I hope you enjoy this slideshow we’ve put together of what we consider to be one of America’s most endearing tribes of inhabitants - the Chipmunks of California! And, I hope your imaginiation has been sparked just enough so that you can look at our photos and see within them a family of very small, very valuable people. We who live in the Western United States are uniquely privileged to co-exist with the majority of the world’s Chipmunks. 23 of the planet’s 25 recognized species live with us here in the West.

I’ve found it difficult to get a concrete identification of our local Chipmunks. Even the State Park workers are apparently uncertain as to which varieties live in local parks, but I have managed to narrow it down to two possible species - both the Sonoma Chipmunk and the Yellow Cheeked Chipmunk inhabit Northern California and both not only enjoy various types of forests, but they are also vital authors of the woodlands we westerners so cherish.

Chipmunks create stores of nuts and seeds which are responsible for some of our great groves of redwoods and oaks. They also help spread the spores of various fungi which are part of a symbiotic relationship with forest trees. Ever busy, Chipmunks have worked to create some of the green places that bring greatest refreshment to the human spirit. They deserve our gratitude for this.

I dream of a day in which the human species has evolved sufficiently to be able to communicate with other species of animals. We are so far from this dream of mine at present that many people remain locked in a speciesist state of ignorance, erroneously believing that animals have no language or culture and are therefore inferior to humans. Many people are unaware that dolphins have spoken names for one another and keep porpoises as pets, that honeybees have a visual quantam mechanics-based sign language that directs their tribe and that groups of sloths have individual cultural cuisines that are passed on from one generation to the next. These are a few of the facts that human beings have been able to observe about our fellow species because the behaviors of certain kinds of animals are similar enough to the behaviors of humans that we are able to recognize them. There are other cultural traits that we have not yet been smart enough to understand and very few languages we have been able to decipher, although some words of Chickadee have been decoded in recent times.

When you realize that our world isn’t simply made up of different tribes of humans expressing their cultures, communicating in their languages and worshiping in their various ways, but that it is very likely that all other earthly creatures are doing this as well, your wonder over the diversity and complexity of our environment increases immeasurably. If even the tiny Chipmunks are a great tribe of Earth’s people with a lifeway, a culture and a purpose of their own - and I hope you can see that they are - what an amazing world we inhabit, endlessly interesting, incalculably valuable.

What I Know About The Chipmunk People

• Chipmunks are only a few inches long from nose to the tip of their luxuriant little tail. They would easily fit in the palm of your hand.
• Like many people, chipmunks are omnivorous, eating seeds, nuts, berries, insects, amphibians and birds’ eggs.
• Most Chipmunk couples have 3-7 children at once and within a year, the young ones are ready to go out into the world, having learned all they need to know to work at survival.
• In places inhabited by Chipmunks, you may see them in trees or hiding amongst groundcover plants. They are small enough to fit underneath the Redwood Oxalis. They also like to come to the cleared edges of paths - perhaps for a clear view of their surroundings - but they are quick to dart back under cover if something appears dangerous to them.
• In public parks, the Chipmunk people have become rather used to the Human people, and provided that you have ability to sit quietly without making startling movements, Chipmunks will often be comfortable enough to share a space in the forest for you for a time. At such times, you can have the great pleasure of watching them and trying to communicate your goodwill by acting peacefully in their presence.
• Chipmunks are frequently drawn to campsites for forage. In general, non-devastated habitats provide plenty of natural food for Chipmunks, but if you are going to share your provisions with Chipmunks, please stick with organic seeds, nuts and berries. Do not feed Chipmunks processed foods like crackers and potato chips or any substance that has been genetically modified as this could endanger their health.
• Chipmunks are incredibly agile and can move with astonishing speed - leaping and dashing through the forest. Taking photographs as a celebration of Chipmunks is challenging. Wait until they feel comfortable with your presence. Let them see that you have a camera. If this does not bother them and they remain busy eating or resting, you may be able to take some beautiful photographs that you will cherish and that you can share with others in hopes of increasing public education about the vital roles Chipmunks play in the health of our environment.

Protecting The Rights Of Chipmunks
It is vitally important that we people take all possible steps to preserve forest lands intact. Beyond this, we must demand that our State and Federal Parks departments become educated about the deadly harms done to Chipmunks and other forest dwelling tribes by the use of herbicides and pesticides. Unfortunately, Western forests are frequently sprayed with these substances as an archaic method of combating bugs or weeds. Dousing our forests with poisons in order to be rid of a grass or a moth is like dropping an atomic bomb on our house because we have a dandelion in our lawn or a spider in our kitchen.

Unfortunately, State and Federal Parks departments are improperly educated about the realities of poisoning the environment with pesticides and herbicides and are often, scandalously, in league with the manufacturers of these poisons because of the monetary wealth available for so-called ‘eradication’ programs. Imbalances in our forests, and in all lands, can be made right through natural, organic methods and ancient forms of ecological wisdom that cause harm to no one. It is only in the past century that people have veered from the time-honored paths of healthy and good stewardship. Turning to pesticides and herbicides as answers dishonors the long traditions of humanity of taking exceptional care of the planet we all call home. If you want to save forests for the many tribes that inhabit them, work toward a zero tolerance policy for pesticide/herbicide/fungicide/rodenticide use in your county and state.

Celebrating The Chipmunk People
We have been honored by repeat visits from various kinds of Chipmunks, including the ultimately tiny Alpine Chipmunks (not pictured here). Each time I meet with them, I am astonished by their smallness, their spirit and their skills. Many people pass through forests every day and are never aware that these little people are watching them from amongst clumps of wildflowers or the ridges of fallen tree branches. I sense a genuinely tolerant, amiable good will from the Chipmunk People towards we humans who are able to enter the forest with respect, quiet and an equal measure of good will. What a blessing!

Whether you’ve voluntarily gone vegan, or are going dairy free on your doctor’s orders, cheese may be something you discover you really miss. I grew up eating cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese sandwiches. My mother and father bought the best they could afford for we children - no Velveeta or cheeze food for us. With some tomato and dill pickle and a little crisp lettuce, cheese sandwiches were daily fare in our house. Like many vegans, giving up meat was really no problem for me. 20 years later, I really have no cravings for it, but from time to time, I think of that simple cheese sandwich satisfaction and want to have the enjoyment of that again.

I’ve tried the soy, rice and almond based vegan cheese substitutes in the store. To me, they taste like rubber. My husband says he thinks they aren’t too bad, but he grew up eating American cheese singles, and so maybe the manufacturers of these vegan substitutes are having better success with taste buds that are attuned to that kind of semi-plastic-y product. So, the available processed imitation cheese products just don’t do it for me when I feel that cheese sandwich yearning coming over me, and maybe you’re in the same boat. If so, I invite you to give my vegan cheese recipe a try and see if it cuts the mustard for you!

My Gourmet Vegan Dairy Free Cheese Recipe

Ingredients:
1 C. Raw Organic Sesame Tahini (available at most natural foods stores near the peanut butter)
1/8 C. Organic Rice Vinegar
1/8 C. Organic Olive Oil
2 T. finely chopped fresh Organic Chives
1/2 t. fresh organic Thyme Leaves
1 medium sized sprig chopped Organic Dill Weed
1 heaping T. red star vegan formula Nutritional Yeast
Salt & Pepper to taste

Equipment
A knife to chop the herbs
A spoon to spoon up the tahini
A 16 ounce glass mason jar with lid

Directions
Chop your herbs and put them in the jar

Add vinegar and oil and whisk them up with the spoon

Whisk in salt and pepper (remember, conventional cheese has a lot of salt in it so be free with the salt in this recipe)

Add the tahini and nutritional yeast to the jar

Close lid tightly and shake vigorously for about half a minute, and that’s it!

Store your cheese in the refrigerator. You may need to shake it again before each use as the olive oil likes to separate from the tahini. The mixture will remain quite good for about a week - if it lasts that long in your house.

What Does This Homemade Vegan Cheese Taste Like?
That’s what I’d want to know first, too. There is something about the combination of the nutty sesame that’s in tahini, the tang of the sharp rice vinegar and the cheesiness of the nutritional yeast, with the addition of salt, that tastes quite a bit like cheddar cheese, but I find it’s not quite ‘enough’ on its own. Frankly, tahini is so delicious, it’s good all on its own, but we’re striving for a real cheesiness here and I find that the addition of the olive oil is very important, as it mimics the high fat content in conventional cheese (without the cholesterol!) Finally, the inclusion of fresh herbs makes the finished vegan cheese most akin to those herbed gourmet soft cheeses that people pay big money for and serve at parties.

In my childhood home, my family celebrated New Year’s with a selection of exciting crackers and cheeses and the herbed spreadable cheeses from Boursin and Alouette were our favorites - spread on a cracker with a little dab of ruby red currant jelly on top. My, we felt like we were living high! This dairy free cheese recipe comes closest to that type of cheese. In consistency, it is somewhat more thick-dip-like than cream-cheese-like, and it spreads beautifully.

Suggested Uses for this Vegan Cheese Recipe
I’ve already mentioned the utterly satisfying cheese sandwich, topped with your choice of pickles, pepperoncini, garden-fresh tomato, crisp lettuces, maybe hobbit-style with toasted bread and loads of sauteed mushrooms. Anything you once enjoyed on a cheese sandwich goes excellently with this dairy-free cheese recipe.

