While we are posting videos.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
The Argonaut Plan.
Well.......
More and more people question the larger work that I'm doing in Town and the State, so I figured I'd post something for people to look at that explains a bit more about what I'm working on. (no, Real Estate is not my ENTIRE life) Please read, and if you'd like to know more, check out more posts on my personal Blog. You can also check our the professional Blogs too.....
(The Following was from a State "sustainability" Awards application)
Thanks.
Maui
1. Describe how sustainability is incorporated into the mission, goals and work ethic of your organization.
Look Closer
Hood River Oregon, is, by many estimates, a small town exploding at the seams. On the surface, it’s a town headed down the well trodden path of a tourism based economy, oft a cycle driven boom-bust economy most appropriately typified by Hawaii’s roller coaster economy.
But look closer, and you’ll see something interesting happening; a beautiful, wonderful formula for long term success passing by the window of opportunity.
Capturing a nascent trend, and lining up all the elements in this moment to create the foundation for long term viability is the goal of the company that my partner and I began back in 1998.
What we noticed in 1998 was that many of the people coming to our restaurant in Hood River were not coming to see or even be “windsurfers” or “sports town” people. We noticed that there was a subtle longing in each of our customers, athlete or not, that drew them here.
It was a longing to be connected to other people around them. The friendly nod in the street, the helpful stranger, that “small town” quality of life, was becoming, an economic kernel that we could build new business around.
But only if that small town feel were alive and healthy. Quickly we began to draw up what was truly Hood River’s strength, and almost immediately, we determined that it was Hood River’s relationship with agriculture that provided the key. The small town atmosphere was almost purely derivative of the agricultural ethic. The long term success of a town like Hood River is based, almost entirely upon the success of our region’s agriculture. Not entirely for it’s output, but rather, its ethos.
Further research lead us to the realization that many of these farmers were practicing, often using cutting edge techniques and commitment, the art of sustainability. Back in 2000 it wasn’t called sustainability, and many of them don’t use that word today. It was called self-reliance, or husbandry, or stewardship, but it resembled what many people consider today to be sustainability.
This lead us to researching slow food, stewardship based programs, biomimicry, new urbanism and a host of elements that could lead us in our formation of what we then felt would be an exciting growth opportunity.
As the pieces began to lay out in front of us, we saw that the affecting change in this microcosm would require not only one initiative, but a wide range of activity that could begin the conversation of how we move towards long term sustainability. We roughly grouped these initiatives into two categories: Food and Agriculture issues, and Growth Management issues. Using Eco-Trust’s “Conservation Economy” model, we generated the following businesses, all with the mission of defining defending and developing Hood River for it’s long term place in the conservation economy.
Food Issues:
The Sixth Street Bistro
Founded in 1991, the Sixth Street Bistro became “Green Smart” certified in 1998. (Green Smart was a business certification program promoted by an OSU RARE Volunteer in Hood River) Our conversion, however, lead us to revise the way we received our products, the amount of packaging we would accept, and altered who our suppliers were. These issues were detailed in an article published by the Chefs Collaborative, and included later in this packet.
We recycle all food scraps from kitchen production, (where appropriate) and have a very high recycle and reuse percentage. Our oil is rendered in a Bio fuel co-op that we helped found, and burned in one of our partner’s automobiles. We have personally lead to the support and founding of not less than 6 family farms, whom we use as suppliers. The Sixth Street created our area’s interest in the local food shed.
Celilo Restaurant
Our success at the Sixth Street Bistro lead us to the construction of Hood River’s first “Leed Compliant” building, one of the first major investments in Hood River’s Downtown in over 30 years. (As part of a Nisei project, please see below) We built Celilo as the anchor tenant in this building. Celilo is a restaurant that focuses on Sustainability at every turn, holistic, financial and otherwise. We concentrate on local, resource responsible food production, and “Honor the Distance” when our food is not obtainable within our food shed. Our interior was built using reclaimed materials and is LEED Compliant. We pre-heat our dishwasher water behind our cooking line so that we do not have to use chlorine on our rinse cycle, an item that would immediately impact our food supply.
Oregon Growers and Shippers
We also started Oregon Growers and Shippers, as a method of “branding” the Hood River valley. Our product is sourced from family farms, and packaged using minimal processing. We promote these farms and the “excellence of place” in all our marketing. In 2005 OGS was named a finalist in the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade’s “Best New Product Line” and “Outstanding Preserve” Award.
Our products are sold nationwide, and bring the story of Hood River, and responsible value added production to the nation.
The Farmer’s Conservation Alliance
We were honored to be the group that incubated the FCA, one of Oregon’s most promising not-for-profits. While still in start up mode, the FCA is a company that installs a revolutionary fish screen, a device that can divert water for irrigation without harming fish. This patented technology is the “holy grail” of responsible water diversion, and creates the promise of truly green hydroelectricity.
Even more promising, the FCA has been formed using the latest thinking in socially responsible investing, taking the revenue stream from the screen sales, and investing it back into Rural economies to develop more responsible technologies that provide financial benefit, as well as ecological and social benefit.
Growth Issues
Nisei
Created to stop Hood River’s early infatuation with sprawl, Nisei is a new-urbanist development company. Nisei has developed three projects, each pushing new ground in Hood River. We built two sets of town homes to demonstrate that effective infill could be interesting and of high quality. We built these eight homes to what would today be considered similar to “earth advantage” quality, including drought resistant landscaping, semi-permeable driveways, efficient “pre built” customs homes, and other resource efficient materials.
Our most recent project was the New Yasui building, which was built to qualify for LEED Silver status. This building was named after a prominent Asian family that was displaced during World War Two, and built on the site of an old gas station in Downtown Hood River. When we began, it was the first new building on Oak Street, Hood River’s main street, in over 30 years.
Copper West Properties
Founded as the selling arm to Nisei, Copper West has now grown into a thriving Real Estate sales company. An unintended side effect of our work, was dealing with the number of inbound residents to Hood River. Copper West works to bring these new residents to town, acting as a trusted negotiator. While initially created as simply a sales company, we have learned that our Real Estate work is an important first point of contact for new residents of Hood River. Tying our customers into the community is a much more personal effort than just a list of school board members, etc. Making these personal connections is an important service differentiator for our company, one that we are proud of. Our offices are all LEED compliant, and we use empty desk space in our office to incubate other not for profits that align with our goals. Currently we offer space to the local representative of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and the Gorge Grown Food Network.
Hood River Energy Partners
Now defunct, Hood River Energy Partners (HREP) was created to bring Hood River into the 21st century with regards to energy security. Founded as a lunch group, HREP strategized on early adoption and research ideas that ultimately lead to “The Navigator” a publication mailed to every home in Hood River County helping all residents understand the importance of energy conservation, and connecting them with tips and resources that saved them money.
Today, the spirit of HREP lives on in Hood River County’s Renewable Energy plan, a plan for Hood River to generate its own energy from renewable resources as a source of both energy self sufficiency, and County government revenue. This initiative migrated from HREP to the County Government through Maui Meyer’s involvement with Hood River County as a County Commissioner.
More and more people question the larger work that I'm doing in Town and the State, so I figured I'd post something for people to look at that explains a bit more about what I'm working on. (no, Real Estate is not my ENTIRE life) Please read, and if you'd like to know more, check out more posts on my personal Blog. You can also check our the professional Blogs too.....
(The Following was from a State "sustainability" Awards application)
Thanks.
Maui
1. Describe how sustainability is incorporated into the mission, goals and work ethic of your organization.
Look Closer
Hood River Oregon, is, by many estimates, a small town exploding at the seams. On the surface, it’s a town headed down the well trodden path of a tourism based economy, oft a cycle driven boom-bust economy most appropriately typified by Hawaii’s roller coaster economy.
But look closer, and you’ll see something interesting happening; a beautiful, wonderful formula for long term success passing by the window of opportunity.
Capturing a nascent trend, and lining up all the elements in this moment to create the foundation for long term viability is the goal of the company that my partner and I began back in 1998.
What we noticed in 1998 was that many of the people coming to our restaurant in Hood River were not coming to see or even be “windsurfers” or “sports town” people. We noticed that there was a subtle longing in each of our customers, athlete or not, that drew them here.
It was a longing to be connected to other people around them. The friendly nod in the street, the helpful stranger, that “small town” quality of life, was becoming, an economic kernel that we could build new business around.
But only if that small town feel were alive and healthy. Quickly we began to draw up what was truly Hood River’s strength, and almost immediately, we determined that it was Hood River’s relationship with agriculture that provided the key. The small town atmosphere was almost purely derivative of the agricultural ethic. The long term success of a town like Hood River is based, almost entirely upon the success of our region’s agriculture. Not entirely for it’s output, but rather, its ethos.
Further research lead us to the realization that many of these farmers were practicing, often using cutting edge techniques and commitment, the art of sustainability. Back in 2000 it wasn’t called sustainability, and many of them don’t use that word today. It was called self-reliance, or husbandry, or stewardship, but it resembled what many people consider today to be sustainability.
This lead us to researching slow food, stewardship based programs, biomimicry, new urbanism and a host of elements that could lead us in our formation of what we then felt would be an exciting growth opportunity.
As the pieces began to lay out in front of us, we saw that the affecting change in this microcosm would require not only one initiative, but a wide range of activity that could begin the conversation of how we move towards long term sustainability. We roughly grouped these initiatives into two categories: Food and Agriculture issues, and Growth Management issues. Using Eco-Trust’s “Conservation Economy” model, we generated the following businesses, all with the mission of defining defending and developing Hood River for it’s long term place in the conservation economy.
Food Issues:
The Sixth Street Bistro
Founded in 1991, the Sixth Street Bistro became “Green Smart” certified in 1998. (Green Smart was a business certification program promoted by an OSU RARE Volunteer in Hood River) Our conversion, however, lead us to revise the way we received our products, the amount of packaging we would accept, and altered who our suppliers were. These issues were detailed in an article published by the Chefs Collaborative, and included later in this packet.
We recycle all food scraps from kitchen production, (where appropriate) and have a very high recycle and reuse percentage. Our oil is rendered in a Bio fuel co-op that we helped found, and burned in one of our partner’s automobiles. We have personally lead to the support and founding of not less than 6 family farms, whom we use as suppliers. The Sixth Street created our area’s interest in the local food shed.
Celilo Restaurant
Our success at the Sixth Street Bistro lead us to the construction of Hood River’s first “Leed Compliant” building, one of the first major investments in Hood River’s Downtown in over 30 years. (As part of a Nisei project, please see below) We built Celilo as the anchor tenant in this building. Celilo is a restaurant that focuses on Sustainability at every turn, holistic, financial and otherwise. We concentrate on local, resource responsible food production, and “Honor the Distance” when our food is not obtainable within our food shed. Our interior was built using reclaimed materials and is LEED Compliant. We pre-heat our dishwasher water behind our cooking line so that we do not have to use chlorine on our rinse cycle, an item that would immediately impact our food supply.
Oregon Growers and Shippers
We also started Oregon Growers and Shippers, as a method of “branding” the Hood River valley. Our product is sourced from family farms, and packaged using minimal processing. We promote these farms and the “excellence of place” in all our marketing. In 2005 OGS was named a finalist in the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade’s “Best New Product Line” and “Outstanding Preserve” Award.
Our products are sold nationwide, and bring the story of Hood River, and responsible value added production to the nation.
The Farmer’s Conservation Alliance
We were honored to be the group that incubated the FCA, one of Oregon’s most promising not-for-profits. While still in start up mode, the FCA is a company that installs a revolutionary fish screen, a device that can divert water for irrigation without harming fish. This patented technology is the “holy grail” of responsible water diversion, and creates the promise of truly green hydroelectricity.
