Long overdue update

I've decided to take a slightly different approach to the blog. The first thing that I'm doing is organizing the attached website/archive to make it more user friendly. I'm hoping to end up with a resource that will help everyone locate socially and environmentally sound goods and services in the Carlisle, Shippensburg, and Chambersburg areas.

Keswick Creamery

Thanks to Painted Hand Farm for posting Keswick Creamery's website: http://www.keswickcreamerycheese.com/index.htm

I mentioned their fantastic cheeses in an earlier post.

Counterculture Holiday Ideas

Why sell out for the holidays? Here are a few holiday ideas that might actually help cultivate peace on earth and good will to all. Most of these are ideas that we have picked up somewhere along the way and use in our family holday celebrations. If you have any ideas, pass them along.

Gifts:

• Buy locally made goods. You can find local products at farmers' markets. Look around on your daily travels; you'll probably find more local stuff than you think.
• Buy second hand. Reduce your impact on the use of natural resources for manufacturing new products. Books, CDs, video games, electronics, clothes, toys, and athletic equipment can all be easily found second hand. If you can't find it in a local shop, try e-bay.
• Buy fair-trade products. Check out Ten Thousand Villages. They have locations nearby in Mechanicsburg and Hagerstown. They carry beautiful handmade products from around the world for which the artisans are paid a fair wage.
• Set a limit for your holiday spending. Your friends and family don't want you to go into debt buying presents for them.
• Be creative with gift-giving. Some gifts don't cost anything but have a lot of value: a night of babysitting, a home-cooked meal, a massage, mowing the lawn, a poem, a tai chi or yoga lesson. We all have something to give.
• For the person who has everything, give a charitable donation on their behalf.
• As a gift to yourself and your community, find an organization that is important to you and volunteer.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

• Don't forget about regifting! That brand new picture frame that your coworker gave you last year that doesn't match your decor might be perfect in someone else's home.
• Save and re-use that wrapping paper. Yeah, sometimes it's more fun to just tear into a gift, but sometimes it's OK to take your time and carefully unwrap a present. Think of it as savouring the joy of unwrapping the gift. Really though, we rarely have to buy wrapping paper, because we're able to reuse so much of it.
• Be creative with wrapping gifts. We have used colorful newspaper; it has a very chic, green look. We have covered gift boxes in the previous years' Christmas cards. Any other ideas?
• String-up popcorn and cranberries instead of lights (electricity = coal-fired power plants = no more North Pole for Santa's reindeer or the polar bears).
• Save clean pieces of aluminum foil that are too small to use for anything. Fold them into homemade tinsel/icecicles. I'll post a picture if I have time.
• Get a Christmas tree with the roots balled and plant it after the season is over.
• If you use a cut tree make sure that it is chipped for mulch or used as wildlife shelter and not landfilled.
• Consider how much packaging comes with gifts and where that packaging will end up. Look for alternatives with less packaging.
• Look into solar-powered Christmas lights as an alternative to the conventional.

Local Feast!

• Don't forget to get your turkey and holiday fixin's locally.

Finally, celebrate your holiday traditions with friends and family. Beneath the commercial, plastic surface of the holiday are ideas and traditions worth sharing.

That's it for now. I'll post more ideas later, if I think of more. If you have ideas of your own or would like to comment on these please post a comment.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

Carlisle Central Farmers' Market

Last Saturday, I went with my family to the Carlisle Central Farmers' Market. We had a great time. It was great to finally meet and talk with Sandra from Painted Hand Farm. If you haven't checked out their website or blog, definitely take a look. I think they had goat meat, veal, a lone turkey, and some greens from their garden. They also had an assortment of cheeses from Keswick Creamery. We bought the "lesher" and "wallaby" cheeses which quickly disappeared at our family's Thanksgiving dinner.

Otterbein Acres also has a stand at the market and we picked up some of the "Ewe's Dream" from them, a very strong Romano that I love on some pasta dishes and salads. Otterbein Acres also has some beef and lamb available.

Latimore Valley Farms was also there with a wide selection of organic produce. I was able to do some more stocking up on squash and root crops at their stand. Latimore Valley Farms is a large organic farm about halfway between Gettysburg and Carlisle on Rt 15.

Be sure to check out the Market this weekend. They're having a special Holiday Market this Saturday, Dec. 8th. Check out the market's site for a list of the special holiday vendors. There's really too much for me to list here. I'm looking forward to going again and doing a little Christmas shopping.

Dairy Labeling Changes

See Painted Hand Farm's comment under the earlier post on this topic. The essence seems to be that the State wants to prevent dairy producers from putting on their labels whether or not the milk was produced with the use of hormones, antibiotics, and other chemicals. It looks like yet another attempt by our government and big agribusiness to blur the difference between local, sustainably produced food and food produced using conventional means.

Public Radio On-line

I listen to a lot of public radio on-line while I'm doing work around the house. In my virtual travels I've run across a few good programs.

Speaking of Faith, interviews/conversations about faith, religion, ethics, and culture. The two shows that I listened to and enjoyed immensely were the interviews of

Harvey Cox, a professor of Divinity at Harvard, topics included the recent atheism vs. religion debates and the interplay that can exist between faith and other forms of knowledge

Barbara Kingsolver about her book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life," in which she writes of her family's decision to eat only local organic foods.

I also discovered Mike McGrath's "You Bet Your Garden." Mike used to be the Editor of "Organic Gardening" and now has his own weekly radio show.