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MLT Newsletter

Fall 2007




MLT Board of Directors:

Rita Bober
Norm Bober
Ken Dahlberg, Chairperson
Maynard Kaufman
Ron Klein
Suzanne Klein
Michael Kruk
Jim Laatsch
Lisa Phillips, Treasurer
Michael Phillips
Thom Phillips, Managing Director
Jan Ryan, Secretary
Jon Towne, Newsletter Editor
Dennis Wilcox

     It's the middle of November and the sun is shining, am I in Michigan? (....the editor interupts to pinch himself then glance at the address on the first item on his junk mail pile and sees: yep, its addressed to Michigan.)  Sarcasm aside, many Americans do not have a sense of place (as Wendell Berry describes in his writings) and consequently do not get irate when when what is normal becomes stretched, like the frog in boiling water.   We get used to a warming climate, the extraction from and stripping of the earth for raw materials and development, and yes, a continual state of war.  Where is the outrage?  MLT concerns itself with cultivating that "sense of place" and hopefully this newsletter reflects that.
    You will notice that the new brochure is included with this edition.  The brochure committee hammered this out with a meeting or two and numerous email exchanges.  Email a note tomar@i2k.com if you want additional copies to distribute.
        Being concerned with long term viability, the MLT board decided to raise membership dues to 30 dollars a year.  As always this is merely a suggestion, we send many of our newsletters to people who have never paid dues and we will continue to do that ... for while.  This is the second rate hike in the very recent history, it was 5 dollars a year for decades.  We think that we are more relevant than ever and want to extend our thirty year history another thirty years.
        The next MLT board meeting will be January 13, 2008 at the home of Ken and Barbara Dahlberg in Kalamazoo.  As usual there will be a potluck at 5 pm followed by the meeting.  Please come!



In this issue, we will begin with 2 articles on bees and pollinators by  board members Ron Klein and Jan Ryan. I think the articles complement each other nicely.


 The Honey Bee and Colony Collapse Disorder

by Ron Klein

 1985.  Mr. Whooly, a local beekeeper, asked to place eight beehives on our ten acres.  In return, we received one gallon of Wooly Bee Honey!    That spring the air was alive with buzzing.  Blossoms of crab apple trees, planted for wildlife, were crawling with bees.  Bees worked wildflowers and the gardens.  Hours were spent watching them, the chaos at the hive entrances gave way to a wonderment of organization.  There was an incredible fascination with the complexities of genetics, social order, and the amazing productivity.  I decided to try my hand at beekeeping in 1987.  That spring, garbed in veils and gloves, with a wisp of white smoke curling from a “smoker”, we approached the hives, each of two stacked boxes.  I clearly remember my excitement, hesitation, and anticipation.  Chatter about what to expect gradually gave way to silence as we approached.  “Something is wrong, very wrong.  This is not good.”

The top of the first hive was removed.  The hive tool, a pry-bar was inserted under the inner cover.  No bees. We peered in and slowly removed frame after frame of nearly full honey, each of the ten frames containing comb and honey weighed ten pounds. No bees.  The empty top hive box was lifted and set aside.  The process was repeated.  Combs of honey, and brood were taken out. No bees.  Sunlight began to reach the inner shadows of the bottom box. A pile of debris slowly began to take form.  There piled and scattered about the bottom of the hive were the former residents of this now dead city. So active in the summer that, on a hot day, I could feel the boxes vibrate as thousands of bees in unison fanned the air, drying their liquid treasury.  Now dry, lifeless, and dead, a few disillusioned survivors crawled about as if to revive their fallen comrades.   The grim task was repeated.  Eight vibrant cities of life-all silent tombs. Mr. Whooly, grimly and in silence, loaded the hives on a trailer and drove off, tires partially flattened by the weigh of honey stored away to carry the colonies through the winter. He never returned.  That spring the air was silent.