Even more promising, the FCA has been formed using the latest thinking in socially responsible investing, taking the revenue stream from the screen sales, and investing it back into Rural economies to develop more responsible technologies that provide financial benefit, as well as ecological and social benefit.
Growth Issues
Nisei
Created to stop Hood River’s early infatuation with sprawl, Nisei is a new-urbanist development company. Nisei has developed three projects, each pushing new ground in Hood River. We built two sets of town homes to demonstrate that effective infill could be interesting and of high quality. We built these eight homes to what would today be considered similar to “earth advantage” quality, including drought resistant landscaping, semi-permeable driveways, efficient “pre built” customs homes, and other resource efficient materials.
Our most recent project was the New Yasui building, which was built to qualify for LEED Silver status. This building was named after a prominent Asian family that was displaced during World War Two, and built on the site of an old gas station in Downtown Hood River. When we began, it was the first new building on Oak Street, Hood River’s main street, in over 30 years.
Copper West Properties
Founded as the selling arm to Nisei, Copper West has now grown into a thriving Real Estate sales company. An unintended side effect of our work, was dealing with the number of inbound residents to Hood River. Copper West works to bring these new residents to town, acting as a trusted negotiator. While initially created as simply a sales company, we have learned that our Real Estate work is an important first point of contact for new residents of Hood River. Tying our customers into the community is a much more personal effort than just a list of school board members, etc. Making these personal connections is an important service differentiator for our company, one that we are proud of. Our offices are all LEED compliant, and we use empty desk space in our office to incubate other not for profits that align with our goals. Currently we offer space to the local representative of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and the Gorge Grown Food Network.
Hood River Energy Partners
Now defunct, Hood River Energy Partners (HREP) was created to bring Hood River into the 21st century with regards to energy security. Founded as a lunch group, HREP strategized on early adoption and research ideas that ultimately lead to “The Navigator” a publication mailed to every home in Hood River County helping all residents understand the importance of energy conservation, and connecting them with tips and resources that saved them money.
Today, the spirit of HREP lives on in Hood River County’s Renewable Energy plan, a plan for Hood River to generate its own energy from renewable resources as a source of both energy self sufficiency, and County government revenue. This initiative migrated from HREP to the County Government through Maui Meyer’s involvement with Hood River County as a County Commissioner.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Randoms
Couple of random Photos worth Posting.
Late Summer Leftovers.....
Hiking in the Gorge.....
Julia, Having a Cupcake Moment and Josephine's Birthday Party...She stood there for over an hour.....
Late Summer Leftovers.....
Hiking in the Gorge.....
Julia, Having a Cupcake Moment and Josephine's Birthday Party...She stood there for over an hour.....
Julia gets some Writing things and a(nother Fire)
....Julia got a "Field Journal" today, and started taking notes.....
And More Notes
And there was Yet another Fire! This time across the River on the Broughton Millsite. Burned Six Homes, pretty Dramatic.....
And More Notes
And there was Yet another Fire! This time across the River on the Broughton Millsite. Burned Six Homes, pretty Dramatic.....
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Thanksgiving in Bellingham
Went to Bellingham over the Weekend, and had a wonderful time with the family....
Went the back way and stopped into Roslyn, Washington.....Very Cool Town...
Then we went and Hung with Family. Jay, Caroline and Maluhia at Dinner....
Playing at the Pond after Thanksgiving Dinner.....
Dancing at Kurt and Maluhia's Studio....
And Generally Having a great Time!
Went the back way and stopped into Roslyn, Washington.....Very Cool Town...
Then we went and Hung with Family. Jay, Caroline and Maluhia at Dinner....
Playing at the Pond after Thanksgiving Dinner.....
Dancing at Kurt and Maluhia's Studio....
And Generally Having a great Time!
Apple Tasting and the First of the Farm Dinners
Did an Apple Tasting Today. Couldn't get through the first 12 of over 75 varieties!
Then, The Dinner.......
And the Result of the Apple Tasting!
Then, The Dinner.......
And the Result of the Apple Tasting!
Forestry Tour, John and Marcies Wedding, Late Summer First Friday, Fire on the White Salmon Bluff!…..
....As Late Summer came around, things began to slow down....John and Marcie got Married! John is our Sous Chef at Celilo, and runs one of the farms we buy from. Marcie is one of our key FOH employees. As you could probably guess, their wedding was something else! Check out the Grill....(John caught the Steelhead, and grew the vegetables)
Josephine, and some Poor, Random Cat....
We had a late Summer First Friday tour downtown, and Julia and I got to hang out in the Street.....
....And I went on a Sustainable Forestry Tour. Take away from that?
"There is no Safe Place to Stand in a Lumber Mill." Trust me.
Josephine, and some Poor, Random Cat....
We had a late Summer First Friday tour downtown, and Julia and I got to hang out in the Street.....
....And I went on a Sustainable Forestry Tour. Take away from that?
"There is no Safe Place to Stand in a Lumber Mill." Trust me.
Snuk away to the Beach! Hood River Fire!
Quick trip to the Beach for a day. Very fun, very short. Stopped by the Zoo on the way out……
Got to hang on the beach and do some climbing and digging...(No Surfing. Waah.)
Came back to a MONSTER fire. While I was Standing looking at it, Randy Olmstead came by and took me into the fire (He has property near where it was burning) and There was Mike and Shawna Caldwell of Stonehedge, moving a wedding out of there!
Poor Shawna, was very stressed out, but they managed to pull it off over at the Columbia Gorge Hotel. (Managed is an understatement, they rocked it, it was impressive!)
We had the County Comission over for Dinner too. Nice spread out on the back driveway.....
All Round, very wonderful month. Glad the Fire didn't do too much damage......
Got to hang on the beach and do some climbing and digging...(No Surfing. Waah.)
Came back to a MONSTER fire. While I was Standing looking at it, Randy Olmstead came by and took me into the fire (He has property near where it was burning) and There was Mike and Shawna Caldwell of Stonehedge, moving a wedding out of there!
Poor Shawna, was very stressed out, but they managed to pull it off over at the Columbia Gorge Hotel. (Managed is an understatement, they rocked it, it was impressive!)
We had the County Comission over for Dinner too. Nice spread out on the back driveway.....
All Round, very wonderful month. Glad the Fire didn't do too much damage......
The Hood River Relay for Life
So,
Many of you got the e-mail I put together for the Relay for life, and it raised over 5k. I showed up to walk my bit, and lo and behold, Kip and Dena Yasui Showed up to hang out! And Ed McReynolds came along for the walk as well! We had such a wonderful time. I’m very grateful. Very fun……….
Johnson Dunn did a Stellar Job of keeping us all organized, and Ed was great Company...
Many of you got the e-mail I put together for the Relay for life, and it raised over 5k. I showed up to walk my bit, and lo and behold, Kip and Dena Yasui Showed up to hang out! And Ed McReynolds came along for the walk as well! We had such a wonderful time. I’m very grateful. Very fun……….
Johnson Dunn did a Stellar Job of keeping us all organized, and Ed was great Company...
Back to July....
Ok…When we last left my Blog, we were going into Summer…. The Yasui’s had just visited, and that (other than posting news clippings) is the last moment I had to write…..
It was a very busy Summer! I bought an Iphone and it doesn’t take as nice a set of photos as my other phone did (but everything else is awesome) and I snapped a few photos of happenings around July…..
Nathaniel and Julia and I went to The Fourth of July Parade, and Saw (among other people) Uncle Mike Stubbs………
And Steve Carlson riding around on a bike with a watermelon on his head. (Nice one Steve!)
Later that Day we hosted our usual families around for the Barbeque…Nathaniel and I saw the Pendleton Roundup Barbaque sauce on the shelves for the first time (It’s an OGS product. Go Dave…) and that was cool
But the BBQ was very nice, and very relaxing…Except for the part where I agreed that I would learn how to Kiteboard…….
It was a very busy Summer! I bought an Iphone and it doesn’t take as nice a set of photos as my other phone did (but everything else is awesome) and I snapped a few photos of happenings around July…..
Nathaniel and Julia and I went to The Fourth of July Parade, and Saw (among other people) Uncle Mike Stubbs………
And Steve Carlson riding around on a bike with a watermelon on his head. (Nice one Steve!)
Later that Day we hosted our usual families around for the Barbeque…Nathaniel and I saw the Pendleton Roundup Barbaque sauce on the shelves for the first time (It’s an OGS product. Go Dave…) and that was cool
But the BBQ was very nice, and very relaxing…Except for the part where I agreed that I would learn how to Kiteboard…….
Monday, August 13, 2007
More to read about.......
I'm thinking that my personal and professional lives are mixing too much, especially when I post a New York Times article on both.......This one is too good, however......
Crazy Summer. I've got a huge back log of photos, and too many stories. They will have to wait for the Fall..............
Off to Resorts, and Carrying Their Careers
By JOHN LELAND, The New York Times
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Time was you could tell the urban refugees in places like this: corporate achievers who quit the rat race to open a bed and breakfast or a candle shoppe.
Jim Moylan represents a new tribe in this bucolic mountain town, named for its loud sulfur spring. Mr. Moylan, 59, is a lawyer who specializes in securities and commodities work. When he moved from Chicago in 2003, he did not downscale his career for the small town, keeping his secretary and associates in Chicago and his clients around the country. He conducts his practice by fax and e-mail, just as he did in Chicago.
In Steamboat Springs, Mr. Moylan dug into local affairs, joining three city committees, the Rotary Club, his church finance council and the editorial board of the daily newspaper. “I just wanted to get involved in the community,“ Mr. Moylan said, sitting in a bookstore/wine bar off the town’s main street.
As technology enables people to live and work wherever they want, increasingly they are clustering in resort playgrounds like Steamboat Springs (pop. 9,315) that have natural amenities, good weather — and, now, lots of people like themselves.
In places like Nantucket, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Teton County, Idaho, the migrants are creating hybrid communities, implanting urban incomes, tastes, careers, ambitions, restaurants, cultural activities and networking opportunities into small towns that until recently could support none of these, and for which there has been little planning and still no consensus.
“You are seeing a transformation of rural communities,” said Jonathan Schechter, executive director of the Charture Institute in Jackson, Wyo., a nonprofit organization that studies small recreational towns.
Into quiet resort spots the migrants have come, laptops on their knees: fund managers from New York, software developers from California, consultants, proofreaders, engineers, inventors. “The same processes that led to the suburbanization of the United States after World War II,” Mr. Schechter said, “are now producing a virtual suburbanization in places like Jackson or Steamboat Springs.”
From 2000 to 2006, population in the 297 counties rated highest in natural amenities by the United States Department of Agriculture grew by 7.1 percent, 10 times the rate for the 1,090 rural counties with below-average amenities, the department reported.
In towns that once emptied after the ski season or the beach season, these “location-neutral” migrants are complicating the traditional dynamic between tourists and locals. Here as elsewhere, average homes have become unaffordable for teachers, firefighters and others — the people who created the good schools and community closeness that newcomers said drew them. The rate of change “is causing a whiplash,” Mr. Schechter said, “because the towns don’t have the political and economic systems in place to deal with them.”
Routt County, which includes Steamboat Springs, is one of the first places to identify these new émigrés as a source of economic growth and, paradoxically, community stability. A 2005 survey found that as many as 1 in 10 year-round households was involved in a location-neutral business. Unlike retirees and second-home buyers, who are also roosting in vacation towns, they send children to the local schools. “Without kids, you don’t have a community,” said Scott Ford, a counselor at the Small Business Resource Center at Colorado Mountain College.
