I had never gone to a farmers' fair until my mid-20s, and even then I only attended the first time out of sheer boredom. I was writing my dissertation and would do nearly anything to avoid all those blank pages that I needed to fill with Gertrude Stein's reception history. I'd polish my shoes, rearrange my records in alphabetical order, reorder my bookshelves by subject, clean the house, wash my car, anything to avoid sitting in front of my word processor and do the work at hand. That ultimately involved deciding to go to the Albermarle County Farmers' Fair one night, and I've never looked back.
I'm just glad that we still have enough farms to fill a farmers' fair, that 4-H Clubs still exist. This wasn't surprising in Central Virginia in the late '80s, but in suburban Pennsylvania in 2009 it feels like the simple existence of cucumber-growing must be celebrated. What makes a farmers' fair is not the carnival rides, nor the funnel cake, nor the rigged games of chance. What makes such a fair is the agricultural tents, the rows and rows of testimony to our agricultural heritage and the proof that we may yet have an agricultural future.
What can top the sight of a blue-ribbon zucchini, looking just like any other zucchini but for some reason crowned for some sort of waxy excellence? That can only be topped by a tent full of baby goats, goats of every variety running up to be petted, or a tent full of piglets squealing. Is anything more interesting than a display of winning ears of corn, each looking just like an ear of corn, its excellence a secret knowledge, or at least secret to someone who has always just grabbed corn, paid for it, and eaten it? Farmers' fairs are full of such secrets: what makes a great carrot, why one chicken is better than another. And they celebrate kids who grow these carrots well, kids who know how to raise a chicken. Our schools don't do that. Our culture doesn't do that. Our economy doesn't do that. Thank god for 4-H.
It's also not every day that you can watch a tractor pull. Or a 16 year-old from the middle of nowhere crowned Corn Queen. It's not every day that you can wander into a place where people still enter tractor pulls or fair queen contests. It's not every day that you can find a place where pie baking is a death match. Or where men in suspenders recline against picnic tables, listening to a weird but pleasant hybrid of country and polka. It's not every day that you are offered a glimpse of our vanishing rural culture, so for that one week a year when that glimpse is offered it's best to take it before it's too late.
The arrival of the cicadas signifies the slowing down of summer, the beginnings of the harvest, and the opening of county fairs everywhere. Locally, the Plainfield Farmer's Fair runs this week; the Warren County Fair begins next week. Even if you don't live in eastern PA, there's surely some sort of farmers' fair near you; support them while you can.
Showing posts with label going green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label going green. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Earth Day Afternoon
Got any big Earth Day plans? Probably not. The first Earth Day, in 1970, was more of a nationwide protest than holiday, with 20 million participants nationwide. In New York, Fifth Avenue was closed to traffic and people picnicked on the sidewalks. Dead fish were dragged through midtown. Demonstrators in DC poured oil in front of the Interior Department to protest oil spills. College students in every state skipped classes to plant trees.
The first Earth Day didn't pass unnoticed by American's conservatives. April 22, 1970 was the centennial of Lenin's birth, a fact made much of by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who claimed the day was some kind of communist plot against America. J. Edgar Hoover also had an interest in Earth Day, placing its organizers on his watch list and sending undercover agents to infiltrate campus activities. Richard Nixon had no comment on the day itself, but three months later he created the EPA and five months after that signed the Clean Air Act. It's been pretty much downhill since then in terms of concrete results, although Earth Day 1990 did spike interest in recycling.
At age 39, Earth Day is in that awkward stage between simple adulthood and early middle age. Today, no oil will be spilled, no dead fish thrown, no classrooms emptied of students. Instead, solitary bloggers will post truncated histories serving as a reminder that the earth still needs tending, perhaps more than ever.
The first Earth Day didn't pass unnoticed by American's conservatives. April 22, 1970 was the centennial of Lenin's birth, a fact made much of by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who claimed the day was some kind of communist plot against America. J. Edgar Hoover also had an interest in Earth Day, placing its organizers on his watch list and sending undercover agents to infiltrate campus activities. Richard Nixon had no comment on the day itself, but three months later he created the EPA and five months after that signed the Clean Air Act. It's been pretty much downhill since then in terms of concrete results, although Earth Day 1990 did spike interest in recycling.
