Ukiah’s Saturday Farmers’ Market 2/7/09

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From Scott Cratty
Ukiah

Friends of the Market,

Greetings.  Isn’t winter supposed to be the time of year when things are relatively slow? Not this year.  So, I’ll keep this brief.

The drawing for our 2nd Winter raffle basket will be held at about noon this Saturday.  We have not done such a great job selling tickets this time … so the odds of winning are even better.  For a $5 ticket the winner will get a great deal with lots of local hand-crafted items plus some goodies from our local farms like some olive oil, beef, cheese, honey and more.  So far your raffle funds have purchases a small propane heater (that we use on the bitterest of Saturday mornings and one tank refill).  Who know what wonderful things we can do with some more funds …

You are the first to know … by a sizable majority the winter market vendors voted to accept the invitation for the winter market to join the county farmers’ market association.  So, come next November, the Ukiah winter market will be part of that venerable 30 year old institution.  To make things a bit more uniform year round we will probably shorten the winter hours so that we still start at 9:30 but end at noon, the same ending time as the regular season.

If you are quick enough that Saturday you may become one of the first people at the Ukiah market to try the eggs from Shamrock Artisan Goat Cheese.

Hope to see you at the farmers’ market on Saturday.

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[Appropriate info for our current water shortage. -DS]

Organic Farming Critical To Deal With Less Water

By BARNABY J. FEDER
Published: April 9, 2000

The Rodale Institute’s 330-acre research farm here got something it prefers to a bumper crop when a record drought struck eastern Pennsylvania last year.

Rodale plants crops with the goal of harvesting evidence that organic farming should be the wave of the future in agriculture. After the drought last summer, Rodale’s parched organic plots yielded 24 to 30 bushels of soybeans an acre, well below the 40-bushel average of previous years for the research site, but Rodale could not have been happier. That was because yields on comparison plots just next to them that had been doused year after year with synthetic fertilizers and conventional farm chemicals had plummeted to 16 bushels.

”These are very significant findings for farmers around the world,” exulted Jeff Moyer, Rodale’s farm manager. ”Our trials show that improving the quality of the soil through organic processes can mean the difference between a harvest or hardship in times of drought.”

The results last year also reinforced long-term comparisons, begun by Rodale in 1981, that document how organic farming can be more profitable for small farmers — even if yields are not always as high and, by some calculations, even without the premium prices that organic crops generally receive.

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The Alzheimer’s Resource and Information Center

From Michael Laybourn
Hopland

A few years ago, a friend of mine found that his spouse needed care — someone to be there all the time. He started looking and I did too, to see where we could find information on giving care for Alzheimer disease. There didn’t seem to be anything at the time in Mendocino and Lake Counties, but there was an Alzheimer’s Association information center in Santa Rosa. I saw then, that there was going to be a great need for help in our county. Think baby boomers about to retire…

Alzheimer’s facts: 1 out of 8 people 65 and older have it. 70% of people with Alzheimer’s live at home cared for by family.

Some people do become forgetful as they get older. That is a normal part of aging. Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging. Alzheimer’s disease affects approximately 5 million people in the U.S. Over time, Alzheimer’s disease gradually destroys a person’s memory and ability to learn and carry out daily activities such as talking, eating or otherwise taking care of oneself. The patient must be watched and cared for all the time.

About the same time, a local group concerned about Alzheimer’s care got together in Ukiah and put on a fundraiser to raise money for local Alzheimer’s needs. The event was packed. Many people that attended, and others caring for their loved ones, convinced the group that there was a great immediate need for a resource and information center in both Mendocino and Lake Counties. I read about the fundraiser and invited some of the participants to give a talk to the Ukiah Rotary Club.

The group found that people needed information first. They began to put together an information center now called The Alzheimer’s Resource and Information Center. AREC is a hub for dispersing information about new research and development… a Center to help define how to care for and understand Alzheimers, and where financial and care assistance may be found. AREC is also a clearing house and referral service to help people find assistance and to help navigate caregivers through various agency systems.

The Hospice Board in Ukiah agreed to be the umbrella board for the center and donated office space. All the other time is volunteer time, including Executive Director Candace Horsely, our retired City Manager. This, to me, is an exceptional example of humans coming together to address a local community need.

In 2008, when the Center was starting up, the Ukiah Rotary agreed to provide a computer and printer for the office. Later in the year I applied for a Rotary district $1500 grant that has been approved. Yesterday, we presented the check to board member Elizabeth Santos.

The Alzheimer’s Resource and Education Center will use this $1,500 to go forward, which will be used as a match with other AREC and other agency funding to host an educational workshop in 2009 designed specifically for caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. In this workshop, caregivers will learn skills that will enable them to understand and respond to Alzheimer’s and dementia patients with knowledge and compassion. Professional assistance and training will be taught, dealing with typically occurring issues as the loved one descends further into advanced stages of Alzheimer’s.

Think about it. You may experience it some day. It’s good to know that there is a caring group that will be available for help.

