Coming down to Earth in Hazelwood

The price of food is as high as it's ever been. The
government's cutting back on services. There are less
public transit buses on the road, and it costs more to get
on one. The supply - and so ease of extraction - of coal,
oil, and natural gas is declining, so their cost is going
up. More people are out of work and more are
losing their homes. Farmers are being hampered by
increasingly extreme weather events. Abrupt climate
change is (or should be) complicating every decision
we make. It's enough to discourage a person, but that
would not be appropriate. We are in a time of historic
change, but life has always been a tightrope walk.
Things can quickly get much worse or much better, depending
on what we do. We do know that if we work
together for good, things will go better than if we just sit
back and see what happens or, worse yet, react in fear,
making decisions based on a logic of desperation.

As with all winters, there's time to look back, think about
what's going on in the world, and see what we want to
change. Delivering Meals on Wheels this morning I was
struck by the new greenhouse shining in the sun at the
YMCA. Those kids'll have a jump on the
Spring; they can start a lot of plants growing inside, then
transplant them outside in the garden when it's warm
enough. That greenhouse doesn't look like
much till you know what's possible with it. Think about it -
It's 10 degrees out and the grass is green inside that
unheated structure. Think how much food we can grow!

Like all gardeners, I dream of what I'm going to do when it
warms up. And, like many, I'm a sucker for
garden seeds for sale. I've got, as always, enough
seeds to plant 40 acres but not the 40 acres. So if
anybody wants help starting a garden I'll trade you - I'll
give you seeds and/or a little compost and/or advice on how
to grow in whatever your space and situation allows, and you
bring me something organic I can compost. To me
compost is the most important thing and I feed the pile all
winter long with old cardboard, non-color waste paper, and
kitchen scraps. There's never enough compost to go around,
so I spread it thinly to give the earthworms, fungi, and
other life forms in it lots of places to
reproduce.

The health of a soil, and the plants that depend on it, is
much more a matter of the quantity and diversity of life in
an area than it is the quantity of specific nutrients.
And that goes for the quality of life in a community
too. Modern science is coming full circle - The cold
hard analytical approach is ultimately futile and makes us
hardheaded and hardhearted. So now we have
Battleground Earth - fighting each other and treating other
creatures as enemies. We can fight disease by
anti-biotics or promote health by
pro-biotics. We can fight bad bugs and
disease and varmints in the garden, or we can nurture the
web of life to keep damage down via Nature's balance.
We can fight over dwindling resources such as food, or we
can work together with each other and the rest of Nature to
produce more resources such as food.

Anticipating the need for fresher cleaner food grown closer
to home, some of the wiser of our city's leaders are rolling
with plans for cooperative operations such as community
owned grocery stores, living roofs to grow food to be
distributed right in the neighborhood, and the food buying
club to be set up here at Hazelwood Presbyterian
Church. Stop worrying by getting to work,
volunteering or supporting in some other way the
food-related activities in Hazelwood - the YMCA garden, the
food club, our food forest, and/or the Hazelwood Urban
Gardens' three gardens. And grow something
in your own space if you have access to some
land. Contrary to some attitudes, helping
others is not an activity for
suckers. Being openhearted and courageous
enough to give makes you cool, and you'll find others giving
to you.