Until 1987, pollination was taken for granted.  The honeybee, introduced by our colonial ancestors to provide honey, wax and pollinate European crops, had spread across the Americas. Feral colonies inhabiting tree cavities, house walls and barns vastly exceeded the millions of bees being maintained in commercial apiaries.  Pictures of bee swarms always found their way into local newspapers. Pollination was a natural phenomenon taken for granted. Vast acreage of almonds, blueberries, fruit trees, watermelons, pumpkins and hundreds of other crops were pollinated by wild bees for free!  Meanwhile, commercial beekeeping was a booming business and the US had become the premier beekeeping nation.

A Lesson in History

Tracheal mites were first noticed in England in 1921 and spurred the passage of the Honeybee Act of 1922 that banned the importation of new honeybee stock into the US.  The purpose of this law was to prevent introducing tracheal mites and other pathogens.

In 1987 the Asian mite, Varroa destructor was discovered in the US and devastated the hives of the unadapted European honey bee. The mite feeds off developing larvae and adults, weakening them and spreading disease. A short time later another foreign invader, the tracheal mite was found and further assaulted the already compromised and unadapted European honeybee. Tracheal mites lay eggs in a bee’s breathing tubes.  Developing larvae feed off the bee’s blood.  Bees die early, honey production falls, and colonies die over winter.  The booming commercial industry suffered widespread and unprecedented losses.  

Since 1987, effective therapies have been developed to deal with varroa and the tracheal mite. Treatments range from capitalizing on the effects of essential oils (the “essence” of various plants), breeding bees that groom and remove mites, chemical toxins, and modifications in hive construction and husbandry practices.  The essential oils, mint, lemon grass, spearmint and eucalyptus, mildly toxic to mites, are generally mixed with vegetable shortening and sugar forming a “grease patty” that is placed in the hive.  Bees contact the grease patty when feeding and in grooming grease off their bodies, remove mites. Mites fall to the bottom of the hive.  Keepers have learned to place a screen on the bottom of the hive.  The mites fall through the screen and are unable to hitch a ride back up into the hive.  Even with grease patties, essential oils and other control methods bee keeps expect to loose 25-30% of their hives every winter.  Before mites became epidemic, a hive loss of 10% was considered unusual.  Without a keeper’s intervention hive losses are eventually 100%.

Human intervention could not save the feral bee population.  Wild bees have become all but extinct through out North America.  Unless a garden was near a managed commercial apiary-there were no bees. We rarely saw any bees on our property after 1989.  The free pollinators of past years were gone spawning a new era in migratory bee keeping as millions upon millions of bees in tens of thousands of hives were shipped and trucked to fields across the United States. Complex timetablesand the coordination of weather, planting and optimal pollination times were developed to assure productivity of America’s farm produce. US bee production was strained to meet the ever-growing demands for pollination.

Colony Collapse Disorder

In 2004, some US beekeepers reported that bees had “abandoned” a large number of their hives, flying off never to return.   By 2005 about 30% of US beekeepers had reported losing up to 90% of their hives-bees simply left- leaving full combs of honey, pollen, young brood and a few nurse bees.  Many theories were proposed to explain the massive die offs including cell phones, GM crops, a new pesticide, the stress of long distance hauling, and a combination of various pathogenic bacteria, fungi and parasites.  These were all quickly discounted as primary causes.  There were several interesting observations: bees thrived when reintroduced to CCD hives that had been sterilized with radiation, some states had no CCD, many hives thrived near GM crops, and some long distance haulers had no CCD.

A CCD Working Group of scientists from agricultural colleges and the USDA was formed in January 2007 to focus on tracking down the cause of CCD.  Large-scale gene sequencing was used.    DNA samples were pooled from four beekeeping operations that had been devastated by CCD, the pooled DNA was sequenced and the data compared to sequenced DNA from two operations that had remained healthy.  All of the bees from both samples had a large number of pathogens but the samples from the CCD hives were more heavily disease ridden.  The CCD pooled samples had four prevalent pathogens: two viruses and a large population of two less common parasites.

