Archive for sustainability
Chickens & Spring
Posted by: | CommentsThis year we wintered over our back-yard chicken. Now I grew up on a chicken farm during the 50’s so I know a lot about chickens, however we never wintered them over. It was not economical; we purchased a new flock of baby chicks every year.
This time I watched our hen settle down into winter by first ceasing to lay eggs, then she started molting. This means she loses a lot of her feathers all at the same time. I was shocked by how many feathers she had piling up under her roost, and scattered around in her pen! Apparently it bothered me enough that I had a dream about her running out of the chicken house half naked! Well it never went that far, thankfully!
Henrietta was decidedly less lovely to look at in winter. Not only was she straggly looking with scant feathers, the pin feathers that grew in were white ‘pins’ sticking out all over her head and neck between the feathers that remained. She acted subdued and droopy during the dark days of winter – but then so do I!
Finally, as the days started to get longer, and we no longer saw anymore pin feathers sticking out white against her reddish brown feathers, she perked up! Henny started rearranging the straw in her nest and digging up places in her pen for a dust bath. Then one morning she did not race out of her house when the door was opened. She was sitting quietly on her nest in the back of the chicken house. We left her alone.
Later that morning, when she was back out in the yard, we opened up the nest box and found not one egg but three eggs! YAY! This means Spring is on the way for sure! If we had a rooster (not allowed in Denver County) she would have chicks by Easter! What a lovely surprise for a morning we had run out of eggs anyway. Since then Henny is back to laying an egg a day, and struts around her yard looking glossy, happy, and proud! Yay Henrietta! You ARE a Spring Tonic for me!
It’s Spring! Fresh Wild Greens are Back!
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s that lovely season when the early Spring greens are up in abundance and are at their peak of nutritiousness. It is also the time when I start my wild edible walks and talks as the Urban Forager! This coming Saturday, April 12th, I will be opening the season with a foraging event at Denver Sustainability Park. We will focus on the Spring greens that our Grandmother’s knew were the best help in clearing the Winter ‘funk’ out of our bodies, gently and surely. These little greens will also nourish you with a super load of vitamins and minerals. So come join me for a two hour experience of learning, foraging, and asking any questions about wild edibles that you have. You can sign up for my walk or contact me for a tour of your own backyard and neighborhood! Remember, if you know your wild local edibles, you’ll never lack for food!
Keystone XL: What Grandmother Found Out in Nebraska
Posted by: | CommentsWe got up between 3:30 and 4:30 am yesterday to get the bus going to Grand Island, NE. We wanted to make sure our voices were heard at the one and only open public meeting for comments on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. The bus was quiet as we headed East into the sun. Some slept, some worked on their 3 minute speeches, and others kept tabs on what was already happening at the Fair Grounds in Grand Island. As our bus was leaving Denver, people were already lined up in the snowy cold to get their names on the list to make a comment.
It wasn’t a huge crowd of 50,000 like the protest in Washington, DC in February. It was a determined crowd; it was a quietly passionate crowd; a crowd dedicated to being heard! Our bus arrived at 2 pm CDT, and we rushed in to sign up to have our voices heard. I was #265. Right then speaker #35 was commenting and the crowd of more than 500 was listening attentively.
During the first few hours, it became clear that opposition to the KXL was in the majority by far. In the next 9 hours I heard almost 200 people comment. I listened to 23 people speak in favor of the pipeline and all spoke in the first few hours. By 5 pm, only one Union Pipefitter remained. “This will bring jobs and revenue.” they said. “This will be good for the economy.” The rest of us spoke among, around and through these empty statements. Notably there were no Transcanada/Keystone representatives anywhere to be seen for the entire time I was there. If they spoke, it was in the first 34 people, and then they were gone!
This hearing was run by three representatives of the State Department, who were attentive, respectful, and compassionate to the end! As the hours slipped away, it became obvious they wanted each of us to be heard. The three minutes was extended when need be. At 8 pm, the supposed end to the comment period, it was extended so all may be heard. And the people stayed! They came from all over Nebraska. They came from Chicago, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Kansas and Virginia to name a few. Some drove all night and would drive all night home just to be heard for 3 minutes. Most/all paid for it out of their own pockets.
The over whelming and passionate opinion of this body of Americans was: NO! This pipeline will do no good. It is not necessary. It is a climate disaster, a farming disaster, and an accident waiting to happen that cannot be easily (or ever) cleaned up! Fifth generation farmers on their family land talked about how carefully they had to treat the earth because it is so fragile in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. We heard about the tricks, lies, and coercion used by the Keystone XL company to make these farmers give up their land. People who had been directly affected and effected by the oil spills in Kalamazoo, MI and Mayfair, AK gave us ‘on the ground’ information about their disasters.
Three years later, the Kalamazoo neighborhood has not been cleaned up. 150 homes were lost, contaminated beyond use. In Mayfair the immediate increase in illness among children, the elderly, and the sick was addressed. On and on it went; nursing Mothers to Grandfathers spoke eloquently and plainly; teachers, doctors, lawyers, farmers, and hippies all had one voice: NO! We don’t need this! We don’t want this! This is a hideous, damaging, unnecessary and evil scheme that has no redeeming virtues what-so-ever! From experts to everyday folks, professors to Native Americans, the message was to reject this awful travesty. We are all very solid about that!
I had tears in my eyes many times during the hours and hours of testimony, not because of tragedy but because these people were describing their lives, their love of the land, the simple beauty of a fragile ecosystem with good water, and how it could all be destroyed forever by the KXL. Worst of all, neither this company (nor any other) has to clean up a spill when it happens! Since it is not technically ‘oil’, they are not responsible for clean-up or paying into the clean-up fund!!
President Obama, your Grandmother died just before you were elected. She was your ‘Wisdom Keeper’, and you lost that blessed voice of reason and love. Listen now to the voices of the Grandmothers everywhere! Deeply in our hearts we know this is wrong and so do you! We do not need this awful, dirty oil! We need clean water, living soils, and healthy children. We know this, you know this, and we are begging you and John Kerry to do the right thing! Please don’t go down in history as the President who sold our good earth to a foreign oil company for 50 pieces of silver.
