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

Humane Slaughter Houses

This line at the end of the piece really made me think “I’d rather say low-stress, painless slaughter"

Rebecca Marx
06.09.09 Gourmet.com
hen I first started out, the handling of animals was atrocious. It was non-stop electric prods,” says Temple Grandin, reflecting on the nearly four decades she has spent designing humane slaughterhouses for the meat industry. When Grandin began her work in the early 1970s, she did it from the cow’s perspective, climbing into processing chutes to identify the shadows, reflections, and bright lights that scared the animals and made them balk. Grandin, who recently published her sixth book, Animals Make Us Human, has worked with processing plants big and small and has witnessed nightmarish conditions. Today, she’s most excited about the video auditing system she created that allows independent third parties to monitor slaughterhouses at any time over the Internet: Cargill recently announced it would install the system in all of its plants. “I worked on it for an entire year,” Grandin says. “We should have it running in seven or eight beef plants by the end of the year.”

While plenty of people pay attention to the question of what it means to raise an animal humanely, far fewer stop to consider the notion—and the ostensible paradox—of humane slaughter. Words like “pastured,” “grass-fed,” and “free-range” are now synonymous with quality meat; they carry a potent if symbolic meaning that has eased many a consumer’s conscience and driven many a marketing campaign. But the idea of how an animal meets its ultimate fate is usually ignored—until, of course, we see YouTube videos of sick cows being hauled to their deaths on bulldozers.

“My perspective of what is humane is broader than how you harvest a cow. It’s how we treat humans, too,” says Bev Eggleston, the founder of EcoFriendly Foods. Eggleston processes animals in the small, multi-species plant he built in rural Virginia almost ten years ago, inspired in part by Grandin’s methods. Though his sustainable meat and poultry have attained a cult-like following among chefs and home cooks alike, the reality of producing it is far from glamorous.

Because of his plant’s small size (it employs 15 laborers), his unwavering conviction that “the animal needs to be respected,” and his concern for his workers’ welfare, Eggleston’s operation is an expensive and relatively inefficient one. Whereas the conventional meat industry (which he refers to as “my competition”) may process 130 chickens a minute, Eggleston and his workers process about 400 a day, “the least you can do and still afford to turn on the equipment and pay everyone.” Last year, he says, they were doing about 800 a day, but the workers were exhausted after lunch. “Humane treatment of labor is an economic concern,” he says. To treat animals fairly, he needs to treat his workers fairly. “You have to consider the human aspects of what it takes to do this job. My laborers are just trying to get a paycheck,” Eggleston admits, “but they know I’m asking them to be compassionate and sensitive.”

CLICK HERE to read entire piece

The Gourmet Magazine Q + A: Robert Kenner (Director of Food, Inc.)

In his new film, Food, Inc., producer/director Robert Kenner teams up with Eric Schlosser (co-producer) to examine the impact of the industrialized food system on consumer health, American farmers, workers’ safety, and the environment. Gourmet web editor Christy Harrison spoke with Kenner about the reaction his film has been getting at nationwide screenings—and about how “veggie libel laws” have silenced critics of the food industry, why travel is horrible, and who controls America’s agriculture schools.

Christy Harrison: I saw your film at the Brooklyn Based screening last week; at the Q&A afterwards, you discussed a story line about strawberry farming that didn’t end up in the film. I’m interested to hear more about that.

Robert Kenner: That was one of about 300 stories we spent a lot of time on. We were pursuing people who design hazmat suits [for strawberry growers]. These growers have to be covered head to foot, and it looks like they’re walking on the moon. There was another story about someone who designs tomatoes that will last six months longer than the tomatoes we have now; they’re also a little more square so they can be packed better. We’ve forgotten taste—we now are so much more used to things just being there all season long, whether they have any taste or not.

