Shepherdstown Community garden is organizing again… there are still some plots left this year.

 

My wife, who directs the Shepherdstown Community Garden, is getting together with those interested on Sunday morning (April 15) at 8:45 AM to do manure spreading on the garden. On Saturday the 21st there will be a seed exchange in the morning (@10 – 12 Noon) and then a group meeting of gardeners from 12 to 1:30 PM. At 3:00 PM, Sustainable Shepherdstown will be hosting a film, “Good Food“, at the Opera House.

If you are interested in getting one of the remaining plots at the Community Garden, here’s the info:

1. The prices will remain the same. $20 for your first 10′ x 10′ plot, $5 for each additional – So 20 x 15 would be $25, 20 x 20 would be $30, etc.

2. We will e-mail a copy of the current plot map upon request. The contract can also be sent in a separate email. E-mail Ellen Smith at esmithart30@yahoo.com . You can mail a check to Ellen Smith at 2873 Engle Molers Road, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425.
We are really hoping to get all the plots sold or under straw/cardboard etc., so we do not have to mow and do not have to have weeds. Then we can work on making the paths unattractive to weeds. If you know someone who would like to join us, now is the time!

Community garden was one of the most successful programs last year, thanks to the cooperation with Morgan’s Grove Market and Peter Corum. It is protected from deer and other creatures by an eight foot high fence built by members and has access to running water.

If you are interested in joining this phenomenal group of gardeners, get with it before all the plots are gone.

 

A Few Updates on My Goings On in Shepherdstown…

Last night I got back from one of the Friday 5:00 or so meetings at The Folly where we all sat around drinking beer, wine and Diet Coke (me) and made plans for the Rube Carnival in August. This is going to be fun. I’ve scheduled three days next week to go over and make my slingshot shooting gallery.

This morning Elly and I are running the Four Seasons Bookstore’s booth at the Morgan’s grove market, where we will also be selling her baked goods (spiced breads and the best rugelach on earth!) and some of Ruth’s garden produce.

Coming in August when John Case and his wife travel to Canada where their daughter is due to have their grandchild, I’ll be subbing for a week on Winners And Losers every morning on WSHC. And, as long as I’m talking about the radio station, we recorded my CATF reviews and they will be scattered around WSHC throughout the month until July 31st.

So this is a pretty active summer for me…not something I’ve been used to for quite a while.

We’re off to Morgan’s Grove Market… but the weather looks chancy…

Elly and I are volunteering for Peter Corum today over at the Market. He has to leave early, so we’re going to help out n the afternoon getting all those veggies sold and just keeping things moving.

Instead of it’s usual 9 – 12 hours, we’re joining the Farm Day celebrations locally and saying open all day. I had hoped the overnight thunderstorms would have gotten all the rain out of the sky, but the Weather Bureau is calling for a 30% chance of rain today, with the biggest chance this afternoon. The clouds are pretty thick as well… not sure we’ll see any sun.

But the Market goes on Rain or Shine… so if you are in the neighborhood, come on by and you’ll get groceries, crafts, snacks, live music (starts at 10) and more… and you can take a look at the Sustainable Shepherdstown Community Garden (where the corn is now has high as an elephant’s knee). Elly is still signing people up for the few remaining plots… very inexpensive (provides for water and deer security).

The weather held out for the Morgan’s Grove Market this morning…

… with a passing rainfall not happening until after the 12 noon close. All-in-all it was a beautiful day at the market. Plenty of fresh vegetables and plantables… 2 new baking folks set up in two different pavilions (what do you call those fabric things? Tents? Rooftops?)… and the Speakeasy Boys, local favorites, playing the blues and country-tinged music for the crowd.

Elly recruited two more people for the Community Garden… people who made up their minds to take a plot or two after seeing the garden from the Market platform and visiting with her while she was planting.

This was a pleasant way to start Memorial Day Weekend Saturday. Play at Full Circle tonite.

Thoughts on turning 65…

So I have now outlived my father by a dozen years or so… something I never thought I would do. I am retired (actually, I had to retire early a year ago due to the crummy job situation for guys in their 60s) and I’m on Medicare (until the Republicans destroy it along with Social Security.)

