Posted by FCSWMD - Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 1:07 P

Volunteers needed for Franklin County Fair Recycle/ Compost Program

Volunteers needed for:
Franklin County Fair Recycle/ Compost Program
Fair Dates: September 6 - 9, 2012, Volunteers needed: September 5-11, 2012

Recycling volunteers will:

· get into the Fair for free!
· get a free T-shirt!
· collect recyclables and compostables from designated bins
· sort and process materials
· monitor compost bins
· have fun and enjoy the fair while protecting our environment (Last year we recycled and composted 40 cubic yards, totaling more than 2 tons of material, but there is more to be done as the Fair still only recycles 30% of its waste.)

Recycling volunteers enter the fair for free on the day they volunteer and can enjoy the fair before or after their 4-hour shift and during their shift break. Volunteers must be confirmed before the event: anyone who shows up without prior confirmation will have to pay to enter the fair. Please try to sign up by Wed 9/5, 5 pm.
Volunteers also needed to set up and breakdown before and after the Fair, on Wed. Sept. 5th and Monday Sept. 10th.

To sign up:
· See the "Doodle" volunteer schedule and sign up at: http://www.doodle.com/3drseg99pyaygvap (For the “Doodle” sign up, make sure you are using “Table View” and click on the accordion in the middle of the schedule to see the whole week. Please email me after you sign up so I can send confirmation and instructions.)
· Or, email me, Amy Donovan, Program Director, Franklin County Solid Waste Management District; amy@franklincountywastedistrict.org, or (my least preferred method) call me at 413-772-2438.

Thank you very much! We could not run this valuable program without volunteers!

Amy Donovan
Program Director, Franklin County Solid Waste Management District
Member, Springfield MRF Advisory Board
Recycling Coordinator, Franklin County Fair
50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
(413) 772-2438, Fax: (413) 772-3786
amy@franklincountywastedistrict.org, www.franklincountywastedistrict.org
 

Posted by abrahdresdale - Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:11 P

Session II, Summer 2012 Permaculture Immersion Workshops

Session II - Toolbox for Social Permaculture: Design, Principles, and Practices

July 26-29, 2012

Workshop Details at: http://www.southernvermontpermaculture.com/

This dynamic workshop applies permaculture principles to the social design of real-world projects. Students will learn tools, practices, and principles of successful eco-socially regenerative projects, and explore emerging new frameworks for world changing organizations, businesses, and movements. Collaborative studio work and one-on-one mentoring support students in incorporating these practices into their current projects and future endeavors.

Topics will include:
+ Collaborative leadership & decision-making
+ Power, privilege, & inner tracking
+ Circular accountability systems & feedback culture
+ Eco-social entrepreneurship
+ Financial permaculture
+ Pattern languages for social permaculture
+ Applying integrative models to real-world projects!

Workshop Details at: http://www.southernvermontpermaculture.com/
 

Posted by abrahdresdale - Thu, May 31, 2012, 3:00 P

Session I, Summer 2012 Permaculture Immersion Workshops

Session I - Weaving the Basket: Land Knowledge, Traditional Skills, & Nature Connection

July 21-July 24, 2012

Workshop Details at: http://www.southernvermontpermaculture.com/

Knowledge of place is the ultimate foundation for land stewardship and permaculture design. This workshop immerses students in exploration of and participation in the more-than-human world. We’ll practice nature awareness routines, learn traditional skills and handcrafts, track landscapes back deep into their history, and learn from each others’ experiences and stories at the village fire. We’ll then link our discoveries to their practical applications in regenerative design and land caretaking.

Topics will include:
+ Deep nature awareness routines
+ Wildcrafting & survival skills
+ Medicine making
+ Reading the landscape
+ Bird language & scout skills
+ Tending the wild & traditional land stewardship

Workshop Details at: http://www.southernvermontpermaculture.com/
 

Posted by Shauna - Tue, Oct 5, 2010, 2:34 P

Come Ring Bells With Us!

