Transition Newsletter Aug 2011

8/4/2019 Transition Newsletter Aug 2011

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Government RegsMean Fewer EggsJane Bollinger

Wondering where all the local eggssold at farmers markets thisseason have gone? Fewer farmers will be

selling eggs at market this summer thanks

to Act 106, the states new Food Safety

Law that passed in Harrisburg last fall and

went into effect in January.

Act 106 states that the retail sale of eggsat a farmers market is by law a Retail Food

Facility and must be licensed. Previously,

direct-sale egg farmers did not need this

license or have to pay the $82 annual fee

the license entails to sell their eggs. Thats

a lot of eggs to sell just to be in business.

Prior to January, eggs were treated as a

raw agricultural product just like fruits

and vegetables which do not require

licensing (and for now, are still exempt).

The change has rufed the feathers of

farmers and market vendors because the

new law lumps small egg producers into thesame regulatory and licensing category as

grocery stores, mini-marts, restaurants,

caterers, bakeries, concessionaires, and

other retail food facilities. The licensing

process requires (in addition to paperwork)

an on-farm inspection by a PA Department

of Agriculture food safety inspector, lab

fees for a water test (because eggs must be

washed before sale to the public under PA

law) and the $82 annual license fee. Want

to sell at two markets to try to recoup your

costs in egg sales? Thatll be another $82

license. The obvious question is: does thatmake them doubly safer?

[ ...continued page 2 ]

The Homestead FlockAmanda Avery & Billy Templeton

L ike any new parents, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Standing inthe post ofce, the incessant, rantic peeping coming rom the box, which seemedway too small to contain 50 baby chicks, suggested that our ree-wheeling, home-ater-dusk

days were over. Like many beginning

neo-homesteaders these days,

we began our oray into livestock

husbandry with that seemingly ool-

proo barnyard staple: Gallus gallus

domesticusor the chicken.

Ater a ew minor tragedies that

we now consider inevitable rites

o passage or chicken-keepers,

including the sad, but oten

correctable splay-leg chick, the

totally preventable suocation

by pile-up, the unortunate neighborhood dog pullet chow-down, and one horriying

nocturnal marmot rampage, were now solidly in a more confdent and comortable stage o

poultry parenting, but it didnt come easy. This is not to say that chickens arent wonderul

beginners birdsthey are. [ ...continued page 3 ]

July/August 2011 A Bimonthly Report on Our Regions Progress Toward Resilience & Sustainabilit

Let us introduce ourselves:We are Transition Honesdale

We invite you to join us as we look into the uture and envision what our town andthe surrounding Wayne County area might be like twenty years rom now. Weinvite you to join the conversation about the kind o local community we want to create and

then to work together as riends and neighbors to achieve the best local community we can,

even as the world around us experiences big, challenging changes in the decades ahead.

The Transition movement, which began in 2006 in a couple o small towns in England

and Ireland, is now a worldwide, grass roots phenomenon with nearly 300 Transition

Towns around the world, including nearly 90 Transition communities in the United States.

Transition Honesdale is one o these Transition Towns.

Transition is a movement o citizens seeking to shape their own good uture in which

individuals will need to be more sel-reliant and communities will need to be more resilient

to weather challenges, over which we have little control.

In the coming years, our community will experience the eects o declining worldwide

oil resources. This is oten called peak oil, meaning that the world will reach peak

production o this fnite natural resource, and what oil is let in the ground will become

increasingly more expensive to extract. [ ...continued page 6 ]

Sign up forour electronicnewsletter at:www.transitionhonesdale.org

On Track


2/12

2| On Track July/August 2011 Transition Honesdale

Michael PollansIn Defense of Food:An Eaters ManifestoPublished by Penguin Press, 2008, and Penguin Books, 2009

Review by Jane Bollinger

Heres an idea to chew oneat more oods that have just

ONE ingredient. I this simple, yet proound bit o advice

intrigues you, then read Michael Pollans book,In Defense of Food.

Pollan spells out what youre really eating when you consume the

highly-processed oods that are pervasive in the American diet.

Instead o eating a variety o vegetables, he says we eat ar too much

o the top three crops our armers raise: corn, soybeans, and wheat.

He makes no secret o his opinion o these end-products, reerring

to ake ood, novel products o ood science, and edible ood-like

substances to describe many o the ingredients in the manuactured

ood products we eat.

Whats wrong with processed oods? Pollan explainshow processing oods typically robs them o their

nutrients. Manuacturers have to then re-insert

nutritional additives but alsohip to our inborn

taste preerences or sweet, salty and at-- add other

sugar, salt and oils, as well as ake sweeteners

and chemical avorings to ool our senses and

encourage eating more.

I dont eat that stu, you say? Think again. You

may not think you eat a lot o corn and soybeans, but

you do, Pollan reveals, pointing to the statistics.

Seventy-fve percent o the vegetable oils in your

diet come rom soy (representing 20 percent o your

daily calories) and more than hal the sweeteners you

consume come rom corn (representing around 10 percent o daily

calories). Factory arms produce so much o these government-

subsidized commodities that it makes them cheap or ood

manuacturers to use and to sell to us in relatively low-cost ood

products.

