Healing herbs

Healing herbs
Echinacea and Calendula

Monday 30 April 2012

Feds Criminalizing Small Family Farms Under Ridiculous 'Labor Laws' That Target Children

For civilization to persist, each subsequent generation must be equipped by the previous one with the knowledge and skills to grow food, which traditionally occurs on family-scale farms from parent to child, or from seasoned expert to young amateur. But new labor laws being proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) would prohibit children from performing many of the routine farm chores they have been involved with for centuries, which some see as a direct attack on small-scale agriculture.

The Daily Caller reports that the DoL, under the guidance of the Obama Administration, is proposing that child labor laws be modified to prohibit children under the age of 16 from working with animals, for instance, or from being allowed to work with food storage bins. The proposal also seeks to prohibit children from "being employed in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials," which essentially makes it a crime for farmhands to touch produce once it has been picked.

Originally put forward by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis last fall as a way to further protect children from unsafe working conditions, the proposal threatens unprecedented government overreach into the normal operating procedures of private farms. And while the new provisions would reportedly contain an exemption for children working on farms owned by their parents, they would still drastically limit the freedom of children to learn about agriculture from a young age.

You can view the DoL's proposal announcement here:
http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20111250.htm

Sunday 29 April 2012

The Food Revolution Is Still On!


Welcome back! As all of you who have 'followed' and subscribed to this blog, may have noticed, i 'took a leave of absence' from August last year. I am now back with a new and better looking blog and new blog name; 'The Gardening Apprentice'.

My absence was mainly due to being busy making a living in these austere times. I am now in the process of moving from the city to the countryside, which i can hardly wait for.

It will be a dream come true for me to live closer to nature. somewhere peaceful and quiet, where  i can grow my own organic food, go foraging in the forest and fish in the ocean.

Last year was the first time i attempted to grow my own food and although it didn't turn out any bumper crop to boast about, i took great delight in clearing space, tilling soil, sowing, growing, getting my hands dirty and working in the outdoors (come rain, or shine), developing muscles and getting fit (no need for a gym-membership for me, thank you very much!).

I grew salad leaves, spring onions, asparagus (sadly, only one saw the light of day), red peppers (not successful), peppermint, coriander, strawberries, Eucalyptus, Echinacea, Foxglove and three different types of lavender and am now looking forward to start growing more substantial food, like potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes and cucumber and more this year.

My uprooting has a bit of a sad aspect to it - i will have to say farewell to all my new friends; a nutty family of squirrels, a couple of black birds, a few pigeons, a family of blue tits, and two robins (which is not normal occurrence, apparently, normally there would only be one robin per garden, which i can believe - they are fiercely territorial).

The two robins are my closest friends (amongst my 'garden friends') and i have named one of them Redshield (Rothschild), due to his red chest. He has even got a masonic ladder where he perches on top of, while tweeting away the goings-on of the day ...

Sometimes he follows me and it has happened the curiosity has gotten the better of him and he has flown into my house through an open window, all excited, flying around, until he hits a wall and poops on impact ... and i have to clean up his mess.

Nevertheless, i will miss him and will continue to feed the birds and animals in his honor in my new garden. It is great to reconnect with nature!

Until then, keep sowing those non GMO seeds and making those 'seed bombs'! The food revolution is still on!

New posts coming soon!

The Gardening Apprentice