350 Bell Ring...For the third year in a row First Congregational Church of Montague invites you to join in the ringing of bells 350 times to raise awareness that we as a people and as a country need to be actively working to bring atmospheric carbon levels down to 350ppm. This year we join, Transition Montague and over 6000 groups around the world in taking action to do just that. Our action on 10-10-10 will be to help install storm windows at the Montague Grange. We invite everyone to bring a bell to ring with us, bring your muscles, your heart and your desire to create a cleaner planet for all!
Where: 4 North St, First Congregational Church of Montague
When: 10-10-10 at 11am - 2pm
Contact: Rev. Barbara Turner Delisle, betd51@yahoo.com, 413-949-3391

 

Posted by Shauna - Thu, Sep 23, 2010, 12:57 P

GOATS! Milking and goat-cheese-making skill share and POTLUCK!

GoatMilking CheeseMaking
Saturday Sep 25, 2010, 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM

GOATS! Milking and goat-cheese-making skill share and POTLUCK!
Goats are the most productive dairy animal in the world and have been used since the dawn of human kind in small scale sustainable production. They are largely overlooked in this country, but in our opinion shouldn’t be!
Ever wondered how to milk a goat? Ever wanted to know how to make expensive chevre cheese cheaply? Come to Alice and Ted Armen’s on September 25th at 4:00 for a tour and some lessons on milking and cheese making.
stay for PotLuck after! Bring a dish or other edible contribution
68 Main St, Montague Center
 

Posted by thegarth - Fri, Sep 3, 2010, 5:29 P

Re-skilling: Fun with Chainsaws!!

Come join Walker Korby at Brooks Bend Farm 10am-12pm on Sat 9/4
Chainsaw Safety and Beginner Woodlot Management

This is part of a local Montague Reskilling project, and is geared towards people who are new to the concept of selectively taking firewood from the forest and using it to heat their homes, as well as using a chainsaw in general.
 

Posted by Shauna - Wed, Aug 18, 2010, 9:00 P

SEED SAVING SKILL Share

This Saturday 10am - noon: SEED SAVING
at Brooks Bend Farm 95 Old Sunderland Rd,

Montague Transition Skill Share, by Suzanne Webber
"Saving seed for vegetable production is an important part of food security. Come learn the basics in the garden at Brook's Bend including tips on how to select, harvest, clean and store your own vegetable seed. Standing seed crops of carr...ot, corn, parsnip, onion, bean, squash, tomato and lettuce seed. Hands on learning. Wild garden and polyculture farming practices. Come learn to grow the best vegetable seeds you've ever planted."
Suzanne
 

Posted by MeganMW - Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 1:58 P

Chris Martenson LIVE in Northampton, MA - Transition Awareness-Raising Event!

Chris Martenson LIVE in Northampton, MA
The Crash Course: Illuminating the Future

Academy of Music Theater
274 Main Street
Northampton, Massachusetts
Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:15 pm)
Suggested donation $10

In association with Transition Northampton and Transition Montague. With a special appearance by Sophy Banks and Naresh Girangrande, lead trainers for the global Transition Network, and co-founders of Transition Town Totnes in the U.K. www.transitionnetwork.org, www.transitionus.org

In a talk recently presented to the United Nations and UK House of Commons, internationally renowned speaker Chris Martenson, Montague resident and author of the popular Crash Course video series will explore the intersection of the 3E’s – the economy, energy, and environment—and present a compelling, rigorously researched case for why the next 20 years will be completely unlike the last.

If you have been wondering how the BP oil disaster, European credit crisis, and recent stock-market volatility are all connected, this talk is for you.

This event is presented in association with Transition Northampton and Transition Montague and will feature appearances by Sophy Banks and Naresh Girangrande, lead trainers for the global Transition Network. Come to learn more about the budding Transition movement in the Valley and why relocalizing, reskilling, and reuniting with our community is more important than ever!

For more information, visit ChrisMartenson.com or contact Megan Walsh (megan [at] chrismartenson.com).
 

Posted by Shauna - Mon, Jun 21, 2010, 10:02 A

Intro BACKYARD POULTRY workshops

INTRODUCTORY BACKYARD POULTRY WORKSHOPS OFFERED ON SATURDAY, JULY 10 AT GRAY DOGS FARM

HUNTINGTON, MA – On Saturday, July 10, in five locations in every region of Massachusetts, Northeast Organic Farming Association/ Massachusetts Chapter (NOFA/Mass), is sponsoring five simultaneous workshops on how to raise backyard poultry. In Huntington, Ross & Alicia Hackerson will teach a workshop on the basics of raising backyard poultry at Gray Dogs Farm on 35 Church Road from 9am to noon.

