HOME the movie (thanks to my mom's friend for showing this to us)

CLICK TO SEE TRAILER

"We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.

The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. Home is a non-profit film."

HOME has been made for you : share it! And act for the planet.

HOME official website
http://www.home-2009.com

HOME is a carbon offset movie
http://www.actioncarbone.org

More information about the Planet
http://www.goodplanet.info

Help the Newburyport Farmers Market

Help the Newburyport Farmer's Market

CLICK HERE TO VOTE, Please

Please Vote to Help the Newburyport Farmers Market win $5000. Cast your vote and spread the word.

Thank you for taking us this far, those who have voted and please pass this on to those who may want to support the market. Please vote, if you haven't already, Thanks!

To get us to the top 5 we will need about 500/800 votes this week... Think we can do it??
Let's try! The little port that could!!

Thanks,
Shari Wilkinson
Founder

Summer Reading books

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

"We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing exposé, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States—enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over—has a downside. Our overefficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more—more food, more often, and in larger portions—no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being."

Twists and Turns: Tyson's "Raised Without Antibiotics" Claim

June 08 (this is a year old, but interesting!)


Last week, Tyson Foods pulled the plug on its "raised without antibiotics" marketing campaign, ending a year long struggle involving Tyson, its competitors, the FDA, the USDA, the FTC, and a district court in Baltimore. Although along the way, the struggle seemed to involve nuances of scientific classification and the wording of Tyson's claims, the proverbial final straw came with the USDA discovery that Tyson was still using antibiotics to prevent illness and death in its chicks.

The widespread use of antibiotics in animal production has long been known to contribute to the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The FDA has been slow to react, but has gradually restricted the use of certain antimicrobials in animal production, thus saving the effectiveness of certain drugs for treatment of human disease. The recently released Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production called for strong actions to limit antibiotic use.

And, as early as 2002, it was reported that the market leaders in the poultry industry had begun to transition from the use of antibiotics that were also used by humans, instead using drugs that were not needed for human treatment. Tyson was at the forefront of this transition.

CLICK HERE to read more

My Cochins at The Blessing of the Animals

This poem was read at the Blessing of the Animals:

The Swan by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

Blessing of the Animals

My neighbor Dorothy invited me to her church for the Blessing of the Animal. There is a gorgeous rooster on the top of the UU Church so I brought my rooster. He was a total star and sang along.

Super Happy Chickens

Working the weeds

I Love these pictures from Three Chicks a day

Free Range

Japanese, from @mypetchicken

Buff Brahma, Isn't she gorgeous!

Backyard Chickens: Setting the Record Straight

An article written by my friend
Andy Schneider
Atlanta Backyard Poultry Examiner

Time and time again I hear people complaining about the problems they think backyard chickens will bring if allowed into the backyards of their city. Some of the more common complaints that I hear are noise, smell, rodents, disease, and property values. I would like to address each and every one of these complaints one by one.

I don’t think I have ever been to a meeting about keeping backyard chickens where the noise issue has not been brought up at least once. I often hear people complaining about the potential early morning crow of a nearby rooster. This is a very valid point and I too would be complaining if a rooster were waking me up every morning at 4:30am, especially if I did not have to wake up until 7:00am or later. There are many advantages of keeping backyard chickens, but most urban chicken keepers want to keep backyard chickens for the benefits of having an endless supply of farm fresh eggs. Solution? You do not need a rooster to enjoy farm fresh eggs every morning. In fact, hens will lay better if there is no rooster around to disturb their routine. Roosters primarily have two jobs, which they do very well. They protect and fertilize. You only need a rooster if you want baby chicks running around in the backyard. I still hate to see cities ban roosters all together because there are ways to keep roosters in an urban area quietly and responsibly. I plan to share how this can be done at a later date.
CLICK HERE for rest of article

ABC NEWS did a piece on Backyard Poultry

CLICK HERE to see entire piece

Saving Luna - the movie

I would do anything to Save Luna

Colony Collapse - Losing their buzz

By MAY R. BERENBAUM
Published: March 2, 2007
WHEN Hollywood filmmakers want to heighten the tension of an insect fear film, they just arrange for millions of killer bees to appear out of nowhere to threaten a vulnerable group of people — over the years, these have included children in a school bus, celebrants at a Mardi Gras parade and people living near a nuclear power plant.

But people from all demographic groups across the country are facing a much more frightening real-life situation: the disappearance of millions of bees. This winter, in more than 20 states, beekeepers have noticed that their honeybees have mysteriously vanished, leaving behind no clues as to their whereabouts. There are no tell-tale dead bodies either inside colonies or out in front of hives, where bees typically deposit corpses of dead nestmates.

What’s more, the afflicted colonies tend to be full of honey, pollen and larvae, as if all of the workers in the nest precipitously decamped on some prearranged signal. Beekeepers are up in arms — last month, leaders in the business met with research scientists and government officials in Florida to figure out why the bees are disappearing and how to stop the losses. Nobody had any answers.

That beekeepers are alarmed over this situation is understandable, but, just as in the movies, the public may not recognize the magnitude of the threat that these mysterious events present.

CLICK HERE for full article

Rooftop bees VIDEO

With space at such a premium in Manhattan, New Yorkers are accustomed to thinking vertically when it comes to housing. Now bees are getting in on the action. David Graves, an urban beekeeper, tends his hives far above the bustle of New York on rooftops throughout the city. His buzzworthy honey gets rave reviews for its delicate sweetness and for the relief it offers allergy sufferers. But with Colony Collapse Disorder threatening his livelihood, we’re left wondering what a world without honey bees would be like. Not so sweet.

Inside America’s Sausage Factory - from Good.is

Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. explores the gargantuan machine behind our nation’s food industry.

The generally abysmal food that ends up in our restaurants and supermarkets is the cause of widespread obesity and diabetes, and is produced by a few giant corporations operating in plain sight of the FDA and USDA. To whit, in the grand tradition of such films and books as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, and, to some extent, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Robert Kenner’s Food, Inc. offers a terrifying appraisal of the way we eat—as well as what we can do to improve things. GOOD spoke to Mr. Kenner on the eve of Food, Inc.’s release, to fill us in on gaining access to corporate players, why he wants the film to anger people, and just how Orwellian the eating industry has become.

GOOD: Your film will not be well received by Big Food. Was it difficult finding people that worked for these large companies to interview?

ROBERT KENNER: It wasn’t easy. We spoke to 40 or 50 organizations, far more corporations than were actually in the film. They wanted to know everything we were doing, and we would tell them, but they just didn’t want to be on camera—and they certainly didn’t want for us to film where they created their food. It was disappointing, but now they are very anxious to talk. You know, the meat association and the cattlemen said, “this is going to be a major motion picture and you better see it because your customers sure will.” Monsanto just created their own web page. Now they are anxious to talk and it’s funny because we asked them like 12 times.

CLICK HERE to read whole interview from Good.is

Buscuit as a baby

She is a wonderful hen!

My sweet Polish