If you’re a dipping fan, try this with crackers, pita, tortilla chips or crunchy celery and carrots sticks. Totally delicious for a light snack.

Use as an additional topping on our gluten free vegan pizza recipe, added in the last minute of cooking the pizzas in the oven just to heat it slightly. No, like pretty much all vegan cheeses, it doesn’t melt into stringiness, but it’s pretty gooey just as it is - like conventional pizza cheese.

Try it in tacos and burritos or on nachos, loaded up with refried beans, brown rice, guacamole, tomatoes and chili peppers, salsa or whatever you fancy.

And, if you are one of those discriminating people who thinks that apple pie simply isn’t complete without a bit of cheese, spread a small amount of this vegan cheese on your next juicy spicy slice and you’ll let out a sigh of deepest satisfaction.

Reasons To Feel Really Good About Going Dairy-Free

For You
Of particular concern to elders, the 3 countries in the world with the highest dairy consumption - United States, Sweden, and Finland - are also the 3 countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis. Medical science has traditionally pushed for the consumption of dairy products as a way to get protein and calcium. In modern times, numerous respected medical studies have revealed that the high amount of protien in animal products actually causes limited absorption of the calcium in them, when compared to the absorption rates of calcium eaten in plant forms. The Dairy industry continues to promote its products as your key to healthy bones, but independent scientists want you to know the truth.

In addition to this, the first advice given to most Americans by their doctors when a patient is suffering from intestinal disorders, high cholesterol and heart diseases is often to stop eating dairy products. If you’ve found your way to this article because you’re trying to create a new dairy-free menu for yourself because of a health concern, I hope this recipe will help you to take comfort in the fact that dairy-free foods can be exceptionally delicious when prepared with thought and care.

Remember, going dairy free is actually a very natural thing to do - not something outrageous. Human beings are the only animals on earth that drink milk past infancy. The milk that is taken from mother cows is not meant for us - it is meant for their calves. Going dairy free means breaking out of the bizarre cycle of permanent infancy most Americans live in - and get sick from. If you are seeking a new dairy-free lifestyle, I sincerely hope it brings you better health.

For The Animals
I believe the world’s people will live to see the day when we look back on our past of forcing animals to labor for our purposes, without their consent, with dismay. Dairy cows lead heartbreaking lives; mechanically forced to reproduce, deprived of their children, drugged, kept in an unnatural state of permanent lactation, fed waste products and finally, slaughtered when they are of no ‘use’ to people any more, these beings are victims of almost unthinkable cruelty and lack of regard for their dignity.

Many people turn to vegetarianism when they learn about the horrors of animals slaughtered for meat, and I applaud that response of compassion for the suffering of others. It’s important to understand that this same suffering is inherent in animals used by the Dairy industry as well. On the other side of every glass of milk, every slice of cheese, is a veal calf, stolen from its mother, held in unbearable confinement and slaughtered in infancy. And, the slaughterhouse is waiting at the end of every dairy cow mother’s life, too. Very often, people make the move from vegetarianism to veganism because they suddenly realize how the meat and dairy industries are interconnected and how the suffering is the same for all animals involved.

For The Planet
The factory farming of cows is doing more to destroy our planet’s ecology and contribute to global warming than is our car driving habit in America. The methane belched by cows is one of the major contributors to climate change and the waste produced by factory farms has totally contaminated much of our precious water supply. Our consumption of meat and dairy means polluted skies, a suffering ecology and hungry people around the world. It’s unsustainable and unfair to future generations.

By opting out of dairy product consumption, you are making an extremely important difference in the fate of our world. That may sound grandiose, but it truly isn’t. Just think about the future, and what a simple act like making your own dairy-free cheese might do. Maybe you’ll share a sandwich with a friend who will come back and ask you for your recipe. Maybe you’ll be able to help out a sick loved one by mastering healthful cooking and making their transistion to a healthier diet not just easier, but a real pleasure. If you have children, maybe they’ll some day be blogging nostalgically about those mouthwatering vegan cheese sandwiches you made for them. And, maybe they’ll be feeding them to their own children.

It’s thoughts like this that help me to realize that a recipe can be more than a recipe. It can be a plan for a kinder, more compassionate future for people and all God’s creatures. Suddenly, that tasty vegan cheese tastes even better in your mouth when you think about it that way and food, made with knowledge, skill and love, becomes a blessing.

Wheat Free and Soy Free?
My own diagnosis of gluten intolerance came bundled with an equally burdensome diagnosis of soy intolerance. As a devoted home cook who baked her own bread and could make literally hundreds of mouthwatering tofu-based dishes, I confess I shed a few tears. And then, I got back into my kitchen and started using my noodle (albeit a gluten free one) to begin devising new tasty dishes that could stand between my family and a feeling of deprivation.

One of the most frustrating things for me about these intolerances is that they seemed to put a barrier between me and from-scratch cooking. There is a growing inventory of gluten free mixes out there for baked goods, but all my adult life, I have avoided processed and packaged foods whenever possible. Worst of all, attempting to find gluten free processed foods that are organic has proved incredibly difficult where I live. There is not a single edible loaf of organic, gluten free, vegan bread to be found here. When it became obvious that I was no longer going to be able to bake wheat-like crusty loaves of bread without purchasing a lot of unfamiliar, processed ingredients, I had to think long and hard about something that could stand in for bread in our daily diet.

Enter Polenta
Polenta is a traditional corn meal mush, made for centuries in Italy. Purchase organic bulk polenta at natural food stores. I stress purchasing only organic polenta, as this is your only protection from genetically-modified corn (GMO). Cooked polenta can be eaten mushy or - and this is the great part - cooled and sliced into bread-like slices that can be broiled, baked, fried or grilled. Once you’ve got something that is acting as a piece of ‘toast’, you’ve got the base for individual pizzas! I count this as one of my great gluten free discoveries and I’m going to teach you how to create what just might be the best little pizzas you’ve ever eaten.

Making the Polenta
We don’t have a fancy kitchen, fancy tools, or fancy ingredients. We don’t even have any sharp knives around here. Don’t let gourmet cooking shows fool you into thinking making polenta is hard. If you’ve ever made oatmeal or Cream of Wheat, you can make polenta.

Step 1
Combine 1/2 cup rice milk with 2 cups water. Heat over medium heat on stovetop, adding a pinch of salt and a splash of olive oil.

Step 2
When the water is almost boiling, add 1 cup of polenta in a slow, steady stream, mixing with a whisk constantly. I find it is helpful to have the polenta in a measuring cup for easier pouring.

Step 3
Stir constantly for about 8 minutes. The polenta will be extremely thick at the end of this.

Step 4
Spoon the polenta into a small square dish. The one we use is a piece of glassware measuring 5″ x 5″. The idea is to end up with a loaf-like block that you can cut into slices. This amount of polenta will not fill up a regular size loaf pan. If you’re feeding a crowd, you could double the recipe and use a regular loaf pan as your polenta mold. Set aside and let cool for about 20 minutes.

Step 5
Unmold the polenta by running a knife around the perimeter inside the baking dish. Some polenta recipes advise greasing the baking dish, but we have never found this to be necessary. Let the polenta fall out of the mold onto a dish or cutting board.

Step 6
Slice the polenta into 1/2″ slices and lay them out on your oven’s broiling pan. Turn the broiler onto high. Place the broiling pan in the broiler and broil one side of the polenta until the top side is turning golden brown. We actually like our pizza crusts a tiny bit burnt around the edges. Then, with a spatula, flip the polenta crusts over and brown on the other side. Remove from broiler and set aside. Your crusts should look like this:

* After you’ve broiled the crusts, turn off the broiler and pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees.

The Toppings
When it comes to pizza toppings, it’s definitely to each his own! The suggestions I am going to offer you create a combination of flavors that my family is crazy for. We consider pizza to be best as a summer dish, as this allows us to use summer squash, tomatoes, onions and garlic from our farm. If you don’t have a garden right now, try to buy your pizza toppings from the nearest farmers market. It makes an immeasurable difference in the flavor of the finished dish.

If you have homemade tomato sauce, terrific. If you have to use canned or bottled sauce, try chopping up a fresh tomato and adding it to the sauce while you cook it on the stove top. We add fresh thyme, sage, rosemary, marjoram, salt, pepper and a little olive oil to our pizza sauce. Heat this up in a pot, pour it into a bowl and set it aside. Again, if you are purchasing sauce, make sure it is organic in order to avoid GMOs.

We’ll be topping our pizza with mushrooms, red onion, garlic, crookneck squash circles, sliced kalmata olives and paper-thin slices of fresh tomato. As with everything else, organic is the way to go.

Cooking the Special Toppings
I love this part of the preparation because it’s a one pan deal. In a skillet over medium high heat, briefly sautee some minced garlic and thinly sliced mushrooms in olive oil. Shake a little thyme over them. Cook just until the mushrooms are softened and releasing some of their savory liquid. It’s very important that toppings like these be pre-pan fried because, unlike with traditional pizza, the pizzas we’re making only spend a few minutes in the oven once they’ve been garnished with toppings.

