Fresh Greens

Show and Tell

By Chelsey Simpson

You know how it feels the first time you visit a new grocery store—the way nothing you need is where you want it to be and shopping take twice as long because you wrote your list according to the order of your usual store, and that just doesn’t work here? And if you love the new store—if every item calls to you from the shelf like a beautiful, exotic stranger—you will inevitably spend way too much time and money. If you take one of those hot little strangers home (perhaps it called to you from beneath the shower of the produce mister, “buy me, steam me, eat me with butter!”), you will inevitably find that you have no idea how to actually prepare it, and the odds are very good it will sit on your counter and rot.

 

I think the switch to eating local can be a lot like this for many people. If anything, it is far more daunting than an unfamiliar supermarket. First of all, the system itself is different. Instead of aisles there are farmers’ market stalls (which usually only take cash), or in the case of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative there is a website to navigate (and it is helpful to have a PayPal account). Unlike at the grocery store, where every can of beans opens with the same tool, new skills are sometimes required to make the most of local food. Or maybe I shouldn’t say “new” skills, but rather forgotten skills like cooking with whole chickens, baking bread and canning.

 

I have suffered the confusion myself—and I am still learning—but by and large I have converted, so I thought I would take this opportunity to do a little show and tell in hopes that someone out there will find it helpful. First, the “show.”

 

A few weeks ago my friend Tricia posted two links on her blog that were very revealing. One is a photography project showing the interior of people’s refrigerators and the other shows families with all the food they typically eat in one week. I was still thinking about the post when I got home from the farmers’ market that week, and I was inspired to take a photo of my own daily bread, which you can see on the right. But first I had to determine what I was going to eat that week beside just the stuff I bought during my shopping trip.

 

I think that one of the keys to eating local is meal planning, so ever weekend I follow the same steps:

1) I take stock of what I have on hand that needs to be used before it spoils;

2) I think about what I have going on during the week that might take away from my cooking time;

3) I think about what is in season and what I might be able to get from the farmer’s market;

4) I make a list of all my meals on one side of a scrap of paper and a shopping list on the back.

There are only two people in my household, so I have to consider the fact that I will have leftovers, and I also plan to have extra food we can take to work for lunch.

 

Because local food (especially meat) costs more sometimes and comes in a more whole form (bones, skin, etc.), I always plan meals so that I can get the most mileage out of everything. For example I cook with whole chickens, but a lot of recipes call for boneless, skinless breasts, so sometimes I cut just the breast meat off of the bird and use it in a stir fry or pasta dish one night then save the rest of the bird to cook whole in the oven, slow cooker or on the grill. Then, if I am really feeling frisky, I use the bones and scraps to make stock. I am afraid I am making this sound like a lot of work, but it isn’t really. And sometimes I just throw a whole bird in a slow cooker for a few hours and call it a day; there’s nothing wrong with that!

 

So here was my meal plan for the week, roughly in order by day:

• Steak fingers with new potatoes and sauteed Swiss chard
• Buffalo burgers for a food co-op volunteer party
• Pizza with tomato sauce, mushrooms, asparagus and cheese (salad on the side)
• Salad with asparagus, feta cheese, sunflower seeds and green onions
• Egg frittata with new potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, cheese and greens (salad on the side)
• Buttermilk pancakes or waffles for dinner with fruit salad if I feel lazy one night
• Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as needed

If you look closely at the photo, you can probably make out most of the ingredients. The local things are generally on the right-hand side of the photo, including some Swiss chard from my church’s community garden (isn’t chard beautiful?), andthe grocery items are on the left. Yes, I buy bananas; I like them. And usually we eat a little more meat than this, but somehow this week my husband let me get away with serving him several vegetarian meals.

 

If I had to guess, I would say this is about $100 worth of food, but we won’t eat it all in a week; a lot of it, like the PB and jelly, will live to see another meal plan. According to this estimation, about two thirds of the money I spent stayed local.

 

So there you have it—a fast and dirty look at one week of local eating! It would be fun to see other people’s weekly menus in the comments section. How do YOU make local work?

