Bleeding hearts

Bleeding hearts seems like an appropriate flower for these times. 

Perhaps you too are taking out all of your anxieties in plants; the one plus side of the last three months being that many of us are going to have our best gardens ever. As I read about more and more continuing stories of brutality and unrest, a woman who's car is surrounded by ten officers who beat the windows out before pulling her out by her hair in Chicago, an old man pushed aside and bleeding out of his ears--my peas have no idea how many emotions I am trellising alongside them. 

Yesterday I came across this very thoughtful article "Making peace in inner city Oakland, one block at a time" by John Dear. Peace. It reminded me so much of an interview I did in college with the founder of a community garden in Pomona, CA which was created in response to a child, not yet in school, who was killed in the crossfire of rivaling races. This was in the same neighborhood as my middle school. I think it was then I became committed to gardens as a place for social justice as well as eco-justice. I knew I would somehow incorporate gardens into my graduate work. 

From the article, “To be a presence of peace and nonviolence in the neighborhood, …means going deep into contemplation and connection with the earth, especially if you live in the inner city”

...

I no longer live in a city. And besides our local small University my region is depressingly homogenous. For the first time in my life I understand how it is even possible for 75% of white Americans to have 0% of their friends be a minority ethnicity.  We (collectively)need some new friends y'all. If our social circles were a plant they would be something like bermuda grass: homogenous, boring, pervasive, obnoxiously exclusive, and unsustainable. 

"We want to take down the physical fences in the neighborhood and the fences in our hearts, because we know our real security is not in our fences or the bars on our windows, but in our relationships. This is the way to peace. We have misguides warrior energy in our neighborhood(s).  Our young people are fighting and dying to protect their 'turf.' We want to suggest that the turf is the earth. These young people are our future and we need to invest in them. That means redirecting their 'warrior' energy toward fighting for and protecting both open space in our neighborhood, so we can grow food locally..."

During this time when no one was visiting, a new friend and I keep leaving pots on each other's porches. She has things I need. I grew things she wants. My daughter and I leave plants as presents for people we are missing. My church is also using this time to double down on their community garden. (A garden is something I see as an essential requirement to joining a church). They hope to bring more joy and make a dent in self-sufficiency for food security for those for whom this time has brought financial insecurity. I hope in this way the future is going to pot-- tiny little sprigs of hope being disseminated to all the nooks, crannies, and cracks where they are needed most.

Every few weeks my friend and neighbor brings me eggs. The church gardener though is the only other visitor I have had. Cheerfully he leaves seeds, plants, and a bountiful amount of compost. He knows, and I'm re-learning, again and again, that with intention, with cultivation, beautiful things can grow from all of this rotten stuff. 

Rainbow out car window on the way to Lake Superior

The world is full of treasure- An 🌍 Earth 🌎 Day reflection! 🌏

This week I was reminded that:

1)I need to spend more time looking at rocks.

2) I need to begin filling the gaping hole of Geology in my naturalist education. 

When I was a kid collecting rocks was one of my favorite past times. Even though I grew up in urban southern California, mostly collecting driveway fill, no walk was complete without pocketfuls. I had immeasurable egg cartons FULL of them in my closet. There's something primordial about the need to make collections and gathering the things that strike our fancy. The world is full of vibrance. Perhaps just the act of physically holding something of fancy jumpstarts our dopamine out of dullness. Maybe searching for something shiny helps us hone our skills to spot a last morsel, a berry on a bush, or an edible from a closely shaped inedible. Finding beauty, making art, this creates a scallop around the fringes of our survival skills. 

Most of us think of state parks first as the place to polish those skills. With most state parks currently closed though we are exploring new areas and I hope you are too! During this time, the original mass migration to state parks is a testament to the power of these places. Hopefully in our new world they will get more of the budgets and staffing and resources that they need. Resources that have been aggressively and disproportionately slashed in recent years at state and federal levels. 

I hope though that during this time you are fortunate enough to find your wild.  I hope you will consider that the schooling your children need most might actually be re-wilding them, especially during this opportune time when we don't even have to compete with city playgrounds.  

Get out and explore, however, where ever you safely can. 

