Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Social Justice..Everyone has access to fresh food.

The new order of Social Justice...everyone gets a plate.

One of the things that bugs me the most...really is a pet peeve...totally gets me rolling...

That in our Country...there are kids without food...whole families without food.

When they do get food its processed...and processed food is without much nutrient.

Did you know that your body likes real food? When you eat the processed or microwaved foods your body says...that's not food...then thinks its starving and starts to store the calories...yep you called it...fat.

So here we are with this wonderful abundant land all around us and there are people without a plate of food? that's just wrong...so for social justice lets get folks fed with real food.

Now you may say...hey isn't there lots of food at the Grocery Store! Take a look at what is grown local...then look at whats shipped in from other Countries! pitiful. About 1 percent of all that food is from far, far away...and to get it there they had to MODIFY it so it will last longer!
We owe so much to America's Farmers they are the backbone of our Country. So who is the bad guy here? You decide, i will attempt to put out the ways in which this whole cycle of chemicals and modifications got going. Let me say here though...i am not the expert, i am the student and as i learn i will share.
As a child in the Northern California Region, my Uncle and Aunt owned Coast Creamery Equipment Company a supplier of dairy equipment to the finest Dairies on the best land ever known. I started working about age 6 doing the stamping of the mailers or helping pull orders.
We would travel from farm to farm to check in on them and talk cows...yes by the age of 7 i could not only recite every species of cow but origin and use. For fun i looked up the company and it is listed in the California Dairy Industry History Collection...that was fun to read, well for me it was.
You see things have changed so drastically since even i was a child. There was milk that had cream at the top of the glass bottle when i was a kid...can you imagine? One of my greatest joys was getting to that milk first and licking the cream off the cap, not hygienic but i drank from hoses too.
My first memories of life in Dairy were the new mechanical milking machines...what a bonus that thing was! Then the new Milk cartons..my Uncle could not figure out how to open them till i showed him...funny how now my kids show me how to do things on computers...i digress..but the key to dairy is freshness, getting it to market because its such a perishable food and that is the history of milk, get it there and long enough to be sold.
The University Farm as it was called in what was then called Davisville now Davis was founded to answer these very problems of food supply. It is now the University of Davis and is one of the best in Agriculture and Animal husbandry schools in the world...
you can probably see i am very proud of my home state.
I saw how hard these families worked everyday of every year to produce and get to market their products. Most of the small dairy farmers are all gone now. Large Corporations have taken over and its all about profit and there is not a thing wrong with that! But i believe that the ethics of providing a healty and whole product has been neglected.
My parents had whole foods...my Grandparents had whole foods...right off the local farms, right onto their plates. Now we have crops,cows, chickens, hogs you name it with you name it..infused with hormones, additives and who really knows what in it.
When food is modified...its changed...and yes that food processor you call a digestive system says...nope that's not food.

Thank you science for your ability to keep foods fresh longer...but God had other plans.
With the Organic Farming movement, i will call it just that, its a way to get local whole food to the plate of every family in America.
What we have learned is that as we teach others how simple it is to grow food, how simple it is to eat organic and that it can be more than affordable if produced locally and with good distributions systems.
In this journal its my desire to show how we did that and why, i hope it encourages you to get involved and commited to social justice for our Country and the Countries we like...no for everyone even the ones we don't...


Growing Power...






We...the daughter and i had a fantastic trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to visit Growing Power
Going through PA, OH (daughter slept through the entire state..) IN,IL then finally Wisconsin!
We got there in about 16 hours and we were just bone tired...well actually butt tired...

The next morning we started with delicious muffins and good strong hot coffee..that's the "podium" there in the top right picture...and check out all the wood chips...



Will Allen opened the session with a virtual tour and an introduction to the 7 workshops.
Now this did irked me a tad as i could only attend 2 over the course of the weekend... but having kid 1 and kid 2..we divided and conquerd!

Theme of the weekend would best be discribed as... Develop Relationships...with other farmers, politicians, community..etc. This will all be very interesting as we develop our new relationships with our fellow community and neighbors...as our future sucess depends on growing these relationships.

Over the coming years it is our hope that this will be a blue print for other organic farmers throughout this region to be sucessful and have an impact on getting not only food but change to their communities.

Some of the Highlights of the opening:
and as the days progress i will address all these.

  • social justice-everyone has access to food..

  • growing phenomena-organics and small farms

  • food connects all

  • we can control and change the system food is provided

  • grow new soil

  • Grow local-1 percent of food supplies in Cities is grown locally with the rest being shipped in from up to and over 1,500 miles away!

  • Grow Food...Grow Jobs...Grow $

  • His 7 "P's"

  • Stable development techniques.

Friday, December 31, 2010

In a few hours it will be 1.1.11....



So this begins where the year ends.
this is the young man who has inspired so much of what we are doing now.

He has left us but he continues to inspire us.
This year is for the start of new and wondrous things.

This is the year...we break the rules.
This is the year we put down a foundation that will hold generations to build upon.

We miss this wonderful soul. He was an Artist, Philosopher, Adventurer, and the kindest fellow you would ever want to know.

With this in mind...we build our future. Education, teaching, outreach, fellowship..returning to the basics of things that have always worked. Most of all to inspire...NO! way more than that, a commercial from Hallmark can do that...the art of inspirering others to do more than they ever expected. To making life abundant for that was the whole point of things you know...not just a man living..but providing inspiration for others to live.

As this wonderful gift of a child has done for us, but also that once in a lifetime life that was given up for us by His own free will...Jesus Christ...so that we could live without sin, guilt, shame or condemnation.

We live for giving, we live to receive, we live to make sure all of those things roll along...for our kids, friends and family...we roll along...sometimes that road is bumpy..like rocks in a brook...but the water just rises to meet the obsticle...but without bumps really life would be boring.

lets eat at the big kids table...learn how to make things better for the next generation, but lets get going...the economy sucks...our food is being poisoned...ignorance and fear are the mantras of the day...lets wake a few up...



..One Man Awake

One man awake awakens another,
The second man wakens his next door neighbor,

And three awake can rouse the town,
and turn the whole place upside down.

And many awake can raise such a fuss,
That it finally awakens the rest of us.

One man up with dawn in his eyes - multiplies.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

We are the leaders we've been waiting for.



This is a wonderful video by a woman who has such great wisdom and a message we all need to hear...listen and see how it changes you...