Toss the mushrooms onto a plate, but leave behind the cooking liquid. Toss in thinly cut circles of yellow crookneck squash. If you don’t have any crooknecks, you could use zucchinis or patty pan squash. Toss in thinly sliced sweet red onion. Add salt and pepper. Stir fry until the squash circles are just getting tender. Toss them back out onto the plate.

The olives and tomatoes do not need to be pre-cooked.

The great thing about polenta pizza crusts is that they can hold plenty of sauce and toppings without getting soggy. If you’ve broiled them correctly, the outsides of the crusts will be crisp and toasty, and the insides will be soft and creamy. One of the things I love best about this gluten free, vegan pizza recipe is that cornmeal is already a familiar taste to pizza lovers. Many pizza parlors bake their crusts on a pan sprinkled with cornmeal, so the savor of these little pizzas is really going to satisfy your cravings for specific taste combinations.

Additionally, anyone who is vegan or has been put off dairy products because of an allergy will notice that the creaminess of the interior of the polenta pizza crusts has a certain cheese-y texture to it. I can even live without my once-cherished tofu in this pizza recipe because of the unique, creamy quality of polenta.

In topping the pizza, your first task is to smear a tiny bit of organic olive oil on the top side of each crust. This little detail will delight pizza lovers who have long been loyal to the traditional San Francisco Italian-style of pizza preparation which always involves lots of olive oil!

Second, smear plenty of delicious pizza sauce on each crust.

Finally, add your additional toppings. I like to put the squash/onion mix down first, then the mushroom/garlic mix, and then garnish with tomatoes and olives. Just look at how incredibly delicious these little pizzas look going into the oven:

As I mentioned earlier, the baking part of this recipe is brief. We’re just making sure that all of the toppings get heated and blend a bit. I know the pizzas are done when the tomato loses its shine because its juice has begun to evaporate in the heat of the oven. Remove from oven.

As a final touch to the pizzas, we like to sprinkle each one with a little nutritional yeast. It gives a final cheese-y note and adds to the nutritious qualities of the dish.

We’re serving up our scrumptious pizzas with a salad picked minutes ago from the farm - a combination of baby butter lettuces, olives, arugula and parsley with a dill and garlic vinaigrette!

Deprivation? I Don’t Think So!
I’ll be the first to admit that food allergies do put limits on what we think of as normal life. It was with a sense of desperation that I began working to create new recipes in my personal cookbook. Living on rice cakes just doesn’t cut it when you’ve eaten delicious wheat bread all your life. Additionally, vegan cooking without soy is somewhat uncharted territory. When I got my allergy diagnoses, all I could see at first looking into my pantry was absences. It was very upsetting.

But then, I took hold of myself and remembered that I come from an incredibly long line of skilled people who always found something good to prepare from the ingredients they had at hand. Some of my first efforts at gluten-free vegan cooking were total failures. It’s taken time to gain the confidence I need, and once enjoyed, in the kitchen, but I really feel like I’m getting there and I know you can, too. With creativity and deep appreciation for the bounty of healthful, delicious foods we can still eat even on an allergy-restricted diet, we can eat incredibly well.

I sincerely hope that this recipe for gluten free pizza will keep you from fainting with envy every time you have to walk past your local pizza parlor. I know the hollow longing of that experience. Happily, there is absolutely no reason to pine when you’re munching down on pizza this good!

Are You Considering Learning To Sew? Here Are Good 10 Reasons To Do It. Can You Relate?

• You’re not a stock size (who is?)
• Your skin crawls when you touch those rubbery synthetic fabrics
• You have the odd notion that clothing bought in February shouldn’t have fallen apart by April - you’re all for things being bio-degradable, but not while you’re actually trying to wear them!
• You suspect that the fact that the addition of 2% spandex in EVERYTHING is some new government mandate that has resulted in your pants growing 2 sizes larger between morning and night, leaving you hanging onto your belt loops from lunchtime onward
• Shredded hems, giant buttons and depressing hospital colors may be someone’s idea of serviceable clothing, but it isn’t yours
• You can’t find a dress or skirt of decent length amidst the racks of rags and tatters
• You wonder who the people are in Pakistan, Honduras and China who made the t-shirts on display. Were they men, women, children? Had they eaten well that day? Did they have any kinds of rights or benefits?
• You’re ethics are shouting at you about BT Cotton - the GMO frankenfiber that may look like cotton but has been genetically modified by mad scientists in some ominous way and is the cause of unimaginable misery in the cotton growing regions of the world.
• You’re starting to wonder how wise it is to be covering your body’s largest organ - your skin - with pesticide-laden fibers, day after day
• You want to be a skillful woman, walking in the footsteps of all of your highly-skilled ancestors

Whatever your reasons for dissatisfaction with commercially-made clothing, all of them point to an important realization. By delegating the manufacture of our clothing to others, we have agreed to give up pretty much all control over the quality, fit and design of our daily garb as well as the ethics and processes that go into its creation. We’ve traded in our own historic authority over all matters of dress for the convenience of mass-produced garments of dubious worth. It’s time we reconsider the deal our grandmothers made with Sears-Roebuck and their counterparts and discover whether we can’t do a better job by providing for ourselves in the clothing department.

With the exception of upper class women who had personal seamstresses to custom sew for them, all women of all countries in all times have always sewn for themselves or their families. All women knew how to cut cloth, thread a needle, sew a seam and in more modern times, read a sewing pattern. Most of us in America have lost these universal survival skills and if the local Kohl’s closed tomorrow, we wouldn’t have a first hand idea of how to clothe our families. That’s not a strong position to be in, and many intelligent women are now taking steps to re-skill themselves in the home arts of sewing basic garments as an act of self-determination and love.

The Most Basic Reason For Learning Basic Sewing
The first reason is the most obvious - people aren’t born wearing clothes, and except for in the most temperate climates, clothing means survival. Our economy is in peculiar shape right now, and while I’m praying for more stable times for our world, I think you’ll feel more confident if you have the skills to create light garments that keep the body cool but covered from the powerful rays of the sun and warm garments that have the power to stand between bitter weather and your loved ones. Knowing how to clothe people, when you come right down to it, is a prerequisite for life in the absence of Macy’s.

If You Think Sewing Is Difficult, You’ve Taken The Bait
Like most scenarios in which we trade money for goods created by someone else, the whole deal takes place under the conditions that we believe we don’t have the expertise to produce what the other person can. Now, if we’re talking about building an airplane - okay- maybe we don’t need to tackle the job, but if we’re talking about throwing together a sun dress for ourselves or a pair of shorts for our husband, the only thing that stands between us and our accomplishment is the false notion that we’re helpless.

We’re not helpless. We all come from incredibly long lines of needlewomen. It profits Wal-Mart when we feel helpless, but it sends our own psyches a constant message that we lack authority in our own lives and sets a helpless example for all future generations. We deserve to feel better about our abilities than that! Knowledge is power and all we need is a very little bit of knowledge to become vastly more able people.

The Big Secret Is…
You can sew a dress out of two rectangles! It may not be the most elegant creation ever worn, but it would cover your body and protect you from the elements. Pants, again, are cut out of two pieces of cloth shaped something like an apostrophe. A shirt is 4 rectangles - 1 for the front, 1 for the back and two little rectangles for short sleeves.

We’re not talking about fitted fashions with darts, princess seams and bias-cut styling. We’re talking about what you could easily make out of a bolt of cloth to clothe your family should all department stores fall off the face of the Earth tomorrow. If you’ve got two working hands, you can sew these things, and once you’ve mastered the extremely simple task of joining two pieces of cloth together with a needle and thread, you can expand your horizons to learn a few tailoring techniques that can take a rectangular, boxy garment and shape it into apparel with more grace and elegance. The level to which you want to pursue finer fitting techniques over time will be up to you, but the main benefit of learning to sew is that you will have the lifelong satisfaction of knowing that you can take care of yourself and your family. I think that’s worth a lot.

What Should You Know How To Sew?
The photograph at the beginning of this article features some shirts I’ve sewn for myself and my husband over the past year. I’ve been sewing long enough so that I can tackle projects with collars, cuffs and buttonholes with confidence and it’s really gratifying to be able to produce a shirt that is every bit has good as a store-bought item and, frankly, better than one because I’ve gotten to choose the style, the fabric, the exact size I want and I’ve been able to make my seams really, really strong so that the shirt truly holds up to daily wear.

Learning to sew basic, every day garments is a smart goal, and your first task is to make a list of what items of clothing are essential wear for you and your family. Your list will look something like this:

Sewing For Men
A basic shirt, a basic pair of pants, some type of coat and maybe a pair of shorts is really all a man needs to get through 4 seasons of dressing himself. If your husband is an exectutive or office worker and has to wear formal clothes, you can learn to make them…or, you can ask your husband if he really loves that life or would prefer to create some new job for himself in which he can dress more comfortably (and more simply, for you, the seamstress).

Basic Sewing For Women
A basic shirt, skirt, dress and pair of pants, plus some kind of coat covers most womens’ needs. The summer garments can be made of light-weight cotton or linen and winter ones out of heavy flannels. Choosing fabrics carefully can help you get many ensembles out of just a few basic pieces. When your closet has only what you need in it, you’ll always feel taken care of and never cranky over unserviceable garments that don’t do what you need them to.