Urban agrarian market takes off in Oklahoma City

by Shauna Lawyer Struby

Woohoo. I'm so excited to write this post. Here’s another great way to support your local farmers, ranchers, producers and eat healthy local food. Blooming on the Oklahoma prairie is the new mobile Urban Agrarian Local Foods Market. I’ve been hearing about and watching Matt’s progress on this project and am so thrilled to write just a little about this. Other great local food goodness is on its way as well. Bob Davis and I chatted on Facebook last night and the way is clear with the City of Midwest City for a new farmers market in that area.

Both Matt and Bob are absolutely passionate about local food and are stellar examples of what happens when people set their minds on being the change they want to see in the world. Kudos to them! Now let’s all get out and support them! Eat, enjoy, spread the word!

Urban Agrarian Local Foods Market

Local, sustainable food delivered with local, sustainable energy

· Sunday, June 28, 2009

· 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

· Across the street from Cheevers on the SE corner of NW 23rd and Hudson, Oklahoma City.

The Veggie Van is making a stop and setting up shop on 23rd street every Sunday for an outdoor market. All local food transported by waste vegetable oil. Displays are made out of recycled fence panels and if you get your stuff bagged, it is in a second-use bag from a local retailer. It is an official part of Sunday-funday in the historic district.

Products from local growers and vendors such as: Earth Elements, High Tides & Green Fields, Seasons Catering, Briarberry Farm, OM Gardens, Peach Crest Farms, Redland Juice Co., Rowdy Stickhorse, Urban Farms, Wichita Buffalo, Snider Farms Peanut Barn, Bob's Best Bon Appetitin' Bulgar, and others available seasonally. Plus local garden extras.

Questions: Contact Matthew Burch, matthewrburch@gmail.com.

Look how far we’ve come

by Robbie White

From paper to plastic to paper again, from tape to disc to digital files, Robbie takes a thoughtful look at how technology is changing the way we consume, hopefully for the better.

The other day I picked up a paper straw at the OKC Zoo to drink a coke-flavored Icee and was transported back to my childhood when paper straws were the norm. At first the paper straw was kind of annoying because I crushed the end, and unlike the plastic version, the paper straw did not return to its original shape. I turned the straw over and was careful not to crush the drinking end again -- firmly resisting the urge to get a new straw -- and this led to pondering differences in consumption since my childhood.

Consider for a moment television and movies: I was recently telling my kids about elementary school days in the late 1970s, when we watched movies and film strips sparingly at school. We filed into the old gymnasium at Neil Armstrong Elementary School in Bettendorf, Iowa, and watched nature films projected onto a huge screen using 16mm projectors. These films were carefully cared for by our teachers who shared them with the whole district. I can’t remember being told this specifically, but I always knew the films were valuable and had to be checked out in advance.

The early ‘80s saw the advent of Laserdisc, VHS and Betamax consumer video recording and viewing formats. As a young married couple, we started accumulating VHS tapes purchased or received as gifts. We were so excited to finally own a player! I recorded my favorite shows and even catalogued a few seasons of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Our collection of VHS cassettes was impressive by the time DVDs became readily available in the late ‘90s. We still have a collection of favorites on VHS we can’t bring ourselves to part with, but we’ve slowly replaced many titles on DVD as they become available. Admittedly, we’ve created a small nostalgic but wasteful set of movies on both formats. The ten years that passed between the purchases does not excuse the waste.

In 2008, we discovered Apple TV which allows us to build a library digitally stored and accessible from any of our authorized devices. Apple TV is not perfect but it is getting better. We can rent a movie without using any resources at all (except money and electricity) for store visits or delivery by mail. We can purchase other media this way as well. There are no discs to scratch, no magnetic tapes to deteriorate, but there are some limitations with regard to licensing agreements, sharing media with others, and decades from now when we pass away, we wonder whether our digital media will become nothing but virtual debris.

The movies we love (and hate) create a story of their own about us. My unique set of movies is a way of describing myself. For example, I liked “The Departed,” but not “The Godfather;” the Keira Knightly version of “Pride and Prejudice,” but not the ‘80s version; and I love “iCarly” and “M*A*S*H,” but not one other TV sitcom in the intervening decades has engaged my attention. Much as the books we keep and reread over years say much about us, I wish to preserve our film and video collection for our children and grandchildren, or at least the essence of it.

