Farm Aid

Farm Aid: Family farmers, good food, a better America

Farm Aid features the best that music has to offer, while remaining true to its ultimate mission.

26 years of great music, supporting farmers, and strengthening America

Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert in 1985 to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land. Dave Matthews joined the Farm Aid Board of Directors in 2001. Farm Aid has raised more than $39 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture. Farm Aid is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land. Farm Aid accomplishes this mission by:

Promoting Food from Family Farms

We know that to keep family farmers on the land we have to increase the number of people buying their good food. From our annual concert event that features family farm food and unites farmers, artists, and concerned citizens, to our inspiring and informative tv, radio, mail and web campaigns (including our HOMEGROWN.org website), we are building a powerful movement for good food from family farms.

Growing the Good Food Movement

In order for family farmers to thrive we have to create more markets for them, giving more people the opportunity to access family farm food. Farm Aid fosters connections between farmers and eaters by growing and strengthening local and regional markets and working to get family farm food in urban neighborhoods, grocery stores, restaurants, schools and other public institutions.

Helping Farmers Thrive

For 26 years, Farm Aid has answered 1-800-FARM-AID to provide immediate and effective support services to farm families in crisis. Now Farm Aid's online Farmer Resource Network connects farmers to an extensive network of organizations across the country that help farmers find the resources they need to access new markets, transition to more sustainable and profitable farming practices, and survive natural disasters.

Taking Action to Change the System

Farm Aid works with local, regional and national organizations to promote fair farm policies and grassroots organizing campaigns designed to defend and bolster family farm-centered agriculture. We've worked side-by-side with farmers to protest factory farms and inform farmers and eaters about issues like genetically modified food and growth hormones. By strengthening the voices of family farmers, Farm Aid stands up for the most resourceful, heroic Americans—the family farmers who work the land. Farm Aid's Action Center allows concerned citizens to become advocates for farm policy change.

Gulf Oil

You can show us a great television commercial telling us that you fixed the problem of the oil spill.
I do not believe a word you say.
You remind me of the wealthy who do not help their fellow man but spend millions on a republican hoping he will remember you when he is president.
These are not the Americans that will be remembered in our history books as heroes but as the folks that took our country to hell.
Help me survive and click the ad below.

EPA

Good Morning,

Mom is gone to work and I am alive and well. It may not have been so back in 1958 when I was in NAVAL Boot Camp in San Diego, California. Our Company Commander came up to me and said, "Your sick report to sick bay!" I reported to sick bay and they said that I  had bronchitis and could not finish boot camp until it was cleared up. They gave me shots in my rear and laid me over a bed so that my hips were on the bed but my shoulders and head were hanging over into a paper sack in a trash can. I coughed and spit up gobs of goo from my lungs. I did this daily until it cleared up and the doctors felt I was fine. I was released from sick bay a week after my arrival and placed in another company after another week.

I did my tour of duty in the military and was released before the date of my 21st birthday ( kiddie cruise, go in before you are 18 and get out the day before you turn 21). I went home to La Puente but could not handle the smog because it burned my eyes so I went to San Jose where I had a friend who I had met in the Navy.

California air today is much cleaner than when I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains (1941-1958).  Here is a photo of the smog I grew up with.

What does Kentucky Senator Rand Paul know about pollution?

We have had bees in our yard for about a month now. It makes me think that they (gov) killed off all local bees to keep honey bees from being Africanized then when local bees had a chance they turned them loose. Ya never know so I speculate; I do that a lot.

The Grow a Farmer Campaign — Help Cultivate the Next Generation of Organic Farmers & Gardeners

School for Yuppies wanting to be organic farmers. It works.
It looks like we got a new way to get folks on the farm and also young adults raised on farms to switch from chemical farming to organic farming.
Get on the band wagon (farm truck) and do some good for the planet.

Praying for Rain

This morning I am reminded of Katrina as Gustav hits the Gulf Coast. Indians pray for rain to help their crops. I pray for rain when we as a community have not seen rain in 6 weeks. I can assume that some folks in California pray for good snows to replenish their reservoirs. But to pray for rain to make me feel uncomfortable? That is like asking for another explosion to continue the war in Iraq.
The Democratic Party wants to unit the nation and the Republican Party wants to "Conquer and Divide" our country.
The State motto of Kentucky is, "United We Stand, Divided We Fall".