Basic Sewing For Children
Children’s garment requirements are the same as those of adults, only appropriately sized down. If you can make a dress for yourself, you can make one for your daughter. If you have children who threaten to die if they aren’t given designer clothing…homeschool them to get rid of such useless, materialistic notions that put the focus on belongings instead of the value of the human person.

Folk Clothing Provides A Path
No matter what country you turn to, you will discover that the indigenous clothing of that region accomplishes three factors:

1. It covers the body to provide either the appropriate amount of sun-protection where that’s needed, or it adds layers of warmth to protect from the cold. Where you live, and the season you’re sewing for, can dictate which country to turn to for guidance.

2. It facilitates work. Ease of movement is vital to all working class people and folk clothing evolved in a way that allowed people to walk, run, bend, stretch, lift and perform both fine and gross motor skill tasks. Unless you have servants to do your bidding, your wardrobe needs to allow you to work or it is simply useless.

3. It is graceful. Compared to the nightmarish fabric concoctions brewed up by modern fashion desigers, folk clothing is a dream come true for normal people. It is designed to allow you to move gracefully through your day, never tripping over hems, catching sleeves on fire or taking 1/2″ long steps because that’s all you’re permitted in an ill-conceived garment. Folk clothing is plain sensible for busy working people.

Think about the native clothing of Mexico, South America, India, Asia, Scandinavia and you’ve got guidance for what people have traditionally worn to keep cool or warm up for centuries. All that wisdom should not be lost.

Quick Tips For Learning How To Sew Real Clothes

• Take your favorite everyday garment apart and study how it was put together
• Take a sewing class
• Watch sewing how-to videos on YouTube
• Download free or inexpensive sewing patterns
• Look at books or magazines about other countries and pay attention to the way traditional people dress
• Make your very first project an easy one - like an elastic-waist skirt or simple sun dress

Choosing A Sewing Machine
If you’re ready to graduate from hand sewing to use a machine, choose the most affordable machine with the least features. You do not need a ton of fancy or decorative stitches to sew clothing. The simpler the machine, the longer it will last.

Choosing Fabrics
Steer clear of fashion fabrics that may look shiny and beautiful but are not designed for daily wear. For comfort and durability, your best bet is to avoid synthetics of any kind (rayon, acetate, polyester, spandex, lycra etc.). My personal preference is for 100% cotton, whether I want heavy corduroy for a coat, thick flannel for winter pants, batiste for a breezy blouse or calico for a family quilt. Cotton is the most comfortable fabric to wear against the skin and, unlike synthetic fibers, it comes from a natural source. Look into buying organic cotton if you value your family’s health. Two sites I like are Organic Cotton Plus and Near Sea Naturals. The fabrics are sometimes more expensive, but picking and processing cotton is hard labor and deserves fair compensation. One day, I hope to grow, spin and weave my own organic cotton, and I know that if I was doing such time-consuming work, I’d want to be paid decently for it.

Choosing Sewing Patterns
Check out TheMexicanDress.com for an ultra-easy first dress, made out of 5 rectangles. If the Mexican embroidery doesn’t appeal to you, make it out of a plain or printed cotton for a non-folksy look. Folkwear.com has the larest collection of folk clothing patterns availaible, and some of them are for very simple garments whereas others are incredibly complex. Look at each pattern carefully. When you look at fabric store patterns, seek out patterns that are denominated quick, fast or easy if you are a beginning sewer. Read the directions twice before you cut! That’s the only rule.

Sometimes, even the best patterns assume that you know how to do something without them telling you what it means. When in doubt about a sewing techinique, turn to the Internet for definitions, tutorials and even videos.

Men Can Sew, Too
My husband is the household whiz with a rotary cutter. He can cut far straighter lines than I can. We quilt together for fun and he has even tried his hand at embroidery, though he says this is my strong suit, not his. When I am sewing for myself or my husband, he helps me and his assistance makes projects go like lightning. Sewing together, for us, is a great alternative to spening an evening watching TV. We get to talk, laugh and work hard side-by-side. Most married people want that experience of sharing, and a man who can wield a needle deserves great respect for his skills.

There Is Nothing You Can’t Learn To Do
In my own life, I derive the highest satisfaction I know of from being able to do something for myself. With a very few exceptions, I’m finished with seeing everyone but myself as ‘the expert’. I can be the expert. I can farm. I can cook. I can sew. To put it another way, I can feed and clothe the people who are dear to me and this is incredibly gratifying. I’m so grateful for my two good hands and my mind that is able to learn to care for others.

Because of the current confusion in the world, some people are acquiring survival skills out of fear. I think we can find a healthier approach than this. The proof that we can survive may be seen in the lives of our ancestors. And they did not see their daily tasks as a punishment, a loss or a tragedy. Rather, they took deep joy in being skilled men and women with the capacity to provide for themselves. They got to learn what it was like to be fully human in the world. Re-skilling ourselves jumps the bridge between them and ourselves, crossing over that brief period in which the past few generations gave away their personal expertise because they were promised convenience and savings of time. What does all that saved time amount to now?

Time is there for living, for learning and becoming adept at survival. We have all the time in the world and the power to enjoy our own capacities and abilities. When I look to the past, I am filled with admiration for how multi-talented people were. They could sew a dress, make a fire, grow a crop, build a house…everything they could possibly need in this world. I want what they had, and I’m starting to see that I’m not alone in this. On this journey, I’ve discovered that there’s nothing you can’t learn and I think that’s a fabulous blessing. Needle and thread are powerful liberators. You have only to take them in hand.

The Basic Premise of Food, Inc., The Book
The essays that make up the book present you with what may be a whole new view of your food and your world. Walk into the nearest supermarket and what you see there may look like food, but it’s actually more of the notion of food. Industrial agriculture and biotechnology (genetic engineering) have taken our heritage staple crops and so altered their naturalness that they have lost most of their relationship to the real foods grown on small organic farms. If you are eating conventional foods, your dinner has almost no resemblance to what your grandmother set on her table 60 years ago, despite the fact that we’re still calling the foods by the same names.

The pastoral-themed packaging of the foods most Americans eat trades on the vague idea of fresh foods being grown on old-time farms, but the reality of industrial food production couldn’t be less wholesome and industry uses legislation, marketing and intimidation to keep Americans utterly in the dark about where their food actually comes from and how it is produced. Food, Inc. breaks the code of silence and shows you the story of your food that industry never wanted you to read.

Blown Away…
It was several months ago that I first heard about this project that would be combining the work and talents of such people as Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.

I thought Fast Food Nation’s depiction of the rise of fast food and the brutalization of both animals and workers in the fast food industry was important, truthful and relevant. Michael Pollan’s previous work stood out to me because it answered a question I have long asked myself as to whether a modern person could see the truth of industrial food production and still go on eating meat and animal products. Though I felt sorry that Pollan’s ultimate decision was that he was prepared to kill animals himself in order to eat, I truly respected that he faced this challenge which never even occurs to most modern Americans. Pollan went to factory feedlots, killed chickens and hunted in order to eat. As a vegan, needless to say, I don’t support these choices but I absolutely do support a human getting in touch with the all-too-hidden reality of what he eats and I found Pollan’s work to be true to his own conscience and ethical journey, and very relevant to today’s world.

When I heard that these men and other thoughtful people were getting together to make a major movie about the truth of America’s food system I was, quite frankly, blown away. I could hardly believe that this story was going to be told to so many people in living color.

My own questions about ethical eating date all the way back to reading John Robbins’ seminal book Diet For A New America when I was still a child. That was the book that made me go vegan and organic some 20 years ago, but it was also the book that put a strange new distance between myself and most of the people in my day-to-day life. All of my adult life, I have spent time with, worked with and cared for friends, colleagues and family members who had no share in the dark secrets I knew about America’s industrial food base, and having never been the kind of person who wants to make others uncomfortable or alarmed, I have lived with this hurtful knowledge of the suffering of people and animals without ever being able to truly speak about it to the people who matter to me most. Food, Inc. is being delivered in the giant movie format that points to a mainstream audience rather than a fringe one and I am staggered by the thought that, simply by dint of being movie-goers, a big portion of my neighbors may all be about to take a share in the secret, sorrowful truth that has shaped so much of my personal life. In point of fact, Food, Inc. has the power to make the secret no secret any more.

I would like the people involved in the project to know how amazing this is to me. I, myself, am not a movie-goer, but I am electrifyingly aware of just how big of a step it is to take the true story of food onto the big screen. My mind has been full of the potential outcomes of this movie release since I first learned of it and I want everyone involved on the project to know that their work has made at least one American jump up and shout, HOORAY! at the top of her usually soft voice.

The Shining Parts Of The Book
All of the essays contributed to the book by such an interesting array of thoughtful authors are absolutely worth reading, but the two that delighted me the most were those written by Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin.

