Traveling at home: Biking to Whitmore Lake

Marco and I took a short ride to Whitmore Lake yesterday, which is about eleven or twelve miles north of Ann Arbor. With both our bikes tuned up, we clipped in, and rode up Whitmore Lake road, which runs parallel to US-23. The ride is uphill, but the nice thing about going uphill is coming back downhill. On our way downhill, we hit thirty-two miles per hour at one point. Nice.

We stopped at Whitmore Lake...the actual lake...and sat in some shade for a few minutes. Now, while that was nice, what I was eying was the small ice cream shoppe right across the lake. I convinced Marco to forget about his diet for a second (which wasn't hard =)), and we walked into the shoppe, which had twenty-four flavours of soft serve, and, as we found out, was intent on having all local dairy products served. Marco had a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of coffee mocha ice cream, and I had a scoop of black cherry chocolate and a scoop of mint chocolate chip. There we met Samantha, who works there most every day.

Whitmore Lake

The ice cream shoppe, with our bikes parked outside.

Samantha

The only thing not local were the flavourings for the shakes. All of the ice cream was from Guernsey Farms Dairy, Northville, MI.

What's your story? Where do you live, and where do you call home?
"I live in Whitmore Lake, and call Whitmore Lake home. I lived in Ypsilanti from second to tenth grade, but then moved back here. I moved out of my home when I was fifteen, and now live with a woman who is terminally ill, and whose son has Asperger's Syndrome. I showed up at her doorstep with my son, Hayden, who is seven months old...he's all smiles...and my bags, and now she doesn't want me to leave. I am finishing high school online at Kensington Woods High School, in Howell, MI. I didn't want a GED, I wanted to finish high school. My favourite subject is English. I've realised though at Ypsilanti schools are much harder than Whitmore Lake schools. I want to become an X-ray technician or a dental assistant when I am done with high school. I currently work at this ice cream shoppe six days a week. Everything here, except some of the flavourings, is local. The owner really cares about this. The ice cream is from Guernsey Farms Dairy. Guernsey is awesome. The ice cream has 16-17% butter fat, which makes it so much better than other ice creams." I totally agree.

How has this place, and the environment, changed over time?
"This place hasn't changed much, but has become a little more city like. But it really is the same smal town. There is a sense of community here. Everyone knows everyone, and when something happens, the whole town comes together. We've actually had two deaths of high school students in the past three years, and that is an example of when everyone came together. Jessie, a high school freshman, got into a car accident, and Emily passed away from cardiac arrest from alcohol poisoning. The Fourth of July is always fun here. About ten thousand people come here to celebrate."

What do you love about where you live?
"You know everybody here. It is much smaller than Ypsilanti. The graduating class at Ypsilanti High is the size of the entire school here in Whitmore Lake. News spreads though. Like when my mom relapsed, everyone knew."

Traveling at home - Initial thoughts and feedback

Pardon the short nature of this post, for my mind needs a bit of rest. I just wanted to share some initial thoughts I had about the newest part of the blog - traveling at home.

I feel like the notion of traveling at home falls squarely in line with attempts at reducing trash. When we appreciate what it is we have, and where it is we are, we may start looking for beauty, pleasure and wonderment here and now. We don't have to pine for traveling to some far out corner of the world, although that would be nice sometimes. We don't have to pine for something from somewhere else, although that would be nice, too. This may seem like some sort of "localism," and maybe it is, but I think it is more. I have not read much about "localism," but what I hope it means is more than just a patronising of businesses and groups that are close to you. I hope it means that there is a satisfaction with place with a full understanding of what needs to be done environmentally, and consequently socially, to lessen our burdens on this planet; we are a burden it seems.

I would like to find out what it is that people appreciate about the places they are in, and when and why they decide to call it home. It would be interesting to see how observant people are about their surroundings and neighbours. To that end, I am hoping to have a list of three or four questions that I may ask any people I encounter during my "travels." I want your feedback on these questions, and please let me know if you have any questions you'd like to add or subtract from this list.

• Where do you call home?
• Where do you live?
• What do you appreciate about where you live?
• What is your favourite spot close to where you live (25 mile radius)?
• What are some observations about the place you live?

I might also have people volunteer to ask other people they might meet these very questions. It would be interesting to see how this grows.

Your thoughts?

The environmental impact of cities

In preparing for the course I will be teaching with a few other graduate students next semester, I have been reading a lot about the changing landscapes of urban areas. Some urban areas have declined (but are now being reborn) significantly, such as areas in the US Midwest (Detroit, Cleveland, Youngstown, Buffalo), some have been well bounded from the outset (Portland), and others (New York) have continued to grow in population. By 2050, half of the world's population will reside in urban areas. There is a line of thinking, from an environmental standpoint, that concentrating residents in urban environments allows for a more efficient use of resources - energy, water and electricity can all be used more efficiently.

