At 17 years old, Santa Barbara High School senior Erik Choquette has won the 2009 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest for the second year in a row. You can watch his ground-breaking work here or on YouTube.
Sponsored by the Nuclear Age Foundation, the competition hosted 120 three-minute (or less) videos. The theme, Breakthrough: Putting the Nuclear Genie Back in the Bottle—How can we achieve a world free of nuclear weapons by the year 2020? was animated by Choquette to help get the genie back into the bottle.
One Percent for the Planet: The Weekend Hippie Way
When I conceptualized Weekend Hippie it was Yvon Chouinard’s 1% for the Planet model I had in mind, but on an individual scale. If my friends, and family, and distant friends, and future friends and supporters of Weekend Hippie could just give 1% of their time….it could really make a difference for them, and for mother earth.
When Chouinard hatched his brilliant idea, 1% For The Planet, in 2002, he asked corporations and non-profits to give 1% of their annual sales to environmental groups around the world. Just 1% was all he asked. Years later we can see how it has all added up: Chouinard’s 1% for the Planet now has nearly 1300 hundred business members worldwide that give 1% of their annual sales to just under 2000 environmental groups. One percent can make a difference.
And that’s how you can be a Weekend Hippie. Dedicate just 1% of your time, your life, to making a difference. Go ahead, make a small statement—change your light bulbs, wear TOMS shoes, give a micro loan to a Kiva entrepreneur, travel eco-mindfully, shop at your local farmers’ market, pick-up Patagonia clothes made from recycled plastic or an organic cotton t-shirt from Weekend Hippie! It works. Each small statement adds up… It is not important what you do: just do!
Want to join Chouinard’s 1% for the Planet, here’s how you can help.
For you—and your friends, and their friends—that 1% will add up
pretty quickly, and eventually you’ll find yourself living the Weekend
Hippie lifestyle not just 1% of the time, but 100%. The Weekend Hippie way!
Wow! What a season! The fruits and vegetables and culinary arts now available at farmers markets are the best of the year. The late summer meets the early fall, and the rewards are many!
Shopping at a farmers market is the easy way to eat locally. The food source is known to you, in fact, the farmer is right at the stand, so ask any questions you need to about how something is grown, what's in season, and even how to prepare fruit and vegetables that are new to you.
In Santa Barbara, eight farmers markets spread from end-to-end of town and happening on varies days of the week, make it easy to eat locally and healthy. Plus, you get to support local farmers while doing it. Like many farmers markets, Santa Barbara's markets have grown quickly to now include almost everything you need to make a healthy meal for your family, while contributing to the local economy...including meat,
eggs, fish, bread, pasta, vegetables, jam, olive oil, and fruit.
Take the Locavore Challenge and Support Local Farmers
There are plenty of ways to support local farmers—no matter where you live. Finding fresh, local produce in Santa Barbara has actually become quite
easy. If you don't grow your own food, you can find a farmers market in
the County on almost every day of the week. Garden exchanges hosted by Food Not Lawns provide a place to trade what you grow, and locally-owned produce centers help fill the gaps.
Several like-minded organizations including the the Isla Vista Co-op, Santa Barbara Farmers Markets and Edible Santa Barbara, are challenging you, your friends, and your family, to eat local for the month of October (and if you can do it during October, then try November, December.... and well, you get the idea. The idea being to make an effort. It's really not that hard.)
Follow these steps to become a Locavore:
1. Attend one of the many Farmers Markets. Buy only in season produce. Can't go to a farmers market? Have your produce delivered by Local Harvest.
4. Shop at non-chain stores that supply at least 50% of their produce from local farmers (in Santa Barbara Mesa Produce, Isla Vista Co-op). The Isla Vista Food Co-op has a long history of supporting local farmers and providing fresh, sustainably-harvested goods to the community. If you haven't visited the Co-op recently, you should check out their selection; you'll be pleasantly surprised.The Co-op is also the forerunner in setting locavore standards. Take their challenge to see how local you are. Download local resource guide.
