~EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE~

[journey11]

Wow, that is insane to be able to watch this live online.

 

[simple life]

I have been watching the news all day with a heavy heart.
I can't believe we yet another natural disaster on our hands.

There have been so many resources put into Haiti right now that it leaves you wondering how much help can be given to the people of Chile.
They extended tsunami warnings to include Japan, Australia, California and Alaska.
They report that combined with Chile and Hawaii that is a quarter of the world population that could be affected by the earthquake and the tsunamis if their predictions come true.
Never mind the trickle down effect to other countries from imports that many routinely rely on.
The news stated that Hawaii only has a 5 day supply of food for all their people.

Speaking of which they interviewed someone from Hawaii, I missed who he was but some sort of official and when questioned about the effect on their food supply he said
"I think it is time we all start to grow our own food, maybe that will be my next campaign".

Its things like this that really put you in your place and forces people to evaluate how we all live.
Maybe some sort of good can be found in this tragedy if it changes how we feed our own countries and cuts back on all the fuel wasted importing things that we can all live without or can grow or manufacture ourselves.
I hate to say this right now, but it offends me when I am in the supermarket and there are imported apples, oranges, garlic etc. that we can and do grow right here.
I would much rather support our own growers and I will search until I can find a Florida orange or a New England apple.
I never buy them and if I can't find something grown here I just cross it off my list and live without it.

Its possible there will be alot more people who delve into the world of gardening and grow their own food to feed their families.
I can count on one hand how many people in my neighborhood grow any type of fruit or vegetables in their backyards and this use to be all farm land at one time.
I would love to see that change.
I expanded my garden again this year and have all my seed and tree orders in, which may be just in the nick of time if much of the world catches on to growing our own food.
A woman at a seed company recently told me that they had an 80 percent increase in their seed sales this year.
Maybe it is too much to hope that something good can come out of something so bad, but I really hope this will cause some good changes to be made and we can all be much better stewards of this earth.

God bless all those affected by this tragedy.

 

[journey11]

There have been so many resources put into Haiti right now that it leaves you wondering how much help can be given to the people of Chile.

I wondered about that too. So far the death toll hasn't been so high in Chile, by comparison...must be less densely populated, I guess. They said it was good too that it was a Saturday, because the big office buildings were not occupied at the time.

 

[simple life]

They also build their buildings under a different code than Haiti.
When they build to code its with earthquakes in mind since they had that huge one in 1960, so while they have alot of damage to the buildings they were not completely devastated like the ones in Haiti. They also had some type of emergency response planned out in case of another earthquake so they were much more prepared to handle something like this than Haiti was.

 

[Ladyhawke1]

I have been watching the news all day with a heavy heart.
I can't believe we yet another natural disaster on our hands.

There have been so many resources put into Haiti right now that it leaves you wondering how much help can be given to the people of Chile.
They extended tsunami warnings to include Japan, Australia, California and Alaska.
They report that combined with Chile and Hawaii that is a quarter of the world population that could be affected by the earthquake and the tsunamis if their predictions come true.
Never mind the trickle down effect to other countries from imports that many routinely rely on.
The news stated that Hawaii only has a 5 day supply of food for all their people.

Speaking of which they interviewed someone from Hawaii, I missed who he was but some sort of official and when questioned about the effect on their food supply he said
"I think it is time we all start to grow our own food, maybe that will be my next campaign".

Its things like this that really put you in your place and forces people to evaluate how we all live.
Maybe some sort of good can be found in this tragedy if it changes how we feed our own countries and cuts back on all the fuel wasted importing things that we can all live without or can grow or manufacture ourselves.
I hate to say this right now, but it offends me when I am in the supermarket and there are imported apples, oranges, garlic etc. that we can and do grow right here.
I would much rather support our own growers and I will search until I can find a Florida orange or a New England apple.
I never buy them and if I can't find something grown here I just cross it off my list and live without it.

