Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Buying the farm...site
So we did it. We bought the farm...site. Web domain, that is. Fireball Farm is officially online and getting a little more attention than this blog, which is to say, hardly any. We're starting a blog (appropriately named Fireblog) on our site, too, so I think Farmaggedon will be put out to pasture soon as I focus more attention on Fireball.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Food Democracy Now!
Food Democracy Now! is working to persuade Obama to follow through on his commitment to sustainable family farms by appointing the "sustainable dozen" to undersecretary positions in the USDA. I can't say I'm a fan of the Tom Vilsack nomination as Secretary of Agriculture, but we'll see how it pans out....
Sign the Food Democracy Now! petition by clicking here, and afterwards, visit FoodDeclaration.org to endorse a set of principles to create a national sustainable food and agriculture policy.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
New year, slow times
This is our fourth winter back in New Mexico, and I'm still adjusting to a land that goes dormant in the winter, where it's so cold, where it snows, where there's no year-round gardening. Oh, and where there is no good Thai takeout. Bummer! But it looks like we'll have plenty of irrigation water if the snow keeps up its current pace.
We're in between storms so the snow is melting and the ground is muddy, but here are a few pics from before Christmas.
We're in between storms so the snow is melting and the ground is muddy, but here are a few pics from before Christmas.
Note to self: Chickens really don't like snow.
When life gives you snow, make a "sno-dobe" igloo.
Sledding down to the snowy lower field planted in winter rye.
Friday, November 14, 2008
OBAMA!
It's been over a week since Obama won, and sometimes I still can't believe it. What an agonizing campaign. What a joyous victory. Like millions of other people, I wept for joy when the election was called for Obama. The only other time I did that is when I saw tiny, alien-like Benny during my first ultrasound.
Thank you to everyone who worked to make this a reality. Let's keep up the activism. Be sure to visit Obama's transition site (www.change.gov) to weigh in on matters important to you. And please sign the petition asking Obama to support organic food and farming.
From the Organic Consumers Association:
President-Elect Obama: Please Support Organic Food & Farming
A likely turning point in history took place on November 4th with the election of Barack Obama, a politician who has publicly voiced his support for family farms and organic agriculture, among other progressive positions. Organic consumers and farmers now have an incredible opportunity to shape the future of federal farm and food policy.
President-Elect Obama is in the process of formulating policy, assembling his transition team, and considering nominees for Secretary of Agriculture, among other important positions. The Secretary of Agriculture is responsible for directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its $90 billion annual budget, including the National Organic Program, food stamp and nutrition programs, and agriculture subsidies. Obama throughout his campaign, and since his election, has stressed that he wants to hear from the public in order to formulate his policies. Let’s all take him up on this invitation.
The time to act is now! Please sign the Organic Consumer Association's petition letter to President-Elect Barack Obama today and urge him to take a stand in support of organic food and farming. After you sign this petition, please forward it to everyone you know. We need to raise our common organic voice on a massive scale, if we are to capture the attention of President-Elect Obama and his transition team.
Please consider sending a personalized note to the Obama Transition Team after signing OCA's petition by clicking here.
Thank you to everyone who worked to make this a reality. Let's keep up the activism. Be sure to visit Obama's transition site (www.change.gov) to weigh in on matters important to you. And please sign the petition asking Obama to support organic food and farming.
From the Organic Consumers Association:
President-Elect Obama: Please Support Organic Food & Farming
A likely turning point in history took place on November 4th with the election of Barack Obama, a politician who has publicly voiced his support for family farms and organic agriculture, among other progressive positions. Organic consumers and farmers now have an incredible opportunity to shape the future of federal farm and food policy.
President-Elect Obama is in the process of formulating policy, assembling his transition team, and considering nominees for Secretary of Agriculture, among other important positions. The Secretary of Agriculture is responsible for directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its $90 billion annual budget, including the National Organic Program, food stamp and nutrition programs, and agriculture subsidies. Obama throughout his campaign, and since his election, has stressed that he wants to hear from the public in order to formulate his policies. Let’s all take him up on this invitation.
