High temps in NY July 23, 2011 from Weather.com

by Mike Gordon and Heather Flournoy

Our neighbors are in trouble, and we can help. Imagine a heat index of 112 in NYC, humid, and no air conditioning, no fans, no electricity.

Last night’s headlines from The Daily Westchester:

• 20,000 people in NYC without power
• 1,700 in Westchester as of 10:30 pm

Con Edison  is urging customers to keep their energy usage to minimum as the record-setting temperatures placed an extra burden on the power grid.

Together we can stop the drain on the grid!

On a hot day, go to the movies, swim in a pool, starting at 11AM isolate your air-conditioning to one room and read a book, unplug everything.

Dishwashers and laundry? Do it after mid-night, or don’t do it at all!

Air conditioning? Counter-intuitively, turn it way up tonight! It’ll allow you to coast a bit more in the morning.

Therefore we’re asking you this: Let’s turn of EVERYTHING and ask our neighbors and friends to do the same…

• Unplug electronics.
• Turn off AC when not in house. It is NOT true that running it continuously saves electricity! Again, run it on high over-night; your house will coast for a bit longer when you turn it off at 11 AM.
• Turn off pool pumps
• Turn off lights
• Turn off the hot water heater during the day.

Large consumers are being paid to turn off what they can; we will volunteer it.

Let’s keep in mind that this is not a sustainable approach and socially we can better prepare for this in the future. If we had a micro-grid now, our homes would be remotely controlled: left unplugged all day until twenty minutes before we came home, and then cooled for our entry. We’d be paid for that control, just as large consumers are.

More about the Smart Grid

More about Mike Gordon and Joule Assets

photo by Anna Flournoy

These last few weeks various people in my family have suffered from a highly contagious flu with symptoms ranging from high fever, intense sore throat, joint aches, neck pain, swollen glands, cough and severe headache, to nausea, exhaustion and progression to bronchitis.

Each of us–my brother, his wife, their baby, my mother, my daughter and myself–took different approaches, including the all-natural way, and resorting to antibiotics for the progressive infections and cold medicines.

Here is my problem with the cold medicines: We are sick: infectious, and low immunity. We take a cold medicine that makes us able to go out and continue working in a public place, doing double damage: spreading the virus plus exposing ourselves to further immune onslaught. Have the flu? Take it seriously and don’t spread it and don’t complicate it.

I wanted to share some of my own recipes for food and drink I found soothing to my throat, palatable and energizing over the last few days. My hope is that it might help a couple of others heal quicker, or provide some relief of symptoms naturally. There are plenty of books and natural doc’s who can help you with your protocol for recovery. I’ll link to one below.

Part of most Doc’s advice is to rest and hydrate. But that blasted sore throat made it painful to swallow any water or liquids. I finally came up with a tea I made regularly that soothed my throat, was warm and comforting: Rooibos-Coconut Tea. I figured it gave me some nutrition. I alternated this with Traditional Medicinals Throat Coat with Echinacea about every 2 hours.

WARM ROOIBOS-COCONUT TEA
ingredients
Filtered water*

• 1 rooibos tea bag
• 1 dash cinnamon
• 1 dash allspice
• 1 teaspoon raw local honey
• 1 Tablespoon coconut milk (canned organic)

Boil filtered tea water, fill mug 3/4 full with water and drop in tea bag. Let stand for 3 minutes. Remove bag. Add spices. Mix in honey until melted. Stir in coconut milk solids until melted.

This drink tastes great, plus is creamy with no dairy. Dairy causes congestion and is not suggested during an flu or cold.
*make sure water is non-chlorinated

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With the sore throat, it was difficult to swallow foods, but I was craving creamy soup. I was also low on energy so needed something very simple to make. Necessity is a great motivator! (required equipment: pot, handheld immersion blender, knife and cutting board.

