The 3 Things I Learned at Growing Power

There were a lot more than just 3 things that I learned this past weekend at Growing Power.  But these 3 points have shifted my way of thinking.

1.  We can't exclude anyone anymore.  The context that it was used in was talking about excluding the WalMarts of the world from the organic roundtable.  There tends to be a shared distrust, rightfully so, of corporate America in the environmental/organic realm.  So Will Allen's, CEO and founder of Growing Power, point is that we are at such a tipping point that we can no longer exclude them.  This is a problem that we all need to fix together.

I agree wholeheartedly and I also think that statement encompasses our lives in general.  Let's strip away the obvious connotation of discrimination that a statement like that may induce thoughts of and look at it a little deeper.  How many of you actually let people into your lives?  Including the normal immediate family?  I know that I don't.  I know that I can keep most people at arm's length.  I don't want to open myself up to be vulnerable to their needs.  So I exclude people from thoughts and actions.  My sense of community starts with me at the epicenter and encompasses all of those within my wall of shared beliefs. But it cannot be that way anymore.  We, collectively, are a single entity and to exclude anyone is akin to not listening to our conscience.

2.  Its about building the relationships.  I took a composting class while I was there.  During this class we had to build an urban compost pile made out of wood pallets and hardware cloth.  Then we had to fill it.  The first layer was wood chips about 4 inches deep.  This is the carbon layer.  The next layer was vegetables and fruit also 4 inches deep.  This is the nitrogen layer.  The layer after that was 4 more inches of carbon.  Then 4 more inches of nitrogen.  Then carbon.  Then nitrogen.  All the way to the top with the last layer being carbon.

When we were done Will Allen asked us if we were surprised at the amount of material required to fill the compost bin?  Everyone said yes because it had taken at least two dozen produce boxes and numerous shovels of wood chips to fill it.  Then in passing, and I am not sure how many people heard him, he said, "Its not about getting the materials its about building the relationships to get the materials."

It stuck with me and it resonated.  Everything about farming is about building relationships.  We get so focused on growing the food that we overlook the relationship between the soil and the plant or the plant with the environment.  More to the point, life is about building relationships.  We become so focused on the end results in life that we don't focus on what really matters: the relationship.  If we build and nurture the relationships, the results will take care of themselves.

3.  Be relevant.  On Saturday night I awoke at midnight and stayed awake till almost 4 in the morning.  My brain just turned on and wouldn't turn off.  I think I was just excited about what I had learned that day and how I could implement that into the farm I volunteer at and eventually my own.  Yet there was another feeling/thought that I had.  I couldn't help but feel very small next to Will Allen.  Besides the fact he is a large man I felt my entire being was small.  My accomplishments in life pale in comparison to his.

I realized in the course of my insomnia that the difference between him and I came down to relevancy.  We both want to help and we both want to do good.  There are real problems that the community within which Growing Power resides faces.  Growing Power has been set up to answer those problems.  Growing Power is relevant to it's community.  The majority of our actions, though good, are not relevant to the problems we face.  Most of the things we have, if we are honest about it, aren't relevant either.  Most people, myself included, tend to judge actions through the lenses of efficiency and effectiveness.  I think we should start measuring it against relevancy.

Forgiveness & Salvation

Forgiveness & Salvation

“Grass is the forgiveness of nature -- her constant benediction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by the winds, by wandering birds, propagated by the subtle horticulture of the elements which are its ministers and servants, it softens the rude outline of the world. Its tenacious fibres hold the earth in its place, and prevent its soluble components from washing into the wasting sea. It invades the solitude of deserts, climbs the inaccessible slopes and forbidding pinnacles of mountains, modifies climates, and determines the history, character, and destiny of nations. Unobtrusive and patient, it has immortal vigor and aggression. Banished from the thoroughfare and the field, it bides its time to return, and when vigilance is relaxed, or the dynasty has perished, it silently resumes the throne from which it has been expelled, but which it never abdicates. It bears no blazonry or bloom to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet should its harvest fail for a single year, famine would depopulate the world.” [1]

