Picked up the second issue, Spring 2010, of Urban Farm magazine and it is chalk full of good useful articles!  I really do hope the magazine turns into a monthly issue and they start accepting subscriptions... all in good time I guess. 

One of my favorite articles is "Cinch by the Square Foot".  This article was great timing for me since I'm actually planning on converting our conventioanl row garden to raised beds and square foot gardening practices.  The article is written by Mel Bartholomew who is the author of Square Foot Gardening, which I am also actively reading. 

Another good article is "P is for Prosper".  The article goes through urban-farming pioneer Will Allen's  north Milwaukee urban aquaponic farm, Growing Power inc." and his seven P's for success and community building.  I stumbled on to Will Allen while researching aquaponics and was immediately interested in his processes.  I love that they are growing food where it is needed.  Here's a YouTube video as an introduction:

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I had both the pleasure and disgust of watching Food Inc. this weekend and it was an eye opener.  Although I was aware of most of what the film had to say, the message was really driven home as to how far removed we are from our food in our "modern society".

Filmmaker, Robert Kenner, "lifts the veil" on the American food industry exposing the industrialization of food production and the powerful companies that control it.  And when I mean control it, I mean through brute force and intimidation, they can keep farmers under their thumb and seem to be concerned only about profit, not the product or the people for which they supply.  A few scenes that bother me are the fact that farmers seem powerless to fight the large conglomerates that run the meat industry and the fact that the US Supreme Court allowed a company to patent seeds. 

I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has not watched it yet, but it is well worth the view and I would highly recommend it.  It is a bit graphic at some points and if you are tender at heart, you might shed a few tears.  One thing is for sure, you will "Never Look At Dinner The Same Way Again".  It certainly changed my points of view and we will make more changes in our choices.

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I had the opportunity to watch Les Stroud's documentary called Off The Grid.  It's a great film documenting how Les Stroud, Sue Jamison and their 2 young children bought a 150 acre abandoned 1930's farm land in Northern Ontario and started what a lot of us dream of: living a sustainable life closer to the land.

Les Stroud is probably better known for the TV series Survivorman where he spends 7 days marooned and surviving in various hostile locations throughout the world.  He filmed this documentary between seasons when he and his family decided to take the leap into this great adventure. 

I like the documentary because of its personal approach.  If you follow Survivorman you will see it follows the same format of narration and self interview.  I wasn't really sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised that it is not a be all end all film of latest technology stuffed with technical data and crap.  It's really a story of how and ordinary family can accomplish living a more simple life, off-grid and without a deep pocket book.  How the move affects different aspects of their lives and the overall pros and cons of this lifestyle change.  One of my favorite parts of the film is how they go over their concerns with how the move will affect their children.  Being a father myself, I could relate to their struggles of trying to have the best of both worlds: Urban activities and Rural lifestyle.

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Courtesy of TheEnergyDetective.com

A while back I wrote a post called Help Reduce Electrical Bill Consumption.   That post focused on using electricity monitoring devices to help identify waste/phantom loads, reduce overall consumption and have a method to monitor daily electricity usage.  Since that article i bought the TED 1001 unit and have been using it for the past 6 months.  Here is a follow-up review and what I think of it.

Install instructions are very easy to follow and I had it wired within a half hour.  If you are not comfortable with opening up the electrical panel, please contact a licensed electrician.  The unit comes with a Transmitter and Gateway.  Follow their simple install instructions.  Paraphrasing the install: connect the MTU clip-ons to the electrical mains that feed the electricity to your electrical panel the wire the Transmitter (MTU) to the breaker and you're done.The MTU sends the data through the existing electrical wiring of the home.  The Gateway/receiver will receive the packets once a second through any electrical outlet in the home.  This was one of my favorite features cause I wanted the receiver to be flexible in location, but not have to fumble with batteries.  To me this is a great feature.

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I was going through my stack of magazines and catalogs that I keep for references etc... and was curious to see what others are reading?  I'm going to change some of my subscriptions to online only, but some you like to have the physical reference material.

The catalog I've been browsing through lately is the newest arrival: Veseys Seeds.  I'm very fortunate to be a couple hours drive from Veseys.  They are located in York, Prince Edward Island, which is just East of New Brunswick.  My mother recommended them when I started gardening and told me my grand parents always bought their seeds and supplies through Veseys.  Veseys does extensive trial gardening on all seeds they offer and since they are in the same climate as me, I feel very confident in the experienced information they provide.  On that note, can't wait to put in my seed order for this year!

Mother Earth Newsis one of my favorite magazines out there and they've been around for a long long time.  I find they cover a wide range of topics that always seem to be on my "need to learn" list.  I will most likely subscribe to them online since I can browse, download and save articles I want to keep in my personal library.  I will most likely break down and buy the Mother Earth News CDs as well.  They contain38 years of the magazine published from 1970 to 2009.  This way I can have all the 8000+ articles at my finger tips ;o)

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