No Chocolate for the Localvore?
As I was writing my last post about my favorite chocolate bar, something was eating at me. I wasn’t mentioning a priceless consideration we can make in our buying choices–locally made products! The omission bothered me, as I am both diligent and inconsistent about promoting this idea.
I vend at festivals and fairs in my region, promoting fair trade crafts, which I buy from fair trade wholesalers and charities, such as Ten Thousand Villages, Northern Sun, Gypsy Rose and ethical American companies and non-profits such as Karuna Arts, Native Scents and Aurora Glass. Choosing winning products from their catalogs and websites is quite easy, compared to choosing from the river of local artists, hobbyists and craftspeople who ask me to turn their tinkerings into gold. Locals following a creative outlet haven’t always checked the marketplace to decide what they should make. There are lucky guesses–Duct tape wallets are wildly popular!
But nothing is simple. I make jewelry, so to see me at a festival and buy from me would seem “local.” But my gemstones, findings, etc., come from all over the world, under all conditions imaginable. And I’ll bet the kid who makes the duct tape wallets isn’t holding out for duct tape made locally, from local materials. I imagine my Amish neighbors who do a fine business with outdoor sheds choose the cheapest wood, not the most local.
Like my favorite localvore and online mascot the wiselittleraccoon, my partner Iuval is looking for land to found a new intentional community, one in which members participate in a much more local economy, getting by with very little and making most of their basic needs. In this new/old model, most people would participate directly in growing nearly all of their food, including grains.
I know truckloads of gardeners and farmers. Some grow 5-10% of their food. Others grow nearly all the fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts they need. Grain seems to be another story, a final frontier.
With farmers’ markets, backyard and community gardens, CSA’s, etc, buying food locally seems to be comparatively easy, if not cheap. Government subsidies and other factors make commercial foods much cheaper than local organics. I love being right each time I repeat, “You get what you pay for…”
But as filmmaker Annie Leonard points out in The Story of Stuff, the trinkets and plastic crap we seem to think we need leave wakes of environmental and social distruction (slavery, child labor, unsafe working conditions). In my life, learning to live without “stuff” is the first step. This has been easy since I pared down from a four bedroom Victorian to a ten-by-twelve foot stone springhouse and commune life. In that process, I got clear that “stuff” doesn’t make me happy; It doesn’t fill that spiritual empty box. People do; Nature does. A dog is just the greatest. Stuff, not so much.
Now if I decide something is a need, not a want, I have mental flow charts to navigate. Can I get it made of anything except plastic? Made locally, of local materials? Union shop or crafter? Organic? Minimal packaging? Locally owned retailer? Will online shopping save or add to fuel consumption?
As of this writing, chocolate is still listed as a “need,” although I have friends who never partake because cacao can’t be grown in their area. We’re all hiking in different places along the green trail. My backpack still contains chocolate. And a car. And my own detatched cabin I share with only my family. And a cellphone, my mac mini, and the Firefly boxed set…
Shiny!
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present moment, 4 feet on planet, life good
World of Pets Expo, Timonium, Maryland 2009
Fair trade has arrived at the World of Pets Expo. This is Heathcote Earthings’ first year at the Expo, in its eighth year. and I’m glad we took the plunge! This is a huge, hoppin’ event! What fun to serve customers walking all manner of dogs. I’ve been offering a “sheltie discount” in honor of my own, but no shelties have taken me up on it yet!
I’m in a huge room of mostly pet related vendors, many of whom are giving away free samples. A neighbor gave me vegetarian dog treats, which Tuatha, Echo and Chance enjoyed so much that I can’t currently find the package, to tell you the brand! Besides vendors, the organizers have set up agility shows, comedy shows and interesting workshops.
There’s even a food vendor here with lots of vegetarian and vegan choices. I recognize them from the Spoutwood Fairie Festival!
I’ve moved many of our animal themed crafts to the front of the booth. I’m featuring our popular clay cat trio, pictured here. And I’m discounting some purses and ornaments and other crafts left over from the holiday season.
So come on out to the Timonium Fairgrounds and look for our tent hoops over the crowd, decorated with batik flags of dragons, fairies, etc. See you there!
