dig out that last letter and answer it...

Nice confusion

Recently I had a slightly confusing Twitter exchange with this book's publicist about it winning an award. Actually it was the Gold Winner in Juvenile Nonfiction awarded by Foreword Reviews and their Indiefab Awards. Foreword Reviews is another interesting story...
 

It's not my book.  Unfortunately I had nothing to do with it, but am delighted for the confusion so that I know it's out there. Continuing to educate children about the importance of what we eat, where it comes from and how to prepare it are all good. 

To learn more about the book, click here.

The price of healthy food

--> Everyone knows that healthy food is expensive. But why does it have to cost more for food with fewer additives, less processing and fewer food miles than it does to eat industrially produced food that is nutritionally questionable at best? It never made sense to me. And now I find there is a "fast food" restaurant just down the street that is healthy and locally sourced where possible.
Open less than a week when I visited, this little take-out storefront operation serves up a wide variety of freshly made wraps using good ingredients and many house-made items. The portions are generous and the food is really tasty. And it was surprisingly inexpensive. For less than $10 two people can have a nice lunch (excluding beverages) that is both well made and healthy. Yum. Let's do more of this, please.

Just as cooking at home doesn't need to be hard to do or fancy, this concept is simple at its core. Home cooking and healthy "fast food" both require focus, commitment and time. So there is a choice. What's yours?

You know you have roots when...

It occurred to me that the summer will be the 12th since my move from the "big city" to a small town. It doesn't seem like that much time could have passed. (Isn't that what people always say?) This is particularly true because up until today it felt like I was still a new arrival in town. That my home was still just moved into. And that the deep roots that I had were elsewhere.

Truth be told, the family roots of elders have long since slipped away. Only peers are left and their children and grandchildren. Not that they aren't important, but they aren't the older generation who knew me from birth as a daughter, niece or granddaughter. The ones whose memories extended far back to a time that shaped them and was so different than the one into which I appeared.

But today it became clear that somehow, while missing the roots that were gone, I have put down roots here. While there are many ways to know you are rooted, the one that got my attention was that someone I knew, liked, respected and cared about, lost a parent. An elder. Before today such emails came from mostly family and long-time friends in places I'd been from. Today, the email came from where I live now.

While it is not possible to recapture roots that are lost, having new ones and the belonging they imply, feels good, despite the sadness for the loss of an elder I never met.

This doesn't make sense

How different topsoil looks.

Can you pick the healthy one?

Right on the heels of my post about permaculture, a long-view approach to a respectful relationship with the natural resources around us, and one that admittedly requires curiosity, patience, humility and real, hard work, I ran across a magazine article that stopped me. In the past I might have regarded the gardening tips in the article more benignly. But not now.

I won't mention the magazine because it doesn't matter. The information provided isn't materially different from what other magazines or websites on creating pleasant home and garden environments might offer. But the content of one tip in particular caused me to stop in my tracks. The tip, quoted verbatim below is:

"Step up to better soil. Raised beds can be filled with the very best topsoil so you don't have to spend years improving difficult ground. Traditional wood beds are fine, but composite decking boards and rusted steel are decorative and durable."

Yes! Better soil! No! Not that way! We can't continue to buy our way into growing sustainably. We need to do the  work of rebuilding our resources. The answer isn't for big companies to improve soil so they can scrape it into bags I buy. Its my responsibility to take care of the bit I have and create more and better soil. And I believe it's everyone's job. We've forgotten that, or become disconnected from it or call it what you will, but I believe we all decide to do the necessary work and forgo immediately gratifying gardens, we're just kidding ourselves.

The Land Institute has been working for decades to improve soil by researching and promoting polyculture (growing multiple crops/rotating them) rather than the monoculture that has overtaken US agriculture. They also promote perennial grains (like the grains that grew before modern farming) rather than the annual crops that the vast majority of farmers grow. This big-scale solution can be applied in container gardening as well. Paying attention to how we treat our soil and improve it rather than replacing it every year and starting fresh feels more responsible. More sustainable. More right. 

What to do besides supporting the Land Institute's work? Start composting. Have your yard soil tested and work to bring back its health naturally. Grow plants that help the soil and each other. Fertilize and deal with pests and plant diseases naturally. Help support pollinators. Yes, it's work. Worthy work. Satisfying work. Necessary work. And work that won't wait.

When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.” - See more at: http://www.landinstitute.org/about-us/vision-mission/#sthash.uUh0m7ZH.dpuf

When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.” - See more at: http://www.landinstitute.org/about-us/vision-mission/#sthash.uUh0m7ZH.dpuf

When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.” - See more at: http://www.landinstitute.org/about-us/vision-mission/#sthash.uUh0m7ZH.dpuf

When people, land, and community are as one, all three members prosper; when they relate not as members but as competing interests, all three are exploited. By consulting Nature as the source and measure of that membership, The Land Institute seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned, while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.” - See more at: http://www.landinstitute.org/about-us/vision-mission/#sthash.uUh0m7ZH.dpuf

Change that makes sense

One of the many posters in the Lexicon of Sustainability

An email landed in my inbox today from the folks at the Lexicon of Sustainability. I got acquainted with their work a couple of years ago and have been a fan ever since. They tell the story of sustainable food, growing, practices - you name it - so that people are using a common language when they talk. And hopefully, then, when they understand the issues they face. 

This poster on permaculture was explained as being a shift in thinking and living. A stepping back to see the really big picture. It said:

The word ‘permaculture’ comes from the melding of two words: ‘permanent culture’ and ‘permanent agriculture’,” points out Rhamis Kent. “It’s something that’s able to sustain itself by the very nature in which it’s constructed. As Bill Mollison says, ‘It’s the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.’" Learn how permaculture is not just a sustainable agriculture method, but a lifestyle for many.

Makes sense to me.