Grasses, to too many of us, mean the sullen stubble that we esteem to adorn our living spaces. We even give it it's own name, a lawn, and it's vitality and care is an indicator of social success. Yet this is the lowest form of Nature's forgiveness. The beauty of grass is in the diversity of Nature's benevolence. For Nature does not dole out forgiveness equally. Nature's forgiveness can be as great as the cereals: wheat, millet, oats, rye, sorghum, barley, rice and maize. Or as limited as a lawn. We began with the forgiveness of Nature. Teff, spelt, einkorn, emmer, and durum are species of wheat that stood by us in the beginning. Buckwheat, quinoa, and amarynth are pseudo-cereals but grasses none the less. There are the grasses of the plains and grasslands that for centuries held fertility from the grasp of the winds across the open land of the midwest. The sedges and the rushes are found in the grasslands as well as the marshes. They filter water of it's impurities and make it fresh for all life. Papyrus, a rush, gave a bed for the written word to lay in. Bamboo is a grass. Nature's forgiveness feeds, clothes, and shelters us.

If grass is Nature's forgiveness then soil is our salvation. It is the soil from which Nature's forgiveness will sprout. And it is the soil that will pass judgement on us. It's very nature and structure will dictate if we are deserving of forgiveness. Nature has carefully been building it from the beginning. Mountains crumble slowly beneath the slow pressures of rain, wind, snow, and the sun. Freezing, thawing, expanding, contracting, cracking they turn all mountains to soil. Rivers cut through rock layer by layer. Glaciers moving at glacial speeds grind rock against rock to create sand, silt, and clay. These are the foundations of soil. Names given to indicate size and drainage.

Sand is the largest, followed by silt then clay. Pure sand drains water quickly. Watch the waves retreat off a beach. Does the water slip back into the ocean or does it disappear into the sand? Look even closer and see the dampness chase after the waves like a following shadow. Never holding water, without the waves it becomes a desert, loose and dry. Only special plants with roots that grow exceptionally deep or have leaves that can absorb moisture from the air can tolerate sand.

Clay is microscopic particles of soil that may as well be powder. Once wet those particles bind and create an impenetrable layer for water. Causing the land to shed needed rainwater, instead of soaking it up and recharging our dwindling ground water, which then causes many problems – flooding being one. When dried after being wet, clay creates a cement like surface from which there is no forgiveness. Dried clay is the archetypical cracked and blistered earth.

Silt is between sand and clay. That would lead one to believe that silt is the optimal building block for soil. But one would be wrong. Silt's size make it easy to be carried away by both water and wind. Clouding water supplies, which chokes fish, or clouding the air, which choke us. Silt is the most vulnerable. It cannot repel or accept the forces pitted against it.

The perfect soil is a mixture of the three. In nearly equal parts. It's called loam. It soaks up water and holds it as well as lets it drain. Plants need it both ways. They require the water for growth but not so much that their roots drown. The three are stronger together then apart. Yet this is only the inorganic material that Nature has used to create structure. Soil is also organic material.

A living thing will return to the soil from which it comes. Nature carefully takes apart the nucleotides and peptides she so precisely organized into DNA. The nutrients and building blocks from which new life is made. Humus is the dividing line. Beyond humus is the realm of inorganic. It is a line as fine and fragile as a spider's thread. Beyond humus no longer provides the nourishment that plants need. Humus is the work of community. Nature enlists the help of earthworms, dung beetles, sow bugs, millipedes, and many more. The slow process of breaking large into small is repeated many times. Each time a new member of the community steps in. The smaller parts are broken down by fungus and molds to even smaller parts. Finally those are broken down by billions of microbes. It is said that a teaspoon of soil contains more life than all the people on the planet. We share a kinship with soil when we try to comprehend the vastness of space.

