Just heard on PBS, McKinnon talking about "Wandering Home" Organic Gardens

[KoKo]

(This was a fascinating interview about how Organic Gardening is growing and that NYC now has many "organic markets" that are open and people are making money selling. I Googled his book and this is what I found.)

Wandering Home: A Long Walk across America's Most Hopeful Landscape, Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks


"Bill McKibben begins his journey atop Vermont's Mt. Abraham, with a stunning view to the west that introduces us to the broad Champlain Valley of Vermont, the expanse of Lake Champlain, and behind it the towering wall of the Adirondacks." "The region he traverses offers a contrast between diverse forms of human habitation and pure wilderness. On the Vermont side, he visits with old friends who are trying to sustain traditional ways of living on the land and to invent new ones, from wineries to biodiesel. After crossing the lake in a rowboat, he backpacks south for ten days through the vast Adirondack woods. As he walks, he contemplates the questions that he first began to raise in his meditation on climate change, The End of Nature: What constitutes the natural? How much human intervention can a place stand before it loses its essence? What does it mean for a place to be truly wild?" Wandering Home enables us to better understand these questions and our place in the natural world.


FROM THE CRITICS
Kirkus Reviews
A short, lovely chronicle of a long hike, during which McKibben (Enough, 2003, etc.) meditatively reflects on the relationship between nature and humanity. He takes as his jumping-off point a stroll from Vermont to the Adirondacks, traversing land on both sides of Lake Champlain that he knows well. "I've not been able to drag myself away from this small corner of the planet," McKibben notes, wondering whether the no-name region should be called "Adimont" or, perhaps, "the Verandacks." As he chronicles his walk, he reflects on writing, on the place of agriculture in the curricula of liberal arts colleges, on Theodore Roosevelt's summer in the Adirondacks (where Vice-President Roosevelt was hiking when President McKinley was shot, ushering in "the greatest environmental presidency of our history," in McKibben's view). Some of the most wonderful scenes occur when the author meets up with friends, who all seem to lead lives found most often in Wendell Berry novels. McKibben slips in lessons about environmental policy and science, explaining, for example, the rationales and consequences of conservationists' decision in the last decade to work with people who have traditionally used the land they are hoping to conserve. His prose is so seductive, however, that readers will barely notice they are being instructed. In some ways, this is the most personal of McKibben's books thus far. He has invited readers into the place that has inspired his life's work of writing, politicking, and environmental activism-not the Amazon rain forest or a melting Arctic glacier, but the Adirondacks, which "even the New York State constitution" can't protect from acid rain or global warming. Yet Wandering Home isintimate without being confined: McKibben roams far, far beyond the Verandacks, beyond even the topic of the environmentalism, to touch on community, local economy, simplicity. Nature writing at its best. Agent: Gloria Loomis/Watkins Loomis

[Maru Kitteh]

1. The tide had to turn sooner or later

Corn engineered in a laboratory so that it can tolerate ever greater loads of herbicides and pesticides so they can feed it to cows saturated with artificial growth hormones and antibiotics so they can be artificially kept alive in hellish factory farms and fed the ground up remains of pigs, birds and euthanized dogs and cats still full of the chemicals that killed them.

All this so people can kill themselves with food - cheap.

[Quakerfriend]

2. Perfectly said! Thx for the sic laugh!!

And, BTW, I had'nt heard about this book. Thx for the post.

I spent most of my winters in the Adirondacks (Gore Mt.). One of my fondest memories was driving (from Phila) to North Creek, NY and staring out the window at the endless forest.

I was shocked, when we went back in 2000, at the lack of forest- replaced with development.

[KoKo]

4. The Amish produce in the Philly Market is to die for! Sadly I don't live

near there anymore and my "garden belt" in the South is giving way to Guatemalan Produce. Isn't the same...must be the climate, water and growing conditions...to say nothing for what pesticides the commercial growers are allowed to use. :-( Lot's of our usual Florida produce got wiped out in the hurricanes and the SC/Ga produce has been cut back due to family farms selling out to the "McMansion" developers. It was a hard Winter for good produce.

[KoKo]

3. I'm having problems out there finding edibile stuff. I've had to go

organic in some cases but the produce that I find is kind of old and shriveled like it hasn't been stored properly.

Great new organic breads out there, though and green peppers. I'm so sick of the stuff that comes from "one hybrid seed, allowing longer shelf life" that's just tasteless. I wont even go into what they have done to ruin chicken and pork/hams.

I think that's why there are so many seasonings and MSG added in package.

To cover the bad quality or sameness of Agribusiness produced meat and grains.

[Quakerfriend]

5. Do you not have a Whole Foods near you?

Their organic produce is great. In fact, I'll never move too far from Whole Foods because they have such great organic produce. Saved my life seven years ago when I had cancer.

[KoKo]

6. I do...it's not close but in general much of their stuff is pretty good

although their "organics" do look kind of tired to me. They sell both organic an non...so I know the organics aren't perfect, but when they are shriveled and greyish looking then I know they aren't really fresh.

Also their chicken breasts (in my store) are coated with an "oil" that makes them slimy. Pork is good and lots of great bacon and stuff without nitrates. Great olives and other stuff if one hunts around. And if you are a Vegan (which I'm not) I think it must be heaven...because there's so much for vegetarians there.

It's kind of mixed for me, but better than most stores when I get there, I always find some things.

There's an "Earth Fare" store in Charleston, SC that I love and seems to be more varied than the "Whole Foods" where I live. I think we are getting one of those closer to me soon. It's amazing how these stores are sprining up and it's great!