Consider the case o white our, which Mr. Pollan calls nutritionally

worthless. When white our was frst created, people got sick rom

pellagra and beriberi due to defciency in B vitamins. Adding

nutritional supplements, he says, may not solve all the problems

caused by refning grain. A diet high in refned carbohydrates is

implicated in diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers, whereas

eating whole grains reduces risks or these diseases.

Today, Mr. Pollan reports, corn contributes 554 calories a day

to Americas per capita ood supply and soy another 257. Add

wheat (768 calories) and rice (91) and you see there isnt a whole

lot o room let in the American stomach or any other oods. Today

these our crops account or two thirds o the calories we eat.

In Mr. Pollans indictment o Big Foodas some people call the

mass-market ood industrytheres plenty o blame to go around.

In this book, he takes on ood scientists or studying nutrients

as chemical compounds only, ignoring the subtle interactions

and contexts [o a diet o whole oods] that may be more than the

sum o its dierent parts. He tackles nutrition scientists, ood

marketers, journalists and the government or telling us what to

eat by talking about single nutrients instead o whole ood. Take

the examples o three recent trends to eat Omega-3, anti-oxidants,

and probiotics.

What is the consequence o eating so much processed ood? Mr.

Pollan examines the dismal statistics about Americans health.

Four o our top ten chronic diseases are linked to diet: heart

disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.

Two-thirds o Americans are overweight or obese.Fity-our-million have pre-diabetes. Twenty

million have Type 2 diabetes, now up to 7.7 percent

o the population rom 4 percent in 1990.

One quarter o us have metabolic syndrome, which

is caused by consuming large amounts o refned

carbohydrates combined with a sedentary liestyle;

this combination intereres with how the insulin

hormone regulates metabolism o carbs and ats in

the body.

Along with criticism, Pollan also oers some

solutionshence maniesto. First, he asks us to

think dierently about ood and health. He calls

on us to see ood more as a relationship than as a vehicle or

nutrients. He asks us to revive healthy ood traditions (oten rom

other cultures), to change our eating habits, and to use common

sense.

Finally, Mr. Pollan also is an advocate o eating locally. He contends

that the mass market ood industry breaks the links to real ood,

and that each o us needs to create a liestyle that values local ood

grown in local soil by local people. His message is, The more

eaters vote with their orks or a dierent kind o ood, the more

commonplace and accessible such [real] ood will become.

[ ...continued from page 1 left ] Eggs have always garnered

a slim proft margin (traditionally a loss leader), helping armers

round out their oerings. Now some armers say it no longer

makes sense or them to sell eggs. Others reuse to sell them out

o principle and reject a regulatory process meant or the retail

industry. Act 106 represents the latest governmental intererence

in their ability to make a living as a small-scale armer with the

underlying message get big or get out or the little egg producer.

Upset that Act 106 has dried up your source o resh eggs? Send

comments requesting changes to the law to your local legislator in

Harrisburg or send comments about the enorcement o the law to

Secretary o Agriculture George Greig, Pennsylvania Department

o Agriculture, 2301 North Cameron St., Harrisburg, PA 17110.


3/12

On Track July/August 2011 Transition Honesdale |3

[ ...continued from page 1 top ] There are many things

to consider when starting your own homestead ock. Like many

people today, i you didnt grow up with your Sunday dinner

clucking around the back door or have a Grandmother who

could whack, pluck, and cook a bird aster than you could stop

at the store or a Tyson rotisserie dinner, it is easy to become

overwhelmed with the details. Today, since chicken-keeping has

become not just a good idea, but ashionable, there are copious

books and websites to assuage your newbie rets and hand-

wringing. But that is not what this is about. This is about the

nuances that only come rom learning the very best way there is:

the newbie hard way. Let us put it nicely and call them Chicken

Quirks. (To be clear: I love my chickens.)

The frst thing to understand is that chicken habits can oten be

both a tremendous beneft as well as an inuriating liability. For

instance, a ew hens scratching and ufng around will pretty up

a suburban yard with minimal damage to landscaping; more than

a handul will totally decimate your marigold bed, your mulched

shrubs, your kids sandbox, and or absolute certaintyany type

o vegetable garden you dare tempt them with. Simply put, a ully-

realized chicken will scratch. They will eat ticks, but they will

gladly de-root/de-oliage to do so. Free-range is great, but be

sure to ence them out o areas youd like to keep intact.

Chickens are both equally endearing and horriying in turns. We

have roosters who will cover hens with their wings on cold nights

while their combs shrivel rom rostbite and a ew riendly girls

who will come loping over or treats. We have motherly brood hens

that deend their eggs with Raptor squawks and beak stabs that

require gloves. On the other hand, hens (and chicks!) will peck an

injured comrade to death should a tempting esh wound appear,

or the temperature in their quarters becomes too hot/crowded/

boring, or they just eel like it. While a hierarchical pecking-order

is natural, keep a careul watch out or bullies. These need to

become chicken soup pronto, unless you like coming home rom

work to scenes o cannibalized carnage.

