Local Food Awareness Campaign

In an effort to better connect the agricultural community more directly with consumers in the Yuma area, Transition Initiative Yuma has commenced a Grow-Sell-Buy Local food campaign.

The goals of the campaign are to connect interested farmers, grocers and consumers and establish alternatives to market local food more directly from farmers to consumers. TIY is officially looking for volunteers to attend the farmer's market which starts soon and collect contact information of consumers who would be interested in purchasing locally-grown and marketed produce as well as pass out buy local pamphlets.

If you are interested in volunteering for any of the market days, please contact Mike at yumatransition@gmail.com for more information.

If you are a farmer, or you know someone in the agricultural business that might be interested in developing a local food economy, please pass along one of these grow local pamphlets.

If you are a grocery store owner/manager/employee and are interested, print and share the sell local pamphlets.

Thank you all and stay tuned as I will be scheduling another round of documentary screenings.

Transition in Action #2: Making a Yeast Starter

I have taken a pretty active interest in bread baking recently, and I noticed that a big portion of my bread making activity went to yeast. I was making the rookie mistake of buying packets of yeast which are incredibly expensive for what you get from them. So, I got on the internet to find out if there were alternatives. I came across a few different techniques for cultivating yeast from scratch or keeping yeast from a previous batch of bread. Both techniques result in the creation of something called a starter.

How does this have anything to do with Transitioning? Well, my thoughts on this go something like this; If I can learn how to keep a yeast starter, I can free myself from an anchor to regular society if the need arises. In my research I found out there is a reason that San Fransisco became famous for their sourdough breads. During the gold rush, when there was not enough supply of commercial yeast, bakers were forced to cultivate wild yeast in order to meet demand for bread. One person's, or in that case many peoples', know-how provided an asset to the community at large thereby making the community more resilient. And so goes my thinking in regard to many activities that make me more self-reliant individually in turn make my community more resilient in the face of resource instability.

Enough digression, I should get back to making my yeast starter. Well, my first attempt at making a starter of sorts was the Amish Friendship Bread Starter. Although it is pretty tedious and required daily attention for 10 days, I decided that it was worth a shot. I am sitting here writing this after a few hours with my baking hat on and I am sorry to say that my attempt to follow this recipe seems to have failed. I attempted to make a recipe for a simple wheat bread and I am looking at my unleavened dough sitting in a bowl more than two hours after I created it. I am hoping that it will rise, but based on what information I can find, it seems it will not.

So, back to the drawing board for me. After some additional reading online, I found out that what I tried likely does not have a lot of active yeast left after the 10 day process. Instead, it seems that the best way to start a starter, is by strictly following instructions similar to the ones that I found here. Notably, the author of that website also recommended sending off for a good starter instead of making your own. Although that eliminates the "emergency situation" component of it, I don't mind the idea of buying a starter from a neat non-profit like this one.

I will keep you updated with the state of both starts, and I hope to share some good news with you about the 5 cups of flour that is wrapped up in my still unleavened Amish Friendship Bread.

Transition in Action #1: Make a Worm Bin

Written by: Mike Mayberry
More than any other single aspect of transition culture, I am personally motivated by the idea of becoming more self-reliant as well as building relationships within my community. In the construction of my worm bin, I would like to think that I took a step in the right direction on both counts.

Before I get into specifics, I guess I should briefly explain what a worm bin is, and why I decided it would be a good idea for me. A worm bin generally speaking is a compost bin in which worms are added to speed up the transformation of waste into fertilizer/soil. I have previously been able to keep a more traditional compost bin, but around my current apartment there is no easy place to build one. So, partially inspired by reading about the green wizardry of John Michael Greer and friends, I decided a worm bin would be a nice fit. I looked around online for a good tutorial on building it and decided on this one.

I bought two 8 Gallon storage tubs from Big Lots for $9.72. In hindsight, I should have purchased the tubs at a store that was locally owned so that more of my money stayed in the community, but at least they were American made, which is important to me as well.

So I brought home my two storage tubs and got to work. With a 1/8" drill bit, I drilled holes in one of the lids and along the sides of both of the bins. I then used a 3/8" drill bit and drilled holes in the bottom of both of the bins.

I learned two things in this process. Don't push hard on the drill when drilling holes in tupperware as it tended to crack in my case. I was using what was most likely a drywall bit, which may have been part of the problem. I also learned that this activity should probably be done outdoors or in a well-ventilated area because the drill bit was starting to melt the tupperware a bit from all of the friction.

So, with the holes drilled, I took shred paper from our shred bin and wetted it down then squeezed out the excess water and laid the paper at the bottom of one of the bins. In worm bin circles, the damp paper is called bedding and can be substituted/mixed with leaves, grass clippings or shredded cardboard as well as fine untreated wood scraps. The key here in my research is to find something "carbon rich" to add to the waste. I also think that I will try to stray away from paper with color ink on it or glossy pages in the future because of the chemicals that are in the paper. The same goes for the other waste that goes into the bin. When in doubt as to whether the waste items I am putting into the bin have any nasty chemicals in them I either rinse them thoroughly or I don't put them into the bin at all. If I had a bigger set up or multiple worm bins this wouldn't be as big of a concern because I could a worm/compost bin that was not for food crops that I could put more questionable items into to reduce my waste stream. The only other restriction that I have seen is that worm bins should only contain plant-based items, excluding any oils. So, no animal-based waste should go into the bin.