My Marsupial Neighbors–Sugar Gliders?!?
Hippie Hoo. I’m my usual strange mix of indignant and enamoured. One of the vendors near me at this year’s Festival of Trees is a double booth of young guys selling tiny marsupials from Australia called sugar gliders. These little critters seem friendly and easily bonded to humans, very appealing as “pocket pets,” which happens to be the name of the business. Hmm.
I held one in my hands and let it climb on me. They undulate and leap around and they’re charming. But when I got home tonight I went online to get the scoop. I don’t think these guys are telling people that these are social animals who NEED their own kind. If you buy just one (and one costs $400+, including specialized equipment and a year’s supply of food) it will become depressed, no matter how much human companionship you give it.
I have to smile at myself because I immediately want one and am outraged that they would sell tiny sensitive critters in a loud, crowed festival. I don’t know what to think about a $400 flying hamster! Should living beings be impulse items offered at a holiday festival?
Update: On the second day of the show, I visited the sugar gliders late in the day. The “ambassador” pets which the salespeople used were exhausted, asleep in their handler’s grasp, while the sellers continued their pitch. It was difficult to watch. I have to say I don’t think Pocket Pets, Inc. operates with the best interest of their animals in mind.
I did, however, find potential ethical breeders online last night. One listing stated that the breeder was declining last minute orders for Christmas, to avoid impulse decisions from buyers. That is an excellent sign.
Also online, it appears that Pocket Pets Inc. is countering websites offering warnings to people who might want to own this pet. Apparently they have odor issues, bathroom issues, etc., which the countering site calls “myths.” The language on the countering site is identical to the talking points on the Pocket Pets site and their sales pitch. So please read a variety of sites and meet breeders in person to make your own assessment if you’re considering one of these pets!
A Pisces in the Timothy
The Timothy
The timothy is a lake of tickles and scrapes,
for capering and cackling in these
early days of fall.
I’m turning forty this winter.
I bring my dogs and goats and my
neighbor’s children to the edge and watch
the show.
The air is satisfied. I love it till I hate it.
The children crisscross the waves and swordfight.
The shelties dive, surface and pounce.
Random mice and voles are herded
like fish in schools, unseen in
brown water.
I’m a pisces in the timothy, a fish on land.
I’m a fish on land. Two inches, the right
flip and I could be righted.
The goats chew and check my location.
They depend on me and I live
vicariously. It’s t.v. Symbiosis, and the waves…
technicolor.
A warm clean breeze is a moment to be savored
on the tounge. I learn from the goats.
From the dogs–A hole is to dig.
And children…Where is the child I
planned to have? The timothy spits pollen in undulations.
I make it hard, a pisces in the timothy.
–Wren Tuatha
Lucky Pigs & Not So Lucky Pigs
I heard a good one from Charlie, a customer at the Hunt Valley Mediterranean Festival. You can view it through whatever lens you want, vegetarian or carnivore. He was buying one of my three legged Peruvian lucky pigs ( a Ten Thousand Villages fair trade craft, pictured) for a friend who’s a pig farmer. The story goes that there was this three legged pig and folks asked the farmer how the pig came to have only three legs. The farmer explained that the pig had saved his entire family from a house fire–came in and woke everyone up and saved them all. The farmer waxed on and on about how they all loved the pig dearly are regarded it as one of the family. Since that didn’t explain the missing leg, folks would ask again, how did the pig come to have only three legs? Oh, said the farmer, a pig like that you don’t eat all at once…
The Hunt Valley Mediterranean Festival does have some unlucky lambs and other critters being served. But it also has several vegetarian entrees and side dishes. Several Heathcoters came by and gave the fare high marks, so come on down! I’ll be sampling the falafel and stuffed grape leaves tomorrow!
Various Mediterranean dance troupes will be performing throughout the day. There are games for kids and several craft and food vendors, including a Middle Eastern grocery!
Heathcote Earthings is thrilled to own two new curved EZUp canopies. Not only do they perform well in the rain, but they make us easy to spot in a crowd (as if our batik flags and necklace branches didn’t do that already)! This is a view of our booth at the 2008 Maryland Faerie Festival.