While it is true that chickens are technically susceptible to a host

o gruesome deaths, they are not ragile hothouse owers. The key

is to meet your chickens ood, shelter and behavioral needs as

efciently, cheaply, yet healthily as possible. This means being

astidious about a ew simple things: clean water, requent moves

to resh ground, and predator proo but NOT airtight shelter. We

have had chickens recover rom extremely splayed legs due to

nutrient defciencies, mink bites to the neck, and run-o-the-

mill snies. We have also lost some to the same. In our opinion,

there are ew chicken emergencies (apart rom disease outbreaks)

that require calling a veterinarian. Once mature, chickens are

remarkably resilient.

Lastly, every day as you admire Mrs. Fluybutt the Jersey Giant

or Mr. Flappy the Rooster cooing and clucking around your

yard, remind yoursel o the primary purpose o your homestead

ocks as frst and oremost a source o sustenance. A particularly

riendly pet bird here or there is fne (I admit to having one or

two), or i setting a place at the table or a bathed and diapered

Henrietta is your thing, well, I guess thats fne too. But here weare concerned with managing a primarily utilitarian homestead

ock. They will eat you out o house and home i you fnd yoursel

not up to the task come butchering day.

Amanda and Billy keep a ock of 40-70 heritage breed

chickens at their Sugar Street Farmden in Bethany,

PA. View their slideshow on Backyard Chickens 101

(presented at the Wayne County Public Library on March 9,

2011) www.transitionhonesdale.org


4/12


Farming for Fun andProt: Greg Swartzat Willow WispOrganic FarmJane Bollinger

It seems like such a simple questionHow didyou come to be a farmer?

Greg Swartz laughs contemplating his answer.Well, how much time do you have?

Greg and his wie Tannis Kowalchuk are organic armerswho own Willow Wisp Organic Farm in Abrahamsville,Wayne County, about our miles west o Callicoon, NY. Their 12-

acre arm is well known in

the area, having been voted

Best Local Farm o the Yearin 2010 by the River

Reporter.

Greg and his crew are busy

with spring planting on this

particular day in late May.

The seemingly endless days

o rain this year have delayed

their work by a week or

moreweather being one o

the many challenges a armer

has to take in stride. Its part

o the job.

Greg, who was raised in the

Boston suburbs with no

connection to armingnot

even a backyard gardensays

his interest in arming grew

out o his lie-long interest in

ood. I always was into

ood! he exclaims, but

credits his older brother, a che, with bringing him a whole new

awareness about it.

ConneCtingfood,agriCultureand

environmentGreg decided he wanted to know more about where his ood came

rom and how it was grown. At the same time, he was developing

an environmental awareness. At some point these two things

came together, he explains. I realized that our ood choices not

only impact our own health, but aect the ecology, the economy

and all o society. Eating is single-handedly the most inuential

act that we partake in every day.

Ater collegewhere, by the way, he majored in French

literaturehis passion or real ood led him to seek out a arm

apprenticeship. I saw an advertisement or Wild Roots Farm in

Youngsville, NY, right across the river in Sullivan County, he

reports, and I decided to sign on. I was planning on moving on in

six months to whatever the next thing was going to be ater that.

He pauses and smiles, That was twelve years ago.

Greg describes his study o agriculture not in school, but in doing

a series o apprenticeships and working on other arms and going

to conerences and feld days and arm visits. It took eight years

beore it elt like I knew enough to do it on my own, beore I was

ready to buy my own arm. Eight years is equivalent to a Ph.D., I

think, he grins. During part o this time, Greg also served as

executive director o the Northeast Organic Farming Association

o New York (NOFA-NY), a job he held until 2009.

Everything changed in 2007, when Greg bought 12 acres o a

ormer dairy arm in Damascus Township rom landowner Art

Rutledge. The ollowing two seasons, 2008 and 2009, Greg armed

part time and by 2010, he quit his other jobs or ull-time arming.

growing

CommunityWillow Wisp, which receivedits organic certifcation in

2010, grows 50 dierent

kinds o vegetables, as well

as a variety o culinary herbs,

cut owers and some ruit

including strawberries,

blueberries, apples and

pears. The arm runs a year-

round CSA, which stands or

Community Supported

Agriculture. In a CSA, people

become members by buying

shares in a arms crops orthe season. In exchange, they

receive a regular portion o

its bounty.

Willow Wisps weekly

summer CSA runs rom June

through November; in winter

its every other week rom

December through May.

Theres a summertime routine or Gregs CSA customers. When

they arrive at the arm to pick up their produce, they walk right

through a feld o vegetables to get to the barn. This scheme is noaccident. It means they see or themselves whats going on here,

Greg explains. They see when the felds are wet rom rain, when

theres been a rost, et cetera.

In summer we set up our CSA in the barn as i it were a arm

stand and our members can choose what they wantwithin

limitsrom the nine to fteen items we have that week. We also

have some U-Pick items like peas, beans, cherry tomatoes, and

owers.


5/12


The other really nice part o having an on-arm pickup is the

social aspect. Neighbors, who might not have time otherwise, get

to know each other, come to hang out and talk. Its a way to build

community. In addition, he continues, as I see it, hal o our job

here is educating our customers about ood, about cooking, about

what to do with what they buy.