Cloistered in home offices, isolated from the local economy, location-neutrals are often invisible even to one another, except when they appear on local committees.
Many work as hard as their urban counterparts, often juggling commitments in several time zones, but can step from their offices to a hiking trail or mountain stream.
In Steamboat Springs, a pawn shop and loan store amid the expensive restaurants on the main drag illustrates the growing inequality in a region that produces few middle-income jobs. Each day 1,500 workers commute to Routt County from neighboring Moffat County, an hour away. Meanwhile, the airport, once filled with tourists, caters to people in business suits.
“You’ve seen changes in politics,” said Carl Steidtmann, the chief economist for Deloitte Research, who moved from Brooklyn two years ago. “The county tipped Democratic in the last election. You see the tension in the City Council. It went from being pro-business-and-development to more conservationist.” He added, “Twelve years ago, not everyone you met had a Ph.D. or was from New York. There are still a lot of locals here, but that aspect is changing.”
Peter Parsons, 45, who runs a microchip design company in Boulder, Colo., a city of 92,000 about three hours away, moved here five years ago to raise his three children in a small-town environment, keeping the company in Boulder. “It’s a real town,” Mr. Parsons said of the appeal of Steamboat Springs. “If your kids are running around, adults will see them and call you.”
He has kept a Boulder telephone number and does little to remind clients he is not in the city. “I wouldn’t have been able to come here with my family if it meant opening a coffee shop,” he said.
To combat isolation, he volunteered at the school and at church, and briefly moved from his home office into a town-run business incubator “in order to meet people,” he said. Now his office overlooks the ski slopes and is a short walk from a fly-fishing spot; computers vie for desk space with hand-tied flies. He still has to persuade associates that he has not slowed down or retired.
“We have big discussions about what it means to be a local,” Mr. Parsons said of his fellow location-neutrals. “Some people snub anybody who hasn’t been here a long time. And some people think they know everything when they haven’t been here long.”
The Routt County Economic Development Cooperative has embraced the new tribe as an asset, especially to an area with no strong industry other than tourism. Location-neutrals tend to volunteer heavily in civic organizations and local government. County interviews with 61 location-neutral businesses found they held 120 volunteer positions.
But their enthusiasm has not always rubbed long-timers the right way, Mr. Ford said. “If they haven’t bonded with the community,” he said, “they begin with the ‘You people’ speeches: ‘What you people don’t understand is...’ When they start that, it’s almost impossible.” Sometimes disputes spill out in the local newspaper or its blogs, where old-timers and newcomers point fingers.
Thomas Miller-Freutel, a partner in a directory-assistance startup, knows this chasm firsthand. Though he has lived here since 1990, first as owner of the Steamboat Inn, he sometimes struggles to balance his fast-paced work life with the small-town community.
“I have to switch gears from what I was doing in other parts of the world to sit down and be productive as a community member,” he said. “You have to be careful not to say, ‘Look, I deal with people all over the world and this is how it’s done.’ You have to change gears in a small town.”
For Bill and Stephanie Faunce, who run a marketing company for cable operators, small-town life often means starting work at 7 a.m. and quitting at 11 p.m., but with breaks to hike, ski or be with their two young children. Their goal in coming here was not to slow down but to eliminate urban distractions and pressures.
“There are no stressors here,” said Mr. Faunce, 43. “In L.A., it took 90 minutes to get to the office, so we had a Mercedes and a Land Rover. Now we drive a Suburban. In three years we’ve put 15,000 miles on it.”
Crazy Summer. I've got a huge back log of photos, and too many stories. They will have to wait for the Fall..............
Off to Resorts, and Carrying Their Careers
By JOHN LELAND, The New York Times
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. — Time was you could tell the urban refugees in places like this: corporate achievers who quit the rat race to open a bed and breakfast or a candle shoppe.
Jim Moylan represents a new tribe in this bucolic mountain town, named for its loud sulfur spring. Mr. Moylan, 59, is a lawyer who specializes in securities and commodities work. When he moved from Chicago in 2003, he did not downscale his career for the small town, keeping his secretary and associates in Chicago and his clients around the country. He conducts his practice by fax and e-mail, just as he did in Chicago.
In Steamboat Springs, Mr. Moylan dug into local affairs, joining three city committees, the Rotary Club, his church finance council and the editorial board of the daily newspaper. “I just wanted to get involved in the community,“ Mr. Moylan said, sitting in a bookstore/wine bar off the town’s main street.
As technology enables people to live and work wherever they want, increasingly they are clustering in resort playgrounds like Steamboat Springs (pop. 9,315) that have natural amenities, good weather — and, now, lots of people like themselves.
In places like Nantucket, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Teton County, Idaho, the migrants are creating hybrid communities, implanting urban incomes, tastes, careers, ambitions, restaurants, cultural activities and networking opportunities into small towns that until recently could support none of these, and for which there has been little planning and still no consensus.
“You are seeing a transformation of rural communities,” said Jonathan Schechter, executive director of the Charture Institute in Jackson, Wyo., a nonprofit organization that studies small recreational towns.
Into quiet resort spots the migrants have come, laptops on their knees: fund managers from New York, software developers from California, consultants, proofreaders, engineers, inventors. “The same processes that led to the suburbanization of the United States after World War II,” Mr. Schechter said, “are now producing a virtual suburbanization in places like Jackson or Steamboat Springs.”
From 2000 to 2006, population in the 297 counties rated highest in natural amenities by the United States Department of Agriculture grew by 7.1 percent, 10 times the rate for the 1,090 rural counties with below-average amenities, the department reported.
In towns that once emptied after the ski season or the beach season, these “location-neutral” migrants are complicating the traditional dynamic between tourists and locals. Here as elsewhere, average homes have become unaffordable for teachers, firefighters and others — the people who created the good schools and community closeness that newcomers said drew them. The rate of change “is causing a whiplash,” Mr. Schechter said, “because the towns don’t have the political and economic systems in place to deal with them.”
Routt County, which includes Steamboat Springs, is one of the first places to identify these new émigrés as a source of economic growth and, paradoxically, community stability. A 2005 survey found that as many as 1 in 10 year-round households was involved in a location-neutral business. Unlike retirees and second-home buyers, who are also roosting in vacation towns, they send children to the local schools. “Without kids, you don’t have a community,” said Scott Ford, a counselor at the Small Business Resource Center at Colorado Mountain College.
Cloistered in home offices, isolated from the local economy, location-neutrals are often invisible even to one another, except when they appear on local committees.
Many work as hard as their urban counterparts, often juggling commitments in several time zones, but can step from their offices to a hiking trail or mountain stream.
In Steamboat Springs, a pawn shop and loan store amid the expensive restaurants on the main drag illustrates the growing inequality in a region that produces few middle-income jobs. Each day 1,500 workers commute to Routt County from neighboring Moffat County, an hour away. Meanwhile, the airport, once filled with tourists, caters to people in business suits.
“You’ve seen changes in politics,” said Carl Steidtmann, the chief economist for Deloitte Research, who moved from Brooklyn two years ago. “The county tipped Democratic in the last election. You see the tension in the City Council. It went from being pro-business-and-development to more conservationist.” He added, “Twelve years ago, not everyone you met had a Ph.D. or was from New York. There are still a lot of locals here, but that aspect is changing.”
Peter Parsons, 45, who runs a microchip design company in Boulder, Colo., a city of 92,000 about three hours away, moved here five years ago to raise his three children in a small-town environment, keeping the company in Boulder. “It’s a real town,” Mr. Parsons said of the appeal of Steamboat Springs. “If your kids are running around, adults will see them and call you.”
He has kept a Boulder telephone number and does little to remind clients he is not in the city. “I wouldn’t have been able to come here with my family if it meant opening a coffee shop,” he said.
To combat isolation, he volunteered at the school and at church, and briefly moved from his home office into a town-run business incubator “in order to meet people,” he said. Now his office overlooks the ski slopes and is a short walk from a fly-fishing spot; computers vie for desk space with hand-tied flies. He still has to persuade associates that he has not slowed down or retired.
“We have big discussions about what it means to be a local,” Mr. Parsons said of his fellow location-neutrals. “Some people snub anybody who hasn’t been here a long time. And some people think they know everything when they haven’t been here long.”
The Routt County Economic Development Cooperative has embraced the new tribe as an asset, especially to an area with no strong industry other than tourism. Location-neutrals tend to volunteer heavily in civic organizations and local government. County interviews with 61 location-neutral businesses found they held 120 volunteer positions.
But their enthusiasm has not always rubbed long-timers the right way, Mr. Ford said. “If they haven’t bonded with the community,” he said, “they begin with the ‘You people’ speeches: ‘What you people don’t understand is...’ When they start that, it’s almost impossible.” Sometimes disputes spill out in the local newspaper or its blogs, where old-timers and newcomers point fingers.
Thomas Miller-Freutel, a partner in a directory-assistance startup, knows this chasm firsthand. Though he has lived here since 1990, first as owner of the Steamboat Inn, he sometimes struggles to balance his fast-paced work life with the small-town community.
“I have to switch gears from what I was doing in other parts of the world to sit down and be productive as a community member,” he said. “You have to be careful not to say, ‘Look, I deal with people all over the world and this is how it’s done.’ You have to change gears in a small town.”
For Bill and Stephanie Faunce, who run a marketing company for cable operators, small-town life often means starting work at 7 a.m. and quitting at 11 p.m., but with breaks to hike, ski or be with their two young children. Their goal in coming here was not to slow down but to eliminate urban distractions and pressures.
“There are no stressors here,” said Mr. Faunce, 43. “In L.A., it took 90 minutes to get to the office, so we had a Mercedes and a Land Rover. Now we drive a Suburban. In three years we’ve put 15,000 miles on it.”
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Goooo Dave!
More Cross Postings.....but this one is a good one. Dave Gee, our partner who runs Oregon Growers and Shippers just got some crackin' press.......
Go Dave!
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: July 31, 2007
Cooling Off in Montauk With an Assist From New Orleans
In steamy New Orleans, refreshment comes in the form of sno-balls: ice that has been shaved to a powder and drenched with bright syrup. The dense ice absorbs the syrup, making it more sorbet than slush, and more refined than the Italian ices known to New Yorkers.
Eric Tilstra, right, who grew up in the Crescent City, thought it was time for beachgoers in Montauk, N.Y., where he was born, to experience sno-balls. It took him more than a year to get the equipment, the permits and a bright orange truck. Now, on Monday through Wednesday evenings from 6 to 10 p.m., and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. the rest of the week, he dispenses Belly’s Sno-Balls from his truck at the Kirk Park lot at the Montauk Village beach on Route 27.
The sno-balls come in three sizes, which cost $2, $3 and $4, and in 28 flavors, including mango, watermelon, sour apple, vanilla and chocolate. There are mixtures like vanilla-chocolate “yummy-tummy.” A nugget of cream, actually frozen condensed milk, is 50 cents extra.
In the Market: Nature’s Bounty in All Its Colors
Good weather has blessed many crops in the New York region this year, and abundance at the Greenmarkets is a result. “There has been enough rain, but not too much,” said Fred Wilklow of Wilklow Orchards in Highland, N.Y.
Tomatoes, top, and corn are in extremely good shape, as are zucchini. Squashes, including patty pans in various colors, sizes and patterns; herbs; a rainbow of peppers; four or five kinds of eggplant; five kinds of carrots; verdant okra; lettuces; cucumbers; green beans; and shell beans, which are just coming in, fill the vegetable stands. Velvety flat yellow Romano beans are $3 a pound from Berried Treasures in Cooks Falls, N.Y.
Spring was cool, so ramps, garlic scapes and strawberries showed up a bit late, but the scapes will be around most of the summer. Strawberries were still being picked last week, almost a month later than usual. The Tristar variety, which lasts through September, is now available.
Peaches and other stone fruit are benefiting from hot, sunny days. New Jersey expects its peach season to be a long one this year.
Blushing Red Jacket apricots, above left, are also enjoying a richly flavorful harvest right now.
Cherries, including sour ones ($6 a quart from Caradonna Farms in Milton, N.Y.), are having a fine season, and the berries include gooseberries, golden raspberries and red, black and white currants.
Farmers are looking forward to more good crops, including apples and pears.
PB&J Upgrade: Breaking Out the Good Stuff
Stick to your old-fashioned roots and the market will eventually wake up. Take the Koeze Company’s Cream-Nut peanut butter, for example. It has been made in Grand Rapids, Mich., from dark-roasted Virginia peanuts since 1925. Coarsely ground in small batches and lightly seasoned with sea salt, it is neither creamy nor chunky but totally irresistible.
Jeff Koeze (pronounced COO-zee ) runs the company, and is the fourth generation of his family to do so. He uses vintage slow-grinding machines to produce exceptionally nutty-tasting peanut butter, which has been sold nationally for only the past year or so. When freshly made, it is well emulsified into a creamy consistency. The oil eventually floats to the top and has to be stirred back in. This does not affect quality, only convenience.
Fairway and Barney Greengrass stores have new shipments. Zabar’s also sells it, as do Marlow & Sons and Stinky Bklyn in Brooklyn. A list of other stores is at creamnut.com. A 17-ounce jar is about $6.
And to go with your peanut butter? Jelly, of course. These days, many preserves are touted as being “all fruit” with “no added sugar.” All that means is that syrupy grape or apple concentrates are used as sweeteners, with minimal reduction in calories. Oregon Growers and Shippers, which sells a line of preserves that use seasonal fruit grown on small farms in the Pacific Northwest, bucks this trend. Its preserves are sweetened with cane sugar, tipping the scale in favor of fruit.
A dozen flavors include marionberries, huckleberries, cherries and strawberries. Most are $6.50 for a 12-ounce jar from growersandshippers.com. In New York, Ideal Cheese Shop sells the jars for $5.95. The huckleberry is $8.95 but out of stock until next month.
Go Dave!
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: July 31, 2007
Cooling Off in Montauk With an Assist From New Orleans
In steamy New Orleans, refreshment comes in the form of sno-balls: ice that has been shaved to a powder and drenched with bright syrup. The dense ice absorbs the syrup, making it more sorbet than slush, and more refined than the Italian ices known to New Yorkers.
Eric Tilstra, right, who grew up in the Crescent City, thought it was time for beachgoers in Montauk, N.Y., where he was born, to experience sno-balls. It took him more than a year to get the equipment, the permits and a bright orange truck. Now, on Monday through Wednesday evenings from 6 to 10 p.m., and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. the rest of the week, he dispenses Belly’s Sno-Balls from his truck at the Kirk Park lot at the Montauk Village beach on Route 27.
The sno-balls come in three sizes, which cost $2, $3 and $4, and in 28 flavors, including mango, watermelon, sour apple, vanilla and chocolate. There are mixtures like vanilla-chocolate “yummy-tummy.” A nugget of cream, actually frozen condensed milk, is 50 cents extra.
In the Market: Nature’s Bounty in All Its Colors
Good weather has blessed many crops in the New York region this year, and abundance at the Greenmarkets is a result. “There has been enough rain, but not too much,” said Fred Wilklow of Wilklow Orchards in Highland, N.Y.
Tomatoes, top, and corn are in extremely good shape, as are zucchini. Squashes, including patty pans in various colors, sizes and patterns; herbs; a rainbow of peppers; four or five kinds of eggplant; five kinds of carrots; verdant okra; lettuces; cucumbers; green beans; and shell beans, which are just coming in, fill the vegetable stands. Velvety flat yellow Romano beans are $3 a pound from Berried Treasures in Cooks Falls, N.Y.
Spring was cool, so ramps, garlic scapes and strawberries showed up a bit late, but the scapes will be around most of the summer. Strawberries were still being picked last week, almost a month later than usual. The Tristar variety, which lasts through September, is now available.
Peaches and other stone fruit are benefiting from hot, sunny days. New Jersey expects its peach season to be a long one this year.
Blushing Red Jacket apricots, above left, are also enjoying a richly flavorful harvest right now.
Cherries, including sour ones ($6 a quart from Caradonna Farms in Milton, N.Y.), are having a fine season, and the berries include gooseberries, golden raspberries and red, black and white currants.
Farmers are looking forward to more good crops, including apples and pears.
PB&J Upgrade: Breaking Out the Good Stuff
Stick to your old-fashioned roots and the market will eventually wake up. Take the Koeze Company’s Cream-Nut peanut butter, for example. It has been made in Grand Rapids, Mich., from dark-roasted Virginia peanuts since 1925. Coarsely ground in small batches and lightly seasoned with sea salt, it is neither creamy nor chunky but totally irresistible.
Jeff Koeze (pronounced COO-zee ) runs the company, and is the fourth generation of his family to do so. He uses vintage slow-grinding machines to produce exceptionally nutty-tasting peanut butter, which has been sold nationally for only the past year or so. When freshly made, it is well emulsified into a creamy consistency. The oil eventually floats to the top and has to be stirred back in. This does not affect quality, only convenience.
Fairway and Barney Greengrass stores have new shipments. Zabar’s also sells it, as do Marlow & Sons and Stinky Bklyn in Brooklyn. A list of other stores is at creamnut.com. A 17-ounce jar is about $6.
And to go with your peanut butter? Jelly, of course. These days, many preserves are touted as being “all fruit” with “no added sugar.” All that means is that syrupy grape or apple concentrates are used as sweeteners, with minimal reduction in calories. Oregon Growers and Shippers, which sells a line of preserves that use seasonal fruit grown on small farms in the Pacific Northwest, bucks this trend. Its preserves are sweetened with cane sugar, tipping the scale in favor of fruit.
A dozen flavors include marionberries, huckleberries, cherries and strawberries. Most are $6.50 for a 12-ounce jar from growersandshippers.com. In New York, Ideal Cheese Shop sells the jars for $5.95. The huckleberry is $8.95 but out of stock until next month.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Green Restaurants
Nice to know people out there are paying attention............
More restaurants are going green by going local
One Los Angeles menu boasts dishes where 90 percent of the ingredients were raised within 400 miles.
By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Los Angeles
One course at a time, David Siegel consumes five gourmet dishes remarkable for their flavor and also for where the ingredients came from: sardines and sand dabs from Monterey Bay, Calif., squab and veal from the state's central coast, and strawberries from Oxnard, Calif.
"Ordinarily, I would be gun-shy and run the other way when I hear the word 'sardine,' " says Mr. Siegel. But "because they didn't have to preserve it in salt, this had a freshness and nonfishy taste I've never experienced. It was delightful."
The comment is music to the ears of Neal Fraser, chef of the well-known Grace Restaurant here, who designed a "Close to Home" menu where 90 percent of the ingredients are sourced within 400 miles. Advancing a so-called "socially and environmentally responsible" agenda throughout his restaurant – which includes serving filtered local tap water rather than bottled water from afar and fueling his own car with leftover vegetable oil – Mr. Fraser is part of a growing nationwide restaurant movement to go "green." The ideas are not new, say experts, but they are gaining fresh currency because of the burgeoning global environmental movement and new generations of youth with budding enthusiasm for long-established notions of sustainability, ecological health, and food safety.
As exemplified by Grace Restaurant, one key idea is to leave less of a carbon footprint wherever possible – choosing local meats, vegetables, fish, and fruit over those shipped from thousands of miles away. Another push is to support smaller local ranchers and farmers who avoid the kinds of animal diets and pesticides that are typically used for produce and meat and are often served in the nation's 1 million restaurants.
There is a laundry list of other strategies to reduce global warming: from recycling and composting waste to conserving water and lights, using nontoxic cleaners, tapping wind or other "green" power, and designing minimal-impact buildings. Like Grace, many restaurants are moving away from bottled water because of environmental concerns about bottle waste, refrigeration needed, transportation costs, and shipping containers.
"I just began to think about the future of the planet that my daughters would be inheriting and their children and so forth," says Fraser, who decided it was time to change after seeing the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," starring Al Gore.
Supporters report more interest by owners and diners than at any time since such notions began coalescing in the late 1960s. "The movement today is really huge and the debate is getting a far broader audience now," says Wynnie Stein, co-owner of Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., considered one of the national pioneers of locally sourced organic farming. "It's everybody from restaurants to colleges to food-service directors in schools, hospitals. People are very concerned about the environment for themselves and future generations and there is a new urgency to dramatically expand on ideas that have been around for years."
One measure of the interest is the growth of the Green Restaurant Association, which certifies restaurants coast to coast and encourages them to take four new steps to help the environment each year. Founded in 1990 in San Diego, the association has seen the number of its certified restaurants skyrocket from 60 to 300 in the past two years. The group is also negotiating with major restaurant chains, which could rapidly boost membership to 5,000.
"In the last year we have gotten more interest than in the previous 16 years combined," says founder and director Michael Oshman. "It's beginning to build exponentially from interest of previous decades."
Such restaurants are also drawing attention to the plight of smaller farms, ranches, and suppliers whose practices fit the model but are in danger of being lost.
"Government policies are making it very hard for the smaller, independent, family-run businesses, which operate with higher environmental standards," says Mike Antoci, who runs Superior Anhausner Foods, a Los Angeles distributor. "Restaurants like Fraser's are starting to raise public consciousness about what is at stake."
The new spotlight is creating a domino effect, say observers, in which restaurant customers begin to ask more questions about the local-food movement.
"We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who value the availability of food produced right in their own community," says Linda Halley, who runs Fairview Gardens, a nonprofit organic farm and education center in Goleta, Calif.
Some observers question some of the claims of the local-food movement. They say it's entirely possible that food grown locally could have a considerably larger carbon footprint than food flown halfway around the world because transportation represents only a tiny fraction – some experts say as little as 2 percent – of the energy required to grow, store, process, and package the food.
Supporters say that the movement is raising questions that society needs to ask. Mr. Oshman notes that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, with 200 stores nationwide, was the first large chain to be certified green last year and this year has announced it will run its stores on windpower exclusively. "If larger chains like this can do it, it shows this is not a fringe thing anymore."
More restaurants are going green by going local
One Los Angeles menu boasts dishes where 90 percent of the ingredients were raised within 400 miles.
By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Los Angeles
One course at a time, David Siegel consumes five gourmet dishes remarkable for their flavor and also for where the ingredients came from: sardines and sand dabs from Monterey Bay, Calif., squab and veal from the state's central coast, and strawberries from Oxnard, Calif.
"Ordinarily, I would be gun-shy and run the other way when I hear the word 'sardine,' " says Mr. Siegel. But "because they didn't have to preserve it in salt, this had a freshness and nonfishy taste I've never experienced. It was delightful."
The comment is music to the ears of Neal Fraser, chef of the well-known Grace Restaurant here, who designed a "Close to Home" menu where 90 percent of the ingredients are sourced within 400 miles. Advancing a so-called "socially and environmentally responsible" agenda throughout his restaurant – which includes serving filtered local tap water rather than bottled water from afar and fueling his own car with leftover vegetable oil – Mr. Fraser is part of a growing nationwide restaurant movement to go "green." The ideas are not new, say experts, but they are gaining fresh currency because of the burgeoning global environmental movement and new generations of youth with budding enthusiasm for long-established notions of sustainability, ecological health, and food safety.
