sastyk | July 27, 2011I knew that goats were the new chickens, the new black, the coolest accessory of all time. That I got. But I admit, I hadn't kept up with the new public role goats have been taking.
Apparently they are out shopping. I've never considered taking mine to the mall, but hey, why not? Maybe I'd learn to appreciate shopping if I had a goat with me!
It couldn't make me enjoy shopping less!
Sharon
sastyk | July 26, 2011On Friday, in a move that shocked, truly shocked America, President Obama said that food stamps were more important than Defense. Since this sort of prioritization is one of the fundamental differences between the US extreme right (aka Republicans) and the US center-right (also known as the Democrats), the fact that this caused an uproar among Republicans should also stun you. Republicans warn us that slashing America's defense budget until it is only double the next largest nations will cripple us, Democrats call the Republicans meanies, and everyone ignores the point.
The point is that…
sastyk | July 22, 2011It is hard as heck to imagine that one of these days, I'll be longing for a hot day again, and for the fresh food that accompanies it, but it always happens. It is also hard, deep in the dog days, to realize that right now is when you have to start thinking about your fall garden. That's probably why so many of us start out beautifully, but peter out when the cold comes, running out of fresh things months before we have to.
Indeed, after a decade of working my farm, including the years when we ran a CSA, and many other years when we were gardening for ourselves, or raising perennial food and…
sastyk | July 21, 2011As most of the country slowly roasts in one of the worst heat waves so far, I thought it was worth reminding people that one can stay safe in the heat, even without air conditioning. This is important now for the millions of people who don't own air conditioners, who don't want the environmental impact of an air conditioner, or who find themselves for various reasons, without power in the hot weather. As we all know, this is peak season for brown and blackouts.
There are a lot of parallels between dealing with extreme heat and extreme cold in a difficult situation. The first and most…
sastyk | July 21, 2011Just to let you know, I'm starting another class this week - this one helping people get started with fall gardening and season extension. If you are like most folks, you probably start out enthusiastic about your garden, but around the middle of the summer, you get focused on harvesting, or overwhelmed by the heat and the weeds and let the cool season garden peter out.
That's a mistake, because with very simple and cheap methods of season extension and a little attention right about now (for those as northerly as me, a bit later for folks south of me in this hemisphere), you can be…
sastyk | July 20, 2011I thought y'all might want to see as well as hear what's going on around here.
First, there's the baby goats:
(Asher with Midori)
(Isaiah holding Margarita)
(Poppy nurses little Grog. Stout is in the background waiting his turn.)
The baby goats aren't the only baby things we have in profusion:
(Marigold gave us 8 baby Cinnamon Rabbits, while Rosemary followed with another five.)
(Mama hen and her babies)
Meanwhile, the harvest is coming apace!
Everything is growing like weeds (including the weeds!). Check out the boys in the raspberry patch. They don't leave us much!
(Lavatera in…
sastyk | July 20, 2011Apparently Talisman Energy is taking the case for fraccing to kids in an adorable coloring book. As World Oil News reports:
Following Talisman Terry, children are simplistically introduced to the complex issues of unconventional drilling, pipeline
construction and land reclamation. Presented in before, during and after drilling images, the gas drilling process is introduced as
a gentle engagement with a natural environment. Post-drilling, a fountain-like rainbow appears in the distance and an eagle
soars over an innocuous-looking wellhead.
Of course it does! And the well goes on producing…
sastyk | July 19, 2011We shared two cherry tomatoes this morning, the first ripe ones of the year, and that, to us, is the proof we're fully into high summer. If I don't pick the zucchini every day, I'm sorry. The weather is hot and sultry, the apricots are close to ripe and the peaches are following. The boys drown in fruit every day - it is the one thing I can't say no to. The fireflies sparkle like fireworks. The kids live in the creek and under the sprinkler, and seem to stretch out daily, getting taller, stronger, learning new things. Tonight we're headed to a baseball game (local minor league) - what…
sastyk | July 19, 2011Ok, folks, I'm taking a poll - what do you call a society and an economy that can't keep growing, but can get better in ways that haven't been part of the conventional measures. What I'm looking for is a word or a couple of words that are evocative, not boring, not too wordy or wonky and appealing.
Obviously, this is not a new concept - lots of writers and thinkers have played with this one. The problem is that I haven't liked any of their language. "Steady State Economy" is way too boring. "Ecocentrism" sounds way too close to "egocentrism." I like the word "subsistence" but let's be…
sastyk | July 15, 2011What, you ask, has Sharon been duing, besides getting mud and manure on her? (I feel like there's been a theme to some of my recent posts, no?) I'm sure you have nothing but this on your mind - the doins a'transpirin at my house being the focus of whole tens of people (well, maybe one ten on a good day ;-). Still, I'm going to tell you.
