Springfield Locavore

Day 4 - Yes, We Have No Strawberries

Breakfast

Saturday, May 23, began with a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. As before, the eggs were from Triple S Farms (Stewardson, IL, 77 miles SE of Springfield), and the honey on the toast was from from Sasse's Apiary (Chestnut, IL, 88 miles NW of Springfield). The bread, butter, and the milk were all non-local.

Market

I then made a quick trip to the Old Capitol Farmers' Market. My main targets were strawberries and green beans. I struck out on both counts. The guy at the Living Springs Berries and Produce booth told me that they sold out of their 35 flats of strawberries at 7:53 AM. Did I mention that the farmers' market doesn't officially open until 8:00 AM? The last of the green beans were gone by 8:30 AM. The trip wasn't a complete loss, however, as I got sugared pecans from Voss Pecans (Carlyle, IL, 90 miles south of Springfield), snow peas, and broccoli. Where did the snow peas and the broccoli come from? Well, I wrote that information down on a piece of paper, which I then cleverly lost. *sigh*

Food Not Lawns Talk

The reason the trip was rather quick was that I was scheduled to speak to the Springfield Food Not Lawns group at 9:30 at Lincoln Library. The title of my talk was "My So-Called Locavore Life". (I'll post a link to the PowerPoint file here as soon as I can figure out a way to do so!) I had briefly met Carrie and Don Moorman, the organizers of the group, at Meet Your Local Producers. Due to conflicts with my work schedule, I hadn't been able to attend a Food Not Lawns meeting before. The turnout wasn't especially large, which wasn't surprising given that it was 9:30 on a Saturday morning, but everyone was quite interested in the topic and I had a good time.

When I was preparing the talk, I was worried that it would be too short. ("Let's see. 44 slides, 30 seconds per slide, that's only 22 minutes. Hmm... I better ramble a bit.") Well, I rambled alot! Somehow I talked for over 2 hours about:

• how I became interested in becoming a locavore;
• my first steps last spring and summer;
• how things got sidetracked by the house purchase;
• our intentions to resume the project this year;
• the various reasons I have for becoming a locavore;
• and local resources for locavores.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I think everyone else did, too. However, if I ever give this talk again, I definitely need to ramble quite a bit less!

Lunch

For lunch, we had a salad, with strawberries and sugared pecans for dessert. The lettuce, chives, and radishes were all local, from Veenstra & Heck's CSA (Rochester, IL). The sugared pecans were from Voss Pecans (Carlyle, IL, 90 miles south of Springfield). I'm sure the sugar on the pecans wasn't local, but I won't quibble; they're good! The strawberries were also local, although I don't recall from where. The cheese on the salad wasn't local, but it was from Wisconsin, which isn't too far away. (After it's gone, we'll be using cheese from Ropp Jersey Cheese (Normal, IL) and other local sources.) The salad dressing was non-local.

Visitors!

Later that afternoon, my dad and stepmom arrived for a visit from Texas. We invoked the "social exemption" and went out to dinner with them at Panera Bread, where I had the Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich and drank a Mountain Dew.

"Social Exemption?"

I probably ought to post a page here explaining what our "rules" are. For us at least, becoming a locavore isn't intended to be a religious conversion. Eating something non-local isn't meant to be a sin! So we have some "exceptions" or "exemptions". The most obvious one is that we're still using up any non-local food that's already in the house. And Dawn won't be giving up her chocolate, coffee, or tea. (I probably won't be giving up my oranges, although I won't buy them in the dead of winter!)

In addition, we have a "social exemption": When going out with friends or family, or when eating at their house, enforcing locavore restrictions just isn't practical. After all, part of my motivation for becoming a locavore is improving community ties; if we can't socialize with people, that sort of defeats the purpose! Dawn also wants an exemption for one lunch and one dinner out each week.

Of course, if there are too many exceptions, then you're not really being a locavore! We haven't really chiselled our rules in stone yet. I think we're both sort of feeling our way a bit to get a better feel for what we really can't do without.

In any case, as I said, this isn't intended to be a religion. There are benefits to being a locavore. We're just trying to make the changes needed to make those benefits a reality.

Garrick Veenstra and Lindsay Record on WUIS

Our local PBS radio station, WUIS, is holding a pledge drive this week, teaming up with the Buy Fresh Buy Local Central Illinois campaign of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance. If you make a pledge to WUIS, you will receive a WUIS Buy Fresh, Buy Local Membercard, which provides discounts at numerous area restaurants.

While I was listening during my drive home from work, I was pleased to hear that they had Garrick Veenstra (of Veenstra's Vegetables) and Lindsay Record (of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance) on the air helping out!

