Proud Food Producers for Apache & Navajo Counties

Food~Education~Networking Growers

Learning from each other every day

We are happy to say: We’re back!

A thumbnail sketch of Lodestar Gardens today

What follows is our best attempt to summarize with pictures and words how we have grown with it in scale, scope, and spirit.

Lodestar Gardens is a family-owned business offering naturally-grown produce to the White Mountains since 2002. Located 16 miles East of Show Low, in the Vernon area, LODESTAR  GARDENS is an off-grid operation (powered by solar and wind generation) based on permaculture principles and biodynamic growing cycles.

Our mission is to:

1. enhance our regional foodshed by increasing our capacity to provide fresh, local produce year-round to our region of NE Central Arizona.

2. work with other growers to create a regional food hub.

3. offer sustainable agricultural education through farm apprenticeship programs such as WWOOF, hosting and conducting community workshops, and providing  residential learning through the Lodestar Learning Center

 Owners, Clark and Barbara, are committed to sharing their knowledge about growing food, re-skilling, and local resilience. We are eager to learn from others.

Where have we been? Why haven’t we updated our webpage since 2010? What could possibly distract us for over two years?

Like many, we got sucked deep into the transformational spin. We were infused to the gills with the relentless momentum of projects that burst our learning curves day in and day out, experiences that transformed our perspectives and inspired our change. The infamous December 21, 2012, was merely another blip on our bio rhythmic, Universal radar. Today we look around and celebrate the changes we see as demonstrable steps toward a new relationship with our planet. Lodestar Gardens reflects this evolution as we move toward opening the Lodestar Learning Center in March 2014. We all have much to teach each other.

In the Season of the Bear in the West, the darkest, coldest season, the season of reflection, on the threshold of 2013, we took long, deep breaths, stepped back, and said to ourselves, “This is a good time to update the website!” Together since 1994, our deepening relationship has been the aspect of our lives for which we are most grateful. Through our relationship, we feed our gardens as much as they feed us. It is a dynamic, symbiotic process called LOVE.

About Us:

In May 2010, Barbara retired from 33-year teaching career. For decades she enjoyed working with students ranging from 7^th grade to community college adults. In May 2012, Barbara graduated from Northern Arizona University with a Masters Degree in Sustainable Communities. She is a permaculture designer, Master Gardener of Coconino County, one of the first recipients of the Arizona Association of Environmental Education (AAEE) certificate, and holds current Arizona secondary education and community college teaching certifications.  Clark is the researcher, engineer, and mechanic of the team who makes the Lodestar clockworks move forward through one project after another—wind generation, irrigation and rain water catchment systems, soil building, developing feed crops, goat-raising, barn-raising, pottery and welding. Holding the goal to live a self-reliant lifestyle since he read Thoreau’s Walden in high school, Clark, is now manifesting his dream. Mother, Betty Ann, holds down the fort and oversees seed collection and processing. Her work is essential to our ability to save seeds, one of the most critical functions on the farm. All three members of our farm family are writers and artists of various genres. We believe that chop wood and carry water activities must be balanced with art and retrospection (what Clark refers to as “doing porch”). In the photo above you see us bookending our WWOOFers, Clarissa, Tom, and James–WWOOFers are an essential part of the the Lodestar Gardens clockworks too!

Current Projects at Lodestar Gardens

Offer Food at Local Markets.

Lodestar Gardens supports local farmers markets. LSG sells every Saturday at the Main Street Show Low Farmers’ Market and most Wednesdays at the Huning Street Farmers’ Market. LSG is preparing to provide fresh food year-round to our communities through its greenhouse production. We anticipate working with other local growers in establishing a cooperative that will strengthen year-round food production capacity of individual growers through greenhouse growing.

CSA Participation.

This year LSG will be a contributing grower to a community supported agriculture effort conducted by Cindy and Rory Laney at Cool Creek Ranch in Vernon, AZ.  Lodestar Gardens supports collaborative efforts that encourage our regional food shed one village at a time. For more information:  www.coolcreekranch.com or call (928) 368-7641.

