Boise Sustainable Living Community

What to eat in the Boise foothills

bobboise — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:06:27 -0700

Start: 2008-07-09 19:00

End: 2008-07-09 21:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Peak Oil Blues website

bobboise — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:23:33 -0700

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Permaculture Designer

Beth Mouser — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:11:35 -0700

Hi everyone,

I am brand new to this community and very pleased to be accepted here. I am interested in permaculture and am trying to find someone in the Boise area to help me design something for our acreage. Any help would be much appreciated!

Beth Mouser

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Boise Idaho's Bounty - announcement and opportunity

Anneliese — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:00:26 -0700

Well it looks like we're on our way to having a Boise pickup location for Idaho's Bounty! Details to come, but look for a first delivery date near the end of July.

Meanwhile, for those interested in promoting the local food web, there's an opportunity for you to participate by helping with a "Pick Pack and Sort" party for a Boise delivery. Delivery location is likely to be at a warehouse near St. Al's. Delivery day and time is probably about 6pm on Wednesdays.

For those interested in participating, there's an opportunity for you to get trained and see how the Ketchum operation happens, and meet the great folks who are behind the scenes of this important enterprise. We are looking for some folks to come along on Wednesday July 16th up to Ketchum to learn the process and bring the goodness down to Boise. Ketchum operations run from 12-4. Some compensation may be provided. And ride sharing to Ketchum is being arranged. In case you are interested, you can send me an email: anneliese at greeningupdotnet or just click on my username here on BSLC and click the contact tab to send me a message.

Idaho's Bounty has played a pivotal role in connecting local food with local people and we're thrilled they have decided to open up to the Treasure Valley community. Come help lay the groundwork for this important network and meet some inspired souls working for change!

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Emailing another member - you must enable for it to work

bobboise — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:24:52 -0700

We can contact other members via a personal contact form if that person has enabled their personal contact form.

Here's how you do it.

The User Menu is on the right side of the page after you log in.

Click on the 'my account' link.

After you are taken to that page, click on the 'edit' tab at the top.

On the 'edit' page, go to the bottom and look for the 'contact settings' are and put a check mark in the box next to 'personal contact form'.

Others can now contact you via a form that sends a message to you via email without revealing your email address.

BobBoise

Boise Sustainable Living Community

June Meeting

bobboise — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:37:47 -0700

Start: 2008-06-22 15:00

End: 2008-06-22 18:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Why Sustainable Matters

bobboise — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:07:35 -0700

Why Sustainable Matters

Sustainable is a word that is being misused by the corporate monsters who have compromised our planet, most people do not understand what it means.

To live in a sustainable manner means that you can live in that place, doing the things you are doing, essentially forever, because you are recycling EVERYTHING. You will import nearly nothing to your place on this earth, and put out no trash, flush no toilet.

Most of us want to live sustainably because it is in the best interest of people, animals, and all the other inhabitants of the planet. To live unsustainably means to add to the destruction of the planetary ecosystem.

Even if you don't really care about the long term health of our planet, there is a reason to learn to live sustainably for your own benefit, in the short term.

Peak Oil and its ramifications are right now beginning to sort out who will live, and who will not in the coming years. Those who live very low on the resource ladder and have given up the 'striving to have more' lifestyle will have a huge edge as we enter a new era of scarcity.

To understand what is coming, you need to understand Peak Oil and the huge body of knowledge that has been accumulated about what to expect. You must invest a few moments research on this very important topic.

The Wall St. Journal and several other business publications have declared in print that 'the Peak Oil Theory folks are / were right'.

If you understand that the world oil production has peaked, in 2005, and no amount of drilling will change that fact, you can then move on to 'what does it mean?'.

There have been a plethora of books and documentaries made on this topic. People have been thinking about this for a very long time and writing about it.

You can find out the science behind Peak Oil Theory at
http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
(They are now doing a site conversion so it may not be available for a few days)
Another good place to look is...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

America is being lied to by the popular media in what is one of the most tragic coverups in our history. The reality of our situation is terribly complicated, but here is a small sample of what it means.

· Oil is used to create most of the things in our society and is the dominant source of all of our energy, especially motive fuels.
· Oil and natural gas production worldwide have peaked, and prices will continue to skyrocket no matter how much we drill.
· No combination of renewable or alternative resources will supplant even a tiny fraction of the energy we now use.
· Transporting food into Boise will become problematic because our nations roads will quickly deteriorate.
· Our economy needs growth and growth is correlated with increases in energy supplies. Those energy supplies are about to start shrinking.
· Even if we made fusion work, and energy became essentially free, the world is quickly running out of the mineable minerals and metals that make energy useful. The average is perhaps 15 to 20 years of supply left.

Some specifics...
· Coal: 15 year supply of economically extractable coal left (Big Coal: Jeff Goodell)
· Oil Shale: No future, not economically viable to extract
· Tar Sands: Needs abundant natural gas to extract
· Uranium: 20 year supply
· Wind & Solar power: At a certain point, when oil becomes too expensive, it will become too expensive to keep creating these products and the appliances that make electricity useful.
· Hydrogen: This is an energy carrier, like a battery, and needs to be created at typically a 40% energy loss.
· Ethanol & Biodiesel: We are currently turning oil into these products, they have little future application.

The reason you need to understand this stuff is because the whole game has changed.

The best survival strategy I have found is...

-Sell your house unless you own it outright and can afford to have it lose most of its value.
-Get totally out of debt, now.
-Cash out your 401k, sell all the stuff you don't really need, clean out your bank account
-Put all of your assets in 1 oz gold Krugerrands and bury them in several locations close to home.
-Relocalize yourself so you can sell your car.
-If you must own a car, it really won't matter how many miles per gallon it gets when gas hits $20 per gallon, so don't waste a lot of money on a hybrid or have much money tied up in it no matter what kind it is.
-Learn to grow food, start as big a garden as you possibly can. Take over your neighbors yards if possible. This will be the most sought after skill in the coming years.
-Find a job that will be around, that is very close to home.
-Prepare to live without heating / cooling, or build yourself a 0 energy house.
-Spend as little as you can so you can work less.
-Get yourself in great physical and mental shape.
-Know your neighbors and share your knowledge/vegetables with them, become invaluable.
-Arm yourself well, we are entering very turbulent times.