The CCD Working Group went back and tested individual DNA samples from the CCD hives.  In 25 out of 30 sick colonies they found IAPV (Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus) where as, IAPV was only detected in 1 out of 21 healthy hives. IAPV is a deadly virus.  98% of bees injected with the virus, or fed pollen containing the virus die within a few days.  Bees can fly, but become paralyzed and are unable to return to their hive.
Tracing IAPV

An inspection of hives from various states suggested that the virus was associated with imported bees.  All of the operations infected with IAPV had either imported bees from Australia or were immediately adjacent to operations that had imported bees.  None of the CCD-free bee operations had imported Australian bees, nor had CCD free states.  Samples of DNA from bees that had been collected in 2004 from various US beekeeping operations before importation began were IAPV free.

Bee imports into the US have been tightly regulated since the Honeybee Protection Act was implemented in 1922, however WTO rules relaxed standards and forced the US to permit imports in 2004.  US beekeepers in California trying to keep up with the demand for just almond pollination imported millions of dollars worth of bees from Australia.

The Continuing Mystery

    In the US, imported and domestic bees are susceptible to CCD.  IAPV appears not to be a problem in Australia.  Australia is free of the varroa mite that weakens a bee’s immune system.  Yet, Australian bees have been imported into Canada and Israel, where varroa mites are a problem. However, both countries are essentially CCD free, so what is the difference between the standards of care for bee keeping in Canada and Israel versus the United States?   In Israel bee colonies have been identified that show immunity to IAPV, apiaries are fixed and smaller than in the US.   The Working Group is looking at additional factors that are correlated with CCD and IAPV.  It is possible that long distance hauling of large numbers of colonies, perhaps coupled with poor nutrition makes IAPV particularly lethal.  Hauled bees must be fed inexpensive sugar syrups, usually corn syrup, to maintain energy levels and health in southern wintering yards.  Lethality may be due to IAPV exposure alone or perhaps in combination with other pathogens and stresses. The studies are ongoing.

Husbandry and Health

Beekeepers have been advised to keep bees as healthy as possible and not reuse unsterilized hives from collapsed colonies. Keepers are learning how to increase the number of bees by raising large numbers of queens and splitting healthy hives.   Beekeepers tend to their bees with a fascination that exceeds anything I have experienced with other forms of husbandry.  They are well tuned in with nature. Working bees, and managing a small number of hives, is a Zen experience.  To keep a hive healthy a keeper must really know his bees, their sound, movement and interactions with their environment.  It takes time and knowledge to keep hives healthy.  Many keepers advise buying bees from local apiaries and raising queens locally to increase the populations of bees adapted to specific locations.  Many keepers are beginning programs to select for bees that have increased resistance to mites and IAPV.   Producers are encouraged to promote conditions that will increase the populations of other pollinating insects. Although there are many pollinating insects, many crops of European origin are solely pollinated by the European honeybee.  

Beekeeping offers the unique advantage of placing us closer to nature and allows us to partake in products from the hive: pollen, honey, beeswax and natural medicinal compounds.  Keeping a few hives, whether in city or country contributes to the overall health of our environment.

In a world where there is too much concrete between us and the life giving soil, keeping a hive or two in a back yard garden provides an opportunity to reconnect with nature and benefit life around us.


I recommend the following:

Courses:
Tillers International, Bee Keeping.  Held in the spring either at Cook’s Mill, Scotts, Michigan, or DreamAcres, Wykoff, MN. Contact: 269-626-0233, 800-498-2700.  (Started two hives one week after taking this class-it is excellent).

Beginner’s Books
The Beekeeper’s Handbook, 3rd edition, Diana Sammataro and Alphone Avitabile, Cornell University Press, 1998.
The Backyard Beekeeper, Kim Flottum, Quarry Books, 2005.
Natural Beekeeping, Ross Conrad, Chelsea Green Publishers, 2007.

General Reading
A Book of Bees, Sue Hubbell, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988.
Robbing the Bees, Holley Bishop, Free Press, 2005.
The Queen Must Die, William Longgood, W. W. Norton Company, 1985.