Raising backyard poultry has been gaining in popularity in Massachusetts. Chicken supply stores all across the state report a major spike in business. Joleen Jurczyk who works at the Greenfield Farmer’s Cooperative Exchange compared the first of three orders for baby chicks between 2009 and 2010: “Last year there were around 800 chicks in one order and this year there were 1,800 chicks in that same order. It’s been an extraordinary increase.”

“Whenever there’s a lot of new people coming into a new hobby like this all at once, there can be a bit of a learning curve to climb,” said Ben Grosscup, Extension Events Coordinator for NOFA/Mass.

“These workshops emphasize raising poultry in a way that is healthy for the birds and for the people eating their eggs and meat. These workshops are for people who are new at raising backyard birds and looking for some pointers from experts for having a successful year.”

The Hackersons who will be teaching the workshop in Huntington raise 70 layers and 100 broilers each year. In their workshop, they will cover the entire process from chick to customer. Topics include breeds, brooder, housing, equipment, fence, predators, pasture, rotations, feed, and marketing. Participants will visit the broilers and the replacement layers in chicken tractors, and they’ll visit the mature layers in a mobile “pastured poultry” chicken house. The Hackersons say that small scale poultry operations offer income possibilities in addition to the food provided by any backyard flock.

Ross Hackerson said, “We raise birds as a way to make some extra income, to lower our food bill, and because it is fun. It’s also a great way to educate kids about agriculture and responsibility.”

“Every day I wake up, rain or shine, and I let the chickens out of the mobile chicken house into the pasture. I get to watch the Sun come up and interact with the land and my animals. It’s a different way of experiencing life, and I love it,” he said.

“Raising chickens for food is a great way to save money while also making you directly aware of where your food comes from,” said Grosscup. “Whether it’s the backyard garden or the backyard chicken coop, taking responsibility for where our food comes from is on the rise.”

Julie Rawson, NOFA/Mass Executive Director, has been teaching workshops on backyard poultry for years. “Sharing the knowledge people need to raise their own food has been the mission of NOFA since it began more than 30 years ago. Today, with the economic and ecological crises that we're in, I think a lot of people are once again turning toward backyard poultry because it is cost efficient and it’s a great way to improve our food security,” she said.

In addition to Huntington, workshops are also being held in the following communities: Concord, Acushnet, Barre, and Hatfield. Workshop registration for the Hatfield workshop is $30. There is a $5 discount for NOFA members and a $5 discount for those who register by June 26. For information on how to register, visit <http://www.nofamass..../backyardpoultry.php>, or contact Ben Grosscup 413-658-5374 <ben.grosscup@nofamass.org>.

--
Ben Grosscup
Northeast Organic Farming Association/ Massachusetts Chapter
67 North Whitney St Apt 4, Amherst, MA 01002
Home Office: 413-549-1568
Cell: 413-658-5374
ben.grosscup@nofamass.org
Sign up for free e-newsletter: "News from NOFA Massachusetts"
Learn about benefits of NOFA/Mass Membership
 

Posted by mik - Sat, Jun 12, 2010, 10:07 A

Soil Management!!! Red Fire Farm Montague Skill Share today

Soil Management!!! Red Fire Farm Montague Skill Share today

At the Montague GRANGE.
10am - noon: Skill Share
noon - 1pm: potluck lunch
 

Posted by Shauna - Wed, Jun 9, 2010, 8:47 P

Soil Management!!! Red Fire Farm Montague Skill Share this Saturday 12th

Transition Montague Skill Share By Red Fire Farm! Saturday morning 10am - At the Montague Center GRANGE.
10am - noon: Skill Share
noon - 1pm: potluck lunch

We meet at the Grange: Ryan Voiland, Red Fire Farm owner, will give a talk and power point presentation for about an hour:

Ryan will do a basic primer for soil management: how soils form, soil theories, soil maps for counties, soil survey use, soil ph and chemistry, soil testing, fertilizing, soil nutrition, organic matter - how to build, cover crops.


Then we will car pool over to the new red fire farm in Montague, where Ryan will do a ph testing kit demo, look at soil texture and cover crops, farm tour and talk about plans for property,

then we'll go back to grange for our lunch pot luck! Community building!!! Lets get to know each other.