At age 39, Earth Day is in that awkward stage between simple adulthood and early middle age. Today, no oil will be spilled, no dead fish thrown, no classrooms emptied of students. Instead, solitary bloggers will post truncated histories serving as a reminder that the earth still needs tending, perhaps more than ever.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Free the Weeds
I've spent a decent number of hours and a decent number of dollars over the past two weeks to do a spring clean-up in my yard. The fact that I dedicated days to leaf blowing and raking just four months ago seems to have mattered little. I have a partially wooded lot, full of older and not necessarily healthy trees, and winter's after-effects include a yard full of downed branches, sticks, pine needles, and leaves blown over from the neighbor's.
I know some people either like or take satisfaction from yard work, but I'm not one of those people. It feels to me that I'm fighting repeated battles with nature, and nature always wins. Pull a weed and two replace it, cut the grass and it just grows back, trim the hedges and they climb twice as high. Why do we bother?
Until around a hundred years ago, Americans didn't have lawns. Their yards were comprised of dirt and utilitarian vegetable gardens. Until the invention of the lawn mower the only way to trim a lawn was either by scythe or by letting sheep or cattle graze, so it really wasn't worth the bother to plant grass. Our native grasses aren't lawn grass, so until the invention of hybrid grass that could withstand our climate without too much watering, lawns were pretty much the province of the wealthy who could afford the paid labor needed to trim and water grass.
What made people bother? Why replace carefree dirt and healthful gardens with high-maintenance grass? To some degree we have the American Garden Club to thank. During the 1920s these grass enthusiasts waged an aggressive PR campaign promoting the beauty and benefits of the lawn. By then, the middle-class could afford a rotary lawn mower and to buy produce rather than grow it, so the notion of a lawn for every house took hold. To a large degree we also have the American hatred of the weed to thank. One thing manicured grass can do is take up all the space, light, and nutrients available and starve away weeds.
In order to make life easier, or at least to make my life easier, all that would need to happen is that every invasive plant species currently categorized as a weed be recategorized as a thing of beauteous splendor. A cultural appreciation of dandelion, crabgrass, goldenrod, sumac, and every other thing that wants to take over my property would allow me to give my property back to the forces of nature. Nature doesn't want me to have a yard. It wants me to have a clearing filled with sticks and leaves and "weeds." I'm tired of fighting it.
I know some people either like or take satisfaction from yard work, but I'm not one of those people. It feels to me that I'm fighting repeated battles with nature, and nature always wins. Pull a weed and two replace it, cut the grass and it just grows back, trim the hedges and they climb twice as high. Why do we bother?
Until around a hundred years ago, Americans didn't have lawns. Their yards were comprised of dirt and utilitarian vegetable gardens. Until the invention of the lawn mower the only way to trim a lawn was either by scythe or by letting sheep or cattle graze, so it really wasn't worth the bother to plant grass. Our native grasses aren't lawn grass, so until the invention of hybrid grass that could withstand our climate without too much watering, lawns were pretty much the province of the wealthy who could afford the paid labor needed to trim and water grass.
What made people bother? Why replace carefree dirt and healthful gardens with high-maintenance grass? To some degree we have the American Garden Club to thank. During the 1920s these grass enthusiasts waged an aggressive PR campaign promoting the beauty and benefits of the lawn. By then, the middle-class could afford a rotary lawn mower and to buy produce rather than grow it, so the notion of a lawn for every house took hold. To a large degree we also have the American hatred of the weed to thank. One thing manicured grass can do is take up all the space, light, and nutrients available and starve away weeds.
