A localist's lament to the weather, and a vision of a better life

I know it's been a while since posting, and the fact I could not access my Blogger account is a poor excuse (forgot the password and failed a few times in changing it).

But I'm back!

Every season is new, and every one different. But 2009 is really different: Minus 22 in January killed much of the bramble crop and thinned peaches, some varieties were REALLY thinned. A late, cold Spring. Cold and wet in April and May, then cool and wet later, then wet later still, then no sun for days and days (a real killer), then wet yet again, and now, hotter than I can ever remember in June.

Melted strawberries, aborted peas, cracked and rotting sweet cherries; it's getting really hard to take. But the season is just getting underway, and there's still time for a turnaround. The forecast looks like a return to normal weather patterns (if there even is such a thing anymore), and that's what the region needs right now.

On a positive note, the local foods movement is gaining an unstoppable momentum, and for those of us who have been howling like a lone wolf for decades, the experience is exhilarating. Twenty years ago, there were howling wolves like me about every four hundred miles. Now I can hear them and see them even in my home town!

And the new generation of wolves howl out not their woes, but their hopes for a food system that makes sense for their families, and communities, and their country. It's been a long time coming, but I am sure the end to the insanity of our industrialized food system is in sight.

I see new farms, great diversity of production agriculture, resurrected animal husbandry, new food-related businesses, and perhaps most important, a healthier populace feeding itself nutritious food and weaning itself from the salty, sugary, and fatty stuff (I cannot call it food), marketed so ubiquitously throughout America, and causing the health care crisis.

I see healthier economies throughout rural America due in no small part to local food dollars being spent on local foods and then through the multiplier effect being re-circulated in those same economies, four, five, six times before leaving.

I see a return to an intensely local way of life.

And I see the demise of giant, multinational corporations controlling the goods and services we we've been tricked into buying from them. In their place, I see shingles proclaiming "locally-owned and locally operated."

I see the end to this Great Recession and a new beginning for communities, even here in Michigan.

I see the roots of power...and they're grass! I see the people who will make these changes...and they're us!