NEWSLETTER: March 2007
February went by as fast as the chill you get going to the mailbox without a coat and back again. As we get older the time passes like mini-seconds, not like being ten again, when it passes in hours, and sometimes like whole days.
Earth Day plans are shaping up, with the Scouts being the major planners. And we are approaching the cusp of spring, with an idea of planting a few flats of seeds to get an early start for annuals. Along with germinating seeds, another seed of thought has been fermenting, about a sustainable community. And to my surprise, there has occurred a convergence of events and articles that have helped move it along…Spring, Earth Day, and this grant announcement. Letty Malone described it as such, “The city has received notice that it has been awarded an $18,000 grant under the CT Department of Agriculture's Farm Viability program. The Mayor's Open Space Advisory Committee promoted the idea that the city should apply for the grant to study ways to preserve farming and agriculture in the city.
The "farm viability" study will consider ways that farms and farming can flourish despite the threats of development that face small cities such as Milford.” Our showing of “An Inconvenient Truth” still hounding my heels (which by the way, was a great success—the morning about half full, but in the afternoon, we had to empty the closet of chairs to seat everyone). Now the comments of Barbara Kingslover’s (author of Poisonwood Bible and Pigs in Heaven, and others) in an article “Stalking the Vegetannual” in magazine Orion, remarks about how “we don’t know beans about beans”, we don’t know that most of our food begins each spring with planting a seed. She said, “Most people of my grandparents’ generation had an intuitive sense of agriculture basics: when various fruits and vegetables come into season, which ones keep through the winter, how to preserve the others. On what day autumn’s frost will likely fall on their county…. what animals and vegetables thrive in one’s region…how to live well on those, with little else thrown into the mix beyond a bag of flour, a pinch of salt and a handful of coffee. Few people of my generation, and approximately none of our children, could answer any of those questions, let alone all of them.” And then an article from Orion, different month, by James Howard Kunstler, “Making Other Arrangements” theme “Getting Real about the Future”—we are “sleepwalking into a future of energy scarcity, climate change, and geopolitical turmoil” and we continue to dream. “With all of this, it all came together-the need for a conversation, a series, beginning with food and farming.
So let us begin a conversation about creating a sustainable community by first discussing gardening, community gardens, how to support our farms, buying our produce locally, even how to have our own Victory Garden. It is a beginning conversation to plant the seed about an unknown future, to begin thinking about what life would be like with a dwindling supply of oil. Fact number one, the supply of oil peaked in December 2005. That year the supply was a little over 85 million barrels of oil per day. “Since then, it has trended absolutely flat around 84 million. World oil consumption rose from 77 million barrels a day in 2001 to above 85 million so far this year (2007).” There you have it, the supplies are going down and the demands are rising. So why are we talking about food and not oil. Oil connotes transportation and how we get a great deal of our food, fresh food especially in the winter from all corners of the world? Just think of it, blueberries in December and strawberries every month of the year—our realities are unreal. We are living with such luxuries as no other generation before us or for others that will follow. Our bubble has been pricked and with fair warning. Hopefully we have the wisdom to prepare ourselves with some “back to basics” practices before it slams us against the wall and into a corner with no alternatives from which to turn. We are the bearer of bad news on one hand, but on the other hand, we stand to motivate and inspire new ideas for development and invention. We need to be promoters and cheerleaders for creating a new vision towards a more sane and spiritual life with a greater appreciation for our Earth’s natural beauty and resources, that being the side of conservation and working towards being more sustainable. This is the goal for the beginning of our conversations for inspiring Milford to be a more sustainable community. This is just a first step which will develop into a series, some of which may have different themes, but beginning with community gardens, more on organic gardening, recycling, energy use and conservation plus. Our meeting this month will have a panel with a format of questions and answers. (This format served us well at our last meeting, which was very successful and continued to my great surprise until around 10:30. I wondered why the custodian was so anxious to see us leave). On the panel will be Linda Ball, Director of Community Gardens, Cordalie Benoit, Graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and New Haven Community Gardens, Marie and Andy Macri, Rivercrest Farm, Mary Treat and Keith Dunn, Treat Farm and the David Siekierski Farm on Wheelers Farm Road. We meet at the same place, Parsons Complex, Conference Room C at 7:30. Looking for a great conversation!
