Magic Hat Stories

April 15, It's Just Not Taxes This Year

I never bought into the whole Starbucks craze. I just didn't get it. I could get better coffee in opinion from La Colombe in Philly. That said, I have to give Starbucks props for what they are doing this year. On April 15, 2010 at participating stores, bring in a travel mug and you will receive a free coffee. The idea is to enocurage people to stop using so many paper cups and save trees.

Called The Big Project, take a look at this film about what happened on day in NYC when a thousand people traded their cups for a travel mug. 

So why take a step forward on April 15, 2010 and bring a travel mug along to a Starbucks. It's a slight behaviour modificatione exercise but hey in the long run the planet's worth it.

Community Garden Update

So everything is coming together for my plot at the community garden program I’m participating in. The seeds arrived, and the peppers are just popping up. The tomatoes will be soon I’m sure. I got the peppers planted a couple days before the tomatoes.

I have the plot roped off and I’ve been there a couple times during the day so I could see the sac of the sun in the sky. This will help with the direction of the rows. Today we’re getting rain and this will help me see how drainage is overall.

Will Allen and Growing Power

This is a wonderful story;

In 1993, Growing Power was an organization with teens who needed a place to work.  

Will Allen was a farmer with land.  

Will designed a program that offered teens an opportunity to work at his store and renovate the greenhouses to grow food for their community.  What started as a simple partnership to change the landscape of the north side of Milwaukee has blossomed into a national and global commitment to sustainable food systems.

Sunday Dinner - Ginger and Sage Spiced Lamb with Cardone and Capers

Lamb is something I rarely cook at home.  I usually enjoy it as as an entree when I go out to eat, or see a lamb burger on a menu that a bistro type establishment will have.

Occasionally, I will cook it at home. Since I enjoy lamb grilled the most, the fact that I don’t have a grill right now is a big deterrent to me cooking lamb for myself. To me grilled lamb is the best way to have it. One night I used kabob baskets to cook a lamb sausage I was attempting to make. I thought the baskets would hold the meat together while grilling. They did. It was that night of experimenting that I tried ginger and sage together as rub for coating the sausage. It worked so well that I started to grill lamb at home more often.

Some Many Rants, So Little Time

On Saturdays I do a post called Gallimaufry which is an open post. They usually end up as rants. I’ve found myself so overwhelmed in the last two weeks with things to rant about that when it comes to this post, I feel like I have a buffet of over processed, high fructose corn syrup laden entrees dripping in Velveetta to choose from. 

What I don’t get is there are an equal number of people and organizations that work very hard to do good. And yet very little of what they do is covered in the media. It saddens me that a lot of audiences for media don’t care enough about the good that’s going on in the world to focus their attention on that.

I think it’s about time that changes. 

Empowering the Poor, Helping Climate Change

For those of us that believe we're facing a climate change phenomenon, programs that address this issue are very important. For those of us who believe the poor shouldn't be forgotten, programs that address this issue are equally important. When a program combines both, well that's a double dose of good karma for humanity.

Anishinabe Wakiagun (The People's Home in the Ojibwe language)

When one loses their culture I believe they lose a lot of their spirit. I'm fortunate to have had a taste of what my family's culture was like for many years through the stories that my grandparents shared. Here in the great melting pot though, adaption was their choice since they chose to migrate here. For the American Indian though they had no choice. 

My Heirloom Garden Follows the Journery of My Family

Last week I wrote about participating in a community garden in my area. In the past week I’ve pulled a lot of it together. I’ve written about growing native heirloom plants as a New Year’s resolution, creating heirloom gardens as a family quilt, and how heirloom tomatoes help the poor.  It seems appropriate that I walk the talk.

Back in the Saddle

Starting on Tuesday I will be back to posting on a regular basis again. It's been a little busy here, and hopefully I will have some good news because of it.

Great News for Grameen Shikkha

This year thanks to the generosity of donors, and the hard work of the folks at the Grameen Foundation, $195,640.00 will be donated to support 226 students under the Grameen Shikha program. That is wonderful news! The goal was $80,000.00.