I’m doing things now which make no money, but actually fulfill a whole bunch of internal needs. I do the radio show as John Case’s co-host on Friday mornings (and substitute for John on his other days when he is away), I do my Tuesday Podcast, I work on community theatre projects every now and then,,, and, of course, I maintain this blog, which I have done since 2004. I’m involved in the Community Garden (which my wife runs) here in Shepherdstown… and I did some work on the establishment of the Morgan’s Grove Market. So, all-in-all, I seem to have plenty to do (including housework, which, while Elly is the one working, falls mostly into my lap.)

I guess 65 isn’t so bad… and were it not for the lousy economy and the growing threat of conservative destruction of the things that made America great, life would be lovely.

I hope everyone has a nice day… like I do on most of my birthdays I’m going to drive around aimlessly for a while and look at the local scenery. Usually I bring a dog. This year I may bring two.

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I am curious about the Conservative concept of “Socialism”

“Those in power are blind devotees to private enterprise. They accept that degree of socialism implicit in the vast subsidies to the military-industrial-complex, but not that type of socialism which maintains public projects for the disemployed and the unemployed alike.”

– William O. Douglas, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice,  1969

Whenever one of the Conservative (read Republican) members of our Congress, or those campaigning for the Presidential nomination, discuss Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid. or unemployment funding, you are certain to hear the word “socialism” pop up with an extremely negative cloaking. It has happened so frequently that the word has lost any of it’s original meaning (“a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole” – Webster’s) and, indeed, has been connected to everything from community farming to Communism.

Socialism appeared as a concept in the early 19th Century in France (“socialisme’) which came from the concept of “social” (needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities : we are social beings as well as individuals) or “society” (the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community)…a term which itself goes back to the 16th Century.

The fact that our 21st century civilization shows that the need for the companionship of individuals, states and countries in order to face potentially devastating changes in climate, creating non-polluting energy methods to protect our air and water and educating our children to eventually take over the mess that has been made on our watch, is so obvious that many don’t see the forest for the trees.

Our job should be to make the trees visible to all, and especially to the people we elect to office… the people who make the rules and allot the funds to give us those necessary services.

And it’s not like the anti-socialist campaign of the current Conservative is something new, urged on by Corporations that are concerned… apparently by Federal regulation… only of making profits for a limited number of shareholders and executives. Justice Douglas’s quote from over four decades ago points out that it has been present for awhile. In fact, if we go back further to when Eisenhower warned us about the “military industrial complex”, something his whole career had given him great insight into, we see our post-WWII economy as a challenge we never met.

Have you wondered why, in all the discussions of the budget and raising of the debt ceiling, we have not heard people yelling for cuts in the military expenditures that keep our remaining industrial giants flowing in dough.  As a whole “community”, the military/industry mix is about as socialist as you can get. Add to that the VA medical system which provides the closest thing to “socialized medicine” (another concept that Conservatives would like to deny the average guy) that exists in the world today. This system, by the way, is praised by just about every politician, probably out of guilt from sending so many of our young soldiers into a life of crippling disabilities.

It is time to make a strong change of focus in our social environment, something which is not going to happen if we leave the decisions and actions to politicians. Republican or Democrat, they keep their jobs because of election funds for advertising and lobby persuasion with highly focused corporate contributions. As we saw, for instance, in the 1940s and 1950s, many cities lost the public transportation systems of mini-railroads that gave people inexpensive commuting transport … without parking, fuel and other expenses… due to the money spent by the automobile industry on lobbyists and state and federal (and local) political campaigns. General Motors even bragged about it in public.

The question is “how do we do it?” There are no easy answers, but I’m pretty sure it will take a lot of time and will begin on a very local level. Here in Shepherdstown, WV, our recent completion of a 10,000 square foot Community Garden allotting 10′ by 10′ growing plots to locals who have no planting areas in their town houses or  downtown apartments is a good example of modern socialism.  At a very low fee (starting at $20 and going up to $30 if you take three plots), which has paid for deer fence construction and publicity to get members, and with volunteers for construction of the fence (and the donation of land and so much more from a local entrepreneur who has created a neighboring public market to serve local farmers and craftspeople), community interdependence has resulted in community celebration.

This only one concept of local change which can be achieved. Tie that together with activities that follow such as expansion of public libraries (which is part of both education promotion and public interaction), involvement in schools beyond their operations budgets, group purchase alignments for reduction of basic living costs, etc., and you have a good start at what can then expand to the state level… and eventually to the national top. This can also, I would hope, be the start of a new political structure, beginning in local government and expanding upward over time.