The same questions apply to e-books. My husband and I both have Kindle readers. We love the experience of reading on this elegant device, and appreciate the fact this digital tool allows us to control our consumption so we can again enjoy reading daily newspapers without waste or mess. I am discovering periodicals again because of Kindle. I cannot, however, loan you a magazine, but I can send an email with an article or selected text, or if really necessary, print it in the old-fashioned way.

I see new media delivery and storage devices as an improvement over the consumption of paper, but I don’t know what is involved in the production of a Kindle device. Will we discover some toxic secret (such as mercury in compact fluorescent light bulbs)? Will new technology in a few years cause us to recycle outmoded Kindles for something more cutting edge?

While none of us knows what the future holds, what each of us can do in the present is consume less of this planet’s resources by making decisions based on the best knowledge available in the present, and by doing so, contribute to a better future.

A reel green thing at the deadCenter Film Festival

Now in its ninth year, the merry, amazing, ever-growing deadCenter Film Festival has a reel green thing going on this year with an entire block of four films devoted to sustainability, Sat., June 13, 1 p.m. at the Kerr Auditorium, Oklahoma City. Click here for details. Of course the whole festival is worth checking into for a few days of creative immersion, but if you can’t make if for the full film

enchilada, then at least save time for the sustainability slice.

Here's what's reeling in the deadCenter green world:

Chase the Can | DEQ | An aluminum can makes an unexpected journey in this wind-powered video from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.

Soil in Good Heart | Deborah Koons Garcia | Soil In Good Heart is a taste of a documentary currently in production by Deborah Koons Garcia, director of The Future of Food (2004). The importance of understanding, preserving and rebuilding this essential resource is the foundation of sustainable agriculture. We are all part of the soil community and we ignore this at our peril.

Ode to Mrs. Hogg

Growing up in a small western Oklahoma town was a blessing for me in many ways.  Rural living, huge families, big gardens, riding horses was an every day event, and being witness to the rural family farm before corporate mono-cropping with chemicals became the normal way to farm, and the school system. 

My brothers and sisters, along with all the neighbor kids, rode the school bus about 10 miles to and from school daily and the road we traveled we called the ‘ridge road’ because it ran along the south rim of the vast and beautiful South Canadian river.  The big creeks that were the river’s tributaries ran through all the prairie and farm land where I grew up and created an endless playground which I explored on horseback every day of my childhood. 

We always had a few horses in the pasture, so I had my pick of which one I wanted to ride.  Television shows of the 1950’s were this wanna- be cowboy’s recipe for fun…a real western adventure right in my back yard.  Of course, I always wanted to be the Indian, so I fashioned bow and arrows out of tree limbs, and covered my front and back side with Mom’s tea towels, stuffed into my underwear. I was a fair skinned Indian, but what great fun I had exploring the rolling prairie, creeks and south Canadian river on horseback to my young heart’s desire. 

School was a world that I didn’t take so keenly to.  There were books, schedules, rules, social structure which was totally foreign to me, and the teachers that made it all work.  I liked most of my teachers, all these women who were married to local farmers, and probably provided the only stable income their family enjoyed.  The lunch room cooks were also farm women, and let me tell you, the food was made from scratch and wonderful!  Those ladies made hot rolls, cinnamon rolls, deserts and the like for all of us kids.  The food was so good that I worked in the lunch room doing dishes through the noon hour in order to get special favor from the cooks, and all the wonderful food I wanted. 

School was a mere extension of my family at home, and any adult at school or in the public at large had my parent’s permission to discipline us if we were out of line.  And they did.  My uncle put me off the school bus about half way home one day for being a nuisance and made me walk home.  I got an ass whippin’ from my Dad when I finally got home, and then had to walk to my Uncle’s house and apologize to him for being a jerk.  It worked!  I never pulled that again. 

One teacher in particular totally captured my exotic interests.  Mrs. Lorene Hogg.  Mrs. Hogg never had children, so she could afford to spend her frivolous money on such things as an aquarium for our class room and at home she had peacocks, exotic pheasants, fancy chickens, plants I’d never heard of nor seen and in a green house no less, with the open heart to share it all with us 6^th graders.  She taught us to propagate angel wing begonias for our Mom’s, how to grow colorful salt crystal gardens, the importance of hand- made cards for holidays and the fun side of public education in addition to book learnin’. 

