Global Greenie

Last night we attended a potluck dinner which consisted of dishes “made, picked, grown, foraged, caught, etc. by” guests. On Saturday we traveled out to Sherwood Orchards to pick filberts (aka hazelnuts) and plums. A farm cat greeted us, but not before finishing off everything but the tail of a mouse. Oddly, the cat itself had no tail.

I’ll post about the party itself soon.

This weekend is the return of the North American Organic Brewers Festival.  You’ll recall that I attended two days last year.  It’s free to get in, but if you want to buy the compostable tasting glass, you can take $1 off the $6 fee by either showing your validated Max ticket or by donating three canned goods (organic please).  This is the stop you’ll want to use for the Max.  If you’re in Portland and you’d like to meet up with me and some other friends, check my Facebook page over the next couple of days.  I’ll post my cell number in my status when I’m at the fest.  Give me a call — I’d love to meet you.

North American Organic Brewers Festival, 2008 from Alison Grayson on Vimeo.

So far this year, we’ve visited the King, Beaverton, and Hollywood Farmers’ Markets in the Portland, Oregon metro area.  Last weekend was our first trip to Hollywood in quite a long time.  Even though it’s fairly close to our house, we pretty much quit going because it’s like a dog park with veggies.  Last week they decided to make two hours (the two worst hours — 8 to 10) dog free.  It’s not enough to make me want to return.  Sorry, but dogs don’t belong at the farmers’ markets.  You’re barely paying attention to your kids and meanwhile your dog’s in a fight and/or crotch sniffing contest and elderly people are tripping over the leashes.  But before I leave the Hollywood forever — at least til they get with the dogless program — I’ll plug two vendors.

Buns on the Run serves up homemade sausages.  I’ve never eaten there, as I don’t consume chicken or pork.  My wife, Kathleen,  swears by the chicken ones and they only went up a modest twenty-five cents this year.  Meanwhile, TOK, a friend affectionatley known as The Other Kathleen, writes at Good Stuff Northwest about Blooming Goodies.  But TOK didn’t mention my big find last weekend: they have morning glory (the Asian variety).  I didn’t buy any from them, because I’d recently found it at a Thai grocery and cooked it up, but I did get pea shoots.  The morning glory is the slender plant in this photo I took at the Blooming Goodies booth last weekend.  I wonder what those colorful leaves to the left taste like?

To locate other Farmers’ Markets in the Portland area, visit the EcoMetro website.  They produce the Chinook Book, which is sort of an Entertainment Book for people with standards.  I picked up three this year: two I purchased and one that EcoMetro generously sent to me.

I was chatting with Andy from Rooftop Brew the other morning and told him my hop plant was covered with aphids this year. Turns out he had just released some ladybugs on his plant. Mine is swarming with larvae that arrived by themselves (well, probably with help from a mom who laid the eggs). If you’ve never known what ladybug babies look like, I got a few good shots. Andy describes them as alligator-like.

This morning I popped outside to check on their progress as they devour the aphids and noticed two unusual ones. I think they’re albino.  Here’s one of ‘em, along with a “larva of color” in the background.

My handmade wood worm bin rotted through fairly quickly, so I’ve reverted to a plastic bin system again. And now I’ve become a vermiculture model. Yes, those are my legs, hands, and worms in five of the photos. My buddy and neighbor, Will, is the founder of Grow and Make.

Portland has a new Farmers’ Market and it’s practically down the street from me!  We rounded up our next-door neighbors to go on the opening day.  Two other sets of neighbors from across the street got there before us.  And it’s good they did because the market was such a success that most of the produce was gone by the time we arrived.

Still, the four of us managed to pick up rapini, chilies, clams, pears, and some homemade ice cream sandwiches.  Kingsley and I had our eyes on wild-caught salmon and talked to the Native American vendor for awhile.  But then our wives reminded us that we already had some salmon in our respective homes.  So next time I’m going to buy a whole fish from the fellow and grill it.

