Scott Cratty: Ukiah Farmers Market News for Saturday, August 6, 2011

---

Billings Forge, Connecticut

From SCOTT CRATTY
Ukiah

Friends of the Farmers’ Market:

Lots of good food and a couple of new events tomorrow.

Did you know there is now a local hot dog?  It made with Ford Ranch beef from Willits and is available at the farmers’ market.

Cucumbers are coming on strong … maybe too strong. Paula from Mendocino Organics reports that they will be selling a lot of pickling cucumbers. “For folks into lacto-fermentation, these are perfect for homemade pickles, and they’re so easy to make. (KZYX Farm & Garden show featured fermentation this week.) We have sooooo much, and Adam and I can only pickle so many cucumbers!”  Perhaps it is time for you to try your hand as a pickler.

The Stormy Weathermen blow into the Ukiah Saturday Farmers’ Market this weekend with live & gusty music.

Bring the kids to meet the B.E.A.N.S. team (Better Eating, Activity, and Nutrition for Students). They have things to sample and many recipes ready for you to try!  The B.E.A.N.S. team is a group of local teen peer educators working together to bring health awareness and information about healthy foods and also to help you prepare healthy recipes.

The breastfeeding coalition will also be at the market with tables and activates to celebrate World Breastfeeding Week.  Nicole Pogrund report that they will have 3 or 4 tables with activities for all and a local Doula is organizing local moms to participate in the Big Latch On, which is a coordinated project to get lots of moms nationwide all nursing at the same time.

The market is open every Saturday from 8:30 to noon.  It is at the corner of School and Clay Streets in historic downtown Ukiah.

See you at the market!
~~

Lucy Neely: Crazy about ‘maters

---

From Lucy Neely
The Gardens Project
Ukiah

I felt like I needed to buckle down and really write some news, instead of just musings. I asked myself, ‘what’s the news right now? What’s happening?’ It only took a short moment: ‘Ah hah! Tomatoes!’

What is it about tomatoes? What makes them arguably the most popular vegetable plant with United States of American home gardeners? What makes them hold such a place in our hearts and minds? And what is the state of tomatoes in Mendocino County and in Ukiah?

Mendocino County Agriculture Commissioner Tony Linegar estimates that 40% of households in Inland Valley Mendocino County have at least one tomato plant. Ukiah Mayor Benj Thomas estimates that 30-40% of households in Ukiah have at least one tomato plant.

Scott Cratty, manager of the Ukiah Farmers Market and co-owner/operator of the Westside Renaissance Market (WRM), the most local food store in Ukiah – says that a lot of people won’t come to the Farmers Market until there are tomatoes. Cratty theorizes that tomatoes symbolize summer, abundance, and eating dinner outside. Melanie Underhill, an AmeriCorps VISTA with First 5, points out that she can really tell the difference between a fresh tomato and a not fresh tomato, more so than with other vegetables. Is the tomato the symbol of the glory and importance of fresh food?

Linegar tells me that tomatoes are technically a berry (as are grapes) and that Inland Mendocino County has “some of the best tomato growing conditions in California.

The Value of Cash and Local Community Equivalents

---

From STONELEIGH
The Automatic Earth

Since we at The Automatic Earth generally tell people to hold cash or cash equivalents, it makes sense to expand on that a little, and to point out some of the location-specific risks of doing so. We tell people to hold cash because that is what they will need access to in order to make debt payments and to purchase the essentials of life in a society with little or no remaining credit. The value of cash domestically – in terms of goods and services in your own local area – is what matters most.

Domestic currency value relative to other currencies internationally will be very much a secondary concern for most people, as the ability to exchange one currency for another is not likely to last far into the coming era of capital controls. Currency risk is likely to become very large, and almost everyone will be better off holding whatever passes for cash wherever they happen to be.

As the price of goods and services fall, thanks to the destruction of purchasing power brought about by collapsing money supply, what cash you still have will go a lot further in terms of, say, milk and bread. Capital preserved as liquidity will go a long way. However, there are no no-risk scenarios. Apart from the obvious risks of fire, flood and theft, other risks to holding cash will grow over time. Liquidity can be as hard to hold on to as it sounds.