Peak Oil Reading list...
Twilight in the Desert, Matt Simmons
The Party’s over, Richard Hienberg
The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler
Beyond Oil: The View from Hubberts Peak
The Coming Economic Collapse, Dr. Stephen Leeb
The Oil Factor: How Oil Controls the Economy and Your Financial Future, Dr. Stephen Leeb

Thanks for reading,

Bob

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Suggestion for event posting

bobboise — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:55:19 -0700

I have a suggestion...

There are a ton of folks visiting the Boise Sustainable Living Group site.

I notice that most of the events are not really described in any detail. There is an assumption that folks are following the discussion.

If we are going to visit a farm, go on a overnight trip, or have a meeting, etc., I think it would be a good idea to describe why, when, where, how, how many, & how much, and any costs involved, on each post. We need to give people a reason to put something on their calendar. Give the event a little hype to gain interest, in other words, sell it to me/others. Why should I/others come or care?

BobBoise

Boise Sustainable Living Community

4' x 6' Trailer

Jonna Moore — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:25:48 -0700

John Replogle is moving out of the place where he is staying and has a 4' x 6' trailer to give away. Does anyone have a place to store it for the community to use? If you do, please call John at 447-8010.

(How do we change the date on this posting? It says 12-31-1969? Does anyone know why?)

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Small farmers are 20 times more productive than large ones

bobboise — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:07:35 -0700

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Women, Wolves, and Wilderness - A guided wilderness for women in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest

Anneliese — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:30:13 -0700

Start: 2008-07-16 12:00

End: 2008-07-20 16:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Growing your own food

bobboise — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:26:50 -0700

Some time back I read an eye opening book called "Gardening When it Counts: How to Grow food in Hard Times". The author shows that current intensive growing methods do not work when fertilizer and water are hard to come by. He relays heirloom information that will be vital in the coming years and I highly recommend it.

See this article by the author, Steve Solomon in Mother Earth News to get a taste of his invaluable knowledge.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2006-06-01/A-Better-Way...
-----------------------------------
A while back a commune in North Carolina was featured in a multi-page article in the New York Times. They had plenty of land, water and labor but could not grow all of their own food. They needed to buy grains. They've been trying for a long time but can't make it work.
------------------------------------
I ran across something a while back called "the myth of the self sufficient homestead". Essentially, colonial homesteaders where modified hunter / gathers who supplied some of their food with farming / gardening.
------------------------------------
Thoughts of this topic arose recently from 2 posts on my favorite news source, that being www.energybulletin.net.
Both articles are below...

http://www.energybulletin.net/45135.html
Published on Friday, May 30, 2008 by Common Dreams

It will take a lot more than gardening to fix our food system
By Stan Cox

I didn’t mean to lead anyone down the garden path. Adding my small voice to those urging Americans replace their lawns with food plants wasn’t, in itself, a bad idea. But now that food shortages and high costs are in the headlines, too many people are getting the idea that the solution to America’s and the world’s food problems is for all of us in cities and suburbia to grow our own. It’s not.

Don’t get me wrong: Growing food just outside your front or back door is an extraordinarily good idea, and if it’s done without soil erosion or toxic chemicals, I can think of no downside. Edible landscaping can look good, and it saves money on groceries; it’s a direct provocation to the toxic lawn culture; gardening is quieter and less polluting than running a power mower or other contraption; the harvest provides a substitute for industrially grown produce raised and picked by underpaid, oversprayed workers; and tending a garden takes a lot of time, time that might otherwise be spent in a supermarket or shopping mall.

So it was in 2005 that our family volunteered our front lawn to be converted into the first in a now-expanding chain of “Edible Estates“, the brainchild of Los Angeles architect/artist Fritz Haeg. We already had a backyard garden, but growing food in the front yard (which, as Haeg himself points out, is a reincarnation of a very old idea) has been a wholly different, equally positive experience.

Our perennials and annuals are thriving, we’ve gotten a lot of publicity, and I’ve been talking about the project for almost three years. Yet neither of our gardens, front or back, can stand up to the looming agricultural crisis. Good food’s most well-read advocate, Michael Pollan, has written that growing a garden is worth doing even though it can make only a tiny contribution to curbing carbon-dioxide emissions. He might have added that growing food is worth it even if it does very little to revive the nation’s food system.

World cropland: the pie is mostly crust

The edible-landscaping trend is catching on across the country, and with food prices rising, it has taking sadly predictable turns. A Boulder, Colo. entrepreneur, for example, has tilled up his and several of his neighbors’ yards and started an erosion-prone, for-profit vegetable-farming operation. It will supplement his income, but it won’t make a nick in the food crisis.

That’s because the mainstays of home gardening — vegetables and fruits — are not the foundation of the human diet or of world agriculture. Each of those two food types occupies only about 4 percent of global agricultural land (and a smaller percentage in this country), compared with 75 percent of world cropland devoted to grains and oilseeds. Their respective portions of the human diet are similar.

Suppose that half of the land on every one-acre-or-smaller urban/suburban home lot in the entire nation were devoted to food-growing. That would amount to a little over 5 million acres (pdf) sown to food plants, covering most of the space on each lot that’s not already covered by the house, a deck, a patio, or a driveway. (And in many places it couldn’t be done without cutting down shade trees and planting on unsuitably steep slopes).

