yearofplenty

Victory for Our "Chichen Coop" in the backyardchickens.com Coop Page Contest

OK, technically we tied for first. Our coop page is here. The other winners are listed here. Go here for a bunch of other great coop pages. Next up, the girls are going to enter their chickens in the Spokane County Fair. By the way, the deadline for entry in the Fair competitions is August 11.

Mobile Food Bank Distribution in Millwood Tomorrow - Plant a Row For the Hungry Drop Off

If you or someone you know is low income and could benefit from free fresh healthy food, the Second Harvest Mobile Food bank will be in the parking lot of Millwood Presbyterian Church from 10am to Noon tomorrow, July 31, 2009. We will also be accepting donations from people's gardens for the Plant a Row for the Hungry program. Go here for more info or if you want to volunteer.

UK Food Agency Claims Organic Food Has No Health Benefits

The Times online gives the rundown here. Here's the summary of their conclusions:

The watchdog stopped short of advising consumers that buying organic produce was a waste of money but its message was clear: choosing to eat organic food will make no important difference to a person’s overall health. Eating a healthy balanced diet is the only important thing, the report concluded.

I'm so flabbergasted by this I'm not quite sure where to start. The study doesn't take into account pesticides and chemicals present in and on the foods. Isn't that the greatest health benefit to eating organic? The study doesn't take into consideration industrial agricultural practices that degrade the land, the soil and the atmosphere. Might those factors play into a consumer's health? Most of all the study takes the definition of nutrition and breaks it down into it's chemical components and even more it breaks the individual down into an isolated component, as if the interaction of individuals doesn't play into a persons health.

One of the mysteries of agriculture, food and soil is that when we spray pesticides and herbicides we destroy not just the things we want to destroy, we kill off innumerable other micro-organisms and bacteria that go into producing. Thousands of living organisms in the soil becomes 3 or 4. There is more to growing food than NPK. I'm a bit out of my expertise on organics so anyone else with more insight please chime in.

The Dirty Underbelly of Farmers' Markets?

The Baltimore City Paper has an interesting article titled "Locavore's Lament" in which Michelle Gienow expresses her dismay at discovering that not all the produce and fruit for sale at the Market is produced by the seller or sourced locally. In other words, at her Baltimore area Farmers' Markets there are sellers who are buying stuff wholesale just like Wal Mart and Albertson's and selling it under the homespun "Farmers' Market" banner.

Based on my experience, it's not nearly as big an issue in the Spokane area as it is there. But it is an issue nonetheless. One of the first Farmers' Market vocabulary words I learned was "high staller." When we were turning over rocks looking for vendors for the Millwood Market three years ago it seemed like everyone wanted to know if we were going to allow "high stallers." They explained to me that high stallers were vendors that were allowed to come into the market and sell wholesale goods alongside the farmer who had actually taken part in producing the market goods.

The Washington State Farmers' Market Association does allow for what they call "Resellers". They define this as follows;

"One who buys produce from farmers in Washington State and counties which border Washington State, trucks it to a WSFMA Member Farmers Market, and resells it directly to the consumer. The reseller is expected to be the only stop between the grower and the consumer. They are not expected to deal with shippers, warehouses or jobbers. They must not sell any produce not grown in Washington and its surrounding counties."

The logic is that when farmers in Spokane don't have cherries someone could buy from farmers in Yakama area and fill in the gaps of offerings at a local market. It's a good concept but it get's a little tricky to enforce when a reseller is or isn't competing with local farmers selling directly to consumers. We don't allow high stallers are the Millwood Market.

Washington is a big enough producer of fruits and veggies that we don't have to worry too much about someone trying to sell California produce at our markets. But if you go to Pike Place market you may want to look closely. I noticed on a visit last year that someone was selling stuff with a California label on it.

By the way, "high staller" is maybe the first phrase I've come across that has no recognizable presence on Google.

Pasadena Park/Millwood Community Gardens Update

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A couple of months ago I floated the idea a community Garden on the two bare parcels of land pictured above. The land is owned by Inland Empire Paper and there is a history of the land being used for growing pumpkins before the bridge construction turned the corner lot into a flattened post construction parking lot and before the pumpkin farmer died about four years ago. So the concept was to get community members to work together to grow food on the land and give the majority of the food to Second Harvest food bank.

