Hey folks!
This topic has come up in both of the 100 mile radius potlucks this summer, and I'm interested in more conversation around food preservation.
This article from Co-op America is a great encourager for canning, but I think my mom is a much better authority! And I bet all of you have your own expertise and tips.
For example, the article is clear that flat metal canning lids shouldn't be reused. This is what many cookbooks and packages say as well. But I grew up reusing can lids, and still do, and haven't had trouble. Sure, every once in awhile a jar doesn't seal, but that happens to canners using brand new lids each time.
What about you? Do you reuse?  continue reading »

hey folks!
does anyone know good online resources for local recycling? like, a link for folks new to the area (or new to recycling) who want to know what to put in their bin?
i know that information is available by phone, but it sure would be nice for folks with internet access to be able to look it up anytime.
thanks!
anna lisa

I was glad to read today that San Francisco will be the first U.S. City to adopt a ban on plastic grocery bags. We live in a town where there are already some encouraging things happening to reduce plastic bag usage; I wonder if Richmond could adopt a similar formalization of this trend?

I posted in my PRWC blog about getting Coca-Cola products out of Bethany Theological Seminary and Earlham School of Religion. You can read the post here, and drop me a line if you're interested in getting involed in this. ~Travis Poling, Richmond

The Oil Depletion Protocol is an international agreement that will enable nations of the world to cooperatively reduce their dependence on oil. It was proposed by Dr. Colin Campbell, a prominent petroleum geologist and founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), in 1996.

By agreeing to reduce oil imports and exports by a specified amount each year, about 2.6 percent, signatory nations will help mitigate the negative consequences of an over-reliance on cheap oil and help prepare for a global decline in the world’s oil supply. The premise of the Protocol is inherently straightforward: oil importing nations would agree to reduce their imports by an agreed-upon yearly percentage, referred to as the World Oil Depletion Rate, while oil producing nations would agree to reduce their rate of production by their National Depletion Rate. This simple and sensible formula will produce, in effect, a global rationing system. If the entire world adopted the Protocol, global consumption of oil would decline by almost 3 percent per annum, thus stabilizing prices, preserving the resource base, and reducing competition for remaining supplies.  continue reading »

An idea for a PWC resource we could collaborate on: a guide to eating healthy in Wayne County. I'm thinking it could have a general narrative of the resources available, categorized by labels like "restaurants that have vegan food" or "groceries with good organic produce" or "tips for raw foodists trying to eat out" and things like that. Perhaps it will be an exercise in despair, but may be useful to some. Anyone interested? If so, feel free to start posting resources here, or we could take a more organized approach.

Time Banks weave community one hour at a time. For every hour you spend doing something for someone in your community, you earn one Time Dollar. Then you have a Time Dollar to spend on having someone do something for you. It's that simple. Yet it also has profound effects. Time Banks change neighborhoods and whole communities. Time Banking is a social change movement in 22 countries and six continents.

Learn more at http://www.timebanks.org/, especially how does a Time Dollar exchange work? and The Time Bank Cycle [PDF].  continue reading »

I'm in the brainstorming stage of a project to produce bike-friendly maps of Richmond, Indiana and the surrounding areas. These maps might include:

- An around-town tour of tourist attractions reasonable to visit by bike.
- Preferred roads to get around town by bike.
- Suggested routes for longer day trips from Richmond by bike
(10 to 100 mile loops)

One starting point adding routes with notations into http://www.bikely.com. It is designed for sharing information about bike routes.

However, I wasn't very satisfied with my test run:
http://www.bikely.com/maps/bike-path/N-E-Street  continue reading »