CREAMY CAULIFLOWER SOUP    | dairy, gluten, and meat free
organic ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower
• 1 small onion
• 1 shallot
• 1 half bunch parsley
• 3 stalks celery
• 5 small potatoes
• Sea salt
• dash of cayenne or chili

Heat 6 cups filtered water. Begin rough chopping onions, shallots, celery and drop in hot water. Cover, cooking on low. Rough chop the cauliflower, parsley, and quarter the potatoes. Drop in the water. Cover. Cook on low until the potatoes are soft. (about 45 minutes)

Remove from heat for 10 minutes. Blend with immersion blender until creamy (about 1 minute). Add a few drops of cold-pressed virgin olive oil to top of each bowl. Serve.

Don’t have an immersion blender? I recommend this stainless steel KitchenAid handheld blender. I use it at least 4x per week to make quick soups, salad dressings and fresh mayonnaise.

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It is a serious concern of mine that we all learn how to bolster our immune systems, as well as modify our habits, to be able to deal with the increasing numbers of flus and viruses we will be exposed to over the coming years. You can read more about it in Dr. JE Williams book Viral Immunity.
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Keeping it local: I found all ingredients for the soup at 2 places: potatoes, onions, shallot, parsley: Gossett’s Farmer’s Market in South Salem. Everything else I found at Mrs. Green’s in Katonah, but if you are closer to Ridgefield you get everything at Nature’s Temptations.

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Coming up: Two Meetups:

Sunday: “The Making of a Conservationist: Alex Shoumatoff.“  and

Tuesday: Greens of Early Spring Wild Foods Walk

JOIN THE MAILING LIST TO GET NEWS OF UPCOMING GREEN EVENTS, MEETUPS, ACTIONS and WORKSHOPS

Every Saturday in South Salem, a year-round Farmer’s Market. Weekly events and environmental education, plus a great community experience. Gossett’s Farmer’s Market.

Check out Really Social Strategies, our grass-roots marketing and new media consulting firm.

Connect on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter: @katonahgreen
Join the Katonah Green and Beyond Meetup Group

Heather Flournoy interviewed on PCTV with Sol Skolnick

INFORMING OURSELVES

The information is out there. How do we green our lifestyle? Look online, go to a bookstore, or most imporantly, think it through.

As far as I can tell, the biggest changes come when someone starts questioning what’s in front of them, and decides to educate themselves.

Question what’s in a package or accepted ways of getting things done. So if you watch television, you were probably inadvertantly taught how to clean your house, for instance.

MILES and THE PAPER TOWEL ANALOGY

You follow what you’ve been taught. For some reason it became the norm to use Brawny paper towels for cleaning up spills and even general cleaning. So people have adopted the habit of going to the store, purchasing multi-packs of Brawny towels, using them to clean and tossing them away. But as soon as they stop and consider that those towels came from 4,000 miles away, are made from trees, then oil is consumed in transporting them to a warehouse, then they are trucked to stores, then a person drives to pick them up, then they are tossed. Not to mention the plastic packaging. And repeat. Over and over. This is a consumable. Multiply that by all your neighbors doing the same, and their neighbors and people all over the country. Do some math and figuring. How many paper towels are being used right now? Wow. It’s a pretty needless waste in my book.

And that’s a product with limited ingredients: paper and packaging. Imagine if we educated ourselves on something like shampoo. There are often around 25 ingredients. We’d look into where and how each of these ingredients is produced, how it is shipped, how it is processed, and then how the final mixed product is packaged, how the packaging was created, produced and transported, and how it all gets to us. So how far away it comes from. And what those ingredients really are.

DISPOSAL

Then we add one more thing to this scenario: how it is disposed of. Gone. A lot of people are now conscious of recycling packaging, so perhaps your shampoo bottle is a plastic that can be recyled in your town and you recycle it. But we need to think about the ingredients of those bottles being flushed into our water and soil.

AWARENESS

It’s all a matter of awareness. Education. Behavior change.

I think once we educate ourselves in this way we naturally begin to question everything.

BASIC CHANGES

Now to the basics of what we can do:

I like to break it down into rooms of a house. This makes it feel more manageable we have do-able goals for change. For instance, we can tell ourselves, “This year I’m going to green my kitchen.”