The time to act is now! Please sign the Organic Consumer Association's petition letter to President-Elect Barack Obama today and urge him to take a stand in support of organic food and farming. After you sign this petition, please forward it to everyone you know. We need to raise our common organic voice on a massive scale, if we are to capture the attention of President-Elect Obama and his transition team.
Please consider sending a personalized note to the Obama Transition Team after signing OCA's petition by clicking here.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Antidote to climate change: more sprawl or local food?
Man, what a nasty past month it's been. I spent the past month literally hyperventilating because of McCain-Palin's racist hate-mongering and the crashing economy, while trying to launch a local Mamas for Obama group, working on the Sierra Club newsletter, and getting back into the anti-drilling fight in Santa Fe County. But I'm back, sort of, and on track, kind of.
The New Mexico Independent ran an interesting piece on an anti-global warming initiative in the Albuquerque area that promotes local agriculture. If you've been through Albuquerque (or Albu-jersey as my friend Peg calls it), you can't help but notice the spiderlike sprawl in all directions. Seriously, can New Mexico sustain this kind of growth? NO WAY. Let's use the water to grow food for the people already here and curb climate change to boot. Sounds great to me, and maybe in these days of economic turmoil, developers won't have the funds to pave over any more pristine farmland for some crappy subdivisions. That would be the silver lining to our impending Great Depression of the 21st century.
Hang in there, people. We're gonna make it, somehow.
An Elephant in the Garden Patch
by Kate Nelson, 10/9/08
The goal is lofty and laudable: Preserve farm land in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, help growers reach promising markets and cut greenhouse gases according to Kyoto Protocols.
That offer drew about 30 people to the Mid-Region Council of Governments (COG) Wednesday where COG’s Agriculture Collaborative brainstormed solutions with members of Mayor Martin Chavez’s Climate Action Task Force.
But in all the talk about greenhouses, heirloom vegetables and local garden tours, one question simmered: Would Chavez, widely regarded as the King of Sprawl, really defend small farmers against mega-builders?
For the complete article, click here.
The New Mexico Independent ran an interesting piece on an anti-global warming initiative in the Albuquerque area that promotes local agriculture. If you've been through Albuquerque (or Albu-jersey as my friend Peg calls it), you can't help but notice the spiderlike sprawl in all directions. Seriously, can New Mexico sustain this kind of growth? NO WAY. Let's use the water to grow food for the people already here and curb climate change to boot. Sounds great to me, and maybe in these days of economic turmoil, developers won't have the funds to pave over any more pristine farmland for some crappy subdivisions. That would be the silver lining to our impending Great Depression of the 21st century.
Hang in there, people. We're gonna make it, somehow.
An Elephant in the Garden Patch
by Kate Nelson, 10/9/08
The goal is lofty and laudable: Preserve farm land in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, help growers reach promising markets and cut greenhouse gases according to Kyoto Protocols.
That offer drew about 30 people to the Mid-Region Council of Governments (COG) Wednesday where COG’s Agriculture Collaborative brainstormed solutions with members of Mayor Martin Chavez’s Climate Action Task Force.
But in all the talk about greenhouses, heirloom vegetables and local garden tours, one question simmered: Would Chavez, widely regarded as the King of Sprawl, really defend small farmers against mega-builders?
For the complete article, click here.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Pardon me as I digress
I try to keep my blog narrowly focused on local, small-scale, sustainable farming. But the political stakes are too high for me to ignore the horror that is the McCain-Palin ticket. Please do everything you can to defeat these two lying abominations of nature....if not for yourselves, your civil liberties, your country, or your planet, then for my son. Vote as if the survival of our world and our children depends on it. Because it does.
Be sure to remind the so-called Christian right-wingers that Jesus was a liberal.
Read these excellent opinion pieces from the NY Times to get fired up: "Blizzard of Lies" and "Hold Your Heads Up."
