Fresh Connections – The Parfitt Way Blog

“The difference in rates of dosage rises to at least nine times as much in the case of cattle raised for beef, and may be as high as 16 times the rate of dosage per cow in the UK.”

See the full text from the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/08/huge-levels-of-antibiotic-use-in-us-farming-revealed?CMP=share_btn_link

“Nearly three quarters of the total use of antibiotics worldwide is thought to be on animals rather than humans, which raises serious questions over intensive farming and the potential effects on antibiotic resistance, which can easily be spread to people.”

Did you know Washington and Oregon together grow roughly 86 percent on the nation’s pears? Read on to find out more facts residents should know.

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/yakima-valley-s-crop-of-pears-almost-beyond-compare-things/article_bfcff710-977e-11e7-be6d-2bc8858ac32f.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Cultivating Success: a curriculum for local food systems
“Starting a Specialty Food Business”

When: August 21 @ 4:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Where: Olympic College, Poulsbo, Room 220

Sponsored by Farm Services Agency, WSU Extension and Kitsap Community & Agricultural Alliance

Presented by Kim Hoffmann, Washington State Department of Agriculture, with guest speakers.

Learn about how you can start a specialty food business, including home-based production. Kim Hoffmann from the Washington State Department of Agriculture–plus specialty food producer guests–will talk about operations and requirements, product and cost considerations, & helpful resources and programs.

This class is the second in a series of monthly, local food systems courses for new and beginning farmers and producers. To learn about the series, visit http://extension.wsu.edu/kitsap/agriculture/business-2/

Doors and registration open at 4:00 pm
Course fee $20
Day-of-class registration $20 permitted on a space-available basis; cash or check only.
Light refreshments served, but please bring a sack lunch.

Justin Blotsky picks beets in Mt. Vernon, Washington on Wednesday, September 7, 2016. Photo by Clay Lomneth / The American Legion.

“I’ve known a lot of people who have been to combat and came back quite changed,” explained Kenny Holzemer, a 22-year retried navy air crewman and the executive director for of Growing Veterans.

Growing Veterans is a Washington-based organization that aims to help veterans successfully transition into civilian life through sustainable organic farming. Launched in 2012, co-founders Marine Corps veteran, Chris Brown, and mental health counselor, Christina Wolf, recognized that farming can be both a therapeutic activity for returning veterans and a way to explore a potential new career path.

“It’s a really great opportunity to bring the healing powers of nature to people,” explained Wolf. “And the healing powers of having a community of people who you can rely on.”

Recent studies have looked at the mental health benefits of gardening. But Wolf says she doesn’t need any scientific research to know farming can be therapeutic. “Those of us who do it just know instinctively that it helps us feel better. Researchers are like, ‘How can we study it and prove it?’ But it’s just something so innate to people. We just get it.”

The organization has also developed its own three-day peer-support training for staff members, volunteers, and anyone else interested in taking the course.

“As we were working with a lot of veterans on our farms, we found that a lot of people wanted to be kind of a support system for others, but they didn’t feel like they had the skills to do that,” explained Wolf. In addition to the veterans who enter the program as farmers and volunteers, veterans make up eighty percent of the organization’s staff.

“Our training is really on both sides. How to be a helper to someone else, and how to get help for yourself when you need it,” Wolf explained. “We just see that as a normal human experience. It’s not a bad thing for me to support you—it’s just a human thing. We all need that sometimes.”

Find out how to help Growing Veterans efforts at:

www.growingveterans.org

Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, based in Washington, DC, advocates for clean energy solutions mostly on the federal level.  They recently filmed Congressman Reichert in his office about clean energy and its importance in Washington state.  He specifically mentioned Impact Bioenergy and used part of PSE‘s Pub HORSE video in their video as well.  Click below to watch.

The Central Kitsap Farmers Market was established in 2017 by the Kitsap Community & Agricultural Alliance in response to the community’s requests to provide a centralized outlet for producers as well as an easily accessible market for all.

The market takes place every Tuesday from 3pm – 7pm in Old Town Silverdale, between the Waterfront Park and boat launch. The 2017 season starts Tuesday, May 2nd and goes through Tuesday, October 10th.

Questions about the market? Contact info@kitsapag.org

http://kitsapag.org/ckfarmersmarket/

Nothing is as universal or as personal as food – we all eat, we are all consumers.

Strong local food systems positively impact every aspect of local economies and culture.

By supporting local food you make an enduring investment in your community.
That said –  we welcome The Local Food Trust!

Their mission is to grow culture and community through strategic investments in our local food system. Initial target areas are the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas.

Teamed with organizations in the food industry and through the Trust their hope is to pair them with grants and investments from foundations, corporations and individuals. These investment will help recipients build and sustain their work and allow them to connect and collaborate with their peers all along the food system.

The Trust was formed last October as a non-profit organization. Their partners include the Kitsap Community Foundation (fiscal sponsor), Washington State University Extension Program, and 1% for the Planet sponsorship of Grounds for Change, a local coffee roaster with global reach.

Now all they need is YOU!
Please share the mission, vision and goals of the Trust with others.
If you know of an organization, individual, a project or program that could benefit from The Trust, encourage them to apply for funding support.
You can make a tax deductible donation – join and become a food matchmaker and ambassador.  They are participating in the Kitsap Great Give on May 2nd – another great opportunity to donate.

