Unfortunately, I wished “small” that night as I drifted off to sleep: that the city would come and collect the over-stuffed plastic recycling bin outside my window. It’s been three weeks and usually they come every week. My days have been hectic enough canning food, harvesting the garden, planting more seeds*, building a cob wall and whenever I had a moment collecting plastic containers tossed aside and toting them to yet another and another crammed container. Maybe they were on strike?
My Full moon wish came true, at 6am I heard the big truck and they replaced it with a clean empty bin. Today I fished discarded plastic bottles out of the trash and stuffed them into the practically empty recycle bin, right next to it! Amaya and I do the glass recycling together near the townhall. Hand and hand we walk there and I lift her up each time for each bottle so she can crash them in. Fun stuff! We were rewarded tonight for our hard work because there was an “etch a sketch” discarded in the Dumpster down the road. Gleefully I pulled it out to her surprise; she does think that presents come from the big, black containers outside.
But I had made some other little wishes, like three goats… and to please let us keep that borrowed scaffolding for just another week, and Benji wished for Amaya to sleep through the night and folks, all of those wishes came true. She slept like an angel—but for only one night, he didn’t specify every single night. We still have the scaffolding at least through this weekend and should be done with the cob wall on Sunday. And, for the future goats, I did a trade. Our neighbour has an art gallery; he sent me the key and asked me to play gallery gal for three days. What would I want to be paid he asked, and of course I said a goat a day. He was delighted (the baby goats aren’t more than 20 euros really) and he offered me commissions if I sell any art works. As I washed the show window of the art gallery, I thought to myself, someday I’ll have a gallery and I’ll name it Three Goats Gallery. Now that is dreaming big.
*In case you want to garden along with me, this is what we are planting in the hot month of July during the Full moon: things with roots like black radishes, beets, and carrots. You can plant out leeks and brassicas for a winter supply, if you haven’t done that yet. You can also sow spring cabbage, turnips, Oriental vegetables, chicory, fennel, and autumn/winter salads such as lamb’s lettuce (mâche) of which I am planting pak choi, chicory, and mâche. This is the last chance for beans so I planted “fire tongue” shelling beans for our winter cassoulets and chilis.
And, on the washing of mâche and spinach and nettles for that matter. Grit sucks. I soak them first (after agitating well) and then let it sit, the grit goes to the bottom, but there might be more lurking… the water I reuse to water the plants right outside our door or for our cob dirt mix. Then I rinse the greens again: in the shower. Yes. You know when the water warms up? I have a bucket to catch the water anyway, I might as well wash my salad nekkid. It takes less than a minute (the first minute it's cold anyways). The saved salad warm-up water can then be used to wash the floors or flush the toilets or added into your washing machine.
Hope it was rosy and wonderful!
I don’t work. I have chosen poverty. Not just me, it's in our DNA. My mom is a poor part-time school teacher (was- she just retired) and my father is semi-feral living off the land in
This is a way of life that we have chosen freely and for me it’s a more recent and extreme change. For a decade, I worked 80 hours a week for corporations with barely a week vacation and no paid overtime; I tried the fast cars and fast life with rich boyfriends who never made me happy because I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t creating, I wasn’t moving slow enough to enjoy daily life- to be in the moment each second of the day. I was being wringed dry by greedy companies who only wanted me to sell more and more frivolous items for their profits. Brainwashed and Botox-ed, I bought into their ideals that I had to dress a certain way to increase my success, wash my car each Friday night to impress my neighbors and friends, and eat out at expensive restaurants to be seen and preened over.
Now I sundry apricots that I gleaned from a neighborhood tree while wearing jeans with patches from well-use, then insulate our walls with a stucco that I made myself with straw, clay and sheep’s wool, and make yogurt in the sun while drawing chalk designs with Amaya on the sidewalk and I love it. I am truly happy.