That theoretical 5 million acres of potential home cropland compares with about 7 million acres of America’s commercial cropland currently in vegetables, fruits, and nuts, and 350 to 400 million acres of total farmland. The urban and suburban area to be brought into production would not approach the number of healthy acres of native grasses and other plants that are slated to be plowed up and sickened to make way for yet more corn, wheat, soybeans, and other grains under the newly passed federal Farm Bill.

A nationwide grow-your-own wave would send good vibes through society, ripples that could be greatly amplified by community and apartment-block gardening. But front- and backyard food, even if everyone grew it, would not cover the country’s produce needs, much less displace our huge volume of fresh-food imports.

We could, instead, plant every yard to wheat, corn, or soybeans, which would account only for a little over two percent of the US land sown to those crops. Other policies, like dispensing with grain-fed meat and fuel ethanol, would free up far more grain-belt land than that.

Not even a poke in the eye

I’ve played a part in the promotion of domestic food-growing, and I now I seem to hear daily from people who believe that it’s the best alternative to industrial agriculture (as in, “I’ll show Monsanto and Wal-Mart that I don’t need their food!”). Even though most prominent home-lot food efforts, like the “100-Foot Diet Challenge“, also try to draw attention to bigger issues, the wider message can get lost in the excitement. Whatever its benefits, replacing your lawn with food plants will not give Big Agribusiness the big poke in the eye that it needs, nor will it save the agricultural landscapes of the nation or world.

To do that, the big-commodity market must be not just modified but overthrown. Until then, most of that two-thirds or more of the human calorie and protein intake that comes from grains and oilseeds (directly in most of the world or among Western vegetarians, largely via animal products for others in this country) will continue to be served up by a dirty, cruel, unfair, broken system.

Essential for providing vitamins, minerals, and other compounds, a highly varied diet is important, and home gardens around the world help provide such a diet. But with a world population now approaching seven billion people and most good cropland already in use, only rice, wheat, corn, beans, and other grain crops are productive and durable enough to provide the dietary foundation of calories and protein.

Grains made up about the same portion of the ancient Greek diet as they do of ours. We’ve been stuck with grains for 10,000 years, and our dependence won’t be broken any time soon.

The United States could emulate Argentina and a handful of other countries and by raising cattle that are totally grass-fed instead of grain-fed and thereby consuming less corn and soybean meal. But most of the world is utterly dependent on grains. The desperate people we saw on the evening news earlier this year, filling the streets in dozens of countries, were calling for bread or rice, not cucumbers and pomegranates.

Capitalism: It doesn’t go well with food

Humanity’s attachment to cereals, grain legumes, and oilseeds has acquired a much harder edge in the industrial era, but as a base for political and economic power, the staple grains have always been unsurpassed. Because they hold calories and nutrients in a dense package that can be easily stored for long periods and transported, the more fortunate members of ancient societies could accumulate surpluses. Those surpluses are recognized by the majority of scholars as necessary to the birth of market economies, which allowed the prosperous to exercise control over society’s have-nots. Eventually, states used control over grains to exert political power over entire populations.

Few foods could have filled that role. Noting that before grain agriculture came along, ancient Egyptians might have gathered a surplus of various foods from nature, most of them highly perishable, economic historian Robert Allen once wrote, “If all a tax collector could get from foragers was a load of waterlilies that would wilt by next morning, what was the point of having them?” The Pharaohs managed to exert control over the area’s population only after people started farming wheat and barley.

The even bigger problem with grains — which are short-lived annual plants, grown largely in monoculture — is that they supplanted the diverse, perennial plant ecosystems that covered the earth before the dawn of agriculture. We’ve been living with the resulting soil erosion and water pollution ever since.

Then, when grains became fully commodified a couple of centuries ago, things really started to go downhill. In discussing his new book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Raj Patel cited India as an example: “The social safety nets that existed in India under feudal society had been knocked away by the British. If people couldn’t afford food, they didn’t get to eat, and if they couldn’t buy food, they starved. As a result of the imposition of markets in food, 13 million people across the world died in the 19th century. They died in the golden age of liberal capitalism. Those are the origins of markets in food.”

Indeed, if capitalism were a wine, it would be a wine that doesn’t go well with any type of food.

Most food today is produced not as an end in itself but as a by-product of a global economy with the singular goal of turning maximum profit. That is a dysfunctional arrangement, as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, the founder of ecological economics explained almost 40 years ago in his book The Entropy Law and the Economic Process: “So vital is the dependence of terrestrial life on the energy received from the sun that the cyclic rhythm in which this energy reaches each region on the earth has gradually built itself through natural selection into the reproductive pattern of almost every species, vegetal or animal … Yet the general tenor among economists has been to deny any substantial difference between the structures of agricultural and industrial productive activities.”

Industrial or commercial output can be increased by building more capacity, stepping up the consumption of inputs, taking on more workers, and pushing workers harder and for longer hours. Farming, by contrast, is inevitably bound by the calendar - by month-to-month variation in the capacity of soil and sunlight to support the growth of plants. It depends fundamentally on the productivity and the habits of non-human biological organisms over which humans can exert control only up to a point.

That clearly isn’t the ideal pattern for efficient wealth generation, so the past century has seen relentless efforts to mold agriculture into the factory model as closely as possible and, where that can’t be done, to graft more easily regimented industries — farm machinery, fertilizers, chemicals, food processing, the restaurant industry, packaging, advertising — onto an agricultural rootstock. In the US, the dollar outputs of those dependent industries are growing at two to four times the rate of agriculture’s own dollar output, putting ever-greater demands on the soil.

With a wholesale shift toward mechanization of US agriculture, 75 percent of economic output now comes from fewer than 7 percent of farms; furthermore, there has been a steep rise in the proportion of farms owned by investors living in distant cities (some of them perhaps avid urban gardeners).

