View Larger Map Due to construction on 2nd Ave. this summer the Downtown Spokane Farmers' Market will be moving a couple blocks to the south of its long time location in the parking lot of the Covenant Church. The site, just south of 1-90 freeway…
Picture: Fritillaria pudica (yellow bell, yellow fritillary) taken two weeks ago in Spokane Valley. I'm in a season of doing some long form writing, working on a writing project with a publisher. I've been drawn to the idea of being a writer since I was…
The Times Online in England has an article up reporting on a 2 year study on the impact of Jamie OIiver's efforts to improve school lunches on test scores. Eating Jamie Oliver’s school dinners improves children’s performance in tests, according to researchers who claim that…
Just checking in about the seed starting calendar I put together earlier in the Spring. So far we're right on schedule. We're just about 7 weeks out from the last freeze date here in the Spokane area so everything is planted in the greenhouse except…
The USDA's Economic Research Service now has a full century of data on food availability in America. This one-of-a-kind data set measures which food commodities are available to eat at the national level and provides the foundation for estimating if the nutrients available support a…
picture: Grass Widow or Satin Flower taken near Liberty Lake last weekend. Plans for the Pumpkin Patch Community Garden are coming together. We've got soil and lumber and irrigation installation all donated. We've got a growing band of volunteers eager to dig dirt on April…
A dairy farmer spent $150,000 to line his open manure pit with plastic only to have it detach and form huge bubbles of gas from the 21 million gallons of decomposing cow manure. The article at WSJournal that describes his predicament offers a telling window…
The biggest news on the legislative front is that the Health Care bill that Obama just signed includes provisions that will require fast food restaurants to post the caloric content of menu items, So starting next year you'll see the calories of a Big Mac…
We've got a b-day in the Goodwin house today and while shopping for the occasion Noel thought Lily would really like a Lunchable to celebrate the occasion. Sure enough, when Lily opened her backpack today to discover a Lunchable she leaped for joy and (I'm…
The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cMatthew Crawfordwww.colbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorHealth Care reformIf you're following the seed starting schedule I laid out a couple weeks ago it's a good time to start your tomatoes and cabbages. I'd wait another week for the squash/pumpkins.…
The McDonalds Happy Meal is ageless - no decay on the shelf after a year. I wonder if people will start making age defying face creams from Happy Meals, kind of like those melons from some obscure village in Italy that have natural preserving powers.…
Snagged a couple more pics of early season wildflowers. The white flowers are Whitlow Grass but I can't figure out the pink flower. It looks like phlox of some kind but I couldn't find any phlox that are this early in the spring. They are…
I'm not sure what it is about wildflowers that I find so exciting, but they sure have captured my imagination over the last year. I suppose it's mostly their effortless beauty. This reflection on a serendipitous encounter with bluebells by Wendell Berry captures some of…
We've been working on getting a community garden going in the west valley of Spokane for awhile and it looks like we're on target to get it started this Spring. Here's the scoop:In the early 1980's, Elmer Williams started a pumpkin patch on the vacant…
There must be some balance in the universe thing going on because just as sustainability celebrity Tofu Phil moves to the west side of the state, Alex and Scott, artisans of the sustainable kind are starting an experiment north of Spokane called Moosicorn Ranch. Here's…
I posted earlier about the NYTimes article on femivore's and radical homemakers, and the verdict is in from all over the web, and it's not too favorable. Erin said in the comments section of my post;Ack! I can't stand all the labeling. Do we have…
I started using Twitter several months back and have really enjoyed it. In my pre-Twitter days I had sort of assumed it was an exercise in self-absorbed navel gazing, getting updates from random people about marginal details of their lives, i.e. - I'm eating dinner,…
According to the publication Dairy Today, the Idaho Dairymen's Association is circulating a letter encouraging Idaho dairy processors to "drop the ban" on using rBST. The hormone is known as recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), or artificial growth hormone. Monsanto has…
We've got an ongoing project in the Goodwin house of photographing and chronicling all the native wildflowers of the Inland Northwest. We got a late start last year but were able to photograph and identify over 100 flowers. I have another year under my belt…
I've been writing all week about how to get started raising chickens in your backyard, and the pageviews have been flying, one of the biggest weeks of visits for the blog ever. The idea of raising chickens and building chicken coops is tapping into some…
This is the third post in a series on getting started with a small flock of chickens in your back yard. Scroll down to see the previous two posts. I'm no expert on chicken breeds but I can share some of the things I've learned…
Following up on my post yesterday on getting started with chickens, after you've decided to take the plunge, and in our case after you take the plunge, you need to sort out the housing for your chickens. Before you get too far make sure to…
The chart above is careening around the internet today. I think it originated here where they describe the Farm Bill in the following terms;The bill provides billions of dollars in subsidies, much of which goes to huge agribusinesses producing feed crops, such as corn and…
(picture - our makeshift laundry room coop)Michelle, who is enjoying the process of learning to garden, made the following comment;I'd love a post on adding chickens into the mix. We have cats. I'm not going to get rid of them. Is there a way to…
This conference looks great. It's sponsored by Rural Roots, a Moscow, ID based organization that promotes sustainable food and farming. Here's the scoop.Join local growers, educators, sustainable food advocates, and community members as we collectively address our regional food system priorities in this unique "working"…
The Year of Plenty blog was created by Craig Goodwin in the winter of 2008 to chronicle the experiences of his family as they sought to consume everything local, used, homegrown or homemade. That journey was a wonderful introduction to people and movements in the Spokane area who are seeking the welfare of the community through local foods, farmers markets, community gardens, sustainable transportation, and more fulfilling and just patterns of consumption. In 2009 and beyond the blog will continue to report on these relationships and practices, all through the eyes of a family with young children. Craig manages the Millwood Farmers' Market, is a Master Food Preserver and Pastor at Millwood Presbyterian Church. Craig can be reached at goody2230@gmail.com
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