Lodestar Learning Center. We will begin taking applications for our first 8-month, residential art and   agricultural immersion program.  The art focus for the first year will be writing and ceramics. This program brings together a community of practicing and aspiring artists who find their greatest inspiration is their relationship with the Earth processes. It is an opportunity to experience an aesthetic appreciation for concrete agricultural practices—Pen and Plow.

NAVAPACHE Post – a growers’ cooperative. Clark and Barbara have been exploring the best way to network and organize local growers in central Navajo and Apache Counties. With the generous facility support from Northland Pioneer College, growers, gardeners and that group of consumers to which our webmaster, Val, affectionately refers to as grubbers, have been meeting monthly since November 2010. But stay tuned; it’s only getting better . . . NAVAPACHE Post will make its website debut early spring 2013. It will rock your grocery world!  navapachepost.org.

Grassroots Mini-Co-Op. Eight families who live within 40 miles of Lodestar, are working together toward growing nutritionally dense local food year-round, season-extending growing tunnel 35’x72’x15’ and food production system that they helped build. The high tunnel will be irrigated with solar pumped water from a nearby pond/aquaponic system. All work and harvests are shared equally among participants and therein is the cooperative aspect of this experiment. This collaboration is distinguished from a typical work share program in that it is based on an exchange of labor and time, rather than a monetary equivalent for work-food exchange.

Lodestar Community Library. Veteran sustainable practitioners and innovators, Kali Hall and Breyeh Fresol approached us and asked if we would like to house their library, a extensive collection of practical and philosophical resources to help our community become even more self-reliant. This spring, the library will be available to co-op and local residents.  Kali and Breyeh join those visionaries and pioneers who model for us self-reliant lifestyles; as a research team equipped with keen social eyes Kalbrey Enterprises provides insightful information upon which we can make informed choices in many arenas. Contact them: kalbreyenterprises@gmail.com. LSG is active in networking small direct farmers, ranchers, backyard growers, community garden participants in our region. Navapache Post monthly meetings are held @ Northland Pioneer College, Snowflake Campus. For more information:  928.587.1660.

On-going events at Lodestar

Quarterly Bees and Seeds Gatherings. For the past ten years, a couple of dozen folks and new friends get together every three months and celebrate bees and garden bounty, the passing seasons, and each other.

THANKMAS. In the spirit of creating one’s own rituals and celebrations, about a decade ago, we invented a holiday set aside to celebrate friendship. The tradition took hold in our circle of friends and that circle grew, over time the circle morphed and reshaped itself as groups of people do, but the tradition lives on. Thankmas occurs on a Saturday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course, food is our centerpiece of activity.

Labyrinth Walks. Susan Trumphfleller, for decades a dowser and creator of labyrinths, orchestrated a dozen people in the creation of a Cretan labyrinth on Lodestar property in November of 2011.  This team of Labyrinth Builders succeeded in creating a powerful vortex on the property. It will be included on the international labyrinth registry. The public is welcome to share in the energies and the labyrinth becomes more powerful and nurturing with each footstep upon it.

Workshop Topics

We have a classroom and a shop area to accommodate hands-on learning activities. We are prepared to conduct or host workshops on the following topics:
Solar Cooking & Food Drying = Five Methods

Permaculture Design Principles including aquaponics applications and rainwater harvesting

Fodder sprouting

Seed Saving

Composting

Extending the growing season – methods (row covers, cold frame construction, hoop houses, green houses, high tunnels)

Techniques for gardening & living off-grid

Alternative fuels/Small-scale ethanol production

Living with Bees – Bee stewardship

Writing Workshops for children & adults (Nature as Muse, Poetry of Silence, Walking Meditations, and Greenhouse Art)

Acupressure Training for Self-Reliant Health (Monte Cunningham)

Plant Spirit Medicine (Minda Simmons)

Wildcrafting Mushrooms (Kathleen Vorhol)