Its possible there will be alot more people who delve into the world of gardening and grow their own food to feed their families.
I can count on one hand how many people in my neighborhood grow any type of fruit or vegetables in their backyards and this use to be all farm land at one time.
I would love to see that change.
I expanded my garden again this year and have all my seed and tree orders in, which may be just in the nick of time if much of the world catches on to growing our own food.
A woman at a seed company recently told me that they had an 80 percent increase in their seed sales this year.
Maybe it is too much to hope that something good can come out of something so bad, but I really hope this will cause some good changes to be made and we can all be much better stewards of this earth.

God bless all those affected by this tragedy.

Somewhere on this site, I posted about trying to buy apple juice at Target. The last juice that I bought, I noticed it was stamped from China. Well this time I thought I would get locally produced apple juice. I looked all through the apple juice section. I looked at ALL the brand names. They came from..wait for it..Chile, Argentina.China..and I cannot remember beyond that.

So there I was at the checkout counter and I nicely requested of the MANAGER that I wanted some juice made in United States. Sure.. he saidgive me brand name and we will see if we can order it. I told him that all of the brands are US BRANDS. He kept saying give me a brand. I tried to explain that I wanted locally grown and bottle apple juice from this country. This went right over his head. He was young, a city boy and has a wonderful $1.98 job at Target. What did I expect?

I think the words.FOOD SECURITY .needs to be bandied about and explained more often to the ill informed. Or as an acquaintance of mine says... most people are information deprived and they need to pay attention.

 

[digitS']

"Officials Breathe Sigh of Relief as Tsunami Passes" -- good NYTimes story but the editors chose a title that, once again, shifts the focus on the "officials" and the "managers" of things :/. Mere citizens wait around in evacuation centers for emergency response.

I provide plants for my neighbors in my multiple gardens. Had a full flat of Early Girl tomatoes for the neighbor at my big veggie garden and he had a very productive year. He hasn't grown much more than corn, beans and tomatoes since I showed up out there but I like to think that I'm helping him discover greater diversity in his garden.

Still, all those tomatoes . . . he and his wife made quarts and quarts of tomato juice! I'm glad I could contribute a little to that, last year.

Steve

 

[simple life]

Ladyhawke, I did the same thing at the supermarket one day.
The manager asked me if I found everything I wanted and I replied no I did not.
When he asked what I couldn't find I told him that I could not find any fruit that I wanted from our own country and fruit season was in full swing here.
He looked flustered and then said well okay did you find everything else?
They really do not care its just the bottom dollar to them, cheap accessible food.
I stopped at a local the fruit stand that had a big sign asking people to stop and support our local farmers.
I was happy to find the new fruit stand and went in to shop.
I found more things that were not from around here than I could believe.
In fact I wanted garlic and found big pre packaged bags from China.
I went to the woman and asked her where the garlic from the U.S. was and she replied that we don't grow garlic in the U.S., you can only get it from China!
I could not believe what I was hearing, I informed her that we grow quite a bit of garlic here but she acted like she didn't believe me or more importantly she didn't really care.
I planted my own garlic after that but its truly disappointing to see people so out of touch with their food reality.

I know what you mean by the apple juice, I searched long and hard at the local supermarkets for an apple juice made in our own country and I finally stumbled upon it in the Kosher section so that is what we buy now.
Its frustrating to say the least and also pretty sad.

Steve, that is good of you to offer your neighbors garden space.

 

[digitS']

No, no Natalie . . . isn't that a song, or movie, or something . . . ?

No, I don't offer my neighbor's space. They offer me space -- and I give them tomato and other plants for their gardens. They feel that they have more land than they can make use of.

There are farmers' markets that require everything to be grown by the vendor. Find one of those when you are looking for fresh produce during the growing season.

I know that the fruit stands OFTEN are selling stuff they bring in from a wholesaler's warehouse. When that sort of thing happens at what some try to call a farmers' market, actual growers and the local folks should boycott it.

. . . just my opinion.

Steve

 

[simple life]

I totally agree. I haven't been back to that fruit stand since and I told them before I left that I would not support them for those reasons.
Its too bad because it would have been nice to have a nice fruit stand in town.

 

[Hattie the Hen]

I just want to add this article to this thread.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/09-4

Please be very careful & polite in responding to it. Thank you.


Hattie