CompostaBlog

Food is, as we have been saying for some time, the central battle for freedom and survival.  “Change”, which sounds great, has, in fact, become the mantra of those who seek corporate triumph over independent producers - and it’s happening around food. The mechanism is simple: a set of bills ostensibly devoted to “food safety” and “food security” — and a plan to put Big Agribiz supporters in charge.

In charge of what? Your food and mine - it’s supply, farming, production, food quality, irradiation, Codex on your dinner table, unlabeled GMOs and other profitable, but lethal, corporate-friendly food strategies.  Through appointments and legislation, the change is coming fast and furious which could even make our own family farms and gardens the site of criminal activity if we attempt to grow our own food or produce and sell it.

So sure are they of victory that the President of change is about to appoint Michael Taylor, a lawyer for, and former executive at Monsanto, to head the empowered “food (sic)k safety (sic)k” agency.

Today’s eAction Item is quite simple: TELL THE PRESIDENT “NO” TO TAYLOR!

Time is short and the issue is of immense importance.

Urgent 3-Part Action Item:

Step 1: Click here to email the President NOW:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26941

Step 2: Call the White House switchboard at 202-456-1414 and the comment center 202-456-1111. Let’s keep those phones ringing!

Step 3: Click here to tell Congress “NO!” to all of the fake food “safety” bills. They provide neither real, wholesome food nor safety:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/t/1128/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26714

Politicians often come up with bad ideas. These are not just bad ideas: they are a catastrophically bad ideas for BOTH health and freedom. In fact, we are facing nothing short of food tyranny that will kill not only organic farming, but lots of people as well, along with the entire private farming sector. Your own gardens are at risk.

The President’s appointment of someone so closely associated with industrialized “food” is “change” in exactly the wrong direction.

Let’s demand real change: that Congress and the President change directions!

BTW, Read the really frightening article in this month’s Mother Earth News, The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness We all KNOW this. We all sense this. It is time we did more. Stop EATING this.

There are many alternatives, many reviewed in the above article. Eat less meat, buy from reputable growers that employ sustainable and HUMANE practices, Raise your own sustainably or pay someone to, but do NOT support FACTORY FARMING

My dream is to have a large kitchen someday. But for now, my New Years resolution is to learn to function effectively in the space that I have. I seem to have always had small kitchens and mostly small gardens to provide for the small kitchen. I have never mastered the large, grow all your own food, store it, stock it up for winter kitchen OR garden. I once ‘put back’ 39 quarts of green beans only to find they were bad when I took the first one out to cook on a cold day in November some fifteen years back.

I’ve always admired the clever kitchen plans in the magazine rack grazing I’ve done. I’ve incorporated many an idea from these prints for my own kitchens through the years. But I’d never thought until recently that I was not the only one, that my small spaces were not the only ones being struggled with. The photos I’d found in these many magazines often made me feel like a squid for “never thinking of that”. I always felt totally incompetent as I looked at the photos and envisioned my own kitchen in my mind, always lacking in the most
efficient use of space.

Then, there’s the garden spaces of the same home with said kitchen. The little bitty space of land that feeds twenty. How do they DO that? They are always perfect, always without a weed. Perfectly manicured and blooming at all the right intervals. This garden always has the right mix of shade and sunlight at the right time of the day.

And while I have always loved most every home I’ve lived in simply because I lived in it and it was my home, I can’t honestly think of many times I have been truly comfortable entertaining many at one time or completely proud of the work I’ve done on the garden arrangement. I’ve yearned for the comfort that a large kitchen brings. I now have the yard and the garden space, but I am truly stuck with the itty bitty kitchen.

It may sound like a lot, but 63 square feet of space housing a stove, refridgerator, and sink fills up quickly. I have no dishwasher, no garbage disposal, and only 2.5 feet of counter space. Much hangs on the wall or in a small sofa table that has taken up residence where a long counter top should be if it wouldn’t block the door. I have found
that many people are actually struggling with such limited space in kitchen and garden.

It was pleasant (and humbling) to see that food personalities like
Mark Bittman
are quite at home in confining, NYCity apartment sized kitchens.  The NYTimes has a “Now Screening”
video series entitled “Tiny Kitchen If professional cooks and professed minimalists accomplish so much with so little, so should I. So aside from the tiny
kitchen, which I will forthwith stop complaining about, the average garden space should be a true delight!

I applaud you if you garden in itty bitty city/ balcony gardens. You know who you are! This amount of area need never be unproductive. Even in part shade container gardens can accomodate colder season goodies like spinach and romain lettuce. Using larger patio containers you can grow lively and productive tomato plants and (forgive the pun) but if you like patio tomatoes, they excell in this method of growing.

So the next time you want to gripe and complain about space, just remember, many do a lot of very little and you can too!

Barred Rocks

By now, you all know that we are raising our own chickens in the backyard. The idea is to gain more self sufficiency and “buy local”.  It is important to know where your food comes from. Some are unfamiliar with the concepts, but for those of you who do and think you are living in solitude, think again. There are many beginning to understand the changes that are going to have to take place for this world to go solidly forward…

Here is a new article found in the Chicago Tribune, Chickens earning their keep in Chicago backyards according to the article…

More urbanites have animals for their eggs and
companionship. “It’s exploding all over the country,” said Martha Boyd, program director for Angelic Organics Learning Center in Woodlawn, which offered a workshop on basic backyard chicken care for Chicago residents last month.

Great news! And more people are fighting the chicken rules that say they can’t have chickens in town.  Like Tim Jurik of Huntington Station, NewYork. At this website, there was a poll and a full 18.8% of those voting were against it saying, “NO! Chickens belong on a farm.” At the rate farms are dying out these days, there will only be factory manufactured eggs to eat in the future.

I don’t know about you but … ONE) I don’t want to eat eggs from these chickens.  I want to know what is IN the food I eat… and TWO) I don’t want anyone dictating to me the kind of food I eat. Forcing us toward industrial raised animals  (see Sustainable Table to review the issues) I wonder if these voters are thinking this whole thing through?

If you want to know if your state allows it, check out  Chicken Laws if your town and state are not listed look up your town/city online. Most towns (even small ones) keep this information online.

If this topic interests you, google “chicken laws” and you’ll find a lot of good reading.

I came in tonight to check on everyone and found one tiny little girl kicked off to the side, weak and COLD. I knew the first thing to do was warm her up, but I wasn’t quite as certain about what to do about her obvious dehydration, so I consulted the internet. I found  Save a Puppy’s Life and  Treating a Sick Puppy What GREAT advice. I’m still not certain that little Bitsy is out of the woods, but thanks to Ed Frawley at http://leerburg.com/ she’s got a lot better chance!

You can see her here with her spotted brother, “Bonzai” Bitsy is the little black and white on the left. The bottle is four inches long. Bitsy was the first born and Bella chewed her cord off WAY too short. This may have set her up to be weak too, she lost more blood than would be normal. While she was born the same size as Bonzai, she is now, three days later, half his size.

We have been alternating siblings to stay in her box with her so she will won’t feel isolated and we put her alone with Bella six times a day. She is getting stronger by the hour!