     Yes I need to add, that in addition to IAPV being found in imported Australian bees, investigators also found the virus in shipments of royal jelly from China, suggesting that other bee product imports from China maybe contaminated. (Royal jelly is a substance bees feed to a developing queen and is a popular health food supplement).

Ron Klein



 The Forgotten Pollinators by Stephen Buchmann and Gary Paul Nabhan     Island Press, 1996, 292pp.

Review by Jan Ryan

    Reading about Colony Collapse Disorder in honeybees evokes in me what I’m sure are common reactions:  dismay that perhaps another exotic organism has found it’s way in, sympathy for beekeepers who have had to many struggles with pests, and concern about implications for the production of food and honey.  However, when news stories extended pollination warnings to home gardeners, I felt something was amiss.  I do see honeybees in my garden, but I don’t think they are doing the bulk of the work.  A vast array of other insects (and hummingbirds) are frequent visitors, including  bumble bees, sweat bees, syrphid and blow flies, hawk moths, butterflies, and numerous wasps.  I’m sure a more conscious inventory would expand this list.  It was timely, then, when I recently found a copy of The Forgotten Pollinators in my local library.

    The Forgotten Pollinators is a passionate and highly detailed account of the greatly unseen world of pollination.  While conservation of wild plants is a topic fairly widely recognized, the role of pollinators (that many of these plants depend on) is not. The book goes to great lengths to document an immense variety of actors, including many types of bees, wasps, flies, beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, birds, bats and other mammals.  

    Relationships between these animals and the plants they pollinate are often intricate, based on long histories of co-evolution.  The authors use stories from various parts of the world to help illustrate the complexity, and the fragility of these partnerships.  In doing so, they make the case for a crisis in pollination.  Threats to native pollinators are numerous, and include habitat destruction or disruption, pesticide use, genetic modification of plants, and competition from honeybees.  Perhaps because of Colony Collapse Disorder, I found the discussion on honeybees particularly interesting.

    The honeybee’s incredible efficiency in finding and harvesting nectar and pollen has enabled it to spread throughout the continental U.S. (as well as many other parts of the world).  According to Buchmann and Nabhan, there are problems with this scenario. They cite studies documenting the displacement of native pollinators by honeybees through their amazing foraging abilities and sheer numbers.  In terms of plant propagation, however, honeybees aren’t always as effective.  Successful pollination can depend on complex factors such as the timing of visitation, preference for male or female flowers, or movement between flowers, to name a few.  An intriguing example is vibratory pollen harvesting, or the “buzzing” technique used by some insects such as bumble bees.  Certain plants, like tomatoes, require the action to set fruit.  Honeybees are apparently unable to perform this task.  

    Buchmann and Nabhan claim that focus on the honeybee has meant a shortage of information about other pollinators, not just in the wild but in cultivated crops as well (USDA keeps statistics only on honeybees).  Despite this, there are examples of work that attempt to establish their importance (one study lists more than 800 cultivated plant species that are dependent on wild bees and other insects for pollination).  The authors argue the need for more research, and point out the precariousness of our reliance on one species for pollination, especially given current challenges for beekeepers.

    Far from just pointing fingers, The Forgotten Pollinators offer constructive solutions for promoting the conservation of native pollinators.  There is a wonderful story of Western farmers managing native alkali bees for pollinating alfalfa during the middle of the last century.  More current examples are also provided, and include individual and community efforts from around the globe.  The book’s appendices are a wealth of information, with a sort of pollinator manifesto (“A Call for a National Policy on Pollination”), charts on plants, pollinators and pesticide toxicity, and other resources.

    The Forgotten Pollinators is a compelling and impressive piece of work.  It’s bound to make any reader look at garden flowers with new interest and anticipation.

NOTE: The introduction to the book is written by renowned Entomologist and Evolutionary Biologist Edward O. Wilson.  A tireless proponent of biodiversity, Wilson talked about pollinators in an interview with Scott Simon on NPR last June.  For those who missed it, I am including the link here.  It’s well worth the 5-minute listen, especially with the musical piece that follows, a rousing snippet of The Bumble Bee Stomp performed by the Benny Goodman orchestra.

