02.21.10
Growing Power
In addition to natural health issues, Brian and I have long been interested in self sufficiency. We’ve thought of how nice it would be to be able to have our own farm, but let’s face it, I don’t see us moving to a farm any time in the near future. The more feasible possibility for us is “urban farming.” What we have tried instead have been small scale things like growing some organic veggies in the backyard as well as raising our own rabbits and chickens at one point. We decided that the rabbits were not the best nutritional source, and the chickens needed more space than we had to offer to make it worthwhile. The largest animals we could “squeeze” into our backyard would be pigmy goats, but you don’t want to have only one as they’d get lonely. So those weren’t good options for us. Not to mention that we live in an area that’s not zoned for farm animals. . . BUT I will say that I did enjoy having the chickens. Their eggs were yummy, and they were kinda cute to watch roam around the backyard. I got a kick out of how they are creatures of habit and would come back like clockwork to roost in the same spot every night. The drawbacks were the lack of space, which in turn made it a challenge to keep the flies at bay. The manure created by both the rabbits and chickens were fantastic for our veggies, but again we had to be very diligent to keep the flies under control. Also, the chickens were so aggressive with scratching and digging for worms and bugs that they could quickly tear up our garden if we didn’t fence them off. I still remember how our artichoke grew like crazy with the rabbit manure, and I really felt like I was walking in the land of the lost with how big they got. But those days are passed, although our interest in health issues and sustainability have remained.
Fortunately of us there are many innovative people who have inspired us such as Joel Salatin with his pastured animals as well as Bill Mollison, father of permaculture. Now, once again we have been inspired by another possible adventure in health and sustainability–aquaponics or aquaculture promoted by Will Allen. I know that Brian has been eying this guy for a while, but now after reading Eating Animals, I have been disturbed about how fish are harvested from the oceans. Apparently, many current fishing practices today have been destroying our oceans with their 30 mile trawl fishing nets and lines and other methods, which have been destroying coral reefs (the habitats for a diverse number of sea life, which without they can not survive) and killing many other sea life indiscriminately as they also get caught up in the nets. Therefore aquaculture is starting to look very appealing to me and tempting to try on a small scale for our family. Check out this video.
The founder of Growing Power is Will Allen. For more information, check out his blog at http://growingpower.org/ Very cool stuff!!! It’ s not just about raising fish, but also about using edible plants to help filter the water and sustain the fish.
I remember visiting the home of one of my classmates in high school. They were Chinese, and in their backyard they had pigeons in cages. That was the first time I’d ever seen pigeons in cages before. And being young and naive, I didn’t even stop to wonder why they had them. Years later I realized that there are some Chinese dishes which feature pigeon. I am happy to know that there are people even in the urban areas who are innovative and brave enough to take on urban farming. Brian and I have considered the possibility of raising quail and even crawfish before, but we never got into it. Now another interesting possibility is fish. . . hmmmm.
Marlakins