As exemplified by Grace Restaurant, one key idea is to leave less of a carbon footprint wherever possible – choosing local meats, vegetables, fish, and fruit over those shipped from thousands of miles away. Another push is to support smaller local ranchers and farmers who avoid the kinds of animal diets and pesticides that are typically used for produce and meat and are often served in the nation's 1 million restaurants.
There is a laundry list of other strategies to reduce global warming: from recycling and composting waste to conserving water and lights, using nontoxic cleaners, tapping wind or other "green" power, and designing minimal-impact buildings. Like Grace, many restaurants are moving away from bottled water because of environmental concerns about bottle waste, refrigeration needed, transportation costs, and shipping containers.
"I just began to think about the future of the planet that my daughters would be inheriting and their children and so forth," says Fraser, who decided it was time to change after seeing the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," starring Al Gore.
Supporters report more interest by owners and diners than at any time since such notions began coalescing in the late 1960s. "The movement today is really huge and the debate is getting a far broader audience now," says Wynnie Stein, co-owner of Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, N.Y., considered one of the national pioneers of locally sourced organic farming. "It's everybody from restaurants to colleges to food-service directors in schools, hospitals. People are very concerned about the environment for themselves and future generations and there is a new urgency to dramatically expand on ideas that have been around for years."
One measure of the interest is the growth of the Green Restaurant Association, which certifies restaurants coast to coast and encourages them to take four new steps to help the environment each year. Founded in 1990 in San Diego, the association has seen the number of its certified restaurants skyrocket from 60 to 300 in the past two years. The group is also negotiating with major restaurant chains, which could rapidly boost membership to 5,000.
"In the last year we have gotten more interest than in the previous 16 years combined," says founder and director Michael Oshman. "It's beginning to build exponentially from interest of previous decades."
Such restaurants are also drawing attention to the plight of smaller farms, ranches, and suppliers whose practices fit the model but are in danger of being lost.
"Government policies are making it very hard for the smaller, independent, family-run businesses, which operate with higher environmental standards," says Mike Antoci, who runs Superior Anhausner Foods, a Los Angeles distributor. "Restaurants like Fraser's are starting to raise public consciousness about what is at stake."
The new spotlight is creating a domino effect, say observers, in which restaurant customers begin to ask more questions about the local-food movement.
"We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who value the availability of food produced right in their own community," says Linda Halley, who runs Fairview Gardens, a nonprofit organic farm and education center in Goleta, Calif.
Some observers question some of the claims of the local-food movement. They say it's entirely possible that food grown locally could have a considerably larger carbon footprint than food flown halfway around the world because transportation represents only a tiny fraction – some experts say as little as 2 percent – of the energy required to grow, store, process, and package the food.
Supporters say that the movement is raising questions that society needs to ask. Mr. Oshman notes that Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, with 200 stores nationwide, was the first large chain to be certified green last year and this year has announced it will run its stores on windpower exclusively. "If larger chains like this can do it, it shows this is not a fringe thing anymore."
Great Op-ed this morning........
My blog is sucking right now, but things sure are good! Great Summer all round, maturing ideas lead more people to our doors every day. It's time to look at some land, and some housing for our crew.........Here's a great article on the evolving west re:drought and self reliance.........
July 29, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Sunny California
By MIKE MADISON
Winters, Calif.
THERE is no better year for farming in California than the first year of a drought. The lakes and reservoirs still hold ample water from the year before, and the farmer can go about his chores without inconvenient rains confounding his schedule. Sunlight pours down from a cloudless sky. The crops prosper. Life is good.
That’s our situation in the Sacramento Valley at the moment. We’ve had an unusually dry year, and I had to start irrigating in January — ordinarily our rainiest month — and I’ve kept at it all through the spring and summer.
Even if I were housebound and someone else was doing the irrigating, I would know from one glance at the electric bill. It takes a lot of power to move that water around, and it’s the single biggest expense on my farm. Some of my neighbors, who farm on a bigger scale than I do, have electric bills in the summer of $8,000 a month.
This year I’m converting my irrigation to solar power, installing silicon panels that turn sunlight into electricity. This will drive the pumps that lift water from underground and push it through the eight miles of plastic pipes that make up my irrigation system. Even though the panels are expensive, the return on my investment is about 12 percent, better than almost any stock or bond fund I could buy.
I’m not alone in the conversion to solar-powered irrigation. Drive the back roads around here and you will see solar panels on the roofs of barns and sheds or simply mounted on racks out in the open. If we keep at this long enough, we may reach the day when we can take down the miles of poles and wires that bring electricity from afar, and sell them for scrap.
In my neighborhood, walnuts are the preferred crop; they’re reliably profitable every year. But walnut trees are thirsty, and their irrigation has an urgency about it that will keep the walnut farmer awake at night. I didn’t want that particular worry in my life, and so I chose crops — apricots, olives, quince — that will tolerate a drought. I could skip irrigation for a year, and the trees would sulk, but they wouldn’t die.
Growing trees has a slower pace to it than farming row crops. The farmer of row crops — tomatoes, cucumbers, corn — believes that the future will arrive in about 110 days, maybe sooner. But the orchardist thinks in decades. He plants an orchard at great expense, and then waits six years for his first harvest. And it takes a decade after that to pay off his investment and start making money. To one who thinks in these terms, the year 2030 doesn’t seem far off.
As I mentioned, the first year of a drought is a gift to the farmer. Our apricot trees flowered under clear skies, the bees did their job, and in June we harvested a record crop. I sold fresh apricots, I dried apricots, and my wife put up 800 jars of apricot jam: straight apricot, apricot with lime, apricot with saffron. The other crops in the district — olives, walnuts, almonds, plums — are on the same track, heading for a record harvest.
But there is a dark side to this. If the first year of a drought is a gift, the second year is a worry, and the third year is a crisis. That crisis has a twist to it. In the third year, the lakes and reservoirs are empty, and not only is water in short supply, but so is electricity, for with empty reservoirs there is no flowing water to turn the hydroelectric turbines. We get power failures that frustrate irrigation and every other sort of industry. The farmers age a lot in those years.
Of course, the weather is undependable; it always has been, and our best guesses about it, like scientists’ predictions that a climate shift means that the West has many more years of drought ahead, are still guesses. But another observation, which 20 years ago would have seemed preposterous, is that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company is also not entirely dependable, and so we make our own arrangements for electricity.
We won’t know until next year whether this is the first year of a drought, or merely a lucky dry year sandwiched between two wet ones. Either way, we’re enjoying our gift year, and preparing for whatever might follow.
Mike Madison is a farmer and the author, most recently, of “Blithe Tomato.”
July 29, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Sunny California
By MIKE MADISON
Winters, Calif.
THERE is no better year for farming in California than the first year of a drought. The lakes and reservoirs still hold ample water from the year before, and the farmer can go about his chores without inconvenient rains confounding his schedule. Sunlight pours down from a cloudless sky. The crops prosper. Life is good.
That’s our situation in the Sacramento Valley at the moment. We’ve had an unusually dry year, and I had to start irrigating in January — ordinarily our rainiest month — and I’ve kept at it all through the spring and summer.
Even if I were housebound and someone else was doing the irrigating, I would know from one glance at the electric bill. It takes a lot of power to move that water around, and it’s the single biggest expense on my farm. Some of my neighbors, who farm on a bigger scale than I do, have electric bills in the summer of $8,000 a month.
This year I’m converting my irrigation to solar power, installing silicon panels that turn sunlight into electricity. This will drive the pumps that lift water from underground and push it through the eight miles of plastic pipes that make up my irrigation system. Even though the panels are expensive, the return on my investment is about 12 percent, better than almost any stock or bond fund I could buy.
I’m not alone in the conversion to solar-powered irrigation. Drive the back roads around here and you will see solar panels on the roofs of barns and sheds or simply mounted on racks out in the open. If we keep at this long enough, we may reach the day when we can take down the miles of poles and wires that bring electricity from afar, and sell them for scrap.
In my neighborhood, walnuts are the preferred crop; they’re reliably profitable every year. But walnut trees are thirsty, and their irrigation has an urgency about it that will keep the walnut farmer awake at night. I didn’t want that particular worry in my life, and so I chose crops — apricots, olives, quince — that will tolerate a drought. I could skip irrigation for a year, and the trees would sulk, but they wouldn’t die.
Growing trees has a slower pace to it than farming row crops. The farmer of row crops — tomatoes, cucumbers, corn — believes that the future will arrive in about 110 days, maybe sooner. But the orchardist thinks in decades. He plants an orchard at great expense, and then waits six years for his first harvest. And it takes a decade after that to pay off his investment and start making money. To one who thinks in these terms, the year 2030 doesn’t seem far off.
As I mentioned, the first year of a drought is a gift to the farmer. Our apricot trees flowered under clear skies, the bees did their job, and in June we harvested a record crop. I sold fresh apricots, I dried apricots, and my wife put up 800 jars of apricot jam: straight apricot, apricot with lime, apricot with saffron. The other crops in the district — olives, walnuts, almonds, plums — are on the same track, heading for a record harvest.
But there is a dark side to this. If the first year of a drought is a gift, the second year is a worry, and the third year is a crisis. That crisis has a twist to it. In the third year, the lakes and reservoirs are empty, and not only is water in short supply, but so is electricity, for with empty reservoirs there is no flowing water to turn the hydroelectric turbines. We get power failures that frustrate irrigation and every other sort of industry. The farmers age a lot in those years.
Of course, the weather is undependable; it always has been, and our best guesses about it, like scientists’ predictions that a climate shift means that the West has many more years of drought ahead, are still guesses. But another observation, which 20 years ago would have seemed preposterous, is that the Pacific Gas and Electric Company is also not entirely dependable, and so we make our own arrangements for electricity.
We won’t know until next year whether this is the first year of a drought, or merely a lucky dry year sandwiched between two wet ones. Either way, we’re enjoying our gift year, and preparing for whatever might follow.
Mike Madison is a farmer and the author, most recently, of “Blithe Tomato.”
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Nice Article
Here I go again........Posting on my personal and professional Blogs, but this article is pretty great. Well written, and a good forward looking snapshot......
The Next West
What $7 gas means for the West
Higher energy prices will drive change in the sprawling West,
and its exurban development, recreation-based economies
By Courtney White
for Headwaters News
July 11, 2007
During the spike in gasoline prices last summer, our Representative, Tom Udall – a co-founder of the Peak Oil Caucus in Congress – warned us that one day we would be “wistful about $3-a-gallon-gas.”
Filling up my gas tank the other day in Santa Fe, and paying $3.49 a gallon for the privilege, I thought “Hey, I'm already wistful about $3 gas!” I just didn't think I would be so wistful so fast.
I had better get used to the feeling. All indicators suggest that gas prices are heading in only one direction ultimately: up. Perhaps way up.
If this is true, it has serious implications for the New West – implications that perhaps we should begin to consider.
The reasons for the upward trend in gas prices are complicated but boil down to the principal of supply and demand.
Globally, crude oil production rests at about 84 million barrels per day (mbd). Global demand is also about 84 mbd currently. A few years ago, however, demand was only 66 mbd; and it is projected to rise to 120 mbd by 2025.
Can production keep up with demand? Not likely. In fact, experts in the field are now suggesting that the current rate of 84 mbd may be about as much as the world can produce annually, give or take a million barrels.
In other words, oil production, in their parlance, has “plateaued.”