5. If choosing a chain, make an effort to shop at one that supports local farmers by actually selling local produce. Many chains have categories of 'local' produce. In Santa Barbara the trend is towards three categories of local produce: California Local, Tri-County Local, and Santa Barbara County Local. Lazy Acres, in Santa Barbara, sells 30% Tri-County Local produce and 40% California Local produce.
Whole Foods, which opened their doors in Santa Barbara this week, makes a visible effort to sell, advertise, and educate the consumer about their commitment to local farmers. They also use the same three local categories, but only buy produce within a six hour drive of a selected store.
Through Whole Food's Local Producer Loan Program, Whole Foods also gives $10 million annually via low-interest loans to small, local farmers or producers. Trader Joe's sells no local produce. They buy and ship produce from around the world, shipe it ship it to a central warehouse for packaging, then re-ship to each store. Wow, that's some carbon footprint. The new Santa Barbara store features produce by John Givens Farms, including prominent promotional material.
The bottom line: It is easy to support local farmers. Eat what's in season, follow the guidelines, and before long it'll be second nature.
Antique Pharmacy Jar: Now Holds Sea Glass as an Art Piece
Moving on Up. Give Throwaways a Second Life
Old to New. Take your well-worn, destined for the dumpster discards, and give them a second life. Transform an item’s colorful history, its varied back-story, its one of a kind persona into a masterpiece—whole or by parts. Save it from a long life at the land ill. Upcycle It!
Coined by William McDonaugh and Michael Braugart in their book, “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things”, upcycling in the simplest terms is taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something new. It’s a sustainable practice that should happen weekly, if not daily. But what does it mean to you—to me—in our daily lives. How do we upcycle? How to we practice cradle to cradle to make a more sustainable future. Follow these simple tips:
Buy Upcycled Items
You won’t find what you need in your local Home Depot (you shouldn’t shop at Big Boxes anyway), so you’ll have to expend a little elbow grease to find a short list of upcycled items. But it’s worth the hunt from both a utilitarian perspective as well as the evolving the back-story of your new find. Before you purchase an item, look for an item that is equal in functionality but created from the parts of something old.
August 2009: It's the height of the summer, and what better way to share your backyard harvest than at a summer Garden Exchange. In Santa Barbara, the growing list of garden exchanges comes compliments the hard work of Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns.
If you don't live in Santa Barbara, start your own exchange. You don't necessarily need a bounty of fruits and veggies.... encourage your neighbors to trade baked goods, recycled farm tools, magazines, and the like. It is a great opportunity to get to know your neighbors.
Chris and AnnPizzinat hosted today's event in their Santa Barbara backyard.... where they raise chickens, turkeys, and have two horses. Katherine Anderson of Blue Oak Ranch, brought two of her
goats and served chocolate goat ice cream (it was delicious and refreshing). She also had prepared goat cheese in six different yummy forms... it was a really nice treat....
Gardeners from Santa Barbara brought lemons, rhubarb, tomatoes, melons,
olive tree starters, apples, baked goods, and, compost, compost worms,
well you get the picture.
The broader point: Grow your own food, and then trade, share, or giveaway the extras. Grow enough for your family, then grow more. Read more about Food Not Lawns and then start your own backyard garden.
July 2009: Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns andHopeDance Films hosted a viewing of Fresh, the movie in Santa Barbara. It was a gathering of local Fresh enthusiasts including IV Food Co-op, Fairview Gardens, Avalon Farms, and Shepherd Farms.
The food was yummy, sustainable and memorable, and it was a great opportunity to meet local activists and local farmers, and find out more about how to support them locally—and globally. Plus, the film is not to be missed.
FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across
America who are re-inventing our food system. FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, a
2008 MacArthur’s “Genius Award” fellow; sustainable farmer and
entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, the
Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, who is creating
a new market model for our family farmers. FRESH focuses on these
inspiring individuals and their initiatives around the US providing inspiration for you to make the change in your own life.