Her flower garden collection was big and impressive to me, as I’d only known about cotton, feed grains, hay and growing vegetables.  Her pea-foul freely roamed the property and I thought that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.  HOW EXOTIC!  She had cannas, Iris of many colors, elephant ears and I don’t really remember what else, but it seemed like the botanical gardens of a foreign land to me.  She very patiently showed me around her farm answering all kinds of questions.  I would beg my Mom to take me there for a visit because her place was an exciting and foreign place for me to visit and imagine how all that stuff would look at our farm.  But, alas, it was not to be.  We were farmers, not flower gardeners. 

Never taking no for a final answer, I did amass $35.00 from somewhere and bought my very own pea-foul family.  There was the incredibly beautiful peacock, the peahen and 4 babies.  My dad was furious and screamed something about those “noisy bastards”, but soon came to love them as much as I did.  They would follow him around for feed and attention, and at one time he had several grown males beautifying our monochromatic farm. 

Mrs. Hogg and her husband have been gone for 20+ years, and with no children to continue her legacy, their farm has fallen into a sad, quiet decline.  Their home still stands, and to this day it has never been emptied of their possessions.  Peeking through the window it looks as if they went to town on Saturday and just never returned.  A life-time of effort by Mr. and Mrs. Hogg slowly dissolving into oblivion. 

Springtime, 2 years ago while visiting my sister who lives just up the road, the Iris were making their annual effort to grow and bloom.  I asked my sister what was to become of the place, and she said the nieces who’d inherited the place hired a cousin of ours to come ‘round a couple times a year and mow everything flat – denying those Iris the wonder of colorful spring blooms. 

This news was so sad to me that I took about a dozen grocery bags and a shovel to Mrs. Hogg’s now silent homestead and dug samples of Iris from all around her yard.  Were they allowed to bloom, I could have perhaps chosen many colors, but random is as random does.  I took what I thought might provide a big variety. 

Along the driveway at my new homestead, the only place soft enough to dig was the filled in trench that OG&E dug to put my electrical service underground.  Sorry, hard clay soil, but I planted my samples and top dressed them with compost, gave them a drink and hoped for the best.  Now in their second year, Mrs. Hogg’s Iris are again in their glory.  There are about five different colors that have been in bloom for the last two weeks and they have quadrupled in number.  The purples are beautiful, but one bunch of very tall, very yellow Iris surely were Mrs. Hogg’s pride and joy. These flowers make my heart happy and I know Mrs. Hogg would be giddy in the knowing that I still think about her influence on my life whenever I look down my driveway at her wonderful, almost forgotten Iris.  

The myth of efficiency

by Christine Patton

Along with freedom and progress, efficiency rounds out the triad of the most treasured ideals of our country. We like things to be "efficient," without really knowing what it means. Americans tend to use the term efficiency as a code word for getting things done cheaply and conveniently. Take agriculture, for example. It certainly is an achievement to churn out food at prices that are far less than historical averages (by percentage of family budget spent on food). That frees up a lot of money for people to spend on other things - clothes, travel, books, furniture, whatever your desire might be.

But what makes efficiency? Is it clever management? The productivity of human resources? Economies of scale? Centralization? Better information and computer systems? The competition of markets?

Business people give credit to these innovations, and all of these attributes may contribute incrementally to the cheapness of our food, but these are just icing on the cake. The real underpinning of what we think of as efficiency is cheap energy - especially cheap oil.

Farms here in America have been consolidating for more than 50 years. The average size of a "farm" is now 459 acres. They are managed with the aid of GPS systems, barns of tractors, and miles of irrigation systems. The farms of today have replaced people, armed with knowledge of local conditions and crop varieties and supported by rainfall and rich topsoil, with machines fueled by gasoline and regular applications of chemicals created from fossil fuels.