And I almost filmed something about flavor factories. A woman [who worked at one such factory] was telling me that when they design flavors today, kids don’t even want them to taste like fruit anymore. They’re getting away from imitating real flavors and just creating absolutely artificial flavors. We don’t even want imitation-real anymore.

I also found somebody who does MRI scans on children—they show them commercials and study their brain patterns so that [the advertisers] can really refine their approach to selling. They understand that people develop their eating habits at a very young age, and they’re basically looking to hook them.

CH: So how do you get people unhooked, especially if the industry starts targeting kids even more precisely?

RK: It’s a hard drug to come off of. Cigarettes were hard to kick; food is maybe even harder. Sixty-four percent of Americans are either overweight or obese—I feel like I’m becoming one of them since I’ve been traveling. Travel, for me, is horrible food-wise.

CLICK HERE for rest of Interview

Lettuce From the Garden, With Worms

Op-Ed Columnist
Lettuce From the Garden, With Worms
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: June 20, 2009

Growing up on a farm near Yamhill, Ore., I quickly learned to appreciate the difference between fresh, home-grown foods and the commercial versions in the supermarket.

Store-bought lettuce was always lush, green and pristine, and thus vastly preferable to lettuce from my Mom’s vegetable garden (organic before we called it that). Her lettuce kept me on my toes, because a caterpillar might come crawling out of my salad.

We endured endless elk and venison — my Dad is still hunting at age 90 — or ate beef from steers raised on our own pasture, but “grass-fed” had no allure for me. I longed for delicious, wholesome food that my friends in town ate. Like hot dogs.

Over the years, though, I’ve become nostalgic for an occasional bug in my salad, for an apple that feels as if it were designed by God rather than by a committee. More broadly, it has become clear that the same factors that impelled me toward factory-produced meat and vegetables — cheap, predictable food — also resulted in a profoundly unhealthy American diet.

I’ve often criticized America’s health care system, and I fervently hope that we’re going to see a public insurance option this year. But one reason for our health problems is our industrialized agriculture system, and that should be under scrutiny as well.

A terrific new documentary, “Food, Inc.,” playing in cinemas nationwide, offers a powerful and largely persuasive diagnosis of American agriculture. Go see it, but be warned that you may not want to eat for a week afterward.

(It was particularly unnerving to see leftover animal bits washed over with ammonia and ground into “hamburger filler.” If you happen to be eating a hamburger as you read this, I apologize.)

“The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000,” Michael Pollan, the food writer, declares in the film.

CLICK HERE for complete article

Truck Farm

TRUCK FARM - Episode 1 from Wicked Delicate Films on Vimeo.

You can vote to change the system..three times a day!

Reading List: http://bit.ly/GRsqf

What Monsanto is saying about Food, Inc.

CLICK HERE to read more

Monsanto's response to Food, Inc

"The film, Food. Inc, suggests the food supply is dominated by corporate farms. In fact, the 2007 edition of USDA Structure and Finances of U.S. Farms: Family Farm Report, found that 98% of farms in the U.S. are family owned and operated. The truth is thousands of family farmers work hard every day on their family farms to bring us the food on our tables."

My Twiter conversation about Food, Inc.

From Me to NKristof
@nytimeskristof Awesome piece in todays paper. Thank you! I am trying to get the word out about how some/most chickens are raised. Awful.

Then I ReTweeted @jambutter
RT @RobertKenner we found out abt tradeshow Monsanto dnt agree 2 grant interview & we wr denied press credentials #foodinc (via @Jambutter)

Response from @agchatter
@AgChatter I have knowledge about the press credential claim. Be careful in taking everything as the gospel. #foodinc

@AgChatter Properly credentialed media are admitted to the trade show they reference every year. From farm broadcasters to AP, Reuters

From me to @agchatter
@AgChatter hard to know which "credible" source is more "credible" than another. I will keep doing my best to figure out. Thanks!

@agchatter to me
@HappyChickens I would think that it's silly to think that any company who expects to be roasted in a film would agree to an interview.

