Market Is Open!

Good Morning ALFN Members,

This week in the market, the signs of fall are beginning to pre-announce an autumnal arrival. Turkey downpayments are up for grabs, whole forest pig is available, various lettuces and greens and back on the table, and apples are ready!!

With the welcoming of another week, we are also greeted with countless new controversies on the national and international headlines. The never-ending stream of data that sprints across our browsers challenge our own human capacity to identify and dwell on important information. For years, I only “read” the news of my village in Mozambique. I was an extreme local. The rest of the world disappeared, and I only concerned myself with the stories within a pedestrian radius. However, I don’t think this is possible anymore. All of us struggle to define important news from entertainment. All of us struggle to sift the national news into our local actions. Here is one suggestion.

I’ve been reading about about the Sioux Nation’s attempt to halt oil pipeline to be built across their territory in the Dakotas. The stand-off is once again raising conversation not only about fossil fuels, but the history of genocide in the Americas. But I live a long way off from the Dakotas. How do we integrate our own care and concern into how we live? Some of us may feel like the only way to change the world is to join the physical protest. To bounce from protest to protest across the world like a global environmental juggernaut. Of course, this isn’t possible unless protest if professionalized. I’m against the professionalization of protest. Rather, we must all find genuine, small ways to protest the incursion of cooperate interests into our own lives. We begin my starting conversations, analyzing our own consumptive actions, and infuse metaphorical protest into what we value. A plea for ecological living with the planet instead of against the planet begins by positive choices toward a vision that empowers communities to value good work in balance with local land. We can protest big oil by paying attention to our own local growers, our own waste streams and our own community organizers. In the meantime, we should find ways to all the protest from the Dakotas are important to re-describing how we narrate our own world. We don’t have to accept what will be in our headlines this week. We can choose them.

We are always in need of volunteers for our market day. Please sign up if you are available. You can even sign-up for future markets on the calendar! Sign-up Here

Take care,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager