Self sustain, even in cities.

It is yet another wet and cool Saturday morning in this beautiful city of Cleveland, Ohio. There is something so pleasant about getting up early on a weekend morning whilst most of the city sleeps off the festivities of the night before, heading out to the West Side Market for some fresh veggies and incredible pastries and the pierogis from Pierogi Palace are AMAZING and a sure cure for "what ails ya". Of course if I started listing all the vendors that stand out in my mind we would be stuck here forever, however I will take the time to mention The Basketeria for their organic veggie selection and really nice people, Iskander Produce because the gentleman there is always so very friendly and Sam's because that gentleman (whom I assume is named Sam) will tell you not only what all the fun stuff at his stand is, but how to prepare it and what to prepare it with. I always get the best peppers for salsa and chili there.

This of course sort of ties into the theme for the day which will be urban gardening. I know I skimped on mentioning anything about the Burning River Fest as a sort of review but that is because there was so very much to go over, so very many photos (I will have to use the Flickr thing I suppose) and it would require an incredible amount of time that I instead used to get a new job.

Urban gardening fascinates me. I suppose it started with the whole affection my mother and father instilled in me for gardening, getting my hands all dirty and watching things grow and developed when I moved into a house and had plans of redesigning the yard into a glorious garden that would be beautiful and feed my roomates and I. However, I was quick to discover that replanting an entire yard that was overgrown, with limited resources and with very little free time was very impractical. Instead, I built windowboxes to hang from the west windows (we got a new cat that loves to dig up my plants so I had to put the new stuff out of reach) and started with some peppers, roma tomatoes, chard, onions, etc as well as a large herb box in my bedroom. The bedroom herb box is a wonderful idea. If you love the smell of rosemary and basil and the smell the ground gets right after it rains you will love spritzing the plants and soil in your herb box.

So there I was, starting all these plants in March, I also purchased some hops online to grow in the backyard because we brew our own beer and the thought of using our own hops in own beer really delighted me. When it came time to transplant these crops to the yard I got VERY excited, we were going to have all these plants, in the front yard, in the garden area that not only would look nice, but would feed us with fresh, organic, delicious vegetables. Oh how my heart soared at the prospect.

Long story short, the herb box didn't survice a surprise attack by that nasty cat and my roomate accidently poisoned the plants I was about to transplant into the front yard when he stripped the paint off the porch to repaint it. All I have left are the peppers and hops (which are on my mother's farm).

Even with these setbacks I haven't lost faith. The prospect of using your yard as a place to produce food locally seems logical enough, but what about all the green space in vacant lots around town or on property that local businesses have to pay to maintain, what if they allowed a third party to use the property for gardening? Makes sense eh? Seems pretty damn obvious actually.

Enter a whole muss of agencies that not only farm the land, but do so as an educational tool for urban kids (oh man, the benefits of this are staggering!) who farm the land, sell the food to local restaurants such as Lucky's Cafe and to private individuals at special markets. The Urban Learning Garden/Cleveland City Fresh (who was at Burning River Fest) in particular is part of the New Agrarian Center. I just love when all this sort of stuff comes together. Get the kids outside in the dirt so that they build up natural immune systems to asthma, etc, and get some sunlight, teach them how to grow and how good vegetables are, allow it to generate income to sustain itself, cooperate with local businesses to provide locally grown food AND relieve their cost of keeping up their property by actually putting it to use, interact with the community and create bonds that cross all ages, build a sense of pride and ownership, create life on the street as well as points of interest that stimulate local economies, there are too many to list and you can understand how interconnected this all is.

It makes me genuinely happy to see this sort of thing going on. You should be too, so get off your butts and get involved.

Labor Day weekend is a busy time for Cleveland!

So much going on for this weekend. Let's see...

Well, as usual, there is the National Air Show at the controversial Burke Lakefront Airport. Controversial because there are a lot of people who think that putting some expensive condo's separated from the city by a 4 to 8 lane freeway will somehow convince people to move here. I mention this because I find it ridiculous that we don't invest the money along the RIVER instead. You know? The RIVER that CLEVELAND is KNOWN for? *sigh*

Saturday between 9am and 3pm there is a FREE self guided tour of the lower level of the Veteran's Memorial Bridge (Detroit-Superior Bridge) hosted by our good buddies at the Cuyahoga County Engineer's Office. This will be the third time that I have gone on it and it just makes you wonder how much sense it would make for Cleveland to invest in more rail transportation. I just took a new job that allows me to take the train to work and I have to say I am loving it. Driving back and forth through town made me feel like a sucker!

Sunday is that last day for the Jane Goodall exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Perhaps this explains the recent radio shows on NPR regarding moral behavior and if it is learned or instead inherited from our primitive roots. My girlfriend really got in me interested in behavioral science when she took me to Ellensburg, WA to visit with Washoe.

There are, of course, more going-ons such as concerts and shows and good times for everyone but you probably already know about all that.

I will totally start writing about more cool things to do in/around Cleveland...

tomorrow.

Until then, just think of this as "what the heck, Cleveland? part deux".

Once again, Cleveland beats the snot out of Detroit and becomes the darling known as "America's Poorest City". This morning on good ol' WCPN when I first heard this it was accompanied by, what I deem, the best part of Cleveland pride. Instead of complaining about tax breaks for the rich or lack of support for the homeless or discussing regionalism or even how the Food Bank HAD TO EXPAND because TOO MANY PEOPLE were giving food, instead the thing that stood out the most was the declaration that the census was inherently flawed. Yeah, that makes everything better.

Here is an actual news article from Cleveland.com.

Actual Census .pdf

Yay for #7!?

Thank you "Forbes Magazine" for ranking Cleveland as the US's #7 drunkest city. I wouldn't be so offended if #8 wasn't Pittsburgh, a city with the most obscure of alcohol purchasing laws.

Check out the source HERE

You don't have to if you don't want to.

More wind power reads

I am well aware that the solution to changing the current practice of energy/power creation and distribution cannot realistically be resolved with a single approach solution, however, until solar power (photovoltaic or heat stack), wave power and geothermal become either more efficient or economical I will continue to push wind power as a relatively cheap, clean and efficient stop gap solution that can be implemented by private individuals who wish to hasten change.

Now wind power does have its downsides. In Ohio most wind pattern studies were of relatively low elevation wind patterns and velocities, it wasn't until recently that mid to high elevation studies were compiled showing that the northern coast of the state can attain constant and efficient power generation due to proximity to the jet stream. In fact, recent systems in place at Oberlin College and Bowling Green are proving that at the 100m elevation large scale power harvesting would be surprisingly economical.

Much of the debate doesn't just deal with power generation. There is the "it is ugly" debate, the "added infrastructure for roads and power lines" debate, the infamous and awful "bird strikes" argument (widely disproved by now), the "loud whooshing noise" argument which I find sort of funny and even the "the turbines will slow down the wind and destroy the jet stream" argument which seems to ignore the impact of deforestation or skyscraper construction.

If you would like to read some intelligent and interesting responses to those questions (none of them mine so they do actually exhibit comprehensive thought progression) I will suggest you take a look at Charles Komanoff's Whither Wind? article published in Orion Magazine Sept-Oct 2006.

I found the approach to studying and debating wind power in this article rather wonderful and hope that some of you will actually take the time to read it.