Category Archives: Gardening

Sustainability Fair in Fort Collins

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On Sunday Britton, Torrie (his sister), our niece and nephew, my mom, our friend Shana and I all went out to the Sustainable Living Event in Fort Collins that is in conjunction with New Belgium Brewery. Afterward we went to the Holistic Fair in Loveland before returning home. It was pretty cool. Our nephew kept saying this was where all the hippies were, which was somewhat true if your definition of a hippie is someone with long hair, or locks, and who cares about the environment. We learned a little bit about solar power, wind power, recycling, composting, gardening, and much more. There were plenty of interesting people, good food and beer as well. There was even a booth with chickens! There was definitely an underlying political atmosphere that was pretty cool. We seem to have had a lot of opportunities for training in Puerto Rico lately.


The Group minus Cassie


Britton, Cassie, Char


Char Covered in Buttons

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Snakes on the Plains and other weird animals

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Right as our party was starting the kids found this (bull?) snake in the yard. It is pretty small, and probably a baby, so I hope we don’t have a bunch of them around the house although Britton said he also saw a gardener snake. Of course, with them empty field behind us, there are a ton of mice for them to eat. And, thanks, Kitty for bringing the dead little mice and bird bodies onto the porch when you catch them. We really appreciate it (gag!). We also have a bunch of bugs, and I found this little green dude on our kitchen table. I think it is the same type I saw munching on my basil! Blends in so perfectly, I barely even noticed it on the table because I thought it was just a random piece of leaf.


Snake on the ground


Snake going over the fence


Basil Eating bug- looks just like a leaf

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Fiesta de la Cosecha ¡Fiesta Loca!

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You are invited to a

Harvest LOCAvore Party

at Our House

on Saturday, September 6, 2008, 6pm-??

If you had a garden this year, bring some of your LOCAl bounty to share with others either in the raw or prepared as a side. If not, bring a favorite dish or drink (maybe from ingredients from the LOCAl farmers’ market). This is not required, but a fun way to share and try new things. We will have plenty of drinks and lots of food. Maybe deviled eggs from our chickens? Britton’s famous sushi rolls made with local cucumbers? Our scrumptious chile rellenos from fresh chiles? You’ll have to wait and see.

For Entertainment, we will hold a tasting of the various beers and wines that people bring, listen to music, eat, play cards, launch potatoes, maybe play rockband, chase chickens (?), have a garlic or habanero pepper eating challenge, toss around a frisbee, play hack and other fun, strange and interesting things. Our neighbors have a hot tub too, so if you are a good persuader…who knows? 


Playing Rockband! 🙂

 

Feel free to bring the kids if you’d like. We’ll try to have kid-friendly things going on too.

For more info including directions, email or call us:

bckauffman -at- comcast.net (please put the @ sign in between, I just don’t want to get spammed), or any of our other emails if you know them. If you don’t have our phone number, I’ll send it to you via email.


Todays Lunch!

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Tour De Farms -Fort Collins

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Britton and I went on the Tour De Farms events from the Rocky Mountain Sustainablilty group on Saturday. It was pretty fun. We loaded up the bikes in the Honda Civic and met at the Farmer’s Market in Fort Collins. There we had a discussion about local food economies and the benefits of eating organic. Then we looked around the Farmer’s Market and ate some Grand Junction peaches.


At the Farmer’s Market

From there we headed off on bike as a group to a couple of urban backyard gardens and discussed the importance of this.


In an Urban Garden

Then we rode a little more and saw a couple of commercial operations including an organic nursery and greenhouse operation that is part of a larger farm out in Wellington and a Community Supported Agriculture farm that has over 125 members.


Rows of Food with a Mountain backdrop

It was pretty cool to see over 50 people in a row on bikes going from farm to farm in a 5 mile radius in Fort Collins.


Biking to and fro

The last event at Happy Heart Farm was probably the best. We talked about the importance of transportation in the equation (biking) to reduce our carbon footprint and even had a bike courier deliver lunch from a local co-op. It was definitely a pretty hippie and awesome day. The speaker even talked about moving from a “locavore” society to a “bike-a-vore” society. Which made me think, who eats their bicycle anyway? 🙂

Even the sandwich choices were either vegetarian or vegan -that’s pretty rare. I would have liked to have seen a few animals as part of the discussion on farming -especially for the kids to play with, and maybe a little more diversity in the people who turned out for the event, but overall, it was a great way to spend a morning. And we ended up at New Belgium’s again which made Britton all the happier…


Hanging out at Happy Heart Farm under the old tree arch

When we came home, we hung out with Matt and Jamie at our house for a little while and then slept out in our backyard in a tent to complete the hippie day.


Britton by the tent

The whole day overall was yet another training for Puerto Rico. I believe there are very few organic farms or CSAs there. It would be wonderful to create a farm-stay program where people could stay at the place, work and eat. It gave us renewed vigor and strength that this is going to be one of the coolest things in our lives. We probably would do it here in Colorado except, well, we have a winter season that goes from about the middle of October until the middle of April. I am ready to live like this -well maybe not the whole tent thing 🙂 – year-round.

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