Check out the places nearest to you with new eyes. Whether it's a garden square, city green spaces, scenic trails, Bureau of Land Management, National Forests, National Sea or Lake shores, Conservation areas , National Wildlife Refuges, National Recreation Areas, Scenic Rivers, marshes, rails to trails, or a hidden local easements. This land is yours (and for a love letter reminding you why, read Mark Kenyon's That Wild Country).

Familiarity. Thinking Like a Mountain. This IS how we will save our spirits, and hopefully most of the other creatures that we ought to share more space with. 

Maybe you will even have a very lucky day. Maybe, like us, on the way you will see a pair of bald eagles out for a joy fly. Maybe you will see a doe and a buck step out from the bushes to watch unabashedly you, strange creature, in their habitat. Or bluebird seeking a nest, or an iridescent forest swallow. Or a first bloom... I don't know what you will see. But if you look, you will see something.

Meanwhile, up and down "for sale" signs are gobbling up stretches of shoreline. 

My daughter asks if we can take the rocks home. Everyone, it turns out, would like a little beach front property-- even if only a shovelful. We are, after all, not so different from birds. Like some myopic magpie, I too want all the shiny things. I want to hoard them for myself. I want to line my nest with all the objects of novelty. In this time especially, a new dominion seems a longed for, entitled even, distraction.  We are all loosing our minds. My artist friend has even started having crows appear in his black and white tangles-- Corvid, not COVID he says is the new mantra.

 I consider. I reach out. I re-organize. I fantasize about how I could display them and where I would put them. Soon though, the water dries. The coveted objects quickly lose their enticing sheen. So, for today, I settle for some pictures. 

Curbside Veggies. In Arkansas?!

This is not a post about frugal living. Nor is it about Oklahoma, although very close to us. This is about accidentally discovering a place that is a gem of a sustainable restaurant model where veggies are vogue. Last weekend we went to a family wedding in Fayetville, Arkansas. And thanks to Urban Spoon, I stumbled upon a little green restaurant called The Greenhouse Grille. The building was actually green and it was very near to the University on one of the busiest streets in town in one of the most modern and chic shopping centers in town. No wasted space here. Even their green islands in their parking lot were overflowing with edibles. (This is also an important type of space cities need to utilize as bioretention sites to prevent waste water runoff in parking lots)

Their front space was not adorned with purposeless plants like Asian bradford pears or azaleas but with strawberries bounding out to greet me, asparagus crowns towering up, fennel fanning out, parsley making a landing pad for sleepy butterflies, and Swiss chard sporting it's rainbow style. Their side space had more veggies and peas dutifully standing at attention and in the back they had several raised beds about fifteen by four inside of a mini hoop house. Let's go back to these gardens of yore because doing so would be really a victory. Wow! Talk about curb appeal, talk about fresh to my plate. This is the kind of thing I have read about at sites like Alice Waters Chez Panisse world famous restaurant and would encounter snippets of when I lived in Santa Barbara, but to see such a restaurant model in the mid-west in an area dominated by businesses making everything bigger and outsourced from as far as possible- one does clucks and one is the biggest retail world within our world-was refreshing.

Additionally Greenhouse Grille sources their meats, veggies, and grains from other local producers. Including the War Eagle Mill, which is an outstanding historical fieldtrip in itself. They also actively work to support local musicians and to abate local hunger in an area that is cursed with simultaneously being the richest and the poorest region in Arkansas. And what better way to abate hunger than to start from the ground up. And yet, many cities outlaw front yards that could contribute to the hunger solution or provide an ecological stopover for native birds and butterflies. Our cousins outside of Joplin told me that their mowing ordinance is to keep their grass at one inch or less- oy!

Does your city allow veggies to be front and center in urban landscapes, yards, and businesses? Do you and your city use your urban land to it's maximum potential, especially as one acre of viable farmland is lost every minute to urban sprawl in this country? What acts of gardening civil disobedience have you or your neighbors performed secretly or overtly? How do we tell our city commissioners and home owner's associations that we deserve the freshest food for our forks and spaces reclaimed from the tyranny of bermuda grass and japanese honeysuckle?

