We are leaving in ONE WEEK!  It’s finally come.  We are FINALLY doing a farm internship, where we will live in a converted barn and grow food on a real, working CSA farm!

Work doesn’t actually start until April 1st, so we’re taking a while driving up to the woods of Southen Wisconsin.  It’s going to be a sort of road trip!  A very cold road trip, though.  Ah well.  We’ve had our 70 degree weather….now we’re ready for more arctic conditions.  Or so we tell ourselves.

Right now our apartment is a major disaster zone from collecting things to sell and packing boxes upon boxes of books and clothes.  And homemade beer.  Packing time!

And not Hillary.  And since this is a food-activisty blog, I’ll talk about it relating to food.

First of all, Hillary is pretty much owned by corporations.  Corporations are pretty much machines, which makes Hillary a robot.  One of the biggest sponsors funneling money into the Clinton robotic system is Rural Americans for Clinton, care of Monsanto.  Corporations giving Hillary money are also very much for NAIS, which, if you are familiar with my second to last post, is fascism at its finest.

Obama is not corporate-owned.  And I feel more of a reasonable person in general.  Like, if he’s on the fence about NAIS when the time comes, I feel like he’s someone I can sit down and talk to about it.  What can I say, he’s likeable!

I am sick and slightly dazed. These are the days where I sort of wish I vetoed that whole I’ll-never-own-a-TV-again thing. There’s only so many choppy youtube videos I can watch before I lose my mind. I have apparently not only a real fever, but cabin fever as well. Maybe that’s why I went all drooly over this image I found…but I don’t care, it’s PREEETTY!

I realized what a downer my last post was, and I think being Miss Doom-and-Gloom was not only uncheery, but not very productive. So!

I’m BACK! And while I’m home sick, I wrote both Senators of the state of Wisconsin (where I’ll be heading soon enough, and also the leading contender of NAIS-lovin’ Senate support) to please oppose the NAIS. And Monday I am following up with a phonecall, as recommended by this site.

I’m urging everyone to do the same! It takes minutes and we can’t sit and give up! This isn’t just for farmers, it’s for everyone who eats and wants to eat healthy. And wants to drink water not polluted by factory farms. Etc, etc, etc! Visit No NAIS for more info, too.

If you have any time at all, please read this article.   It’s just a big fat reminder that the people in power have no idea what they’re doing and are completely out of touch with the way the world works.

Or they just really don’t care.

The NAIS is basically an microchip animal identification system, and among many other horrors it’s going to provide, it’s going to be murder on the small farmer. Perhaps the most unsettling thing about it is that it’s proposed as a tool of protection for the people, which is a complete lie. It’s actually all about money. Of course.

I’ve been hearing about the proposed NAIS plan for a while, but, silly me, I thought to myself, that’ll never happen! Pff, that’ll never fly! But the proverbial radio-chipped chicken has flown the coop in some states already, folks.

And this isn’t me just being some radical leftist, either: the public outcry of disgust blurs both the left and right wings together. Because the NAIS basically says that the government owns you. You have no freedom with this. You have no rights.

NAIS is facism, pure and simple.  It defines facism.  We can not let this happen.  It has to stop in its tracks!

Visit here for information and ways to take action!

That’s right, I have gone kitchen-crafty-crazy!  Yesterday I rendered lard, made refried beans, made and jarred mayonaise from scratch, and started my kombucha.  Oh, did I mention we have beer #5 fermenting in our bathroom as I type?  It’s a beer we made up!  (Sort of.  We basically took the licorice beer recipe and just added some anise and fennel.)

It’s Craft City in this apartment!  Keeping the old world traditions alive in apartment #9!  I felt like such a little pioneer woman using real lard that I rendered myself to make refried beans.   And the lard was made from pork fat that I bought from Finca Pura Organic Farms at the farmer’s market.  I know my dad would be horrified at reading this post, and I’ve TRIED explaining the health benefits of fat from grass-fed animals…but it’s hopeless.  Oh well.  But back to feeling like a pioneer woman:  seriously, it was like I was Ma Ingalls (Little House books fame), cooking with lard and salting the pork to be stored for the winter.  Just kidding, I didn’t really salt and store pork, but I did tell my parents that I wanted to eventually start living without refridgeration, much to their laughter at such a preposterous notion.  Geez Mom and Dad, sorry for saving the damn world!  Excuse me for pulling the plug (literally) on our dire energy crisis!  Didn’t know it was so funny!

