Market Is Open!

ALFN Members,

Welcome to another week of fresh produce and locally-made products on our market! This week there are tasty options of local apples, rabbit, duck, quail, chocolate chevre, salad, arugula and cucumbers.

Rewilding

I sometimes find my imagination can’t get beyond the concrete sidewalks that cover our urban habitats. Do you? My perspective hardens and stiffens into asphalt. Dark tar binds ideas into inanimate slag that slumps down into my consciousness. The world becomes mundane, mortared with an architecture of ennui. In these moments, I have to remember every crack in the cement is an expression of wildness. The world is seething with natural forces. Trees all over Little Rock revolt against our straight lines. Parachuting seeds of anarchy drop from the wild skies and bunker down in crevasses. Raccoons and foxes hunt the nocturnal hours in my backyard and Mississippi Kites patrol the daylight hours from the canopy. If we encourage our imagination to run wild, our behavior may follow. If we intentionally think in wild terms, our policies may become feral. I think the ghosts of old ecosystems are merely waiting for us to invite them back into the world we inhabit. George Monbiot recently wrote a great book that looks at rewilding from a policy perspective. Here is a great video that outlines his ideas: rewilding. But we will never rewild our world until we allow our imaginations to become feral.

Live wildly,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Volunteers Needed

ALFN Members,

Good morning! We are still needing folks to fill our slots for volunteering. We especially need some early shift folks.

Thanks for helping!

Volunteer Here

Weblog Entry

ALFN Members,

Remember to finalize and submit all your orders on the market before it closes Wednesday at noon.

I hope everyone has a great three day weekend. We will have market on Saturday, so remember to drop by for food and a friendly smile.

Also, Labor Day weekend can be a difficult market day to find volunteers. Please sign up if you are available to help! Volunteer Sign-Up.

Thanks

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

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

Volunteers Needed

Good Afternoon,

We are in need of volunteers this weekend. We had a few volunteers who had to adjust their plans due to unexpected events, so I have six shifts open. Please help us out if you are free. Remember you get $5 credit on your account, or you get one month of membership! Please sign-up here: Volunteers.

Thanks!

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Reminder

Remember to get your order submitted before the market closes for the week tomorrow at noon.

Enjoy the day!

The Market Is Open!

ALFN Members,

What a deluge! The sun is starting to shine and the market is open with cheery products. Welcome the sun to evaporate your pooled, stagnant thoughts and mildewed emotions; drive away overcast action!

This 1,000 year rain event that hit parts of Louisiana remind us not only over the relentless forces that drive our planet, but also remind us of the new normal as our climate begins to shift into new patterns. Certain ecological theories dealing with stability and chaos view our climate systems like a marble in a bowl. There are always fluctuations, but the system eventually balances itself. A marble gets pushed up the wall of the bowl, but when the pushing forces stops, the marble falls back into the settled state at the bottom of the bowl. However, the driving forces of greenhouse gases loading the atmosphere continue to push the marble up the wall of the bowl. Eventually, the marble will fall out of the system (bowl) and find a new normal. Imagine there is an unknown bowl outside the current bowl that lives are stabilized within. As the climate is pushed into extreme temperatures, it becomes less likely for it to fall back into the stable system we experience on an annual basis. Eventually, we will crest the limits of normal and fall into a new stable system…one we have never experienced as a civilization. Many scientists argue we have already crested the ridge and now the earth will be driven into a new normal over the next millennia. Human economies and cultures will change with the change of climate. It is our task to begin building the foundation for a humanity that lives with the world, not against it.

In the end, we shouldn’t be driven to depression because of the floods and rains, but learn to live with the floods and rains. Maybe I need to re-watch Water World for insight:)

Have a great week!

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Reminder

ALFN Members,

Remember to get your order into the market before it closes tomorrow at noon. There are still plenty of products to order!

Also, here is a reminder to check out the workshops in the near future:

August 25, 2016 6-8pm: Pickled Cucumber Canning — A classic Dill Pickle will be the recipe for the evening. Expect to learn tips to keep cukes crunchy and take home a jar of pickles to share with friends.

September 15, 2016 6-8pm: Fig & Jalapeno Canning — With summer coming to an end we will wrap up our last session with a course on preserves and a discussion on ways to make jams and jellies.

Tickets ($35): Sign-up at Eventbrite

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Is Open

ALFN Members,

What a wonderful, rainy weekend! I hope you’ve had the chance to relax and enjoy the pitter-patter on the roofs. It may be soggy and gray outside, but the market is open and bursting with color. Take advantage of all the last veggies of summer. But don’t forget we have grains, breads, meats, eggs and much more to choose!

Important Announcements/Dates

Remember to submit your application for the Program Manager position today! A full job description is available by e-mail to arlocalfoodnetwork@gmail.com. Interested candidates should send a cover letter, resume, and contact information for two professional references to arlocalfoodnetwork@gmail.com.

Upcoming Workshops

Please join us at the Kitchen at Christ Church (509 Scott St, Little Rock, AR, 72201) and learn how to preserve the abundant summer produce of Arkansas! The Root Cafe’s Angela Gardner will share and demonstrate the important steps and subtle nuances of preserving the harvest safely and efficiently so that you can enjoy the delicious flavors of summer all winter long! Sign up today as space is limited for this workshop series brought to you by The Southern Center for Agroecology and The Root Cafe.

There are two upcoming workshops ($35 each):
August 25, 2016 6-8pm: Pickled Cucumber Canning — A classic Dill Pickle will be the recipe for the evening. Expect to learn tips to keep cukes crunchy and take home a jar of pickles to share with friends.
September 15, 2016 6-8pm: Fig & Jalapeno Canning — With summer coming to an end we will wrap up our last session with a course on preserves and a discussion on ways to make jams and jellies.

Tickets ($35): Sign-up at Eventbrite

Have a great week,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager
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Volunteers Needed

Good Morning ALFN Members,

We still have three slots open for tomorrow’s market. You can sign up here: Volunteer Spot.

Thanks!

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager