This week we did some flowers for Stuart's cousin's wedding with a great color theme of purple white and green. We did buy out some flowers for it...some ranunculus, callas, and hydrangea. It felt kind of scandalous to purchase them, to see their UPC codes with Columbian origins and to think about what chemicals, herbicides, and fungicides went into them, how far they traveled, how many days has it been since they were cut. I get the same kind of feeling whenever I eat anything now that I don't know where it came from....Snicker's bars (yes, I confess to such transgressions!), potato chips, any food from restaurants, anything that isn't organic really, although I'm even skeptical about organic now. I also get the same confusing feelings when I use petroleum products or look at my precious baby sucking on a piece of plastic which she loves to do. Basically I feel like a walking moral and ethical dilemma. I know that chemicals are ubiquitous now; we all have them in our bodies....BPA, PCBs, PBDE, PFOA, DEHP, PFC's, etc. etc. Even in our sustainable farm operation we use some plastic mulch, landscape fabric is made of polypropylene, our hoophouses and greenhouse are really big pieces of plastic, we are dependent upon plastic irrigation lines and gasoline for our pond pump, propane for our greenhouse, coal fueled electricity to run our cooler. I'm not sure there is anything sustainable anymore, just varying levels of sustainability. And I definitely feel that local is better, otherwise it wouldn't feel so damn good to eat what we grow, sell our labors of love to the public, and buy other goods from market and businesses that support local goods. And maybe, as Paul Stamets says in his amazing and
well worth watching Ted talk, mushrooms can save the world.
This week we did some flowers for Stuart's cousin's wedding with a great color theme of purple white and green. We did buy out some flowers for it...some ranunculus, callas, and hydrangea. It felt kind of scandalous to purchase them, to see their UPC codes with Columbian origins and to think about what chemicals, herbicides, and fungicides went into them, how far they traveled, how many days has it been since they were cut. I get the same kind of feeling whenever I eat anything now that I don't know where it came from....Snicker's bars (yes, I confess to such transgressions!), potato chips, any food from restaurants, anything that isn't organic really, although I'm even skeptical about organic now. I also get the same confusing feelings when I use petroleum products or look at my precious baby sucking on a piece of plastic which she loves to do. Basically I feel like a walking moral and ethical dilemma. I know that chemicals are ubiquitous now; we all have them in our bodies....BPA, PCBs, PBDE, PFOA, DEHP, PFC's, etc. etc. Even in our sustainable farm operation we use some plastic mulch, landscape fabric is made of polypropylene, our hoophouses and greenhouse are really big pieces of plastic, we are dependent upon plastic irrigation lines and gasoline for our pond pump, propane for our greenhouse, coal fueled electricity to run our cooler. I'm not sure there is anything sustainable anymore, just varying levels of sustainability. And I definitely feel that local is better, otherwise it wouldn't feel so damn good to eat what we grow, sell our labors of love to the public, and buy other goods from market and businesses that support local goods. And maybe, as Paul Stamets says in his amazing and well worth watching Ted talk, mushrooms can save the world. 
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