The recent cold snap has me sheltering plants indoors that should be in the garden soaking up sun. It's frustrating, especially after attending a square-foot-gardening workshop two weeks ago by Susan Medlin and Becky Morgan of Boise Urban Gardening School that got me itching to plant seeds and set out heirloom lettuce.
SFG lets you grow enough veggies for a family of four in 12 square feet of well-turned and compost-amended soil.
Participant Scott Swendsen introduced himself as a "locavore:" someone who gets 80 percent of their food from local, organic, seasonal sources. Scott came to Boise two years ago to work for the National Interagency Fire Center. He volunteered last fall for a yearlong locavore project sponsored by The Splendid Table and Minnesota Public Radio. He was one of 15 chosen from more than 5,000 applicants. (He blogs at http://www.publicradio.org/columns/splendidtable/locavore_nation_west/.)
"I started in January and haven't really looked back. Other than missing such food as seafood, sushi, citrus and fresh greens, converting hasn't really been too hard. Boise and Idaho are very fortunate to have such a large and diverse agricultural base. Each week, I find more sources of local food products. I truly believe that if a person can understand that its not necessary to eat strawberries in winter or seafood 500 miles inland and realize the significant hidden cost in transporting these (and most all!) foods to us, one can eat very healthy and locally."
'CRADLE TO CRADLE'
Last week, Boise State's Distinguished Lecturer, architect William McDonough, challenged our ideas about "sustainable" living and invited us to set our intention as a species by answering this question: "How do we love all the children of all species for all time?"
Our goal, he told a full house at the Morrison Center, should be a "delightfully diverse, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power, economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed."
If we designed with children as the standard for safety, he posits in his book, "Cradle to Cradle," the consequences of human actions on the planet would be benign, not polluting.
"Being less bad is no good," he said, condemning the "eco-efficiency" movement for inducing guilt about human over-consumption. Instead, he suggested we drop the old model of product-and-waste (and its dour offspring, "efficiency") and embrace the challenge of creating effective systems designed to replenish, restore and nourish the rest of the world.
McDonough urged us to stop waste - not reduce, minimize or avoid waste, but eliminate it entirely - by remaking the way we make things. Rather than designing "cradle-to-grave" (extracting resources to make products that eventually end up in a landfill), he suggested designing "cradle-to-cradle" by constantly cycling and recycling everything.
An example was the beautiful peace quilt presented to McDonough by Lyn McCollum on behalf if the Idaho Peace Quilters at a reception before the lecture hosted by Dave Turner and his architectural firm, CTA. All of its fibers were recycled, she said, except the sequins: "We couldn't figure out the 'bling-bling.' "
NOTES PLUS PICTURES
If it is spring, it must be Music Week. This year, Treasure Valley Concert Band director Marcellus Brown and Idaho Photographic Workshop photographers got together to produce "Collaborations," a multi-media slide show and performance at Timberline High School at 7:30 p.m. Monday.
IPW leader Mike Shipman spent long hours integrating hundreds of images with three symphonic pieces. Learn more about IPW and a photo workshop to be taught by Mike and Gordon Bowie at www.idahophotographicworkshop.org.
Freelance writer Diane Ronayne: dianeronayne@gmail.com
