My Right Foot

My right foot on an April day,
A day not made for fools,
Feels the cold and moistened earth;
Looks out for sharpened tools.

My right foot, all the people know,
A foot not made for mules,
Feels the pulse of ground below
And plays by verdant rules.

Look What I Found!

"Look what I found!" Those may be Amy Crystle's favorite words. Pictured here inside a newly discovered Amish greenhouse in the Southern End of Lancaster County, she's beaming over her unexpected find.

Where can one make delightful discoveries, if not in Lancaster County? When one of those discoveries illuminates the transition path to sustainability, both environmentally and economically, Transition Lancaster wants to join the celebration!

This particular find came on a dirt road near Nottingham,PA at Pine Grove Greenhouses. Amy stopped by in between other farm visits to drop off a book on four season harvesting she'd promised to farmer Daniel. This topic is one of many she had discussed with a group of Amish farmers while advising them on organizing an organic or chemical- free co-op.

Even though Amy had first purchased blueberries from Daniel and his wife, Fanny, in 2006, she had never actually been to their farm and didn't know about the greenhouses. I had the rare privilege of celebrating this find first hand with Amy because she let me tag along on her usual Tuesday travels.

On Tuesdays she does pick ups of the food which goes into her Seasonal Food Bundles for the week; "The Flexible CSA" as she calls it. These weekly food bundles provide year-round seasonal produce from a mix of organic and chemical-free Lancaster County farms and farmers.

Once she gets her week's orders collected, she takes this produce to East Side Community Kitchen on Plum St. in Lancaster City, where she assembles the bundles. Then subscribers to Amy's service, known as Everday Local Food (www.everdaylocalfood.com), pick up their food at her home on W. Chestnut St. She also has a delivery option. In this way local growers have cash paying customers and Lancaster eaters have locally grown food all year round!

This win/win arrangement contributes to the rebuilding of a resilient Lancaster County food system; one we need to sustain us through the uncertainties of our rapidly changing world.

If you know of other Lancaster County examples of Transition activity, let me know. I'd love to write about it!

Only One Chance To Get This Right

On April 5th, I attended the Community Breakfast hosted by State Senator Llloyd Smucker (Rep.) at Calvary Fellowship Homes in Manheim Township. When a question regarding the Marcellus Shale gas drilling arose, Senator Smucker stated his belief that we need an extraction tax in place. "We only have one chance to get this right!" he proclaimed. While the senator's words were stated in the context of economics, I believe they are even more potent if applied to the health , safety and environmental questions surrounding Marcellus Shale drilling. When it comes to the protection of our water wells, rivers and underground aquifers as well as to our state lands and to all the natural resources which comprise our commonwealth; "We only have one chance to get this right!" Economics is more than jobs and more than an inflow of dollars into businesses , into land owners' pockets and into the coffers of government at all levels. Economics also includes the cost we pay when we sacrifice fragile and finite living assets like health, water, forests and land for short term benefits. Even 50 to 100 years of financial benefit is very little compared to those things. For a current cautionary tale, consider the multi-leveled tragedies in Japan. Consider the dislocated and disoriented population in Japan's northeast plus the millions more throughout the nation who now endure the rolling blackouts and now must question the safety of their food , air and water; and now face a likely reduction of future living standard because their national resources will be channeled into massive rebuilding efforts over a very long recovery period. How many of these suffering people would vote for a moratorium on the building of nuclear power plants in tsunami threatened areas if they could go back in time 30 years? But they had their one chance to get it right and now must make the best of a horror story. I don't suppose the potential consequences of fracking pose the same level of danger as nuclear meltdowns. But who really knows? We are already hearing many sad stories coming out of the Marcellus Shale regions, including the threat of radioactivity in our drinking water. Many Pennsylvanians believe the $3 million in political contributions to Pennsylvania lawmakers by the drilling industry since 2001 ( about 30% of which went to our current governor) and the $5 million they've spent on lobbying since 2006 has swung the gates open wide for the drills, trucks and fracking water to come pouring into our commonwealth. "When asked to put in place a temporary moratorium on drilling in public lands until a full study of the impact could be made, those who voted “no” had accepted an average of three times as much cash from gas interests than those who supported that reasonable measure." (http://www.marcellusmoney.org/candidate/corbett-tom) Maryland, our neighbor to the south, is proceeding much slower, hoping to learn from Pennsylvania's mistakes. "Maryland lawmakers listened to environmentalists and residents complain in hearings that Pennsylvania did not do enough to address environmental concerns. Pennsylvania facilities were not prepared at first to treat the volume of contaminated wastewater, they said, and some of it was trucked to water treatment facilities outside the state and released into waterways." ("Maryland May Put The Brakes On Fracking" www.post-gazette.com March 29,2011) Yes, Maryland is actually studying Pennsylvania's fracking experience to learn from our mistakes. Who have we learned from? Wyoming? Arkansas? Here's an excerpt from a March 8, 2011 Associated Press article with a Cheyenne , Wyoming dateline: "Folks who live near the gas fields in the western part of this outdoorsy state are complaining of watery eyes, shortness of breath and bloody noses because of ozone levels that have exceeded what people in L.A. and other major cities wheeze through on their worst pollution days. "The gas industry has drilled hundreds of wells in the basin (Upper Green River Basin) over the past decade and made the basin one of the top gas-producing areas in the U.S. "Ultimately it comes down to accountability," said Linda Baker, director of the Upper Green River Alliance. "It doesn't seem to me the companies are being very accountable to the residents here." High ozone, she said, gave her a constant nosebleed three days last week. " In Arkansas a recent increase in earthquakes led the oil and gas commission of that state to impose a moratorium until at least July on drilling new wells with fracking fluid. It is suspected that injecting millions of gallons of waste fracking fluid under the ground with such great pressure may be responsible for the increase in earthquakes. So the Arkansas Geological Survey is doing a thorough study before further wells can be drilled. It seems there is much yet to learn in Arkansas and in Maryland and in every other state, including Pennsylvania, about the long term consequences of fracking. I agree with a growing grassroots movement of people who just want a stop to the drilling until we see clear evidence that our government has as much concern for us and our grandchildren as it does for big business. After all, "We only have one chance to get this right!"