A local story about how Green Ingenuity developed into a business, submitted by Tessa Marquis: Dayan Moore and Alison Grieveson are making very nice shoulder strap carrying bags – for books or as purses or for anything you may need to schlep around. The really exciting and local part of this is that these Milfordites are green entrepreneurs who have made an alliance with Bruce Barrett of Barrett Outdoor Communications for the used vinyl from his company’s billboards along the highway. Bruce provides them with the vinyl, which they refashion into extremely useful and beautiful bags. Below is the e-mail Day sent to me about the bags.
My business partner and I make bags and accessories from recycled designer and vintage fabrics. Long story short -- we were wondering what happens to all of the vinyl billboards after they are taken down, thinking that it would be great to get a hold of some to sew into bags. One day we noticed the Iwagepeace.org billboards and thought how wonderful it would be to use those to make our products and donate a percentage of our profits to a local environmental non-profit. The very next day I ran into someone who knew Bruce Barrett of Barrett Outdoor Communications. They proceeded to tell me about his company and that
Iwagepeace.com was his brainchild. As it turns out Bruce is my neighbor and so I thought I would take a chance and e-mail him and ask about the billboards. Having no idea that his company was an eco-friendly business until I went to his website, I felt even more compelled to contact him. Bruce was immediately responsive to our questions and more than happy to get us a billboard to try out. We now have three products made from billboard and are working on three more, which we hope to have available within two weeks. We have not decided to which organization we are going to donate, but we are leaning towards Save the Sound. Our website is www.gg2g.com (Note: Staples will give you a three-dollar credit for retuning old ink cartridges.)
We are looking for Green Exhibitors for Earth Day, which is Saturday April 28 at the Fowler Pavilion and the Fowler Building. All the litter picked up will be in clear plastic bags, Bruce Kolwicz’ suggestion, so that it will be visible to the public. It will all be deposited on the Green across from the Library for all to see for a solid week. Hope the polluters get the message.
Here are four events our Community Garden is sponsoring at the Milford Library in April:
- “Beautiful Butterfly Gardens” April 3;
- “Seeds, Seedlings & Soil”, April 7;
- “Gardens of Color”, April 16; and
- “Designing Your Spring & Summer Garden”, April 23.
For more details contact the Parks and Recreation Department. (783-3280)
Two Editorials (Not necessarily the opinion of the ECC): I agree with Terri and Jim Amann that it is pain to schlep bottles back to be redeemed. When I do, I get the slips and most often forget to get reimbursed. There are actually thousands of unclaimed dollars that the state wants returned that stores and/or redemption centers are making on those unclaimed monies. However, I respectfully disagree with the Amanns regarding the water bottles, as only two out of ten water bottles are recycled and by the looks of the landscape that is where they all go. If I had the energy, I would join the churches in Canada in their campaign against the scourge of the water bottles, by getting people to boycott buying bottled water. Those who regularly buy the small bottle water should pay for the cost of a ten-cent refund. Too many water bottle users are lazy polluters who are littering our countryside. If they can’t even put them in the blue bins, then we who have to pick them up should at least be compensated for our efforts. I say raise the price of bottled water and double the refund price. Too much money is being made on a very precious resource that is still freely available. This says a great deal about our society and its arrogant attitude by not connecting our behavior of not recycling as another cause of global warming. Just the production of those very sleazy, cheap water bottles is a contributor of toxins as they disintegrate on our land and in our waters by giving off their cancer causing dioxins. It should be noted that Michigan, with a 10-cent bottle deposit, has a recycling rate of 95% compared to 25-30% for Connecticut. I say Legislators, PLEASE PASS THIS BOTTLE BILL.
My second comment is addressed to our Mayor. He is supporting raising the rental fees on two billboards that are on city property as a source of revenue and because they have been there for over 60 years and have become part of the landscape. He also agrees that they are ugly, like all of them that are grandfathered within city limits. “But why”, he asks, “Should we sacrifice getting some money, while the rest of those billboards remain?” Good point! However, we need to decide if that money is worth the aesthetic pollution we have to face at the entrance leading into our beautiful downtown? Maybe it behooves us as citizens to come up with some ideas on how to obtain revenue to replace those billboards so we can make the statement that we value beauty over ugliness. Maybe we could start a fund to pull those billboards down and donate the funds for the pleasure of doing it. I will make the first donation of $100. Is there anyone else out there to follow?
BE SURE TO CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS TO SUPPORT THE BOTTLE, PESTICIDE AND DIESEL BILLS. CALL: 1-800-842-1902.
Ann Berman, Chair of ECC
www.milfordecc.com
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