The plans lay dormant until a couple of weeks ago when I got a call from a local artist who lives nearby the pieces of land. He has been experimenting with cultivating wildflowers on his property and he proposed turning the corner lot into a beautiful wildflower meadow. It's really a vision for a making a piece of public art to be on display for all 30,000 cars a day that speed by on Argonne. The larger plot of land to the east would still be used for growing food in the new concept. This is all speculative at this point and we're still working out the details with the Paper Mill but in light of recent developments I wanted to make a few observations and make an appeal for help. First, two observations.

My understanding of community development work is that as relationships are built and visions are shared amongst a people and possibilities are lifted up -  if you hang in there with it long enough, stuff starts to happen. As a friend of mine says, when we pay attention to the world together and develop the skills of intentional listening "the pennies start to drop." When my artist friend called, in the back of my mind I said, "Ahh, the pennies are dropping." My limited perspectives and visions found a conversation partner and now it appears something even more wonderful is taking shape.

I'm learning that the resources for renewal and re-vitalization in a community are among the people in the community. They are often hidden and obscured but they are there nonetheless. For example, Tates' Honey farm is just on the other side of Argonne from these pieces of land. Jerry sells honey at the Millwood Farmers' Market. He's noticed recently that the bees he keeps on the river keep going to the east and he couldn't figure out where they were going. When the artist talked to him last week it occurred to both of them that the bees were going to the experimental wildflower patch in the artists front yard. They got talking and one idea is to keep some bees on the new wildflower meadow and market it as a special "Millwood Wildflower Honey". I love it!

Now, the appeal for help. The two parcels of land have working water meters but they need some work on backflow valves, etc. to get them ready for the projects. We also need some help with materials and planning for the irrigation delivery systems. Is there anyone out there who has some experience with irrigation systems and is willing to donate time, materials or both to get things up and running? If so email me at the link to the right. The Paper Mill has generously expressed willingness to pay for the water.

We're looking for worker bees who want to be a part of the project. Based on my conversations with the mill, they will permit people to participate in the work in a similar way to their permitting process for use of their forest lands. Access to the property will be limted to those permitted to participate. If you are interested please email me.

Garden Wonders: Monarch Butterfly - Hummingbird Showdown Edition

One of the great things about converting our lawn into a patchwork of vegetables and flowers is the wildlife that thrives in our little ecosystem. It's a living and breathing space of birds and insects and bees. This is the most active year of wildlife I have seen and a big part of that is the maturing of our perennial flowers that we planted three years ago.

So yesterday I was out watering and I witnessed an unexpected garden wildlife wonder. A monster monarch butterfly like the one shown above was dancing wistfully around a cluster of purple coneflower plants and day lilies. Out of nowhere a hummingbird, with all the fury and intensity of whirling wings, dove into the scene and looked to be telling the butterfly to bug out. It was a turf war and I was pretty certain that the delicate butterfly would back down to the chopping propellers of the bird. But in this battle the butterfly blustered and confronted her foe and the hummingbird backed off and headed to the friendlier flower patches.

Who knew that butterflies were such bullies and that hummingbirds were such wimps.

I'd Like to Sell the World a Coke

This fascinating map is making the rounds on the internets today. It's a map from 1996 showing world coke consumption. You can see Coke's latest plans for world domination here. I wonder what would be possible if the resources that go into selling the world a coke were unleashed in the direction of developing sustainable food systems. That would really "give the world a hug."

The Fading Signs of Our Agricultural Memory

I took the above picture just east of Hutton Settlement on the hillside in late May. I was drawn to its rustic look but mystified by it's meaning and history. "DO NOT THROW ANYTHING..." I didn't think much more of it until last night when I did the invocation at the Hutton Settlement 90th anniversary dinner at the Davenport. I had the privilege of sitting next to Mr. and Mrs. Revel who served as Administrators at Hutton until 1996. They were at Hutton when it was still a working farm, which was what Hutton intended when he set aside the over 300 acre tract of land. It was designed to be self-sustaining and it was for much of its early life, especially during the depression years. They had a dairy and chickens and sheep and a five acre vegetable garden. They told me about taking their veggies to the community canning facility in Post Falls where they bought the cans and rented the equipment to preserve the food they had grown. They also told the story of the various ag activities that shut down through the years. First went the dairy because of the increasing regulatory burden. Then the chickens and the sheep and large garden. The Hutton household's transition away from household ag mirrors the transition in the majority of households in the Valley.