Tell them we need veggies front and center.

Garden Folk

 

A couple of Saturdays ago I got to be on the other side of the table at a Farmer's market event at the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Food Cooperative store. For the first time I was there as a vendor. Wow! What a beautiful day doing business the way it was done for many years at this location in it's prime. Getting to know these farmers and regular variety garden folk was really touching to me. Plants make people happy, pure and simple. And I got to give part of that happiness. I was there selling cards and garden seeds but I got to sit next to the plant people- those who know hospitality, heirlooms, and handshakes.

 

My newly found friends are amazing. My friend Dev Vallencourt and her husband Kip Francis at High Tides and Green Fields grows 147 different varieties of peppers. Pretty sure you will never see a tenth of that many varieties in any grocery store. She also was teaching me about some innovative (or perhaps wise, antiquated ways) she has begun to grow winter crops in hugelkultur method from Germany that creates so much heat by planting on top of old wood that she was able to grow crops all winter long, uncovered.

I met a young farmer, Samantha Lamb who was managing a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) endeavor on her grandparents homestead in the Medicine Park area. I met Michael Ruzycki who is farming and hosting a store in Choctaw, The Veggie Lounge who said he started because he was always amazed at how much leftovers his grandfather always had from his garden. Two other guys have started an event composting and zero waste company, Fertile Ground in Oklahoma City. Others, like Renrick farms are working diligently to provide more drought tolerant, native, and butterfly loving flowers. Double R farms  was there  selling pastured lamb and eggs and Barb was trying to figure out what growing things looks like in Oklahoma after living for years in Alaska. There was experience and there was youth, but above all there was energy. Urban Agrarian hosts an all local market five days a week and their staff was busily working indoors sorting crates of tomatoes and processing local foods from all over into a wide assortment of baked goods while the old dog swatted flies with his tail on the porch. While we sat in our store outdoors community organizers from a "Better Block" project had gathered and were literally painting the town- covering over years of neglect and breaking ground for new beginnings.  

And then there were the customers. The lady who got a "pet" fern. The radiant Reverand who had been healed from a stroke. Everybody who marveled over how strawberries grow. Those whose garden was an epic fail last year, but they were trying again because they were determined to get their eight year old to like vegetables. And then the lovliest of my day, a young girl who had just come from a workshop where she had made a planter box a few inches wide by about three inches deep. She was absolutely bursting to find a way to plant things. No one had showed her the dirt in her own yard. She was so enthusiastic she could have made seeds sprout just by sheer wish. "I just want to grow something I can eat she told me." So we made a deal and I sold her two packets of lettuce and peas... And, hopefully, a share of the garden.

The Book of Bob

My friend Bob Waldrop is equal parts John the Baptist and John Muir-he is a voice crying out in the wilderness. A voice for wilderness spaces and a voice against the wilderness of conglomerate agrobuisness. He is a burly guy with a bushy beard that hasn't been trimmed in decades and equally likely to say things like "ya all bon appetite ya hear" or to curse under his breath.

The Bob Waldrop

John Muir. Wilderness Warrior. Photo public domain. (Don't you think they could be related?)

When I first moved back to Oklahoma nearly ten years ago he was probably the first person and the most dedicated that I met towards the goals of living a sustainable lifestyle. If you drive by his house it is probably the first one on his street that has no grass in the front lawn (Hurray for the grassless lawn!) but is filled to the brim with edible plants including native elderberries long before front yard gardening was the in vogue thing to do. And I have been quietly watching and learning from him for quite a long time.

Bob is the one who is continually fighting for anti-mowing laws which unnecessarily prevent habitat from being made, wildflowers from being planted, or more native and drought tolerant grasses from being encouraged. While one might be inclined to write him off as an eccentric hippie, he is tremendously wise.

Founder of the, then very new Oklahoma Food Coop he has been a great voice for local farmers, producers, and artists. He understands community and he understands the need for each of us to reduce our global footprint, and for him it is very greatly relevant to his faith. A question I have been plagued with since college is, Why isn't sustainability at the forefront for ALL faith communities? And to those that have choosen to make this a front page issue in their church community, my hat to you. Bob was the first person to ever introduce me to the concept of permaculture. And it is just the kind of holistic thinking we need. To learn more about Bob's wise insights into our diminishing energy and water resources check out his blog, Bobaganda!