But speaking of Little House books.  If Mr. Urbangrower and I do indeed get this apprenticeship in Wisconsin, I am SO re-reading the first book in the Little House series, Little House in the Big Woods.  It’s where Laura and her family live in a log cabin in Wisconsin!  The geography is a little off, I know, since I believe the book takes place in NORTHERN Wisconsin, supposedly the more majestic and beautiful part of the state, but whatever.   Man, I love those books!

Well, I’m off.  Sure wish I could churn some butter or something.

By Goddess Camp, I really mean Herb Pharm’s apprenticeship program, a program I would only semi-recommend to people.  The classes were great, which is the only real praise I can say. 

And I mean no disrespect by calling it Goddess Camp–hey, I like paganism and find myself aligned with many of its ways of thinking!  Days of work would begin with a chant or song of some sort, usually thanking mother sun or father sky while holding hands in a circle.  And our lectures (by renowned health professionals, I’ll have you know) would be peppered with anecdotal stories about faeries.  Like, faeries like to do this, but don’t do this, you’ll upset the faeries. 

Which, let me say, I am fine with.  Sometimes I feel a little jealous, even–I mean, I’ve been dabbling in herbalism for years and I’VE never seen a faery!  But there are many things in this world I haven’t seen concrete evidence of and still believe in.  I can believe there are faeries in some sense or another living under an elderberry bush or something, sure.   

My only bone to pick with pagan ideology is that it takes itself so damn seriously.  Like, that mother sun/father sky song.  It was worthy of being made fun of, really, at least a little.  At least exchanging a few knowing glances, ones that say, “this is sort of funny, isn’t it?”.  But no.  Nope.  Instead, we just sang in these super-serious voices with these deadpan faces!  You know, the super-serious pagan way! 

I guess one can argue that religion is serious.  Period.  But I don’t think that’s really a great idea all of the time, and I’m sorry, but especially when you’re pagan!  Because when you’re pagan….things are just.  Sillier!  And I think it might be more beneficial for a little humor to be incorporated.  But maybe I’m way off base and that’s a totally offense thing to say to a pagan.  See, I didn’t find out, because I didn’t want to ask one of the humorless pagans in fear that their super-serious pagan face would become even more serious and would explode because it was overloaded with seriousness. 

And I know what some of you are thinking.  Isn’t she the one who’s planning an Enchanted Forest-themed wedding, complete with faery wings and everything?  Yes.  I am.  But see, I know it’s silly and that our wedding is going to be sort of weird.  Believe me, there aren’t deadpan faces involved in this planning. 

Ok, she didn’t really, and even if I somehow, by reason of insanity, thought that she actually did, I would have to be angry with other writers as well, since it’s all the rage these days to write a memoir/how-to/political commentary book about eating locally for a length of time, and the difficulties this adventure entails.

But her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, is one I am especially thrilled about. BK has been one of my favorite writers since high school (she’s a biologist/activist/AND a novelist!), and I can’t wait to read it, but couldn’t seem to muster up the power to dish out the twenty-six big ones at Bookpeople the other day. I’m pinching pennies for the time being. But besides that, I’ve decided to wait and read my other six books that I’m reading simultaneously, especially since I just finished a book exactly like hers: Micheal Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I totally loved until he sort of lost me with that last chapter devoted to a sort of bourgeouis dinner party, complete with pasta mixed with freshly-gathered morel mushrooms and a pate from the liver of a wild pig.

Ok, I know, I know, given everything Pollan has done for the local food movement, who cares. That last chapter wasn’t even really FOR me, I know. Just because I can’t hire some fancy-pants gourmet mushroom hunter doesn’t mean NO ONE can’t. Really, he can do whatever he wants; he’s Micheal Pollan, after all, and he’s a power to be reckoned with. After his book and a Pollan-penned New York Times article came out tearing organic-industrial giant Whole Foods to smithereens, he scared the bejeezus out of Whole Foods’ CEO John Mackey, so much so that Whole Foods has since made some sort of vow to carry more local stuff. I have yet to see such action, but they’re under fire, and I have no doubt it will happen.

I also finished Jessica Prentice’s Full Moon Feast, also a lovely book. She’s coined the word “locavore” (a person who eats locally), has a lot of interesting ideas about making/preserving food, and her book is swamped with folklore and history. It’s not fantastically written, but I’m highly critical about that sort of thing, so maybe it wouldn’t bother some people.

However, BK has never failed me. Her essays are so good they can make a girl cry. Well-make ME cry, anyway. (Don’t get any crazy ideas, I’m just talking a single tear or two.) Her syntax is beautiful, her subjects profound.  If Micheal Pollan is the at-the-moment greatest crusader, Kingsolver is the local food movement’s high poetess.