My friend Becca also wrote an ass-kicking open letter to Democratic women about the anti-feminist Sarah Palin.
And to finish up, here's my rant against the drilling lies.
****
“Drill here, drill now” sounds good, doesn’t it? That is, until you look behind the slick lies of the multimedia ad campaigns.
First of all, we are drilling here, drilling now.
In New Mexico alone, there are over 21,000 oil wells in operation, which pumped out 60.7 million barrels in 2005, according to the most recent numbers from the state’s Oil Conservation Division (OCD). But OCD’s statistics indicate that despite the increase in the number of wells drilled, the large oil deposits in the state are starting to go dry.
Offshore drilling was never banned outright. It is occurring on all coasts, and is only prohibited in particularly sensitive areas where the local economy would be seriously damaged by oil spills. Even if we opened all coastal areas to drilling, it would take up to 14 years before any new oil made it to market.
Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is another hot topic, but again, it’d take decades before any of that oil would hit the pumps. And there is estimated to be at most 3% of the U.S.’s current oil needs.
Meanwhile, this year’s exports of U.S. refined gasoline and diesel have increased by 33% over 2007’s number. Thanks to the international commodities market, whatever petroleum is here doesn’t necessarily stay here to help lower fuel prices. Witness the fact that the citizens of Hobbs and elsewhere in southeastern NM’s oil-producing areas routinely pay more for fuel than those in Santa Fe and Albuquerque do.
At a time when oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is pushing natural gas over oil-derived gasoline and diesel, we know domestic oil is nearing an end and that Industry’s last gasp is natural gas. And extracting that gas isn’t some Beverly Hillbillies scenario, where Jed inadvertently strikes it rich while hunting for rabbits. These are “unconventional plays,” a euphemism for energy exploration that requires vast amounts of fossil fuel, water, and chemicals to produce. I’m not talking about a few quaint pumpjacks or a handful of tanker trucks but a vast network of dangerous pipelines along with the network of roads. New Mexico is ranked third in natural gas production in the country (particularly coalbed methane), with over 25,000 active gas wells. Large swaths of the northwestern part of the state already look like a war zone, with thousands of multi-acre well pads cut into family-run ranches and farms (not to mention the pollution from coal-fired power plants). The destruction will only grow exponentially if Industry is allowed to embark on unconventional gas recovery in the counties of Santa Fe, Mora, Bernallilo, and pristine areas of Rio Arriba. What’s more, there’s a huge risk that many of these so-called wildcat plays will turn up no recoverable gas—leaving irreversible scars on the land and deep holes punching through and potentially contaminating aquifers and watersheds.
To all those critics who tout New Mexico oil and gas revenues as a boon to our economy and education system, know that tourism is actually a more profitable industry, and other states have funded much better schools without money from dirty energy.
And for those who complain about the NIMBYism of the residents of the Galisteo Basin and elsewhere, here’s a challenge: Let a gas well be drilled in your own backyard. All of those people who “support” domestic drilling need to understand what it means to have it in their neighborhoods. They need to agree that they would have exploding pipelines, gas flaring, polluted water and air, loud compressors, and around-the-clock truck traffic in their neighborhoods, next to their homes and schools. They need to accept increased risks for asthma, cancer, skin problems, and endocrine disruption. Even communities long accustomed to drilling, such as Farmington and Fort Worth, are resisting Industry’s increasingly reckless practices and willful disregard for the public’s welfare.
Despite all the heart-tugging media ads about how more domestic drilling would help to ease the financial problems of lower- and middle-class Americans, the truth is that only the burden--and none of the benefits--would befall those who can’t afford to leave when the drilling rigs roll into town. In fact, the only ones who stand to profit from domestic drilling are the multinational energy corporations. ExxonMobil just posted a $12 billion profit for its second quarter of this year. And oil and gas companies enjoy taxpayer-subsidized tax breaks and incentives—to the tune of $18 billion in the past few years. The politicians whose campaigns are bankrolled by the Oil and Gas Industry won’t suffer, either.