Drumvello Open Heart workshops (Dr. Donna Daniel)

Alternative Growing Philosophies and Techniques (union of scientific & spiritual practices)

Anastasia Gardening Techniques – Ringing Cedar Series (Kent Brewer & Dr. Cherylee Brewer)

Biodynamics (Rudolph Steiner school)

Perlandra Approach (gardening with nature intelligence)

Workshops Scheduled for Summer 2013

Summer 2013 Lodestar Learning Center WORKSHOP SERIES for Children, Young Adults, & Families

Lodestar Farm Days – recommended for children ages 5-11

 June 18, 2013 – 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

 June 25, 2013 – 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Cost: $25/student  – limited to 10 students (parents must accompany children 4-5 years of age and contribute $5 for lunch) – breakfast and lunch provided. Parents, bring your cameras!

 Labyrinth walk and sing along

Create green house art (plant rubbing – solar leaf art)

 Plant seeds to take home

 Barnyard Croquet

 Cook your lunch in a solar oven you make

 Feed chickens, goats, and compost worms

 Write a Farm Day Poem

Summer 2013 Workshops

Lodestar Farm Camp Out – recommended for young adults ages 12-16

 9:00 a.m. July 14 – 4:00 p.m. July 15

 Cost: $75/student – limited to 10 students (campground accommodations) – breakfast, lunch and dinner provided first day; breakfast and lunch provided second day – work exchange scholarship applications are available.

 Labyrinth walk and chant

 The art of broadfork and rake

 Soil science & Soil making

 Introduction to aquaponics

 Green house art (water colors)

 Cook your lunch on a rocket stove you make

 Caring for goats and chickens

 Ceramics activity

 Hiking the Lodestar Trail

 Barnyard Volleyball Tournament

 Disc Golf

 Create a UTube Weekend on the Farm video

Summer 2013 Workshops

 Lodestar Family Farm Days

 August  9 – 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

 August 24 – 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

 Cost: $7/person – limited to 15 people

 Labyrinth walk and drumming

 High tunnel harvest

 Name that garden pest

 About Bees

 Barnyard Baseball Game

 Disk Golf

 Cook your lunch in a solar oven and on a rocket stove

 Use a solar dryer; make a solar dryer

 Goat, chicken and compost feed

 Family Farm Photos

 Summer 2013 Workshops ~ Retreat Options for Adults

 Reconnecting with Nature as Muse, Poetry of Silence, Walking & Still Meditations, Pure Diet

 Experience elegance through simplicity

For those times when you want to experience deep silence and complete solitude in a peaceful and beautiful place, we can provide a safe space and guard your privacy. Accommodations include a tent campsite near a medicine wheel and pond or if you prefer a less rustic setting, there is a self-sufficient loft apartment with a long view of the foothills of White Mountains. Nature walks, labyrinth walks, pond walks, meditation sites, private time in the library can be arranged, and you may work with plants in the garden, green house, or high tunnel.  Naturally grown, nutritionally dense food can be provided, or you can bring you own nourishment. Juicing fasts by arrangement. Well water is further purified for your complete satisfaction.

Reservations by special arrangement, ten-day advance notice, 2-4 day stays, non-refundable 20% reservation fee. Cost varies according to selection of accommodations, length of stay, and food preparation. Lodestar Gardens is a drug-free and weapon-free vortex.

Also ask us about:

Northeast AZ for Resource Independence (www.NEARI.us/888-853-0646)

Learn with others who seek to live a more self-reliant lifestyle through advancing local food production, exploring alternative fuel production, and mastering affordable good health practices. This LLC is lead by a locally driven team who seeks the cutting edge and lowest common denominator in attaining maximum local resilience. Lodestar Gardens supports and promotes their principles and approaches to attaining a high standard of quality living.