Greg is delighted that the nationwide trend to eat local is

growing here, too, not only with CSAs, but also with armers

markets and local ches eaturing local ood in their restaurants.

In the past fve years, the increase in people demanding locally-

grown ood has been tremendous! he observes, adding, There

are more things happening right here in Wayne County than most

people realize. With a little eort, you can seek out a pretty

amazing diversity o productsrom vegetables to ruit to meat to

value-added products. He also mentions two resource guides,

Shop Local, Save Land andBuy Fresh, Buy Local, that help put

consumers in touch with local armers.

growing organiCFrom growing local to

growing organic, Greg talks

about his work with passion.

Over the millennia, arming

may single-handedly be the

most destructive act [to the

earth] that humans have

engaged in, Greg explains.

Organic is a way to do this

thing called arming with the

ewest negative impacts. As

much as possible, organic is

about staying in sync with

natural systems and thats

really the essence o what

organic arming is about.

Organic is the only sane

arming model, he maintains.

Its based on looking to the

uture instead o looking or

short-term gains. Its about

stewarding the soil or the

long term. In all parts o

society and in our lives, we have to look at ways to work with natural

systems, ways that are sustainable and renewing.

Can organiC feedthe world?

Sometimes when people ask how we will eed the worlds growingpopulation and what arming methods will be needed in the uture,

they think that the only way is with a second green revolution.

They believe we need a whole new technology that will allow us to

increase productivity. I believe so much that this is the wrong

direction to go because its based on trying to correct problems

that are caused by our present industrial arming practices in the

frst place. Its not a holistic view that looks at the whole system,

but a reductionist view where the [conventional] armer needs to

keep adding big inputs [to his soil] to make the system y.

People ask whether organic can eed the world; Greg believes the

studies that say it can. But theres also the question o eeding

ourselves in the uture. You know, we talk about national security

in many ways, Greg observes, but not oten in terms o our ood

security. We need to be talking about this. At some point in the not

too distant uture, our country will be a net importer o ood. This

will be a shocking moment when that happens, Greg says.

Potentially, it will be a wake-up call, but who knows?

Just like were already dependent on a very complex global

distribution system or all o our trade, with ood, too, any sort o

interruption to thator example, natural disaster or geopolitical

concerns o war, or any crises where oil tankers may not be able to

get herewhatever it is,

there are many openings to

disruption [o the supply

chain]. Its something we

should think about.

A studyI think it was done

in the 90sshowed that there

are only three weeks o ood

in the metro New York City

area. So i some crisis

aected the distribution

system, within three weeks

there would be 20 million

people with no ood. This is

another good reason or why

we should be repopulating

our arms or the next

generation, he adds, pointing

out the need or more young

people to take up this

important work. As a nation

we are at severe risk o losing

our communal arming

knowledge. The time is now

to capture that knowledge and

to take care o the arable land

beore its too late. And there will come a time when it will be too

late, he warns.

farming, foodandfun!

Greg loves his vocation despite the hard work and long hours obeing a armer. I would say 70 percent o it is un, which is a

pretty darn good percentage.

Finally, eating is awully un. Conversations around ood are

interesting and un and oer a great way to interact with other

people. Farming at Willow Wisp has opened up a lot o

opportunities and connections or us, and I do eel like we play an

important role in our community.

For more information: www.willowwisporganic.com

You know, we talk about national security inmany ways, Greg observes, but not often interms of our food security. We need to be talkingabout this...


6/12


100 Free Home EnergyAssessments, and YouDont Have to BuyAnythingDoni Hoffman

Thinking about weatherizing but not sure where to start orwhere to spend to have the greatest impact? This summer,The Energy Awareness Action Movement (TEAAM), a project

o Sustainable Energy Education and Development Support

(SEEDS) and Workorce Wayne, will be giving away 100 FREE

home energy assessments, complete with a list o energy-saving

recommendations and a packet o money-saving discounts at local

businesses.

TEAAM has trained local

high school students

in basic residential

energy, water and wasteassessing, including

home envelopes and

air bypass, heating and

cooling systems, and the

best ways to conserve

water and reduce

waste. The our-day training was hosted by Nick Hindley, a local

Building Perormance Institute (BPI) certifed energy auditor,

and Lisa Alexander, a Leadership in Energy and Environmental

Design Associated Proessional. The students are gaining hands-

on experience with insulation and weatherizing products and

learning how to recognize common energy drains in homes and

make recommendations or cost-eective home improvements.

Why ree energy assessments? Beore we can build a renewable

energy inrastructure, we need to make sure we arent needlessly

wasting energy. Thats where conservation comes in. Simple and

inexpensive improvements in insulation, windows, and doors, plus

sealing your attic and basement can make a huge dierence in

reducing your energy use.

Remember, when you are saving energy, you are saving

money. Here are some tips to conserve energy right now:

Electronics and appliances all use energy, even when you

arent using them. Unplug them when youre not using them

and youll see a drop on your utility bill.

Invest in a ew Smartstrips that sense when your electronics

and appliances arent being used and shut them down or you.

Set a programmable thermostat to automatically turn the air

conditioning up 10 degrees while youre away at work, but

cool back down right beore you get home, and youll probably

save 10% on your utility bill.

