Community Discussion: EPA and Bristol Bay

gathering materials for winter

We have been raking and bagging leaves and grass clippings in anticipation of winter time.  Our hope and goal is to make enough dirt to fill one raised bed, simply by composting during the winter months.  We have a warm spot in the basement where we have begun to use as a staging area, that will be used to store the composting material in enclosed Rubbermaid totes.  Our ingredients will consist of: shredded paper, dead leaves, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, and probably some ash from the steam bath.  The weather is remarkably mild for this time of year.  It has been raining for the past couple of days, and now it is breezy and overcast.  We are going over to Liboffville to turn some more dirt over to prepare for expanding our pseudo-community garden over there in the spring.   

1st Southwest Alaska Gardening Symposium a Wild Success!

The Southwest Alaska Gardening Symposium was this past week.  It started on Thursday, September 23 and ran through Saturday, September 25th.  There were 54 participants from 10 different Bristol Bay villages sharing on common dream - to produce more locally grown food, starting in our own backyard gardens.  It was totally inspiring.  Thank you to Michele Masley, who was the driving force and chief organizer of the conference, Rae Belle Whitcomb whose BBNA Workforce Development Program provided travel funding and prizes for the event, and to Hazel Koppenberg from the Marston Foundation. 

The perfect cap of the weekend was picking potatoes over at the garden that Chet and I started in front of Mike Davis' house over at Jerry Liboff's place.  The potatoes and turnips were beautiful and my son had so much fun digging into the dirt to pull potatoes out.  It was definitely the highlight of the weekend, especially since Chet and I were feeling a little frustrated at listening to all of these great gardening ideas and success stories, but are currently in the "landless" class in Dillingham.

Thank you Jerry for letting us put up a garden at your place!  It made our spring so fun to be able to work outside in the dirt, and now it has made our fall time so invigorating and will continue to fuel our passion for gardening again in the spring.  Quyana Chussmuck!

mushroom as big as your head!

frying up king bolete mushrooms

King Bolete (Boletus edulis)

Local harvest for newbies

We have a new hobby - picking wild mushrooms!  Our harvest has been very fruitful because we've focused on only a few key species that are fairly easy to identify - boletus or porcini mushrooms.  These are not gilled mushrooms, as the spores are borne on tubes on the underside of the mushroom cap.  They are large and only a few mushrooms can practically make an entire meal.  So far, we have made mushroom pizza, dried mushrooms (in the oven on low), mushroom soup, and salmon with mushrooms.  I'll post some photos for your viewing enjoyment.

more dirt work at our community's garden

Went to Mike and Jerry's today.  Jerry Liboff has graciously given us permission to put in a nice-sized garden over at Liboffville.  There hasn't been a garden there in a few years, so we've been prepping the soil, pulling weeds, and loosening up the dirt.  It looks quite healthy - nice, black soil under a pile of weeds.

We work in short spurts so that it is not too burdensome.

Blow baby blow

Breaking News: Large Air Spill at Wind Farm. No Threats Reported. Some Claim to Enjoy the Breeze.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/162584/AIR-SPILL.jpg

Blow, Baby, Blow!

Greenhouse about to sprout [in New Stuyahok]

http://www.thebristolbaytimes.com/article/1016greenhouse_about_to_sprout

So exciting - the New Stuyahok school will be installing their geodesic dome greenhouse this summer.

Follow-up to spring planting at the Senior Center

Well, we had three people show up to the spring planting at the Senior Center, which I'm guessing was three more than they had last year show up to help. We planted all manner of greens, herbs, and vegetables. It was two hours of super-fun! Thank you Carol Hardin, Senior Center Manager for hosting us on this beautiful Earth Day.

Senior Center planting this Earth Day - 1-3 pm

If you are interested in helping to establish a garden at the Senior Center, come join us this Thursday (Earth Day) from 1 - 3 pm. Feel free to bring any seeds, peat pellets, containers or other planting supplies that you would like to share.

Alaska Agriculture in the Classrooms

http://www.alaskafb.org/~akaitc/alaskaAITC/teachers/lesson.htm#k_3

The link above will bring you to a page with age-appropriate curriculum for educators to bring agricultural education to their classrooms.

Spring is in the air!

I planted my onion seeds yesterday. The package said 85 days to harvest, so by my calculations, by mid-June I should have some small onions to eat. I'm just pretending here that I actually like onions, but perhaps if I start growing my own they will have a little more appeal for me.

Tax time means planting time in Alaska. However, some seeds you don't want to start indoors. Carrots do some strange things if you try to start them indoors and move them outside. Better to just sow them directly outdoors after the danger of frost has passed.

