Welcome and Action

Hey all, just wanted to take a second to say welcome to all the visitors that seem to be dropping in from Farm Mom's Blog, and to thank her for her support with my "Walk the Walk" campaign. I've been really starting to feel more and more that I need to get involved with the things that I want to see around me. I'm sure most of us have heard the famous quote from Gandhi that goes:

"Be the change that you want to see in the world."

If not, well you heard it here first. When you really think about it though, it is no less than a call to action, of some sort anyway. It don't think it necessarily means to go out and protest, or to be an activist. In fact to some degree that would almost be the antithesis of what he was saying. "Be the change..." not "affect the change..." was the call wasn't it? Yet then again, if we don't begin to take the actions that we believe should be taken, they may never be taken at all. (The "Someone else will do it" syndrome.) One of the reasons that I decided to try to get others involved in the issue that I have with Walmart is because it is a change that I would like to see happen. That and the fact that I know no matter how many letters I write to them, without many other voices, I will not be loud enough to be heard. I guess I am, to some degree, trying to "Be the catalyst of the change that I want to see..."

I have also begun another project this week that I really can't give to many details on. Not so much because it is confidential as it is not set in stone yet and I really don't know what the finished project will end up looking like. What am I talking about? Teaching. Or more to the point, sharing what I have experienced and learned with others in an effort to educate and hopefully inspire them. As I have grown in my experience with my garden and food production and urban chicken raising, I have hoped to get others in my neighborhood inspired to do the same and have actually made some strides on that front as a matter of fact. I've had a couple of neighbors that have decided to expand or modify their garden or gardening techniques to match the ones that I am doing, I am regularly asked about what I'm planting right now, or when they can start their tomatoes. I've kind of started to become that "garden guy" on the corner. So I decided, since it's something I LOVE to talk about anyway, that I would work with the local city to offer some basic FREE classes about growing small scale food plots or "Freedom Gardens" in our suburban lots.

I think that the time is ripe for people want to learn more about how they can begin to become more self sufficient on their own land. The higher food prices are not going to go down drastically, and more and more people are beginning to be more aware of the things that they feed their families. This is the type of change I hope to see in the world. People being responsible for their own sustenance to the degree that they can. Neighborhoods growing food and friendships and becoming more sustainable and prepared for future changes. If you have stories about the things you've started to do, I want to hear about them. Have suggestions for me? Fire away.

Hope you all have a great Weekend. I'll just be sitting around getting older, but more on that later.

P~