To receive more info contact Patricia Hennessey at info@supportlocalfood.org

Getting Started

“The whole neighborhood was against it,” explains Jocelyn, whose parents opened the Harbour Public House in 1991. Neighbors remembered the Bloody Bucket, a “rough bar” that had been down the street, and they didn’t want to deal with that headache again. But Jocelyn’s parents, Jim and Judy Evans, dreamed of opening a pub for years—inspired by Jim’s English heritage—and they were determined.

The couple had moved to Seattle in 1966 after Jim was offered a job teaching civil engineering at the University of Washington. The appeal of waterfront property and the cheap land prices of those days quickly brought the couple across the water to Bainbridge Island.

Both Jocelyn and her brother Chris grew up on the island. And after a brief stint of the family living on a sailboat (Jim and Judy also dreamed of sailing across the world with the whole family one day), the couple bought the property where the Harbour Public House sits today.

There were two homes on the land and years later one of them would be remodeled into the pub. It was an old house; with floors so slanted that Jocelyn remembers being able to let go of her toy car in one corner of the house and watch it roll across the floor to the other.

The idea of opening a business stayed with Jocelyn’s parents as they watched their kids grow up. And in the 1980s, they began the process of renovating the house into a pub.

All in all, it took about five years before the doors opened. The first step was getting the necessary permits, which was difficult since a year-long teaching job took Jim and Judy to New Zealand during the first part of the process. Although she was just a senior in high school, Jocelyn was tasked with going to the required city council meetings on their behalf and listening to the ‘Bloody Bucket’ worries of neighbors.

Eventually, the permits were granted and construction began. By this time, Jim was back at the UW and decided to take advantage of his class of civil engineering students. He posed the question of how to remodel his old home into a functioning bar as a final exam. The winning design was used in the actual building renovations.

The Early Days

After high school, Jocelyn went to college in California and spent some time traveling abroad in Italy and England. When her senior year rolled around, her parents still hadn’t opened the pub. They were stalling. The realities of their dream business was daunting.

But Jocelyn insisted they had to bite the bullet and give the pub a shot. And finally, during her senior year of college, they opened it. She came to help them with their first few weeks of operation, and then returned to school.

Not long before her graduation, Jocelyn got a call from her parents asking her to move back to the island to manage the pub. As it turned out, neighbor’s liked the Harbour Public House. It was nothing like the Bloody Bucket nightmares they’d imagined. But Jim and Judy didn’t have experience managing a bar, and they needed help running the place. Jocelyn wasn’t interested. But they kept calling.

“I had this mental block about living in my hometown,” explains Jocelyn about her apprehension to move home to run the pub.

In the end she agreed to come for one year. When that was up, she agreed to stay for one more year. And when that was up…

“I had applied to law school,” she explains. She had every intention to leave. The past couple of years had been difficult showing up as the owner’s daughter and managing a large staff of people — most older than she was.

But at the same time, she was surprised at how much she enjoyed the life she’d built on Bainbridge.

“Until I started working at the pub, I always considered myself an introvert,” she explains. “When I started working at the pub I could make jokes and people thought I was funny. That had never been the case before.”

Jocelyn enjoyed customer service, managing staff, and being a part of the Bainbridge community. It also didn’t hurt that she had recently met her future husband, Jeff, and wanted to stick around to see how their relationship would unfold.

After a little deliberation, she “gave in to the inertia and stayed.”

Part of the Community

Jocelyn worked full time at the pub for 23 years. She got married at the pub. She’s met some of her best friends at the pub. She’s watched as friends and staff members have met their future husbands and wives there too.

“My favorite thing about owning the pub is the community aspect,” says Jocelyn. “We’re living in a community and we’re an intricate part of it.”

And when they had their first child, Jeff and Jocelyn were able to split the business responsibilities, allowing Jocelyn to be a full-time mom with a full-time career without putting her kids in daycare.

“It was the best thing I ever did,” Jocelyn says about her decision to embrace the opportunities she had on Bainbridge.

Contributed by Liz Pleasant

The mechanical HORSE is temporarily employed adjacent to our parking lot. Initially permitted for six-months, the Pub was able to negotiate one six-month extension to keep the unit operating for demonstration purposes. The self-contained HORSE, which stands for High solids Organic waste Recycling System with Electrical output imitates other biological ruminants (barnyard animals). When optimized, it steadily “eats” or otherwise diverts over 100 pounds of our carbon-based wastes from our waste bins.

Partnered with Puget Sound Energy and Impact BioEnergy, the Pub’s HORSE pilot demonstration is in full swing. Having arrived in September, 2016, the unit has been put into full production mode over the past few months. Because this is the first unit using nothing but food waste, the Pub is documenting the practices that work best with its particular blend of food wastes and volume.
During startup, the Pub and the engineers from Impact BioEnergy have been met with a few challenges. Each one has been overcome, so far, and the unit is operating as expected.

As of printing, we are generating 2.7ft3 of biogas (methane)per lb. of food waste (currently 3.3 MMBTU/ton of food waste) – the goal is to come as close to 5.7 MMBTU/ton as possible. When we can reach 5.7 MMBTU/ton of food we will be able to say “1 ton of food scraps is yielding the equivalent energy in 1 barrel of crude oil.”

The goals of this particular demonstration have remained the same:
1. Demonstrate to the community that this project and ones like it are viable.
2. Inspire a public dialogue about resource recovery through coordinated projects like this one.
3. Develop strategies for locating and funding permanent projects.