And there’s another population we’re putting at risk with this short-sighted, hysterical push for domestic drilling: my son and all your kids. There’s a little thing called climate change that many seem to be inconveniently ignoring. Everyone except the far-right fringe agrees that human-caused global warming is happening here, happening now. The drive to produce and burn more carbon-emitting fossil fuels is threatening the very survival of our children. In 15 years, when those few barrels of oil from a new offshore rig finally hit the market, when my son is of age to get his drivers license, I doubt he’ll have the luxury of complaining about high gas prices. Persistent drought, deadly heat waves, destructive hurricanes, massive fires, rising sea levels, crop failures and food shortages, and tropical diseases could very well be the hallmarks of his teen years. Not exactly what I worried about in high school.
The Republicans want to “drill baby drill.” But they may as well be chanting “Kill baby, kill” for the catastrophic impact their nefarious plans would have on my baby and yours.
High gas prices are creating hardships for millions of Americans who are already hurting financially. But no amount of domestic oil will ease their pain today or in the near future. And the long-term costs of oil and gas drilling on our land, water, health, climate, and children aren’t worth whatever will hit the market years from now. Politicians and Industry want to “drill here, drill now” to get elected and increase their profits. But the people deserve real solutions that will get us off fossil fuels altogether.
Local, organic agriculture alone can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% and cut global energy use by one-sixth. We have to rethink the ways in which we conserve energy, build our vehicles, create our fuels, design our homes and buildings, generate and transmit our electricity, and determine the prices of so-called commodities. But all this can be done—and is being done on scales both small and large throughout the world. The United States has the ability to make renewable, affordable energy for its own people. All it takes now is for Americans to demand “Clean energy here, clean energy now.”
Be sure to remind the so-called Christian right-wingers that Jesus was a liberal.
Read these excellent opinion pieces from the NY Times to get fired up: "Blizzard of Lies" and "Hold Your Heads Up."
My friend Becca also wrote an ass-kicking open letter to Democratic women about the anti-feminist Sarah Palin.
And to finish up, here's my rant against the drilling lies.
****
“Drill here, drill now” sounds good, doesn’t it? That is, until you look behind the slick lies of the multimedia ad campaigns.
First of all, we are drilling here, drilling now.
In New Mexico alone, there are over 21,000 oil wells in operation, which pumped out 60.7 million barrels in 2005, according to the most recent numbers from the state’s Oil Conservation Division (OCD). But OCD’s statistics indicate that despite the increase in the number of wells drilled, the large oil deposits in the state are starting to go dry.
Offshore drilling was never banned outright. It is occurring on all coasts, and is only prohibited in particularly sensitive areas where the local economy would be seriously damaged by oil spills. Even if we opened all coastal areas to drilling, it would take up to 14 years before any new oil made it to market.
Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is another hot topic, but again, it’d take decades before any of that oil would hit the pumps. And there is estimated to be at most 3% of the U.S.’s current oil needs.
Meanwhile, this year’s exports of U.S. refined gasoline and diesel have increased by 33% over 2007’s number. Thanks to the international commodities market, whatever petroleum is here doesn’t necessarily stay here to help lower fuel prices. Witness the fact that the citizens of Hobbs and elsewhere in southeastern NM’s oil-producing areas routinely pay more for fuel than those in Santa Fe and Albuquerque do.
At a time when oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is pushing natural gas over oil-derived gasoline and diesel, we know domestic oil is nearing an end and that Industry’s last gasp is natural gas. And extracting that gas isn’t some Beverly Hillbillies scenario, where Jed inadvertently strikes it rich while hunting for rabbits. These are “unconventional plays,” a euphemism for energy exploration that requires vast amounts of fossil fuel, water, and chemicals to produce. I’m not talking about a few quaint pumpjacks or a handful of tanker trucks but a vast network of dangerous pipelines along with the network of roads. New Mexico is ranked third in natural gas production in the country (particularly coalbed methane), with over 25,000 active gas wells. Large swaths of the northwestern part of the state already look like a war zone, with thousands of multi-acre well pads cut into family-run ranches and farms (not to mention the pollution from coal-fired power plants). The destruction will only grow exponentially if Industry is allowed to embark on unconventional gas recovery in the counties of Santa Fe, Mora, Bernallilo, and pristine areas of Rio Arriba. What’s more, there’s a huge risk that many of these so-called wildcat plays will turn up no recoverable gas—leaving irreversible scars on the land and deep holes punching through and potentially contaminating aquifers and watersheds.