The Center is open and anyone with questions or needing information can call Candace Horsley at 391.6188.
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See also the national Alzheimer’s Association→
Image Credit: State of Orange – T-Shirts Available

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Grow yourself some organic potatoes this spring

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From Dave Smith
Ukiah

If you’ve ever dug up some organic potatoes you’d planted a few weeks before, cleaned them in the kitchen, fried or mashed them, and eaten them on the spot, you know how superior they are in flavor compared to store-bought. Like everything else prepared right out of the garden, or picked right off the tree, there is a special just-harvested flavor that is not going to be there a few minutes later.

Here’s where to buy organic seed potatoes: Wood Prairie Farm…→

…and here’s how to plant them: Organic Gardening Magazine Video.→

If you really want to be cutting edge, you can grow potatoes from their “true seed.“→

Have at ‘em!
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“#3. Homemade potato chips, preferably made with thin slices of freshly dug, organic red potatoes (scrubbed, not peeled), fried in homemade lard in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, and prepared by someone you adore who is willing to stand over a splattering pan of hot oil for an hour or two while you both devour batch after batch of warm, salted chips as soon as they are cool enough to touch. Serve with lots of laughs and plenty of iced tea or cold beer.”

Keep reading Five Things To Eat Before You Die over at FarmGirl Fare→
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Roasted Potatoes © Cenorman | Dreamstime.com

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A chicken coop for a small flock

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From Gene Logsdon (1985)
Garden Farm Skills

A backyard henhouse for only a dozen or so chickens year-round should be commodious, a minimum of around 5 square feet of floor space per hen, which is much more than a commercial poultryman can afford. My henhouse design, based on what I’ve learned so far by building three coops of my own, differs from the standard designs in a few other ways, which you might find interesting to think about when building your own.

1. Predator Proofing. I would have preferred that my latest chicken coop be built on a concrete footing to make it more or less predator-proof. But pole construction was cheaper and easier. The bottom wall boards are of treated wood for rot resistance, and the wall is sunk into the ground 6 to 12 inches. Cats will not dig that far under to get in, and cats have always been my most troublesome predator—not my own, though, which I train not to bother chickens, but feral cats. I keep the dog tied next to the coop for further insurance.

2. The Size. I knew that for part of the year I would house approximately forty-five to fifty chickens, although there would be less than twenty year-round. Every year we buy six Rhode Island Red chicks and about thirty White Rock broiler chicks, the latter for meat, the former to add to the laying flock. The broilers are butchered when about ten weeks old, and later on I’ll butcher some old hens as they quit laying, so that the flock dwindles to around fifteen through winter. We buy chicks in June so have no need for brooder facilities. (The first few nights I might use a heat bulb on the chicks.) Anyhow, by my own idea of space requirement, a 10 by 20-foot building is more than ample. And it is tall enough so I can walk inside without hitting my head, as I did in the old coop.

Keep reading A chicken coop for a small flock at OrganicToBe.org→

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Do you see what I see?

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From Janie Sheppard
Mendocino County

Jeff Adams, the man on the ground for DDR (Developers Diversified Realty, aka, Mega Mall at the old Masonite site) resurfaced recently.  In a January 13, 2009 letter he informed the Governor that DDR intended to create a project that we could be proud of.  Looks like DDR isn’t going away any time soon.  I wonder why not when I contemplate what’s happening locally and on the national scene.  Why doesn’t DDR see what I see?

I see:  Lead article in the New York Times Sunday (2/1/09) Business Section, entitled Our Love Affair With Malls Is on the Rocks.  In the article, the reporter points to the nation’s bad habit of overspending as one of two causes of the economic crisis, the other cause being “mortgage-related financial insanity.”  But, the reporter informs us, because “personal consumption” accounts for 70 percent of the American economy, if we don’t spend, we don’t recover.  The reporter analogizes thusly:  “[T]he mall we married has become the toxic spouse we can’t quit . . ..”  So, why marry the mall?  If we can make DDR go away, we wouldn’t have to marry it and we wouldn’t end up paying alimony if things didn’t work out.  Seems obvious, doesn’t it?

I see:  Windsor Town Green, a mixed retail/housing development between Healdsburg and Santa Rosa, isn’t doing well.  When that development first opened, Laura Fogg and I visited it, describing what we saw  in an article published in the Ukiah Daily Journal (December 11, 2005).  Three years later, I revisited the area to see how it was faring in the face of the current economic downturn, depression, recession, whatever you want to call it.  I found lots of empty storefronts.  Why would DDR’s project, Mendocino Crossings, be different?

I see:  The localization movement is growing.  More and more people don’t like the idea of the money they spend going to distant corporate headquarters, never to be reinvested in Mendocino County.  Local shops reported good holiday sales while big chain stores mostly reported their sales were poor to awful.  We could continue our personal consumption without acquiring Mendocino Crossings, a toxic spouse.  So far as I know, it’s not even immoral to spend money locally . . .

So:  DDR’s matchmakers urge us to get married.  I say the odds are so against such a marriage working out that we should call off the romance.  Jeff Adams seems like a nice guy.  We could remain friends.

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The solution to pollution is dilution

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From Ron Epstein
Ukiah

“There seem to be only two possible solutions to our toxic waste addiction: (1) secure above-ground waste-storage in concrete buildings, or (2) detoxifying the economy.

