Wednesday, March 11, 2009

don't you believe it department

In an almost full page ad on page A11 of today's Washington Post, Monsanto has a lovely valentine to "Conserving more. Improving farmer's lives. Sustainable agriculture. That's what Monsanto is all about". I'm finding this utterly hilarious.

All the sloganeering and greenwashing in the world won't change the fact that Monsanto, bio-technology, monoculture and frankenplants are not the solution to a safe and abundant food supply. Monsanto isn't about farmers, it's about agribusiness.

Monday, March 9, 2009

farm fresh!


PMF is now on Local Harvest. I'll be adding fiber, roving, and yarn on the site within a few weeks.

In other related news, I'm very excited to have been chosen as one of the new vendors in the Berkeley Springs Farmer's Market. The market opens April 27, and runs through October 26. I'll be participating on Sundays, 10am to 2pm.

Both of these venues are what is know as producer's markets, in other words, you've gotta grow it yourself. We've all been to farmer's markets that have out of season or tropical fruits and vegetables. These are items that can be bought at wholesale sources and passed off as local or farm produced. The produce can be as old as that in your local supermarket. It could have come from hundreds or thousands of miles away. That's what makes producers markets so special and worth scouting out. In many cases, what you get at our market has been picked the day before or that morning, with very small environmental costs of bringing it to you directly.

I'll be featuring Leicester Longwool locks, fleece, batts, roving and handspun yarn. If you aren't familiar with Local Harvest yet, take the time to look around. There are a lot of great farm-to-you products available.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

babysitting


We had a special guest this weekend...this lovely little week old bottle-baby from A Rare Breed farm. She's a Black Welsh Mountain ewe-ette. Andrea was out at a grazing conference, so I got to babysit! She hung out in the shop most of the day Saturday with me and the dog, and seemed quite interested in learning to spin, actually sleeping at my feet next to the wheel for a bit.

I didn't realize till I looked at the photo that she's sitting down next to yarn made from a mix of Black Welsh Mountain fleece and Romney.


I was so enamored by the experience, that I googled "sheep as housepets" and found this. Okay, maybe not such a good idea.