Hosted by the Grange - Donations to help with building repairs gratefully accepted.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Shauna
 

Posted by Shauna - Fri, Jun 4, 2010, 10:07 A

First Transition Montague Skill share tomorrow at Brooks Bend Farm

10:00am - Noon, Potluck noon- 1:00
 

Posted by Shauna - Fri, Jun 4, 2010, 9:46 A

First Transition Montague Skill share tomorrow at Brooks Bend Farm

Transition Montague Skill Share! Free and Open to anyone who cares about Montague, Gardening and wants to get to know each other better.

Brook’s Bend Farm garden skills include planting for succesional crops, techniques for planting starts, hand tools for effective weeding, building compost and more.
potluck following till 1:00 Bring a dish and enjoy lunch on the farm.


- Building transition community - transitioning to localized do-it-yourselfer lifestyle - Also supporting needed work on our Grange if you care to donate. Future skill shares will be weekly and will take place either at the Grange, or on the land of the person offering. If you have a skill you are willing to share with your neighbors, in order to bring us together for a few hours sat. morning for some talk, learning and community building, contact Shauna: shaunalove111@gmail.com

Thanks, and hope to see you there!

Montague Center, Old Sunderland Rd, down past the four corners stop signs, about a quarter mile. Baby sheep! Baby chickens! Great place to spend a lovely June morning, and share potluck lunch with new and old friends!

Suzanne, Al, Mira and Josh:
Brook's Bend Farm, Montague, MA, 01351, (413)367-2281, brooksbendfarm@verizon.net

Chemical-free honey, organic eggs, seasonal vegetables, pasture-raised grass-fed lamb, and fleece in natural colors from Shetland Sheep.
 

Posted by Yahara - Wed, May 19, 2010, 9:10 A

Financial Crisis, Peak Oil & You Friday, May 21st at 7 pm.

Posted by Yahara - Sat, May 15, 2010, 10:07 A

Joe Jencks concert invite - tonight

Hi. Would anyone like to join me and hear Joe Jencks in concert at the Echo Lake Coffeehouse in Leverett tonight? His music is remarkable and heart-based.

It would be great to share this and build community in this beautiful way. :)

My voicemail box is nearly full so email or try me mid afternoon, I'll be around.

Blessings,
Yahara

863 9199
 

Posted by Yahara - Fri, May 14, 2010, 9:21 P

Gulf Coast Oil Spill - Sioux Prayer Request

Gulf Coast Oil Spill – Sioux Prayer Request

Gulf Coast Oil Spill – Sioux Prayer Request – A letter from Chief Arvol Looking Horse (Present Chief and Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe of the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nation of the Sioux)


Gulf Coast Oil Spill - Sioux Prayer Request

****** A Great Urgency ****** To All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders ******

My Relatives,
Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer.

We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.

The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like the bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.

I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.

I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth. As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc’I Maka).

We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.

As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.

So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children’s future and well-being, and the generations to come.

Onipikte (that we shall live),
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

Links To News Articles & Photos About The Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Scenes from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

Oil Spills Into Gulf After Rig Disaster

Calculations of Size of Gulf Spill Are Questioned

PLEASE SHARE THIS ARTICLE / PRAYER REQUEST EVERYWHERE YOU CAN AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN!!!

Here is the link: http://lightworkersw...ioux-prayer-request/


 

Posted by junkman - Fri, May 14, 2010, 5:12 P

Great living in Montague

Hello Everyone.

This is a great area with lots of super threads to read about.
 

Posted by JTHK - Thu, May 13, 2010, 10:16 P

Green Mower

Funny, Yahara, I have had conversations with folks about community-owned and maintained equipment. Who really needs their own lawn mower? If we, as a community, owned and shared a few units, that could cut down on a lot of expense and unnecessary redundancy.

That said, we have so little grass here that the hand-powered, manual rotary mower works wonderfully.

Best,
Jonathan

 

Posted by Yahara - Thu, May 13, 2010, 9:53 P

Green Mower

Hi Everybody,

I just got this notice from Coop Power:


Co-op Power's Mow Better Program Offers Steep Discounts
on Battery-Powered Electric Lawnmowers

You can mow green thanks to a special offer by Country Home Products and Co-op Power. You can purchase a brand new, battery-powered Neuton mower at a significant discount.

Coupons to participate in the Mow Better program will be available at the Saturday, May 15th 10 am to 6 pm at the Co-op Power Booth at the Hilltown Spring Festival at the fairgrounds in Cummington and May 16th between 3 and 5 pm at Greenfields Market in Greenfield.