Because, as Georgescu-Roegen showed, there’s a fundamental difference between the farm and the factory, the well-used term “factory farming” represents more an aspiration than an accomplished fact. Nevertheless, agribusiness’s attempts to defy natural rhythms and achieve industrial efficiency have been ecologically devastating. The biofuel craze, encouraged by subsidies that continue in the new Farm Bill, compounds the problem.

“We must cultivate our garden,” and …

To repair the broken system that supplies the bulk of the nation’s diet will require Americans to step out of the garden and into the public arena. Beyond working to get a better Farm Bill passed five years from now, we have to work together to break the political choke-hold that agribusiness has on federal and state governments.

With land and wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands (and with more prisoners than farmers in today’s America) we have actually reached a point at which land reform is as necessary here as it is in any nation of Latin America or Asia. Only when we get more people back on the land, working to feed people and not Monsanto, will the system have a chance to work. Most home gardeners know that the root of the problem is political, but the agricultural establishment would like nothing better than to see us spend all of our free time in our gardens and not in political dissent.

Ironically, it’s that great troublemaker Voltaire who has too often been trotted out (and too often misquoted) as an advocate of withdrawing from the tumult of society, into tending one’s own property. Voltaire was indeed a gardener, and he did end his most famous novel by having Candide, after surviving so many far-flung hazards, utter those famous words to his fellow wanderer Dr. Pangloss: “We must cultivate our garden.”

However, with the publication of Candide in 1759, Voltaire entered the most politically active part of his life, as he “went on to a series of confrontations with the consequences of human cruelty that, two hundred-odd years later, remain stirring in their courage and perseverance,” in the words of Adam Gopnik.

If Voltaire could find the time for both gardening and radical political action, then all of us can do it.

Stan Cox is a senior scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas and author of the newly published Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine (Pluto Press, 2008).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AND THE OTHER ARTICLE...

http://www.energybulletin.net/45239.html
Published on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 by Energy Bulletin

A doomer's garden
By Zachary Nowak

Now that oil is up over $130 a barrel and the subprime debacle is making everyone think that there may just be a Big Problem in the future, I would like to reopen the discussion on the menu du jour, post-Peak. Tractor trailers may not be able to bring in our Krispie Flakes and California oranges, and we may have to “make other arrangements,” as James Howard Kunstler often says, to feed ourselves. I am worried with the frequency that I see “gardens” as a solution to a breakdown in the food supply, and I would like to disabuse the peaknik crowd of this dangerous illusion.

“If there’s a problem with the food supply, I’ll just garden,” you say! If the Peak comes and causes disruptions in the food supply, your Hubbert Victory garden will see you through the winter months. I’m sure most of us love to picture ourselves putting up forty quarts of tomatoes and salting beans for the winter in a large beige crock. With your green thumb and Mason jars you’ll can enough to last until next year’s first corn comes in.

This is a nice fantasy, but I would ask the more serious to do a simple survey. Each of us likely has a friend who has a fairly large garden. Ask him or her what percentage of their family’s yearly food intake comes from the garden – I would be astounded if any say more than two percent. Annual gardening, like agriculture, takes an enormous input of energy for the return you get, and that is assuming you are good at it.

Are you good at it? How much do you know about gardening? To have a truly successful large garden you need to eliminate as many of the risks as possible. Unfortunately, the risks are myriad: poor germination, premature planting (or a late frost), garden pests (from aphids to groundhogs), too much rain, too little water, and so on. Taking each of these individually, we can see that annual gardening has a lot of luck involved in it. A good gardener buys high-quality seeds, uses cold frames to start plants before the last frost, knows the growing periods of each vegetable well, is prepared for the various “enemies” of his/her plants, and spends hours watering if need be.

What happens, though, if it doesn’t work out well? If gardening is your hobby, it’s not a problem. But in a post-Peak situation where food is tight, it just may be. Ask yourself what you know about gardening, and whether that is enough to risk your life on the tomatoes coming in and rows of corn ripening. Horticulture alone is not a valid answer unless you are already an expert, and even then it is tough. I am emphatically not saying that you should not garden – a large garden will be essential – but simply that it is dangerous to depend on gardening alone.

What then, is the answer? Lowering your inputs, increasing your outputs, and redundancy. In other words, get more food from plants that don’t require such babying, and don’t rely on just a few main crops. The key is diversification with hardier, low-maintenance crops: perennial vegetables, bush- and vine-fruits, and trees. If you’re a gardener you likely already have the two most common perennial vegetables, asparagus and rhubarb (the latter we often eat as a fruit, with strawberries), but don’t limit yourself to these! There are a number of perennial onions that come up every year without the hassle of planting sets, tubers like Jerusalem artichokes that are easy to the point of being pesky, and even old-fashioned favourites like lovage. Fruits like currants and gooseberries are easy to propagate and can, and you can even have kiwi fruit growing along your fence (it’s a smaller, hardier relative than the kiwi in the grocery stores). For trees, go beyond apples and peaches to hazelnuts, quinces, and persimmon trees. All have fewer pests than their more common cousins and produce fruit and nuts earlier and more steadily.

Of course a bountiful harvest just begs more questions, like are there other methods of preservation that are less energy-intensive than canning? This is an optimistic problem, one you should be happy to face. A much more immediate problem is feeding yourself in an uncertain world. Don’t get me wrong, I will still have an annual garden long after Hubbert’s Peak – I can’t be without tomato sauce or fresh corn – but having tried my hand at gardening, I’ve realized that it’s a gamble as far as what you get, and not one most people should make. Peakniks with green thumbs, go buy some currant bushes!

Zachary Nowak splits his time between central Italy and upstate New York. A self-described doomer, he’s just put out a new book, Crash Course: Preparing For Peak Oil (www.preparingforpeakoil.com). The book lays out a holistic plan for post-Peak life, and records his seven-year attempt to become more self-sufficient…and get the corn before the raccoons!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two chapters of Zachary's book can be viewed online at his website

For more on the limitations of gardening, see It will take a lot more than gardening to fix our food system by Stan Cox at Common Dreams.

