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The Monday Hum: Those Overalls Are So Trendy

August 12, 2007 By: Cathi-Lyn Dyck, Managing Editor Category: , , , , , , , ,

Getting back to the land, owning an acreage or a small farm, is a really cool fad these days. Everyone’s doing it, you know.

For one, it seems to mesh with a certain portion of the Christian homeschooling community, so well that conservative Christian businessfolk Paul and Gena Suarez expanded their online business to cater to Christian homesteaders. What began as The Old Schoolhouse Magazine and HomeschoolBlogger.com now includes HomesteadBlogger.com, which amounts to an online small town in both size and culture.

What’s the deal? Well, the rhetoric about good management of the earth comes from a couple of directions—one, it comes from within the churches. What amounts to campaign materials are handed out to churches and denominations. These even include sermon suggestions for incorporating concern for the earth. [1]

Two, like those campaign materials, the rhetoric comes from secular sources. Accusations link Christianity to male domination and exploitation of, like, everything—women, children, and dolphins. (I had no idea my church’s deacons had so much spare time on their hands.) Homesteading and ecological awareness is one response from the Christian community.

Most of all, though, there is realistic motivation for individuals as they pick up on the realities of our food distribution system. People aren’t satisfied with blueberries that have been sitting on the boat from Chile for a month. [2] Folks are absorbing a perennial flow of news items about environmental concerns, and an ever-expanding grassroots buzz about better living.

The sustainability movement has links to globalism, and also contains plenty of pagan philosophy. Are Christians aware of everything they’re adopting? And what about pagans? I’ve seen several pagans try to integrate into the HomesteadBlogger community, only to end up leaving or limiting their participation, for various reasons. Do Christians handle these interactions wisely?

Lemme know what you think. [3]

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[1] Forcing Change Magazine, Issue 6, Volume 1, www.forcingchange.org

[2] See http://lazycreek.net/TYDOS/2007/04/seasonal-produce-and-winter-eating.html for more information.

[3] Author’s note: The uploading of this post was fraught with homesteading peril, so I appeal to the record for grounds that my frazzled nerves deserve the contribution of your opinion, dear reader.

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The Monday Hum: When Potatoes Go Bad

August 06, 2007 By: Cathi-Lyn Dyck, Managing Editor Category: , , ,

As of last Monday, we now know that soil management is one major point in the organic rationale, and it’s not actually cow doo-doo. A couple of years back, CTV (one of Canada’s national television networks) aired a comparison of the nutrient value of a potato today and fifty years ago.

I didn’t know potatoes used to contain Vitamin C. Apparently they basically don’t anymore, so I guess I wasn’t missing anything. At least in one sense. Also, potatoes now have only about half the Vitamin A they used to. There’s also genetic selection by growers to blame, but we’ll tackle that one another time.

Ultimately, the organic concept is not just about how food is grown, or whether it makes better food, but whether it makes a better life overall. In order to be a certified organic grower, for instance, the entire growing chain must be organic, not just the final product. The soil must be chemical-free for a certain period (length of time depends on the certifying body), the seed must be organically sourced, the greenhouse seedlings must be chemical-free, and of course, we don’t use synthetic chemical controls on the food.

Soil management is the core of organic growing. Soil depletion provides one possible rationale for why organic foods don’t weigh in better than synthetically-produced ones in nutrient value, when you look at the long-term changes in food nutrition. So, here’s to dirt. Oh, and cow doo-doo. But sustainability is not just a practice; it’s a cultural movement, one that a lot of Christians have joined. What are the implications?

Lemme know what you think.

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