Simple changes such as line drying your clothes, installing

CFL light bulbs, and lowering your thermostat a ew degrees

in the winter will also save energy and money.

Contrary to popular belie, expensive improvements, such asgetting new windows, are usually one o the last steps an energy

auditor will recommend to a homeowner because o their low

return on investment. Until youve sealed up leaks and taken

all the inexpensive steps to conserve energy and increase the

efciency o your house, the energy savings dont justiy the

cost o new windows. TEAAM assessors will generate a list o

recommendations unique to your home that will rank suggested

improvements by their projected return on investment. In other

words, TEAAM will tell you which improvements will cost the

least and save you the most money.

To sign your house up for a free energy assessment contact

TEAAM by calling 570-630-0592, emailing

[email protected] or visiting www.seedsgroup.net. Act

now, spots are lling up!

[ ...continued from page 1 bottom ] Because our whole

economy is based on oil (not only or gasoline and home heating

oil, but also or all the things that are made rom petroleum

including ertilizers and pesticides, pharmaceuticals and all

things plastic), the liestyle we have known will become more

and more expensiveincreasingly out o reach o more and more

people. Transition asks us to think about what kind o lie we will

have when everything that is the basis o our present liestyle willperpetually cost more and more? How will we build a good lie or

ourselves and overcome this challenge?

A second challenge Transition asks us to think about is climate

change and the eects it will have on the environment we live in.

The biggest immediate impact may be or the armers who grow

our ood. Farmers rely on consistent weather patterns, but climate

change will bring increasingly destabilized weather patterns and

violent weather extremes. This will cause the price o ood to rise

(on top o the rising prices or gasoline to transport our ood).

Transition provides a positive response to the combined challenges

o peak oil and climate change by asking local communities

to discover the creative genius o individual citizens working

together to build a good uture or all.

Come join the discussion! Comment on our blog or fnd out when

our next meeting is by going to www.transitionhonesdale.org.


7/12


Get Off the Couch andGet Growing!Katie Baxter

What does the price o gas have to do with a garden? Themore miles your ood has to travel, the more you will wantto grow it yoursel! The journey your carrot or lettuce or apple hasto take to get to your plate is known as its ood-miles. And the

more we rely upon our strawberries and broccoli logging ood-miles

rom Caliornia or our grapes journeying rom Chile, and garlic rom

China, the more well begin to wonder how much o what we put in

our stomachs could at least come rom our own state, or maybe our

own county, or maybe even our own neighborhood.

For those o you who are

looking or alternatives

to global ood and want

to grow at least some o

your own groceries, there

is a community garden

sprouting up on the

edge o town. Transition

Honesdale has partnered

with The Ellen Memorial

Health Care Center on

Gol Hill Road to provide the towns frst public garden space or

residents to grow their own vegetables. Heres your chance to get

your hands in the dirt and reduce those ood miles to single digits.

And youd be helping to take some o the pressure o the planet, by

saying no more road trips or my veggies!

A dedicated band o volunteers devoted their weekends in May, rain

or shine, to transorming an empty meadow into a beautiul example

o a true community garden. The design includes 25 raised beds(10 @ 4x 8 and 15 @ 4 x 16), 2 wheelchair accessible planter

boxes, as well as ruit trees, vines and a perennial garden. A garden

shed provides space or tools and classes, and room or displays and

handouts. The arbor o the shed will provide a shady place to relax

on a hot summer day and will be adorned with grape vines. A paved

path connects the garden to the Health Care Center, making it easily

accessible to residents, especially those in wheelchairs.

The garden was made possible through the collaboration o Ellen

Memorial owner, Bob Zabady, and Transition Honesdale. Mr.

Zabady donated 1/4 acre o land or the garden and agreed to

provide water and deer-proo encing as well as build a concrete

pad or a small shed where Ellen Memorial residents and garden

members may gather. There is ample room or simply relaxing on

the patio as well as or holding garden workshops and recipe swaps.

The collaboration was expanded as local businesses supplied

manpower to help build the garden, such as 1st Alarm Security,

and other businesses which donated materials or provided them at

a discount, including Hoer Log and Lumber and Dirlam Brothers

Lumber Co. Other donations have come rom the local banks: Dime,

Wayne, and Honesdale National, as well as the Wayne County

Community Foundation, The Honesdale Womans Club, Master

Gardeners, The Beech Grove Grange and private individuals.

The wonderully unexpected and unoreseen happened when

the power line company went on a tree-trimming operation south

o Waymart and Julie and Brian Fox were able to stockpile several

yards o (ree!) wood chips or mulch to be used on the paths.

And thats not to mention all the volunteers! Over two dozen people,

including Bob Zabadys construction crew, contributed their time to

design, lay out, and build raised beds; shovel, haul and rake soil,

compost and wood chips; lay down landscape abric and shuttle

wood chips rom Waymart to the garden. It was muddy. It was rainy.

It was hot. It was buggy. It was worth it!

Jane Bollinger contributed many hours o planning logistics and

mobilizing everyone to be a part o Honesdales frst community

garden. Transition Honesdale thanks everyone who helped to bring

a garden to our town. The garden is truly a community project!