We don't have to be prosperous and find excitement from each task that we do. It's not hard labor preparing food and cleaning our house and I enjoy my full days at home. I'm very lucky that I can be at home all day to play with Amaya and let her learn from me: cooking, sewing, washing, cleaning, reading, gardening, fixing, writing, drawing, crafting. Is this woman's work? Perhaps. But I think it’s better than lining the pockets of someone else, working for basically nothing (for what end or purpose?), and probably harming the earth more (we have 30 percent less environmental impact by me not working). This work I do at home benefits us, not some unknown corp exec and doesn’t pollute the earth.
We have made the choice to live off of one meager salary (and my husband works only four days a week) and that means that we will always be poor. One old car, less “stuff”, nothing new for years, but much more satisfied with what we have in life. Everything we find is a treasure. Each gift is truly appreciated. It also means we get to see and be part of our daughter’s milestones, hear each new word uttered and regal over each new task mastered (hers and ours).
She learns how to live, truly live: forage and hunt for food and prepare it from scratch, and how to build a shelter and this means happiness and avoiding misery. Household chores 'woman's work' as many put it are not drudgery, but something to be enjoyed, part of cleaning up after ourselves. It leads to satisfaction and being good stewards of our earth. I know that people gossip that we poor and shame that I don't 'work', (the government also deems us that with our tax return statement: you are below the poverty line) but I say that we are living a life of Permaculture. And I am happy with that. Plus, what other people think about me (or us) is not my business.
Writer,
"Permaculture, originally 'Permanent Agriculture', is often viewed as a set of gardening techniques, but it has in fact developed into a whole design philosophy, and for some people a philosophy for life. Its central theme is the creation of human systems which provide for human needs, but using many natural elements and drawing inspiration from natural ecosystems. Its goals and priorities coincide with what many people see as the core requirements for sustainability."
“Would you like to go outside?” I asked softly as I stroked her unruly, tangled hair. An unusual question for after 10pm.
“Musique?” She demanded quizzically as notes of saxophone drifted through our old stone walls. Her ears and eyes perked up, Jeannot the octogenarian love-of-her-life was serenading her. With her tiny, chubby fists she rubbed her eyes of their magical dust.
Could this be only a midsummer’s dream? In the Escargot- the place directly in front of our door- two friends were playing old-time accordions, the priest and his neighbor were strumming guitars and two played on harmonica from their open windows. It was the "Fête de la Musique" a nationwide outdoor musical event. Jeannot was leading them all with his shiny saxophone in a rendition of “Aux, Champs Elysées.” Normally serious adults were wiggling their butts dancing in a circle with the musicians seated around them. Wine flowed from person to person and laugher and singing filled the night air.
Still half asleep, wrapped up in my arms Amaya and I descended into the merrymaking where the festivities abounded like a wedding celebration.
“Soliel?” she asked me perplexed as she looked up into the dark night sky filled with stars. Ou est le soliel?” Where is the Sun? She asked over and over again.
“It’s sleeping in the forest and tomorrow during the Solstice it will be out for the longest day of the year. We will play all day and build a bonfire and invite friends over to eat and drink with us.” I promised her while I reflected that this little two year old, so full of wonder and enchantment she knew, unassisted, the very reason for this celebration: the Sun.
They played, we sang, and we danced and then it ended at midnight with Amaya’s lullaby “Une a chanson douce” that her papa always sang to her when she was just a few days old while rocking her gently to sleep. She blew kisses to everyone as we crossed the path under our carved star door and retired to bed. Afterwards, according to Midsummer legend, the fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune.
The Slow School year is coming to a close. Benji only has four more days of school and then he can attack fixing this old stone house with gusto and vigor! The odd thing is the that freezer and pantry are full, not full of things from before- not one tomato in sight, waiting for our 25 plants to fruit for sauces and salads galore this summer. But full of scrapped, gardened, gifted and traded food. We had so much that we have been able to give loads away. A neighbor joked with me today, “oh no, not more fruit from you!” as she handed me a bag of garbanzo beans and a bar of chocolate and I gave her an armful of loquats that we had just foraged. Earlier my fresh fish source, a very resourceful fisherwoman, stopped by for a loquats for fish trade. She said that the fisherman next to her was fishing for sport and she offered him her cooler with a wink and said she knew a family that would love those fish. And we do!