The Neuton CE5 (14" blade) and CE6 (19" blade) mowers will be offered at the discounted prices of $309 and $399, with free delivery to your home -- normally $39 for the CE5 and $49 for the CE6. Current Members of Co-op Power can get an additional $20 off either mower. Retail prices for the two models are $399 and $499, respectively.

To learn more, visit www.neutonpower.com or contact Sean Pollock at 413-376-8443 or seanp500@gmail.com.

The goal of this project is to empower consumers to do their part for cleaner air and less noise, something very achievable considering that:

* A typical gasoline-powered lawn mower emits more than 87 lbs. of climate-changing carbon dioxide a year
* Mowing with a gasoline-powered mower can pollute 100 acres of a neighborhood with noise
* With over 54 million Americans mowing their lawns every weekend, a staggering 4.6 billion lbs. of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere each year
* Gasoline-powered lawn mowers cause at least five percent of the nation's total air pollutants
* Just one gas-powered lawn mower used for a year can pollute as much as 43 new cars driven for a year
* Each year homeowners spill 17 million gallons of gasoline when refilling their lawn equipment, which contaminates soil and groundwater
* By putting 4,000 working gasoline mowers out of commission, smog-forming volatile organic compound emissions will be reduced by up to 19.7 tons per year


You know what would be great? If we as a group bought one machine and shared it. then the green mower would be affordable. How could we do that?

Yahara

 

Posted by joelandry - Mon, May 10, 2010, 8:19 P

lessons from the wind storm: Transition Montague

Jana,
Thanks for the response. On the surface it sounds like quite and interesting and mostly local movement. If it were a local or American movement it would be easier to find out what is behind it. But it is not and that worries me. I did read the Criteria and process for becoming an "official" Transition Initiative. Except for one point it seems like a very good movement. A very important of any group is the flow of money and behind the scene money. International movements make the "follow the money" difficult.

Rob Hopkins worked for Al Gore from what I can see. Also we in America have our own laws and in some cases it has slight conflicts with UN Declarations. To be part of the movement you must support the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Is that right? The comparison of our laws and the UN Declaration of Human Rights yields conflicts.
 

Posted by jrlussier - Mon, May 10, 2010, 4:00 P

lessons from the wind storm: Transition Montague

HI Joe,

Transition Towns movement was started in England by a man named Rob Hopkins. He is not associated with Al Gore. Please look at the following link for more info.

p://www.transitionus.org/transition-101

This movement is on an international scale at this time. What I understand about the transition movement is that it is a process whereby we gather as a community to address the present day challenges of economic instability, peak oil and climate instability. Even though it is international in scope it takes place on the community scale.

Come to the talk Thurs at the senior center to find out more details.

Jana
 

Posted by joelandry - Mon, May 10, 2010, 3:00 P

lessons from the wind storm: Transition Montague

I'm a little confused about the mission of this movement and how it is funded. Doing a simple search, it seems like it is connected with the Global Warming movement. Is it to push the goal of Global Warming or is it's goal to help people? The founders made statements that make them look like followers of the movement. As stated by the co founder. "In response to that urgency, and now joined by Sustrans director Pete Lipman, they jointly founded Transition Network, with a simple mission - to inspire, encourage, connect, support and train communities as they adopt and adapt the transition model on their journey to urgently rebuild resilience and drastically reduce CO2 emissions." Is it connected to Gore. What is the truth, it's objectives and how is it connected.
 

Posted by Becca - Mon, May 10, 2010, 8:01 A

lessons from the wind storm: Transition Montague

Hello Montague neighbors!

How many of you were caught off guard by the recent power outages? We certainly were. While we had some systems in place to support us when the power went out (oil lamps, a little extra water and a sun shower), there were gaps as well. I was grateful when the power returned after 32 hours. While Chris and I talk about this stuff all the time, we were vividly reminded why redundancy in systems is SO important: this is what helps us have resilience as a family, neighborhood and town. Creating resiliency for our town is a top priority for us right now.

