Nice website: TheCityChicken.com

Nice.

Speaking of food and food security

Good day friends of Food Share Gardens,

Marion Polk Food Share is marching fourth toward a busy spring of garden activity. With a groundswell of sustainable community garden project support, we are deepening the scope of the program to ensure that the health, self-reliance and sustainability of our communities are cultivated through visionary work and concerted action. Below I am including an important update on volunteer needs and garden projects, with highest priorities listed first. Thank you for participating in this deep partnership with our two county community. Together we can imagine no hunger. Together, we can imagine a region that is interconnected and thriving.

Volunteer needs:

Grant-Highland Health Fair – THURSDAY, March 5th from 5:30-8:00

Tomorrow I am setting up a table at the Grant-Highland Health Fair which will be located at Salem Alliance Church (1490 5th St NE, Salem, OR.) I am in need of one or two volunteers to be at the fair while I head over to the Hoover Elementary family night. The main objective for both of these events is to get the word out about the April 4th Spring Garden Fair here at MPFS, as well as to provide information about important Food Share services. Please email or call me if you would like to volunteer for this fair.

NO HUNGRY CHILD Spring Break Lunch Program

We are desperately in need of a few volunteers who can give a couple of hours of time over the lunch hours (approximately 11:30-1:00) over Spring Break, March 23-27. Sites needing staffing include Stephens Middle School in NE Salem, Hayesville ES in NE Salem, Auburn ES in NE Salem, Parkway Village Apartments (3143 7th Place NE), Washington ES in NE Salem, Mary Eyre ES in SE Salem, Washington ES in Woodburn, Henry Hill ES in Independence, and Monmouth ES in Monmouth. Drivers are also needed to pick up left over lunches and deliver them to area pantries or meal sites. If you or any one you know would be willing to help, please contact Kat here at the Food Share as soon as possible.

Kat Daniel 503.581.3855x kdaniel@foodbanksalem.org

Garden Projects:

Seed Starting @ Pringle Creek Greenhouse– Tuesday March 10th from noon to 4pm

Following a lunar gardening calendar, we will be planting a plethora of vegetable and herb seeds just before next weeks’ full moon. The thousands of seeds that we sow will sprout and emerge as vigorous plants that will be planted in the many food share sustainable community gardens in the coming months. Once mature, these vegetable and herbs will be harvested and their nutrition will be made available to the communities that we serve. Come down to the newly refinished Pringle Creek Community Greenhouse for an afternoon of community work and garden learning. (2110 Strong Road SE Salem)

Community Potluck/Garden Planning Session @ MPFS –
Monday, March 16th from 6-8pm

We will be coming together at this potluck to focus on the spring garden fair and youth garden program, as well as to create a time line in connection with resources and volunteer projects.

If you have questions or need information, email or call me. Stay tuned in, for there are many amazing garden project on the horizon!!!

Thanks,
Jordan Blake
Garden Project Manager
Marion-Polk Food Share
(office) 503.581.3855 x 323
(mobile) 503.798.0457
...because no one should be hungry!
...porque nadie debe tener hambre!

He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything. -Arabian proverb

Corvallis Tour d'Coops: A little inspiration for Salem

Cooped Up in Corvallis

Corvallis's Self-Guided Chicken and Duck Coop Tour

Sunday, March 15th, 12-4pm

Visit 8 chicken and duck coop sites in the Corvallis community and talk with backyard fowl keepers. Get tips for integrating fowl in your backyard! In addition to providing eggs, chickens and ducks eat garden pests and weeds, they help fertilize the soil and chickens can be good rototillers.

Early ticket purchases: $6/person or $10/family

Day of event tickets: $8/person or $14/family

Get your map/ticket starting March 2 at:

First Alternative Co-op (North & South Locations) or
Corvallis Environmental Center

Thank you to our supporters and sponsors:
Robnett's Hardware
Slow Food Corvallis (slowfoodcorvallis@comcast.net)
First Alternative Co-op

Contact: leslie@corvallisenvironmentalcenter.org.

Why would we pour billions into roads and bridges?

(click on graph to see full view)

In a nation just moving from an agrarian society to an industrial one, roads spur wealth.

In a nation that must move from a post-industrial society to a much more agrarian one, pouring money into roads is like burning it in a pit, only with much more environmental harm.

Anyone who proposes to tax you to spend more money on cars and roadways is in deep denial about what this graph shows -- and that denial is going to hurt you.

The era of roadbuilding for endless automobility is over. The only question is how much harm the road lobby, elected officials, and transportation planners will cause before they acknowledge this reality.

