Georgia Sheep

It's all well and good for a blog to be a kind of repository for major MEDIA stories touching on important environmental and agricultural matters. It's important even, when the nonstop cycle of news threatens to crush your attention span like a juggernaut. Doting is necessary. Forming a narrative and a sense of concentrated consciousness is indispensable.

But it's also easy. I don't like the idea of this blog as nothing more than a link parade to the Washington Post. My Protestant blood accuses me of laziness, while my political bones grind with impatience. What profit is another window to the calamitous world? I'm tired of pointing and drooling and sometimes shaking my fist at the thunderheads.

If there's no comfort in worry and outrage, there must be in alternative. I can echo complaints of the situation at hand, or I can work to achieve preferable agricultural, environmental, and economic systems within my small sphere of influence.

Think globally, act locally. I despise bumper commandments, but few of us can live in Eden. The rest must grow it around ourselves. My Eden begins today with sheep:

I learned about Shady Brook Sheep Farm after reading about farmer Jennif Chandler's possible deal with Athens-Clarke County for her sheep to eat the kudzu, privet and honeysuckle invading local parks. Then some friends from Flagpole shoveled home a truckload of manure for their winter gardens. I hope to have an interview with Jennif soon. Until then, check out her Web site and buy some lamb.

(And don't forget about the Georgia Sheep and Wool Growers' Association.)

Election Fever, Sorry Y'all

(Thanks, Vim)

Catfish Wars Update

It's not just about high feed and fuel prices. The New York Times Magazine has an article about American catfish farmers' secret weapon against Asian impostors and the international free market: Branding. Good bye catfish! Hello Delacata!


By the way, that's a picture of a Northwest Arkansas catfish. He's a big boy--so big that he and his cronies ate some of the ducklings on the pond. The long, thick fillets were delicious, but they tasted nothing like duckling.

Check out more from New York Times Magazine, including Michael Pollan's letter to the next President.

Look Out, Wild Horses, Rare Sea Turtles

Here comes the internal combustion engine. Cumberland Island, "a federally protected wilderness off the Georgia coast that’s larger than Manhattan," will soon be hosting bus tours:

For more than 25 years, government rules have required most of the 43,500 visitors who come each year to explore the island on foot. But under a mandate from Congress, the Park Service plans to change that early next year by offering daily motorized tours in spite of the tough terrain and cries of protest from environmentalists.

....

Park Service ranger Pauline Wentworth says she often hears visitors, particularly seniors, say they wish they could take a bus or van tour.

Most, she says, have a particular destination in mind: “They want to see the church where JFK Jr. got married.”

....

Congress intervened in 2004 with a law removing the Main Road and two others from the wilderness designation that protects the surrounding forest. The same law ordered the Park Service to provide daily tours. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican, got the measure passed as part of a larger spending bill.

“The way it was, only an 18-year-old backpacker could walk the 13 miles up the trail to see some of these historical sites,” Kingston said. “This island is not paid for by some of the taxpayers for some of the people. I don’t think John Q. Taxpayer should have to walk 13 miles to see Plum Orchard.”

Ugh. I realize that the island isn't free of human influence: A few homes and a B&B speckle the landscape. But there's no reason to disrupt or change the current state of affairs. It seems the future of Cumberland Island, like most wilderness areas, depends upon its inaccessibility. The more people come, the more people find interest in the island (damn you, JFK Jr., and execrable pop insignificance), the more the essence of the island will be jeopardized. I guess that means I shouldn't add to its publicity.

Let's all recite together our Gerard Manley Hopkins:

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Urban Garden Deluxe

Will Allen, urban farmer and recipient of a 2008 MacArthur Fellow Award:



I found the video on TheWhoFarm's Web site (HT: Ben). "TheWhoFarm (aka The White House Organic Farm Project) is a non-partisan, petition-based initiative to respectfully request that our 44th President oversee the planting of an organic farm on the grounds of The White House, our nation’s First Home, at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC." I've pasted their plan below. Visit their site and sign the petition.

The White House Organic Farm Recipe

Article I: The Farmers
Public school children and Americans with disabilities will work The White House Organic Farm, to set an example for the world of hands-on learning and will foster an independent, do-it-yourself work ethic.

Article II: The Eaters
The White House Organic Farm's harvest will provide fresh food for the President, the President's family, and the President's distinguished guests. Just as importantly, it will also supply healthy food to public school lunch programs and food pantries in Washington, DC.

Article III: The Delivery
Food from The White House Organic Farm will be delivered to local public schools and food pantries by volunteers on foot and by bicycle, at a net-zero cost to U.S. taxpayers.

Article IV: The Seeds
The White House organic farmers will plant a diverse mix of heirloom seeds passed down from Thomas Jefferson's farm at Monticello and seeds donated by American farmers and gardeners, to celebrate both the rich agricultural traditions of the Office of the President and the passions of everyday Americans for working her fertile and bountiful land.

Article V: The Soil
The White House Organic Farm will use healthy topsoil, nourished by compost supplements from yard and food waste from all three branches of the federal government; from The White House, from The United States Capitol, and from The United States Supreme Court.