I was a bit grossed out by this cartoon video…

I just came across White House Farmer…

The site was developed soon after Michael Pollan (one of my favorite authors) of

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

and

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

suggested the White House develop five south acres for growing fruits and vegetables for the First Family and staff. Farmer in Chief was an open letter to the then President-Elect, published in the New York Times Magazine.

There is no way that I can do justice to the article by writing a synopsis, so I will include a very small exerpt…..

“After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.”

New York Magazine

September 10, 2007

My Empire of Dirt
An Experiment in Brooklyn-Style Subsistence (Backyard) Farming….

“Dear Kitchen Gardener,    

       I am writing to invite you to join me in a group internet action that will cost you but a small amount of time and money and that - if carried out by enough people - could help raise the stature of gardening and local foods in society while raising much needed funds for KGI’s core activities and garden grants program.

So here’s the deal: with one First Family moving out 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the next few months and a new one moving in, KGI is taking it upon itself to organize a little “lawn sale” on their behalf, but not type you might think.

We’re selling the White House lawn itself on eBay in parcels of 1′ x 1′ at a fixed price of $10 each. Please allow me to explain. As a law-abiding nonprofit group, we of course can’t really sell you the South Lawn any more than we can sell you the South Pole or the Brooklyn Bridge. We can’t do it and we don’t have to. The First Lawn already has an owner: the American people!

But, if you’re like me, the White House’s sprawling grassy landscape doesn’t feel like it’s yours. It doesn’t look like it would look if you were Landscaper-in-Chief because it’s missing a key element: an organic kitchen garden. It’s had one before and, given the changing times, it should have one again. Hence the idea of a “lawn sale.” What better way to give people a renewed sense of ownership and control over something than to give them a chance to buy it back?”

{snip}

Read the entire article HERE.

Projects are still not complete and time is quickly running away from me. The heat is not helping matters any and my garden is a severe disappointment.

Yesterday the farmer that we purchased our hog from was selling his sweet corn out of his truck up on Main Street. DH bought a dozen walking home from the hardware store and then cooked them for lunch for us all. I was going to freeze the remaining cobs and the thought occured to me that I might as well freeze a couple of dozen if I was going to freeze any, so off he went to purchase some more. About 5 dozen more. So that is what I did all afternoon, well until I my new Seal-A-Meal started giving me grief and then I ran out of bags.

DH was kind enough to walk up to the hardware store in 102 degree temps and come home with the only two boxes they had. These boxes must have been on their shelves for a couple of decades, as I had never seen any quite like these. They were almost a cellophane. After working and working AND WORKING with the appliance, I discovered that it was not the bags….it was a faulty sealer. This is sad in that I purchased it last year, but had only used it once prior to yesterday. The vacume portion wasn’t functioning properly and the sealer sometimes did not seal. So I still have about half of my corn sitting in the fridge…already shucked and no way to store them. Those two boxes of bags were over $12 with tax, I am disappointed that i didn’t just buy Ziplocs. This is usually what happens to me on spur of the moment ideas.

Anyhow, I thought I would share a few photos from  yesterday…..

My Hero shucking corn on the side porch…..