-BA

Contributor SP adds:
I think this is true of most backyard gardens I've ever seen.

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Camping at Johan's place

Boise SLN — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:54:29 -0700

Start: 2008-06-07 12:00

End: 2008-06-08 15:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Critical Mass

Boise SLN — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:42:36 -0700

Start: 2008-06-27 19:00

End: 2008-06-27 19:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

June Meeting

Boise SLN — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:35:38 -0700

Start: 2008-06-14 15:00

End: 2008-06-14 17:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Guerrilla Gardening

ScottS — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:34:16 -0700

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Arugula

Jonna Moore — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:26:14 -0700

Kevin Bayhouse has an abundance of arugula to share. Please contact him at
344-6805 or email him at dlpkmb@spro.net if you want some!

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Anyone in Nampa?

burtonridr — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:54:39 -0700

Is there anyone in Nampa in this group?

Is there a Nampa group?

Anyone in the boise group know people in nampa that I could begin a group with out here?

Not that I dont love you guys, I just need to meet a good network closer to home : )

Thanks,

Eric

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Apple cider press

JMaus — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:11:30 -0700

I have been looking at apple cider press pictures on Flickr and have decided I would like to find one or build one before the end of summer. So if anybody sees one of these contraptions for sale here in town let me know! (of course it will be available for everyone to use)

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Recumbent Bicycle Rally

toyotablackbox — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:26:50 -0700

Start: 2008-05-16 18:30

End: 2008-05-16 21:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Recumbent Bicycle Rally

toyotablackbox — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:26:21 -0700

Start: 2008-05-16 18:30

End: 2008-05-16 21:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Recumbent Bicycle Rally

toyotablackbox — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:12:58 -0700

Start: 2008-05-16 18:30

End: 2008-05-16 21:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

KEEP YOUR FAMILY SAFE FROM SPRAYING

Boise SLN — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:32:00 -0700

Protect your family from West Nile Virus AND chemical sprays. Join your county’s NO SPRAY list. If you do not want to be sprayed with chemicals by the mosquito abatement district, complete the example plan below MAIL OR FAX IT to your county abatement officials.

A new state law allows you to join a no spray list by submitting a plan for how you will control mosquitoes. As individuals, we can make a difference by removing mosquito breeding grounds around our homes, repairing tears in window screens, and covering up or wearing repellent when active at dusk and dawn.

The choice to submit a plan needs to be a commitment for the full length of the mosquito season. If the mosquito no-spray list is going to be successful, it has to be taken seriously.

Members of the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides worked with Ada County Mosquito Abatement to develop sample plans. View sample plans http://www.adaweb.net/departments/weedpestmosquito/SamplePlans.asp or use the one at the end of this email. Select the mosquito controls that fit your situation and send the plan to your county officials.

Please share this information with your family, friends and neighbors who may be interested in participating in the no spray program.

For more information on mosquito control, West Nile Virus and sample mosquito control plans, visit http://www.pesticide.org/pubs/alts/mosquitoes/wnvguidelines.html.

*************************SAMPLE MOSQUITO CONTROL PLAN *****************************

Name ________________________________________

Street Address _________________________________

City, State & Zip _______________________________

Size of Property _______ acres

AVERAGE URBAN YARD

Description of land: Residential home on less than 2 acres with sprinkler and drip irrigation, birdbath and a water fountain. (example only)

I/We Will Use the Following Mosquito Controls:

1. Mosquito source reduction

a) I/we will schedule irrigation to prevent standing water in yard and will allow ground to dry adequately between watering.

b) I/we will walk property and remove vessels (buckets, toys, etc) that collect water.

c) I/we will maintain constant agitation and flow through water fountain to prevent standing water.

d) I/we will change water in bird bath at least every three to four days

e) I/we will change water for pets in outdoor bowls daily.

f) I/we will clean gutters.

2. Personal protection

a) I/we will inspect window screens and repair or replace screens with holes.

b) I/we can wear long sleeves and long pants and/or use mosquito repellants when active in yard at dawn and dusk.

3. Mosquito predation

a) I/we will make a special effort to provide and maintain habitat for wildlife (birds, bats, frogs) that eat mosquitoes and mosquito larvae.

______________________________

Name and Date

Send to:

Ada County Weed, Pest, and Mosquito Abatement

975 E. Pine St.

Meridian ID 83642

Fax Number (208) 577-4631

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Pemmican, the perfect food

burtonridr — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:42:01 -0700

I recently found a great way to store meats that does not involve the use of preservatives or any special equipment. The whole process involves very basic, easy to make tools.

You can dry the meat and berries using a smoker or solar drier.

You can shred the meat using a grinding stone.

You can heat the fat using a solar cooker.

You can store the final product in any air tight container, in an underground cellar or something.

It stores for a very, very long time (not totally sure yet just how long, but I would guess a year or more)

It provides your body with everything it needs to stay alive and mobile. Over a cold winter is an example of when it would come in handy.

It doesnt need to be cooked or anything once it has been made.

Anyway here is the article I read with some really good information, at the bottom there is a link to the article, which also contains the directions on how to make pemmican.

"Pemmican is a Native American word roughly translated as "travel food made for long trips." A compact source of concentrated energy needing no preparation on the trail, Native American pemmican often included bear fat, berries and anything else that was nutritious and available. The energy bar traces its roots back to the Middle Ages. Crusaders tucked an energy bar, called the panforte (a mix of flour, honey, shortening, nuts and dried fruit), into their tunics to give them a lift during long marches.

Pemmican may be one of the world's perfect foods. It is only pure protein, fat, and carbohydrate . . . n perfect ratio. It gives the body the densest nutritional value in a simple, hand-feeding manner. Its high energy ingredients keeps one from being hungry yet feeds the body everything it needs. It is very simple, easy to carry, easy to eat, and tastes incredible.