This is a continuation of a previous post on cities - I started thinking about cities again because I am visiting my sister in New York City; she lives in Manhattan and is a fashion designer. In an article in the New Yorker from 2006, David Owen explains why everywhere should be more like New York. Manhattan is a place where you can have multi-million square foot buildings, with tens of thousands of people working in them, with per capita use of energy being much lower than in more decentralised and sprawled urban environments. Mass transit can be used to move scores of people with the same reasoning. What is interesting, however, is the emphasis in the article on energy. (In fact, many people narrowly think that the bulk of the environmental problem today is about energy.) What is not talked much about, which Bettencourt and West from the Santa Fe Institute point out, which is evident when you visit most any urban environment in the US, is the confluence of money and ideas from elsewhere. Ideas can include culture, food, drink, art and music. When you combine multicultural resources with people who have the ability to consume those resources, you have added a whole new layer to the environmental impacts of cities. This struck me when I went inside Eataly, a 50,000 square foot complex that cooks and sells everything Italian. 

I am not going to lie - I eat Italian food, and I love food from all over the world. But it is important to recognise the environmental costs of doing so. (Sam has, and she has gone local. Since I have been buying unpackaged foods, I have also been eating almost exclusively locally-grown foods.) Cities have now become dependent on other cities to provide resources for consumption, and therefore the impacts of the city are no longer contained to the region that the city exists in. This is a key feature of globalisation. Cities now have huge ecological footprints. A study by Folke et al. shows that large cities in the Baltic region of Northern Europe require inputs from land areas between 500-1100 times the land areas of the cities themselves. How do we reconcile growing and rejuvenating urban environments with diversity and environmental impact?

Guest Blog #5: Sarah 'GiGi' Herman - My Leap into the World of Local Food

"I first learned about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in graduate school, during a class attempting to navigate the science and sociology of climate change.  This notion of buying “shares” of food from a local farmer to invest in his business, while reaping the nutritional benefits of farm fresh produce, while ALSO drastically reducing your carbon footprint seemed too good to be true.  Even more, it seemed like one of those crazy ideas that only hippies bought into – how could such a system be sustainable?  I wrote it off as a nice idea, one I’d consider once I was older and had more time for such pursuits. Then I went home that weekend and learned that my parents had recently become CSA members.  My parents?  Buying into a local farm share?  Eating farm fresh veggies?  These were extremely practical people buying into what I thought was a crazy idea, so I decided to reassess my opinions and see what I had missed the first time around.  What a surprise I found!

Community Supported Agriculture is so much more than a fringe idea only capable of supporting a small group of people.  When I relocated to Austin, Texas I did some research to find some local farm share programs.  Not only did I find several different options in the area, but the farm I ended up joining had a thousand members buying into the farm, receiving farm fresh veggies every week.  Even more impressive, this farm started out of the owners’ backyard and expanded until they had to buy an entire plot of land several miles outside of town!  This was obviously not a small group of people trying to make this idea work – it was a successful business.

I quickly signed up for my 10 week share subscription ($30 a week for two reusable bags chock full of farm fresh, just-been-picked produce)  I am 30 weeks into my experiment with local food and I can happily say that this experiment has turned into a lifestyle.  There are so many benefits and perks of being a part of the farm share community, but the most important, in my opinion, are listed below:

• Food is Fresh.  I don’t really know what I used to eat before, but now the sight of most processed foods repulses me, and I really think about what I’m consuming in ways I never had before.  You can truly taste the difference between farm fresh veggies and those that made their way from thousands of miles away.
• Food is Green.  A majority of my food comes from nearby.  This means more nutrients for me, less carbon spewed into our atmosphere during transport, less waste generated (nothing is packaged), and less fertilizers and pesticides clogging up our waterways. (My CSA is all organic)
• Food is not Meat (most of the time).  Too scared to take the vegetarian plunge just yet, joining the CSA has made my meat consumption go down to only once or twice a week, which leads to significant carbon and water waste reductions. And now that I’m more aware of the world of local food, I’ve started to make decisions about eating only meat that was raised outside of the horrors of the American Meat Industry.
• Food is Community.  When I go to pick up my farm share, I get to chat with the farmer.  He tells me all about the crops, and suggests some new ways to prepare the veggies currently in season.  I know where my food comes from now.  I know who grows it.  I go to pick up my food with a sense of excitement and happiness, not the typical dread that I used to have when I’d go to the large grocery store.

Local food has changed the way I live, and how I perceive the community around me.  The mantra “Think Globally, Act Locally” is my new personal slogan.  I join you to take the Local Food Leap with me, you’ll never look back!"

~Sarah