Ice Cream Olympics!

I may be vying for eclectic blog of the year…

This is an educational program about place, food security, local wisdom, nature-as-teacher, and just “plain” fun. The event, Ice Cream Olympics in the New Mexico Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, is a ‘sport” where kids of all ages make ice cream with locally-sourced flavoring ingredients in small balls that are “churned” via games.

Will you help us go from Monument to Legacy?

We are seeking $3650 to expand the education program to support:

• Getting  local experts; the artists, educators and ecologists involved to co-create with local young people, student centered, curriculum aligned resources that engage with the intimate ecology of the natural world and the local agri / bio cultural traditions that have arisen from it.

• and we want to do this with educational hikes, workshops and a youth produced digital archive and online radio program documenting the local (agri) cultural practices old and new of Taos County –  a vehicle for real world place-based learning.

To help us manifest the on-going educational part of this project, please go HERE to donate (tax deductible). Even just $5.00 will help. And the bonus: what we create will be offered to others to use in their/your locality!

And if you happen to be a New Mexican reader, our first FREE hike (led by yours truly: Edible and Medicinal Herbs) is this Saturday, September 14th at the Wild Rivers (The Chiflo Trail) in Cerro, NM, at 9:30 am (bring your lunch, hiking shoes, etc.) You can call me @877-286-2970 for more info and directions.

Close to the Tipping Point on GMO Food

Story at-a-glance

• While California’s GMO-labeling campaign failed to pass by an incredibly narrow margin last November, Proposition 37 catalyzed an enormous amount of awareness across the US that is the beginning of the end of GMOs in the US
• More people are now aware of genetically engineered foods than we could have ever reached through educational efforts alone, investing the same amount of money that we invested in Prop. 37
• The tipping point of consumer rejection of genetically engineered foods in the US is almost here. Last year, the president of Whole Foods confessed that when a product becomes verified as Non-GMO or GMO-free, sales leap by 15-30 percent—a clear outgrowth of the Prop.37 campaign
• Target’s brand will be non-GMO in 2014. Ben & Jerry’s will be non-GMO by the end of this year, and while Chipotle’s restaurants are working toward a non-GMO menu, they voluntarily started labeling in the meantime

For those of us working in the trenches for the past several years regarding GMO food, we may be seeing the proverbial light at the end of a very long and difficult tunnel. Monsanto stock is not a good buy, and that is cause for rejoicing. To read the entire article excerpted above, please go HERE.

Meanwhile, I wrote a few weeks ago that I would share info on bokashi, a fermented compost. I just got some video and photos from last month’s experiment, and as soon as I find someone to help me edit the info I will put it on the blog.

Happy Labor Day weekend!