Comments on: Farming news …

By: Katie

Katie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:21:00 +0000

The little back porch is already full of toys, a grill, and the plants we brought (two trees, a huge hibiscus, and some random roses and herbs). There’s no room in the front, unless I want to trip people coming to the front door.

When I was a kid, we rented a little plot of land for a few years and grew stuff. I’m not sure if there’s anything like that around here that would be close enough that I could drag three little kids to it often enough to grow anything. Even the old cherry orchard is long gone and turned into shopping and apartments. But I shall look!

By: cmf

cmf — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:30:09 +0000

Katie — bring that cute new baby up here and you guys can plant all you want! But maybe pots on the patio? Herbs, some tomatoes? Green beans are always fun for little kids — when I lived in Hayward I trained them up a string trellis against the fence …

By: Chris L

Chris L — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:25:44 +0000

Katie, is there a neighborhood corner garden (or vacant lot) near where you live?

By: Katie

Katie — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:03:15 +0000

I don’t mind urban vs. rural so much (they both have pros and cons!) as I just don’t want to eat, live, play, or work (or whatever) in an institution of any kind. I just want to be in the real world of people. Not cubes or desks or giant buildings that all look the same. It’s soul-killing.

I also really wish I had a plot of land to put seeds in. I have been drooling over the Baker Creek catalog for days.

By: Chris L

Chris L — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:55:10 +0000

Here’s how I put it in a comment on Six Pixels’s post on “No More Websites. Only Publishing::

“Thank you. This is all new to me, a quasi backwoods luddite, in the sense of things you name here that I’ve felt intuitively.

A new tribalism, yes. No, we don’t want to enter static environments any more. But ultimately we don’t want to live in surrogate environments either. Or, not only there. We’re all connected, yes, but the question is: to what? And if it’s only to ourselves, if it’s only within a nice neat solipsistic circle, that, for all the apparent charisma and charm will only be another death-knell, too.

By: cmf

cmf — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:49:31 +0000

Still working on figuring out “the Twitter” Chris — although Skype is useful. Had a nice chat with my dad in Prague this morning that wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t both seen that the other one was on line.
Vlisack’s call for better broadband connection in rural areas is a good one though — Bonnie at Ethicurean is doing a lot of work with small meat producers to sell online, and to use “social networking” as a marketing tool. We’ll see. Important to remember though to get off the screen and go outside, talk to a real person, grow a plant etc … once in a while.

By: Chris L

Chris L — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:14:24 +0000

Yes, I’ve been thinking that. We’re all connected, I suppose—but the question is: to what? I’m sure there’s an inverse relationship between this “social networking” online and the “ecological umbilicus,” or whatever other term we want to use for our bodies and the earth.

But I need to understand, at least, what Twitter is. I need to know what the tools are—and both the advantages and real cost.

So when you find out, Charlotte, let me know.