On Barter'd Time is a monthly publication of the Las Vegas Barter Hours program. This newsletter promotes the use and advancement of the barter system within the city of Las Vegas and surrounding areas. Content is limited to pieces dealing with local currency issues.
Circulation Manager: Cordia Sammeth
Webpage Composition: Jack Rowe
Advertising and Classifieds: Surabhi Atman
Articles and ads should be submitted by e-mailing Cordia, or dropping her a note at 846 Sperry Drive, Las Vegas, NM 87701 on or before the end of the month for publication in the next month's newsletter.
Please submit Bric-a-Brac ads by e-mailing Surabhi Atman, or call her at 425-3789. Please clearly describe the item in your ad and include price, terms and contact info.
It was a cold night January 7th—freezing rain and icy roads. Inside Lucy Trujillo’s warm, solar heated house, Barter Hours members worked and ate. Each person contributed to one of 3 working groups.
The New Member Contest group came up with good suggestions. They sat at the kitchen table and tried to keep their minds on business and not the enchiladas (yum). This is a contest to see who can recruit the most new members. It was approved by the members that the contest start April 1st and end April 30th, and award the following prizes:
The group made a suggestion that business members receive more Barter Hours for joining, eight hours was suggested. This discussion will continue at the next meeting.
Next to the kitchen table group was the “Grants” working group. They were distracted by biscotti and chocolate cake sitting right on their table. Even with that, they discussed the way our Barter Hours organization could give Barter Hours to a non-profit that is working in the community. They made a draft of a request form and suggested that the grants serve the Tri-county area. The concept of giving a grant of Barter Hours has not been voted on by the membership yet. IthacaHours.org is a website that has information on a similar Grants Program. We will continue the discussion at the next meeting.
The average bite of food eaten by a U.S. American has travelled over 1,200 miles.
"Alternative Agriculture," National Research Council 1986
In the dining room and farthest from the food, was the largest working group—a ‘Local Food Brochure’ project. This idea progressed to a skeleton structure of who to include in the brochure. Local farmers will be listed (and those who accept Barter Hours noted). As you probably know, there are many good reasons to identify sources of local food and to support our local producers. This group promises to bring a rough draft to the next meeting where we can add other people we know in the community who grow food locally.
Lucy Trujillo and Richard Lau volunteered to make signs for businesses that accept Barter Hours. They will need help from other members as they get farther along. Let them know if you want to help.
There were two “New Member Orientation” meetings in January, one at the Travelers Café and the second one at Maryann’s Famous Burrito Kitchen. We are happy to welcome both businesses as new members. At these meetings, we show a video about the Ithaca, New York Barter Hours program, the model for our program. We answer questions and get to know each other. Anyone who has not been to one of these meetings and wants to know more about Barter Hours is welcome. Call Virginia West at 454-9830 for dates and locations.
All members in the 2008 Directory as of January 31st have confirmed that their listings are up to date. Many people helped accomplish this long and difficult task... thanks to all! For future purposes, I will advocate for renewals to be due on the anniversary date of the member's original sign up, beginning January 2009.
To minimize costs and save paper, up-to-date Directory listings are always available on our website. For those who use a paper copy, additions and changes (new members, etc.) will be included in each monthly newsletter. Please let us know if you are not getting your newsletter, or if you can't access the Directory on the web.
Here is a list of the new members who've joined during February... click on their names (if underlined) to go to the Directory and see the services they are offering. Welcome, new members!
Frank Cordova
A great deal of permacultural problem solving rests on simply seeing old problems with fresh eyes. If we look at our surroundings from different viewpoints, we often find that so-called 'problems' are based on unacknowledged assumptions and self-imposed mental restrictions rather than on external realities.
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
We take for granted unimaginative, restrictive or dysfunctional definitions for many powerful yet inconspicuous words ('useful,' 'normal,' 'different,' etc.). The word 'normal,' for instance, began as a harmless mathematical concept but has since expanded to represent our culture's self-conscious conviction that being different is somehow not 'ok.'
When we use narrow, vague, mechanistic, exploitative and/or prejudicial definitions for words, this does not take away from their power—it just misplaces it, to the disadvantage of ourselves and the systems around us.
We live in a world where—despite all our technological wizardry—our very existence still relies on complex ecosystems that we never completely comprehend. Though we do not begin to understand the ecosystems that feed us, clean and recycle our water, and create the very air we breathe, we continue to invade and alter them.
Be careful what you ask for—you might get it!
Anonymous
We remove all the trees from our grazing lands, for instance, because trees use water that we covet for growing grass. These same grasslands then become much drier, however, because water lost to the air from tree leaves is responsible for the great majority of inland rain—grasses do not begin to return enough groundwater to the air to maintain the rain cycle. The result is gradual desertification... because of our shortsighted grasping for 'more' we inevitably end up with less.
We seem to have adopted Albert Einstein's definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results) as our collective mantra. To counter agricultural weed pests' quickly developing resistance to Roundup, we don't pursue more holistic approaches to how we plant and manage crops—instead our EPA triples allowable Roundup residue levels. Our collective mind has abandoned prudence and thoughtfulness in support of our addictions to immediate gratification and the bottom line.
