On July 30, 2012, Hawthorne Valley Association marked the 40th anniversary of working the soil of agriculture on its land in the Hudson Valley of New York. In all that time it has been Hawthorne Valley’s mission to inspire by example social and cultural renewal through the integration of education, agriculture, and the arts. The significance of place and the ability to … [Read more...]
A GMO is a GMO is a GMO
Quick: name the one issue about which Democrats, Republicans and even Independents all agree. No, not alpaca farms. Yes, I know everyone would like to have one, and yes, baby alpacas are cuter than the dickens. Try again. What’s that? Everybody agrees genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that food processing companies put on our kitchen tables should be labeled? Is that … [Read more...]
Fruit pickin’
The idea of eating locally and in-season just makes sense. Foods that grow locally are produced in the very same environment in which we're nested. Thus it’s quite likely that they contain the essential micro-nutrients which, quite naturally, work well for us. The “in-season” concept, in fact, makes more and more sense when we start to really study nature. Think about … [Read more...]
A solar flair
Nietzsche said that we were all Hyperboreans. I’d say that if our culture were any more alienated from Nature, he’d have been better advised to call us all extraterrestrials. We are, frankly, so removed from Nature that it’s hard to take seriously our claim to be a vital part of the planet. More worrisome is the fact that most people don’t even recognize the alienation. If … [Read more...]
America’s most famous farmer puts America over his knee
It's not only Sarah Palin who thinks that America is the world's essential nation because Americans are exceptionally worthy. All too many of us Yanks continue to believe that we're the smartest, hardest working and most self-reliant people on Earth. And that God or evolution or just history has rewarded us with superpower status and super riches because we deserve it. Well, … [Read more...]