Efficiency, in other words, means replacing energy from humans and animals and plants with the incredibly cheap, concentrated energy found in oil. It does not mean less waste (at least when measured in BTUs). Americans pride ourselves on our innovations, but we did not in fact create better, less wasteful farming systems - we just found ways to pour as much of this cheap energy into our farms as possible, without considering how long the resource would remain cheap.

Small farms are actually more productive and efficient than large farms. They produce more per acre.  However, while fuel is inexpensive, small farms cannot achieve the massive economies of scale enabled by the replacement of people with gigantic tractors and chemicals. Since a gallon of oil can replace the energy of hundreds of hours of human labor, at a fraction of the cost, it makes a whole lot of economic sense to use it in place of people.

Replacing man (and horse) with machines may seem efficient, but it is not the efficiency of nature, which uses every particle of matter and energy, including any waste produced. It is the economic efficiency of man, which inevitably generates pollution and destruction because the costs are not borne by the user, but by nature and by the community at large. What we call efficiency is simply the conversion of a fossil fuel inheritance millions of years in the making into cheap fuel and food for a few generations.

What we call efficiency is actually the height of inefficiency. The foundation of modern agriculture is mostly just the addition of more energy to the system, and any fool can do that. Our current food systems are only made possible by incredible wastefulness, ruination of natural systems, and unbridled use of our inheritance of fossil fuels. These are the costs that our economic accounting does not take into account.

How efficient will it be to manage a 1,000 acre farm when production of oil begins to decline? How efficient will it be to ship lettuce 1,500 miles when gas costs $6 a gallon? How efficient will it be to use 20 calories of fossil fuels to create one calorie of food? What will we be left with when the Age of Oil begins to wane? Eroded topsoil, depleted aquifers, and the loss of the valuable farming knowledge of entire generations of Americans.

Here in Oklahoma, we are lucky to have small farmers still holding on to their farms and activists dedicated to reviving our local, sustainable and organic foodsheds. We have the Oklahoma Food Co-operative, an Extension Service supportive of sustainable agriculture, Community Supported Agriculture shares, and several local farmer's markets. Many of the people living here have memories of farms, of growing gardens and raising animals, and many continue to grow fruits and vegetables regardless of whether they live in the country or city. Here we are not far away from our food.  

As the price of fuel rises, the myth of efficiency will be exposed. We can choose to recognize that our ideal was an illusion, and rebuild our local food systems and economies now, or we can choose to be a deer in the headlights as the price of food rockets along with the price of fuel. We can use real design innovations, like permaculture and integrated pest management, which rely on careful observation and knowledge of the ecology, instead of the application of chemicals.  We don't know when high gas prices will return, but oil has already demonstrated an ample capacity for volatility. Let's prepare now, so that we won't have to pay later.

Seeds

by David Brooks

It is time once again to put the seeds in the ground, and with that come some questions: Do I put one seed in the hole or two? What happens if I put three? How close together should I put the seeds? Can I squeeze one more plant in this row, or will that crowd out the others and lead to the ruination of the entire garden? To a seasoned gardener there is no quandary concerning the seeds, but to a novice that plot of ground can be a puzzle of immense proportions. 

The seeds planted determine a lot about your garden. So, let’s look at seeds. Where did you get them? Are they safe? Did you choose organic seeds to try and control what is inside you food? 

 

There is a lot of research going into seeds and crop output in the country now. Over the past 20 years we have seen the introduction of a number of bioengineered crops throughout the world. The argument rages as to whether we are making it possible to feed the world, or setting ourselves up for a genetic mess and an insect or disease infestation that cannot be stopped.

 

Many of you are seasoned enough to remember in the mid-nineties when it became almost impossible to buy a taco in America. A bioengineered corn seed named Starlink made it into the food supply and was quickly deemed unsafe and not fit for human consumption. The corn had made it so deep into the food supply that anything made with it was pulled from the shelves and millers nationwide had to stop milling and empty any silo that could possibly have had Starlink in it. To this day labs check each load of corn delivered to a processor for traces of Starlink corn. 

 

The quality of the seed determines the quality of the product you grow. Choose wisely.

 

The Future of Food is a good documentary to watch concerning this issue. The length is around 1 hour and 30 minutes, but it’s well worth the time spent.

 

After you watch the documentary the timeline following will make more sense. Please take time to watch it and then enjoy your backyard garden.