Why speak about this meat-and-fat food on a fitness website?

We are all looking for the perfect food to eat, which is delicious, nutritious, satisfying, easy, and quick on the go. Let's face it, the reason why "fast food" is so popular is because we can eat it at any time, and it allows us to get on with our busy schedules. But what if there was a healthy alternative which takes no longer to prepare than an average dinner, is actually rather fun, last without refrigeration, and can take up to 2 weeks to eat, staying fresh the whole while?

I myself am reducing my meat-foods. I highly respect my vegetarian friends, so I have found a meatless pemmican bar which suffices to curb hunger and give nutritional support.

Meat Pemmican is a mixture of dried meat and suet which is eaten unheated, and which keeps for years under reasonable conditions. The first recorded use of pemmican was by North American tribes (particularly the Assiniboin of Dakota and the sub-arctic peoples), by whom it had been used for generations. It became more widely known in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a staple for polar explorers. Although it is unlikely that pemmican has been made for long enough to have impacted on nutritional aspects of human evolution, it happens that pemmican recreates what was probably a dietary staple for one, two or three million years.

As a fan of history, I've always known about pemmican. Native American peoples carried it for traveling on their hunts, I've always known that these Native Americans are quite healthy, active, and relatively disease-free cultures, when not eating processed foods of today.

I was re-introduced to pemmican by Ray Audette, author of Neanderthin, and Jon Benson, nutritionist and fan of paleolithic ("cave-man") eating. The theories of Paleolithic diet are simple: our bodies work better on foods we were meant to have: which is anything hunted, picked, or gathered. For a very basic overview of paleolithic nutrition, click this Paleolithic explanation.

When meeting Ray personally, he gave me some of his own home-made pemmican to try. He and thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, throughout time, swear by its energy and even its taste. I am giving you Ray's recipe as well as my own details.

Note: do not be afraid that you are eating fat. Fat is needed by your body, period, and the 'whole fat versus non-fat' argument is becoming very heated. You will stay slim longer on eating sensibly with 'natural' healthy fats, than by eating processed foods which say "non-fat" but give you additional chemicals, fake fats, and harmful trans-fats."

Click here for full article and recipe to make pemmican.

Sourced from http://www.physicalmind.com/pemmican.htm

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Bees part 2

Boise SLN — Wed, 07 May 2008 12:59:38 -0700

Boise Sustainable Living Community

forum posting issues.

Anneliese — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:27:44 -0700

I apologize for the posting issues we've been having. I'm in touch with the relocalize.net technical folks and they are working on fixing the bug. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience and be sure and watch your email header to see who you might be replying to. Replying to the entire blsc mailing list will likely trigger spam filters. Posting directly on the forum is a cleaner option.

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Guy Dauncey speaks on Global Warming and Peak Oil

Boise SLN — Sun, 04 May 2008 11:30:00 -0700

Start: 2008-05-18 17:00

End: 2008-05-18 19:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Spyglass Gardens

JMaus — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:11:10 -0700

We rode our bikes out to Spyglass Gardens on Linder Rd. just south of Victory today. It's a really cool place and we ended up bringing home fresh asparagus and some butternut squash seeds. The farmer/owner Steve was helpful and gave us some advice on when to plant our squash seed and told us if we ever had any questions about growing produce to just ask him. I'm really excited about having fresh, organic produce so close to where we live, I may even see if they need any help this summer in exchange for food!

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Pootie Doo - Clean manure opportunity

Anneliese — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:15:07 -0700

On the upcoming trip to the Hagerman area, we have an opportunity to scoop up some clean manure from an ID Bounty producer. This is not feedlot/dairy manure. Apparently state law requires that heifers are innoculated with a brucella vaccine and this farmer complies with that. But other than than it's pharmaceutical free poop from an organic farmer.

Any interest in getting a load to Boise? Date of travel is Thursday, May 8th.

I believe we have access to a vehicle with a tow hitch, but to get a large load we would need to borrow or rent a trailer. Another possibility would be to borrow or rent a truck.

If you're interested or have any resources to contribute to the effort please let us know.

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Looking for Red Wigglers for Aquaponics system

burtonridr — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:18:54 -0700

I live in nampa, I'm trying to find someone that could sell me a handfull of red wiggler worms to start my composting bin. The worms are the starting point to completing my aquaponics system. After I get my worms going and I finish building my aquaponics system I'm going to be looking to buy catfish or tilapia from.... I dont know if anyone in the community has an aquaponics system set up or has connections to people that farm fish or anything. I would greatly appreciate it though.

Is there a community in nampa?

Please email me at burtonridr2@yahoo.com if you have any information.

Thanks,

Eric

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Looking for Red Wigglers for Aquaponics system

burtonridr — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:09:47 -0700

I live in nampa, I'm looking for someone that can sell me a hand full of red wigglers to start my composting bin.

judging by the posts I dont think this is the best way to contact the whole group.... Maybe a mod could email me about how to better communicate with the community?

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Yuba Mundo cargo bicycle is here!

bobboise — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:37:56 -0700

I received my new Mundo in about 200 pieces and assembled them in about 5 hours on Tuesday. There were some issues as it is a new-to-market bike, but they are resolved and it is ready to haul. It rides very nice and has great ergonomics. I am 6'4" and the thing could probably adjust up to someone a lot taller. It also goes down to someone over 5' tall, one size fits all.

I just stopped at Georges Cycles and about 6 employees jumped on it and rode it around. The owner got a ride on the back rack, as well as a few others, and they showed interest in carrying it. Currently it is only available through Rock the Bike in Berkley, CA. They ship it out for $800 + about $50 shipping, I added a kickstand (very nice) for about $25.

Today it is going to take my kayak down to the play wave on the Boise River after a run to the store.

Let me know if you want to try it out. I live near Boise and Broadway and am home quite a bit.