19 o the 25 proposed raised beds have been built and many

enthusiastic gardeners are transorming their dreams into ood. You

too, can have ood rom your own neighborhood, instead o romthousands o miles away. Nothings more local than what youve

grown yoursel! Visitors are welcome to drop by and see how our

garden is growing.

While all Honesdale residents are eligible or garden plots, we

encourage employees and amily members o residents at Ellen

Memorial and WIC and SNAP participants to become members. The

membership ee is on a sliding scale.

For information about the community garden, visit

www.transitionhonesdale.org to download the application or

contact: Jane Bollinger: [email protected] or

Katie Baxter: [email protected]

whatgrowsinagardenbesidesseedsandplants?A strong sense o positive well-being; a sense o

accomplishment in growing what you eat; pride; strengthened

awareness o the environment and social and economic impacts

o our actions or the better; greater understanding o dierent

cultures and their oods and gardening traditions; stronger

connections with butteries, birds, the soil, worms!, ungi,

water, bees (who need our help!) and an understanding o

the vital role bees and other pollinators play in transorming

blossoms into ruits and vegetables; respect or nature and

ones part in the whole scheme; a strong sense o how powerul

it is to nurture living things; curiosity, interest, a sense o

wonder; beauty, charm, un!; collaboration; strengthened

neighborhood bonds; it lits ones spirits; a healthy diet;

stronger muscles; conversations; riendships; goodwill;

generosity as extra produce is shared with the local ood

pantry; a sense o purpose; knowledge and appreciation or

what it takes to produce what one eats; patience!

From Growing Power, Inc. Milwaukee, Wisconsin


8/12


In-Demand and Outof Tomatoes: Two LocalGroups Help FarmersExpandJulie Hudson

I ncreasingly, many people are rediscovering the joys oeating seasonally and closer to harvest. In order to meetthis demand, local members o the Pennsylvania Association or

Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) have been hosting discussions on

ways to increase the amount o ood we produce locally, right here

in Wayne County. For many existing armers and most aspiring

ones, barriers such as capital, land and labor costs, not to mention

a short growing season and fckle weather, makes expansion to

meet demand challenging.

Along with PASA, the newly

ormed Better Harvest is

aiming to help armerswith these very issues.

The organization, ounded

by Elaine Tweedy, ormer

Executive Director o the

Scranton Small Business

Development Center and the local chapter oBuy Fresh Buy Local,

helps armers with ree arm enterprise planning to determine

what parts o their operation are proftable and how to expand.

Better Harvest will work on bringing more new armers to the area

through a mentoring program with local armers and by connecting

them with landowners who are willing to oer access to land

through rental agreements.

In complement to Better Harvest, PASA oers inormation and

workshops on switching to organic or more natural arming

methods as well as solutions or transitioning conventional or

marginal land into productive, sustainable use to increase supply.

Im Not a Farmer butI SupportLocal Food and Have Ideas

Great! PASA is not just an organization or armers; its also an

organization or eaters (Do you know any o those?) Specifcally,

anyone whos interested in ostering a local ood and arming

renaissance in northeastern Pennsylvania is encouraged to join

PASA or attend the local chapter meetingsor both! Oten

those not directly involved in arming can help considerably in

advancing understanding o the hurdles local ood producers

ace and developing solutions. You can play an integral part in

ensuring that local armers succeed in meeting the ever-growing

demand or resh, local, sustainable ood.

Interested in attending a monthly local PASA meeting?Contact Jane Bollinger at [email protected]

New faces and ideas welcome! (Meetings resume Sept. 2011).

For membership information contactBilly Templeton, PASA Member ServicesAssistant, at [email protected]. To learnmore about PASA, visit them on the web at:www.pasafarming.org

Wayne County GrownConnecting Farmers,Food & CommunityAmanda Avery & Billy Templeton

T he Northeast PA group o Pennsylvania Association orSustainable Agriculture (PASA) has a new network andonline hub in the worksWayne County Grown (WCG)! This

local ood and arming website is being developed with the aim to

integrate regional sustainable organizations, arms and markets,with individuals, schools and communities in Wayne Countyand

beyond!

farm network offers foodandapps?Why an online network? Recognizing the potential o the web

or armers, we aim to collect and oer useul online resources

to help armers increase their markets, their production, and

ultimately their sustainability. Efcient distribution, cooperative

buying, and adjusting to meet demand have been identifed as a

ew o the biggest hurdles small armers ace when looking to sell

direct-to-market or locallyWCG is being developed as a platorm

or both armers and community members (including businesses,

restaurants, as well as households and individuals) to connect in

one place, conveniently, and in a ormat that makes it easy to fnd

resources, discover markets, and share ideas.

The network will also emphasize ood systems knowledge and

education, resources or both seasoned and beginning armers,

contests and arm-to-school programs or students, and inormation

or community members on a multitude o topics and issues, and

oer ways to interact and get involved so that the terms armer

and consumer can meld into: community members or citizens.

the offiCial go-to siteforall wayneCounty farmers marketsThe WCG website at www.waynecountygrown.org will be the

place to go to fnd out whats happening and whose got what at

all our regional markets. Learn about the arms and fnd a great

recipe or that scary looking kohlrabi. The site will integrate social

media, PASA happenings, events and workshops, as well as news

about community projects and opportunities to get involved.