That's because while production of light crude oil in some parts of the world is increasing (slowly) it is declining in others (rapidly in some cases). So far, it's been a wash mostly – thus the plateau – and that's just the cheap, easy stuff. The rest of the globe's oil reserves are harder to reach or more expensive to produce – which is why we went for the easy stuff in the first place (we've burned up half the planet's known light crude oil reserves in less than 100 years, by the way).
This is why Peak Oil is so important, not because we will “run out” of oil – we won't – but because when production “peaks” and then drops (for good, by definition), even a tiny bit, it means the gap between supply and demand will expand relentlessly over time, resulting in higher prices. And if production drops by a lot, as some predict, then prices will rise substantially. Author's note: For a recent, readable analysis of Peak Oil see an article by Gail Tverberg
It's old school economics – and in the old days, high prices normally had two effects: it “crushed” demand while stimulating new production. Unfortunately, neither one appears to be happening today on a scale that matters.
In fact, despite higher prices at the pump, gasoline consumption in America has increased by 1.5 percent in the past twelve months. Then there's China, India, and other rapidly developing nations. Their demand for oil will not be “crushed” any time soon – not if they can help it.
As for increased production – well, as westerners know first hand oil companies are giving it their best shot. But none of the current exploration frenzy (and high profits) has changed a simple fact: the global “peak” of new oil discovery happened decades ago.
This is the basic reason why gas price have risen over the past six years. It's not a "refinery problem" or a "hurricane problem" or a "Middle East plot" or even an "oil company plot." It's a supply and demand problem. Look at the numbers: in 2000, oil sold for around $10-a-barrel. Today it sells for over $70. Many experts, including many in the oil industry itself, think that $80-a-barrel oil is inevitable, and soon.
Don't hold your breath for technology to ride to the rescue. An economic hydrogen-fuel cell car is a long way off. Ditto with solar. Besides, technology is only useful to those who can afford it.
Forget ethanol. It's a fraud.
So, what might $7 gas then mean for the New West, with its dependence on tourism and its embrace of urban and exurban sprawl? For that matter, what might it mean for the West as a whole – Old or New - with its extraordinary bounty of natural resources, its aridity, and its long distances?
The answer, I suspect, is this: we're going to be wistful about more than just $3 gas.
Old Wests
Change, of course, is inevitable – as are the inevitable laments.
In his memoir, A Walk Toward Oregon (2002), noted historian Alvin Josephy, Jr. quotes the famous western artist Frederic Remington in 1902 mourning the passing of the Old West and the arrival of something new: “I knew the wild riders and the vacant land were about to vanish forever,” said Remington. “I saw the living, breathing end of three American centuries of smoke and dust and sweat, and now I see quite another thing where it all took place, but does not appeal to me.”
Josephy is sympathetic – but only up to a point. “As a historian of the American West, I also knew that, before and after Remington, each generation in the West had lamented in its own way the passing of its Old West.”
The original Old West of the Native Americans was replaced by a New West of missionaries and mountain men. That West was replaced by the brave new frontier of miners and soldiers; which gave way to homesteaders, farmers, ranchers, capitalists, doctors, city folk and so on. The next New West included artists, movie stars, dudes, automobiles, picnickers, oil men, and land speculators. Next up were bureaucrats, environmentalists, backpackers, migrant workers, Land Rovers, latte and, well, more land speculators (I'm filling in for Josephy here).
His point is this: every New West eventually becomes an Old West which is replaced in turn by something new, whether we like it or not.
It happened to Josephy as well. “The Old West that I had experienced was now gone too,” he wrote, “changed by industrial and military centers, interstate highways, recreation developments, trophy ranches and urban sprawl, conformity, high-tech pop culture, television, and economically stressed cattle and lumber operations struggling to survive against global competitors.”
“Components,” he concludes, “that will become someone else's Old West.”
My guess is that this inevitable transition has already started. $7 gas simply means this transition will pick up speed. This news is neither good nor bad necessarily (though it's hard to imagine indulging in a Remington-esque lament for the passing of parts of this New West) – instead, it just is.
But what does this mean exactly? No one knows. As someone once quipped “prediction is difficult, especially about the future” (I think it was Yogi Berra). I'm not a professional geographer or demographer, but since no one in either field has yet (as far as I know) plugged the variable of $7 gas into their models of the region's future, I'll take a stab at it.
I'll start with five principal effects that $7 gas will have on the New West:
1) Don't Bet the House on Recreation Anymore.
One of the early casualties of rising gas prices will be long-distance tourism, a victim of the West's legendary wide open spaces. As gas prices rise, recreation will become increasingly localized. Why drive to northern Wyoming to camp or stay in a B&B in southern Arizona when they are plenty of good choices closer to home? It's not just driving – higher air fares (and hotel room rates) are inevitable as well. In fact, it's a safe bet to say that any tourist activity involving fossil fuel will become more costly, which means all of them. Some people will still be able to afford to play, of course, but I'm not sure it's wise to build an economy based only on the whims of the wealthy.
2) The Juggernaut of Urban & Exurban Development Will Falter.
Cheap gas begat our love affair with the automobile which begat suburban and exurban (ranchette) development which begat an intense period of economic prosperity all across the West. But what will $7 gas beget? The entire suburban/exurban experiment of the past 60 years was built on the foundation, and the promise, of cheap fossil fuel.
Think about the two-hour one-way daily commute into Los Angeles for work, or the costs associated in reaching that second home in the woods, or just driving to the grocery store. And it's not just about driving – fossil fuel permeates nearly every aspect of suburban development and maintenance. When costs rise, we may reconsider our behavior. We may have to.
3) Water Will Become More Expensive:
Mark Twain famously quipped that in the West “Whiskey is for drinkin' and water is for fightin'.” And we know why – in the arid West water is our life source. Much of western history can be explained by the availability of cheap (i.e. subsidized) water – for agriculture, for new homes, new cities, and endless growth. But much of this water is pumped or otherwise dependent on fossil fuels for its delivery. Rising energy costs mean higher water costs, which, along with water's general scarcity, mean we'll be making more changes to our behavior in the future.
4) Economic Hardship Will Spread Upward:
As the basic necessities of life – food, energy, and water – become more expensive, the economic pain will be felt among the poor and disadvantaged of us first and hardest. This fact will have all sorts of ramifications, from increased crime to social unrest possibly. A recent study by the Santa Fe-based nonprofit Local Energy showed that while the annual median income of New Mexicans has remained relatively flat for the past thirty years – at approximately $29,000 – the cost of energy has risen steadily. In that widening gap lies trouble for many of us.
5) Expect More Oil & Gas Development – Perhaps a Lot More.
Our economic (and emotional) dependence on cheap fossil fuel as a nation means you ain't seen nothing yet in terms of oil and gas development. Marginal oil and gas fields, for example, are already looking not-so-marginal to oil companies. Eventually they won't look so marginal to the public either, I'm afraid. I worry about protected areas the most. Pressure is already building in the Midwest to crack open land that was set aside for protection in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in order to grow more industrial corn for ethanol production. If this happens, how safe are our parks, wildernesses, and refuges?
And if these sacred places aren't safe, what does this mean for society as a whole?
The Next West
There are things we can do – now – to prepare for the inevitability of change. In fact, the sooner we do something the better.
Again at the risk of making predictions, especially about the future (maybe it was Vice President Dan Qualye who said that), I'll hazard a few best guesses about what's coming next and what we might be able to do today.
I believe that a new word is going to dominate our lives in the upcoming decades: relocalization (it's not even a word yet – at least my computer's dictionary doesn't recognize it!).
Rising energy costs mean more and more of our daily lives, from food production to where we work and play, will be increasingly localized. This won't be by choice, as it is currently, but by necessity (that economic hardship thing again).
The key is to look at relocalization as an opportunity, not just a challenge. It can be a form of rediscovery – learning about our roots, about community, neighbors, gardens, and doing with less in general. One could even look at relocalization entrepreneurially – those individuals and organizations that get into the game early, by providing re-localized goods and services, will stand a very good chance at a profitable living as the transition begins to unfold.
In my opinion, relocalization includes the following (at least):
The Development of Local Food and Energy Sources:
Working landscapes will become critical again. So will the innovations currently taking place at the nexus of agriculture and ecology (this is where I would bet my money if I were a betting man) – a nexus that requires working lands. This is not to dismiss wilderness or the needs of wildlife – I believe $7 gas means we'll have plenty of wilderness again someday, in fact – but it does mean concentrating our efforts on answering an important question: could New Mexico feed itself? Could Utah? Or Montana? And if not, why not, and what can we do to stimulate local food and energy production?
Farm and Ranch Land Will Become Important Again:
So will farmers and ranchers (see the previous point). Local food and energy, as well as recreational opportunities, require local land that is available for these uses. We'll need local people to do this work too, as well as their local knowledge.
This means figuring out how – now – to keep the current generation of farmers and ranchers on the land, as well as encourage the next generation to stay, come back, or give agriculture a try. Furthermore, we're going to regret paving over all that prime agricultural land, I suspect – which will eventually raise another important question: how do we unpave some of it?
Restoration Will Become An Important Business. Producing local food and energy from working landscapes, especially in quantity, will require healthy land as well as best management practices that work "within nature's model." Unfortunately, while the "toolbox" of progressive stewardship is now well developed, a great deal of our land is in poor condition (for a variety of reasons), requiring restoration and remediation. The good news is that this work could afford local communities a bounty of jobs at good wages, if only we would begin to value it properly.
County Governments Will Rise In Influence:
Almost by definition, relocalization means political action and policy-making will become increasing redirected to local levels. In fact, as historian Patricia Limerick said recently, there's a good chance counties could become the key unit of governance in the West in the future.
Partly that's because the federal government is proving increasingly incapable of meeting the needs of citizens at the local level, but mostly it's because there's been so much grassroots innovation across the West in recent years that need for federal involvement is no longer as necessary as it once was. However, some sort of reform of county governance (increasing the number of commissioners, for example) will likely be necessary as things begin to change.
Co-Management of Public Lands Will Evolve Into the Norm:
For the reasons cited above, pressure will build on the federal land agencies, which control one-half of the West's 425,000 square miles, to adopt co-management principles with private organizations and associations on public land. The feds not only can't do it all currently, they won't be able to handle the upcoming transition either, due to staffing and budget reductions as well as other limitations.
Partnerships with private entities, including a new generation of grazing permittees, that aim at progressive, relocalized activities on working landscapes will become the norm in the 21st century, I believe.
But I could be wrong. As I said, no one really knows what's coming next. All we can say with confidence is that $7 gas (and higher) means that things will be very different here in the West. Whether it will be for better or worse depends on your point-of-view. I think it presents tremendous opportunities – even a new frontier, if you will. Hopefully, we can keep the latte and avoid the gunfights this time.
As for me, I'm trying to get over my wistfulness by making fewer visits to the gas pump. It's hard, I'll admit, but then no one said change is ever easy.
(1) For a recent, readable analysis of Peak Oil see an article by Gail 1) For a recent Tverberg at: http://www.energybulletin.net/31332.html
The Next West
What $7 gas means for the West
Higher energy prices will drive change in the sprawling West,
and its exurban development, recreation-based economies
By Courtney White
for Headwaters News
July 11, 2007
During the spike in gasoline prices last summer, our Representative, Tom Udall – a co-founder of the Peak Oil Caucus in Congress – warned us that one day we would be “wistful about $3-a-gallon-gas.”
Filling up my gas tank the other day in Santa Fe, and paying $3.49 a gallon for the privilege, I thought “Hey, I'm already wistful about $3 gas!” I just didn't think I would be so wistful so fast.