In order to make life easier, or at least to make my life easier, all that would need to happen is that every invasive plant species currently categorized as a weed be recategorized as a thing of beauteous splendor. A cultural appreciation of dandelion, crabgrass, goldenrod, sumac, and every other thing that wants to take over my property would allow me to give my property back to the forces of nature. Nature doesn't want me to have a yard. It wants me to have a clearing filled with sticks and leaves and "weeds." I'm tired of fighting it.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
At the Intersection
In front of me, a Subaru plastered with bumper stickers: Grow Local, Eat Local; Go Green; Organic Food is Good Food; No Farms No Food; I'm a Locavore. I continued straight through the intersection to meet my friend. The Subaru made a left turn, into the Wendy's drive-thru.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Scoot On
An article in last week's Times indicated that scooter sales are up something like 45% this year. It's about time. I've been a scooter fan for 20 years; my first was a 1986 Honda Spree. That was back in the two-stroke days, when I'd have to feed it both oil and gas. For the past six years I've been scooting around town on a Honda Metropolitan, a bike I highly recommend: it's a regular four-stoke engine, gets around 90 miles a gallon, and is styled to look like a Vespa while costing 1/3 the price to purchase and maintain.
Mine is the smallest scooter available, so my top speed is 40 mph downhill. Even though I can't take it on the highway, the scooter has a number of advantages beyond fuel economy. For now, few enough people have scooters that it's a novelty. Strangers honk, wave, and ask to sit on it wherever I go. The higher fuel prices go, the more popular I am on my scooter. Parking is also incredibly easy. The police in my small city haven't figured out that it's illegal to park on the sidewalk, so parking is particularly easy here, but it's been no problem wherever I've lived. It can fit next to a bike rack, or between street spaces, or between other parked cars. Next to a Smart Car it's probably the best in-town transportation in terms of ease of parking.
I'm off in a few minutes to get the scooter inspected. In PA all pedal-less bikes must be licensed and inspected. This costs approximately $40 a year; my insurance runs me $50 a year. Add in a quart of oil, and you're looking at $100 a year to keep it running. I bought the bike in June, 2002 and thus far have had no other maintenance on it, although at some point I'll need a new battery, tires, brakes, etc. Because I don't use it in the winter I only put around 400 miles a year on it, though, so tires and brakes feel a long way off. In short, a scooter is incredibly economical.
Really, who doesn't want to feel popular, ride a cute vehicle, save money, and reduce carbon emissions, all at once? The rest of the world has known the advantages of scooters for years. Do yourself a favor - find out for yourself.
Mine is the smallest scooter available, so my top speed is 40 mph downhill. Even though I can't take it on the highway, the scooter has a number of advantages beyond fuel economy. For now, few enough people have scooters that it's a novelty. Strangers honk, wave, and ask to sit on it wherever I go. The higher fuel prices go, the more popular I am on my scooter. Parking is also incredibly easy. The police in my small city haven't figured out that it's illegal to park on the sidewalk, so parking is particularly easy here, but it's been no problem wherever I've lived. It can fit next to a bike rack, or between street spaces, or between other parked cars. Next to a Smart Car it's probably the best in-town transportation in terms of ease of parking.
I'm off in a few minutes to get the scooter inspected. In PA all pedal-less bikes must be licensed and inspected. This costs approximately $40 a year; my insurance runs me $50 a year. Add in a quart of oil, and you're looking at $100 a year to keep it running. I bought the bike in June, 2002 and thus far have had no other maintenance on it, although at some point I'll need a new battery, tires, brakes, etc. Because I don't use it in the winter I only put around 400 miles a year on it, though, so tires and brakes feel a long way off. In short, a scooter is incredibly economical.
Really, who doesn't want to feel popular, ride a cute vehicle, save money, and reduce carbon emissions, all at once? The rest of the world has known the advantages of scooters for years. Do yourself a favor - find out for yourself.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Unlearn It, Live It, Love It
One's cultural and societal norms are learned in a process that begins at birth. We learn acceptable behaviors, beliefs, values, and desires, and what we have learned becomes so ingrained in us it feels like part of our nature, if not like our nature itself. Sometimes we're put in situations where we must unlearn in order to survive. When we go to war, for example, we have to unlearn the fact that we have been taught not to kill, and unlearn the fact that we have been taught to let the government or a higher authority settle disputes rather than to seek vengeance. The soldiers who return from battle psychically wounded are undoubtedly those who haven't been able to unlearn well enough.