Bob

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Summer Bulk Purchases

ScottS — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:28:56 -0700

With the main growing season starting, one of the areas that we all might be a bit more local and sustainable is to look at purchasing in volume fresh veggies and/or fruits. For example, asparagus is just coming into season and if we purchased in volume, we may get a better discount that from buying at the farmers market or the Coop.

The idea behind this forum thread then is to post a reply to this message that lists a fruit or vegetable that one is interested in buying in bulk. Then under that individual posting, others can reply if they would like to cooperate. This will keep the thread fairly manageable in scrolling through it to find a in-season bulk purchase item.

Thanks!

Scott

Boise Sustainable Living Community

May Critical Mass

Boise SLN — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:07:44 -0700

Start: 2008-05-30 19:00

End: 2008-05-30 19:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Upcoming Idaho's Bounty Order - Interest?

Anneliese — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:08:40 -0700

Upcoming: Purchase Opens- April 28, 10 a.m. Purchase Closes- May 2, 11 p.m. Delivery Day- May 7. 5- 6:30 pm.

Any interest? Any volunteers to pick up for us? Pickup in Hagerman on Thursday, May 8th can probably be arranged. Frozen items will need to be carried in coolers.

As usual, I need some lead time to get the order organized for Monday morning. So please have your request in by this the Friday 25th. There's some leeway on this, but note that things do sell out so your best bet is getting the order to me early. Payment should be received by next Wednesday April 30th.

From the IB website:
This order cycle:
New producers: Blue Sage Farm (lamb) and Julie Foods (soups)
Here's more. . . get potatoes now as they'll be gone soon -
Hagerman High School tomatoes are now out.

Any feedback on the lamb or elk or anything else from last order?
I must second Casey's enthusiastic review of the White Cheddar from Ballard. Words cannot describe this experience.

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Recent NY Times articles about food

ScottS — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:51:57 -0700

Hi again!

Here are a couple of articles from the NY Times about organic food, food riots, issues with farmers and the crop hedge market and about Nalgene bottles. And from from the LA Times about Low Carbon diets!

I couldn't figure out how to share the link on the NY Times web page so I made pdfs from the articles. So for personal usage only!

Should be the whole report now....

Thanks!

Scott

Boise Sustainable Living Community

BUGS workshop notes / handout

ScottS — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:38:59 -0700

Hi all,

I typed up my notes for the BUGS workshop from April 12th. Anneliese, Toren & I attended this first adult workshop at the BUGS gardens. I also scanned the handout which contained really good information about Square Foot Gardening, composting, encouraging beneficial insects. If anyone is interested, let me know and I can email you a copy. The handout pdf is about 4 mb so pretty large...

Scott

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Certified Organic, Heirloom Breed Meat CSA

CaseyOc — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:59:07 -0700

Cool front page article in the Statesman this morning about eating locally, huh?

I started communicating this weekend with a farmer/rancher in the Salmon area who had posted to Craigslist about a meat CSA. I checked out her website and contacted her, and thought I'd share her reply. I am thinking my family will probably end up getting a half a pig and some meat chickens from her this fall, and in case anyone else is interested--you never know. Maybe we could get a group deal, or at least arrange a central drop-off location. I'm willing to drive to Salmon to pick our stuff up, but am not sure how much frozen livestock I can wedge into a Honda with a car seat in it. :-) If you do happen to contact her and place an order or buy a share, could you please let her know I referred you? Thanks! Here's her e-mail below, and it includes her website. Oh, and in case you are wondering about pricing--last year we paid about $435 for a cut-and-wrapped half pig. (I can't remember what the hanging weight was.) That was a local animal, but it had been given its first round of shots/antibiotics when my friend bought the weaners to raise, and they weren't fed organically. So I think her price for a half pig (approximating it, based on the package details) seems pretty fair when you factor in organic and heirloom.

Hello Casey!

Thank you for your interest in my organic meat CSA. For the past several
years I have been choosing and acquiring good healthy breeding stock and
building the herds and this is the first year that I am offering the CSA
shares to the general public. So, as for details, I am flexible on them
and can work with you to tailor a package to suit your needs. My main
interest in is producing healthy, clean meat for those that care about
what they eat, and in the process saving endangered breeds and giving the
animals a humane and happy life.

As you might have seen on the website (www.nigeriansandicelandics.com), I
primarily focus on the heritage breeds of pig, sheep, and poultry to
produce Certified Naturally Grown pork, lamb and poultry, all of which I
breed and raise myself. I do not acquire outside animals to fatten then
sell. (Although I may have to add more chickens and turkeys this year due
to a fox that ate a number of my hens last year.) I have a couple
associates here in the Salmon area that raise grass-fed beef and goat, in
case that interests you. None of the animals are fattened or finished on
corn (although pregnant and nursing mothers may be supplemented with corn
or other whole grains during the time they are raising their young).
Everyone here is exclusively pasture raised, grass or forage fed (hay is
fed during the winters).

As for your questions:

1. You being in Boise-- I may be able to arrange for delivery to you (or
a central location near you) for a shipping and handling fee to cover
costs, or you may come here to pick it up from the Salmon butcher (Lakota
Meats) directly and visit the farm if you are interested, or I could try
and help you coordinate with others from your area who are getting meat,
or finally, I can use a USDA approved butcher in Montana and then send the
meat via Fed Ex or UPS (this option will likely incur quite a bit more in
processing costs and transport fees but may be the most convenient for
you).

2. price/shares- Again, I am flexible and can make a package that suits
your needs. As a model package we can start with Option 1, Full share:
$950 includes 1/2 pig, 1 whole lamb, and 10 chickens (or 1 turkey and 3
chickens). This is approximately 50 lbs of lamb, 80 pounds of pork, and 50
pounds of poultry. Lamb and pork are cut and wrapped and poultry packaged
whole.