As many of you know, Chris and I have been working to help educate communities nationally about the need to prepare and adapt as we grapple with the triple challenges of the economy, energy and the environment. One organization that is perfectly aligned with this mission is Transition Towns. Chris has worked with the Transition Town founders in the UK, as well as with Transition US and Transition Colorado. Now that we’ve planted ourselves in Montague, we are turning our energy to our own town and are getting involved with the Transition initiative locally. If you haven’t met the coordinator for Western MA, Tina Clark, you are in for a treat. She is a smart, articulate and energetic spokesperson for Transition and is a Montague resident as well. We have teamed up with Tina and other committed folks from town to get a Transition initiative up and running and would love to tell you about it.

I am writing to invite you to an event coming up on Thursday May 13, from 7-9 at the Senior Center in Turners, in which Tina will give an introduction to the Transition model. Please join us and hear about how we can use the Transition model to increase our resiliency in town. Let’s take a lesson from the wind storm make resilience a priority for Montague.

Please spread the word.

See you on Thursday!

~Becca and Chris Martenson




Transition Town Presentation with Tina Clarke,
Montague Resident and Transition Town Trainer

Thursday May 13th 7-9 pm Montague Senior Center
62 Fifth Street, Turners Falls

Transition Towns (also known as “Transition Initiatives”) is a vibrant, international grassroots movement to build community resilience and mutual support in the face of the triple challenges of our time: economic instability, rising energy costs and global climate change. Developed in the U.K. and now spreading virally around the world, Transition is a model that brings communities together to enhance our local quality of life as change unfolds around us. Working together we can increase community resilience and support a more fulfilling, equitable and healthy environment for everyone.



 

Posted by jrlussier - Fri, May 7, 2010, 8:43 A

Great article on neighbors

Thanks Mik for putting this up. I've seen it on other venues and really glad to see it here. This is what I'd like to help create here in our town.
 

Posted by mik - Thu, May 6, 2010, 11:09 P

Great article on neighbors

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/146623


The Surprising Reason Why Americans Are So Lonely, and Why Future Prosperity Means Socializing with Your Neighbors
By Bill McKibben, Henry Holt
Posted on April 27, 2010, Printed on May 6, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146623/

Excerpted from the book EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt and Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 2010 by Bill McKibben.

Community may suffer from overuse more sorely than any word in the dictionary. Politicians left and right sprinkle it through their remarks the way a bad Chinese restaurant uses MSG, to mask the lack of wholesome ingredients. But we need to rescue it; we need to make sure that community will become, on this tougher planet, one of the most prosaic terms in the lexicon, like hoe or bicycle or computer. Access to endless amounts of cheap energy made us rich, and wrecked our climate, and it also made us the first people on earth who had no practical need of our neighbors.

In the halcyon days of the final economic booms, everyone on your cul de sac could have died overnight from some mysterious plague, and while you might have been sad, you wouldn't have been inconvenienced. Our economy, unlike any that came before it, is designed to work without the input of your neighbors. Borne on cheap oil, our food arrives as if by magic from a great distance (typically, two thousand miles). If you have a credit card and an Internet connection, you can order most of what you need and have it left anonymously at your door. We've evolved a neighborless lifestyle; on average an American eats half as many meals with family and friends as she did fifty years ago. On average, we have half as many close friends.

I've written extensively, in a book called Deep Economy, about the psychological implications of our hyperindividualism. In short, we're less happy than we used to be, and no wonder -- we are, after all, highly evolved social animals. There aren't enough iPods on earth to compensate for those missing friendships. But I'm determined to be relentlessly practical -- to talk about surviving, not thriving. And so it heartens me that around the world people are starting to purposefully rebuild communities as functioning economic entities, in the hope that they'll be able to buffer some of the effects of peak oil and climate change.

The Transition Town movement began in England and has spread to North America and Asia; in one city after another, people are building barter networks, expanding community gardens. And they've paid equal, or even greater, attention to suburbia; in the developed world, after all, that's where most people live. Though our sprawl is designed for the car, the sunk costs of those tens of millions of houses mean they're not going to disappear just because the price of gas rises. They'll have to change instead. "Suburbia, not as a model for material consumption, but as a legal and social lattice of decentralized and more uniformly distributed production land ownership, has the potential to serve as the foundation for just such a pioneering adaptation," writes Jeff Vail, a widely read economic theorist who envisions "a Resilient Suburbia."

