It’s an exciting morning around here – George took in five dozen eggs to work to make our first egg sales! Here’s hoping that the girls keep ramping up the production in the weeks to come.
Our friend Dave sent me a link earlier this week regarding a pretty neato urban garden in Arizona. Some folks there bought a home in 2009 that came with an old, empty in-ground swimming pool that they either needed to repair or remove. Or so they thought.
Instead, they came up with a very innovative idea: turn it into a mini-farm. It’s pretty amazing, what they’ve done. Fruits, veggies, and herbs are grown, a chicken flock thrives inside, providing them with eggs, and there is even a pond teeming with Tilapia fish. It’s a really innovative idea, and is providing them with much of their family’s food needs. You can read more about it on their website, gardenpool.org.
That’s just one example of how folks are realizing that we can’t keep doing things the same way they’ve been done for the past several decades – it’s just not sustainable. Another way that this is being realized is in terms of our energy production – we’re seeing that in all of the different alternative energy technologies that are being developed and the interest in them. One of the most popular is wind energy, and with good reason. It’s clean energy, and it’s plentiful. We get lots of wind here on the farm, and hope to harness it with a turbine one day!
I have family and friends who are involved with wind energy technology at several different levels. My father has a wind turbine installed at his business, and he pioneered the introduction of it into that community – in fact, the city has used his installation as the touchstone for shaping their alternative energy policies. A very dear family friend and his family have moved down to Texas, because he is now a wind turbine technician, servicing the equipment, and training new technicians to do the same on a wind farm there. And my cousin is an attorney, practicing in the area of alternative energies. He has a real passion for helping others to get these technologies up and running, and navigating the path to get there.
In fact, he believes in it so much that he had me build a website in order to reach out and provide information and education regarding wind power and biodigesters to farmers who may be considering adding these to their operations. Energy-farmer.org is a great resource for farms that may be considering adding an alternative energy source, and especially for those who may have been approached by developers looking to lease a part of their land for wind turbines. If you have been considering adding a turbine, there is some really informative material available on the site library, and he keeps up with the latest wind energy news in the blog, so it’s well worth checking out.
I really think that we are facing a new “normal” in our times – things have just changed so much in our world, on so many levels, and there are numerous things we’ve taken for granted. But resources do have limits, and whether we are talking about energy, food, or the environment, our attitudes regarding consumption need to adjust accordingly. Our family is trying hard to improve our lives by producing some of our own food, and we have the goal of producing some or all of our own energy in the future, too. We are certainly advantaged in this effort by owning some acreage, but even in a more populated setting and in less space, folks have the opportunity to make positive changes – just look at the Garden Pool above – they are obviously in a suburban area. However, even in a small space, they’ve been able to accomplish much. And they aren’t alone – just check out sites like Urban Farming and Green In Oak Park to see the efforts being made by folks in cities and suburbs to grow some of their own food.
So what are your thoughts and experiences about our changed times, self-sustenance, and alternative energies? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
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