The King Market is nice, not just for the proximity (and the noticeable diversity compared to — say — the Hollywood Market), but also because many of the vendors are favorites from the other markets.  I got my clams at good old Linda Brand.  A full list of vendors is available at the official Portland Farmers’ Market site.

If you’re in Portland, check out the King Market some Sunday morning this season.  Here’s the map.

View Larger Map

I hope you got a chance to do something for Earth Day. My employer had a number of cool activities going on, but I opted for the tour of the vermiculture program. Eventually the worm bins will process about 50 pounds of scraps from the cafeteria per day!

This is just one of the bins. Josh and his team have already built several from recycled wood. He thinks they’ll switch to plastic, though. Our climate is not suited for wood bins (as I recently found with my own, which I’ll describe in a future post).

Another cool thing at my campus is that these bins are located within the Learning Garden and any group can apply for a plot or get involved in some way. I’m a librarian and trying to think of a library-themed spot or some way to get the library involved. Do you have any ideas?

I have an interesting new group of friends here in Portland.  We share a desire to do some good in the world, or — at least — in our city.  We have some fun social outings, like bowling (which I’d done maybe twice in my life), and we’re going to volunteer to do something together once a month.  On Saturday, we all became temporary bike wrench monkeys at the Community Cycling Center.

That’s me with one of the bikes we cleaned, greased, de-rusted, and prepped for one of the CCC’s main missions: to give bikes to needy kids.  Looks brand new, doesn’t it?

And while cleaning was somewhat satisfying, I got a bigger thrill out of destroying kiddie bikes.  Some of the donations are too beat out to clean up, so we learned to deconstruct them, saving parts like tires, rims, and inner tubes.  We also spared a few chains, seats, horns, etc. from the landfills.

If you’re in the Portland area, and would like to volunteer, check out the opportunities.  And there are plenty of other ways to support if you don’t like to get dirty.

I’ve had mason bee houses for many years now and the adults have always, without fail, emerged by this time of year, and usually by the end of March.  I worry that our bizarre winter weather in Portland killed them.  In addition, I haven’t seen any new ones (from somewhere outside of my yard) gravitate to any of my empty homes.  Where are the mason bees this year?  Have you seen them?

When Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal criticized spending for volcano monitoring, those of you outside of the Pacific Northwest might have nodded in agreement.  In this economic climate, it’s easy to forget the cost of natural disasters.  How would Jindal like it if someone took away hurricane monitoring?

I just spent a long weekend in and around New Orleans, my second time there since Katrina, and probably my 35th to 40th visit in my life.  My mom’s from NOLA and her whole side of the family still has deep roots there.  If there’s another storm, should they be expected to leave forever?  To never rebuild?

Those are tough questions.  Seattle is close enough to Mt. Ranier that the USGS has produced a four-page document entitled Mount Rainier—Living Safely With a Volcano in Your Backyard (click for .pdf)  And on a (rare) clear day, I can see the active Mt. St. Helens from here within Portland city limits.

On Friday, we were to attend my cousin’s wedding, but my wife and I rushed down to Barataria Preserve in Jean Lafitte National Park — one of our favorite places in southern Louisiana.  It flooded since the last time we were there — due to Hurricane Ike.  I was told that many of the wild irises and other plants died from salt water/storm surge, but I have to say, the area looks pretty good to me.

I saw no fewer than five snakes, a turtle, some frogs, and a few birds in less than an hour.  I do recall hundreds of armadillos last time, and I didn’t see any, but I think they weren’t a native species anyway.  Perhaps the hurricane did them in, but it’s more likely that they were eradicated in some formal program.

If you’ve never been in a bayou, watch this video.  It’s fun to listen to a few seconds of the sound from the airboat, but then you might want to mute the sound and just watch.

Pretend you live there, that your livelihood comes from that water, and that you either can’t afford or aren’t allowed to rebuild.  Pretend your family moved there hundreds of years ago and that they still speak a form of French today.  Where will you go?