Pollan’s essay Why Bother? won my heart with with its mention of an issue I have often discussed with my husband but have never heard anyone else assert. Pollan asks why the term virtue has come to be an epithet of derision rather than the glowing ideal of Western World Man that it once was. Pollan writes of the overwhelming nature of climate change and the apathy it can leave us with. Why bother doing anything when it’s all so confusing and huge? Pollan suggests that we make real changes in our personal lives in a manner that will re-embrace the worth of personal virtue, and best of all, the one thing he would most like his readers to do as a virtuous and climate-healing act happens to be my personal favorite, too: plant a garden.

Did you know that America’s Victory Gardens of the 1940’s produced 40% of the produce people ate in that era? We can do this again and we can go one better by becoming consciously present to the way in which our gardens and farms connect us to the truths about being alive on Earth and needing to find something to eat. As Pollan writes:

Virtually all of our needs and desires we delegate to specialists of one kind or another - our meals to agribusiness, health to the doctor, education to the teacher, entertainment to the media, care for the environment to environmentalists, political action to the politician.

When we grow even part of our own food, we take back our own authority and gain a beautiful new understanding of our place in the world. I was simply overjoyed to encounter these truths in Pollan’s book and VeganReader readers will readily understand how affirming these words must have been for me. Our family has been working very hard to become as self-sufficient as we can and to re-skill ourselves in as many areas as we can so that we can be more like our ancestors who knew how to do literally everything they needed to in order to survive. By next year, we are hoping to be able to produce, on our own land, the majority of the grain crops we eat - corn and rice - in addition to our green veggies and fruits. Once we’ve got that down, we’ll be looking for a way to grow cotton so that our simple clothing needs can be seen to by ourselves. It’s the best work in the world I know of for a loving married couple to undertake together. As we feed and care for one another, with the labor of our own hearts, minds and hands, we love life more.

Pollan’s essay was exceptionally inspirational and I believe it will give many Americans a positive, actionable answer to the question, Why Bother?

Joel Salatin’s essay, Declare Your Independence, got to me in a completely different way. It made me fall back on my couch and laugh long and loud. Its irreverent, truth-telling style was incredibly funny and also, so thought-provoking.

If you have read The Ominvore’s Dilemma you will remember Joel Salatin as the rancher who has a grass-based system of meat production and who slaughters animals in the open air in front of his neighbors and customers - practices that are the polar opposite of the industrial feedlot and high-walled slaughterhouse combination that produces most of the meat on America’s tables. As a vegan, I couldn’t possibly disagree more with Joel Salatin’s homo-centric view of the rights of animals, but as an American, I found myself standing in great solidarity with Salatin’s views of simply opting out of the system in any way you can.

We’re certainly doing that here, in our own way, but Salatin’s suggestions are rather fresh and new. They include keeping chickens in your apartment for your daily eggs and breaking the absurd laws that keep food sovereignity in the hands of government agencies rather that the cleaner and more knowledgeable hands of farmers. The fact that these laws trade on the idea that factory slaughterhouse products are somehow safer than home produced ones is simply absurd. All previous generations of Americans gave, traded and sold their products to their neighbors and it’s the centralization of the food system that is the very real danger to public health - not some farmer’s wife selling pies to her church group. Honestly! But, we needn’t worry about these corrupt, self-interested laws, according to Salatin:

The secret reality is that the government is out of money and can’t hire enough bureaucrats to check up on everybody anyway. So we all need to just begin opting out and it will be like five lanes of speeders on the beltway - who do you stop?

Though my own conscience dictates that I have no right to kill or use animals to support my own life, I can’t help but see the vast environmental and public health disasters that might begin to heal if people went back to the time-honored process of buying meat and animal products from their neighbors. Salatin is absolutely right that our country’s food safety laws are targeting the wrong people (small ranchers instead of corporate ones) and I stood up and cheered for his 4 suggested steps to opting out:

• Learn to cook again
• Buy Local
• Buy what’s in season
• Plant a garden

Yes, yes, yes and yes! Salatin’s essay is just right when it comes to this and I have really enjoyed getting to learn more about this unique man as a result of Pollan’s work bringing him into the spotlight. He has something to say, he says it well and readers should take away a sense of purpose and power from reading his essay.

Criticism of the Food, Inc. Book
I have now watched several interviews with the makers of the Food, Inc. movie which detail the journey they went on trying to get agribusiness companies like Monsanto and Tyson to contribute their voices to the film to present a fair picture. The makers of the phenomenal small film, The World According To Monsanto could have warned them that secrecy is company policy with these powerful multinationals, but I would hazard a guess that Food, Inc’s creators’ story must have taken shape out of the very fact that none of these businesses would speak to them or let them see their facilities. If you set out to draft a balanced story and one whole side of that story refuses to communicate with you because keeping their business practices inside a black box makes business possible for them, that’s saying an awful lot about the nature of their work, isn’t it?

Nevertheless, I have to assume that the inclusion of Peter Pringle’s pro-biotechnology essay, Food, Science and the Challenge of World Hunger - Who Will Control The Future? in the book must have been an attempt to present an opposing view of genetic modification. It wasn’t really clear in the book that this was what Pringle’s essay was meant to achieve, but I found its contents and conclusion so discordant with most of the rest of the book that I didn’t know what else to suppose.

Pringle’s essay makes the typical biotech industry claim that the prevention of world hunger is reliant on developing new crops. This is simply not true. All countries have native crops capable of creating a balanced diet where indigenous knowledge has weathered the devestation of conquest, and where that knowledge has been lost, local people can become re-skilled at creating bio-diverse, nutritious farming environments. This is happening right now in Mexico, where farmers are rediscovering the immeasurable nutritional benefits of growing the mix of crops that provide a superior, traditional diet, rather than accepting the suicidal advice of monocropping that has been forced upon them by the modern conquest of the global trade system. Our world has literally thousands and thousands of edible plants. No new plants need to be invented. All that is needed is for local people to find the right crops, already in existence, and find a way to care for the soil. In many cases this is a huge challenge, but it is a healthy challenge with the end goal of sustainability. The end goal, by contrast, of biotechnology, is the control of the food supply of the world’s poor.

As I heard an African man describe it, and I am paraphrasing:

First, they came and took my people and made them slaves growing their crops on their foreign lands. Now they have come to my land and want me to be a slave again, growing their crops on my own land.

The ‘they’ in this case are the agribusiness giants like Monsanto and as the inventors of agent orange, DDT and rBGH, their position as the savior of our world’s hungry humanity ill befits them. World hunger is a result, not of food scarcity, but of lost knowledge and broken food distribution systems. Solutions lie right in nature to solve all this - Monsanto need not assist.

Pringle’s essay also makes the rather bizarre statement that traditional farming ruins people’s health whereas growing herbicide-dependent crops…will be healthier? I’m sorry, but as a person whose family has been irrevocably damaged by exposure to herbicides, I’ll take bending and stooping to harvest my potatoes any time.

It’s the final conclusion of Pringle’s essay that I found totally impossible to swallow, though. He suggests that the real problem with GMOs is that the genes and technology are owned by a few corporations and that the reason people are anti-GMO is because they have some vague mistrust of big corporations. His solution for the future is that we will all have free access to the tools of genetic modification and can run around the planet creating new life forms!

Does he really mean this?

If my neighbor has free access to biotechnology and can cross his grandmother’s genes with those of his cat and a dandelion, this will be a good thing? Did I read this essay wrong? I was so stunned by it, I read it twice just to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood that Pringle sees the glowing future of man lying in the power of all of us to freely cause mutations to existent life forms, regardless of the fact that this could end food on earth and create a nightmare of never-before-seen species that nature never intended. What utter madness.

Just to set the record straight, nobody I know is opposed to GMOs because they are the property of corporations. That is certainly a terrifying part of the scenario because this means that they are patenting the food all creatures eat, but it is not the reason I or anyone else I know wants a global moratorium on GMOs. I’ll speak only for myself here and say that my objection to biotechnology is that it’s a gross perversion of nature’s slow and careful processes. Nature creates hybrids and indigenous man can be part of that process without offending natural law, but ’scientists’ who are splicing cross-species genes are doing something hideous and abhorrent. Nature has reasons for not mixing the genes of a human with the genes of a plant. We don’t fully understand these reasons; we are as children in the world’s garden and we have absolutely no businesses tinkering with these basic building blocks of earthly life. The few test results of genetic modification point to mutation, sickness and death for those who consume its outputs and I, for one, don’t care who owns these demonic tools. I want them banned before they further contaminate our food supply.

While I can certainly appreciate that the creators of Food, Inc. may have wanted to present two sides to the GMO story, I could wish that they had made it clearer that this is what they were doing by including Peter Pringle’s peculiar essay. I hope that people who are just beginning to learn about food safety will not be confused by it into thinking that GMOs are anything but a curse to our world. Happily, Pringle’s essay is followed up by a far more truthful contribution by the Organic Consumers Association about the very real perils of biotechnology. OCA is one of the groups leading the fight against the contamination of our food supply and, I am proud to disclose, they have linked to several Vegan Reader articles from their website.

Other than the rather bewildering essay from Peter Pringle, there is one other area of the Food, Inc., book that doesn’t sit well with me. The book goes to considerable lengths to explain that the production of meat and animal products is our country’s top offender when it comes to ecological pollution, public health disasters and climate change. Keeping Americans in meat and milk is harming our planet more than our car driving habits. The book makes this quite clear.