A total of three times we went to the grocery store in the last 9 months and each time it was for silly things that didn’t cost that much. For example, we had to get some disposable diapers for Amaya for her preschool, they want 6 for each week and wouldn’t appreciate us sending her commando like we do at home. Mostly she goes on her antique pot that was her grandmother’s. But not all the time. Many times she has peed down her leg while eating dinner. When we did go to the store, we tried to only buy organic: garlic, onions, milk, butter, flour, olive oil. Those were the things that I needed to get by to supplement what nature and the Dumpster gods were giving us.
And now, today, a nice way to end the Slow School Year—though you know me, it's going to be our way of life now because it’s a real joy to trade, scrounge (a better high than shopping ever was), and garden: which gives me so much pleasure and fatigue—we got or first egg! It might as well been golden as it represents our next level of slow living- animal husbandry, not only meet your meat, but raise your meat. Start to finish.
Farm City, a fascinating story of a thriving urban farm in downtown Oakland California, is for everyone but especially those who think it's just not feasible but really want to do it. She will make you laugh and you might even cringe at life's realities and her brutal honesty. She is super determined and uniquely resourceful on a tight budget. Chickens, bees, vegetable gardens with trees in the center of the city, even rabbits and pigs- all fed from free sources like
I laughed out loud; I cried for an entire chapter; I was scared of the ghetto and its guns and thugs; I was touched at her compassion and thoughtfulness of raising animals in that ghetto; I smiled often at her moxie and quirkiness knowing that I have that too. I read it quickly (greedily- hungry for more) and then again slowly savoring each morsel. I learned a lot and find myself quoting texts to myself while gardening or feeding the chickens and I have been googling the great resources that she mentioned through out the book.
At one point, she survives off only eating from her garden/ squat lot for a month and finds that she can feed her family and her impoverished community as well with that bounty. It’s written in a poignant, thoughtful manner. Lessons are learned, mistakes happen. If you enjoyed Animal Vegetable Miracle, you’ll love this even more because it’s a scrappy, poor, yet tenacious woman making a farm in the city, one that succeeds with hard work, tears and sweat.
Of course, I am biased. I am proud to say, that woman, that unafraid, kick-ass horse manure hauling into the city, slug crushing, seed saving, scrappy building with recuperated wood from the trash, catching her own swarm of bees in the city, Dumpster diving for food, foraging for intercity fruit, looking an animal in the eye and thanking them for feeding her family when she kills them after she has given them the best possible life ever is my very own sister.
Looks like I'm not the only one that likes Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, the NY Times has listed it on their list of Gardening Summer Books and Publishers Weekly gave it this glowing review.
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
In this utterly enchanting book, food writer Carpenter chronicles with grace and generosity her experiences as an “urban farmer.” With her boyfriend Bill’s help, her squatter’s vegetable garden in one of the worst parts of the Bay Area evolved into further adventures in bee and poultry keeping in the desire for such staples as home-harvested honey, eggs and home-raised meat. The built-in difficulties also required dealing with the expected noise and mess as well as interference both human and animal. When one turkey survived to see, so to speak, its way to the Thanksgiving table, the success spurred Carpenter to rabbitry and a monthlong plan to eat from her own garden. Consistently drawing on her Idaho ranch roots and determined even in the face of bodily danger, her ambitions led to ownership and care of a brace of pigs straight out of E.B. White. She chronicles the animals’ slaughter with grace and sensitivity, their cooking and consumption with a gastronome’s passion, and elegantly folds in riches like urban farming history. Her way with narrative and details, like the oddly poetic names of chicken and watermelon breeds, gives her memoir an Annie Dillard lyricism, but it’s the juxtaposition of the farming life with inner-city grit that elevates it to the realm of the magical. (June)
there is a chainsaw repair shop in the bigger town near us and it looks a lot like this- minus the two year old striking a pose- men huddled over their chainsaws, covered in grease and grim (which the two year old is, but you cant see her ruffian-ness in the photo) trading tools and ideas of how to fix this thing or that. we went there one day and the nice repair man fixed benji's chainsaw in two minutes and didnt charge him a thing.
amaya ran to get tools and handed them to her daddy like a nurse though she was dirty from head to toe. she choose the beret to wear because the other three old guys were wearing caps of some sort. she started saying the word for chainsaw in french "Tronçonneuse" at 18 months, guess that tells a lot about how important it is in our life. she doesnt know the word for television.