If you have never heard of permaculture (and don't be surprised if you haven't) it is a holistic way of thinking, designing, and integrating your environmental ideals across multiple areas of your life and your communities (physical places and personal connections). It is about gardening, energy use, homesteading, simplicity, and interconnectedness. It is about examining waste in every sense of the word. It is about making our yards and our households useful and achieving maximum potential. It is all about reducing our need for fossil fuels and stepping back a little from such a global economy.  You know the one that imports peanuts from Africa to make peanut butter in Minnesota to put labels on it in Canada before it is shipped to Arkansas to be distributed to my simple sandwich...

So I was happy, delighted, ecstatic to start working my way through Bob's new ebook ipermie. For $1.99 this 399,000 (very bite-size) work of words deal that you can not beat. It is a workbook, a guidebook, a focal point,  a series of reflections about what matters in your life and how you can make your space (no matter how small) livable and productive. But more so than many, this one give tools particularly to those who are nearly space-less, the student, the elderly, the apartment dweller. And it is about developing the infrastructures around us to support sustainable communities. It is about starting to change your life, one page at a time. Begin today.

Thank you Bob for being a mentor to so many and for being a strong voice for what is right, for justice for others and for our fellow creatures. I can not wait to see how my life will change as I continue to delve deeper into the permaculture world.

A Trip to the Urban Harvest Program on National Day of Service

Happy Martin Luther King day and Happy Inauguration day! (For a post I wrote paraphrasing MLK's I have a dream speech go here).

I thought President Obama's National Day of Service and continuing service projects are a really important potentially unifying step and wanted to be a part of it.

Official image from the inauguration weekend.

To be honest when I watched the first inauguration in 2008 I cried. It was beautiful and touching for many reasons. One thing I realized was just how much we are guilty of first thinking about people's differences rather than their humanity. After growing up in a very ethnically diverse area of California it is amazing how easy and trivial it is to pass judgements initially by physical appearances. Of differences related to political party, skin tones, sexual orientation, economic status, age, gender, etc. How myopic we are. And I was, and continue to be moved, by the President's ability to reach out his hand across the table and sincerely engage with all kinds of people, even when they respond with snarls and lies, and his desire to fight hard against injustices. I have to ask myself how often I am like that. And while race is only one part of his identity, I was struck down by just how much having an African American president made me look at people I passed on the street in a whole different light. Now when I pass a black youth on the street I say a prayer for him to hold his head high and I think, and want to shout to my children, and anyone else standing nearby, "Hey respect that guy- he could be President someday. As a mother, Mr. and Mrs. Obama remain the kind of people that I want my children to imitate.       

This is a blog about good and sustainable food, but one cannot talk about that without also talking about poverty. Abundance and poverty can be two sides of the very same coin. I commend Michelle Obama for her recognition of the food injustices occurring in this country and love her so much for making gardens a posh front yard staple.

For some astounding poverty statistics and connections to where you can donate your own excess garden produce check out Ample Harvest. Here in Oklahoma over 675,000 people may go hungry every night, some of these children. We have outrageous obesity rates, and a very high percentage of our schools qualify for free or reduced lunch, and for the Weekend Snack Backpack program from the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

Here in Oklahoma, if you do not know about the Regional Food Bank and the work that they do with their Urban Harvest program, I would definitely encourage you to consider taking a tour. Or even better, donate! If you want your donation to go to the garden- make sure to delineate Urban Harvest program!

When I moved back to Oklahoma eight years I got to visit and participate a few times then. The Urban Harvest Program is the most revolutionary, sustainable, and enabling part of the program. They compost, deliver and donate thousands of seeds and seedlings, teach gardening classes, and teach kids what fresh and healthy can taste like. It was these initial visits that made me decide that I wanted to do my grad school research about school gardens (it evolved from that to also include outdoor classrooms). But recently they have added some additional projects that I have wanted to see for some time. Finally I got to go and take the boys there again!

