Famers Markets and Activism

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend.  Here in Kahea-land, the weekend went by quickly but nicely.  Friday and Saturday night was for hanging out with Nate and watching movies at home, and on Saturday (as I mentioned here) we went for a pretty easy hike at Sunol Regional Wilderness Reserve.  The park has a cool section called Little Yosemite, where a waterfall and river cut through a ravine and you can walk along it on a really flat road/trail.

On Sunday, we went to our local farmers market to pick up some stuff we've been running low on (namely greens and oranges).  Last weeks meals consisted of a lot of kale stuff -- I made both a kale soup and a crispy kale and pancetta risotto -- and, although we're getting a little closer to the point where we want something else, since kale's in season that's what we're eating.  Do you eat seasonally and regionally?  Alongside really reducing our meat intake, that's something we've been working to do lately.  It's not easy, especially since as a society we're so used to the non-seasons we see in grocery stores, but with the help of a regional/seasonal produce chart, and shopping for some of our stuff at farmers markets, we're acclimating.

Last night, I also volunteered to help out with an event hosted by the Save the Peaks Coalition, a forum which tries to give a voice to citizens who are committed to saving the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona -- which are sacred to a number of tribes -- from being spiritually desecrated and environmentally destroyed, all in the name of recreation (in this case, the U.S. Forest Service is looking to use reclaimed water -- that's right, sewage -- to create snow on the mountain range for skiing, snowboarding, etc., never mind how much of a health hazard this will be if it actually goes through).  Today, the 9th Circuit will be hearing this case and deciding if the environmental risks outweigh the economic benefits, if you can even call them benefits, of this project.  The court won't even consider the fact that this mountain is incredibly holy to Indigenous peoples in the area and destroying it would be tantamount to spiritual genocide.

If you'd like more information on this, you can visit (and support) the Save the Peaks Coalition, or read up on the issue here and here.

Some pictures from the weekend:

Photo by International Indian Treaty Council

Dine' youth come together to save the San Francisco Peaks.  Photo credited to http://instagr.am/p/fqUMe/.

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