"The foolish believe what they think, not what they see.
The wise believe what they see, not what they think."
Huang Po
Before jumping blindly into 'dealing with' perceived problems, then, we would do well to make sure that the ideas and contexts through which we view and manipulate our surroundings are sophisticated and flexible enough to deal with what is really there instead of what we'd like to see.
Without consciously remembering to look more deeply, unfortunately, our tendency seems to be to treat symptoms instead of their underlying causes. Thus we often find (typically much later) that we've temporarily alleviated symptoms at the expense of causing their underlying causes to become more entrenched.
A common gardening example would be sterilizing greenhouse soil to 'prevent' damping-off fungus—thereby creating the very conditions (sterile soil lacking a balanced microbial community) that encourage damping off.
Permaculture therefore asks that we remember to perform a 'reality check' before acting, to determine whether a particular problem is real or simply a figment of prejudicial ways of seeing and thinking.
A large quantity of manure in a house or animal pen, for instance, is a pollutant, but the same manure spread in a thin layer over a garden is a resource. An infestation of grasshoppers or snails in the garden is a problem, yet if we allow chickens or turkeys to reach the pests they become a resource.
The 'problem' in these cases is not the existence of manure or insects themselves. Rather, the problem is how we have chosen to view our world, with the result of allowing resources to accumulate without also allowing access by the animals or systems that could use them productively. As Marcel Proust observed, "The real journey of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes."
300 kilowat Windmills near Tehachape,
in California.
Just as organic materials tend to act as pollutants when we allow them to accumulate without being productively used, water, sunlight and even wind can be either problems or resources depending on how they are perceived and managed.
Rainwater soaking into the soil around the foundation of your home can be a problem, but the same water diverted into storage for later use in a garden or orchard is a welcome resource.
Too much afternoon sunlight streaming into large west-facing windows can be a problem, but sunlight allowed into our homes in smaller, absorbable amounts throughout the day can warm our houses for free and lower the need for less-attractive artificial lighting.
Wind, too, can be either a problem or resource. Unblocked wind harasses people, animals and crops, and causes a majority of heat loss from heated buildings. Wind blocked by wind generators, on the other hand, is turned to valuable electrical power.
On a low-tech level, wind blocked by windbreaks of useful trees and shrubs can be turned into firewood, posts and lumber, fruits and nuts, animal forages, refuge for wildlife and nature-loving humans, and so on.
In fact, both crops and animals get such a boost from the protection provided by windbreaks that more than 10% of cropping areas can be planted to windbreak with no drop in total production of the original crop—thus providing 'for free' the land for the diversified crops of the windbreak itself.
Oil pumps near Lubbock, Texas...
compare with picture of windmills, above.
Amazingly, the only differences in these cases between problem and resource are our own mindsets. The moment we begin to question our assumptions, the most intractable part of the transformation from pollution to bounty is already completed...often all that remains is carrying out careful stewardship of our 'new' resources.
This focus on changing our perception of organic wastes, insect infestations, wind, sunlight and rain from 'problems' to be dealt with to resources to be collected and used productively is a major tool of permacultural management.
In these times of deep, pressing need for change on every societal level—cultural, technological, political, agricultural, etc.—reviewing our definitions is a powerful tool we would do well to apply to every part of our experience. Otherwise, our myriad imaginary 'problems' may well be our downfall.
There are 2 workshops currently "in the works."
The first will be a 2½ hour Gardening Workshop on preparing the soil for gardening, presented by Barter Hours member Hedy Trevino. The Gardening Workshop will be held on a Saturday in March, in time to help you get ready for the spring growing season. Contact Cordia Sammeth by e-mail or phone (426-1468) or Carlos Lopez by phone at 429-4587. You can also sign up at the March 5 meeting at Maryann's Burritos. Price for the workshop is 2 Barter Hours.
The second is a Barter Hours website-oriented workshop taught by Barter Hours member Jack Rowe, our Illustrious WebPerson. He will cover items like how to search the webpage Directory; how to open, save and attach e-mail attachments; how to print front and back; how to navigate; how to sign up for the Trading Post; how to hibernate your computer; and other ostensibly-helpful information.
Anyone else wanting to take or teach a workshop? Call Carlos at 429-4587!
Wanted: 100 2" to 3" individual planting pots, will pay Barter Hours and cash. For info, call Rosalie at 454-1571.
For Sale: Asian art, handmade glass jewelry, gift items at wholesale prices. Will accept part Barter Hours, part cash. For appointment call Antionette at 425-8698.
Wanted: Someone to fix Singer sewing machine for Barter Hours/cash. Call Surabhi at 425-3789.
Wanted: A ride to Phoenix around end of January or early February (flexible dates). Will share gas and driving. Call Sherrill at 454-1572.
For Sale: 4 double-pane solar glass panels, $90 and 2 Barter Hours each. For info, call Sherrill at 454-1572.