   

The next two articles from Seema and Norm describe this falls programs in the Kalamazoo area sponsored by Fair Food Matters and MLT (among others).  MLT members and directors have had a hand in their creation and organization this year and in years past.  We went to the Harvest Fest for the first time (difficult for me with my weekend job) and had a great experience.


 Eat Local, Kalamazoo!

Seema Jolly

    Fair Food Matters co-sponsored Eat Local, Kalamazoo!, a celebration and exploration of local foods which took place in September.  In addition to their exceptional taste and freshness, local foods help support our local farmers and economy, safeguard our health and help protect the environment.  This was the first year for Eat Local, Kalamazoo! and we had a successful set of events.  We partnered with a number of community organizations, creating events centralized around local foods.  Fair Food Matters spent the summer promoting the events and creating an Eat Local Challenge to encourage people to purchase local foods in September.  Co-authors of PLENTY: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, were the main focus of three events during Eat Local, Kalamazoo!  

    Smith and MacKinnon delivered an engaging and informative talk about their experiences with eating local foods at the Southwest Michigan Community Harvest Fest.  Over a hundred people gathered inside the new museum at Tillers International to listen to their keynote address at the Harvest Fest.  For an entire year, Smith and MacKinnon continued on a journey in which they ate foods produced within a one hundred mile radius of their home in Vancouver, Canada.  At the Harvest Fest, Smith and MacKinnon shared their adventures with maintaining a "100 mile diet" for a year.  This year's Harvest Fest was bigger than ever with hundreds more attendees than previous years, in part due to the promotion through Eat Local, Kalamazoo!  

    After kicking off Eat Local, Kalamazoo! at the Harvest Fest, Smith and MacKinnon came to Kalamazoo College to speak about the new world that opened up to them as they began reconnecting to their food and the people producing their food.  On the first day of classes at Kalamazoo College, students and community members packed into the Recital Hall, listening to their adventures with eating locally produced foods.  The hall was filled to capacity (over 180 people attended!) with dozens of students sitting in the aisles to listen to Smith and MacKinnon's stories.    

    As the momentum for Eat Local, Kalamazoo! continued, Smith and MacKinnon concluded their Kalamazoo tour with a talk at the Kalamazoo Public Library.  Smith and MacKinnon delivered yet another inspirational presentation at the library.  Over the course of three days, the duo spoke to over 300 people in our community!  

    After Smith and MacKinnon's visit to Kalamazoo, a panel discussion on "Why Local Still Matters in a Global Economy" took place at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. Representatives from area businesses and organizations shared their views on the benefits of supporting our local economy and talent.  This was yet another well-received event in the community.

    Eat Local, Kalamazoo! commenced with a panel discussion about local foods around the globe as part of the “At Home in the World” series at the Kalamazoo Public Library.  Kalamazoo College students shared their stories about local foods in their host countries when they studied abroad.  From Thailand to Ecuador, France to Kenya, the students provided insight on the diverse array of foods that they discovered while living abroad.

    In addition to the events organized for Eat Local, Kalamazoo!, Food Dance and Green Drinks both sponsored their own local food focused events in September, spreading awareness about local food issues in our community.  Fair Food Matters helped organize the Eat Local Challenge, encouraging community residents to purchase local foods from area markets and restaurants in September.  We created passports for community members to learn about area restaurants and markets that use local foods.  Over 900 passports were distributed throughout the month!  At the end of the month, participants received a discount card to continue to enjoy area restaurants and markets.  

    For the first year's events, Fair Food Matters was very excited by the attendance at the events.  As we continue to plan future events, we want to branch out and create more educational activities in which people can learn about local foods throughout the entire year.  The interest is here, the momentum is gaining, and it's only a matter of time before our community commits to creating a more localized food system.  