To all those critics who tout New Mexico oil and gas revenues as a boon to our economy and education system, know that tourism is actually a more profitable industry, and other states have funded much better schools without money from dirty energy.
And for those who complain about the NIMBYism of the residents of the Galisteo Basin and elsewhere, here’s a challenge: Let a gas well be drilled in your own backyard. All of those people who “support” domestic drilling need to understand what it means to have it in their neighborhoods. They need to agree that they would have exploding pipelines, gas flaring, polluted water and air, loud compressors, and around-the-clock truck traffic in their neighborhoods, next to their homes and schools. They need to accept increased risks for asthma, cancer, skin problems, and endocrine disruption. Even communities long accustomed to drilling, such as Farmington and Fort Worth, are resisting Industry’s increasingly reckless practices and willful disregard for the public’s welfare.
Despite all the heart-tugging media ads about how more domestic drilling would help to ease the financial problems of lower- and middle-class Americans, the truth is that only the burden--and none of the benefits--would befall those who can’t afford to leave when the drilling rigs roll into town. In fact, the only ones who stand to profit from domestic drilling are the multinational energy corporations. ExxonMobil just posted a $12 billion profit for its second quarter of this year. And oil and gas companies enjoy taxpayer-subsidized tax breaks and incentives—to the tune of $18 billion in the past few years. The politicians whose campaigns are bankrolled by the Oil and Gas Industry won’t suffer, either.
And there’s another population we’re putting at risk with this short-sighted, hysterical push for domestic drilling: my son and all your kids. There’s a little thing called climate change that many seem to be inconveniently ignoring. Everyone except the far-right fringe agrees that human-caused global warming is happening here, happening now. The drive to produce and burn more carbon-emitting fossil fuels is threatening the very survival of our children. In 15 years, when those few barrels of oil from a new offshore rig finally hit the market, when my son is of age to get his drivers license, I doubt he’ll have the luxury of complaining about high gas prices. Persistent drought, deadly heat waves, destructive hurricanes, massive fires, rising sea levels, crop failures and food shortages, and tropical diseases could very well be the hallmarks of his teen years. Not exactly what I worried about in high school.
The Republicans want to “drill baby drill.” But they may as well be chanting “Kill baby, kill” for the catastrophic impact their nefarious plans would have on my baby and yours.
High gas prices are creating hardships for millions of Americans who are already hurting financially. But no amount of domestic oil will ease their pain today or in the near future. And the long-term costs of oil and gas drilling on our land, water, health, climate, and children aren’t worth whatever will hit the market years from now. Politicians and Industry want to “drill here, drill now” to get elected and increase their profits. But the people deserve real solutions that will get us off fossil fuels altogether.
Local, organic agriculture alone can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% and cut global energy use by one-sixth. We have to rethink the ways in which we conserve energy, build our vehicles, create our fuels, design our homes and buildings, generate and transmit our electricity, and determine the prices of so-called commodities. But all this can be done—and is being done on scales both small and large throughout the world. The United States has the ability to make renewable, affordable energy for its own people. All it takes now is for Americans to demand “Clean energy here, clean energy now.”
Monday, August 18, 2008
A smattering of good stuff
I used to visit my friends' blogs and wonder why they'd go weeks or months between posts. And then I started my own. Now I understand. You actually have to spend time and energy to write something. Ooooh. I always say if I weren't a full-time mom to a spazzy but infinitely adorable 1-year-old, I'd have more time to work on this blog. But then again, my little guy is the reason I care about all these issues...so dear reader, you'll have to take what you can get from me.