I had better get used to the feeling. All indicators suggest that gas prices are heading in only one direction ultimately: up. Perhaps way up.
If this is true, it has serious implications for the New West – implications that perhaps we should begin to consider.
The reasons for the upward trend in gas prices are complicated but boil down to the principal of supply and demand.
Globally, crude oil production rests at about 84 million barrels per day (mbd). Global demand is also about 84 mbd currently. A few years ago, however, demand was only 66 mbd; and it is projected to rise to 120 mbd by 2025.
Can production keep up with demand? Not likely. In fact, experts in the field are now suggesting that the current rate of 84 mbd may be about as much as the world can produce annually, give or take a million barrels.
In other words, oil production, in their parlance, has “plateaued.”
That's because while production of light crude oil in some parts of the world is increasing (slowly) it is declining in others (rapidly in some cases). So far, it's been a wash mostly – thus the plateau – and that's just the cheap, easy stuff. The rest of the globe's oil reserves are harder to reach or more expensive to produce – which is why we went for the easy stuff in the first place (we've burned up half the planet's known light crude oil reserves in less than 100 years, by the way).
This is why Peak Oil is so important, not because we will “run out” of oil – we won't – but because when production “peaks” and then drops (for good, by definition), even a tiny bit, it means the gap between supply and demand will expand relentlessly over time, resulting in higher prices. And if production drops by a lot, as some predict, then prices will rise substantially. Author's note: For a recent, readable analysis of Peak Oil see an article by Gail Tverberg
It's old school economics – and in the old days, high prices normally had two effects: it “crushed” demand while stimulating new production. Unfortunately, neither one appears to be happening today on a scale that matters.
In fact, despite higher prices at the pump, gasoline consumption in America has increased by 1.5 percent in the past twelve months. Then there's China, India, and other rapidly developing nations. Their demand for oil will not be “crushed” any time soon – not if they can help it.
As for increased production – well, as westerners know first hand oil companies are giving it their best shot. But none of the current exploration frenzy (and high profits) has changed a simple fact: the global “peak” of new oil discovery happened decades ago.
This is the basic reason why gas price have risen over the past six years. It's not a "refinery problem" or a "hurricane problem" or a "Middle East plot" or even an "oil company plot." It's a supply and demand problem. Look at the numbers: in 2000, oil sold for around $10-a-barrel. Today it sells for over $70. Many experts, including many in the oil industry itself, think that $80-a-barrel oil is inevitable, and soon.
Don't hold your breath for technology to ride to the rescue. An economic hydrogen-fuel cell car is a long way off. Ditto with solar. Besides, technology is only useful to those who can afford it.
Forget ethanol. It's a fraud.
So, what might $7 gas then mean for the New West, with its dependence on tourism and its embrace of urban and exurban sprawl? For that matter, what might it mean for the West as a whole – Old or New - with its extraordinary bounty of natural resources, its aridity, and its long distances?
The answer, I suspect, is this: we're going to be wistful about more than just $3 gas.
Old Wests
Change, of course, is inevitable – as are the inevitable laments.
In his memoir, A Walk Toward Oregon (2002), noted historian Alvin Josephy, Jr. quotes the famous western artist Frederic Remington in 1902 mourning the passing of the Old West and the arrival of something new: “I knew the wild riders and the vacant land were about to vanish forever,” said Remington. “I saw the living, breathing end of three American centuries of smoke and dust and sweat, and now I see quite another thing where it all took place, but does not appeal to me.”
Josephy is sympathetic – but only up to a point. “As a historian of the American West, I also knew that, before and after Remington, each generation in the West had lamented in its own way the passing of its Old West.”
The original Old West of the Native Americans was replaced by a New West of missionaries and mountain men. That West was replaced by the brave new frontier of miners and soldiers; which gave way to homesteaders, farmers, ranchers, capitalists, doctors, city folk and so on. The next New West included artists, movie stars, dudes, automobiles, picnickers, oil men, and land speculators. Next up were bureaucrats, environmentalists, backpackers, migrant workers, Land Rovers, latte and, well, more land speculators (I'm filling in for Josephy here).
His point is this: every New West eventually becomes an Old West which is replaced in turn by something new, whether we like it or not.
It happened to Josephy as well. “The Old West that I had experienced was now gone too,” he wrote, “changed by industrial and military centers, interstate highways, recreation developments, trophy ranches and urban sprawl, conformity, high-tech pop culture, television, and economically stressed cattle and lumber operations struggling to survive against global competitors.”
“Components,” he concludes, “that will become someone else's Old West.”
My guess is that this inevitable transition has already started. $7 gas simply means this transition will pick up speed. This news is neither good nor bad necessarily (though it's hard to imagine indulging in a Remington-esque lament for the passing of parts of this New West) – instead, it just is.
But what does this mean exactly? No one knows. As someone once quipped “prediction is difficult, especially about the future” (I think it was Yogi Berra). I'm not a professional geographer or demographer, but since no one in either field has yet (as far as I know) plugged the variable of $7 gas into their models of the region's future, I'll take a stab at it.
I'll start with five principal effects that $7 gas will have on the New West:
1) Don't Bet the House on Recreation Anymore.
One of the early casualties of rising gas prices will be long-distance tourism, a victim of the West's legendary wide open spaces. As gas prices rise, recreation will become increasingly localized. Why drive to northern Wyoming to camp or stay in a B&B in southern Arizona when they are plenty of good choices closer to home? It's not just driving – higher air fares (and hotel room rates) are inevitable as well. In fact, it's a safe bet to say that any tourist activity involving fossil fuel will become more costly, which means all of them. Some people will still be able to afford to play, of course, but I'm not sure it's wise to build an economy based only on the whims of the wealthy.
2) The Juggernaut of Urban & Exurban Development Will Falter.
Cheap gas begat our love affair with the automobile which begat suburban and exurban (ranchette) development which begat an intense period of economic prosperity all across the West. But what will $7 gas beget? The entire suburban/exurban experiment of the past 60 years was built on the foundation, and the promise, of cheap fossil fuel.
Think about the two-hour one-way daily commute into Los Angeles for work, or the costs associated in reaching that second home in the woods, or just driving to the grocery store. And it's not just about driving – fossil fuel permeates nearly every aspect of suburban development and maintenance. When costs rise, we may reconsider our behavior. We may have to.
3) Water Will Become More Expensive:
Mark Twain famously quipped that in the West “Whiskey is for drinkin' and water is for fightin'.” And we know why – in the arid West water is our life source. Much of western history can be explained by the availability of cheap (i.e. subsidized) water – for agriculture, for new homes, new cities, and endless growth. But much of this water is pumped or otherwise dependent on fossil fuels for its delivery. Rising energy costs mean higher water costs, which, along with water's general scarcity, mean we'll be making more changes to our behavior in the future.
4) Economic Hardship Will Spread Upward:
As the basic necessities of life – food, energy, and water – become more expensive, the economic pain will be felt among the poor and disadvantaged of us first and hardest. This fact will have all sorts of ramifications, from increased crime to social unrest possibly. A recent study by the Santa Fe-based nonprofit Local Energy showed that while the annual median income of New Mexicans has remained relatively flat for the past thirty years – at approximately $29,000 – the cost of energy has risen steadily. In that widening gap lies trouble for many of us.
5) Expect More Oil & Gas Development – Perhaps a Lot More.
Our economic (and emotional) dependence on cheap fossil fuel as a nation means you ain't seen nothing yet in terms of oil and gas development. Marginal oil and gas fields, for example, are already looking not-so-marginal to oil companies. Eventually they won't look so marginal to the public either, I'm afraid. I worry about protected areas the most. Pressure is already building in the Midwest to crack open land that was set aside for protection in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in order to grow more industrial corn for ethanol production. If this happens, how safe are our parks, wildernesses, and refuges?
And if these sacred places aren't safe, what does this mean for society as a whole?
The Next West
There are things we can do – now – to prepare for the inevitability of change. In fact, the sooner we do something the better.
Again at the risk of making predictions, especially about the future (maybe it was Vice President Dan Qualye who said that), I'll hazard a few best guesses about what's coming next and what we might be able to do today.
I believe that a new word is going to dominate our lives in the upcoming decades: relocalization (it's not even a word yet – at least my computer's dictionary doesn't recognize it!).
Rising energy costs mean more and more of our daily lives, from food production to where we work and play, will be increasingly localized. This won't be by choice, as it is currently, but by necessity (that economic hardship thing again).
The key is to look at relocalization as an opportunity, not just a challenge. It can be a form of rediscovery – learning about our roots, about community, neighbors, gardens, and doing with less in general. One could even look at relocalization entrepreneurially – those individuals and organizations that get into the game early, by providing re-localized goods and services, will stand a very good chance at a profitable living as the transition begins to unfold.
In my opinion, relocalization includes the following (at least):
The Development of Local Food and Energy Sources:
Working landscapes will become critical again. So will the innovations currently taking place at the nexus of agriculture and ecology (this is where I would bet my money if I were a betting man) – a nexus that requires working lands. This is not to dismiss wilderness or the needs of wildlife – I believe $7 gas means we'll have plenty of wilderness again someday, in fact – but it does mean concentrating our efforts on answering an important question: could New Mexico feed itself? Could Utah? Or Montana? And if not, why not, and what can we do to stimulate local food and energy production?
Farm and Ranch Land Will Become Important Again:
So will farmers and ranchers (see the previous point). Local food and energy, as well as recreational opportunities, require local land that is available for these uses. We'll need local people to do this work too, as well as their local knowledge.
This means figuring out how – now – to keep the current generation of farmers and ranchers on the land, as well as encourage the next generation to stay, come back, or give agriculture a try. Furthermore, we're going to regret paving over all that prime agricultural land, I suspect – which will eventually raise another important question: how do we unpave some of it?
Restoration Will Become An Important Business. Producing local food and energy from working landscapes, especially in quantity, will require healthy land as well as best management practices that work "within nature's model." Unfortunately, while the "toolbox" of progressive stewardship is now well developed, a great deal of our land is in poor condition (for a variety of reasons), requiring restoration and remediation. The good news is that this work could afford local communities a bounty of jobs at good wages, if only we would begin to value it properly.
County Governments Will Rise In Influence:
Almost by definition, relocalization means political action and policy-making will become increasing redirected to local levels. In fact, as historian Patricia Limerick said recently, there's a good chance counties could become the key unit of governance in the West in the future.
Partly that's because the federal government is proving increasingly incapable of meeting the needs of citizens at the local level, but mostly it's because there's been so much grassroots innovation across the West in recent years that need for federal involvement is no longer as necessary as it once was. However, some sort of reform of county governance (increasing the number of commissioners, for example) will likely be necessary as things begin to change.
Co-Management of Public Lands Will Evolve Into the Norm:
For the reasons cited above, pressure will build on the federal land agencies, which control one-half of the West's 425,000 square miles, to adopt co-management principles with private organizations and associations on public land. The feds not only can't do it all currently, they won't be able to handle the upcoming transition either, due to staffing and budget reductions as well as other limitations.
Partnerships with private entities, including a new generation of grazing permittees, that aim at progressive, relocalized activities on working landscapes will become the norm in the 21st century, I believe.
But I could be wrong. As I said, no one really knows what's coming next. All we can say with confidence is that $7 gas (and higher) means that things will be very different here in the West. Whether it will be for better or worse depends on your point-of-view. I think it presents tremendous opportunities – even a new frontier, if you will. Hopefully, we can keep the latte and avoid the gunfights this time.
As for me, I'm trying to get over my wistfulness by making fewer visits to the gas pump. It's hard, I'll admit, but then no one said change is ever easy.