NAVAPACHE Post

Welcome! food producers of every scale, gardeners who want to connect, and consumers who want to be part of the local food movement meet monthly at NPC- Snowflake Campus – last Thursday 4 -6 p.m. Meetings include workshops on popular agricultural topics. Go to www.navapachepost.org for the 2013 NP MEETING SCHEDULE or check our LSG calendar. NP creates advertising and networking for food producer members & marketers—large & small growers, ranchers, & local food supporters. Growers are working together to form a growers’ cooperative, and eventually an online store and a cold-storage, food-processing distribution center in our area. YOU can join the local food movement in the high country and reap the benefits.

Kerr Cole Sustainable Living Center – We have been on the KCSLC Board for nearly a decade and wholeheartedly support this non-profit in its mission to educate individuals and families to integrate sustainable living methods into their lives. We demonstrate KCSLC solar cooking and water purification methods at local markets, preparedness fairs, and at the request of sustainable oriented groups. Barbara Kerr, founder of the KCSLC and who passed spring of last year, was our first and most authentic model for self-reliant lifestyle in our area. She was for us a visionary, mentor, and most important, friend. Her legacy remains. www.Kerr-Cole.org.

White Mountain Community Gardens – We are active members and avid supporters of the WMCG and their efforts to create and sustain the first community garden in our area and offer

gardening education to our community. WMCG offers our community members an essential component to increasing our local food production and food consciousness. Call Mary or Dan Vertz for more information: 602.810.8175.

Visit us!

Find our produce & signature greens @ FARMERS’ MARKETS:

In 2013 find us May – October @ these farmers’ markets weekly:

• Wednesday:              Sunshine Herbs – Show Low (9:00 am – 1:00 pm)
• Friday:                       Cafe Bocado      (11:00 am – 2:00 pm)
• Saturday:                   Main Street Show Low Farmers’ Market (9:00 am – 1:00 pm)

This year we will feature three of the top 8 most nutrient dense foods on earth: kale, broccoli and spinach. We also love growing root vegetables and experimenting with recipes all winter long. Stay tuned for our favorite recipes. For more information about the Super 8 Foods: http://www.superfoodsforlife.com/site/531699/page/103407

Sign up now to be a preferred Lodestar Gardens customer or call (928) 587-1405. Let us know if you wish to be included on our email list of workshops and upcoming events at Lodestar Gardens.

Principles that drive the Lodestar Learning Center curriculum

It is our goal to have an apprenticeship program for aspiring artist/farmers in full swing March 2014: PEN and PLOW – an 8-month residential farm and art community experience. A more thorough description of our curriculum and calendar will be posted March 30. Applications will be posted on our website May 30, 2013.

***We believe in collaboration. We are currently working to coordinate with local community colleges and universities to develop an agricultural certification. However, we will not hold up our plans to share our knowledge with people deeply interested in exploring more sustainable life practices waiting on academic institutions impacted by shrinking budgets and typically slow to change and adopt new programs.
***Literature, poetry, music and art inspired by nature are also part of our holistic curriculum. We seek to host and instruct a community of artists who find their greatest inspiration in their relationship with the Earth processes.
***We believe in the powerful instruction that the diverse landscapes and geographical features of this area can teach us, so traveling to local monuments, parks, and reserves is also slated as part of our curriculum (in the general 200-mile radius of Interstate 40 east, Hwy 77 south, Hwy 260 east–Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Woodruff Butte, Fools Hollow & Lyman Lake State Parks, Walnut Canyon, Homolvi Ruins, Petrified Forest & El Morrow National Monuments, Mt. Baldy wilderness area USFS/Apache Reservation).

***We believe in working together. We are working with other growers, gardeners and ranchers to coordinate a well-rounded curriculum for students who wish to understand the realities of high desert, nutrient-rich food production through hands-on as well as intellectual experience.
***We believe in the power of community and collective wisdom (we are also equally aware of the trap of collective folly), so our students will also attend local garden club (Vernon & Gardeners with Altitude) and local growers meetings (SDF), as well as participate in community garden activities (White Mountain Community Garden) as a part of their community service and experience. We also continually look for opportunities to work with and learn from residents on the four nearby reservations. Following an Age of Alienation, we believe in the power of hands-on, education and community engagement. As the Hopi elders have said: “The time of the lone wolf is over.”

