Purple rain on Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Today the wind and a blossoming crabapple tree delivered a beautiful shower of petals that pooled in purple puddles on the lawn and garden. (OK, maybe the color purple is a stretch ... raspberry* maybe?)

No matter, I hope you find something in your backyard farm worth celebrating today. Further, I hope that in honor of the day you will commit to any change -- big or small -- to better care for this planet we all share.

My Earth Day pursuit this year is to minimize water waste in the kitchen.  I collect the water that normally goes down the drain when we rinse dish cloths or pour off cooking water by keeping a plastic dish pan in the bottom of the sink. This gets emptied into a gallon pitcher that I keep on the counter by the sink, then taken outside to water plants. Sometimes I even have the watering can right on the counter for this purpose. For the dishwasher, we scrape dishes into the garbage can instead of rinsing and spraying them off in the sink and having to run the disposal more frequently. The dishwasher works better when I turn on the sink to get the water hot first, so I collect this water so it also doesn't go to waste.

This is a little thing, in fact it feels like just a drop in the bucket of water conservation when I see neighborhood sprinklers water the sidewalks, but it's something I can do. How about you?

*Thanks, Prince, for the soundtrack of my youth.

Food Prices Rising

By Michael

Did you know that corn prices rose 52% last year alone? If you buy soda, you might have noticed that a 20 oz soda might cost 30% to 40% more than it did last year. Soybeans and wheat prices are extremely high as well. As food prices rise, our buying power for food goes down since the increased costs of food will be passed through to consumers for all food products we purchase. There are also currently food riots occurring around the world. One of our loyal readers Michael sent me this article that discuses these issues from MSNBC.com about the rising prices of food.

The intention of bringing this to your attention is not to preach doom and gloom or fear. My dad had the serenity prayer from alcoholics anonymous on the wall at his work as I grew up and I think there is wisdom in what it teaches.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I think a big key to peace and even happiness in this life is to worry about the things we can control, and not worry about those things we can't control. So what are we not able to control? We can't control the weather around the world, we can't control agribusiness's decisions on what they produce, and we can't control how much of the rising prices producers pass through to us.

So what can we control? Every one of us can take a larger role in our own food production and supply. Every one of us can improve this year over what we did last year. Start a garden or make it bigger. Plant a fruit tree or a raspberry bush. Get a couple of chickens so you have fresh eggs. Find a local public garden. Grow container plants on your balcony. Ask a local farmer if you can buy a share in a cow or pig for it's meat. Join a CSA.

There is peace and comfort in taking control of the things that we can. Leave a comment detailing what you are going to do to have more control this year over your own food supply.