(1) For a recent, readable analysis of Peak Oil see an article by Gail 1) For a recent Tverberg at: http://www.energybulletin.net/31332.html
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The 2007 Hood River Walk for Life and YOU!
Click Here to Donate
(Yes, Yes, i know I've not been updating this Blog as frequently as I would like. I'm keeping track though.....I'll catch up soon....Please read below)
Alright all you Blog readers. I know that there are lots of readers out there, so I'll make this short. Please read the letter below. It's about asking you to send in some $$ (Ka la in Hawaiian) to support the Hood River Relay for Life, an event I'm in.
It's easy. You could surf over to the sponsorship page in a second and help out........Click Here to Donate Now!
Maui's Request for Sponsorship for the 2007 Hood River Walk for Life
I’ve got a friend, and she’s a cancer survivor. Pretty miraculous story, for another time, but she decided a few years ago to start the local Relay for Life, which you may know, is one of the major fundraisers for the American Cancer Society.
At dawn on Sunday morning, July 22nd, as a part of the Hood River Rotary Team, I’ll be walking around the track thinking about two things.
1. My Friends and Family whom I’ve lost to Cancer.
2. How lucky I am that I’m still around and able to do something as simple as walk around a track to raise money.
I’m writing to you right now to ask you, and I’ll be blunt about this, to send me money so that I can pass it along to the American Cancer Society to further research into finding effective ways to research a cure for Cancer. For my part, I’ll be donating both my time and money to the cause. My goal is $5,000.00 which should be a doable thing with your help.
I’m doing this for personal reasons, in honor of my sister, and for familial reasons as well, but when all is said and done I’m doing this because that is what we do in Hood River.
We help out. We give, and continue to give, always, to pitch in, lighten the load and build interdependency. It’s what makes Hood River, Hood River.
So please send along some money. You may do it online, or mail it to me, instructions are below.
Tell me to buy a Luminaria ($50.00) for your friends passed, or sponsor my time out on the track. But if you really want to do something, join me at 4:00am on Sunday morning July 22nd, and regale me with stories of your friends. I’ve got a few of my own.
We can all drink coffee and watch the sun rise together.
Best-
Maui
Monday, July 02, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Loook out.
I think I'm about to start video Blogging...My phone is almost fried, 4 years old and so it's time to get a new one. I'm hoping I can get the scratch for an Iphone, in which case I'll be video blogging! YaaaY! Ok, so this isn't the greatest first video, but it's a start..........
Thursday, May 17, 2007
April and May.........
Well.........we returned home and it's been heads down ever since. I've been working hard to keep organized so when I'm behind now, it's all very organized and overwhelming........So many timelines to manage, each with their own meter. Copper West is rocking, Oregon Growers and Shippers......rocking. Celilo, pretty good, but very fulfilling to do what we are doing, and Sixth Street..Rocking, FCA.......Rocking..
We applied for the Governor's sustainability award, and lost....Bummer. It was the first time I got to roll out everything we do in a comprehensive manner, and it played pretty well. Our arguments are growing and being validated daily.
I'm surprised that I don't write or talk about it more, since it's almost everything we do.
Lise Yasui, one of Masuo's Grand Children came to town, and she brought along the last three remaining children of Masuo. It was a real Honor to meet Yuki and Shidzuyo and to see Homer again. Lise hosted a film that she did regarding Masuo. It was very powerful.
We had Dinner together....
And Lise hosted a panel of the Children with respect to the War Years.
It amazes me that we can have such powerful events in our little town....
Ben's been getting some pretty awesome press recently too. Mentions in Sports Illustrated, Sunset, and as one of the celebrated chefs in the Travel Oregon and Oregon Bounty Campaigns. Pretty awesome.
Well, here we go. Summer. The Kids are doing great, the home is looking great, everything is moving along..........
We applied for the Governor's sustainability award, and lost....Bummer. It was the first time I got to roll out everything we do in a comprehensive manner, and it played pretty well. Our arguments are growing and being validated daily.
I'm surprised that I don't write or talk about it more, since it's almost everything we do.
Lise Yasui, one of Masuo's Grand Children came to town, and she brought along the last three remaining children of Masuo. It was a real Honor to meet Yuki and Shidzuyo and to see Homer again. Lise hosted a film that she did regarding Masuo. It was very powerful.
We had Dinner together....
And Lise hosted a panel of the Children with respect to the War Years.
It amazes me that we can have such powerful events in our little town....
Ben's been getting some pretty awesome press recently too. Mentions in Sports Illustrated, Sunset, and as one of the celebrated chefs in the Travel Oregon and Oregon Bounty Campaigns. Pretty awesome.
Well, here we go. Summer. The Kids are doing great, the home is looking great, everything is moving along..........
Saturday, April 21, 2007
SB 838.....Almost there.
Had the pleasure of being able to go to Salem this week and testify in support of Oregon's new Renewables Legistlation. I got to read the Association of Oregon Counties Support Letter, and toss in a bit of Hood River as well.
I admit it, I kind of dug it.
On the way back, Saw yet another set of blades on the Freeway.......
I admit it, I kind of dug it.
On the way back, Saw yet another set of blades on the Freeway.......
Friday, April 20, 2007
The Funeral. The Wedding.
The Funeral
The day of my Mother's funeral came. Kind of couldn't get around it. I woke up and that was the thought in my head.
Rites of passage are like that to me. There's a sense of inevitability. Here it goes. Deep sigh. I brought Jan and Julia and Nathaniel back for the funeral, we stayed at Mele's. We could only get tickets that kept us in Hawaii for a week (I know, unintended, fun side benefit)
Tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Dress the kids, get the this's and thats, carpool. George Kahumoku Came to play music, and was with us. He arrived the evening before bearing Poke' and sashimi, and within about five minutes had a (then, third) meal out for me, and the guitar ready to go. World Class, Grammy Award Winner practices his Slack Key Guitar while I pig out on Raw fish at 11:30 the night before my Mother's funeral. Jet-lagged, Sated.
Oddly, perfect.
Kids were ready to go, and off we went to the last church service my Mother would ever have. Her service was at the church where she and Pop were married, and where she, for a long time, went to church every morning.
The Hearse was waiting for us. We put our gloves on and carried her into the church, for her viewing. The lid came off. It was very powerful. So much happened in the next couple of hours it was tough to process it all. I held Nathaniel and explained alot to him. He took it all in pretty well.
Emma was fabulous. Cold to the touch, which was slightly alarming, but I gave her a kiss and whispered to her, just like I did when she was alive. She looked better than she had in a long time, like we were about to go out for some Dim-Sum or something.
People poured in. I never took a photo of the service, but it was full, literally and physically. I spoke, I can't remember what I said, Moana sang, and generally we tried to keep it together. It wasn't tough, but we were so seeped in the moment, so inside of what was going on, so engrossed.
The Service ended, and we have a nice lunch at the Country Club. I laugh because when things were not so good for Emma and Harry, I had to cancel the Country Club membership, all over $90.00 a month. I couldn't afford it, they CERTAINLY couldn't afford it then, but it sure looked like a good move then, when $90.00 a month was the difference between the rent or not.....all over, and water under the bridge now.
Boy was that club beautiful.
Later we went to the Valley of the Temples for the final ceremony. I was exhausted.
Manu, her final chant.
We carried Emma up to her grave next to her sister Aima. Some words, some signing. Nathaniel hung out with my Brother in Law Michael. So comfortable with his Uncle and Aunts.
And then it was over.
I remember her as I last saw her, missal in hand, leis, a few white roses, perfect hair and looking so relaxed. The lid of the Coffin was so finite when we nailed it in place. I saw the slight clearance and I imagined, and Imagine now, how she looked as the last person to see her would imagine her in the casket. Quiet, tight. Simple. For a long, long time.
We spent the next bunch of days in Hawaii. Ate some food..........
Went to the beach.......
Dinner with everyone..........
Had Easter.......
The Wedding
We came home for one day, then went to Jay's wedding (my nephew) We went to Scottsdale, and pretty much dove right in.......Jay and Caroline's wedding was off the hook!
We went to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's Winter camp. A pilgrimage to be sure. Pretty amazing place......
We went to the Pacheco manor. Amazing home, amazing party.
The wedding was incredible! Complete with Firewords at the Silverleaf Country Club, a giant tent with room for 200.
Harry Danced,
Molly and Mihana and Moana were in shock.......
And it was a very, very wonderful time!
From one end of the spectrum to the other this month........
The day of my Mother's funeral came. Kind of couldn't get around it. I woke up and that was the thought in my head.
Rites of passage are like that to me. There's a sense of inevitability. Here it goes. Deep sigh. I brought Jan and Julia and Nathaniel back for the funeral, we stayed at Mele's. We could only get tickets that kept us in Hawaii for a week (I know, unintended, fun side benefit)
Tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Dress the kids, get the this's and thats, carpool. George Kahumoku Came to play music, and was with us. He arrived the evening before bearing Poke' and sashimi, and within about five minutes had a (then, third) meal out for me, and the guitar ready to go. World Class, Grammy Award Winner practices his Slack Key Guitar while I pig out on Raw fish at 11:30 the night before my Mother's funeral. Jet-lagged, Sated.
Oddly, perfect.
Kids were ready to go, and off we went to the last church service my Mother would ever have. Her service was at the church where she and Pop were married, and where she, for a long time, went to church every morning.
The Hearse was waiting for us. We put our gloves on and carried her into the church, for her viewing. The lid came off. It was very powerful. So much happened in the next couple of hours it was tough to process it all. I held Nathaniel and explained alot to him. He took it all in pretty well.
Emma was fabulous. Cold to the touch, which was slightly alarming, but I gave her a kiss and whispered to her, just like I did when she was alive. She looked better than she had in a long time, like we were about to go out for some Dim-Sum or something.
People poured in. I never took a photo of the service, but it was full, literally and physically. I spoke, I can't remember what I said, Moana sang, and generally we tried to keep it together. It wasn't tough, but we were so seeped in the moment, so inside of what was going on, so engrossed.
The Service ended, and we have a nice lunch at the Country Club. I laugh because when things were not so good for Emma and Harry, I had to cancel the Country Club membership, all over $90.00 a month. I couldn't afford it, they CERTAINLY couldn't afford it then, but it sure looked like a good move then, when $90.00 a month was the difference between the rent or not.....all over, and water under the bridge now.
Boy was that club beautiful.
Later we went to the Valley of the Temples for the final ceremony. I was exhausted.
Manu, her final chant.
We carried Emma up to her grave next to her sister Aima. Some words, some signing. Nathaniel hung out with my Brother in Law Michael. So comfortable with his Uncle and Aunts.
And then it was over.
I remember her as I last saw her, missal in hand, leis, a few white roses, perfect hair and looking so relaxed. The lid of the Coffin was so finite when we nailed it in place. I saw the slight clearance and I imagined, and Imagine now, how she looked as the last person to see her would imagine her in the casket. Quiet, tight. Simple. For a long, long time.
We spent the next bunch of days in Hawaii. Ate some food..........
Went to the beach.......
Dinner with everyone..........
Had Easter.......
The Wedding
We came home for one day, then went to Jay's wedding (my nephew) We went to Scottsdale, and pretty much dove right in.......Jay and Caroline's wedding was off the hook!
We went to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's Winter camp. A pilgrimage to be sure. Pretty amazing place......
We went to the Pacheco manor. Amazing home, amazing party.
The wedding was incredible! Complete with Firewords at the Silverleaf Country Club, a giant tent with room for 200.
Harry Danced,
Molly and Mihana and Moana were in shock.......
And it was a very, very wonderful time!
From one end of the spectrum to the other this month........
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