 TIMELINE

• 1901 - Ishiwata Shigetane discovers that the cause of a disease outbreak in silkworms is a new species of bacteria, later called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt.
• 1905 - Sir Roland Biffen shows that the ability of wheat to resist infection with a fungus is genetically inherited.
• 1907 - Erwin Smith and C. O. Townsend discover that the cause of crown galls is a bacterium called Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
• 1930 - In the 1930s, plant breeders notice that plants infected with a mild strain of a virus are protected from infection with a more destructive strain.
• 1938 - The first commercial insecticide that contains Bt hits the market.
• 1947 - Armin Braun shows that A. tumefaciens introduces a factor into plant cells that permanently transforms them into tumor cells.
• 1950 - In the 1950s, studies show that proteins produced by Bt bacteria kill insects.
• 1972 - Ernest Jaworski reports that glyphosate herbicides work by inhibiting a critical biochemical pathway in plants.
• 1974 - Jeff Schell and Marc Van Montagu discover that a circular strand of DNA (a plasmid) carried by A. tumefaciens transforms plant cells into tumor cells.
• 1977 - Eugene Nester, Milton Gordon, and Mary-Dell Chilton show that genes on the A. tumefaciens plasmid are transferred into infected plant cells.
• 1981 - Helen Whiteley and Ernest Schnepf, at the University of Washington, clone a Bt toxin gene.
• 1983 - Jeff Schell and Marc Van Montagu, Mary-Dell Chilton and colleagues, and scientists at Monsanto introduce genes into plants by using A. tumefaciens plasmid vectors.
• 1986 - Roger Beachy shows that plants bioengineered to produce a viral coat protein are protected from infection with the virus.
• 1990 - Field trials show that Bt cotton strains resist bollworm and budworm.
• 1996 - Genetically engineered virus-resistant squash seeds hit the market.
• 1996 - Bt cotton hits the market.
• 1996 - Herbicide-resistant strains of soybeans, cotton, canola, and corn reach the market.

 

The Next One in the Nest

by Nancy Love Robertson

I love Oklahoma City. I really do. I am a life-long resident and have watched our community ebb and flow over the span of my 53-year lifetime.

In my life, it seems we’ve ebbed more than we flowed for so long, and I, like many of us, experienced discomfort when people from other parts of the U.S. would grimace when I’d tell them where home was.

Today, however, I sing a different tune. I defend my hometown with the fierceness of a momma lion. I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished over the past 15 years or so.

As a community, we invested in ourselves and made the first MAPS happen in 1992. We marveled at our pretty new ballpark, and applauded when we stepped into the Civic Center, Downtown Library and Cox Convention Center for the first time. It all looked good and making progress FELT good.

We the people stood tall on April 19, 1995 and survived the Oklahoma City bombing with dignity and compassion. The whole world watched us in awe, and through the profound sadness of that time, we found our voice as a community with heart.

The momentum of the 1990s propelled us to further our city’s promise when we took a stand to advance public education in our city in 2001. We made a down payment toward our future by telling children in our town that they mattered when we passed MAPS for KIDS in November of that year. “Good for us,” I thought at the time. “I’m proud of you, Oklahoma City!”

So, that’s our community basket of golden eggs we laid over the past 15 years. And, to paraphrase a Joni Mitchell line from For the Roses, “Who’s to know if the next one in the nest will glitter for us so?”

Don’t mistake my question as doubt or as a complaint. That’s not my intention at all. On the contrary, I have an idea on how we can produce another golden egg that will sparkle for our city long into the future.

Thankfully, Oklahoma City as a micro-society is finally beginning the dialogue of what the pressing environmental issues of the day mean to our way of life. Don’t forget, we used to pride ourselves on being the largest city, in landmass, in the United States. Thankfully, Jacksonville, Florida, now owns that dubious distinction. However, in our quest to “be somebody” back in the 1950s and 1960s, Oklahoma City sold its soul to developers and thus created a scenario that took decades to create. Now, it will take decades to unwind.