One particular risk is the reissuing of currency. Russia did this during the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, and made it so difficult for ordinary people to convert old currency into new that much of the middle class lost their life-savings. In Russia trust in relation to banks was not particularly high, hence there was a lot of money under the beds of the nation that the powers-that-be were attempting to flush out. That is not the case in present day industrialized countries, where people generally believe that banks are safe and deposits are publicly guaranteed in any case.

On top of that, few people have savings, having become dependent on access to cheap credit for their rainy-day funds.

Ukiah: Young people create films on importance of shopping locally

---

From MONICA STARK
The Ukiah Daily Journal

Fifteen-year-old David MacDonald may be quiet on the surface, but when he starts talking about music and making movies, it’s not too long into the conversation that he discusses musicians who make music in nontypical ways and what he has done from their inspiration. ”What if I can create a percussion track for a song using a bunch of different sounds from local businesses?” he asks when talking about his latest film, which won first place in the Localization Film Project and was recognized along with runner ups at this week’s Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting.

MacDonald’s film shows him sitting in Alex Thomas Plaza so frustrated with his computer that he smashes it on the pavement and then goes wandering about local businesses whilst his own music plays in the background. The viewer, meanwhile, gets a sense of community from the customers who know from whom they are buying their goods and services and hence feels some relief. The brewery, the Farmer’s Market, Mendocino Book Company, to name a few were places MacDonald visited.

His story is like that of a few other teens who together took a crash course on film making at Ukiah Valley Community Television and got a rundown of why shopping locally is important. From then on, a competition between them began and the teenagers had two months to create short two- to three-minute films, which UVCTV operations manager Jason Killilea says will be shown all summer on Mendocino Access channel 3.

Jenne, 19, the second-place winner, called her film the “Mr. Rude Commercial” and featured an online camera shopper who gets on the phone only to feel disgruntled from the incompetent customer service. “Dad was playing Butch, the cheesy online salesman,” Jenne laughs. Before filming, she and her dad cluttered the set of his workplace, and so when watching the film, the viewer gets a humorous glance of Butch who tries to play off two roles – that of a lowly know-nothing receptionist and his all-knowing boss, who ironically couldn’t answer the caller’s question about a particular camera lens.

A split screen enabled the viewer to see both the customer and Butch, a scene that when shown at Tuesday’s meeting, caused the audience to howl in laughter. The solution was, of course, to shop locally at Triple S Camera. Jenne said she really didn’t know much about shopping locally until she went to the localization training “and I realized that shopping locally creates a lot of jobs in the community … Money goes back into it.” More here→
~~

A New Deal for Local Economies

---

From STACEY MITCHELL
New Rules Project

This lecture was delivered on October 17, 2009, at the Bristol Schumacher Conference in Bristol, England. The conference was chaired by the New Economics Foundation and organized around the theme, “FROM THE ASHES OF THE CRASH: Rebuilding the new economics.” More information and DVDs of the event are available from The Schumacher Society.

Let me begin by sharing some good news. Scattered here and there, in my country and in yours, the seeds of a new, more local and durable economy are taking root.

Locally grown food has soared in popularity. There are now 5,274 active farmers markets in the United States. Remarkably, almost one of every two of these markets was started within the last decade.(1)  Food co-ops and neighborhood greengrocers are likewise on the rise.

Some 400 new independent bookstores have opened in the last four years.(2) Neighborhood hardware stores are making a comeback in some cities.

Letters to the Editor: Another better idea for the Masonite property

---

From LINDA CARR
Ukiah

August 21, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Ukiah Daily Journal
To The Editor:

I have heard many ideas for the use of the old Masonite property and have given it much thought myself. I know many think it’s perfect for a shopping mall, but I disagree.

A mall uses a great deal of natural resources, only supplies minimum wage employment that cannot support a single person let alone a family, and encloses an area for crime and loitering.

I propose that we look into a retirement facility that addresses aging “baby boomers.” Mendocino County does not have enough graduated health facilities and the need for such is an important and necessary reality. Plus, the employment in this avenue offers wages that can support a family. More fast food and fast shopping is not what we need.

Let’s take another look at our future in Mendocino County and do the right thing by allowing those who have lived here, worked here, and paid taxes here have the opportunity to stay here in their hometown. Mendocino County is growing and we need to choose a responsible and profitable way to utilize the property.

