More words about buildings and food: Blog's focus has expanded beyond green building to include local food issues

I saw a robin this morning on my way to the office - a sure sign that spring is here!
Although my blog was initiated for a dialogue about green building, over the two years I have been writing, it has really morphed into a discussion of green living. Construction techniques and material choices are abundant in the archives at www.OddGreenFridays.com.

I have also written a number of entries about local food: growing it, choosing it and eating it. The last issue referenced my son's efforts as an organizer of the Local Food Summit, an event that was covered with rave reviews. My partner, Sandi Smith, got a chance to attend most of the summit and I have to admit, I was a little worried that our house was going to be launched into a Barbara Kingsolver-style experiment of eating only local food - 100 percent of the time. But that wasn't the goal of the organizers.

They want us to eat just 10 percent local food. Now I am sure that they would be delighted if we all ate 100 percent local 100 percent of the time, but they are looking for incremental changes.

Increase local food consumption from 1 percent to 10 percent could mean an additional $90 million to the local economy, thousands of new jobs and hundreds of new ventures. That is a lot of benefit from a task that doesn't seem too hard. Out of a $200 weekly food bill, that would be a mere $20 on local products. My guess is that we easily exceed that mark.

Seeing the robin this morning got me pretty excited. It is going to be a glorious melty spring weekend and I am itching to get to work in the garden. I think early March is a little premature to start planting in Michigan, but what if we had a hoop house? For $50 and a day's worth of work, the idea is somewhat enchanting. It may be a bit extreme and slightly illegal for our small urban garden, but how exciting to be able to start our garden a little early and eat home grown kale for most of the long winter.

Then again, maybe we can talk our friend Danette into a hoop house at her country estate. I'll promise to help with the weeding!

More hoop house links:
http://www.hoophouse.com/home-hobbyist.html

http://hoophouse.msu.edu/blog/index.php

http://www.uvm.edu/sustainableagriculture/Documents/HighTunnels.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07vtMJgp0no

Please call, e-mail or visit me on Facebook if you want to chat!

Linda Lombardini
734-216-6415
Linda@TrilliumRealtors.com
LindaLom.com