If you enjoy listening to WUIS, but haven't yet made a pledge, please do so now. You can make a pledge online. I'm donating $10 per month, which is a painless way to donate $120 to the cause!

By the way, I have an update about Garrick and Andy's CSA, which I'll be posting soon!

Two Events This Weekend: Meet Your Local Producers, plus Local Harvest Fundraiser Dinner

Just a reminder, as I mentioned earlier, that the Illinois Stewardship Alliance will be holding their 2nd annual Meet Your Local Producers farm expo and holiday market this Saturday, November 22, 2008, 10 am - 3 pm, in the Illinois Building of the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield.

I had said that I would definitely be making it to this year's event. As I write this, I'm not sure whether that will be the case. We've removed the lovely purple shag carpet in our son's bathroom, exposing plenty of mold and rotten subflooring, which we've replaced. We're pretty much down to the final steps before we lay down the vinyl tiles -- just in time for my dad to come visit us on Sunday! So it remains to be seen whether I'll make it out there this weekend.

In addition, the Illinois Stewardship Alliance will be holding a Local Harvest Fundraiser Dinner that evening, at 6:30 pm at Maldaner's Restaurant in Springfield. Visit their web site for more details about the dinner.

Psst! Wanna Buy a Bit of the White House Lawn?

The other day I mentioned the "Eat the View" campaign of Kitchen Gardeners International. (Scroll to the bottom of that post.) They're urging the next U.S. President to replace a portion of the White House lawn with a vegetable garden.

As a way to make money, they are auctioning off a portion of the white house lawn. By that I mean, a 1'x1' section of lawn from in front of the white house of the guy in the video that I posted. You could own a bit of history!

Here's the eBay listing.

In addition, they're also soliciting $10 donations to symbolically "buy" 1'x1' sections of the White House lawn, with the understanding that the "buyer" donates the plot back to the American people to be used for a garden. Yeah, okay, it's just a way to ask for money. But you get a certificate that you can customize and print out!

Food Not Lawns Springfield

The State Journal-Register ran two articles last month about a Springfield chapter of Food Not Lawns forming. Kathryn Rem's article Be at one with your land ran on May 7. Another article, Local Food Not Lawns chapter focuses on homegrown produce, ran on May 28.

I own the book Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community by Heather Coburn Flores. I was interested in the topic, even though I rent, but before long I found myself very turned off by the tone and ideology of the book. I had expected practical advice about things like:

• how to determine whether there are local ordinances or covenants that would prevent you from turning your lawn into a garden
• how to discuss your plans with your neighbors and allay any concerns they might have
• how to choose plants and plan a garden that won't royally piss off the neighbors during those months when things are dormant and ugly
• how best to remove the sod from your lawn, and what to do with it
• special preparations that you might need to take to transform soil that has been regularly sprayed to support grass to one that works well for vegetables

Instead what the book was filled with was advice on how to mooch off of those around you so that you don't have to pay for anything. Seriously. Suggestions included:

• plant vegetables around the plants in front of stores, so that the store owners water and fertilize them, then you can come back later and harvest the vegetables
• find a space in a public park, dig it up, and plant yourself a garden there
• plant as close as possible to the fence separating your yard from your neighbor's yard, so that when your neighbor waters their lawn, your plants get some of the water
• poke around in the donation bins outside of charity thrift shops and steal anything that might be useful for your gardening

After reading that last bit, I was so disgusted I stopped reading the book. Perhaps the book eventually gets to the sort of practical stuff that I was interested in, but I didn't get that far. The author seemed more interested in revolution and living off of others' (involuntarily donated) efforts than in gardening.

It was particularly appalling because the book claims in its subtitle to be about community, which very much interests me. I don't think you can build community by stealing, tricking others, or just forcing yourself into places that aren't yours.

Community must be built on volunteering and trust, not on commandeering and trickery.

Anyway, that was the book. Presumably the local  group is better than that.

The local chapter, Food Not Lawns Springfield, held its first meeting on Wednesday, April 30, at 10:00 am in the Bicentennial Room on the 3rd floor of Lincoln Library. Its second meeting, a vermiculture workshop, was held on Wednesday, May 28, at 1:00 pm in Lincoln Library’s Carnegie Room South. Its next meeting, discussing fermentation, will be held on Friday, June 20, at 1:00 pm in Lincoln Library's Carnegie Room South.

Notice anything odd about those meeting dates and times? They're all during the week and during the day! Don't these people have jobs? (I ask that only somewhat facetiously.) Well, if they don't hold their meetings either in the evening or on weekends, I don't think I'll be able to make it to many of them.

However, they do have a Yahoo Group, with a quite active message board, which I've joined. Hopefully I'll find that they're not as radical as Heather Flores!