And one last note to cap off this food media-saturated blog entry: the other night Alex and I rented Fast Food Nation. I can probably write a whole entry on why I hated this movie, but I’ll instead just end this entry with the tip not to rent it.  Some guy had this to say on the comments portion of the Rotton Tomatoes website: “This movie just made me feel…BAD.” Well, it’s not exactly the most sagacious of reviews, but it honestly is probably the quickest one to the point. Eric Schlossar’s wonderful book of the same title shows the horror of our fast food country, all while making you angry and invigorated at the same time, and Richard Linklater’s movie…well…is just GROSS. It instead just makes you want to give up, just sit on your couch read US magazine. It a) gives no real solutions, and b) has idiotic dialogue/characters/plots in the way that all Richard Linklater movies do (hear this, WAKING LIFE fans: I don’t want your rebuttals!).

My bee story happened a few weeks ago, and actually FEELS like it happened forever ago, since I’ve just arrived back in bustling, metropolitan Austin. But that’s ok, because if it was written too closely to the incident, it might have a frightening undertone. So, here we are, and, alas, it will instead be told in loving retrospect. Because the last thing I want this story to do is make one bitter against bees, and make one dismiss them as nothing more than little stinging monsters. So, ahem, a disclaimer: bees are nature’s friends. They’re crucial open pollinators, and very important for the world of natural agriculture. The world needs bees. Oh, and they’re disappearing. Rapidly, I hear. And if you’re on 50 million “eco” listservs like I am, you’ll know too that it’s a panicked-filled issue.

Besides–and I know, I’ll get on with the story soon, be patient, ok?–it’s not their fault they’ve bred with Africanized bees and now they’re alittle, um, fiestier. They get alittle riled up when you mess with their bee boxes or hives, that’s all. I went to a lecture of Malcolm Beck’s (organic gardening writer and guru), and he talked about how he liked keeping wasps in his garden for all of these pest control reasons, and how he could now pretty much pet and play with the wasps like dogs if he wanted to. ….I don’t know how this conveys my case trying to get you, dear reader, to not hate bees, but my point is….well, just don’t hate bees! Love them, learn to live with them, and if you’re a brave soul, learn to be a beekeeper. I hear it pays well, because most people are scared. I know I am. Long live the beekeeper!

My story goes like this: All of us farm volunteers had a class on beekeeping. The beginning was a lecture, safe and protected in the walls of the strawbale education center. I sat, furiously scribbling notes on the fascinating world of bees. In fact, I couldn’t get enough of their tiny, captivating lives. And when our teacher announced we would all be going out to find the queen bee, well…count me excited!

We marched up the hill to the stack of bee boxes, all of us armored with the black screen hats, except for two who stayed behind to wait their turns due to the shortage. Then, the teacher began; slowly, one by one, unstacking the boxes. First a few bees started buzzing around. Then a few more. Then–a lot more. I’m pretty sure he was talking about finding the queen, how he didn’t usually have this much trouble, but I had stopped listening. I was getting freaked out. And I mean FREAKED OUT. And since we had just learned about bees and their dependence on pheromones, I’m pretty sure my fear was radiating out of my body, and, therefore, utterly detectable.

Then I felt the sting. On the back of my “protected” head. And then another one. Feeling behind in a panic, I realized the screen hat was never really sealed in the back. And then what did I do? I ran! (So stupid, never run! Learn from my mistakes!). I ran and took off the mask screen thing. ALSO stupid. Of course, bees followed me. The other two waiting volunteers saw me and what must have looked like a cartoon swarm of bees around my head, because they looked scared. Real scared. One hit my head in an effort to kill one, but hurriedly said, “Oh, sorry!” Sorry? I thought, Heck, keep hitting me! Infact, don’t STOP hitting me! If you knock me out at this point, that’s ok! I had probably gotton 10 stings or so, and, after a few minutes and a lot of smacking of the head, finally ran down to the intern house, where I immediately took benedryl and applied ice.

Ok, it was pretty terrifying. I tried to tone down the actual horror that was this story, and I think I sort of succeeded, but obviously, this doesn’t make me want to keep bees. I don’t care how fascinating their lives are, I can’t do it. I can’t! But I really admire people who can and will. Albert Einstein once said something about if the world loses bees, we’re all in big trouble. So: for pete’s sake, people, save the bees!

Even TIME has caught on, a cover exclaiming “Forget Organic, Buy Local”.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595245,00.html