***We believe it is time for an agricultural Renaissance, inspired by visionaries such as Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Helen and Scott Nearing, and the elders within our own communities. We agree with Ken Meter: “Local foods may be the best path towards economic recovery,” and we take it one step further into the realm of personal growth and self-fulfillment: learning how to nurture a garden, is to learn how to nurture yourself.  A thread of Zen must run through every tapestry of change, no matter how concrete the goal.

Right now, in early March, we eat from our greenhouse: a variety of lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, lettuce, herbs, and tomatoes. We have over 1,000 vegetable starts at various stages of growth preparing for transplanting to the hoop house and high tunnel, and later this month some will be ready to transplant into walls of waters outside. We invite you to join in the learning.

When Alex Butler came to Lodestar Gardens in December 2010 and stood inside the labyrinth, she couldn’t help but feel the good vibrations.

Experiential Workshop Creating

SACRED SPACE

Saturday, November 13, 2010

LODESTAR GARDENS 16 mi. E of Show Low AZ off Hwy 61

9:00 to ~5:00 PM

Lecture /Lunch/Workshop $45.00 Sliding scale available

Vegetarian Lunch provided

SUE TRUMPFHELLER – coordinator

Inviting you to “Come to Center”.

• Discover the magic, mystery and miracles of the LABYRINTH

• Explore the pathways of it’s history

• Experience the walk to center – a place of awareness-clarity

• Feel an expanding  sense of balance

• Walk, run & experience these multi-cultural pathways

The day consists of two parts.

The Lecture – learn about the history and the background of many labyrinths.  Handouts of many of these designs will be provided. You will be able to create a momento of the day as you draw and color your personal Classical/Seven Circuit LABYRINTH on a rock. Bring one from home or chose one, gathered for this event, from the land.

The Labyrinth Creation - the building of the Classical/Seven Circuit LABYRINTH when we layout the pattern and add stones to create this permanent labyrinth at LODESTAR GARDENS.  You’ll be able to walk, run and explore the many pathways of this Magical, Mystical design.  Each journey into these sacred spaces is a unique personal encounter. This walk to center brings many to a place of awareness, spiritual focusing, meditation and balance.  Walking the labyrinth with intention one can achieve clarity, support and a new sense of self as old issues drop away and vitality is restored.

Sue Trumpfheller has worked with and constructed labyrinths since 1988.  She is one of 10 presenters on the video, Magic, Mystery and Miracles of Labyrinths.  Sue also works with Bio-Detection™, pendulums, color, geomancy, Chi Patterns™ and Qi Li

Reservations necessary by Nov 6, 2010 carpediem@lodestargardens.com 928-587-1405

Map to Lodestar Gardens is available upon request

Sue Trumpfheller 949-300-3545 Visa & Master Card Available before Nov 6th.

Sunday Nov 14, 2010 and Monday, Nov 15, 2010

With Sue Trumpfheller at

LODESTAR GARDENS

(16mi E of Show Low AZ off Hwy 61)

USING THESE TOOLS – saves time, money and effort.

The Basics —– Sunday 9:30 – 4:00

Learn how to use these tools so that you can:

• Confidently, find accurate Yes/No answers
• Easily, choose the healthiest food or choose the best seeds
• Quickly, diagnose car problem to save money and avoid scams
• Test your decorating material for health safety – before you begin
• Quickly, uncover hidden and costly problems in your home purchase
• Protect your health by testing your water and supplements

Class fee $45 with sliding scale

Vegetarian meal provided

Beyond the Basics —– MONDAY 9:30 – 4:00

Advance your use of these tools so you can:

• Get more valuable answers using powerful questions beyond the  Yes/No
• Reduce the time and money involved in R&D or Marketing
• Find the most favorable location for your office or your tomato plants
• Avoid “lemons” when shopping for previously used cars or electronics
• Protect your health by testing your home or office for toxic areas
• Discover quick ways to get answers using charts

Class Fee $45 with sliding scale available

Both days $80.00

Vegetarian meal provided

You will be able to choose the best vitamins, plant food, and many other products. You will usually be able to avoid traveling backups by choosing the fastest and safest route. Use it in business to locate the broken wires, pipes or bad parts and hire the best employee. Explore more – unlimited possibilities.  Dowsing means to search. kinesiology, muscle testing and Galvanic Skin Response are all part of this same response system that I lump into Bio-Detection™.  Find answers quickly to every day shopping and decision-making events.

Register by Nov 9^th to hold your space!

Sue Trumpfheller 949-300-3545 suetrump@att.net

Visa, Discover and Master Card Available prior to Nov 8^th

Or Carpediem@lodestargardens.com 928-587-1405

Map to Lodestar Gardens sent upon request

Sue Trumpfheller, dowser, teacher, speaker and writer has been working in the field of energies since the early 60’s.  She has a deep understanding of her craft which she loves to share it with others.  Sue was awarded Dowser of the Year by the American Society of Dowsers in 2003.  She has written seven books.  Discover the Pendulum, 99 Ways to Use the Pendulum and 99 MORE Ways to Use the Pendulum plus Discover Color and A B C’s of Color along with a books of her poetry, Looking Inside and Stage of Life. Sue was President and/or Program Chairman of Orange County Dowsers for 15 years. Books and tools will be available during the workshop.  Sue designed a NEW line of bioenergetics devices—Chi Patterns.  They will be available in class.

Our site is the white canopy in the foreground — you can see the solar ovens set up in front of the canopy on the gravel.

People will stop and talk with us about solar cooking, and we hear many stories about people learning to make their own solar cookers — and we hope that this exposure will inspire many more such efforts.

In these photos you can see a Sun Oven (with the reflectors); a Sport Cooker designed by solar cooking and sustainability pioneer Barbara Prosser Kerr, who lives in the nearby town of Taylor and is a local treasure, and a rocket stove. More about these items below.

Sun Oven
Reflectors can make a big difference in the internal heat of a solar oven. Without reflectors, a solar box cooker will boil water after an hour or so, and reach a temperature of around 225 degrees farenheit — with the reflectors, the Sun Oven reaches up to 350 degrees. We demonstrate the Sun Oven with a big biscuit cooked in an enamel pot — it even browns.

Sport Solar Cooker
The Sport is the plain black box with plastic cover in the photo below. The water in the enamel pot is boiling. You can see more of it here. The link is a sales brochure — but please know that the author of this diary does not benefit from any sales. The Kerr-Cole Sustainable Living Center is an educational non-profit (501(c)(3)).

Also in the photo is the biscuit we cooked in the Sun Oven, and an extremely fuel-efficient wood stove called a rocket stove.

Rocket Stove
While not a solar technology, the rocket stove burns small pieces of wood (twigs or kindling). The design allows cooking using a very small area of flame — basically you are just burning the ends of a few sticks. This model is one we build in the Solar Cooking and Sustainability Course offered through the local community college, Northland Pioneer.

The metal divider that the sticks rest on provides a platform for the fuel as well as an air channel that flows under the fuel and allows for very strong combustion of the stick ends.

This stove allows for cooking using a minimum of fuel — not as ideal as solar, but still very effective and helpful in places with deforestation problems. Even in heavily forested regions, using less fuel is the right thing to do from a carbon and fire-safety perspective.

Thanks very much to gmoke for suggesting this post. Have a nice sunny Sunday — here in the White Mountains of Arizona, it is inevitable!

Chicken Coop for the Soul

Our starts we got from the plant-start CSA run by Kim Howell-Costion of Snowflake (email AshkolaGardens.com for more information); the lettuce in the hoop house, and two outside beds of onions and leeks. The strawberries overwintered, and there are some promising signs of budding on the blueberry bushes that were chewed back by visiting elk during the winter.