Compost tumbler

Inside their two large hoop houses (For the difference between a hoop house and a green house, and many other kinds of harvest extenders go here) they have undertaken three very cool projects. Two of which they may have been the first to do on any sort of commercial scale in Oklahoma.

Peas please!

First they have installed an aquaponics system that raises tilapia in large drums and then cycles their waste water as fertilizer for plants growing only in a water-based soilless medium. See below to see what beautiful swiss chard they are growing in January. Their tanks are holding about 200 fish each. Currently they sale their fish to some local restaurants . Some advantages of this kind of system are that 1) it makes a super efficient way to raise protein, 2)it isn't dependent on commercial fertilizers and pesticides,  3) it puts waste products into use on the spot, rather than either leaving them dormant, letting them leech into local water sources (a gargantuan global problem), or utilizing enormous amounts of energy to truck them off-site, and 4)It also doesn't deplete soil or make the need for it to be either trucked in or built over long periods of time.

Swiss chard growing in waters fertilized by Tilapia refuse

Checking out the tilapia

Second they have installed some strawberry stackers. These make it easier to 1)prevent some of the rust and fungal diseases so common in these plants, 2)utilize much less water, 3)keep them sheltered from some of the extreme Oklahoma temperature swings, which can be very difficult on perennial (those that come back year after year without being replanted) plants, and 4)make them less labor intensive for harvesting.

Oh, and they also make irresistible places to play hide and seek when you are three feet tall.

Thirdly they have installed worm (vermiculture) bins that are about three cubic feet on one whole side of one of their green houses. Our job for the morning was joining some lovely new friends to hand sort baby worms. This is like the Vera Wang of compost- enabling super nutrient rich worm teas and castings which they can also sell at premium prices. Elemental Coffee Roasting Company of Oklahoma City donates all of their old coffee grounds.

 

Out in the distance there is an apple orchard and berries, larger compost bins, and many more projects on the horizon. Especially if you believe a paraphrase of the Chinese adage: Give a man food and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to make his own food and he will eat for a lifetime.

Welcome 2013!: An Apology for All Things Me

Hello, in case you are just joining us and wondering whether or not I really am the kind of person who's blog you really want to subscribe to or follow on

[I am. And you do.], OR you have known me for years and have been privy to my unintentional sharp tongue and perpetual foot in mouth disease, I thought I would share with you my first revelation of 2013. In which, I crossed some lines in that Neverland called Facebook so you can see that 1)I am human and 2)I always have good intentions despite what comes out. [I am not telling you the horrid things I brought up, because horrible things shouldn't be repeated and what happens on Facebook stays on Facebook. Right?]

Dear Evan,
It's the first week of 2013 and guess who is already sporting apologies like a bad tattoo? Yours. Moi. Me. I know, you are surprised.

First in reviewing our first few months in Bloggerville, I realized that this Tree Hugger and her Hugger have been the least conspicuous parts of this blog. Well that will be remedied because, (despite what our kids may think), we are actually pretty cool. I look forward to sharing more of our witty banter and personal blows about the quest and implementation of this eco-living thing where like our friends you can love cream cheese (or whatever is the current disagreement of the day), just don't kiss me with it on your breath...

So, for the record, here was our epic exchange:

• Me: It's not so much that I like to argue with people "out there"for the sake of arguing or being right...
• You (Aghast) (Jerk!) No?!
• Me: I just like to enlarge perspectives [including mine] and think about who's being marginalized.
• You: Is that perspective different from theirs?
• Me: M-a-y-b-e.
• You: That's arguing.
• Me: Really? Oh, crap.

Right. 

XOXO
Hannah

Twinkie Apocolypse, and "I have a dream"

In case you missed it, this week a Twinkie apocolypse has been occurring all around us. Hostess Cupcakes has announced that they are shutting their doors and their oh so nutritive snacks like Twinkies, Ding-dongs, and Wonderbread that have been American staples since world war two are going the way of the Dodo. I can't say that I'm actually sad about this development.

Image from the public domain

Just look at the nutrition label and it quickly becomes a poster child for the worst in processed food.