We could focus on the kitchen or the bathroom or the laundry room or even the outside of the house, like switching over to push mowers or converting our lawns to perennials and vegetable gardens.

Let’s start with the kitchen. It will feel more manageable if we break it down. Set ourselves a goal: ‘this year I’m going to green my kitchen’. Give it some time for educating yourself and your family. Deciding what changes to make, getting used to new patterns of behavior, purchasing.

Top 5 things we can do to green our kitchens

1- Food: begin by buying educating yourself about one food category and switching over to buying those foods locally and sustainably grown. Let’s start with Meat. There are lots of regional producers of chicken, beef, pork and lamb. You can find these meats at area farmer’s markets.

For a more thorough education, go meet the farmers. See the property, how they produce, what they feed their animals, how they treat the soil and the water. That’s your water supply. Water connects us.

So that helps about 7 months a year. There are a few year round markets here in Westchester: one in S. Salem, one in White Plains. There is a local foods market in Bedford Hills. Meats can often be ordered from a farmer directly and frozen. Added benefit to greening your meat supply is that the meat will have more flavor, have more CLA (Conjugated linoleic acid) which is a healthful free fatty acid.

And yes, I’m an environmentalist who isn’t saying to become vegetarian.

2- Cleaning chemicals- think before you put any more chemicals down the drain, find out what they are and what they do to our water supply. Start looking into greener alternatives. We have two local manufacturers of green cleaning supplies. The Citrasolv company is right up in Danbury and their products are in all the area health food stores. Sound Earth is in Fishkill, NY. Or get radical and start making your own cleaning agents.

3- Paper: replace your paper towels and napkins with cotton. I find great ones at estate sales! Use cotton rags for cleaning too. Cut up worn or stained towels or cotton sheets.

4- Water reduction. Find ways to clean dishes with less water. This one is a matter of changing habits: don’t leave the water running. Make it a game. How little water can I use to get these dishes clean? Can I capture water to use it for watering plants. I have one friend who captures shower water into a bucket and uses it to flush the toilets. There are levels of how green we get.

5- Lights- replace your lights with LED lights. There are cool LED light strips you can easily install under upper cabinets to illuminate your counter work space. LED’s are much more efficient than compact fluourescents, last longer, and are instant on/off, meaning that you don’t have to wait for them to heat up and you can turn them on and off without concern for wearing out the bulb.

This is just a beginning. Just some ideas for a place to start becoming aware and make small changes that will eventually have a huge collective impact. Keep checking back to this blog for more ideas, and send me your ideas. I love them, and love sharing them.

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COMING UP

An important workshop for people working in nonprofits and community activist groups to have 3 hours with top new media expert, David Mathison. Saturday, October 9th at the Katonah Library. Click for details.

Every Saturday in South Salem, a year-round Farmer’s Market. Weekly events and environmental education, plus a great community experience. Gossett’s Farmer’s Market.

Check out Really Social Strategies, our grass-roots marketing and new media consulting firm.

Connect on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter: @katonahgreen
Join the Katonah Green and Beyond Meetup Group

Mother Earth, painting by Anna Flournoy, 2008

My daughter is 16 and thinking about choosing a career. She is artistic and loves language and philosophy and music, art and writing. But she wants to make a difference, and has been agonizing over how to best accomplish her goals unless she becomes a scientist or doctor (both could help in her goal of teaching people how their environment impacts their health).   In 2008, I heard Andrew Revkin, former New York Times Dot Earth columnist, give a presentation to high-school teachers and staff about the future of the environmental movement.  The talk was interesting, but for me the the last few minutes were the most inspiring.  Mr. Revkin walked away from his PowerPoint presentation and said simply and passionately, “We need everyone.  The environmental movement has lots of scientists. We don’t need more proof that the planet is damaged.  What we need now are politicians to make legislative change; writers and filmmakers to spread the message;  sociologists  to understand what keeps people from changing; marketers to show us how to influence mass change.”

We need people to spread the message.

