Jen Holling

How are your chickens doing this time of year?  Does anybody have any tips or advice for caring for chickens in the winter time. I have seen some chickens with frost bite scars on their combs and waffles. Ouch!  And, I see a lot of people using heat lamps to help deal with the cold. I've heard that this can affect their sleep/rest, but this is just me assuming. any thoughts or advice from chicken owners?

It looks like Free Cycles and MIST belong on this list of permaculture resources. Bikes rule! and so does green transportation.

I thought I would bring this post back to the top as a resource.

I have been printing pictures for gifts this year. I wanted to make my own frames but don't have the tools and ended up at the thrift stores buying up some interesting pictures that happen to have a decent frame around them. I've found some pre-cut mattes from a couple places in town and now have nicely framed pictures that look great! Why had I not done this before?

You can win up to $1,000!
Missoula In Motion is seeking nominations for the 2010 Transportation Best Practices Award.
Nominate your employer, business or organization for the 2010 Transportation Best Practices Award!

The Transportation Best Practices Award aims at telling the stories and showcasing Missoula businesses and organizations that have chosen to turn the "daily grind" of getting around town into something more positive for their customers and employees.  These organizations have implemented innovative, sustainable programs and policies that save money, reduce emissions, ease traffic congestion, alleviate parking pressure and improve the health of their employees/customers.

The award showcases how their program helps improve transportation within our community by supporting and encouraging the use of sustainable transportation.  New this year, the three category award winners will each receive a cash award and one will be selected as the Grand Champion to be featured in local media and receive additional funds to enhance their transportation programs.  Please nominate your business or organization!

For more information, follow this link:  http://bit.ly/tbpa2010.
 
Missoula In Motion
127 W. Spruce
Missoula, MT 59802
(406) 258-4962
jthompson@co.missoula.mt.us

I am optimistic about the possibilities that permaculture offers to us as a means to address morality in society. Why not employ more effective and efficient means of building, water management, use of energy, efficient irrigation, crop rotation, pasture rotation, polyculture, and the list goes on forever in support of a more productive system that simultaneously strengthens our communities. I guess I have never really thought about permaculture being part of our moral responsibility, but I guess it is within the context that our society needs to move to more resilient systems that aren't degrading the environment and our social fabric. 

I just heard an interesting bit on the radio this morning about the many benefits of eating healthy food and produce. The guy interviewed explained how he was aware of research that was being done to proactively and reactively treat cancer through eliminating the foods and nutrients feeding the cancerous tumors. Surely, I am missing the details here, but, part of the extension of this research was to identify the best plants, the best regions to grow them, the best soils, and natural amendments to produce the most healthy and beneficial plants.

Plants and veggies were being tested with a Bricks test (sp?) to determine optimal sugar content and found that root vegetables grown in northern climates had significantly more sugars compared to more southern climates. This sounds kind of obvious, but the implications of spreading this knowledge around can have big implications for the promotion of the value of local markets and products and the value of eating foods that are appropriate to your climate. ah food.

With the winter months upon us I was wondering if anyone out there was using worms for indoor food composting?  I moved from a place fairly recently where we had chickens, but not anymore, so I am looking to start a worm bin. Does anybody know a good place to find the worms? or know of any designs to recommend?  Any thoughts on these little wigglers?

It would be great to see more people using this forum to talk about all things permaculture.
The nature of forums like this seems to be that the topics run by so quickly it is hard to keep the important topics in the line order for discussion. We already have sites in Missoula that give us the run down of what is happening in Missoula. This seems like the place to discuss and share ideas about some of those events related to permaculture.

It is important to know the source of meat products.
For that matter, it is important to know where all of your food products are from.
I believe in the ethics of vegetarianism, but I feel good sourcing protein from my friends who hunt and from local farmers who raise their animals humanely and organically.