Now… if we can only protect ourselves from corporate corruption and maintain the basic concept of “socialism”… that our community organization is controlled by ALL of it’s members and not the artificial “Citizens United” persons funded by the corporate bankbook.

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A Beautiful Day for the End of the World…

The sun is shining and it looks like a nice day for the Morgan’s Grove Market and the final side of the Community Garden deer fence.

But wait! Today is the Rapture according to Harold Camping, no? All those fine, saved people (and the bodies of the buried, saved people, arise from the ground and float upward) should be headed to heaven to sit at the feet of the Lord.

Except, it has not happened yet. Maybe later today.

I’m off to the Market in an hour or so. Elly is subbing for Ruth at the Four Seasons Book Store booth (which doubles as the Sustainable Shepherdstown handout area) and I’ve pledged to sit in for Joy at her ceramics booth while she uses her truck and the Fence Puller to stretch the last side.

Anyway, come Hell (which has been predicted for the likes of me) or High Water, we will get something accomplished today. Hope you do, too (unless you are taken up in the Rapture… if so, bask in the pleasure of knowing I was wrong.)

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Saturday Morning… Market, Voting, Making Pie

Elly is off at the Hagerstown Community College graduation with the rest of the faculty, leaving me and the dogs behind. The weather is threatening… right now there is an ongoing drizzle, but it is threatening thunderstorms. Even so, after feeding and taking the dogs for their morning walk, I left for the second week of the Morgan’s Grove Market.

Because of threatening weather about half of last week’s vendors didn’t show up… attendance was lower as well, although about half the parking area was filled. In general, the weather was not terrible, so it was a shame that more folks didn’t show up.

The Entertainment, billed as Gregorio and Friends (there were only 2 of them, so I guess some friends were absent), arrived and started playing.

Al Thomas was doing a demonstration of old-fashioned, hand turned wood which he was happy to answer questions about…

After helping Ruth Robertas out at her Four Seasons Bookstore booth for a few minutes so she could go and get a donut (I sold seven lottery tickets for the community garden!), I took off to go and vote in the Governor primary (this was an unusual Saturday election day).

Then I came home to further develop my Vegan Key Lime Pie recipe.

Tonite we’re going to see 1776 at the Apollo Civic Theater in Martinsburg.

Busy Saturday.

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You couldn’t have asked for a nicer day…

… for the opening of Morgan’s Grove Market. The sun was out, it wasn’t too warm , and people showed up to fill the parking lot.

Elly and I went for a little more than the first hour… bought some vegetables, talked to people and had a great time.

And everyone seemed so happy! This is going to be a regular Saturday morning thing until the late Fall…and we have to hand it to Peter Corum who organized the whole thing and really pulled it off.

Can’t wait until next week… it’s going to be fun.

Following our visit to Morgan’s Grove Market, we drove over to Boonsboro Maryland for their Green fest, primarily because Elly wanted to buy two more composting bins for our gardening.

We walked around the park, spoke to some of Elly’s colleagues from HCC and came back home to feed the dogs and have lunch.

Nice day all around. Hope yours was, too.

Saturday Projects…

Given the first good, thunderstorm free Saturday in a long time, everyone was outdoors taking care of our long delayed projects. I started the day by cutting the grass in our front yard (which is very small… I use a rotary trimmer, don’t need a lawnmower) and took down the really overgrown grass.

Then Elly and I went over to work on the Community Garden fence installation. We were there before ten and original only had a couple of small neighbor boys (one who, incidentally, has reserved a garden plot for himself) to get the fifth post in.

By the end of the day, after Peter Corum and some of the other volunteers who came at 10 AM helped with the rest of the posts until all four corners…12 posts… were now in the ground.

The other project today, which our group participated in as well, was the building of a barn-like structure on the Morgan’s Grove Market Platform ( which used to be the foundation of a burned down restaurant.)

Al Thomas of Joint Efforts had cut and notched the pieces and had actually set up a lot of the structure himself before the team showed up.

But once everyone was there they made significant progress in getting the bracings up for the roof (it took four people on each side at the top of the rigging and a couple of people checking for accuracy below.

This is where it was when Elly and I left:

Market opens May 7th.