In fact, quite sober economists have begun to insist that even in our seemingly globalized world, our economies are actually far more local than we realize. Despite the "pervasive image of a single U.S. economy," the economists William Barnes and Larry Ledeber write, "local economies -- primarily metropolitan-centered and strongly linked -- are the real economies in the United States." They build, with rich statistical backing, on the original insights of thinkers like Jane Jacobs, who always insisted that the city was the fundamental building block of our economic life. These "Local Economic Regions" comprise the web of transportation and communication links, the chain of educational institutions in a region, and the web of emotional ties. (My Vermont neighbors may not care much how many gold medals the United States captured at the Olympics, but they are deeply involved with how many runs the Red Sox scored last night.)

Those local economies were originally shaped by geography -- a port, a river, a low place in the mountains where you could build a canal. For a while those assets seemed less important; with endless cheap energy, you could always put something on a truck or a plane. But the cities built on those early patterns persisted; they were a sunk cost, too. No one was going to move Buffalo, with its museums and universities and square miles of housing stock, just because the highway had bypassed the Erie Canal. (And now some of those original assets may be returning to prominence. The Erie Canal, for instance, has seen a marked upswing in business as the price of oil rises, because a gallon of diesel pulls a ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, but 514 miles in a barge.) Shanghai is 7,371 miles from New York. It's true that Chinese workers cost you a dollar an hour, but at some point the math shifts.

Even David Ricardo, the nineteenth-century economist who helped kick off globalization with his theory of comparative advantage, never quite imagined the Flat Earth we've lately celebrated.

It was true, he said, that since Britain could make cloth more cheaply, and Portugal wine, each country should specialize. He believed, however, that capital would stay at home, due to "the natural disinclination which every man has to quit the country of his birth and connexions and entrust himself, with all his habits fixed, to a strange government and new laws. These feelings, which I should be sorry to see weakened, induce most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profit in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations."

David Ricardo, meet Woody Tasch. A New Mexico-based venture capitalist and the founder of the Slow Money movement, Tasch focuses on finding funds to help local businesses grow a little larger. Not the kind of money that's looking for a 20 percent annual gain; when that happens, everything but return gets pushed aside. What Tasch has in mind is a consistent, sound, 3 or 4 percent return, which at the same time benefits the community where both the investor and the business live.

"These kinds of local businesses are by definition going to be lower risk, because they're embedded in their communities, they're cooperating with each other," he says. They can use those networks to grow, but only up to a certain point -- and you only want to grow to a point. Ben and Jerry's was great when it was a Burlington ice cream shop, and pretty neat when it was a regional brand -- but now it's owned by Unilever. What if your newspaper wasn't owned by some corporate overlord looking for a 20 percent return? What if a small annual profit was enough? Maybe it would still be covering the city council and sending a reporter on the road with the baseball team.

But in our world, it's actually harder than you'd think to stay small. To understand why, visit the Farmers Diner, one of my favorite restaurants but also a place that illustrates just how hard it can be to find the sweet spot. How local is the Farmers Diner? The first thing you see when you walk in the door of their outlet in the Vermont town of Quechee is a jukebox, glinting like any diner jukebox. Some Willie Nelson, some John Cougar Mellencamp. But half the albums are by Vermonters. Phish, sure. But it's Grace Potter and the Nocturnals who get the most play. And they're just the start. You'll find the Starline Rhythm Boys (singing "The Tavern Parking Lot") and Banjo Dan and the Mid-Nite Plowboys ("The Cider Song"). And Patti Casey, of course. Never heard of Patti Casey? Your loss, but that's the point. In an economy where music comes from L.A. or Nashville, she's from here.

The menu, at first glance, looks like any diner menu. Hash and eggs. Liver and onions. Bacon cheeseburger. Pancakes. At diner prices: $5 for a grilled cheese, home fries for $1.75. But look a little closer: almost every item comes with a modest biography. The blue cheese comes from Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro. The yogurt is from Butterworks Farm up in Westfield, which also supplies wheat flour for the pancakes. In an economy where diner food rolls up on an eighteen-wheeler from the factory farms of the South and Midwest, your Farmers Diner patty melt is like the music on the jukebox: it comes from here.

And it comes with an attitude. One page of the menu is given over to the Kentucky farmer and writer Wendell Berry's magnificent poem "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front": "So, friends, every day do something / that won't compute...." Another is taken up by Thomas Jefferson's 1803 letter calling for a conversion of the nation's "charitable" institutions into "schools of agriculture" so our citizens may "increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them." This may be the only diner in the world that comes with a mission statement: "to increase the economic vitality of local agrarian communities." The bumper sticker above the counter says it even more plainly: "Think Globally -- Act Neighborly."

