Tag Archives: Birds & Bees Urban Farm

Building arks

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Mary Reynolds is a renowned Irish landscape designer, author, and nature activist. She advocates for re-wilding gardens, encouraging biodiversity, and returning land to its native state. She calls these places arks — nooks and crannies where life can continue to flourish despite the tumult in the world around us.

Here’s a beautiful and inspiring clip from Reynolds work that I share on this week’s program.

With so much damage being done to local ecosystems and the planet itself, Reynolds argues that creating safe spaces for plants and animals is crucial.

Kathy and I try to do that at Birds & Bees Urban Farm. We raise half the food we eat, yet leave plenty of room for wildlife to flourish in and around our space. Sure, we don’t want insects, birds, and small mammals gobbling up everything we grow. But we don’t mind sharing a bit of our chemical-free bounty with other creatures. Continue Reading →

“An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”

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A recurring theme you hear from me is that our democracy is in jeopardy and we must act decisively to save it.

I double down on that theme in this week’s program, asking my friends on the Left to avoid demonizing people who voted for Trump. Labeling Trump voters as stupid or racist is not only inaccurate, it’s counterproductive.

Given the murder of Charlie Kirk this week, I need to weigh in even more strongly against some of the comments being posted in my Facebook feed:

“Finally a political hack paying his dues!”

“He made his bed now he’s lying in it!”

“[W]e thank him for giving the ultimate sacrifice to support/protect the 2nd Amendment.”

These comments are neither kind nor helpful. Now, more than ever, if we’re going to rebuild a sense of unified purpose in America, non-violence must be our creed and our method. Continue Reading →

Gulf of Iowa Topsoil

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Ok, so there’s farmers, and there’s farm managers. Being a small-is-beautiful guy, I’d rather see more farmers than farm managers. But there are big farms and there will be big farms. So there will be farm managers. What we need is for everyone involved in agriculture to embrace sustainable practices.

Last week, one of my program contributors shared a story about a farm manager who took over operation of several farms 25 years ago. The manager told farmers renting land from him that, instead of tilling in the fall, they would be required to sow cover crops.

Some farmers didn’t like that. But the farm manager tells of one farmer who hasn’t applied chemical fertilizers for eight years. His yields are the same or better than when he used chemicals. He was able to sell off some machinery that was no longer needed. His costs are less and his profits are up. Most important, his soil is being enriched instead of degraded. Continue Reading →

Are you checked in or checked out?

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Perhaps the strongest voice for civic engagement is … Erik Hagerman himself. In that Times story, Hagerman says, “I had been paying attention to the news for decades and I never did anything with it.” Well, that’s your first problem, Erik. You should’ve done something.

Because as my friend Miriam Kashia likes to say, “Action is the antidote to despair.” Continue Reading →

Unions Crucial for Worker and Farm Safety

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“With crisis after crisis that has hit our nation and our state,” writes Charlie Wishman in his Labor Day message, “it is always workers who are making sure our communities continue to run. With the devastating storms that just blew through Iowa, it is working class workers, public and private sector, that are cleaning up damage, restoring power as quickly as possible, and ensuring that our streets and neighborhoods are safe.” Continue Reading →

You really don’t want to live in Star Wars

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“Energy is the thread that ties all our problems together into one knot. We need to cut the knot. We’re devolving further and further into techno-barbarism. I don’t want to live in Star Wars.” Continue Reading →