Trucking for the Community Garden…

Not expecting to do much but watch the volunteers working on building the fence for the community garden, I ended up driving Peter Corum’s truck with the gravel over to the site because he was late getting back from Pennsylvania.

As we got started we discovered there were many things we needed that just weren’t there… like water to blend with the Quikcrete to hold the corner posts in place… so Elly and Joel (a great volunteer) and I went over to our house and put about twenty gallons of water in one of the new rain barrels I bought the other day , and we trucked it over to the garden.

We finally ended up getting 4 of the twelve corner posts in… we’ll get back to the rest on Saturday.

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Rain or Not, the Earth Day Festival goes on…

I just spent three hours at the Earth Day Festival in Shepherdstown’s Morgan’s Grove Park. Elly and the Sustainable Shepherdstown folks had a booth, as did most of the non-profits and craftsmen in town.

When I walked over to the park from my house (about a quarter mile away) there was a little bit of sun peeking through the clouds… but the weather said we’d have scattered showers and perhaps some thunder storms today, so I checked out the areas with decent coverage.

There was a fabric bandshell at the bottom of the hill from the Pavilion…the big protective area in case of rain… and they were warming up the mikes and checking the sound levels until it was time for the first act: a guy playing wooden wind pipes to recorded background music.

The next group to play was a country singer with an all-girl backup band – Lucas and the Lovelies – and they were pretty good.

Then it started to rain, which made the folks watching the music get under the pavilion so that they could see it without getting wet.

Meanwhile, Elly was selling cookies she baked this morning and Ruth Robertas’s Brownies under their tent top, raising money for Sustainable Shepherdstown and promoting the Community Garden. I watched the booth for a little while (sold some cookies/brownies) while she talked with some of their volunteers and with Peter Corum at the Morgan’s Grove Market Booth .

So I waited till the rain let up, then I walked home to feed the dogs. I think they’ll have a little more time without rain, but i do expect more before they close the booths in a couple of hours. It was fairly well attended, though.

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Upcoming in Shepherdstown Next Week…

Saturday the 23d is Earth Day and Shepherdstown is having a big affair at Morgan’s Grove Park (which, of course, is right next door to the Community Garden that Sustainable Shepherdstown is setting up and the location for the new Morgan’s Grove Market which opens in May.)

Here is the poster:

Looks like great music… walk there if you can (I’m a lucky neighbor) or bicycle… cars pay $10.00 to park (which helps the Men’s Club maintain Morgan’s Grove.)

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Shepherdstown Community Garden Update…

Today was the Sunday that the Garden Committee (see Elly and I Host a Community Garden Meeting) met on the field Peter Corum provided in order to mark out the dimensions and divide plots. The land, of course, was turned and fertilized a week or so ago, and the next step is getting a fence to protect the gardens from deer (7 1/2 feet high because these guys can jump.)

Peter Corum measures 100' sides from the corners.

We had a lot of kids with us today and I think they got a kick out of helping out… bringing flags to the adults who were marking measurements, for instance.

Setting up plots...

The weather was excellent for the project and everyone was out working for a couple of hours.

Imagining what it will be like...

We spent an unusually long time just figuring out which direction was north with two compasses built into iPhones. But we figured it out (the North End is for tall plants like corn.)

 

Sizing plots on the North side...

Now let’s hope we solve the fence problem soon so we can get started on planting.

Elly and I Hosted A Community Garden Meeting Today

Elly and her Sustainable Shepherdstown group, along with local impressario Peter Corum, are organizing a Community Garden in cooperation with Peter’s Morgan Grove Market project just down the road from out house. Today, we hosted an informational meeting for interested parties… we had 12 in attendance (there were several who were interested and called to say they couldn’t make the meeting, but they want in.) Everyone seemed pretty excited.

Yesterday, Peter arranged to have the 100 square feet set aside for the set of 10′ x 10′ garden plots roto-tilled and fertilized. This was done with volunteers and by calling in some favors.

The weather held out well to get everything done.

Here’s the group who worked the land:

Anyone interested in getting involved in Sustainable Shepherdstown’s Community Garden (at a cost of $20.00 for a 10 x 10 for the whole season) should go to http://sustainableshepherdstown.org or send an email to esmithart30@yahoo.com.

Me? I’m assigned to watering our plot.

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