For what it’s worth, I am throwing my voice behind my fellow Oklahoma Cityans who’ve been calling us on our BS for the past several years about having one of America’s most livable cities. They’re correct. If we really want to be a livable city then where are the sidewalks? Where is the network of running trails and bike lanes? Nothing spells “l-i-v-a-b-l-e c-i-t-y” more than a community that encourages walking, running and cycling.  So, what have we done to put our collective muscle to work on this issue? First of all, doesn’t it make sense to create a world-class city for the residents who live and work here before we cast our net to the larger world?

Fortunately, we’ve been blessed with the hard work of a few. A case in point: Every year, thousands of us enjoy the fruits of the labor of those dedicated staff members and volunteers who breathe life into the Lake Hefner Trails. I have personally logged many hours and miles running or cycling around that lake. And, as a birder, I truly enjoy the opportunity to connect with nature in such close proximity to my home.

Or, take the mountain bike trails at Lake Stanley Draper. In less than half an hour, my partner, Shelly, and I can be resetting the little computers on our mountain bikes (one of us captures time, the other distance) at the Draper trail head. Generous people give their time and sweat equity to creating and maintaining the patchwork trail system at Draper Lake so folks like Shelly and I can have a getaway that is restorative far beyond the two hours we spend flying through the woods, practicing German and playing like two little kids. For those of you responsible for making that space the oasis that it is, I say, “Thank you.”

I am certain there are many more examples in our city that illustrate my point. All of them can inspire us to do more to make our city livable and sustainable. And, these examples of what could be might be the indicators of the next golden eggs we produce in our nest.

So, how does a grassroots initiative get traction in Oklahoma City? In reality, it starts with civic and business leaders.

Attention please! Mayor Cornett, take note. Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, tune in and pay attention. Your constituents might be onto something here.

How marvelous it would be if the next MAPS project involved a network of sidewalks and cycling/running trails that would be the envy of forward-thinking cities like Portland, Oregon? We’ve had MAPS and MAPS for KIDS. How about MAPS for LIFE (Living in Full Enjoyment)? Like two of the other three MAPS projects, (MAPS for Millionaires was a step backwards) this MAPS project, Living in Full Enjoyment…of our community, of our healthy bodies, of our scenic beauty (our sunsets have been known to take one’s breath away) and of each other…has something in it for everyone in our community. I also like the metaphor of a network or web of life for our city. What a gift to be connected to people and places, via a bike trail, to parts of town that are off of our beaten paths. How awesome it would be to figuratively stumble onto a celebration of a culture that’s different, while running along a trail that connects one part of town with another.

I like imaging how this could weave together for the good of our community.

In addition to promoting recreation, fitness, a sense of community, sustainability and livability, there’s a pragmatic side to bike lanes, running paths and sidewalks, and it’s called safety. Here’s what I mean, and it begins with an image that’s burned into my mind’s eye that I never want to see again. It’s an image borne from years of unsustainable city planning for our way of life and a visual that would’ve been less painful to see had there been a sidewalk.

Right before Christmas, Shelly and I were driving on May Avenue just north of N.W. 63^rd. It was a freezing cold and blustery Saturday afternoon. Against the curb as close as they could get for safety, was an elderly couple. The man was bundled up in a wheelchair and he had an oxygen tank in his lap.  Behind him a few paces, was an old woman in a car coat, clutching her purse and holding onto what was left of her dignity. In the face of this dangerous situation, both of them appeared stoic. Shelly and I were stunned at the sight, and I am confident that the other motorists who saw it were equally as horrified. There was so much traffic, there wasn’t an opportunity to stop and help them, so we moved our car as far to the left in our right-hand lane to give them as much room as possible under the circumstances. Nothing was in the headlines the next day, so I trust they made it to where they were going.

Now, back to sidewalks. Is this the image we want to project as a city?  Does the scene I’ve just described bespeak a community that’s forward-thinking, sustainable, livable?  For those whose jobs it is to bring commerce and people into our town to expand our tax base, it might be a wise investment of time to take a look at an initiative that has broad implications for the common men and women in our city. MAPS for LIFE would not only promote a healthy lifestyle for our community, therefore enhancing the quality of life for everyone. It could also say to residents and ultimately the rest of the country that we are doing our part to be sustainable and leave a smaller footprint as a city. While this utopian network of sidewalks and trails isn’t the light rail system many of us dream will someday connect our suburbs with the city center, it is likely to come into being more quickly and for less money. Yet the long-term benefits would be far-reaching. 

