I finally got around to finding a copy of this season’s Northeast Georgia Living Magazine. One of the cover stories is called “Home on the Free Range” and talks about the new organic labelling requirements from the USDA. The author talks about how some farmers are choosing to not get official certification and instead let the customers “certify” the product by getting to know the farmers and their practices and deciding for themselves whether the product is one they wish to buy. He has a few quotes from one such pair of local farmers, Chris and Eric Wagoner of Boann’s Banks. [Listening to: old home filler-up an’ keep on trucking cafe - [C.W. McCall](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22C.W. McCall%22) - Greatest Hits ]

The local paper has a big article today on local vegetable farms, and focuses heavily on our farm and the Locally Grown cooperative we belong to. [Listening to: ADDING UP NUMBERS - KOMPRESSOR]

High in the mountains of northern British Columbia is a lake the Tahltan people call Skyfish. It exists still as it has existed always – guarded by strong forests, water so clear you can see the fish strike. It is a world of biodiversity and tranquility. A world with clean air, abundant food, and fresh water. Skyfish is a world to which everyone should have the right. But most of us live in another world - a place where consumption and excess exists beside poverty and pollution. We exist in a schizophrenic society, in a time when we can no longer afford to be unawarse of the consequences of pollution and globalization, or of the values of our current economic system - when the effects of one nation’s lifestyle can have an impact on all others. Now, more than ever, we live in a time when our thoughts and actions really matter. The Skyfish Project is an arena for thoughts and action. A forum for examining and questioning the world we live in, and the world we are creating. To talk about the way we live our lives, and the way we’d like to live. If we want to move towards a better, balanced way of living, we must first identify a new vision of the future. The Skyfish Project is a place to connect on ideas and issues. It’s a place to learn from others, and share what you know. It’s an invitation to question the world you live in; and a challenge to take action and responsibility for the way you live your life. Welcome to the Skyfish Project.

[Listening to: tennessee waltz - [patsy cline](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22patsy cline%22)]

The Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday made a bad wildfire bill even worse by further expanding the excuses for gutting environmental protections for commercial logging in National Forests. The Senate is expected to vote on wildfire legislation, based on the Bush Administration’s ill-named “Healthy Forests Legislation,” in September. Rather than increasing funding and resources to protect communities from wildfires, or preserving the right of the public to have say in the management of their National Forests, the Committee simply made it easier for timber corporations to log old-growth trees and make a profit off of tax-payer lands. Among the damaging provisions the committee added to the bill (HR 1904) was language to expand the areas where destructive logging can take place without environmental review or oversight. Under the committee-passed bill, timber companies could receive taxpayer subsidies to log anywhere in National Forests hit by an ice storm. A May 14, 2003 General Accounting Office report showed that two out of every three acres of federal lands logged in the past two years were outside of the “wildland-urban interface” – the area where communities and forest areas intersect. But scientific studies have shown that the best way to protect communities is to thin small trees and brush from immediately around homes and buildings – not by logging large, fire resistant trees deep in National Forests miles away from where people live. Studies have also shown that 85 percent of the land surrounding communities most at risk of fire is state, private or tribal land – not federal land. But money under this bill is directed almost exclusively to federal land. Along with adding ice storms to the list of reasons to roll back environmental review and interfere with the independent judiciary, the committee-passed bill also added municipal watersheds to the areas exempted from environmental safeguards. This expansion means that many more logging projects far from communities will be exempted from important environmental reviews. More information about industrial logging under the guise of fuels reduction can be found in this PDF document from the American Lands Alliance. [Listening to: boogie on the beach - [red elvises](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22red elvises%22) - ]

Being deprived of my blog right now would be akin to suffering extensive brain-damage. Huge swaths of acquired knowledge would simply vanish. Just as my TiVo frees me from having to watch boring television by watching it for me, my blog frees me up from having to remember the minutae of my life, storing it for me in handy and contextual form.

Cory Doctorow articulates his blog (and mine) in his article “My Blog, My Outboard Brain” It’s over a year old, but still very true. [Listening to: Someday I Suppose - [The Mighty Mighty Bosstones](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22The Mighty Mighty Bosstones%22) - Don’t Know How to Party ]

We were able to recover most everything off my bad drive, so I’m back in business. Only thing that I know are lost are all my installed fonts, but those can be found again as I need them. The farm photos are back, too. I’ve been able to pre-load several days’ worth, so they should be there when you want to look at them. If you missed last week’s, you can always see them at the photolog main page. Or, I could just link them for you: Tomatillos Squash Blossom Ragweed Hen in Grass Cherry Tomatoes Zucchini [Listening to: Welcome Back (Kotter Theme) - [John Sebastian](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22John Sebastian%22) - Sounds Of The Seventies - 1976 ]

Want to talk to a couple nice FBI agents? It’s simple, really. Just read an article critical of FOX News in public at an Atlanta coffeehouse. They’ll do the rest. Or, you can report yourself by [clicking here](mailto:pdamuro@fbi.gov?subject=Just so you know, I read this article: http://charlotte.creativeloafing.com/newsstand/2003-06-04/news_cover.html). [Listening to: Times Like This - [Edie Brickell & New Bohemians](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22Edie Brickell%22) - Ghost of a Dog ]

Another sign that I’m a big ole geek: The men’s restroom at my workplace has a Bucknard’s Everjamming Paper Towel Dispenser.

Be sure to check out today’s farm photo. Not only to you get a mediocre picture, you also get a haiku! Unfortunately, there may not be more photos this week until I get my hardware back up.

The primary hard drive on my work computer, where I spend much of my computer time, died over the weekend. I’ve spent today installing a new drive and now have the long task of re-installing all of my applications ahead of me. There were a few things on the old drive that might be lost forever, though I’m holding out hope that I can recover the data. Among the missing: six years of email, many miscellaneous documents, twenty gigs of ripped CDs, and all of my digital photography. The only thing I’d really be upset at losing would be the photos. Just yesterday I was pricing external hard drives so I could have a backup of all the pictures. Still can’t afford it. If I do manage to recover them, I’ll figure out a way to archive them. Burn them to multiple CDs, if nothing else.