The dust kicks up off the freshly tilled earth and with each gust of wind we lose our salvation. The soil must be covered. Either from decaying material in the form of a mulch or by Nature's forgiveness as a green mulch. This covering of the soil is it's skin. The protective layer that keeps moisture in and harmful heat and wind out. The forgiveness given by Nature will hold the soil in place through the toughest rain storm. It protects the soil in its entirety. For here is the secret. Soil is not just sand, silt and clay.

Our salvation lies in it all: sand, silt, clay, humus, earthworms, fungi, molds, sow bugs, microbes, and mulches. Without the clay there is no water retention and we have the barren space of a desert. Without the sand there is no drainage and we have floods in the rainy season and parched, cracked earth in drought. Without the humus there are no building blocks. Without the life in the soil there is no humus. Without a protective covering there is no moisture or life.

Soil is our salvation. Because our salvation lies in our ability to allow Nature to forgive us. But Nature's forgiveness is conditional. We may have the loam but no humus and Nature will forgive us enough to cover the soil. Nature will pass on the deficiency in nutrients to us. Externalizing her costs. It is only fair. We may even have the humus but we don't protect it. Nature will again forgive us but slowly, and at the cost of precious water. We can and have tried to bribe Nature into forgiving us through the use of chemical fertilizers. Each time Nature has turned the other cheek. Forgiving us though we surely are not deserving. At what point will she stop? Our salvation lies in the soil beneath our feet. All we need to do, is to finally ask for forgiveness. 

[1] "In Praise of Blue Grass” by John James Ingalls (1833-1900), Senator from Kansas from 1873 to 1891. Excerpted from Grass - The Yearbook of Agriculture 1948. U. S. Government Printing Press. Washington 1948.

Some good news for a change

One of the mailing lists I am on sent these out.  Some good news! Kellogg's pledges to purchase sustainable palm oil certificates Business Green GreenPalm, which is operated by Hull-based Book&Claim, enables palm oil ... standards established by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). ...

Campaign success: Indonesian palm oil company pledges to end ... Wildlife Extra September 2010: Burger King drops contract with GAR and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil(RSPO) criticises GAR for its environmental and social ... The mailing list is simply called the "Palmoil" list and more information can be found here:

 http://lists.aza.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/palmoil

Never buy coffee creamer, butter, buttermilk, whipped cream, or sour cream again

Sometimes things are right in front of you.  I bought some heavy whipping cream a couple of weeks ago to make a sauce.  I bought the little pint job and used most of it.  There was a little left over and it soon became relegated to the space behind the milk.  Out of sight, out of mind.  I happened on it and it was still a few days before it's expiration.  Not wanting to waste it I began using it in my coffee.  Delightful.

I picked up a quart this time because by volume it is cheaper.  This morning as I added it to my coffee I was hearing Mel in my ear telling me how bad that heavy cream is for me.  If there was only some way to cut the amount of fat in half...I am blonde remember this.  

Half & Half is exactly that.  Half milk and half cream or heavy whipping cream.  Here's the beauty of buying the heavy whipping cream by the quart (2 pints).  Use 1/4 of it (1/2 pint) and use the same amount of milk and you now have great tasting coffee creamer.  Get creative and add vanilla extract, almond flavoring, hazelnut flavoring, pumpkin pie spice, etc and you have your own coffee flavoring for a fraction of the cost.

You also have 3/4 of quart of heavy whipping cream left which is equivalent to 1 1/2 pints or 3 cups.  Now here comes the fun part.  You need to make sure that you use organic everything because you need the natural cultures that are present.   

From 2 cups of heavy whipping cream (1 pint) placed into a jar with a lid and shaken like crazy you will get butter and buttermilk.  Push the butter through a strainer or cheese cloth to get the excess butter milk and curds out, then salt to taste - or add honey or garlic or rosemary or thyme, or !!! - and you have the best tasting butter you will ever have.  It will stay good for about a week but it all depends on if you get all the curds out of it.  It is the curds that will make it spoil.  The amount you make from 2 cups is very manageable that I doubt it would last a week.  There are ways to store the butter for longer.  Look up a French butter bell crock.  I plan to try that and use making butter as my default when my heavy whipping cream is about to spoil and I don't need any of the other products.