“Secure waste storage could occur in multi-story steel-reinforced concrete buildings, with wastes placed only in the upper stories. The first floor would be left empty so regular inspections could examine for leakage or other signs of structural deterioration. Prompt repairs could sequester wastes for as long as humans were able to pay attention and react. When buildings deteriorated (after perhaps 100 years), they could be replaced.

“Such buildings were designed and described by engineers at the Universities of Alabama and Florida in 1988 and again in 1989. They calculated that such buildings would cost less than equivalent storage capacity in double-lined landfills.

“So why are we still using landfills, guaranteed to leak, instead of the cheaper solution, concrete buildings guaranteed to prevent leakage? The answer must be that underground storage is out of sight and out of mind. We can cover it with a high school, a daycare center, or a housing development and wash our hands of the whole sordid mess. Clusters of huge concrete buildings, on the other hand, would stand as perpetual monuments to our foolish, toxic civilization, permanent headstones memorializing cupidity, stupidity, and failure of imagination.”

For the whole story, see Precaution.org→

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Cooperative Business

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From Dave Smith
Ukiah

The Mondragón cooperatives of Spain combine credit unions and service cooperatives such as grocery stores with industrial manufacturing cooperatives, research centers, and a university — all as one intergrated unit. As a cooperative corporation, they are “an association of persons rather than an association of capital.” That means one person, one vote rather than votes apportioned to the amount of capital invested. It also means that the individual workers own and control the company they work in. They are the largest worker-owned cooperative in the world, doing many billions of dollars in sales. They own and operate thousands of supermarkets, a travel agency with hundreds of units, and gas stations. They also manufacture automotive parts, domestic appliances, bicycles, and bus bodies.

Although cheap energy has allowed organizations to balloon into huge monoliths that will now have to breakup and scale down into decentralized pieces, it is instructive how well the cooperative model can adapt to financial environments and serve its members. As our giant governments, banks, and corporations flounder trying to save a way of business that will have to change drastically in the years ahead, the cooperative model, along with small-scale private businesses, is a way local communities, such as ours, can adapt to the coming “mandates of reality.”

The Mondragón cooperative model can be compared to the corporate structure as follows:

· Owner-workers are valued as people. Management professionalism, product excellence, and customer satisfaction matter more than the rapid growth of profits.

· Owner-workers participate in management, with salary difference limited to a three-to-one ratio, rather than just being used at the whim of a grossly overpaid management class.

· The social contract commits everyone involved to the development of the business, with member-owner security and partnership with capital, rather than confrontation between labor and capital.

· Profits and losses are shared among all proportionally, rather than profits being internalized and costs being externalized irresponsibly.

Mondragón’s Community Bank, a credit union that serves as the core of its financial system, is owned and controlled by the member-owners of the cooperative. Without their own banking sytem, the cooperative would have failed. The bank invests in the development of new enterprises under the motto “Savings or Suitcases,” meaning members can either invest in their own community or watch their money leave their community to work elsewhere and enrich others. The cooperative also operates their own social security facility, which provides unemployment insurance, medical services, and medical insurance.

The Mondragón consumer cooperative grocery chain, with 264 stores, is run by a general assembly composed of an equal number of consumer-members and worker-members. The assembly elects a board that is similarly balanced, with six employees and six consumer-members, with a chairperson who is always a consumer.

Mondragón principles include (1) openness to all, regardless of ethnic background, religion, political beliefs, or gender; (2) the equality of all owner-workers and democratic control on the basis of one member, one vote; (3) the recognition of labor as the most essential, transformative factor of society and the renunciation of wage labor in favor of the full power of owner-workers to control the co-ops and distribute surpluses; (4) a definition of capital as accumulated labor, necessary for development and savings, with a limited return paid on that capital; (5) cooperation, defined as the development of the individual with others, not against others, to self-manage (managers are elected by the workers) and develop training and skills; and (6) wages that are comparable to prevailing local standards.

According to Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, the founder of Mondragón: “Cooperation is the authentic integration of people in the economic and social process that shapes a new social order; the cooperators must make this objective extend to all those that hunger and thirst for justice in the working world.”

Greg MacLeod, author of From Mondragón to America, writes: “The Cooperative Corporation itself is a moral entity having responsibility at three levels: (1) towards the individual employees, (2) towards the cooperative corporations which make up the Mondragón family, and (3) towards the general society of which it is the basic unit. As a microcosm of the general society, the enterprise must practice all the virtues demanded of the total society such as respect for the members, personal development and educational programs, social security and distributive justice.”

This successful alternative to the classic, top-down corporate model allows thinking outside the box store. Bottom-up democracy works and is the next step in bringing meaning into our work as well as our politics. Some of our politicians love to constantly spout off about bringing democracy to other nations, even if it takes our bombers and infantry to preemptively force it on them. Politicians who love democracy should not stop with politics. Let’s take them at their word, in our own local communities where the action will be in the future, and ask them to help us complete the American revolution by bringing democracy into our workplaces and our economies.

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