If you have students passionate about the environment, encourage it. If they aren’t good in math or science, it doesn’t matter. All talents are necessary. We  need everyone.

We need farmers.  We need engineers.  We need speakers. We need sociologists.  We need teachers.  We need builders.  We need fundraisers.  We need scientists. We need volunteers.  We need parents to teach their children a new paradigm.  We need people in technology.  We need people who give us hope. We need healers and counselors.  We need artists, filmmakers, writers, actors, musicians, and storytellers to spread the word about the rampant damage our society is inflicting on the planet, and encourage a mass behaviour change.

We all know that children are the future. Teachers and parents play a critical role in encouraging every child to be the part of the movement, to think broadly, to take part in creating a sustainable future in their own way. Encourage them in whatever direction their hearts and minds lead them. It’s their planet!

This time of year we have loads of fresh veggies available from gardens and farmer’s markets and local farms. I’d like to share a recipe for a quick soup I make at least once a week, often several times a week. It only takes about 20 minutes from start until it’s in your bowl. It’s easily adaptable to what you have on hand, hearty, yummy and incredibly healthy because it’s raw and therefore retains its enzyme activity and all of the nutrients of fresh vegetables.

More than that, I’m excited to share this with you as I just found an unedited video of me making this soup, hidden in the recesses of my computer. And there is a very special guest in it–my grandmother Marion, who passed away on July 20th. I’m so glad to be able to give you a glimpse of her and her loving, supportive nature. Here’s the video and the recipe:

Heather In The Kitchen: Green Cilantro-Sunflower Soup

RECIPE
for 3 servings
Ingredients
1 stalk celery, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 small carrot or half of a sweet potato, roughly chopped
2 Tbsp sprouted sunflower seeds (soak raw, shelled sunflower seeds in water for at least 4 hours, or overnight)
2 leaves kale or swiss chard or bok choy or 1 cup chopped spinach
2 leaves mustard greens, chopped
3 sprigs fresh cilantro, stem included, chopped
1 small piece of broccoli or half of a cucumber
1 Tbsp chopped onion
1/2 clove fresh garlic
1 small tomato
1 tsp sea salt
1 dash chipotle habanero sauce or other hot sauce
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1.5 cups water

Directions:
Add all of this to a blender and blend on the “ice crush” setting or high until the soup looks creamy. Taste. Add more salt if necessary. Pour into bowls. I like to serve this with olive oil drizzled on top, some black pepper and some freshly grated parmesan cheese.
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Thanks to Dr. Susan Carpenter for filming this, and to my Gram for sharing her love of food and organic agriculture with me.
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Join the Katonah Green and Beyond Meetup Group:

You can repair anything!

Extend the life of ‘disposables: Do you brake for yard sales? I think perhaps it is a natural impulse to want to extend the life of a tool, a shirt, an appliance. How about the impulse to repair? That I fear, is a state of mind of the past, one that we could benefit from bringing back. What do we consider repairable? What do we consider disposables?

I’d like to see a shift in thinking of anything as ‘disposable’. What does that mean to you? Please post your response below in the comments.

Check out this really great "Repair Manifesto" from Platform 21

To me, disposable is an insidious term

framed by brilliant marketers to compartmentalize our thinking. They’ve done their job. This cup is disposable. This mug is permanent. This shirt is disposable. It’s not worth sewing the buttons back on because new it only cost $11. It will cost me less to replace it than to repair it. This razor is disposable. This packaging is disposable. What if we thought of the resources used to create each item, the distance it traveled to get in our hands, and considered where it goes when it is ‘disposed’ of? If we considered all of those factors, I think each of us would start evaluating each item for its value as a material or for how long its useable life can be extended. Repair would become a habit. Re-use and resale would become the norm. Our system of purchase and dispose is an environmental disaster. I’d love to see a new generation who saw beyond the box, who could think a bit more holistically. Imagine what could change!