I use my Kitchen Aid mixer with the whisk attachment.  Since I use my mixer there is a point where the cream becomes whipped and starts to "stand up."  At this point if you add sugar and vanilla extract and just mix till blended you have really creamy whipped cream that goes great on hot chocolate.  If you push beyond this point the cream gets a fluffy spread like texture that tastes like butter. Keep going and the butter separates out into solid chunks and there is a pool of buttermilk in the mixer.  Pretty neat.

From 2 cups of heavy whipping cream (1 pint) placed into a jar with a lid, if you add 1 tbsp of cultured buttermilk or 1/4 cup of sour cream, shake the heck out of it, let it stand at room temperature for 24-48 hours (or until it thickens) and you will have the best tasting sour cream you have ever had.  This will also last a week in the fridge.  One little note though, the last time I made sour cream I had organic cultured buttermilk so I added a tbsp from that.  This time when I make it I will take a 1/4 cup from some organic sour cream I bought.  I have not used the buttermilk made from heavy whipping cream so I don't know if it has the cultures needed.  But I will try it and let you know.

You will still have some heavy cream left over.  Use it for more coffee creamer or to make a sauce.  Plus the amounts I gave can always be scaled up.  

So buying all that extra stuff at the store is unnecessary.  Besides that stuff isn't cheap.  Another added benefit is that you aren't wasting stuff.  I don't know about you but I always come across a can of whipped cream out of gas or half a tub of sour cream growing mold.   Now you can make all your stuff to order with just minutes of prep and a little planning ahead.  Lastly, anything that you make from scratch tends to taste better than store bought.

Keep track of how much that saves you and put it towards a debt you may have.  That way you are two steps closer to financial freedom and self-sufficiency!

I love my life

1 Month Water Conservation Experiment

I have convinced Mel to try an experiment with me for the next month.  We are pretty conscientious about saving water.  However, the water bill has gone up over the last 2 months.  Perplexing.  There was a recent hike in fees that doesn't help.  I also think it has something to do with the fact that since we are constantly trying to save water, we become lax on monitoring our own use.  Essentially, our showers have gotten longer and we use the dishwasher more often.  Kind of like owning a Prius and using the gas savings to buy a plane ticket for your vacation.  You haven't really reduced your reliance on fossil fuels you have just optimized your use of them.

But optimization, which isn't working since its risen the past two months, isn't what we are after.  We want reduction.  How do you reduce your water supply?  The major users of water is the bathroom, laundry and kitchen.  Let's just tackle the kitchen for now.

We use the rinse water from vegetables to water our garden.  We have installed a low flow faucet head.  We even fill the dogs big-ass water container as we wait for the water to heat up.  The major problem is the dishwasher.  I have never owned one until I moved out here to California.  Since college, except for a 6 month stay in Rhode Island, I have been hand washing my dishes.  I hand washed in my first house.  I hand washed in Italy.  What a creation of convenience!  And utterly a water waster.

I am sure that there are energy saver, low flow devices out there.  You could even hook it up to a grey water system to water plants outside.  But, its very nature makes you want to fill it up before you run it.  Since dishes apparently only come in sets of 4 or more there are ample amounts of dishes to fill it up with.

The plan is to only have 1 plate, 1 bowl, 1 glass, 1 mug, 1 fork, 1 spoon, 1 knife, and 1 water bottle.  Actually those are really the only things that we stick in the dishwasher.  Pots and pans get hand washed.  So do the kitchen knives and wooden spoons.  Even the our mixer and bread pans get hand washed.

Because we own so many dishes,  do we use them partly because they are there and partly to fill up the dishwasher?  If we only had one set of dishes - 1 for each of us - would we even need the dishwasher?  I have this idea that it will actually save us time by only having the one set each.  But actually trying to figure that out goes down a mathematical rabbit hole. 

Predictions:
It should drive down our water use and therefore the bill.
It should drive down our electric bill as well.
It will save time?