From me to AgChatter
@AgChatter If it is all good why not respond? I think it implies they are hiding something. As my mom says "this is a time of transparency"

From @agchatter to me
@HappyChickens Anyway, I'm happy you're interested and looking for information. Think critically about all the sources of information!

@happychickens I think http://www.monsanto.com/foodinc/ addresses your ? about their viewpoint on the film.


Who is @agchatter " I dont work for Monsanto but in my job I spend time with all major ag biz in Illinois, and small one's too."


HMMM. Have to say I read the entire Monsanto response to Food, Inc. Why does my gut tell me it doesn't feel right. It is all about money and "developing nutritious, and affordable food"...Weird idea for farmers to "develop food". No doubt the world needs to eat, but this feels odd. Maybe it is just me. Need to do more research. Thank you @Agchatter/@agchick for challenging me.

New Awesome Food Movies

THE GREENHORNS

FOOD INC

FRESH, the movie

FOOD FIGHT

The End of the Line - A movie about overfishing
E A R T H L I N G S - VERY HARSH

Please support MR. Clucky

"The city of Miami is currently trying to evict him. The story made all the major morning news programs this week and letters of support for Mr. Clucky are pouring in from all over the world. Chickens rule!!" - from my mom's friend Paula K who's friend is the owner of Mr. Clucky.

CLICK HERE

I had a great time with my birds at the market

If you'd like FREE RANGE KIDS (Red) I can send to you!

I have Adult Mediums and Adult Smalls and would be happy to send them to you. They are 20 each and the shipping would be about 5 dollars.

ALL of the money goes to goal I have which is to raise $500 for Heifer International flocks of chickens. "With gifts of livestock and training, Heifer International has helped more than 7 million families move closer to self-reliance. Chickens boost family income and nutrition worldwide, providing a steady supplly of protein-rich eggs. A single egg provides the dily requirement for a 3 year old child"

Opening day at the Market. Thank you all for coming out in the rain.

Great photo of our barn ducks from Nbpt_today.com

10 am Sunday morning @The Tannery, 01950

More info

Local Newspaper article

NEWBURYPORT FARMERS MARKET
"At another kid-friendly booth, 12-year-old Newburyport resident Orren Fox will share his experience raising unusual chickens and the benefits of eating eggs from grass-fed hens. Some of Orren's birds will join him at the market. He also plans to sell "Free Range Kid" T-shirts to raise money for Heifer International, a charity that supports the nutritional and economic importance of chicken and eggs in Tanzania."

Wow, I hope I do ok...

Free Range Kids T-shirts for sale @ cafe press

Come visit my store on CafePress!

I am selling Free Range Kid t-shirts to raise money for flocks of chickens for kids in Tanzania (where I visited).

Nature's Harmony Farm

In the spirit of renewal, we have converted abandoned cotton trailers into eggmobiles and use these vehicles to house our layers and follow the cows in their rotation. The eggmobile acts as a portable henhouse and the laying hens free range from it, eating bugs and scratching through cattle droppings to sanitize the pasture just like birds in nature that always follow herbivores as biological cleansers. Cows always stay a few days ahead of the chickens, mowing the grass down and allowing the chickens to clean up.

A Farmer, His 'Tribe' And The Web That Brings Them Together

From NPR
By Krishnadev Calamur

In my moments of grandeur, I wish I had my own farm where I could connect with Mother Nature. I suspect many people feel the same way, but few have the courage to do it.

Two people who did are Tim and Liz Young, who run Nature's Harmony , a pasture-based, local-market sustainable farm, in Georgia.

After reading about them in The New York Times, I wondered how a farm in rural Georgia connects with a customer base. Sure, Michael Pollan has made farmers markets and community-supported agriculture popular, but what does a business -- and a farm is a business, after all -- do to keep it customers coming back.

So I e-mailed (old-fashioned, I know) Tim Young and asked him.