Well, what we've mostly been doing is getting ready for the fall garden season, and getting ready for the family expansion project. As of this week, our house is open as a foster home, but of course, in our usual "doing at the last minute something we…
sastyk | July 14, 2011Over the years I've written a great deal about SNAP/Food Stamps and other hunger alleviation programs, but I've never written anything specifically about WIC, which I have tended to lump in with other food programs. I've been thinking, however, a lot about WIC lately, because it has come on the budget chopping block in the US - along with other food security programs including the CSFP which serves low income seniors and the emergency food program that provides commodities to emergency food pantries. While Republicans restored funds for military bands, they took them out, as is customary,…
sastyk | July 13, 2011There's an article about a couple of recent cases charging people (read: mothers) with neglect if they (gasp!) dare to go to sleep around their children.
A couple of weeks ago in Delaware, a woman put her 3-year-old down for a nap and then took a nap herself. The 3-year-old got up and somehow escaped the house. After the girl was found, police charged her mother with child endangerment.
In New York, a woman's 3-year-old son got up in the middle of the night and wandered around. The woman woke up at some point and called the police. A man who had spotted the child had already called police.…
sastyk | July 11, 2011A reader, who asks to remain anonymous writes me that her graduate school boyfriend (soon hopefully to be fiance) has decided he wants a farm. He's looking for jobs in rural areas, and wants them to buy land together. The boyfriend grew up in rural Albania and is apparently pretty comfortable in agriculture. My reader, who grew up in suburban Michigan, is not. This is all new to her - she thought she was marrying a plain old potential academic (botany). The thought, as she puts it, that he might look at real plants in the dirt, rather than under a microscope and that said dirt might come…
sastyk | July 7, 2011Don't get me wrong, I like to eat out. And what parent of many doesn't like the idea of food they don't have to cook and dishes they don't have to wash. At times restaurants and bakeries even may provide more energy efficiency than home cooking, especially in small households - one industrial walk in cooler is more efficient than six fridges. .Of course, that's in principle, in practice, the cooler *and* all six fridges are running! Household appliance energy usage has risen over time, even though we are eating at home less - while the efficiency of any given appliance has improved, we…
sastyk | July 4, 2011Almost all conversations with every other parent of late includes "Have you read Go the Fuck to Sleep yet? Have you heard Samuel Jackson read it?...." It is safe to say that the book touches a nerve. And it is extraordinarily funny, and it does evoke precisely the reactions that most of us have trouble acknowledging publically. We all have to ruefully acknowledge that we see some part of ourselves in this - the book is about those parenting failures that are hard to speak about but part of our lives.
It is, all in all, an awesome book, and precisely the sort of thing I wish (and I suspect…
sastyk | July 3, 2011Last night as I went about my chores, I was mulling over a possible post on how farming is actually easier than most people think it is. I'm winding up a stretch of time where Eric and the boys have been in NYC visiting Grandma, while I stayed at home to tend the farm. While Eric and I don't have a very gendered division of labor, we do have our customary tasks. Eric does floors, I do roofs, He does engines, I cut wood, I can, he bakes, when we had babies, I did input (nursing) and he did output (diaper changes). I got all self-satisfied about how well I was managing by myself, which of…
sastyk | July 1, 2011I've written previously that I suspect that given the enormous pressure to feed a world of 9-10billion people that will dominate the political, social and activist dynamics of this century, Land access is going to be one of the central issues. Indeed, in much of the Global South it has been for many years - consider the Brazilian MST as one of many examples of how people's movements bent on establishing land access for the very poor emerge. At the same time, we can see the global land-buy-up occurring now as nations as diverse as China, India and Saudi Arabia, all facing a future in which…
sastyk | July 1, 2011The always-wonderful Matron of Husbandry has a lovely post about pasture diversity and grass-feeding that did better (and purtier - she always has lots of great pix) something I've been meaning to do - ie, explore what you learn from grass farming that no one else teaches. For all the books I've read about grazing, I don't learn nearly as much by simply watching my animals and my pastures. I suspect this is true for everyone.
I think the single best thing I have learned from rotational grazing is I didn't know what I thought I knew about grass and cows. Namely what I think looks good is…
sastyk | June 27, 2011As I gear up to finish my Adapting-in-Place book, I've been thinking a lot about the role of the informal economy in supporting a culture that can't keep growing and consuming resources at the same rate. As those of you who have been following my work for a while know, the informal economy represents the larger portion of the world economy (3/4 of all economic activity) and includes a wide range of important activities. When the formal economy fails, the informal economy is needed - and yet we have stripped the informal economy over the last decades. How to rebuild is a huge question - and…
sastyk | June 27, 2011Friday was a fabulous day, after a very, very long week. For a week, we frantically prepared for our final home visit. Some of it was pretty normal stuff - minor repairs, etc... Some of it, I think was pretty weird - who knew that freshly washed window screens were a requirement to be a good foster parent (yes, they did explicitly require that). They gave us hoops, and we jumped through like trained tigers ;-).
But we passed - in what is still the first biggest news here in our particular tiny household in New York, Eric and I will be (as soon as the paperwork is processed) New York State…