Adapting to Climate Change in Your Own Backyard
Is that really possible? Isn’t adapting to climate a job for international government panels and such? Can I really make a difference in my own backyard? Sure you can! After all, that is how we got in this climate mess in the first place. Small acts over generations have added up to the big problems that we now all share. It will take everyone working together and all actions both big and small to adapt to and work to resolve the great climate challenges currently at hand.
Adaptation and evolution, this after all is what life itself on the planet has always done to survive and thrive. Lifeforms adapting and reacting to each other and the land and the weather. The processes of Adaptation first calls for us to pause and gather information and then to choose an active response. Gathering information and choosing a response: this is how life evolves. These steps repeated over billions years by untold lifeforms has created the wonder we know as life on the planet today. Our best opportunity as humans for successful adaptation to the climate crisis will likely be to repeat this age old process and gather and agree on information as a community and choose actions to take together in response.
So, we invite you to begin in a small and personal way to join this process here at the Fairfax Backyard Farmer where our intention is to gather together in community classes and workshops and learn to take simple small steps towards a better future. Here are some places you might start:
Sustainable Living
Two ways to explore adaption and resilience
1 - Gather Information: Join a Choosing Earth Study Group
The Earth is in crisis on all levels from destruction of the natural world to growing inequities and social injustice to unsustainable growth. To understand and engage our pathway ahead, we offer a 7-week course based on Duane Elgin’s most recent book, Choosing Earth.
2 - Take Positive Action: Join a Climate Action Resilient Neighborhoods team
Learn about resilience in the face of climate change and commit with other team members to choose from over 100 actions to reduce your carbon footprint in these intensive 5 week Resilient Neighborhood programs.
The Environment
two simple solutions for Drought and water Scarcity
It has been said that “If there is magic on this planet it is contained in water.” Every cell in our body contains water. We owe our existence to a few simple buckets of water! Magic indeed.
In balanced amounts water fuels life and in scarcity or excess water can quickly end a life. Here in the west we currently face severe water scarcity and our personal decisions on how and where to apply this magic potion in and around our homes and gardens can have a big impact. Simply recovering normally lost water in your kitchen and bathroom can provide enough extra water to help a few of your valued plants live through the summer drought. Here are two simple solutions to consider:
1 - Reuse Shower and Sink Water: Drip Bucket
Our food grade HDPE lightweight 6 gallon bucket fitted with a spigot and a five ft length of drip soaker tube is ideal for using otherwise lost water from your sink and shower and bring life to your plants and garden. Even water with soap residue can be plant safe when you use the right soap.
2 - Sub-Surface Watering: The Oya
The simple and effective ancient passive watering tool, the Oya, is a specially shaped terra cotta pot filled with water, buried up to its neck and placed next to key plants in your yard. Used in traditional cultures around the world the clay slowly weeps water into the soil and into the roots without evaporation losses to the air.
Health and Wellness
TWO WAYS TO nourish your body and soul with a direct connection to your food sources
Modern civilization has certainly brought us unbelievable gifts of food, medicine and technology that have made health and wellness possible for billions of people. But so too have many of us have lost the experience of a direct connection with our food and a visceral experience of taking sustenance from the earth firsthand. Regaining an experience of eating directly from ground at our feet can be profound and healing for our communities.
Here are two ways to find this opportunity through our upcoming workshops:
1 - Forage for Local Wild Foods
Learning a few common edible plants and preparing a simple meal from them can be a powerful experience. Join local Chef, Forager and Native Plant Specialist, John Farais, on an evening zoom lecture followed by an in person class the next morning exploring wild edible plants around the Fairfax area and ending with a simple foraged meal prepared for us by John.
Friday Oct 1 & Saturday Oct 2 - Workshop Details Here
2 - Explore The World of Mushrooms
Join Darren Polypore , internationally acclaimed host of the highly respected podcast Welcome to Mushroom Hour as he guides us thorough a discussion and survey the fascinating world of fungi. We will also get our hands dirty with a simple hands-on edible mushroom growing activity.
Darren has conducted in-depth interviews with many of the top figures in popular and scientific mycology and beyond. He will share his impressive understanding of the various disciplines contained under this umbrella of “mushrooms” to include foraging, academic research on mushroom ecology, materials science, cultivation, indigenous uses and, of course, psychedelia.
Saturday Oct 9 - Workshop Details Here