Supervisors, give another thought about the realities of our future here and look beyond the same run down decisions. There is so much more to quality of life beyond immediate gratification.
~
Thanks to Steve Scalmanini
~~

There’s only one: Authentically unique Ukiah

---

by LOUISA ARONOW
Redwood Valley
Ukiah Daily Journal 7/12/09

July 14, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino County, North California

In the summer of 2002 my family and I took a car trip from Massachusetts to California. I was curious to see how the many towns and cities we visited along the way might reflect the incredible beauty of the vast and varied landscapes we passed through, so I decided to search for those elements that make a place authentically unique. I wondered what features might distinguish one town from others. Were there interesting restaurants, architecture, stores, parks, historical places, vegetation, or anything special I wouldn’t see in other regions of the USA? How does a town represent its inhabitants and the land from which it grew?

My entertaining investigation became sadder and sadder and we visited more small cities and found nothing authentically unique. Most cities consisted of the same franchise businesses by the highways or interstates, and a depleted downtown. Sometimes the downtown included city and county offices, but all included many empty buildings.

One small city we stopped in was a rural county seat; I wondered if it would be similar to Ukiah. The downtown had many elegant old three-story buildings, with copper trim and sculptures, but it seemed to be a ghost town. In the late afternoon, no humans were in sight and our footsteps echoed in the canyon-like streets. I felt that the heart and guts had been ripped out of the city. There was activity in the chain stores and restaurants by the interstate exit, but the shopping center included nothing authentically unique.

The few exceptions were the places that had preserved a bit of history to attract tourists. It was interesting to learn a few tidbits of history across the US (especially the sod house in Kansas), but it didn’t seem that the attractions were interesting for local people.

Ukiah Farmer’s Market Saturday 7/11/09

---

Yoshiki Sakane, owner of Oco Time in Ukiah, and his new solar car

From SCOTT CRATTY
Ukiah

July 8, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Friends of the Market

Greetings!  Another action-packed market this weekend.

For starters, I expect two all-new vendors. Amanda Lilikoi will be trying to tempt you with her plant starts and early veggies.  Also, Harbor Lights from Lake Co will be trying their luck at the market with some hot food items.  Their menu plan includes Native American fry bread (with various toppings), fruit cups, clam chowder and fried cinnamon roll surprise.  Now there’s something a bit different.  Lorena Caldrea will also be returning to the market for the 1st time this season with her Talmage-grown produce. After two weeks off both John Ford Ranch and Mendocino Organics will be back with beef and chicken, respectively.

At Saturday’s farmers’ market we have, as usual, lots going on.  For starters, just a bit after 10 am we will have the second in this season’s series of Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op sponsored cooking demonstrations.  Come and meet Julia Kendrick Conway of Assaggiare Mendocino, which supports real food for real people.  Plus, Diamond Edge Sharpening will be on hand at the market. Bring your knives, scissors and tools (but no saws, please),

At about 10:30 we will have the next installment of A Child, A Dog and A Good Book,

Art Center Ukiah – Writers Read This Thursday Evening 6/25 7pm

---

From DAN BARTH and THERESA WHITEHILL
Ukiah

June 24, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

On Thursday, June 25, Writers Read will feature Ukiah poet Bill Churchill. Bill teaches modern languages at Santa Rosa and Mendocino Colleges. He has also been a California Poet in the Public School since 1998. His publications include: Song of Seasons, Controlled Burn, Sleeping with Ghosts and The Veil.

In 2008 he was featured at the Summer Dream Poetry Festival in Vancouver, B.C. A mariner since 1971, he has sailed in the Eastern Mediterranean, Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific Northwest.

The reading begins at 7PM at the Ukiah Art Center Annex, 203 S. State Street, Ukiah. (The Annex is next to the Corner Gallery at the intersection of Church and State in downtown Ukiah.) An open mic session will follow the featured reading. Refreshments available. Donation requested. For more info: (707) 463-6989, (707) 462-4557 or www.artcenterukiah.org.

Upcoming Writers Read:
(Monthly last Thursday readings at Art Center Ukiah Annex, 7 PM)

Thursday, July 30: All open mic.

Thursday, August 27: Featured reader Claire Blotter, followed by open mic.

Thursday, September 24: Featured reader Armando Garcia-Davila, followed by open mic.

For information on these and other Northern California events, check www.coloredhorse.com, www.artcenterukiah.org and www.poetryflash.org.
~~