How you live--Farmers Markets

Today seems like a good day to start our responses to the How you live bioregional quiz. The first questions is:

On what day is your local farmers market?

Chisago City Farmers Market - rhubarb and eggs

Photo by J. Harrington

Without getting as existential as former President Clinton did with the distinction between "is" and "was," to answer this question we need to explore the meaning of the word "your." The answer, in regard to farmers' markets, could be more obvious if we lived in Minneapolis or St. Paul or some community that had their own farmers market. For residents of those cities it's fair to assume that each would have "their" farmers market. Unless, of course, perhaps because of physical proximity, some residents of St. Paul regularly shopped at the Minneapolis market, or vice versa. This also can occur outside the Twin Cities. The definition of "your" in those cases would be based on the market which the shopper regularly frequented. That seems like a better approach, although we don't shop at any market regularly but irregularly frequent 3 or 4 in our neck of the woods so we still haven't nailed it down. Throughout Minnesota there are 183 farmers markets, according to Minnesota Grown. Within 10 miles of our place, there's this half dozen:

1. Chisago City Farmers Market--Fri
2. Forest Lake Farmers Market--Tue
3. North Branch Farmers Market--Sat
4. North Branch Farmers Market Fest--Fri
5. Wyoming Farmers Market--Thu
6. Lindstrom Farmers Market--Wed, Sat

Although each of them is also listed as having a Winter Farmers Market, most seasons are only listed as running into October, which, even with Minnesota's occasional Halloween Blizzard, isn't usually considered Winter.

Chisago City Farmers Market - asparagus

Photo by J. Harrington

If we go out to 25 miles from home, there's a total of 21 markets listed under both Farmers Market and Winter Farmers Market. That makes me more than a little suspicious of the accuracy of the Winter listings. On the other hand, the listing for each market at Minnesota Grown appears to include the period for which it's open. In addition, some of the individual markets have their own web sites and, the one closest to us, also sends out email updates of what's available and other interesting tidbits. Others are listed on the Local Harvest web site and/or the Minnesota Farmers Market Association site.

As I'm sure you know, Farmers Markets are but one element in a local food system that also includes Community Supported Agriculture, food cooperatives, possibly food hubs and other production, distribution and sale nodes in the network. Since I'm helping the Minnesota Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council organize a discussion next month.about the Twin Cities system, and you're welcome to join us, I'm putting in a self-serving plug. Here's some details.

Chisago City Farmers Market - vegetables

Photo by J. Harrington

08/13 - Putting a Fork in It:
Eating Local; Growing Sustainable

Thurs, 08/13 | 4:15-6:30p | RJM Construction, Minneapolis

How are Minnesota organizations supporting sustainable living through local food production? Join us at our next Green Scene where representatives from the local food system will discuss how to stay healthy by enjoying fresher, healthier food; growing foodsheds by supporting local farmers, benefits to the local economy by keeping food dollars in the community, and understanding where food comes from, what’s in season and how to make it delicious.

Stay for happy hour to connect with others who are passionate about all areas of sustainability over great food, drink and lively conversation.

Agenda:
4:15: Registration
4:30: Program
5:30: Happy Hour

Pricing and Registration:
$15 Members | $20 Guests
Register Here

Onions

By William Matthews

How easily happiness begins by   

dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter   

slithers and swirls across the floor   

of the sauté pan, especially if its   

errant path crosses a tiny slick

of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto   

or chutney (from the Sanskrit

chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions   

go limp and then nacreous

and then what cookbooks call clear,   

though if they were eyes you could see

clearly the cataracts in them.

It’s true it can make you weep

to peel them, to unfurl and to tease   

from the taut ball first the brittle,   

caramel-colored and decrepit

papery outside layer, the least

recent the reticent onion

wrapped around its growing body,   

for there’s nothing to an onion

but skin, and it’s true you can go on   

weeping as you go on in, through   

the moist middle skins, the sweetest

and thickest, and you can go on   

in to the core, to the bud-like,   

acrid, fibrous skins densely   

clustered there, stalky and in-

complete, and these are the most   

pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare

and rage and murmury animal   

comfort that infant humans secrete.   

This is the best domestic perfume.   

You sit down to eat with a rumor

of onions still on your twice-washed   

hands and lift to your mouth a hint

of a story about loam and usual   

endurance. It’s there when you clean up   

and rinse the wine glasses and make   

a joke, and you leave the minutest   

whiff of it on the light switch,

later, when you climb the stairs.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

What would Pope Francis think of Minnesota's mining?