Option 2: 1/2 share for $525, includes 1/4 pig, 1/2 lamb, 5 chickens (or 1
turkey) for approximately 40 pounds of pork, 25 lbs lamb, and 25 lbs
poultry.

Other combinations can include just lamb and pork, and there may be
availability of game birds or beef and goat/cabrito/chevron and mutton.
Please let me know if you might also have an interest in goat or sheep
milk or artisan cheese made from them, or goose, duck, rabbit, yak or
guinea hen, or honey. I can custom raise such animals for you or will
consider adding them in the future. I have some associates that make
artisan cheese and honey from naturally raised animals and bees

I do have a contract that sets forth the terms and that requires 1/3
payment upfront as a deposit and the 2/3 in July and the final payment in
the late summer/fall just before butchering begins. Any shipping and
handling costs would be determined after butchering when actual weight
will be known. You have the freedom to instruct the butcher as to how you
would like the meat cut and processed. Our butcher can make bacon and
sausage for additional processing fees. The law currently doesn't allow
for us to make and offer you either of those products (in time I will
figure out a way to do offer delicious sausages).

3. Availability-- that will depend on what meat you order and how fast it
grows. Chickens can be ready throughout the summer, pork may also be
available at different times (we are having several litters of piglets
this spring) from summer to fall or early winter, turkey for the holidays,
and lamb in late fall unless you requested it earlier. Our favorite
butcher is very busy in August so most of the processing he would do would
be after that time. Some cross-bred animals will be ready faster than the
purebred heritage breed animals. If you specify that you want one over the
other or to have your meat ready at a certain time we will work with you
to get that accomplished. (Of course, being naturally raised without
growth hormones or stimulants or heavy grain finishing, animal finish
times and weights are subject to natural forces and cannot be guaranteed.)

Please let me know if I can tell you anything else or if you would like a
contract sent to you. Again, I am flexible and can work with you to
create just the package you would like, or to meet your budget.

Thank you again for your interest.

Sincerely,
Holly Flowers

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Canyon Bounty Road Trip - Any interest?

Anneliese — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:55:51 -0700

It was great to meet new folks and see good friends at the Idaho Earth Institute fundraiser on Saturday!

We were happy to pick up a few plants, but the snowflakes and cool wind certainly helped reign in our urge to plant too early.
(Reminder: Average last frost date is May 8th. Safe plant date is 26th May.)

So any interest in organizing carpooling to Canyon Bounty in the next few weeks?

I'm interested in the following dates:
Fri 25th April (afternoon)
Sat 26 April (any time)
Fri 2 May (afternoon)
Sat 3 May (any time)

I'm also open to afternoons during the week in case your schedule allows that.

We have room for a couple more people in our vehicle, and would have plenty of room for lots of plants (big trunk and can load up the Yak box).

Less lawn ~ More food.

Boise Sustainable Living Community

It's here again!!!! CRITICAL MASS!!

johnw — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:01:48 -0700

Start: 2008-04-25 18:30

End: 2008-04-25 20:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

April Meeting UPDATED Community Options Pot Luck!

Anneliese — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:39:40 -0700

Start: 2008-04-27 15:00

End: 2008-04-27 17:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

IEI Plant Sale

Boise SLN — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:43:53 -0700

Start: 2008-04-19 10:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Choices for Sustainable Living discussion group

ScottS — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:14:56 -0700

Start: 2008-04-08 08:30

End: 2008-04-08 09:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Boise Urban Garden School - Adult Ed Class! Space is limited - register early.

Anneliese — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:03:38 -0700

Start: 2008-04-12 13:00

End: 2008-04-12 15:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Earth Hour

Anneliese — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:21:46 -0700

Start: 2008-03-29 20:00

End: 2008-03-29 21:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Zamzows now says they can get organic poultry feed.

Anneliese — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:34:22 -0700

I spoke with Kelly Rourick, manager at the Federal Way Zamzows store, and he assured me he could get organic poultry feed. He said he would need 10 day lead time and the order would come from Minnesota. He mentioned it would be more costly than what they normally carry and would probably be about $1/pound. I tried getting them to do this for me several times last year and they always came back with a firm "no." Don't know what has changed since then, but he sounded so certain this time that I thought I should pass this along.

Kelly's email is krourick@zamzows.com.

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Introduction to Cheesemaking - U of I Food Technology Ctr - Caldwell

ScottS — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:00:20 -0700

Start: 2008-05-13 08:30

End: 2008-05-14 16:30

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Any interest - Idaho's Bounty group order, order submit date: Wed 26March.

Anneliese — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:30:23 -0700

Order submit date would be Wed 26 March. Order payment due Saturday, 29 March.
Pick-up/delivery date would be April 9 or 10, depending on delivery options. There is a chance we can get this order delivered. I will check on this.

Membership fee is currently at $10/family. Those who overpaid will get a credit on their next order. Our group has space for 10 more members.

New things available on the current open order date that stand out:
cherry tomatoes, arugula, mesclin, spinach,
Icelandic sheep (the kind that say Baaaaa), wool products (wool, roving, raw fleece), chorizo, lamb.
Hailey Coffee Company beans - roasted in Hailey. (Hmmm......only marginally local.)
Basil plants, herb garden plants, lavender plants,
Green bean seeds from Mike Heath's farm.

Sales tax is 6% on subtotal. Coop handling fee is 15% on subtotal. I will send invoices Thursday 27 March with cost breakdown.

Any interest?

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Canyon Bounty volunteer opportunity - Saturday, April 5th, 9-12.

Anneliese — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:50:27 -0700

Start: 2008-04-05 09:00

End: 2008-04-05 12:00

Boise Sustainable Living Community

Local Foods Luncheon - Dave Krick and Matt Fuxan

Anneliese — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:46:22 -0700

Start: 2008-03-15 12:00

End: 2008-03-15 13:30