If you need soil for your indoor starters, Rae Belle Whitcomb has Pro-Mix available for sale. This is very good quality stuff - complete with vermiculite. The mix is essentially sterilized peat, but it works well with starters, because they are especially vulnerable and may fall prey to any number of hazards in unsterilized soil. If you need liquid fertilizer, just let me know. Our worms are generating a lot of liquid and this is highly concentrated fertilizer, rich in micronutrients and beneficial microbes.

"Nature deficit disorder"

I recently read a wonderful book by Richard Louv entitled, "Last Child in the Woods." The book delves into the notion that a majority of today's children are suffering from a modern-day deficiency that he terms "nature deficit disorder."

The book inspired me to attempt to engage my 6-year old son in journaling about nature. In the quest to become more educated on the natural world around us, I have been searching high and low for a taxonomic reference book on natural history. For anybody who grew up in the 20th century, you may remember this type of education from the old school books - you know: kingdom, phyla, order, . . . Well, in my quest for the perfect book to learn and to share knowledge about the natural world, I have discovered that this is no longer the knowledge du jour. This absence of knowledge and deficiency of books on this vast body of knowledge begs the question, if today's students are not learning natural history, are we really teaching them the information that will bring them closer to the natural world?

I am afraid that I am losing this knowledge. While reading a book about mushrooms, I couldn't recall where mushrooms fit in the taxonomic family tree of life. Are they a plant, or an animal? Come to find out, they are somewhere in between. However, I would not have discerned this fact absent the reading of a 400-page book on mycelium. In our obsession with specialization and intense scrutiny of life at the molecular and biochemical level, are we missing the broader picture of life as we know it, or used to know it? Is the loss of knowledge of taxonomy and where animals, plants, bacteria and fungi fit in the grand scheme of the natural world being lost? I fear that my son may grow up without really knowing where certain organisms fit and what differentiates them from their brethren in the web of life.

As I was perused both the Barnes and Noble and Borders Bookstores, I realized that there was a whole section of Manga, the Japanese cartoon drawings, but not a single book that depicted the natural history of our ever-shrinking biological world. Perhaps by the time my son reaches an age where this knowledge may have some relevance to him, the sheer number of species will be largely reduced, by roughly half. At the rate that we are going, this is the projected outcome. However, how can we instill a sense of environmental stewardship in our youth when they are not being taught the natural order of life?

One possible solution is to bolster my own knowledge of the natural world, and share that learning with my son through walks and field trips. Spending more time outdoors is a welcome solution, and as the Alaskan days lengthen, this seems like the obvious solution for both of us. Another encouraging prospect for other parents or adults interested in lifelong learning or students wishing to pursue a science degree, is to sign up for a class through the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The UAF Bristol Bay Campus offers "Natural History of Alaska" and "Introduction to Environmental Science," taught this semester by Todd Radenbaugh. Yet another feasible solution to the problem of "nature deficit disorder" is to involve children in Scouting. My husband and I are rekindling the scouting tradition here in Dillingham, for the youngest scouting age - Tiger Cub Scouts. Sharon Clavette is a den leader for the older Webelos Scouts. If you are interested in Boy Scouts, feel free to check out www.scoutingalaska.org or send the Rural Director, Jay Goold an email at jgoold@bsamail.org. There is also a Girl Scout Troop in Dillingham, for our young lady naturalists. For parents or teens that aren't into scouting, we have an opportunity to start a 4-H Club. If you are interested in learning more about 4-H, please feel free to contact me at izetta.chambers@alaska.edu.

Everybody Eats!

Here is a really nice poster from YES! magazine called Everybody Eats!

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/everybody-eats-how-a-community-food-system-works

There is a downloadable version of it as well.

Intentional living - I wonder if this model could work in Dillingham?

Check out this sweet little youtube video on an intentional community in Northern California. Would anybody here in Dillingham be interested in this concept? You would definitely have to have good synergy with those who live near and share communal spaces with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeaTLi3EsI

High Tunnel Program Through USDA

Interested in obtaining a high tunnel? Check out this great program through USDA:
USDA NRCS High Tunnel Program

Community Gardening Links

American Community Gardening Association

Worms on tour

On Monday, January 18th, my husband, Chet and I took the worms and the worm bin on a tour to both Dillingham schools. We showed the worms and explained how they are used to recycle nutrients into soil and how they can be used to recycle newspaper.

The teachers were very grateful for some stimulating hands-on life sciences demonstration, and the kids asked a lot of questions. One of the teachers told me that her students were talking about it for the rest of the day! We will be working with the high science class to install and help to troubleshoot their own worm bin, thanks to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

We at the University are very excited about this outreach opportunity and hope to work directly with the teachers and students to encourage more learning opportunities in the future.