You don’t have to live in Santa Barbara to
participate in this
grassroots effort. Food Not Lawns works to reduce lawns and increase
food. It doesn't matter where you live, replacing your space-taking,
water draining, pesticide-using lawn promotes sustainability. If you
replace your lawn with
food, you can then share what you grow, trade what you grow for
something
you don’t grow…..and meet your neighbors. It’s that
easy!
A recent issue of Sunset
magazine featured a special report on how to reduce your family's water usage
further highlighting the need to streamline water consumption throughout the Western
states. I’ve long been a proponent of reduced water usage in the home
(especially the use of water to grown your lawn).
Sunset's article outlined a 12-step approach—simplified for quick application. It was a relief to
see that kind of sustainably-focused content instead of another preview
of a kitchen makeover.
One item Sunsetdidn’t directly mention is the growing movement to replace lawns with
edible landscapes. Food Not Lawns, widespread
throughout the United States, helps you achieve these goals by
promoting urban sustainability and encourages growing food,
implementing ecological design, sharing resources, and interacting with
your community. Started and by Heather C. Flores, author of Food not Lawns, How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community,
the movement is widespread throughout the world.
The scary truth about lawns Today,
about 80% of U.S. households spend approximately $40 billion every year
to maintain over 21 million acres of lawn. That’s about a third of an
acre for the average American lawn.
When was the last time you took a breath? A deep, satisfying, the weight-of-the-world-is-not-on-me-breath? You wake up to start your daily routine. Feed the dog, the cat. Take the kids to school. Take yourself to work. Work. Work. Work. Eight hours later, you fill the tank with gas, pick up the kids, feed the dog, feed the cat, feed the kids, yourself. Tuck everyone in for a good night's rest. Pay the bills, and on and on....and on.
But when do you breathe? When do you sit down, pull in all the air around you, push it deep, deep into your inner being, and then, and only when totally satisfied, and in a slow, methodical fashion, push it all out; clear your lungs, your mind? Aah, feel the satisfaction, that sense of relief, of pleasure.
That's what I did this morning. At Butterfly Beach. A pristine, sun-soaked stretch of sand in Santa Barbara. At 6:30 am, during a great minus tide where the water pulls back into the sea leaving the sand and all its remnants; exposing all sorts of flotsam and jetsam: broken shells, flattened stones, and, my favorite, colorful sea glass.
C'est Cheese is your best bet for a quick, gourmet bite to eat when you are in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara.
The speciality, locally-owned cheese shop offers a quick bite—try ONE Sandwichini—or, for the ravenous, get two for $8. Fresh baquettes or ciabatta layered with imported salami and, of course, cheese, and you are set. Yummiest "take-away" lunch downtown Santa Barbara.
C'est Cheese
825 Santa Barbara Street (between de la Guerra and Canon Perdido streets)
I LOVE my garden. It is a place I go to chill, to sip on big tumblers of red wine, and to chat with friends. It's full of all sorts of indigenous plants and bird-attracting perennials. It's hard to say what I like most about it, but this time of year I can safely say it's the section dedicated to my backyard vegetable garden! I almost rush to the beds on a daily basis to see what new sprouts have sprung, how big the cucumbers have become in less than 24 hours, and what lettuce I can pull for dinner. Oh, there is no greater satisfaction to growing your own food!!!
Backyard vegetable gardens are not only fun but provide a way to supplement your family’s food needs by season, depending on where you live. It also offers an opportunity to teach your kids--and neighbors--about the seed to table formula as opposed to grocery store to table.
Spring in most climates—including in Santa Barbara where I live—offers warm weather enough to have a successful spring-summer-fall vegetable garden.
Perfect for anything. I like them slice thick on toasted ciabatta.