After the fall of Louis XVI, people then shook their heads and wondered how anyone could have possibly been so stupid as to bankrupt a wealthy nation like France with obviously pointless and wildly extravagant spending that qualified as little more than vast, costly monuments to the royal ego. Funny, few were making the point while the money was still flowing freely. Well, here we are, an ocean away and hundreds of years later, faced with the same dilemma --- a debased currency, overstretched military commitments, and wildly extravagant spending, only our Versailles palaces are called "highways."

Good piece on chickens and property values

A local realtor talks some sense about the effect of pet hens on property values:

There has long been a movement to allow people to have chickens on their property. This movement is picking up some steam due to the recent economic woes. Stressing the importance of being able to grow your own food, C.I.T.Y (Chickens in the Yard) is making another push to remove the ban and allow chickens in Salem Oregon city limits.

So what does this mean for homeowners and property values? In my opinion, not much. Really…I mean think about it. Your neighbor has chickens and you start to stress that your property values are going to go down now? Do you not think that the house painted neon green next door, the ugly orange jalopy half taken apart in the driveway, or the barking dogs aren’t going to impact people either?

Will some buyers freak out about living next to chickens and pass on buying your house for sale? Yes. There are always those who get concerned about these things. BUT there are people that will pass on your house because your neighbor dog barks at them as well…Unfortunately we really can’t do much about our neighbor’s [sic]. I can’t choose their paint color, whether or not they play their music loud, or whether or not they have an obnoxious kid. These are all part of living close to one another with different value systems.

Home buyers also need to remember that just because you buy a house because there are no dogs, chickens, or loud noises around doesn’t mean that won’t change when the house next to you goes up for sale. Loud people move too.

Chickens in city limits really should not be a huge concern for home buyers. If you really hate the idea, many subdivisions have CC&R’s that don’t allow livestock. Those CC&R’s still trump any changes the city would make. If the ban gets lifted, then you can always live in one of those neighborhoods and know that you will be safe from chickens next door.

Inch by inch, step by step ... finally

Some good news on the Union St. bridge work!

Don't forget: Salem Progressive Film Series, 3/12

March 12, 2009 7 PM
Grand Theater, High Street at Court Street.

ADDICTED TO PLASTIC is a feature-length documentary about solutions to plastic pollution. The point-of-view style documentary encompasses three years of filming in 12 countries on 5 continents, including two trips to the middle of the Pacific Ocean where plastic debris accumulates. The film details plastic's path over the last 100 years and provides a wealth of expert interviews on practical and cutting edge solutions to recycling, toxicity and biodegradability. These solutions - which include plastic made from plants - will provide viewers with a hopeful perspective about our future with plastic.

"Addicted to Plastic was a wake-up call for me as a marine scientist. This film presents the viewers with a grim, realistic look at how the food chain is being affected due to plastic confetti invading nearly every square centimeter on earth. It is a sobering must-see and needs to be shown at every educational level globally!" ~ Dr. James M. Cervino, Assistant Professor, Biology and Health Sciences, Pace University

Fascinating on how to make it so journalism can survive

Journalism arose in this land quite early, before the advent of the USA, and it continues, in a greatly weakened state to this day. We need journalists and especially more investigatory and critical journalism as an alternative to the "stenographers to power" that make up so much of the corporate media. But how will journalism survive when corporate newspapers finish collapsing, done in by their own fecklessnesss, free papers on the intenet, free classifieds on Craigslist, and the rising costs of moving heavy piles of dead trees around so that it can be saturated with ink and dumped, unread, back into the recycling bin? Here's some thoughts worth considering.

And cool at Salem Public Library

The Mad Scientist returns to Salem Public Library to lead families to the Land of Fire and Ice. Filled with dazzling demonstrations using fire, bubbling potions, and carbon dioxide gas frozen to 109°F below zero, this perennially popular science show will stimulate minds and spark imaginations.

Mad Science’s special brand of exciting, educational, high-energy science magic shows just how hot and cool science can be.

The show is free on a first-come, first-seated basis. Doors open 6:45 p.m.

All Family Festival of the Arts shows are free and open to the public with the generous ongoing support from the Friends of Salem Public

Cool exhibit @ West Salem Library

On Display ... The Work of Chuck Dolence:
Musicanical Engineer
March 1 - 28

Chuck Dolence blends the elegance and precision of ordinary metal objects into mechanical metaphors of the Industrial Era, using musical instruments, science, mechanics, and more. Chuck‘s work has been displayed at the Portland Art Museum, with Artists of Innovation in Beaverton, and at Andrews School of Fine Arts in Ohio.