Starting a Re-Use and Resale Group In thinking about this I’ve launched a local Facebook Group for Resale and Re-use. [you will need to be a Facebook member in order to view the group] I encourage you to take a look, and launch one in your area as well. I’ve set it up so that I moderate each membership and posting to the wall. While encouraging contribution, posting of barters, repair services, resale items, and free items, I am also limiting group membership to local people to add a sense of safety among the members. In addition I will be inviting my Meetup Group to host a Good Used Goods Swap Day, and have expanded my Local Green Guide to include repair, consignment and thrift shops. You have the power to help make re-use and repair the norm where you live.

Here are some links to resources for information on repairs:  my Green Guide with consignments shops listed, the new Facebook Group for Resale and Re-use where local people are already listing canoes, dishes, a Breville juicer and more!

Vans Bike and Car Repair in Katonah (and they recycle oil, cardboard), the new Noka Vintage Furniture Consignment Shop, and for all sorts of amazing finds and repairs keep up with the Gentleman Hauler in Pound Ridge. If you need something repaired, replaced, a hard-to-find part found, or that new used table and chair set delivered, he’s the man!

If your sewing skills aren’t up to par, try out the Greener Cleaner and Tailor, right across from the train station. For tag sales this weekend check Craigslist for Westchester Garage Sales. Also just got word that there will be a great moving sale at 157 Beaver Dam Farm Road, Katonah

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Get Involved! Whether you live in our small town or wish you did, join the local green conversation, scheming and news of real gatherings.

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Meetup Group

and the Katonah Green Calendar

Memorial day: to remember those who’ve sacrificed themselves to better the future—our future—that we are destroying. Anna Jade Flournoy Latimer

At 3pm on Monday, May 31st, I will honor the dead in my lineage and in your lineage who have died in military service. I will spend some time in  quiet contemplation upon their sacrifice and its implications for my life. Then I will play Taps on my borrowed trumpet and spend a few more minutes sitting still, at home, considering war and the world (hopefully no one complains about my very basic playing!). Then, no doubt, I will switch my meditations to the still gushing oil spill in the Gulf, and consider the implications for the world, the workers who will deal with the mess, the sea life that is suffering the war on the environment, and my family members in Louisiana whose livelihoods depend on Gulf industry. It feels like a good time to express some gratitude for soldiers and workers, and sorrow for all of these losses. Regardless of my political beliefs, I recognize that my grandfathers fought because they wanted something better for their grandchildren. And my cousins work on rigs in the gulf to support their families.

I’m already gearing up for the meditation, my mind singularly focused on what I can do in my own life to make less need for war. I can’t help but see the relationship between consumption of  oil, and increasing likelihood of war as the world’s corporate fight for oil rights escalates. And I can’t help but see the potential for consumers to claim their power by decreasing that demand immediately.

My pre-meditative state is already helping me envision pathways that could established within weeks and  months. I envision a consumer habit revolution starting this Memorial Day, and culminating in a Labor Day celebration of that would rattle the world’s energy corporations.

The vision begins with writers spreading the idea, then families deciding to change their shopping and driving habits, then business owners changing their purchasing habits, retailers changing their product offerings, people getting excited by the changes they are witnessing, and by Labor Day, new habits already being adopted around the nation.

It would start something like this: start questioning our habits. Find the ones that would make a huge impact now if we act as part of one large entity. Shift our thinking to claim our power as consumers.

Here is where I see we can make immediate impact with simple changes in our shopping habits:

Stop buying bottled water. If you need more information on how the incredibly huge impact of water transportation and plastic bottle production and waste relates to oil consumption, watch Tapped, the film, now. Then buy some cool reuseable water bottles, preferably stainless steel, and use them. Make sure you have enough for the whole family.

It takes approximately 18 million barrels of oil to deliver water each year in the US, 17 million barrels PER YEAR to make our plastic water bottles, then even more oil is consumed in the disposal of the plastic bottles even if they are recycled. (from TAPPED)

I recommend getting at least 2 re-usable water bottles per person, and a different color for each person or labels. I don’t like mine having had flavored coffee in it, just sayin’. There is no excuse for having disposable water bottles in your home or office. They are not the new black.