Revolution is hard to achieve because it involves an entire culture unlearning some or all of its own norms and learning new ones at the same time. This isn't only true in politics; the "modernist revolution" in poetry involved unlearning centuries of agreed-upon ideas about representation and verse, and substituting those ideas with another, differing, value system.
The aftereffects of a generation's unlearning have defined my life. The first wave of feminists unlearned strictures of female sexuality and of women's place in the workforce, allowing me to choose any career I'd like and to cohabitate with whomever I like without regard to marriage or children. Early civil rights activists helped many unlearn patterns of segregation. Elvis helped the music industry unlearn its aversion to "black" music. Gay rights activists, by themselves unlearning conventional desire, helped unconventional desire to enter the mainstream. It's obviously a lot easier to stick with what's been learned, which is why such revolutions in thought or behavior are remarkable.
Today's primary has eclipsed the fact that it's also Earth Day. It occurs to me that the protection of our planet is one of those instances where we must unlearn in order to survive, and that the same goes for received ideas about politics. We can't go on as we've been if we want to keep going on. So unlearn something today, no matter how small. I'm off to do just that right now.
Revolution is hard to achieve because it involves an entire culture unlearning some or all of its own norms and learning new ones at the same time. This isn't only true in politics; the "modernist revolution" in poetry involved unlearning centuries of agreed-upon ideas about representation and verse, and substituting those ideas with another, differing, value system.
The aftereffects of a generation's unlearning have defined my life. The first wave of feminists unlearned strictures of female sexuality and of women's place in the workforce, allowing me to choose any career I'd like and to cohabitate with whomever I like without regard to marriage or children. Early civil rights activists helped many unlearn patterns of segregation. Elvis helped the music industry unlearn its aversion to "black" music. Gay rights activists, by themselves unlearning conventional desire, helped unconventional desire to enter the mainstream. It's obviously a lot easier to stick with what's been learned, which is why such revolutions in thought or behavior are remarkable.
Today's primary has eclipsed the fact that it's also Earth Day. It occurs to me that the protection of our planet is one of those instances where we must unlearn in order to survive, and that the same goes for received ideas about politics. We can't go on as we've been if we want to keep going on. So unlearn something today, no matter how small. I'm off to do just that right now.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
How Big's Your Foot?
Become a locavore. Put a carbon rating on food labels. Sell carbon emissions futures. These are some of the solutions to our ever-increasing carbon footprint discussed by Michael Specter in an article in this week's New Yorker. However, as Specter points out, the more feel-good a solution might be, the less quantifiable it probably is.
Let's start with consuming only food grown locally, or only food grown or produced within a certain radius of your home. This sounds incredibly good - no bananas flown up from South America, no beef from New Zealand, no green beans from Africa. It sounds so good I've spent the past year going more and more local myself. As it turns out, even when factoring in the environmental impact of shipping goods by air, local foods might have the greater carbon footprint.
Factors other than air shipping that need to be considered include water use, type of fertilizer, harvesting methods, packaging, growing seasons, land use, and storage and transportation method. Something boat shipped, for example, uses far less fossil fuel than a product produced domestically but shipped by refrigerated truck. And New Zealand has more sunny days than the United States, and more renewable sources for electricity, making the New Zealand beef a viable option against beef from cattle raised here in the Northeast.
In the UK, Tesco supermarkets are attempting to have all of their products come with a "carbon label" letting consumers know the environmental impact of their choices. Walkers crisps was the first product on the shelves to carry this label. How do you figure out the carbon dioxide emissions associated with potato chips? According to Specter, the company had to take into account the energy required to plant seeds for the ingredients and make the fertilizers and pesticides needed for growing; the energy required to harvest the potatoes (diesel tractors); the carbon effects of cleaning, chopping, storing, and bagging the potatoes; the energy needed for the production and printing of the chip bags; the petroleum needed to deliver the chips to stores; and finally the impact of disposing of the packaging once the chips have been consumed. In other words, a carbon footprint is never an easy calculation, and the results might not be as expected.