However, the book then goes on to describe the apparently positive aspects of an organic dairy corporation (Stonyfield owned by Dannon) and eating cheese (recipes at the end of the book from a Kaiser doctor). Organic cows belch methane, produce vast wastes and destroy local ecology just as conventional ones do, and I fear that the inclusion of these elements significantly waters down the strong message Food, Inc. needs to make linking our consumption of animals (and certainly, processed foods) to the destruction of our environment. Yes, it’s certainly better for people not to eat diseased, antibiotic filled, hormone-stuffed meat, milk, cheese and eggs, but the real truth is that it’s the very production and consumption of these products that is causing our problems and the solution to the problems is a real change of our eating habits, period.

What Food, Inc. Does
Food, Inc. is deserved of arias and choruses of praise for turning on the light for a gigantic audience with both the movie and the book. It provides the hidden facts, starts the conversation and empowers Americans to begin making informed choices about what they are choosing to eat. Americans have been prohibited from making an informed choice about the majority of their actions because the information has been intentionally kept out of their hands. With a major movie like this, the truths are now in the open and each person who encounters Food, Inc. also encounters the classic moment of reckoning in which they confront an ethical problem and must decide within themselves how to respond. I am fervently…nay, feverishly…praying that the sky-wide distribution of these once-whispered facts will inspire more Americans to begin making ethical food choices.

What Food, Inc. Doesn’t Do
In the anecdotes about Salatin’s grass-based ranch, the story of the organic dairy corporation and the doctor’s recipes sprinkled with cheese, what is totally absent from the picture is the innate rights of animals to live their lives not in the control of human beings. To put it in a historical perspective, Food Inc., gets us to Thomas Jefferson’s literary debates about the ethics, harms and effects of the slavery system. It does not call us to stand up and view the slaves as autonomous beings with their own purposes, with the inherent birthrights of living a free life that does not have to show any profit to man whatsoever. In a word, Food, Inc. is not a vegan book and ethical people will hopefully turn to the works of authors like John Robbins to take the next moral step after they’ve gone local, forsworn GMOs, protected farm workers, opted out and started growing their own food. Food, Inc. is, as I see it, a terrific start for potentially millions of people on the path all of us in the Western World need to start walking if we are to save the very things that make our Earth a living planet.

In Conclusion
After the election of Barack Obama, our family went around in a kind of blissful daze for a few days, hardly able to fully grasp that America, with it’s history of bigotry, had actually made the symbolically powerful gesture of electing an African-American man president. Maybe you felt like this, too, and had to pinch yourself a few times a day to be sure it wasn’t all a dream. Well, the release of the Food, Inc., movie and book is affecting me a bit like this. As I leave the farm and go into town on errands, I am looking at the people around me and wondering if they’ve seen the movie or read the book…wondering if I went up to them and asked them what they think of Monsanto, of industrial agriculture, of corn subsidies, if they might now know what I’m talking about. Might I see, at last, shared understanding in my neighbors’ eyes? It honestly never occurred to me before that I might live to see the day when this could be possible.

Food, Inc. has made this possibility exist, and I simply can’t find words to express my wonder and thanks for this. The advent of this project marks what I believe will be a great day and a turning point in the history of the Western World, and I hope that isn’t an overstatement. I hope Food, Inc. changes the world.

Please, see the movie or read the book and come back and let me know what it meant to you.

The above image was captured from a Google Maps’ streetview shot of Hwy 101 near Novato in Marin County. Take a close look at the margin of the road and you will see the telltale strip of dead and dying plants right next to living green plants. This is the result of spray trucks, primarily driven by CalTrans, driving along the freeway spraying herbicides. They do so on both sides of the freeway and in medians as well.

It may be that you’ve never really noticed the sickly brown strip. Or if you have, maybe you’ve absently wondered if the absence of green growth on the road margins might be caused by cars straying outside the lines and running over the plants. Or, maybe some type of giant weedwhacker was keeping the plants short?

Now you know the truth. The dying strip is caused by poisons being sprayed. These poisons are extremely dangerous to humans and animals. To see CalTrans trucks spraying Bay Area roads you drive, look at these photographs.

As I understand it, CalTrans sprays the roads every year with a pre-emergent herbicide and then continues spraying with RoundUp once weeds emerge. Yes, I know…why would they need to spray RoundUp if they have already sprayed a pre-emergent chemical that is supposed to prevent plants from growing? Doesn’t make sense, right? But, as you can imagine, it makes plenty of money for CalTrans and the herbicide manufacturers.

Nature’s rules are that grasses and other plants sprout at different times and grow to their full heights on their own schedules. By spraying over and over again, herbicide users are attempting to combat what nature intends as the various plants we often generically term ‘weeds’ spring to life. It’s not only a losing battle for herbicide users, it’s a self-defeating one. Spraying a patch of mixed greens with an herbicide will generally work for a given amount of time until Nature rushes to defend its dictates that we live on a green planet and enables the plants that are under attack to develop resistance to the chemicals. When herbicide-resistant plants emerge, the herbicide manufacturers respond by creating new herbicides. It’s a never-ending, unsustainable struggle against our planet’s natural laws, and in the undereducated process of attempting to control the lives of plants, Marin County is endangering the lives of its citizens.

Are Herbicides Dangerous To You?
In a word, yes. The various herbicides in use in California, and around the world, cause damage to the nervous system and major organs. Whether it’s your son’s asthma or your mother’s cancer, herbicides may be the well-hidden culprit that is robbing you and your loved ones of health and life. The page of photos I’ve linked to of CalTrans workers spraying offers several toxicology sheets on commonly-used herbicides and they represent a start to your education about the toxins your city managers, state agencies and so-called integrated pest management organizations are polluting your body and environment with.

And it isn’t just officials that are subjecting you to this unwanted barrage of carcinogens, endocrine disruptors and mutagens. It’s your neighbors. Maybe it’s even you! Monsanto and their toxic cohorts have marketed both herbicides and pesticides as safe for home use aggressively enough that Americans believe it and chances are, even if you don’t have a bottle of RoundUp in your garage, one of your neighbors does.

Just as our Google Maps image from Hwy 101 illustrates, dead patches in winter and springtime in your neighborhood are generally an indication that Roundup or another herbicide has been used. Look in parks, shopping center parking lots and around public buildings. Like me, once you know what the signs are, you will begin to see them everywhere.

Is Your City Trying To Kill You?
I don’t blame you if you wonder this, but the sad fact of the matter is, your city and state officials have likely been duped, just as many Americans have, into believing that chemicals are the solution to plants and bugs we’re not happy with. Pesticide and herbicide manufacturers spend billions of dollars in marketing themselves every year and the sole point of that marketing is to persuade individuals and organizations to buy their products. They will lie to achieve this aim and they will take the chance of lawsuits because they can afford them, win or lose. While the recent news about Marin violating its own pesticide/herbicide laws is a case of officials doing exactly what they’ve been told not to, most cases of pesticide/herbicide use are the result of workers simply carrying out the tasks they have been told to do.

The families of Marin officials have been damaged by the massive use of both allowed and prohibited toxic sprays just as have the families of private citizens. CalTrans workers have been horrifically sickened and come forward to talk about the permanent harms they’ve suffered as a result of being ordered to spray chemicals for a living. Countless workers in California’s alcohol fields are sickened every year from being ordered to spray herbicides and pesticides. The epidemics or autoimmune disease, mutliple chemical sensitivites, autism and other destructive malfunctions of the human body’s normal processes that we are witnessing in California may be traced back to the ingredients in the chemicals we are spraying every day, across our state, as being known to cause these exact types of physical and psychological damage. And in Marin County, with it’s #1 cancer rate in the nation, we may look for our hidden enemy in the tons of carcinogenic chemicals that are being poured on the lands and on the people.

Blood money and corruption of politicians most certainly do play a role in America’s current chemical addiction, but I see lack of education as the key culprit, creating a situation in which local city officials step into office and are told that, “In Marin, we control weeds with herbicides,” and those officials do not have the superior education to realize that statement equates with, “In Marin, we are sickening and killing our people.”

Officials are in desperate need of this education, as are citizens.

We’re Dying Because Of Our Chemicals, But Can We Live Without Them?

The chief reason given by city officials for herbicide use along roadsides is, somewhat ironically, protecting public safety. It is certainly true that some plants can grow tall enough to obstruct views and make driving conditions hazardous. But, in the light of the dawning 21st century, educated people are realizing that trading off one hazard for another is not a sustainable approach to problem solving. In the case of our major roads, we must demand a non-toxic solution that will make driving safer on our thousands of miles of highways. Here are three completely sensible options:

1. Get Planting. Marin County, and any other county in the state, could take the vast sums of money they have previously invested in herbicides and spray trucks and invest it in landscapers who could plant our highway margins with dense growing native groundcover plants that, with some periodic maintenance, would choke out the taller, unwanted plants. Lush borders of low-growing plants would not only make our highways more beautiful, they would decrease pollution and fight global warming. These native green borders would, of course, need to be smog-tolerant, drought-tolerant and organically grown. Imagine if each county got to pick its own area-appropriate groundcover and a drive on the highways from Northern to Southern California was transformed into a proud display of each region’s finest native groundcover plant. It would put our state on the map as truly forward-thinking and green-minded. This is my favorite solution.