"While farm life is thought of as rural, remote and antiquated, technology makes it easy to reach out and connect with like-minded people," Young replied.

He says social media makes it easy for people to find their "tribes."

He says his "tribe" comprises people interested in safe, local food. The farm uses blogging extensively to reach out to the group.

"Doing so allows customers, other farmers and interested parties to comment, criticize, question and share their own experiences in ways that stimulate conversation, learning and passion," Young writes.

He says the farm's blog draws more than 12,000 unique visitors per month and helps them not only build a following of products, but also the Youngs' beliefs and values.

They may be using sustainable methods to farm, but old-fashioned they are not.

"The agricultural scene is a changing," Young writes, "as I have spent many a day on my tractor, iPhone in hand, responding to emails or blog comments."

Please come to the Farmer's Market - OPEINING DAY Sunday 14

Farmers' Market Opening Day
Sunday June 14th
10:00 - 2:00 rain or shine
Tannery Marketplace, Newburyport MA

• Fruits and Veggies farmed locally
• Savory and Sweet goodies to eat
• Artisanal hand made crafts

The farmer’s market is every Sunday,
June 14th – October 25th

Factory Egg Production - From FarmSanctuary

The Welfare of Hens in Battery Cages:
A Summary of the Scientific Evidence
A Farm Sanctuary Report

"After reviewing the scientific evidence relating to the welfare of hens in battery cages, Baxter (1994) concluded that hens housed in this way experience both chronic and acute suffering, as well as other threats to their welfare. The cage inhibits the performance of virtually all aspects of hen behavior (Rollin, 1995, p.120) due to the severe confinement and barrenness of the environment"

READ entire article here
Click here to see video

Truth Behind Labels - from FarmSanctuary

Cramped crates aren’t natural living conditions for calves and sows. Cows and pigs need fresh air, sunlight and open space to engage in natural behaviors such as grazing and rooting for food, taking mud baths, and raising their young. Trotting through a field and stretching one’s legs are natural too, aren’t they?

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently allowed companies to slap a “naturally raised” label on meat and meat products that come from animals whose upbringing was far from natural. Raising animals in intensive confinement on factory farms, with no access to sunshine or fresh air is that natural? We say no! Furthermore, such a label misleads the public and exploits consumer trust in advertising and packaging claims and in government regulation of agriculture.

Let the USDA know you won’t stand for such deceptive claims. Tell them their “naturally raised” label is not natural!

Sign the petition, today!

Point Reyes workshop aims to put a chicken in every backyard - Contra Costa Times

It took some convincing on her daughter's part before Alexandra Matthews agreed to allow chickens in her Mill Valley backyard.

"I had my doubts," said Matthews, who has since helped both her daughters raise chickens as part of a 4-H project. "But my daughter is a total chicken expert. The chickens they chose - silkies - are not great egg-layers, but they're great pets.

"I'm crazy about chickens now," Matthews said.

Matthews was one of about 80 poultry lovers who attended Thursday's Backyard Chicken Workshop at Toby's Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station. The event, sponsored by the University of California Cooperative Extension in Novato, served as a primer for the growing number of families in Marin and elsewhere interested in welcoming fowl into their homes.

MORE of the article

Woman's Old Advice Relevant to a New Set of Chicken Farmers - from Kitsapsun News

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND —

Shortly before her death, longtime islander Minnie Rose Lovgreen confided to a friend at her bedside that she'd long wanted pass on her recipe for raising chickens.

Stored in her head were 60 years' worth of observations and know-how about how to care for brooding hens, raise baby chicks, build coops, promote quality egg production and calm irate roosters.

Lovgreen's friend Nancy Rekow was quick with a solution and a tape recorder.

"Minnie was always talking about writing a book about chickens, but she was always running around doing things," Rekow said. "I said, 'OK Minnie, we're going to do your book.' So, while she laid there in the hospital bed, we talked about all things chicken."

MORE of story