Personally I prefer Ball jars. They are perfect for the summer.  I bring some with me and use for take out fresh juices at the juice bar, for water at any restaurant, for coffee-to-go. If we could get 3 million people to stop the insanity of purchasing water bottles made from petroleum this summer, we’d already have made a huge impact on an unnecessary industry.

Take back the tap. I recommend getting a water filter. Which one? Go online and find out which water filter is best for you, and order it. Or call your plumber. He’ll know, and be happy to recommend one for you. If you don’t have someone to call, call your cooperative extension or look online for water quality testing companies. You can get a test in the mail.

While you are getting into the habit of saying no to disposable water bottles, start saying NO to the bags at the store. I admit I forget mine often. You can see me walking out of the store juggling 15 items I am determined to carry because I forgot my bags. After I’ve done this enough times, I guess I won’t forget any more. No more excuses for me.

Shop Local: Shop local has become a slogan. But I mean it. And I don’t mean to shop at a local store for food made in China. I mean commit to buy only locally produced lettuce, meat and dairy as a starting point. These are products in abundance in most regions of the US and Canada. Find them at farmer’s markets, health food stores, and markets that specialize in locally produced foods.

North of NYC, check out this page for finding local products. Nationally try out Local Harvest as a place to start finding local food sources.

MEAT is a big issue. Not only is much meat produced in a way that is ecologically destructive, and inhumane, but it is often transported from Venezuela or Texas where it was fed with corn or soy grown somewhere else in the world and transported to the cows to consume, then the cows transported here. The agriculture system is insane and a matter of insane economics. My answer is that the most responsible thing we can do is to drastically reduce our meat consumption. Here’s how: Replace half your meat meals each week with vegetable based meals, or rice and bean meals. Next week I’ll give you some innovative ways you many never have heard of to prepare beans and rice in a manner that maximizes their protein and nutrient values. Here is a site that will give you lots of recipe ideas for fresh vegetable meals that will make the transition easier.

Step 2: Consider the transportation/oil issues surrounding the meats you do eat, and commit to buying only local, grass-fed, hormone, antibiotic and pesticide free meats. (this means the corn/soy/grains they are finished with must be free of pesticides and herbicides as well) In most areas of the US, we have the choice to buy locally raised beef, chicken, turkey, pork, lamb, goat and rabbit.

Eating meat every day is simply a habit. Remember that. In a traditional small-farm based economy, meat was consumed in quantity around slaughter time, then preserved in various manners for moderate consumption in other times. It wasn’t something eaten indiscriminately every meal. Change that habit. It’s just a habit.

Again, you can shop at a farmer’s market, you can order it for delivery.

This is just the beginning of a grassroots revolution in shopping habits that can hugely impact oil consumption in the country. Just by shifting some very basic shopping habits. We’ll get to energy consumption in upcoming posts.

For more inspiration, listen to Tracy Chapman’s “Talking About a Revolution“.

Check out EnviroPhotographer J Henry Fair’s Industrial Scars site.

Watch TAPPED.  Follow Reuter’s Factbox on the Oil Spill.

Get Involved! Whether you live in our small town or wish you did, join the local green conversation, scheming and news of real gatherings.

Follow KatonahGreen on

Twitter
Facebook Page
Meetup Group

and the Katonah Green Calendar

Hilltop Hanover education garden

guest blog post by Karla Diamond, Alexander Technique Teacher and Natural Health Consultant

The Garden Plot that is. If you have always wanted a garden but don’t have the space here are some local community gardens that offer plots – many of them free of charge or with a minimal fee. It’s the perfect time to get started and here are some ideas to make it easy.

If you look on the website for InterGenerate which encourages locally grown food and community, you will find a Community Garden Network page with contact information for Community Gardens from Yonkers to Katonah. There are a couple of recent additions this year. InterGenerate has teamed up with Marsh Sanctuary to build a community garden and teaching garden at the Marsh Sanctuary just off Route 172 in Mount Kisco. I stopped by Marsh Santuary earlier today and ran into Christian Pace the naturalist at the sanctuary and Peggy Clarke of InterGenerate. They were very excited to see the progress; land has been marked off, the fence posts are up, the tool shed is built, the water tank is and fence are almost in place and Alberto and Christian are getting ready to open the garden by May 1^st.