2. Take that herbicide money and put it toward a ready-made manufactured product like Universal Weed Cover - a man-made, non-toxic weed barrier that is already in use along hundreds of miles of US highways. If other regions are using it, why not Marin County? A one time investment in this would save the county from those costly annual herbicide fees for a long, long time.

3. Keep the same workers in business who have been paid to spray Marin County, but instead of spray trucks give them Highway Weed Mowers. It looks like there are plenty of them to choose from.

All three of these choices would put a powerful end to the use of deadly herbicides on Marin’s roadways, and similar solutions are within easy reach for all other situations in which herbicides are currently being used. Money taken away from herbicide manufacturers and granted to public education programs that retrain the dangerous, unnatural learned aesthetics of a society which has come to view dandelions in a lawn as a threat would be money well spent. And, where plant control or removal is a must, manual labor is at all of our fingertips. City workers will experience far better health pulling weeds instead of being engulfed in poison while spraying them. Manual labor of this kind will offer fresh air and exercise to the worker rather than dooming him to chronic disease.

We Can Learn New Behaviors
This article has taught you how to recognize the visual signs of herbicide use where you live. You now have this knowledge, and there is one fact of life that I would like you to take along with it.

When you begin to notice and reflect on the brown dying strip along the roads you drive, remember that it is not merely an image of dead weeds. It is the visible sign of a poisoned environment - an environment in which you live - just like the grasses and plants that have been overpowered with chemicals. Life is life, whether it is in plants or people, and where life cannot exist for plants, the environment is also unfit for humans.

In our chemical addiction, we have created a place that is unfit for us to inhabit in good health. It is unfit for us, for the birds, the mammals, the amphibians and fish. The dying weeds on the highway are bold road signs reading Danger. Look at the signs and determine within yourself what you want to do about them.

We have the power to learn new behaviors. Perhaps the discovery of the illegal spraying of Marin will be the horrific event that causes Marin’s people to decide that they have had enough of lies, enough of irresponsibility, enough of cancer and disease. I cannot imagine anything more important for local people to be thinking of right now. What do you say?

If you’ve been fighting the the LBAM scandal for years, months or weeks and are feeling like a parched wanderer in a desert landscape, Bolling’s piece will be your tall drink of water!

It’s great to see the truth in print and we at VeganReader are praying that Bolling’s piece will help further Bay Area residents realize that their money is being squandered and their lives are being put at risk by the CDFA.

What in the world is going on here?

Please, take a moment to read this SFStreets Blog Post which gives further details on this appalling situation and in which, lo and behold, you will be startled to find a reference to LBAM.

Don’t Spray California.org founder Maxina Ventura was in the neighborhood and pointed out to the author of the SFStreets blog post that insect traps had just gone up in the nearest park. Ventura explained that she views the harassment of Asa Dodsworth as one step in a developing campaign to force massive pesticide use on urban areas. If local officials and agribusiness can team up and say that urban food gardens host ‘invasive’ insects like the light brown apple moth (LBAM), then both parties can walk away with pockets bulging with money while citizens quietly fade away from pesticide-induced autoimmune diseases behind the closed doors of their targeted homes.

Whether what is happening to Asa Dodsworth is LBAM-related or not, I view the actions of Berkeley’s Code Enforcement Officers as a threat to his health and life. As an organic farmer, I can readily imagine that the Dodsworth household was figuring their homegrown produce into their budget over the summer months. When you don’t have to pay Whole Foods $150 a shopping trip for their industrial organic fruits and vegetables, maybe you can put that money towards getting some dentistry done that you’ve been putting off. Maybe you can devote more time to volunteer work in your community because of that extra money, or take your child to see a specialist about an ongoing health problem, or even just take your family on a camping trip because the incoming produce of your land has given your budget just a tiny gasp of breathing room in these tough financial times. For all we know, the food growing in Asa Dodsworth’s garden may mean the difference for him between plenty and starvation this year.

California is broke, and every Californian who invests $1.29 in a packet of seeds is making an incredibly smart, instinctive, time-honored choice to cultivate the available land to feed himself and his family. To see this turned into a crime is to watch bureaucrats and industry make breathing illegal.

I am absolutely appalled by this backward, anti-human action on the part of the City of Berkeley and I want food cultivation to be recognized as an inalienable human right. Government and industry must not be allowed to control the human food supply. Being born on planet Earth entitles us to eat, and let no man assert that we must pay for that privilege.

Please call the following people and tell them to get their hands off of Asa Dodsworth’s garden:

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna, (510) 981-7000
Neighborhood Services Officer Angela Gallegos-Castillo (510) 981-2491
City Manager Phil Kamlarz (510) 981-7000

If you feel as shocked by the City of Berkeley’s behavior as I do, let them know that they are not acting in a vacuum and that concerned citizens are interested in seeing the rights of urban farmers cherished and protected. Sunset Magazine would be treating Asa Dodsworth as a hero. The City of Berkeley should not treat him as a criminal. Please, let them know.

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Update Sent To Me By Don’t Spray California:

CONSCIENTIOUS PROJECTOR FILM SERIES of the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists presents:

URBAN GARDENS UNDER ATTACK?
DEFEND OUR LOCAL FOOD SOURCES!

Berkeley Code Enforcement is selectively fining activists for supposed “violations” in their gardens with fines that amount to extortion and eviction. They target neighbors actively engaged in helping communities gain some self-sufficiency by organizing permaculture skill shares, work parties, and growing diverse, edible, organic gardens that inspire and feed hungry people, wildlife, bees and other beneficials. In this time of global climate change, ecological collapse, and economic distress, tax dollars are wasted on harassment of urban gardeners by city officials who single out activists for otherwise ignored code, as well as on county and state insect trapping programs that frequently target such gardens with pesticides and quarantines. Homegrown food and ecology is not a crime!

Film: FRIDAYS AT THE FARM

Speakers:
Asa Dodsworth (Acton House Victory Garden)
Maxina Ventura (East Bay Pesticide Alert)
Nik Bertulis (Regenerative Design instructor, Merritt College)

Music: by Carol Denney and Max
Food: by Food Not Bombs

Community Participation Invited
Support Urban Gardens by Growing one Yourself: Sign up for a Community Work Day in Your Yard

Monday, June 22, 2009 7-10pm
BFUU, 1924 Cedar Street (at Bonita) in Berkeley
(SCENT FREE, PLEASE)

Event sponsored by East Bay Pesticide Alert / Don’t Spray California

Contact us if your garden is targeted with harassment or pesticides: (510) 895-2312 or beneficialbug@netzero.net

www.DontSprayCalifornia.org

Flyer for the event:
http://dontspraycalifornia.org/62209defendurbangardens.pdf

Fool me twice, shame on me…or rather on the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors who have sent a letter to California’s Secretary of Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura, begging him to hurry up and help them douse the county in poison and pesticides as the latest step in the Light Brown Apple Moth scandal.

Remember A.G. Kawamura? He works for the CDFA who did this to little children in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties in the fall of 2007:

Remember how the CDFA wanted to spray all the way up to the SF Bay Area and everywhere in between in 2008:

Remember how in May 2009, the EPA banned the Checkmate Pesticides CDFA had already sprayed on Central California families and wanted to spray on all Californians everywhere?

Remember how this banning finally took place after the EPA, the OEHHA, the USDA, the CDFA and Gov. Schwarzenegger repeatedly assured Californians of the total safety of spraying pesticides on men, women and children…all the while suggesting that we go inside our houses while the spraying happened?

Yes, you remember and I remember how Californians were terrorized, abused and lied to by the CDFA and its willing and greedy cohorts in the name of agribusiness being given hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for their utterly unfounded, ludicrous and deadly LBAM ‘eradication’ effort.

But the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors doesn’t remember. The California Certified Organic Farmers association doesn’t remember. The California Native Plant Society doesn’t remember. The California Land Stewardship Institute doesn’t remember. The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center doesn’t remember.

In their state of what I can only describe as hysterical amnesia, they have all decided that the CDFA is right. The CDFA is trustworthy. The CDFA is honest and good…and the light brown apple moth is a horrendous threat to all living things. Yes, the CDFA who poured deadly, now-banned pesticides over family homes while infants were rushed off to ERs in 2007 is the group of folks these organizations have decided to turn to as the authors of truth about the light brown apple moth.

As this cowardly, cringing Sonoma Board letter demonstrates, all of those who signed it have decided to jump on the LBAM charade bandwagon, casting aside all science, all ethics, all reason in order to be relieved of the burden of the totally phony quarantines that have been imposed as blackmail upon the region by the CDFA. They have played directly into the hands of A.G. Kawamura and the pesticide manufacturers and have acted without one modicum of backbone.

Rather than protect their own children from the utterly toxic poisons of pesticide twist ties, BTK, spinosad and other pesticides, these organizations have invited CDFA’s ghouls to ride into town, set up the most expensive possible ‘eradication’ program they can dream up and get on with the spraying. No, the LBAM still hasn’t done any damage to anything despite 3 years of being under microscopic scrutiny in the state and despite the fact that it has lived here for 50+ years. No, there are no grounds for panic or hysteria. No need to protect yourself or your plants from this infinitesimal insect. The moth harms nothing…whereas the twist ties and sprays are utterly toxic to all of us. Yet, these organizations are saying, ’spray our kids and save us from…a bug.’

