My friend, Ali, not only has a beautiful urban garden, but also the coolest chickens! Jason, from About An Acre, built a portable chicken coop that can be moved about the yard. Imagine walking out your backdoor and having fresh eggs from these beautiful girls!
The other day I went out to a cool newbie farm to pick up some raised garden beds. The farm is owned by Jason and Sandi and is located a few miles west of Commerce. I arrived about 15 minutes after the birth of a four-legged baby. Jason, a newbie organic farmer, was super proud of baby, (I’m pretty sure he would’ve been passing out cigars if he’d had some!), and he took me inside the pen to get a close up look at the cute little fella.
Mama goat was very nice and well behaved, so I got to pet baby (and note his back half was smeared with something that coulda been goat poop, but I was hoping and pretending and also praying was mud. I like goats. Goat poop, not so much). Anyway, me being me, I immediately wanted me a goat. Unfortunately, my backwards, behind the times subdivision covenants, prohibits them. Same reason I can’t have a coupla chickens. 
My thinking is this: not only are goats cute, they eat grass. Everyone who really knows me, knows I hate cutting grass, so I’m thinking bye bye lawnmower. Oh, the bliss of that!). Someone come buy my house so I can find myself a tiny shack on an acre or two and start myself a hippie farm.:-)
Jason told me they plan a canning class in the near future and also have some other interesting ideas in the works. I plan to go back out and check out the rest of their gardens/animals in the next month or so, so stay tuned. Check out the newbie farmers cool blog: http://WWW.aboutanacre.com
In recent news there was reports of large numbers of birds, in several locations in the world, falling from the skies. We have our seas being poisoned from oil drilling disasters and now from a nuclear power plant leak.
Eyes of Fire, a wise old Cree Indian woman from last century, had a vision of black waters and dead fish, ravaged forest, and birds falling from the sky. She said this was because mans’ greed would cause the Earth to become so polluted and sick that we would cease to know life as we presently know it. She predicted we would be forced to return to a simpler way of life, following ancient customs and rituals of respecting each other, our land, and animals in order to survive.
Eyes of Fire also predicted there would be terrifying mountains of ignorance to overcome in order to restore the Earth; that those attempting to respect nature would face prejudice and hatred. However, they will find other willing hearts and minds who will join in and follow them on the road of practicing necessary ancient customs of respecting the Earth. This is the only way the Earth can be restored.
Read prophecy at: http://WWW.birdclan.org/rainbow.htm
To read the entire article in Times Magazine on edible landscaping and Fritz Haeg, click: The Incredible, Edible Front Lawn – TIME
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1816764,00.html?artId=1816764?contType=article?chn=us
A grassroots movement towards edible landscaping is taking hold, but it is not really a new concept. Back in 1942, as the United States emerged from the Great Depression and mobilized for WWII, Agricultural Sec. Claude R. Wickard encouraged Americans to plant what what was then called “Victory Gardens”. Soon gardens began popping up not just on Americans lawns, but also in unusual places such as a downtown parking lot in New Orleans and a zoo in Portland. Now, in our modern day and age, we are seeing more and more people returning to the concept of a “useful” lawn of edibles since our economy has been on a downturn.
Los Angeles based architect, Fritz Haeg, launched a campaign back in 7/2005 urging people to trade in their ornamental lawns “for artistic arrangements of organic produce”.
I really hope the concept of edible lawns catches on like wildfire. Haeg believes, and I agree with him, that the “hyper-manicured lawn” is out of date and “a chemically treated and verdant but nutritionally barren lawn seems wasteful”. Back in 1943 Americans planted 20.5 million Victory Gardens and grew nearly one-third of the vegetables consumed in our country that year. I feel we can help ourselves save a buck by doing this, plus we help preserve our earth by reducing chemicals used to grow food and reduce fuel consumption to transport it great distances. We also eat healthier. So here’s to edible lawns!
