I dragged a couple of the kids along with me tonight to the Urban Agricultural Zoning Update for a neighboring city. It was pretty neat, both because we got to see Eric in professional action and also because the interest in urban agriculture was palpable.

In my family we have a joke that whatever I'm interested in will crest in popularity two or three years later. Not so much the vegetable gardening, that's been around forever, but in the whole "Now I call it a farm" approach to growing things in urban areas. Bees, chickens, other livestock, plus extensive gardening I guess. I call it "Zeitgeist surfing," and if I could only figure out a way to cash in on my prescience, well, we'd have a redecorated kitchen and my bedroom would have walls.

So anyhow, familiar faces (Esperanza, Lisa, and the 4-H crew) and new faces but old names (Rachel) were there and that was pretty great. There was such a crowd that I couldn't hear all of the questions being asked in the break-out areas, and the two tables dedicated to livestock questions were getting heated, with some animal-rights folks and evangelical vegans arguing that the city should disallow the rearing and slaughter of meat animals, and some just plain randomness, so I wandered around a bit and overheared folks talking and making connections.

At then end of it, I asked one of Eric's coworkers if she'd like to come and see the garden, and gathered up my by-then cheerfully helping children and toddled back across the water to our town. A good night. The next few council meetings are going to be Very Interesting in that town.

Big Ag isn't happy

The people who make their money convincing folks that IPM and organic methods "can't work," and "aren't feasible" are worried that First Lady Michelle Obama's organic-in-practice garden will inspire others.

You can read the article here.

So folks like me and Denise, who are managing to eat (hopefully an increasing portion) our food from our yards grown without sprays, are probably just the sorts of people they're not happy about. Although, truth be told, they wouldn't have been happy with my "buy organic only" approach anyhow.

Now, if I could only manage a non-chemical method of chicken wrangling. . .