9/12


2011 Farmers MarketSeason Has Arrived!Julie Hudson

No garden space? No time? Have two brown thumbs? Luckyor you, purchasing ood rom local armers is gettingeasier than ever! Despite one o the wettest Springs on record, ourlocal armers markets have plenty to choose rom!

New to seasonal eating? A perectly ripe heirloom tomato is

a great place to start. In Northeast PA (most years) these start

to come on about the end o July. Youll be hard pressed to

return to the rock-hard tomatoes in the grocery store. Just-

picked sweet and tender spring asparagus compared to the

woody, bitter green sticks in a store will spoil you or lie

and inspire missions to get the real thing straight rom the

sourceyour local armer.

2011 sChedule:

Wayne County Farmers Market, Saturday

mornings at the Wayne Co. Visitors Center inHonesdale rom 9:30AM - 1:30PM

Main Street Farmers Market, (a natural

producer-only market) at 1030 Main Streetin Honesdale, Wednesdays rom 4:00PM -6:00PM

Hawley Farmers Market at Bingham Park

on Fridays rom 2:00PM - 5:00PM

*New* Winter Market that will start this

November at the Cooperage Building (1030Main Street) every other Saturday morning.

To kick things o, we asked Honesdale High School art students

to design a logo or Wayne County Grown and a T-shirt design

or the 2011 season. Artists Sarah DeCrotie, center let (Junior)

and Cynthia Carbone center right (Senior Class o 2011) created

the winning designs which will be printed on T-shirts and canvas

market bags, in limited amounts. Each year, WCG will sponsor

a new Farmers Market T-shirt season design contest. Winners

receive a savings bond and shirts and bags with their design.

The inaugural, soon-to-be collectors items, 2011 Wayne County

Grown market T-shirts and tote bags will be or sale at all our

armers markets and local shops throughout the season. Proceeds

help support our Wayne County Grown initiative and reward our

contest winners!

A special thank you to all o the students who submitted designs

and to graphic design instructor, Stacy Stone!

Logo by Sarah DeCrotie

(10th Grade/will be in 11th)

WCG

T-shirt by Cynthia Carbone

(12th grade/just graduated)


10/12


Permaculture:A Systems ApproachTo A Brighter FutureDoni Hoffman

Imagine a vibrant lush, yard ull o beautiul colors- greens,

yellows, pinks and purples. The kind o yard thats so inviting

it makes you wish you could root down into it. Take a closer look

at the plants in this lively yard and you realize that almost all

o them produce something edible: nutritious greens, delicious

ruits, savory and healing herbs, protein-rich nuts. Amazed that

such a small backyard can produce so much? Well hang on. It

gets better. This beautiul, unctional ood-yielding yard requires

essentially no maintenance. Its sel-seeding, captures and stores

water, provides its own nutrients, and hardly ever sees a weed.

It provides you with ood, but also with a lovely place to think, nap

or eat, and is not a antasy, but uses a system called permaculture.

It will take some work and patience to create it, but once its

established, youll spend much less time tilling, sowing, watering,

and weeding. Youll have more time to sit back and enjoy thesunshine and nice cool drink o water in your beautiul, productive

yard.

Permaculture is about building

systems that provide for humans

without sacricing the needs of otherliving and non-living things.

prinCiplesWhat sets Permaculture apart rom other ecological design

systems is a set o ethical and design principles. The ethical

principles include care o earth, care o people and setting

limits to consumption while sharing surplus. From these stema robust yet simple set o design principles that help us uphold

permacultures ethical oundations. Permaculture is about building

systems that provide or humans without sacrifcing the needs o

other living and non-living things. We can learn important things

by taking the time to observe and interact with an area o land

beore building or planting on it. We can see where water pools,

where the sun shines or the wind blows and then design a system

that utilizes these natural eatures. Perhaps most important is that

permaculture principles challenge us to look beyond individual

components, like veggies, trees or chickens to the relationships

between them. By ocusing on the interdependence among these

parts we can build more efcient and cooperative systems.

According to Bill Mollison, Work and pollution are the result o

incorrectly designed or unnatural systems. By taking the time to

observe, interact and design a tight system, we all but eliminate

wasted time and energy.

lets imagine againIn the yard we imagined earlier, we see that there are owers

and seating areas, nut trees and raspberries, maybe even some

chickens. What we dont automatically see is that each o those

specifc parts o this yard were intentionally placed to ulfll

multiple purposes. The owers are beautiul, but they also provide

ood or pollinators and birds. Many o them can be used to

adorn ood, or make jams or wines. The nut tree provides us with

nuts, but also with alling leaves or mulch and nutrients, shade

or smaller plants, potential frewood and fnally, a living water

catchment system. A bench is a great place to read a book, but we

can also use it as a stepstool to pick nuts and raspberries, and a

resting spot or mushroom logs. Vegetables are placed close to the

house, so we are more likely to pick them and tend to them. By

placing components based on the relationship they have with other

components, we eliminate work we might otherwise need to do. We

are also intentionally creating convenience along with productivity

and beauty!