Green, Greenhouse of Home

We got the tip to put a thick layer of straw around the base of our fruit trees, to keep the earth from warming up the roots too early. With our epic Spring winds, early buds are triggered by the warm soil, but then are taken by the wind, branches stripped bare! So the more windy days that pass before the fruit blossoms open, the better the chances of outlasting the windy season. Hope springs eternal.

We’re getting more inquiries from WWOOFers, and have had some recent WWOOFers helping with early planting and transplanting, and maintaining the garden beds with broadfork and fresh boards for the old warped rotting ones. (No reference to Wall Street was originally meant to be implied by the last phrase of the previous sentence. Maybe, however, bringing “fresh boards” to them is in order as well. Broadforks? Hm, I dunno. Mirrors the pitchforks imagery pretty well though.)

Among our winter adentures in reading, we all loved Richard Heinberg’s latest blog post, Life After Growth. Heinberg presents a sane discussion of the implications of our energy budget; the fact that we have been living on Mother Earth’s Trust Fund of Energy (petroleum reserves) to create a temporary world in which growth of everything is presupposed. There is a limit to the life that the Earth can sustain; and we will be approaching that limit with increasingly immediate clarity in the coming years. Letting go of our addictions to oil will be painful and difficult to the extent that we fail to live within the allowance of energy that is given to us on a moment-by-moment basis. Ironically, while we view the petroleum-driven orgy of production that we view as the basis for civilization’s increasing rate of progress, the fact is that we are living in the past, off of our predecessors’ savings. The trust fund will run dry; by that time, hopefully we will have long been working on the problem of stability with improvement, but without growth in capacity: sustainable life. We will have no choice but to learn to use the renewable sources of energy in our immediate environment — to live within our energy budget by finding the most practical, immediate, and efficient solutions.

Whatever happens between now and the emergence of Homo Ecologicus, that species which is capable of sustained existence on the planet it inhabits and evolves from the penny-wise, pound-foolish pillager of the earth’s non-renewable resources that we have in Homo Sapiens, the ultimate survivors will be those and only those whose desires are matched by the availability of resources, whose appetites are honed for locally, naturally, efficiently grown and processed foodstuffs, whose reliance on travel does not exceed the capacity for harvesting energy from the immediate environment. We will go once more to being villagers rather than pillagers.

Mr. Heinberg has addressed some of these solutions and provided a plan for implementing them, or beginning to implement them, in a longer document on the website of the Post Carbon Institute. The (PDF) document is entitled “The Food and Farming Transition: Toward a Post Carbon Food System.” We highly recommend these materials for their plain speaking, sound reasoning, and pragmatic approach to the sustainability crisis we are entering.

As an example of practical change, we would like to make the proposal that, instead of the modest proposal of taxing our children to pay for our binging on their savings, and subsidizing unhealthy foods for them as well, the more excellent proposal of making our governmental subsidies to agriculture reflect exactly the structure of the USDA nutritional guidelines, rather than this travesty:

HCT NCC Introduction to Solar Cooking and Sustainability

Credit: 0.0 $20 fee

Food for your soul and sol for your food. Participants will learn basic principles of solar cooking and construct three types of cookers to take home. This course will assist participants to integrate a sustainable lifestyle. Course will be part lecture, observation, small group activity and mostly hands on experience.

—–FS 9:00a-4:00p Section 46483

Dates: April 16 & 17, 2010

Instructor: Monty Cunningham at Silver Creek Campus in Snowflake/Taylor — To register call 800.266.7845 x7600
*$10 fee for materials and lunch for the 2nd day. Day 1 – Silver Creek Campus in Snowflake/Taylor in the morning, Sustainable Living Center in afternoon. Day 2 – Lodestar Gardens Show Low, AZ.

Here are photos from last year’s Spring class — hope to see you in this year’s!

Naturally grown leaf lettuce under shade cloth