But here's the aha moment. Somewhere in the conversation the old irrigation canal that historically provided water to all the Valley farms came up. I asked if the canal served the settlement and Mr. Revel exclaimed that in fact it went right behind the buildings. That's when it dawned on me that the concrete and iron relic pictured above is a remnant of the old irrigation canal. This morning I looked closely and was able to make out the rest of the sentence, "DO NOT THROW ANYTHING IN CANAL Please".

The fading sign is a literal and metaphorical sign of our fading agricultural memory. Who remembers that the Valley was filled with over a million fruit trees not too long ago, or that it was famous for Hearts of Gold melons, or that the shores of the river going through Millwood were filled with truck farms and seasonal Indian trails. Who remembers that Ritz crackers are named after Ritzville because at the time Ritzville was the largest initial shipping point for wheat in the country? I know all this stuff is in history books and wiki articles, but I'm talking about a living history among the people. The signs are fading as is our collective memory...to our great peril.

If we are going to live storied lives, that are grounded in something more than commodities markets, it's important to preserve this agricultural memory. I'm discovering one simple way to do that is to recover the old household ag practices from generations ago. Take out the lawn and grow vegetables. Learn how to preserve food. Get to know farmers and buy from them directly.

Our most recent adventure of growing chickens has been especially fruitful. I now know where the cultural understanding of "playing chicken" comes from. It comes from the common practice of chickens running at each other full force and stop[ing right before crashing into each other with feathers raised and beeks wagging. That's what my chickens do. Before observing our chickens in action my cultural understanding of this practice went about as deep as Kevin Bacon playing chicken with tractors in the movie Footloose. And yesterday I learned the origins of the phrase, "flying the coop". I opened the door to change the water in the coop and my five chickens burst past me toward the door and the best way to describe their actions is to say they "flew the coop." Aha!

Does anyone else have any Aha discoveries along these lines to report?

View From Your Garden - Brown's Addition

Reader A.Z. sent in this view from his garden in Brown's Addition, Spokane. Here's his description.

I live in a huge house that's been subdivided into six apartments. Of those, five are represented in our new community garden. We've got tomatoes, peppers, herbs, carrots, squash, green beans and lettuces growing. Plus some pretty fleurs in the middle of it all. This is my first time gardening, and I love it.

Keep the pictures coming.

Latah Bistro Field Trip Report

Took my wife out for a birthday dinner last night at Latah Bistro. David Blaine, who runs the restaurant and writes a great blog on the local restaurant scene, is one of the important advocates for nurturing local food systems in Spokane. The restaurant was slammed when we arrived but things settled down after our meal and we had a great chat with David and the sue chef Matt. A couple of things from our conversation that caught my attention;

• David mentioned that while he used to source many foods through farmers’ market farmers, the retail dynamics have improved so much for many of these farmers that they are no longer selling wholesale to Latah Bitro or other restaurants. In our conversation I recognized that we all have a different seat at the table and a perspective that comes with that. Consumers, farmers, wholesalers, grocers, restaurateurs and chefs all bring different challenges and priorities. The trick is to nurture a food system that is shaped by the multiplicity of these voices, not just one or two dominating the conversation, and not just everyone only concerned with what works for them.
• He described the local food movement as an effort to preserve culture. We talked about the fast growing legend around a study about how farmers driving to a farmers’ market have a larger carbon footprint than a big semi transporting produce from California. There actually is such a study, but David’s (and my) response is to say, “So what, it’s not about that.” This trope is floated by advoctes of industrial ag as if that ends the conversation. There is more to the conversation than carbon footprint metrics. It’s culture, community, relationships, philosophy, and I would add theology.
• He said the next big trend in the Spokane food scene is going to be small restaurants. As he described it, the super-sizing of restaurants has been a major effort and exertion that has gained nothing. The economics of very large restaurants with all of the staff and overhead is problematic in these economic times. I took note that not only were Matt and David cooking the food, they were also doing the dishes. I wonder if the small sizing of many aspects of food systems will follow suit, from biggie to boutique. The economics might demand it.

By the way, the food was excellent. We sat at the “Zoo” bar where we could watch the chefs do their thing. They even took our order. The Mokie cheese Mac & Cheese was amazing as was the trout.