    Fair Food Matters continues to grow, serving the southwest Michigan community as an educational resource for food issues relating to health, environmental responsibility, and social justice.  So, in case you missed out on Eat Local, Kalamazoo! this year, stay tuned (www.fairfoodmatters.org) to learn about local food events in 2008!


 Harvest Fest Success

By Norm Bober

    More, more, and more.  Those are the words that highlight the 5th annual Southwest Michigan Community Harvest Fest.  The Michigan Land Trustees (MLT) has offered grant monies for each of the five years that the Harvest Fest has been running.  The organizing committee of the Fest is deeply grateful for the unqualified support that has been provided.  This year the Harvest Fest teamed up with Kalamazoo Public Library and Kalamazoo College to bring co-authors Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon to speak at the Harvest Fest.  They spoke about their efforts to procure foods from sources within 100 miles of their apartment.  It was an attempt to demonstrate how shipping food products across the country as well as to and from overseas adds unnecessary complexity to life.  Getting food that is grown and sold close to home can be quite a challenge.  Think Michigan in winter.  Bananas, oranges, coffee, even chocolate are not part of Midwest agriculture.  The point being that supporting the local economy may require some lifestyle changes.  The Harvest Fest has been and continues to focus on celebrating and developing the connections between consumers, local growers, craftspeople, and services.  Each year there has been a steady increase in the number of people who have come to this fun-filled event.  Tillers International has partnered with the Harvest Fest in offering the use of its land.  Members of Tillers took time to demonstrate sorghum pressing, oxen plowing, rope-making, woodwork, and blacksmithing techniques.  Other community members demonstrated how to make bio-diesel fuel, food fermentation, weaving, and even a survival camp.  Committee members have worked diligently and cooperatively to make this event a success.  This most recent Harvest Fest saw over 1500 people come to enjoy the music, the foods, and the camaraderie of community.  The Kalamazoo Folklife Organization was jamming, the Crescendo music group welcomed visitors.  Joe Reilly, Cosmic Sojourner and the Dunuya Drum & Dance group kept toes tapping.  Smiles were everywhere.  Planning for next September’s Harvest Fest has already begun.  We are looking to encourage more growers and vendors to participate because we want to build a sustainable local economy.  Thanks to MLT we are making strides in that direction.


The next 2 articles spotlight useful plants.

 The Persimmon Patch    

by Jon Towne

     Two years ago on New Years Day I put on my skis and went for my usual cruise around the farm (approximately one mile). On the last leg, I rewarded myself by stopping at one of our little persimmon groves. After taking off my skis, I gave the one bearing tree at that time a little shake, and 3 or 4 of the squishy but partially frozen fruit fell and I enjoyed something many michiganders never consider to be possible, homegrown fresh fruit in January!
    This year is the best year ever, 4 trees are bearing heavily with seedy fruit about an inch in diameter. One tree has fewer fruit but with each about an inch and a half in diameter. We ate the first fruit on Oct 12, still a little puckery but very delicious in my view. My routine for the next 2 or more months will be to visit these trees give the trees a little shake (they are still 4-6 inches dbh and 20 or so feet high so this is possible, I'm not sure what the harvesting technique will be in a few years, but that's for another day), and eat.
    Diospyros virginiana or American Persimmon ranges throughout southeastern US and ranges north to Indianapolis at this longitude. In fact my brother Steve had a tree at his former abode there that was more than a foot in diameter and pastes the ground with mushy persimmons for a good part of every fall. The genus name means "fruits of the gods" and is the same as the tropical hardwood ebony. This handsome tree grows 30-70 feet tall, is somewhat shade tolerant and grows well in my frequently water logged clay soils. Male and female flowers grow on separate trees (with exceptions) so only half of any seedling population will be capable of bearing. Grafted named varieties are available. My seedling trees came mostly from Oikos Tree Crops (oikostreecrops.com) in Lawton, Michigan. Some I started from seed which is fairly easy.
    I recommend this tree for any backyard, just remember: plant for than one seedling or plant a self fruitful variety such as 'Meader' or 'Early Golden'. Just do it and you too can enjoy famous fault free fresh frozen fruit in february (er... January)!


 JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE

            by Rita Bober

    You might have wondered like I did the first time I saw those glorious “sunflowers” growing along the road next to the corn field, or intermingled with the soybean crop.  “Wow, isn’t it great that ‘sunflowers’ are growing with the field crops.  They look so pretty.”

    But eventually I found out they were Jerusalem Artichokes (helianthus tuberosus) and that they often form dense stands along roadsides and in garden sites.  Jerusalem Artichokes are in the sunflower family but are the only ones with large conspicuous tubers.  The plants are easiest to spot in mid to late summer when they may reach ten to twelve feet.  They are native to the Midwest and Great Plains area.

    Jerusalem Artichokes are a perennial with thick oval, toothed, opposite leaf whorls.  The stem is thick and hairy and the roots go deep into the ground to enrich the plant with ground minerals.  The flowers are yellow disks surrounded by ten to twenty yellow petals.  The part of the Jerusalem Artichokes harvested for food and medicine is the root tuber.  The root looks like a small potato and contains “inulin” which is a helpful starchy substance good for diabetics and hypoglycemics.  They have fewer calories than potatoes and are especially high in vitamin A and B-complex, potassium and phosphorus.  Wait until after the first frost to dig the tubers, as it is their time of greatest food energy.  Raw, they are light and sweet but are also great baked in their skins.  In general, you can cook them any way you would cook potatoes though they don’t fry up crispy and become creamy when mashed.  The tubers range in size from a thick pencil to a large chunky carrot.  Dig around the base of the plants with a shovel; the larger tubers often occur on the periphery of the patch.  The tubers clean easily by dunking them up and down in a bucket of water or by scrubbing hard with a vegetable brush.  They can be kept for several weeks in the refrigerator but are best collected fresh as needed.  If you haven’t tried Jerusalem Artichokes, you are missing a local food growing right in our own back yards.

References:
    Edible Wild Plants: A Guide to Collecting and Cooking.  Ellen Elliott Weatherbee and James Garnett Bruce.  1982, Library of Congress Catalog Number: 82-50821.
    Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places.  Steve Brill with Evelyn Dean, William Morrow, N. Y., 1994.
    The Spirit of Healing: A Journal of Plants & Trees.  Osahmin Judy Meister.  Minaden Books, Hillsboro, WI, 2004.


  SUNFLOWER ECOVILLAGE

Barbara Geisler and Maynard Kaufman

      Michigan Land Trustees was organized in 1976 as a response to the energy crisis of the 1970s as it prompted a back-to-the-land movement.  The founders originally intended to provide access to land and to facilitate renewable energy projects, but our application as a tax-exempt organization required that we had to do this indirectly through the homesteading program.  

      The world is now entering an energy crisis that will soon be more desperate than the preliminary crisis of the 1970s.  The current crisis is caused by the fact that conventional oil production is at its peak, and it is likely that global demand will soon exceed supply so that prices will rise dramatically.  To maintain the supply of oil companies are turning to bio-fuels such as ethanol and to the so-called tar sands of Alberta.  More coal, which is still abundant, is also burned, especially to produce electricity.  The production of these supplements to oil adds enormously to the greenhouse gases that now threaten to change our climate.  There are thus two compelling reasons why it is necessary to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels: declining supply and global warming.

      One of the social responses to this new energy crisis has been the rise of ecovillages.  These are communities with “green” buildings that cooperate in food and energy production on site.  The fact that people are drawn to such communal efforts reflects a growing uneasiness about economic stress and social unrest as we face the great energy transition.  A community offers a sense of security.

       The proposed development that we call “Sunflower Ecovillage” is one of a half dozen in southwest Michigan.  Our emphasis on renewable energy and local food is probably stronger than that of the others.  We hope to demonstrate a model of the kind of development that will soon be necessary.  We have just begun to advertise our project, but we are confident that people will join our ecovillage.   This kind of development will be essential as the energy crisis intensifies.                                                   
      More information is available on our website: www.sunflowerecovillage.com.
 

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