Once I put some waste I had accumulated into the bedding, I covered it with more shredded paper that I had moistened earlier. I then released the worms into their new home along with the dirt that they came in to serve as "grit" to help them digest.

Oh yeah, I bought my worms at Wal-Mart in their sporting goods section. I bought 4 "double cups" of bait worms for $17.44. This is a cost I did not want to pay, but my one attempt at trying to coax worms out of the Arizona soil in front of my apartment proved unsuccessful. If you want to try to "catch" your own worms, wet a piece of cardboard and lay it down in the grass at dusk. By morning, worms will be all over the cardboard if they live in the dirt where you live, so sayeth the internet anyway. In a pinch, I decided to go to Wal-Mart because it is better than buying online, which seemed to be my only other option after not being able to find a locally-owned store that was selling worms in the area. That's right, sometimes, Wal-Mart can be the more socially-conscious shopping alternative when you are thinking local.

So, I invested $27.16 on my future self reliance, and I supported a fairly-local business and a not-very-local business in the process. The worms were from Idaho btw, so I also only bought products that were American made. Not a bad day as a consumer.

One week into being a worm bin owner, I confess to mixed results. I have lost a few worms because the bin was too wet and I also have fruit flies because I did not put enough shredded, dampened paper on top of the kitchen waste in the bin. To battle the exodus, I put some dried out potting soil into the bin and I also added another layer of shredded paper to the top of the worm bin. Since the bin was so moist, I did not moisten the top layer of paper. Hopefully this will even out the moisture level of the bin and keep my remaining worms happy. Basically, the lesson I learned here is that I shouldn't have saved up scraps for the week prior to starting the bin because it was just too much moisture (a lot of water-heavy vegetable scraps) and food for the number of worms in the bin. The information that I have read indicates that 1 pound of worms can eat 1/2 pound of food per day. I probably started my bin with 5 pounds of vegetable waste and another 2 pounds of shredded paper. Hopefully I will be able to find some balance soon and harvest my first tub of worm poop which I will be able to add to my container garden which will be the next transition in action post.

Check back soon.

Winter Film Series One

In an effort to connect with other interested residents in Yuma, Transition Initiative Yuma, T.I.Y., is hosting a series of screenings at the Yuma Public Library. All screenings will be held in the 2nd floor classroom at the main branch. Here is a link to the flyer.

The series will start Saturday November 6th at 11am, with a screening of Transition 1.0 accompanied by a presentation by Mike Mayberry, a member of Transition Initiative Yuma.



Transition 1.0 is the first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. The Transition movement is about communities around the world responding to peak oil and climate change with creativity, imagination and humour.

The series will continue on Saturday November 13th at 12pm with a screening of the film, The End of Suburbia.

As we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era.

The end of the first phase of the Winter Film Series will conclude on November 20th at 11am with a screening of Crude Impact.

This feature film explores the interconnection between human domination of the planet, and the discovery and use of oil. Presentation and moderated discussion follows.

A TED talk on Transitioning

In my research I came across this talk the founder of the transition movement, Rob Hopkins, gave in 2009. I found it was a very good explanation of what the spirit of the transition is all about. If you have the time, I recommend watching it.

Greetings

My name is Mike Mayberry and I am starting a Transition Initiative in Yuma, AZ as part of my undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. This blog will be a step by step look into the process of building a transition initiative from scratch.

So, you may be wondering what a transition initiative is exactly. Well, there is an excellent overview available here, but basically it is a community tailored contingency plan for a sustainable future. I believe a transition initiative is important because I am concerned that government and the free market will not be able to offer viable, equitable solutions to impending problems such as peak oil, the economic crisis, and climate change. I am excited to be able to take part in building a grass roots organization because there are so many possible directions that we can make for ourselves.

Personally, my concern about food security has led me to have a interest in developing local food production as a basis for a healthy local economy. This will mean trying to find consumers interested in private or community gardening and community supported agriculture, as well as farmers that would be interested in participating in a different, more community-oriented, business model. Given the fact that Yuma is in a dry climate and is situated along the lower Colorado River, water security is another major concern. Along with how to get the water needed, I would like to explore how individual conservation methods can be employed that will lower local demand for this limited resource. A final interest of mine is home efficiency and alternative energy. Due to the great amount of sunlight Yuma receives, two things are happening. A lot of solar energy is being wasted, and a lot of fossil fuels are being consumed to combat the heat. I think there are many low-cost, low-tech alternatives to cranking up the air conditioning which include home weatherization retrofits, a $5 solar hot water heater and a DIY solar oven that could be installed/built by initiative members as part of an awareness raising event.

But, the great thing is that these are just some of my ideas. Once I get to know some of my new neighbors in Yuma and surrounding areas, I am sure they will bring a whole new perspective along with a truck load full of ideas for what we can do to make a better future for ourselves.

And most importantly, we can have fun while doing it.