100 Ways to Save The Environment
David Suzuki
Earth Cycle Report - A place to start
Eco-Farm: California dreaming Grist
Food Gristmill

I Heart Farms
Journey to Forever
Loon Commons: Dedicated to Protecting and Restoring Minnesota’s Environment - Food and Sustainable Agriculture
Midwest Organic & Sustainable
Organic Gardening
Organic Gardening News
Organic_Clothing
Sustainable Table Blog

The Organic Consumers Association
The Wonderful Mind of Man
Tolstoy Farm Organic Since 1963

Bee die-offs lead to a different kind of buzz

The story at the link above sounds good but I am sorry about the plight of the bees.
I found the story at, "Honey Bee Quiet"; which is a nice place to visit.

A continued earth rumble

The earth rumbled the entire night to celebrate Earth Day.
Yes it started the rumble about 11:20 last night and continued for five minutes. Then paused for a few minutes and then never gave up the entire night. The earth she speaks.
At first I thought it was just my imagination but no it was real, something like vibrating chair at it's lowest setting. The earth she grumbled the entire night in Western Kentucky.
It felt like flour in a hand shaking sieve.

James Lovelock

Gaia
Gaia Hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis was first scientifically formulated in the 1960s by the independent research scientist Dr. James Lovelock, as a consequence of his work for NASA on methods of detecting life on Mars. He initially published the Gaia Hypothesis in journal articles in the early 1970s followed by a popularizing 1979 book Gaia: A new look at life on Earth.

Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can still Save Humanity
Support Organic Life Styles

THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU
by Leo Tolstoy
I read this when I was at Tolstoy Farm in Washington and it enforced my beliefs in the road to peace and living a sustainable lifestyle.

***

What clothing do our leaders wear? What clothing do we wear and what clothing do I wear? When I was dropped out I wore none in the warm climate of California or wore recycled clothing from our clothing bin. Gandhi wore clothes he made. Where on the scale of vanity do we place our being. Is it important as to what we wear in this day and age? We as a society wear clothing that is made quickly and cheaply by women and children.
The idea of children working in sweat shops has been banned in the United States. Children working at home is fine.
I do not don jewelry but I do wear a watch because I am not outdoors all the time. When I was outside in my younger days I viewed the sun and by seeing where it was I could tell you the time of day.
Where as a society do we stand? Where as a society do bees and ants stand?

***
Raising crops to create fuels to burn in cars and/or burning garbage for electricity are as good an idea as the burning the Amazon. When you take good topsoil and raise crops, eat the seeds and turn what remains back into the soil that is productive land management. Replacing mulch, organic matter and organic garbage in the soil is good land management; it create a soil that the creatures below the surface can consume which produce good soil for plants. Green crops and trees that are burned go up in smoke and offer little to the earth as mulch and organic matter.

Organic Beekeepers Not Affected By Colony Collapse Disorder

To me this is good news but in our area it would be hard to find bees not affected by chemicals.

Spend the money you earn toward and for organic living and gardening. Go toward the people that have been organic living and gardening. --->Here are a few links that point you toward organic living and organic gardening.
Think organic and start early in life.
Buy organic, advertise organic, be organic and visit with organic people. It is a simple life style. In our community the Amish are organic and that makes it easier on everyone in town. The land they bought in this community had not been farmed since the early 1950's.
I was organic when I arrived in 1968 to this community and the land I tilled was fertilized with chemicals. But I refused to continue using chemical fertilizers and used home made compost and mulches. Now my small gardens are chemically free since 1968.
I have changed my garden spot so I have basically started a new garden and it has been difficult.
Since I moved my garden the deer in the area sleep in the garden at night and eat the vegetables I grow there. I am not prom to eat the deer at this time so I'll have to share the spot or discourage them from eating organically. Maybe some kind of scarecrow or some mountain lion scent may move them to greener pastures.

I had a dream the other day that some young man offered to spray around the perimeter of my home with weed killer to make my home easier to maintain; I refused his offer and wondered to my self, " How did I get in a position that someone offered to kill the weeds around my home with a weed killer?" I have a hard enough time finding potting soil that is not chemically treated to boost the lives of those poor tomatoes. Everywhere I go I find Organic Chemicals that will boost the moral of our planet. Where are the souls that are organic? I am being pushed out of existence by overwhelming propaganda, "A Orrganic Black Chic Chevy that looks green?"
I am to the point of begging, my lifestyle is slipping away, leaving planet earth to the black suit with a blue tie and a trim haircut that loves young men.
***
The ghost town begins when no one walks the streets to browse. I am not the first to feel the pinch but I may be the first to pan handle online to maintain my websites. Those websites are my voice, the legs and feet are gone, the brain functions. My days of constant labor are done. I may be one of the few that feel the pinch of this economy falling.

Who make the best "Natural and Organic" television commercials. So far it is the coal industry and Dow Chemicals. I have seen these two commercials by these two industries and they are comforting and beautiful (money buys the best). I know in my heart that this is propaganda at it's very best. But there is no fooling the bulls---ter. I love the commercials but I am not buying their products if at all possible.

Think organic and support me by going and visit my web pages. That is one way to fight big industry and get us on an real organic footing.
I have been organic since 1967 and so are my friends.

Off the Grid

Off the Grid
Well I think it is time to promote self-sustaining environments for the folks in this country.
A lot of you are paying a lot of money for very big homes.
You could save our environment by building a smaller home with these technologies below.
You would be off the grid and your family would be warm in body and thought.
Backwoods Solar in Sandpoint, Idaho
http://www.backwoodssolar.com/
(208) 263-4290
Solatron Technologies in Victorville, CA
http://www.partsonsale.com/
(888)647-6527

North and South America

North and South America side by side.

North and South America

Wood, flint, stone, fire, ash, ore, sand, hair, leather, bones and vines.

If I could just remember why I am standing here in this field all-alone.
The weather is nice, but I wonder why I am alone? I am clothed as I remember in my work uniform and boots.
I do have a fondness for pleasant weather and this is my kind of day, but how in the world did I get here?
I have had memories of living alone, wishful thinking, but that does not explain this, what in the world happened? Why am I standing in this field, something is going on, is this a test?
I have imagined myself living without any help before, could this be my answer?
I had imagined that maybe the civilized world that I lived in has ended and
I stood alone to fetch and fend for myself.
Someone in my past had told me to be careful in what I wished for; I seem to be paying that piper.
I thought that I could live like this forever, I do have what I think is intelligence.
I imagined myself standing like a Greek god with my hands at my hips and looking over this small planet.
I can marvel at the colors and stately beauty of this ball of elements, this earth.
Just look at me as I stand rotund and out of shape in a field of green, a weeble.
With no help or being nearby I think that we could live like this forever.
We could stand stately and proud and dare the world to come closer.
Has the author put us all in our own colorful field?
What am I to do?
When night falls we will realize that we are not alone.
The eyes of the wild creatures of the earth will watch us very closely. What am I to do?
We have to learn to use our knowledge, the things that we learned in our life.
We can look for some useful tool and use it, but if no tools are available then we must create some to use.
Can we survive all alone or does our life require the help of others?
How difficult will it be to remains alive and not be food for other creatures.
What can I do to survive?
Do I have to find a cave and figure out a way to start a fire?
Then after the fire is complete then I could maybe get some sleep.
Who is going to watch the night while I am asleep?
I may need to find another human to have some sleep.
I know that there is steel, but how do I create it by my self?
Everything that I saw before this moment had been created for my pleasure to use as a tool or a weapon.
Can I possibly create everything that I know of by scratch?
Or do I have to search the world for other creatures of intelligence to help me out.
Is this new possibility based on each human helping each other out?
Does each one of us behave in a way to help another? Are we dependent on each other?
Or can we stand alone without any help?
It is time to move. It is time to be keen and aware.

Cloth, paper, lead,carbon, steel, plastic, glass, concrete, oil,rubber, nylon,
crystals and asphalt.

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