Rather than feel frustrated which is easy to do during these times, follow the moon beams, climb the magic bean stalk, channel your creative energy with the Sagittarius Full moon who is naturally optimistic and enthusiastic. We all have the power to do it. This is the time to let go of reality and make that leap. Sift through the sands and choose what you want to believe, don’t let corporations or religions or the media make decisions for you. Turn the phone off. Disconnect the computer, go for a walk this moon asks of you, even if just for a moment.
It’s a time of peace and quiet reflection. Becoming one with nature, a stillness to invite answers, a place to center ourselves and enable us to calm inner conflicts. Perhaps it will happen as you bite into that beautiful work of art, a gift from Mother Earth: a red, ripe strawberry, you will be transported on an expedition. Your body stays perfectly still, a slow dribble of red juice will flow down your chin, as you project yourself to a place without conflict, a place of individual freedom, simplicity, full of creativity and conscious thinking. Then you will see the path of how to get there. Make the transition. See you on the other side of the Moon.
The Sabian symbol for the Full Moon in Sagittarius is "children playing on the beach, their heads protected by sunbonnets." This symbolizes freedom to play without stress of limits, rules and work. There is also the powerful image of the collective unconscious (the ocean) and the shifting sands of ‘reality’. The beach is a place of transitions, between conscious and unconscious, land and sea. The bonnets protect from our cognitive minds- the sun and its daily grind.
Today we went to the river, our river but up a ways to a secluded location to swim. The dried lava rocks from a million years ago embraced my bare feet with their black and grey creases. The river is named after the color of these rocks and also for a similarly named hearty wild flower that persists to grow in this sterile environment. Natural waterfalls flowed into the shallow pools of water, Amaya ran naked and peed in-between the stones squealing with delight over her natural bodily processes, Benji dove off rocks and emerged from the surface with his dark hair slicked back like a river otter.
We went there with the wise walking weed woman, a neighbour who at one time had 60 goats and won a gold medal for her cheese making-- believe me I have been asking her a lot of questions about getting three milking goats and she is open to helping me raise them. In fact, that is her dream, to have a younger protégé and a few other women to teach these skills too. She is part of our village’s preservation society (one that I intend to join) that puts on educational nature walks, guards relics like the roman graves that have been recently unearthed, and writes a newsletter about their wonderful events (an outdoor theatre night in the Escargot, a potluck dinner for the residents, a sheep day where kids get to learn about sheep and sheep dogs, a musical get together, etc)
She posed the question to me today if I knew what the star above my door meant. I said it was the sign that a doctor lived in the house unsure of how to explain my research into the occult significations. “Right,” she said, “but more than a doctor: a shaman, a sorcerer,” she clarified. Giddy with recognition, I then told her about my dream the first night that I slept in our house: I was a medicine woman in the middle ages, a priestess of sorts and all kinds of people were coming to me for cures for their illnesses and troubles.
This house, this place is exactly where we should be. It’s so natural as if I have been here for hundreds of years. The lush gardens lure me, the rock walls speak to me, the passages show me the way, the worn limestone from many hands holding onto the stairway remind of the others. The gentle spirits lull me to sleep each night, my body tired but happy from gardening, preserving, cooking meals without recipes (collected rhubarb from a feral garden today and made jam with it and rose petals), and dining on wonderful foods and drinks. This is the place where we should be. I am constantly reminded of it in my waking moments and through my unconscious dreams and visions.