What about the next golden egg? MAPS for LIFE could be the next one in our community nest that could glitter for us so. 

A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings, And...

by The Madfarmer

I was thinking this week (after I planted my 73rd tomato plant) about how small decisions can radically alter the lives of those around us. It was only five short years ago that my wife and I lived in a small patio home in OKC, and I had never grown any type of vegetation on purpose. But a casual interaction with a friend of mine changed the course of my life forever. My friend lives in Houston, and he had planted a 6' x 5' salsa garden. I think he had two tomato plants, a four foot row of onions, some cilantro, and a jalapeno pepper plant. I thought it would be fun to try something similar. So I went back to our 20' x 20' yard in the suburbs, removed a little sod, and planted a tomato plant. One little tomato plant was all I needed to fall head over heels in love with gardening. Now you can't keep me out of the garden, but just a few years ago I knew nothing.

I tell this story because we never know what will become of the seeds we plant in the lives of others. Small conversations may be the impetus one needs to begin a new course on life. A simple comment about how you choose not to use paper napkins just might be all it takes to spur your entire office into a way of life which produces less waste. Offering a neighbor a free pepper plant could irrevocably alter their life. Offer a friend a book, or better yet encourage your existing book club to read something by Wendell Berry or Barbara Kingsolver.  We all have stories such as this. Someone around us encouraged us to view the world through green eyes, or to plant that first plant, or to start buying organic food. And now we will never be the same.

The Bastardization of Green

by Lindsay Vidrine

 

Do you remember when green was just a color? It was taught to children as a middle initial in the ROY G. BIV spectrum, and Kermit the Frog innocently sang about the trials and tribulations of being green. 

 

The word green has had quite a linguistic run. A Wikipedia search reveals some of the emotional, cultural and political definitions green has carried over the years in addition to being a color:

 

The word green is closely related to the Old English verb growan, “to grow.” It is used to describe plants or the ocean. Sometimes it can also describe someone who is inexperienced, jealous, or sick. In America, green is a slang term for money, among other things. Several colloquialisms have derived from these meanings, such as “green around the gills,” a phrase used to describe a person who looks ill.

 

It’s amazing how one five letter word can convey everything from envy to cash to plants and vegetables to sustainability. Even our blog name contributes to these semantics.

 

On top of all of that, green has also become an entire movement. So does this word still hold value, or is it now diluted, commercialized branding jargon? Just Google the term green washing and you’ll find 11 million hits (in only .19 seconds by the way).

 

All of these definitions don’t even begin to delve into the fact that individuals also have their own perceptions and associations with the words like green, as well as others. If someone or something is described as green, conservative, liberal, granola, right- or left-wing, peak oil or so on, you immediately bring your own associations into your understanding however accurate they may or may not be.

 

So as a group interested in sustainability and the Green Movement, how do we overcome this word pollution while staying on message and not alienating anyone?

 

Kermit may have been right all along. It’s not easy being green, but if the conservative town of Greensburg, KS can do it, why can’t we? Their panel at the OSN Annual Conference discussed that when the idea of rebuilding sustainably came up it wasn’t politically charged. It was about human preservation and was deeply rooted in their agricultural values and connection to the land that has spanned many generations.

 

That got me interested in learning about how others view sustainability, regardless of our differences, political, geographical, financial, cultural, etc. I came across these interesting articles and blogs:

 

How to Create Change in a Conservative Culture
 
Liberal Isn't a Dirty Word; "conservative" Isn't Either
 
Terra Rossa – Where Conservatives Consider a New Energy Future
 
A Perspective on Earth Day from a green Christian conservative
 

One take away I had was that once you get past some of the alarmism and trigger words, both liberals and conservatives may actually share similar views on animal rights, energy issues and (dare I say) climate change.

 

So whether the challenge is keeping value in the words green and sustainability or learning how to best communicate to those on the opposite side of the aisle, it’s important that we think about our words and communication methods.

 

It may be the difference between change coming at a glacial pace or a groundswell.