But it also comes with a problem. In the words of the owner, Tod Murphy, "How do you create a company that will take food off the farmer's hands in the easiest way for him, and set it in front of the customers in the easiest way for them, and do it at a price point everyone can live with?" Tailing him for a day as he made the rounds of his suppliers shows both the promise and the difficulty of the idea. You could start the morning in Strafford, say, at Rock Bottom Farm, where Earl Ransom's cows were producing organic milk and cream on the land where he was born. "I had to educate people that cream isn't necessarily white," Murphy recalled. "When the cows went out to pasture in the spring, the half-and-half changed color noticeably, and the waitresses were afraid people would freak."

It doesn't always go so easily, though. Consider, for instance, the pig. When the first Farmers Diner opened in Barre, it needed bacon -- you can't have a diner without bacon. The problem was that no one was producing pork commercially in Vermont. Fifty years ago, sure, every farm had a few hogs growing fat on leftover milk from the dairy herd. But as agriculture became a commodity business -- as dairy producers concentrated on cows, and pork producers on pigs -- that changed. Vermont dairies became fewer in number and much, much bigger; in other parts of the nation the same thing happened with hogs.

According to Brian Halweil in his book Eat Here, there's a hog farm in Utah with 1.5 million pigs. That's absurd -- the pigs produce more solid waste each day than the entire city of Los Angeles. But it's also cheap -- so cheap that it sets the psychological price for a pound of bacon pretty low. So when Murphy wanted to buy pigs for his bacon and sausage, he approached a few farmers to see whether they were interested. One was Maple Wind Farm, a breeder in Huntington raising fifty hogs a year, mostly to sell at farmers' markets. They're fed on grass and organic grains -- the pork tastes absolutely incredible -- and they fetch good money. "We get $7.50 a pound for bacon at the farmers' market, and $8.50 a pound for pork chops," says Beth Whiting, who runs the farm with her husband, Bruce Hennessey. So when Murphy asked them if they could raise him some pigs at eighty-nine cents a pound, "we had to bury our laughter."

And yet eighty-nine cents a pound is more than the upscale national pork producer Niman Ranch pays its contract pig farmers. In essence, it's a Goldilocks problem: somehow Murphy has to find just the right size. What his operation really requires is not huge commodity producers or small, incredibly wonderful gourmet farms. "What I need are 1950s-size farms," he says. Not a million hogs, but not fifty, either -- maybe three or four hundred. Not organic operations necessarily, just family farms. Precisely, in other words, the kinds of farms that have almost all gone out of business in recent decades.

Murphy can still find vegetable growers to fit his scale, for example, someone to plant the five acres of cucumbers he needs for his pickles. But to help rebuild the supply of meat and chicken farmers, he's launching a nonprofit foundation. Named for a character in one of Wendell Berry's novels, the Jack Beecham Foundation will help growers with business plans and marketing strategies. Woody Tasch has been helping.

All this to make a smoked-turkey club. Or, to read from today's specials menu, some poached Vermont eggs with Cabot cheddar cream sauce. Or some maple butternut squash. Or some Cortland apple cobbler topped with local granola, and a scoop of that Strafford ice cream. With some Grace Potter wailing from the jukebox. For change back from a ten-dollar bill, it doesn't get much sweeter than this. It should work. It should spread. If the eaarth is going to support restaurants, they'll need to look like the Farmers Diner.

Across the country communities have begun to transform themselves. They encounter the same kinds of problems that trip up Murphy, but they find solutions, too. Often a farmers' market is the catalyst -- not just because people find that they like local produce, but because they actually meet each other again. This is not sentiment talking; this is data. A team of sociologists recently followed shoppers around supermarkets and then farmers' markets. You know the drill at the Stop'n'Shop: you come in the automatic door, fall into a light fluorescent trance, visit the stations of the cross around the perimeter of the store, exit after a discussion of credit or debit, paper or plastic. But that's not what happens at farmers' markets. On average, the sociologists found, people were having ten times as many conversations per visit. They were starting to rebuild the withered network that we call a community. So it shouldn't surprise us that farmers' markets are the fastest-growing part of our food economy; they are simply the way that humans have always shopped, acquiring gossip and good cheer along with calories.

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign.

© 2010 Henry Holt All rights reserved.
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