It’s disgusting. It’s completely disgusting what CDFA has done to the people of California and it’s agonizing to watch the organizations get in line to ask for another whipping, and fast. How any of the people who supported that letter can live with themselves knowing that they are joining league with a government agency that put children in the hospital in Santa Cruz and Monterey in 2007, I simply don’t know.

It isn’t that the Board, the California Certified Organic Farmers association and other groups don’t know better. It’s that they’ve chosen to drown out their consciences in order to get with the program, even if that means pretending to believe in total lies about a totally harmless insect and causing harm to their own families. It has become easier for these people to get with the program than to get real about what agribusiness is doing to California, the US and the world. These people must not be ready to get real and say ‘no’ to the devastation to life being caused by agribusiness around the globe. It’s horrific to have them not ready, and yet sitting on boards and signing their names to documents of ignorance and shame.

The Truth Is
The truth is that the Napa-Sonoma region is already so drowned in carcinogenic pesticides because of the industrial production of alcohol that it’s amazing anything is left alive there. If a couple of light brown apple moths are managing to gasp for breath amidst the nightly pesticide spraying that takes place across Napa, Sonoma, Kenwood, St. Helena, Calistoga and Cloverdale 8 months out of every year, I’m actually amazed. Everyone who lives in the Napa-Sonoma region wonders where the butterflies, the birds and frogs have gone, and because the spraying is done nightly under the cloak of darkness, few residents ever connect the alcohol industry to the loss of the rich biodiversity that was once ours.

It is absolutely no surprise to see all of the alcohol growers eagerly signing their names to anything that will lift the quarantines on their toxic liquor products. These people are in the pesticide business. They’ve got scores of migrant workers riding the spray machines for them night after night. They couldn’t care less about a few more tons of pesticides being added to the unfathomable load they are already dumping in the wasteland they market as ‘The Wine Country’.

But, the funny thing is, the alcohol industry CEOs like to do things under the cover of darkness. It keeps the public from seeing that their migrant workers aren’t even wearing masks and it keeps you from connecting the dots about their toxic business practices and your ruined health, your polluted town and your collapsing local environment.

In this case, however, with this letter, there are the names of their associations in black-and-white for anyone who happens to see that document to read. They are publicly endorsing the use of pesticides where you live, including if they have to bust down your gate to get into your backyard as these interests have been doing to our elders in Ojai, California. This time, what’s happening isn’t after midnight on those silent summer evenings in the alcohol valleys. This time, they are showing their hand and this gives you a chance to learn the truth about the presence of industrial alcohol production in California, the ethics of its proponents and its direct effects on you.

You can already see the utter fools being made of your neighbors by the games agribusiness plays within communities. To see the California Certified Organic Farmers endorsing constitution-crippling pesticide practices pretty much says it all to me. CDFA and the alcohol growers have managed to confuse and manipulate the state in a manner humanitarians would deem diabolical and I have to remind myself to have pity for those people on the various boards who are acting out of that abused mindset. I don’t hate those board members. I am completely pained by what has to be either their ignorance, or their corruption and I am just shaking my head over what is happening here in California.

We’re dead broke, we’re closing all of the state parks that support mental health by offering opportunities for exercise and contact with the natural world, and simultaneously, we’re begging government organizations to fill our towns with mood-altering pesticides that can result in psychosis. To me, the possible outcomes of this twisted combination of dangerous factors is no joking matter. It’s deadly serious.

What do you think?

For Immediate Release: May 24th, 2009

Media Contacts:

Yannick Phillips, Mothers Advocating for Children’s Health (MACH - Sonoma), (707) 933-0312

Debbie Friedman, Mothers of Marin Against the Spray (MOMAS), (415) 380-8578

Helen Kozoriz, Stop the Spray, (510) 336-0499

Paulina Borsook, Stop the Spray, (831) 429-8699

MOTHERS, FARMERS, AND SCIENTISTS CONVERGE TO DISCUSS LIGHT BROWN APPLE MOTH ERADICATION PROGRAM

Community forum planned for Sonoma County

WHAT: Panel discussion, Q&A; admission free

WHEN: Thursday, May 28th from 7:15pm to 9:30pm

WHERE: Sonoma Community Center, 276 East Napa Street, Sonoma, California

WHO: Ken Brown, Sonoma mayor; Frank Egger, former Fairfax mayor; James Carey, entomologist, UC-Davis; John Connell, director, Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services, California Department of Food and Agriculture (invited but declined); Caroline Cox, research director, Center for Environmental Health; Mike De Lay, coordinator, Coalition of California Cities to Stop the Spray; Dan Harder, botanist, UC-Santa Cruz; Chris Mittelstaedt, founder and CEO, The FruitGuys; Cathy Neville, agricultural commissioner, Sonoma County

WHY: To examine the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Light Brown Apple Moth eradication program

Sonoma, CA — With the battle heating up over the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) eradication program in Napa and Sonoma Counties, several mothers’ groups and farmers decided to sponsor a public forum in the town of Sonoma. At issue is whether the program is safe, necessary or effective.

The forum will be moderated by Ken Brown, Sonoma mayor, and Frank Egger, former Fairfax mayor. The panelists include James Carey, entomologist, UC-Davis; John Connell, director, Plant Health and Pest Prevention Services, CDFA (invited but declined); Caroline Cox, research director, Center for Environmental Health; Mike De Lay, coordinator, Coalition of California Cities to Stop the Spray; Dan Harder, botanist, UC-Santa Cruz; Chris Mittelstaedt, founder and CEO, The FruitGuys; and Cathy Neville, agricultural commissioner, Sonoma County.

The event will be held on May 28th from 7:15pm to 9:30pm at the Sonoma Community Center, 276 East Napa Street. Admission is free, and local organic snacks and refreshments will be provided. The public will have ample opportunity to ask questions during an hour of Q&A.

Dr. Carey, an expert in invasion biology, insect demography, and population dynamics, believes that the current distribution of LBAM in California, covering at least 10 counties with a combined area of between 8,000 to 10,000 square miles, suggests that LBAM is not a recent introduction, but has been in the state for perhaps 30 to 50 years, or longer. In a testimony to the Agriculture Committee at the State Capitol last year, he said, “The argument that LBAM is a recent invader because no populations were detected by CDFA in 2005 cannot be reconciled with LBAM’s current widespread distribution. This recent invader argument is simply not credible.”

Yannick Phillips, a Sonoma resident and founder of Mothers Advocating for Children’s Health (MACH-Sonoma) says, “While our teachers are being laid off and countless children living below the poverty line will be denied access to health care due to cuts in the California budget, it is outrageous that our federal government wasted approximately 90 million dollars of taxpayer’s money on a moth that does little damage, and is willing to spend an estimated 400 million more dollars in an attempt to eradicate this insect.”

Debbie Friedman, a Marin resident and chair of Mothers of Marin Against the Spray (MOMAS) says, “It is unconscionable that our elected officials and government agencies continue to spend enormous sums of money in pursuit of a flawed program without sound, scientific justification. Pesticides pose serious risks to human health, particularly children, the elderly and those with chronic illness. It is telling that after all these months there is no documented damage from this moth.”

About the LBAM eradication program

In the summer of 2007, CDFA began a controversial LBAM eradication program after the insect was trapped for the first time in California. Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties were aerially sprayed with Checkmate, an untested synthetic pheromone-based pesticide. After three rounds of spraying, 643 documented adverse health complaints were collected by a concerned citizen, including two reports of children who almost died from severe respiratory symptoms.

When the aerial spray program moved to the Bay Area, it was met with an enormous public outcry. Grassroots groups such as Stop the Spray and MOMAS staged a coordinated community effort which successfully halted the aerial spray over urban areas on June 18th, 2008.

However, the eradication program is far from over. According to CDFA, aerial spray is not off the table for “rural” or “forested” areas, and ground-based applications of pesticides are planned for both urban and rural communities. Furthermore, the LBAM program area has expanded to include almost the entire state.

CDFA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) continue to impose quarantines on hundreds of acres of farmland in California. A federal quarantine is triggered when two LBAMs are trapped within a 1.5 mile radius. In Napa and Sonoma Counties, quarantines have placed a burden on farmers and growers, compelling public officials to act quickly in order to avoid losses to the agriculture industry.

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors recently sent a letter to CDFA and USDA to resolve the quarantine issue. The risks to public health and the environment from the proposed pesticide treatments were not addressed. In addition, this request failed to consider the lack of actual crop damage from the moth, or the fundamental problems of outdated trade policy.

On May 12th, a lawsuit filed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in San Francisco Federal Court was dismissed after the government agency revoked its approval of Checkmate. However, residents worry that the EPA intends to replace Checkmate with another toxic aerial spray.

Meanwhile, the USDA is reviewing a petition to reclassify LBAM from Class A (serious pest) to Class C (of minor concern).

An Environmental Impact Report on the LBAM eradication program is scheduled for release in early June.

To date, there have been no reports of LBAM-related crop loss in California.

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