News and ideas for a healthier, more sustainable future.
—by Pax Rasmussen

News and ideas for a healthier, more sustainable future.
—by Pax Rasmussen

Spring’s arrival has brought big changes and weighty revelations to our backyard poultry ranch, not least of which is the snow melting. Bigger yet, though is this news: our goose is laying! I say “goose,”  because, contrary to what our previous beliefs of the gender distribution of our American buff goose flock – that is, two geese, one gander – it’s recently been revealed to us that we in fact have two ganders and one goose. That’s been a tough pill to swallow.

News & ideas for a healthier, more sustainable future. PLUS: Conversation with a gardener (this month, Jonathan Krausert).
—by Pax Rasmussen

Easter is on Sunday, March 31 this year. If your celebration of physical and spiritual renewal features dyed eggs, a roast ham or lamb, consider purchasing directly from one of Utah's farmers. However, many of these producers run small-scale, family-run operations, so get in touch with them early in the month to reserve your Easter dinner. (If your Easter celebration includes some of the more esoteric cultural trappings—willow switches and mystery novels, anyone?—you're on your own.)

News and ideas for a healthier, more sustainable future.
by Pax Rasmussen

Downtown, 10:30pm, a Thursday night. I steer my bike into the parking lot of a popular small Salt Lake business and lean my ride up against a concrete wall. My posse of two pulls up behind me and does the same. Next to us is a blue dump­ster. City lamplight pours down on the bin. A family glides past on bikes glancing our way with a mixture of curiosity and concern. Cars drive by. I'm nervous at being so visible. But, there's nothing illegal about what we are about to do, unless you consider going through someone's trash trespassing.

Perhaps you've seen them: Lone, bundled-up figures, miniature fishing rods in hand, they stand out on the stark white fields of lakes frozen over and glazed with snow. Those hearty people know that beneath a cold layer of ice swim hungry fish, lots of them, ripe for the picking.

You could say Appenzell Farm started in 2008, when Jesse Corbridge and his mother Barbara read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and decided to dedicate their 10 acres to the sustainable farm movement. You could say that the Appenzell Farm really got it's start a year later, when Jesse's grandmother leased her fallow 70-acre lot to the farm.

You likely live in Utah, so why should you care about a proposition on California's ballot? The future of food as we know it depends upon Prop 37's passage.