On Friday I told everyone to go out and buy a print publication, so let's think about publishing in print versus publishing online. You'd think online would easily leave the smaller footprint, since print involves growing and harvesting trees, manufacturing ink, content production, the printing process, distribution by truck, and finally recycling of the printed product after consumption. On the other hand, each of us right now is on a computer that is not easily recyclable, looking at a monitor that contains arsenic and mercury, running on electricity. This blog is stored on the equivalent of a monster computer somewhere, in a climate-controlled room. You are accessing the blog utilizing not only electrical power but also phone or cable lines which had to be manufactured and installed and which also need to be powered. There's this to consider as well: the print publication has centralized distribution, and can be shared among readers. In the next issue of my magazine (printed on recycled paper), content by six contributors will be consumed by 25,000 readers, with a press run of only half that. Each of you is reading this blog individually, so to really think about this we'd need to take into account each and every factor and look at energy required not only to produce each post but for each of you to read it. It's not at all as simple as it would at first appear.
Specter's article does make clear one easy way for us to reduce our carbon footprint: stop deforestation. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, maintain our ecosystem, absorb groundwater, cool the planet. It might be more important to plant a tree than to drive to the farmers' market for some local winter potatoes.
Let's start with consuming only food grown locally, or only food grown or produced within a certain radius of your home. This sounds incredibly good - no bananas flown up from South America, no beef from New Zealand, no green beans from Africa. It sounds so good I've spent the past year going more and more local myself. As it turns out, even when factoring in the environmental impact of shipping goods by air, local foods might have the greater carbon footprint.
Factors other than air shipping that need to be considered include water use, type of fertilizer, harvesting methods, packaging, growing seasons, land use, and storage and transportation method. Something boat shipped, for example, uses far less fossil fuel than a product produced domestically but shipped by refrigerated truck. And New Zealand has more sunny days than the United States, and more renewable sources for electricity, making the New Zealand beef a viable option against beef from cattle raised here in the Northeast.
In the UK, Tesco supermarkets are attempting to have all of their products come with a "carbon label" letting consumers know the environmental impact of their choices. Walkers crisps was the first product on the shelves to carry this label. How do you figure out the carbon dioxide emissions associated with potato chips? According to Specter, the company had to take into account the energy required to plant seeds for the ingredients and make the fertilizers and pesticides needed for growing; the energy required to harvest the potatoes (diesel tractors); the carbon effects of cleaning, chopping, storing, and bagging the potatoes; the energy needed for the production and printing of the chip bags; the petroleum needed to deliver the chips to stores; and finally the impact of disposing of the packaging once the chips have been consumed. In other words, a carbon footprint is never an easy calculation, and the results might not be as expected.
On Friday I told everyone to go out and buy a print publication, so let's think about publishing in print versus publishing online. You'd think online would easily leave the smaller footprint, since print involves growing and harvesting trees, manufacturing ink, content production, the printing process, distribution by truck, and finally recycling of the printed product after consumption. On the other hand, each of us right now is on a computer that is not easily recyclable, looking at a monitor that contains arsenic and mercury, running on electricity. This blog is stored on the equivalent of a monster computer somewhere, in a climate-controlled room. You are accessing the blog utilizing not only electrical power but also phone or cable lines which had to be manufactured and installed and which also need to be powered. There's this to consider as well: the print publication has centralized distribution, and can be shared among readers. In the next issue of my magazine (printed on recycled paper), content by six contributors will be consumed by 25,000 readers, with a press run of only half that. Each of you is reading this blog individually, so to really think about this we'd need to take into account each and every factor and look at energy required not only to produce each post but for each of you to read it. It's not at all as simple as it would at first appear.
Specter's article does make clear one easy way for us to reduce our carbon footprint: stop deforestation. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, maintain our ecosystem, absorb groundwater, cool the planet. It might be more important to plant a tree than to drive to the farmers' market for some local winter potatoes.
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