Plots are available and run on a sliding scale – the more volunteer work you can do for the community gardens the less the fee. If you volunteer three hours a month to the Community Garden (sorry not your own plot!) the monthly fee becomes $25. If you have less time to volunteer say 1 ½ hours a month the fee becomes $100 month. They value your time!

InterGenerate has also teamed up with the John Jay Homestead to open a teaching garden on the Homestead property in Katonah. They will provide the tools and seeds and students will be involved in planting, caring and harvesting toward the end of the season. Classes are taught by Suzi Novak and meet on Saturday mornings and one evening a week. For more information go to: http://www.intergenerateny.org/

The Plot Thickens…..

A great and easy way to get started with your garden this year is to buy Hilltop Hanover Farms Garden Starter Kit for $50. The farm located in Yorktown Heights is making a special offer to the first 50 interested gardeners. The kit contains enough plants and seeds to plant an 8 x 10 garden along with a diagram and instructions. They are using it as a teaching tool and when you pick up your kit on May 22^nd you are also invited to a one hour lecture with farmer Mary Ellen Sheehan as well as email blasts and a “follow along guide” posted on their website. Even if you plan on adding to their great selection it is a worthwhile investment. Lucille from the farm told me they were selling fast so be sure to call and reserve yours. www.hilltophanoverfarm.org.

Plot your own course….

And if you are an experienced gardener looking for some early planting Hilltop Hanover has seedlings for sale this Saturday. I saw some beautiful Bok Choy, scallions, broccoli, parsley, cabbage to name just a few.

And until your garden starts to produce don’t forget the Gossett’s Farm Market on Saturdays in South Salem on Route 35 just past the fire station or the Cabbage Hill Farm Stand starting in May at St. Mark’s Church in Mt. Kisco.

If you have kids, be sure to check out the Summer Gardening Program For Kids Ages 6-8 at Lasdon Park & Arboretum on rte Route 35, Katonah.  Four Mondays they will have • butterfly garden & potting up plants to take home • garden & field exploration • crafts & stories. Four Mondays: June 28 and July 12, 19 & 26, 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Fee $50 ($45 for Friends of Lasdon members). For more information or to register contact Cathy CAHLasdon@optonline.net 914 874-4519

Karla Diamond

Contact Karla about Alexander Technique, bodywork, or classes in the new Diamond-Dart Meridian Technique!

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Be sure to check out Heather’s new guide to local foods and green resources!

An oil soaked bird struggles against the side of the HOS an Iron Horse supply vessel at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

More than 4 million gallons of crude oil have entered the Gulf of Mexico since April 20. We can blame BP, Halliburton, our current administration, and TransOcean, and should be outraged. But it is time to acknowledge our part. WE create demand for that oil. It’s time to make some changes. We have the capacity to do this immediately.

Stop! What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s goin’ down. That Buffalo Springfield song is still appropriate, calling all of us to take a look beyond the headlines that are already back on celebrity affairs and other mind numbing ‘news’ that lets people forget that there is still oil gushing into the Gulf wreaking uncertain short and long-term environmental and economic destruction.

Those 2,000+ gallons per day of oil spewing out of the 1 mile deep drill hole in the floor of the Gulf of Mexico have a lot to do with our town. We helped create the demand for that oil. We can stop it. Stop needless consumption this week. Make changes over the coming months that will further decrease demand. Speak out. Educate ourselves on what we consume that is creating the demand.

START NOW:

This week:
If the oil spill were headed directly to our town, you can bet you’d be organizing already. We have got to stop offshore drilling, and drastically reduce our community’s demand for oil and gas. Call friends and neighbors, even if you don’t know them. Talk about in in the coffee shop. Talk about carpools. Find out what’s possible. Engage in a conversation. Start emergency organization: Organize a conference call or dinner to talk about what can be done in your area. We have a choice whether or not we stand for blatant destruction of our environment on our shores (or anywhere).