Or rather, from my good friend Nancy, who's always sending me the most interesting articles and factoids. Here are a handful of worthwhile sites she turned me onto. (Thank, Nancy! Anytime you want to guest-blog, go for it!)
The Community Roots Urban Farm in Boulder, CO, is an awesome grassroots program, where residents donate their front yards to a citizens' brigade of farmy types to grow organic produce, which is then sold at the local farmers' market and shared with CSA members.
Hen and Harvest is a fun, jam-packed blog offering gardening and food preparation/preservation advice, book reviews, and sundry bits about small-scale sustainable agriculture.
The Localizer is a smart, politically inclined blog that views local agriculture in context of our many environmental, social, and political ills. It also focuses on related issues such as climate change and energy. All things I'm interested in and sometimes write about in my local newspaper, but find too broad and unwieldy to cover in the limited time I have to dedicate to this blog (in other words, during Benny's naptime when I'm not busy showering, tending to our gardens and chickens, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, or occasionally editing).
Oh, and while I'm at it, here are a couple of sites Nancy's son Jake, a permaculture pro-in-the-making, recommends:
Lots of Life in One Place tracks the work and musings of Arina Pittman, a permaculture expert and farmer here in Northern New Mexico. She is the director of the Permaculture Institute, based in Santa Fe., which was founded by her husband, the world-renowned Scott Pittman. The Institute's site is well worth a visit for permaculture info, planting suggestions, and a calendar of workshops and events. Good stuff.
And one last goodly site to tide you over for a while: Permit the Frog is my friends Erika and John's blog highlighting the ongoing, amazing transformation of a dilapidated farmhouse and neglected acreage into a beautiful, bountiful, and inspiring organic farm in Virginia. Go back to the beginning of the blog and scan through their archive...you'll be stunned by how much work these two awesome people have done in a short amount of time. And I mean "awesome" in the literal sense--full of awe. You go, guys!
Or rather, from my good friend Nancy, who's always sending me the most interesting articles and factoids. Here are a handful of worthwhile sites she turned me onto. (Thank, Nancy! Anytime you want to guest-blog, go for it!)
The Community Roots Urban Farm in Boulder, CO, is an awesome grassroots program, where residents donate their front yards to a citizens' brigade of farmy types to grow organic produce, which is then sold at the local farmers' market and shared with CSA members.
Hen and Harvest is a fun, jam-packed blog offering gardening and food preparation/preservation advice, book reviews, and sundry bits about small-scale sustainable agriculture.
The Localizer is a smart, politically inclined blog that views local agriculture in context of our many environmental, social, and political ills. It also focuses on related issues such as climate change and energy. All things I'm interested in and sometimes write about in my local newspaper, but find too broad and unwieldy to cover in the limited time I have to dedicate to this blog (in other words, during Benny's naptime when I'm not busy showering, tending to our gardens and chickens, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, or occasionally editing).
Oh, and while I'm at it, here are a couple of sites Nancy's son Jake, a permaculture pro-in-the-making, recommends:
Lots of Life in One Place tracks the work and musings of Arina Pittman, a permaculture expert and farmer here in Northern New Mexico. She is the director of the Permaculture Institute, based in Santa Fe., which was founded by her husband, the world-renowned Scott Pittman. The Institute's site is well worth a visit for permaculture info, planting suggestions, and a calendar of workshops and events. Good stuff.
And one last goodly site to tide you over for a while: Permit the Frog is my friends Erika and John's blog highlighting the ongoing, amazing transformation of a dilapidated farmhouse and neglected acreage into a beautiful, bountiful, and inspiring organic farm in Virginia. Go back to the beginning of the blog and scan through their archive...you'll be stunned by how much work these two awesome people have done in a short amount of time. And I mean "awesome" in the literal sense--full of awe. You go, guys!
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