The aim o Permaculture is to create ecologically sound,

economically prosperous human communities. Permaculture is

being used all around the world to

create abundant ood systems; people

are growing ood orests in the desert,

kiwis and lemons in New England and

rice in the Pacifc Northwest. On larger

areas o land, permaculture is helping

armers create systems that produce

essentials such as fber, timber and

other building materials in addition to

ood products. These principles can be

applied to other areas o culture suchas economics, education, building and

urban design. Smart design can get

us to a world where nothing is wasted and we live cooperatively

instead o competitively with nature. In subsequent issues, well

explore permaculture design principles more thoroughly. Until

then, try observing your surroundings and see i you can begin to

identiy the relationships among dierent parts. Just wait until you

begin to see the potential.

Permaculture is a design science based on replicating

the sustainability and resilience found in natural

systems. The term was coined by two men in Australia,

David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, who decided the

most logical and benecial thing to do in this world

was create a sustainable agriculture system. The term

Permaculture is a contraction of both permanent

culture and permanent agriculture, acknowledging

the fact that agriculture and culture are intensely

connected; we cannot create or sustain one without

the other. You might think of Permaculture as

landscape design or systems thinking, with the outright

intention to serve humans by modeling natural systems

and doing no harm. Its not an entirely new way of

thinking, but it is a new way of doing.

Resilience (resilience): the capacity of a system toabsorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoingchange so as to still retain essentially the samefunction, structure, identity, and feedback


11/12


the permaCulture ChiCken. Above isan image that lists the majority of the needs and

outputs of a chicken. Generally we think of raising

chickens for meat or eggs. But chickens can provide

services beyond food production. They can aerate soil,

eat pesky bugs, create fertilizer, even heat a green

house, while providing carbon dioxide for the plants

inside! Permaculture challenges us to make outputs of

one component the input of another component, thus

creating a productive, cooperative system.

permaCulture prinCiplesat work:http://youtu.be/lT_2VVXA7SY

related books

Gaias Garden

Introduction to Permaculture

Solviva

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond

Sustainability

The Transition Handbook

A Pattern Language

Cradle to CradleEdible Forest Gardens

for more information youCan CheCk out the followingresourCes.

www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/

www.permaculture.org.au/images/permablitz_beore_ater.jpg

loCal resourCes

With so many variables, it helps to learn

from others when learning and incorporating

permaculture design. Also, many principles

that work in arid areas are not applicable in

temperate or northern regions. Luckily, the

Eastern Pennsylvania Permaculture Guild offers

plenty of inexpensive workshops, events, lm

screenings, discussions and more to get you

startedwith advice from others right in the

Northeastern PA region.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/

easternpennpermacultureguild

Website: (meetup group) www.meetup.com/permie/


12/12


Local Resourcesfind good food

Wayne County Farmers Markets

Visitors Center, Honesdale, Saturdays 9:30AM - 1:30PM

Main Street Farmers Market, 1030 Main Street,

Honesdale, Wednesdays 4:00PM - 6:00PMHawley Farmers Market, Fridays 2:00PM - 5:00PM

Winter Market 1030 Main Street, Honesdale

(alternate Saturday mornings, November through April)

Wayne County Grown

www.waynecountygrown.org website coming soon!

Buy Fresh, Buy Local PA

www.buylocalpa.org/northeast

Local Harvest www.localharvest.org

Shop Local, Save Land www.shoplocalsaveland.com

Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture

(PASA) www.pasaarming.org

Organic Consumers Association

www.organicconsumers.org

energy

Sustainable Energy Education & Development

Support (SEEDS) www.seedsgroup.net

Wayne Businesses Conserve

www.waynebusinessesconserve.weebly.com/

Community

Wayne County Arts Alliance

www.waynecountyartsalliance.org

Honesdale Community Garden

www.transitionhonesdale.org/action-groups/community-

gardening

Transition Honesdale www.transitionhonesdale.org

permaCulture

Eastern Pennsylvania Permaculture Guild

www.meetup.com/permie

Calendar of EventsWednesday, July 27th:Green Biomass Fuels: Growing Fuels or aCleaner Future, 7 pm at the Wayne CountyConservation District Ofce in Honesdale

Saturday, August 20th:Farm Day, skill sharing workshops/trainings,

potluck, and DIRT! The Movie, 7:30 pm, atFox Hill Farm. More ino and RSVP atwww.transitionhonesdale.org

Friday/Saturday/Sunday,September 16, 17 & 18:Pennsylvania Renewable Energy andSustainable Living Festial, want to carpooldown to Kempton, PA?email [email protected]

Saturday, October 1st:

SEEDS Green Building Bus Tour. Ino atwww.seedsgroup.net

Saturday, October 15th:Transition Annual Potluck, 6 pm, GraceEpiscopal Parish House, Honesdale, Comehave un, meet new riends, and share yourvision or our regions uture. All are welcome!

Share your talent andlearn from your neighbors.

Have a skill to share?Fill out the survey at

www.transitionhonesdale.org

Transition Newsletter Aug 2011

Documents

Transcript of Transition Newsletter Aug 2011