Looks at this chard! Talk about beautiful. You often don't see Chard mixed into a rainbow. Mediterranean Braised Chard is my favorite way to use this delightful mix. Don't forget the chard stalks are edible and add texture and flavor
to dishes.
One for One. TOMS gives shoes to children around the world who have no shoes. It’s that simple. For every pair of shoes purchased, TOMS gives a pair to a child in need.
Founded by Blake Mycoskie and inspired by an Argentine shoe (they call Blake the Chief Shoe Giver), TOMS gave 200,000 pairs of shoes to children across the United States, South African Argentina last year.
Once your closet is stock full of TOMS easy to wear canvas slides, you can volunteer for one of TOMS Shoe Drops, an opportunity for you to travel on location to provide shoes and other support to kids in need.
The styles are hippie cool. Pick up a pair today at local surf and skate shops, or order online.
I first met John Warner, half of the team at Santa Barbara Natives, two years ago at Rancho Arroyo Hondo. He was managing the property. We were booking a significant event and John acted as manager, tour guide and plant specialist. That’s also when I learned about his new venture, Santa Barbara Natives.
John and his partner, Jeff Nighman, grow locally propagated native plants. The plants are used for restoration and mitigation projects by landscape architects, designers, contractors and the weekend hippie. John and Jeff have grown hundreds of thousands of genetically, local California native plants since 2003.
It's late spring, and the timing is perfect to start your home veggie and herb garden. This season, it is clear, something has changed. MIchelle Obama broke ground on a vegetable garden at The White House, while George Ball, of Burpee Seeds, recently predicted seed sales to increase 20 to 30 percent this year. In a recent issue of Sunset magazine, the cover story featured tips on how to grow your own garden. It seems the meeting of The Obama Administration and the Recession have finally put sustainable food sources at the forefront of American’s priorities.
Activists, long-time locavores, and Weekend Hippies alike are hoping these changes will increase the demand for organic, local, and fresh produce, and drive awareness about sustainability in all forms—food, shelter, transportation.
It’s a garbage disposal that gives back—literally. Worm composting—technically vermicomposting—is a system for turning your food waste into rich, usable soil for use in your garden... all with the help of worms.
You simply bury your excess kitchen waste in the worm bin, and the worms get to work on turning it into soil. Technically it is the worm casts—what worms excrete—that you want....worm casts are full of rich micro-nutrients for your plants.
Make a Difference: Worm composting lets you reduce the waste you put on the street for collection every week. Worm composting is the only way to recycle at your home. The worms turn your food waste into your plant food you use in your garden. One thousand worms eat about a pound of garbage every four days. How many pounds of garbage can you save from going in the landfill each year by composting? Check out more Worm Composting Facts!
Grow Basil! Not only to puree into a beautiful summer pesto, but to toss in salads, adorn pizzas, and feed to the red wigglers in your worm bin. For Weekend Hippie's pesto, mix to taste: fresh, homegrown or farmers' market basil, toasted pine nuts, whole garlic, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, and sea salt. Drizzle a thin layer of olive over the top, seal, and store in glass jars. Use or freeze within ten days. I make five jars at at time and share with friends and neighbors. Enjoy!!
Food Not Lawns
Attend a garden exchange. Check out Santa Barbara's Food Not Lawns for the complete schedule.
Backyard Bounty Needs Produce! Help Backyard Bounty help those in need by harvesting your excess produce. Do you have a vegetable garden, an orchard, a farm that has more than you can harvest?
Grow Basil! Not only to puree into a beautiful summer pesto, but to toss in salads, adorn pizzas, and feed to the red wigglers in your worm bin. For Weekend Hippie's pesto, mix to taste: fresh, homegrown or farmers' market basil, toasted pine nuts, whole garlic, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, and sea salt. Drizzle a thin layer of olive over the top, seal, and store in glass jars. Use or freeze within ten days. I make five jars at at time and share with friends and neighbors. Enjoy!!