I'm also hoping that it creates reverence for those things we take for granted each day.  The amount of water used, the time it takes to wash dishes, and the dishes themselves.  We'll see.

Is Wisconsin a glimpse of America's future?

Is Wisconsin a glimpse of America's future?  However you wish to fall on the sides of the happenings in Wisconsin the fact remains.  The Governor is trying to get rid of public employee's rights to collective bargaining.  This, in essence, is the strength of a union and without it, the union is essentially a paper tiger.

Why would getting rid of unions in the public realms make sense?  We have to look at the private sector for that answer.  In the late 70's unions were reaching the zenith of their power.  This coincidentally is also the last time that wages kept up proportionately to economic growth.  During the fabled prosperity of the Reagan years, business deregulation, union busting, and outsourcing led to the significant downfall of union power in the private sector.  The reason for doing this was to keep labor low.

In business, simply put,  you have inputs and outputs. By keeping your inputs lower than your outputs you can earn a profit.  Operating costs, labor, raw materials, and transportation of goods to a market are essentially the main inputs (operating costs tend to include energy, licensing, leases, inspection fees, etc. - "the costs of doing business").  The product is the output.  In the global economy it has become very easy for a business to move their operations overseas where they enjoy low labor costs, low costs of natural resources, and low operating costs through government incentives.  Cheap transportation via cheap fossil fuels allow this separation between inputs and outputs.  Because the product must be shipped to another location where the affluence of that population creates a market for the product.

But doesn't suppressing wages while still increasing production create a catch 22 for businesses?  Yes it does.  This is why in the 90's we saw the take off of credit companies.  Here in the United States, wages haven't significantly increased to keep up with the economic production.  Yet to keep a nation of consumers consuming to continue the sacred GDP increase annually, businesses had to allow consumers to borrow on credit.  Essentially borrowing against future wages.   Wages which are all ready so low that  a person, paying the minimum monthly payment, will be paying for the rest of their lives.  Which is actually a great idea.  Why spend the effort to get you to go shopping to earn money when a guaranteed monthly cash flow can be had?

The global economy isn't as big as it's made out to be and its getting smaller every day.  It is no secret that oil will run out one day.  Well, its no secret except to us consumers.  Governments and businesses know this.  Once cheap fossil fuel is no longer cheap then outsourcing no longer becomes as profitable.  If the costs of transporting my product increase then I have to (a) increase the cost of my product, (b) drive down the costs of my inputs, (c) stop transporting my product so far, or (d) all of the above.  As transportation costs sky rocket we will see the end of outsourcing for manufacturing.  We'll also see a rise in product costs and probably the increase in credit companies in 3rd World Nations.  

So this means more jobs here at home.  Good.  Well not if they come about as is (potentially) happening in Wisconsin.  Which makes this idea so diabolical.  Instead of reducing the labor cost outright they reduced the operating costs through tax incentives and other various political outlays to the businesses.  This reduction in taxes has to be made up somewhere.  That somewhere is in the paychecks of public employees and in the cutting of services for the citizens of the state.  Over time, when production far outpaces wages, this will have the net effect of reducing labor costs as well.  Eventually, the public pensions and health care benefits will be no better then the private sectors and then businesses will have their pick of employees.  So getting rid of unions in the public sector will allow businesses to lower their operating costs through tax incentives and other political policy and then the tab is picked up by the public employees.  This way lawmakers don't have to increase the taxes on the entire populace incurring the people's wrath come election time.  Well for now that is.

There is a way out of this.  Yet it requires each and everyone one of us to be vigilant.  We have reached a state of "Unconscious Competence" when it comes to living.  Living for us is so easy that it's like driving to work and wondering how you got there.  Unconscious Competence is good for things like CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, and instances in crisis which require you to act and not think.  We need to take a step back in our competence.  We need to be "Conscious Competent" because we need to think about how we are living our lives.  We need to think about the world we are leaving to our kids.  What kind of life are we living that requires no thought on our own?

So is Wisconsin a glimpse of America's future?  I hope not.