Slowly but surely events are conspiring to undermine my pessimistic cynicism. I look forward to the change. Learning that Pope Francis has said the "Mining industry needs radical change to protect people, nature" makes me wonder what the Catholic Church is coming to. "To its senses" and "back to its roots" are two possibilities I hadn't expected to be confronted with. The next thing you know, congress may engage in productive behavior and enact legislation that will benefit 99% of the people (not persons) that inhabit this country. They might even do "the right thing" and repeal the land trade that authorizes a land swap with a mining company land for public land the Apache consider sacred.

Lake Superior's rocky shores

Photo by J. Harrington

When it comes to mining, Minnesota engages in its own version of obsequious behavior. Although we're not yet quite at the level of back-room congressional deals, we're trying hard to get there. I spent time recently skimming through the Water Legacy petition [02-JUL-15] to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] which asks EPA to withdraw its approval of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's delegated authority to issue Pollution Discharge permits. One of the issues the petition cites is undue political interference in the water quality protection process.

"in 2015, the Minnesota Legislature prohibited the MPCA from listing waters impaired for wild rice as a result of violation of Minnesota’s wild rice sulfate standard. As WaterLegacy learned through Minnesota Data Practices Act requests, in response to EPA and public comments on the 2012 section 303(d) list, in 2013 MPCA began identifying wild rice waters impaired due to elevated sulfate. By August 2013, MPCA had a preliminary list, which mining interests, including U.S. Steel, lobbied to forestall until new wild rice rules were promulgated. (Exhibit 19, MPCA Wild Rice Impaired Waters Documents, Aug. – Nov. 2013, Ex. Pages 399-414). Despite a 2014 timeline promised by MPCA, no Minnesota wild rice impaired waters list has been released to date."

"In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio posted on line, Governor Mark Dayton explained that MPCA would soon present an alternative to preserving and enforcing the 10 mg/L wild rice sulfate standard. (Exhibit 22, Transcript of MPR Interview with Gov. Dayton Mar. 29, 2015 and Affidavit of Transcription, Ex. Pages 428-431). In this interview, the Governor said, with no apparent irony, that U.S. Steel had made it clear they would not agree to a permit applying the existing wild rice sulfate standard:

U.S. Steel has made it very clear they’re not going to — and they closed down the Keewatin plant, they’re still operating the Minntac plant — but they made it very clear they’re not going to agree to a permit that has the standard of 10 [10 milligrams per liter] which was set in, by science — was posted in 1940, and established in the 1960s and 70s as the standard, which is not applied to most other projects in Minnesota or anywhere else in the country. (Id., Ex. Page 428)

When a state’s governor suggests that a regulated party may reject compliance with an applicable water quality standard, that state cannot provide effective CWA regulatory authority."

a quiet cove, Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

You might want to make a note to be sure to follow the EPA response to this petition. MPCA still lists the wild rice impaired waters as pending. I suspect you can find updates at the Water Legacy web site. I've been reading about a similar petition that was filed in EPA Region 1 asking that approval of Vermont's delegation be rescinded. That took a number of years to resolve. The affected parties claim to be pleased with the outcome. I'd be pleased if Minnesota's independent Pollution Control Agency Citizen Board were reinstated and the Agency were allowed to do its job of protecting the environment us without short-sighted political interference. Do you suppose we could get the Pope to speak to the governor and the legislature?

North Star

by Sheila Packa 

In Hanko, Finland
a young woman boards
the vessel in the Baltic
for a ship across the Atlantic.
The North Star shines in the sky.
She's carrying in her valise
a change of clothes
a packet of seeds
and the sauna dipper.
Distance pours between constellations
between English words on her tongue
through storms and sun.
In New York City, she buys
a one way ticket
boards the train going
across the continent
arrives on an inland sea.
The winter ground underfoot
is familiar with frost
as she transfers to a northbound
along the Vermilion Trail
in Minnesota.
Ahead of her waits a man
a house to be built
and a fire that burns it down.
Ahead, eleven children
to bear, a few she must bury,
the cows in the barn
needing to be milked.
Unbroken ground only hers to till.
Above her, the North Star
inside the aurora borealis, northern
banners waving welcome —  

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.