Knowing nothing about chickens, except what I have read in one little book (Living with Chickens), when they didn’t make a peep in their boxes in the car, I thought the chicken guy must have given me 12 dead birds (they were fast asleep like a toddler lulled to sleep by the cars motion). I had made my order for 12 alive and 1 dead as our friend the farmer sat on the bumper of my neighbor’s minivan. He said it has been so busy, everyone is coming to him for their food, more people want to buy directly from the farmer, especially one that is organic. His parking lot behind his house was crammed with people buying chickens and some of the vegetables that he grows on his meager 5 hectares. All of the chickens are free range, but fenced out of the garden.
With a trade and a birthday present, I was able to get 12 teenage chickens for nothing, they are 12 weeks old and wont start laying eggs until they are 18-20 weeks. Our total cost of building a rock wall chicken coop with an adjoining fenced yard was nothing, all the materials were found, recycled or given to us by neighbors. The roof is made of 9 doors! 50 more meters of industrial fencing is coming next week so we can protect the entire area, for more critters (rabbits and goats some day) and our cool new Brit neighbors donated an old gas cooker so we can do an outdoor kitchen!
We bought some food to start with and just to make sure, but now with us finding so much free food, and my corn starting to grow we should be able to feed them for free as well. I'm working on some organic chicken feed recipes. Plus, I have a big bin outside my front door and neighbors have been putting in old bread, vegetable cuttings and leftovers. They’ll get plenty of bugs, grit and grass from the yard too. The wood shop down the street gave us three sacks of wood shavings and said we have more when ever the composting toilet people don’t take them.
Speaking of shavings, he shaved their necks! I thought when I welcomed them to their new digs. My little house guests are Golden Sex links crossed with “cou nu” naked neck chickens. This cross breed produces a meaty bird that are good layers of nice brown eggs. They have existed as free ranging birds in
The exposed skin actually turns bright red in sunlight just like that of the turkey. They actually possess half the total number of feathers in other breeds which makes them much quicker to pluck than other table birds. They are currently very popular in the hotter Eastern countries where they are kept as table birds because they are able to withstand much hotter temperatures than other birds. They are happy to free range or be confined in runs and are not known as being particularly good fliers. They need protection in extremely cold temperatures because of their lack of feathers but can cope remarkably well in very hot climates. They are easy to tame and are very placid, calm birds.
May is called the Flower moon because blooms abound everywhere; it’s also called the Full Corn or Planting moon. Which I did in abundance: sweet corn, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, a giant rosemary plant, and a yucca, all given to me by kind people. It’s a great time to plant all kinds of seeds of change, little sprouts in your head as ideas to be fulfilled. (ps Our little sprout, Amaya was made during the Flower moon, on my birthday in fact!) This is the month to get out there and dig in the dirt especially since the earth is so fertile right now; what you plant now will come up for harvesting in the late summer and early fall. The mighty powerful sun is getting closer to the earth, and the rich soil is getting warmer in the northern hemisphere.
There are strong energies around this moon of health, romance, love and wisdom. This is the time to open new doorways for yourself, stop and smell the roses (and make rose jam), meditate on what you want to realize in your lives and then go for it.
I am so incredibly happy right now, full of joy and anticipation. Someone gave me 50 meters of chicken fencing from the French electric company and the chickens arrive tomorrow! This weekend we are participating in an International Dinner for the village where I am representing
"mama, stop the sun!" she says
I spent a half hour, same I would have spent grocery shopping, of cleaning and sorting all the goods. More than half of the strawberries were perfectly fine so I did give many to the begging children (two of which I think are starving, they only eat rice each night) who lined up at my doorstep and I sliced enough to make a generous strawberry pie. The rest, I put into the freezer labeled “for the chickens”. A nice frosty treat on a hot day in the future for the poules.
