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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Lynn Montgomery" <sunfarm@toast.net>
  • To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] this time we don't have the family
  • Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:25:08 -0600

Dear Paul,
    There is no way little 'ol us are going to feed all these folks. They need to learn to feed themselves better. Our role is not to provide, but to educate. We are the future perfessers of the world and we had better start to prepare ourselves to do so, or start to form all the defenses and militias necessary to fend off the hungry hoards. Our little Spanish Land Grant village, founded in 1765, was situated at this spot because it's on the main route through the mountains from the east to the Rio Grande Valley. Back then, security was paramount and the village was a walled garrison and the residents were required to form a militia and defend the Valley from raiding Comanches, Faraon Apaches, (which lived right here in the Sandia Mountains), DinĂ© (Navajo), and other nomatic tribes. Going back a few centuries from then, there are many small jacal sites on the ridge tops which served as lookouts for those farming in the little valley below. These go back to 1100AD. In good years when everyone had enough to survive, friendly trading was done, (the nomads had lots of goodies to trade for, usually), but when things got tight from drought, nobody was safe. Our future can avoid this strife if we can get all those non-farming "nomads" out there growing their own more. Many cities have urban farming groups dedicated to expanding food production on front yards, vacant lots, alleys, and even road medians. Albuquerque has an alley gardens group, and many attempts to form a more comprehensive urban farms group. College students provide most of the energy for these. We need to get in there and assist these efforts and also get our rural fellows off their couches and out helping us and themselves to prepare. These bad times come on fast and are there before we know it.
    As for using falling water, there are reconstructed working water mills up in Las Golondrinas in La Cienega, South of Santa Fe. This is an historical interpretation park that has all kinds of old buildings and shops and an acequia running through it. One can get an idea of how efficient these are by visiting. They are, however, quite massive and would take a lot of lost know how to build one in every neighborhood. The millstones are 5' in diameter and weigh over a ton apiece! Making and maintaining them is an art unto itself. A small electric powered mill doesn't cost too much and doesn't take a lot of power to run, and anybody who has a solar system would know how to set up and use it. This system doesn't even require batteries, as a charge controller can be used, and milling only done in the day. Here at Sun Farm, our little acequia is really little, so we have to find alternatives. Of course, for you inventors out there, a small scale wind powered mill would be interesting.....
    Taking a big hint from Barb and freezing surplus whole tomatoes today.
Lynn at Sun Farm, NM
 
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2008 13:53:44 -0600
From: "Tradingpost" <
tradingpost@lobo.net>
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] this time we don't have the family
farms to fall back on
To:
livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID: <200809211353440724.0DC1BBC8@mail.lobo.net">200809211353440724.0DC1BBC8@mail.lobo.net>
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You got it. And Emilia said it well.

Now it seems the decline of freshwater and cheap oil, along with topsoil loss and climate disruptions are about to be upstaged by economic catastrophes here and worldwide. So the more urgent question comes down to this:  how fast can local food producers ramp up production to help feed our own communities? And do it sustainably without all the energy hog machinery and fossil fuel inputs? Never mind the waving wheat across the fruited plain - it'll never make it to market the way we're going, and the starving nations will bid up the price if it does. Growing local and eating local is no longer an option; it's urgent. Buying organic from far off climes is not an option; it's a dead end.

Now that big agribusiness has cheapened the organic label, we have more market customers asking us simply, where is your farm? We're an hour's drive east of here. Of course no chemicals, but now they're more concerned with fresh and local. I also remind folks that the organic label is no guarantee stuff tastes good. Storebought organic is usually so tasteless it isn't even worth the price of non-organic. So our plan is to keep on growing only the best tasting varieties we can find, and charge what the market will bear - long as people can buy food. We're both retired on a fixed income here, and not asking for a handout. At least we're providing something great in return for the money we get.


paul,
tradingpost@lobo.net

"The ignorance of mainstream America only makes it easier for the well informed to rise above the masses and make some serious changes for the better. "
-- Mike Adams


  • Re: [Livingontheland] this time we don't have the family, Lynn Montgomery, 09/22/2008

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