Rideshare. Adjust your schedule to accommodate the train or local bus, or go online to Rideshare.com.  Put up signs at the supermarket or farmer’s market or on the community bulletin board or on your Facebook page looking for rideshares to and from work, for your shopping trips.

Bike it. If 200 local people took to the streets on bicycles and called the town government demanding safe roadways for bikes we’d have it done within the year. Get out your bike this week. This Saturday morning bike to the farmer’s market, to the village of Katonah, Bedford, South Salem, Pound Ridge, North Salem, or your own town, or to the train station. Wear bright colors. Put a sign on your back saying you’ve f#@% had enough of oil spills and excuses!

Teens–use the bus. Parents- make a zero tolerance policy for driving to school. You have buses running.  The rest of the world is paying for unnecessary miles you and your are teens creating. Schools- instill emergency shut down for teen driving to school. The impact of this one measure around the country would be enormous. There is no longer any reasonable argument for this structure when you have buses, and carpools.

Switch to Windpower–Get our your energy bill. If you are in NY, CT or NJ click here right now to find out how you can buy 100% wind or solar energy. No excuses. The average $7-$12 per month extra is just our part of the puzzle. Opt in right now. NY has the potential to supply 80% of it’s own electricity demands with wind and solar in the next 2 years. We’ll talk next week about installing your own system to heat hot water.

Get to your Farmer’s Market: Buy locally produced food, and save thousands of miles of transportation used to deliver the food you buy in supermarkets that comes from around the globe and is dependent on a complex and vast warehousing and shipping infrastructure scheme.

UP NEXT: What You Can Do In The Next Months to Drastically Reduce Oil and Gas Consumption

Get Involved! Whether you live in our small town or wish you did, join the local green conversation, scheming and news of real gatherings.

Follow KatonahGreen on

Twitter
Facebook Page
Meetup Group

and the Katonah Green Calendar

Contact me to talk about how you can  use social media to promote your message and build your following.

I am so proud to be a part of the Town of Lewisboro, of which South Salem is a part. Last month the town council created a Sustainability Committee, and joined the Northern Westchester Energy Action Coalition. Our Katonah-Lewisboro Secondary Schools won a grant to install solar panels, and won a Magna Award for “Going Green, from Awareness to Practice: Creating a Culture of Sustainability and Wellness.” Lewisboro is the home of

world-renowned Wolf Conservation Center, Teich Garden Systems who is getting lots of national press these days for their work with school gardens, home to a thriving farmer’s market, and Synergis, the award-winning Recycling and Solid Waste Management consulting company. There are so many more local luminaries and behind-the-scenes people dedicated to helping the environment, it’s amazing, especially considering that there are only a little more than 12,000 people living here. Apologies I can’t mention you all here!

I am proud to have been appointed as a member of the new Sustainability Committee, along with Mike Caplan, who works for the clean energy company Fortistar, Stephanie Smith, a Lewisboro resident attending college and working on eco projects at school, and David Cooper, an environmental lawyer with Zarin & Steinmetz. Under the guidance of Town Council member Dan Welsh, we hope to accomplish some significant conservation measures in Lewisboro, and contribute to the overall lessening of Westchester County’s environmental impact on the planet. Rock on Lewisboro!

SATURDAY

Garden Tool Swap, Saturday Saturday, April 24, 10-1 South Salem

Local Foods-Local Chef Demo, Saturday, April 24, 10-1 South Salem

Slow Food Potluck Meetup, Saturday, April 24, 6-9pm South Salem (rsvp rq’d)

If you aren’t on my Calendar list for area green happenings, Click Here to sign up now

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Get Involved! Whether you live in our small town or wish you did, join the local green conversation, scheming and news of real gatherings.

Follow KatonahGreen on

Twitter
Facebook Page
Meetup Group

and the Katonah Green Calendar

Contact me to talk about how you can  use social media to promote your message and build your following.