By 9:30am, I was already at the local farmers market to do the same. I left at 10am. I managed to get a heavy cardboard box stuffed full of very-still-humanly- edible swiss chard, carrots, broad beans, onions tops, asparagus, freshly cut cauliflower butts and leaves (went into our Chinese stirfry- very good), oranges, rhubarb (added to the strawberry pie which was heavenly). And I passed around pie to all the neighbors since it was free food- seems to be the right thing to do. One friend who I told where the ingredients came from, said “I cant believe this is from the garbage can!” as she munched down another slice of pie. Luckily she said it in English which the other people around us at the time don’t understand.
Heck, I could have fed the entire village; I could have taken more bruised and too ugly to sell produce; the farmer was more than happy to let me scrounge through the boxes in the back before they even touched the trashbin. She told me to take all that I wanted and to come back next week. This morning, I walked to the store again feeling kind of like a bandit and wondering if it was just beginners luck or a one time thing. That crazy doubt in the back of my head evaporated as I rounded the bend, the manager greeted me and pointed to this tray of vegetables and left me to my private scrounging. Bell peppers, lettuces, zucchini (too far gone for us) a billion carrots (made carrot cake for the entire Escargot; the little boys loved it), baby tomatoes which I also gave to the boys to share with Amaya, apples, radishes, most of it perfectly fine to eat right now.
Sure, it took me a few hours of prep work and then baking, cleaning, sorting into three categories: good enough for us, for the chickens and too far gone for the compost bin. But the amount of free greens makes me swoon. Enough for a week! Especially since I am foraging lots of edibles in nature as well like elderberries for champagne and false locust flowers for fritters. Cauliflower leaves and their white ends are very good steamed, fried, in soups, a little crunch for the wok. I cut off the bad parts of the kiwis and we ate the rest. The broad beans were delicious sautéed in butter with tomatoes and onions. The bell peppers were roasted and pealing and made into an Arabic style dip. And the freezer is FULL of food scraps for the chickens.
Making bamboo Panflutes, frying fragrant acacia flower fritters, repairing ripped jeans, redesigning the house with great new ideas, running to the garden to harvested roquette, lettuce, kale, beets and strawberries each day.
Forgetting even to turn the calender or open the computer. Recuperating windows and doors in wild places. Planted tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers and celery; doing seed and plant exchanges, giving away beans, planted squash, corn and said beans. Just two doors to hang on frames and some wire on the open windows that I punched through with a sledgehammer and then we will be ready for egg producing squatters. I hung curtains on the nesting boxes, mixed up batches of cement to finish the rock wall that connected the door frame, used a professional wacker (my arms are still shaking) to cut down the thigh high weeds around the pen and under the trees so we can make a nice outdoor table (and someday an outdoor kitchen for canning), crawled down the river bank ten times to get buckets of water, and we are picking up iron containers from the ice cream factory to store the feed and collect rainwater.
Soon, chickens!
New neighbors moved in, they speak my language one I might have forgotten soon. I mostly think in French, make lists in French even speak to Amaya and the kids (there were seven in Amaya’s room this weekend playing; it was crazy! Imps underfoot all day long.) in French most of the day. When I am alone with Amaya and Benji I go back to English.
So the newbies are a friendly just retired couple that have been travelling the world. The first thing they did was give me the cast iron sit down bathtub that came with their ruin that they are fixing up in record time. I got our friend a job with them that will last about a year and Benji can apprentice to learn everything from plumbing to electricity to installing massive support beams. In exchange our friend is going to do one hour of work on our house for every five hours on his new job, talk about a wonderful commission for us and it’s he who offered in gratitude.
I explained to the new neighbors, how we like to barter or trade rather than touch money and they said it was a jolly good idea. I don’t always talk about how we live our slow life with the neighbors because they probably won't understand (we have about 20 in the Escargot- it’s a non-car circle of houses) but they seemed like the type to appreciate our scrappy lifestyle. They love dumpster diving and going to garage sales, flea markets, just our type of instant friends. It's so much more fun to go to the dump and scrap with a friend. They are going to get ducks so we can trade chickens for ducks and their eggs. Already we are doing a trade for a mirror that came with our house that is in Amaya’s room. He said Amaya can name what she wants, a bike, a drum set, any toy that she wants. She asked him for a pony! What a smart girl, and he has enough land for one too. I think she might have to wait until her parents can trade something a lot more worthy until horse trading can begin. Maybe Benji can build them a custom wood kitchen island? They loved the buffet that he made and gushed over it. Though Benji was modest and said they were just being nice.
Even if you don’t believe in
This Sunday and Monday are the best days for root crops: carrots, radishes, anything that grows underground like beets, horseradish,
Wednesday the 29th and Thursday the 30th is when you should plant crops that make flowers like borage, angelica, broccoli, caraway, cauliflowers, artichokes.
May 1st and May 2nd are days for leafy plants like basil, Brussel sprouts, celery, dill, rhubarb, spinach, cabbage, cucumbers and lettuces. You can also plant corn now or during the fruit phase.
May 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th are for fruiting plants, one that make seed bearing fruits like strawberries, peaches, plums, eggplants, zucchinis, peppers, chilis, fava beans or broad beans, peas, peppers, squashes, sweet corn and tomatoes. And if you harvest fruit right now, during the fruiting phase it will store longer and better.
It's also a time to think about making your own natural insecticides and fungicides. A sprinkle of cinnamon to deter ants, some nettle tea to help plants' immune systems and deter bugaloos, and don't forget a cup of beer for the slugs!
This week I started a big brew of nettle grog for my plants. Stinging Nettles contain lots of nitrogen, are rich in iron, can be added to the compost heap to promote decomposition and healthy compost, or nettles can be used to make a liquid manure. This juice can be diluted to make in insecticidal spray (though a bit smelly) as well. I picked a ton of nettles (we eat them often) from our chicken garden, broke them in half with the root part going on the new compost pile over there and the young top halves going into a barrel of rain and river water. I'll let it steep in the sun for three weeks and then dilute it before using it to boost my plants.
Happy Planting Time! I'll be in the garden, if you can't reach me...
Blazing hot temperatures ran across
Meanwhile, airplanes flew in grid patterns across
There is a huge shift of resilient people digging up their lawns, putting in gardens and trying to be self sufficient-ish. Great. But if the natural sunlight can NOT get in because it’s sunblocked 30+, that leaves us all pretty much at the mercy of large industrial agricultural groups *cough* Mon-satan-o to serve up the world with frankenfood, at their price and profit. A small group of Uber-Oligarchs that are playing us all for a bunch of total fools! They already own 95 percent of the world’s seeds; have destroyed the soil’s fertility with their nasty chemicals and pesticides; and they are aggressively shutting down seed saving groups (my husband and I have started our own at his school).
Happy Earth Day. No sun, no soil, no seeds, carcinogenic chemicals in the air, runaway climate change. All because we think we deserve to live a better Suburban (pun intended on the SUV) lifestyle rather than protecting our habitat: Mother Earth.
Instead of reductions in carbon emissions urged by scientists ten years ago, we have drowning polar bears in rapidly melting ice caps and drought-stricken farmers trying to subsist in dust bowls. The White House has decided to embrace “climate geoengineering” basically paying big bucks to spray “sunscreen” chemicals into the air without considering the implications of further destroying the ozone, messing with our climate, putting toxins in the air that render us all dead. Chemtrails is not just a consideration up for discussion, it’s all ready happening, and it has been going on for the last ten years covertly.
Spraying a can of aerosol Vanilla Breeze on a sewer full of shit, smells just like Vanilla shit. Don’t fall for it. These sun reflector chemicals in the air will reduce photosynthesis by plants and forests all over the earth. In fact, it will increase the CO2 level and destroy the ozone protective layer further and faster.
Soon we will hear that it is all 'spinning out of control' and we can expect more drastic measures that will boil down to some further loss of liberties. Write to your congressperson and tell them this is unacceptable to play “weather God” or if that doesn't work, take some kind of public action, speak up and tell Obama that we don’t want to pollute our children's future while gagging ourselves on barium breeze.
