PermaFerndale Podcast Available on iTunes

Hooray! iTunes finally approved the official podcast for subscription!

Here is the iTunes link so you can click "subscribe" and get every episode as they come out!

Based on the hosting account I've set up, I should be capable of uploading up to 3 podcasts per month. So, with any luck I will record and post a new episode every 10 days or so. Since this is the last day of the month, I'll attempt to get a new episode online in the first week of June, then again by the end of the second week or the beginning of the third and the final episode will come out just before the end of the month.

I think that this will not be too much, but if it ends up being a bit crowded, I may switch to a bi-monthly structure and record a bit of extra content each episode.

Enjoy!

PermaFerndale Podcast #1 is live!

I recorded this a little over a week ago, but I've had a lot of issues getting it hosted and then getting it into the iTunes store. In the meantime, the podcast is finally online and I have the site for it mostly set up.

The following is the transcript for the entire episode. I don't know if I will do every episode in this detail, but I was pretty nervous this first time and decided to write myself out a script. You can notice that the first minute or two I'm trying to read directly from the screen until I realize that it sounds completely inorganic and I stop. Yikes!

I am hosting through podbean.com right now and I get 100MB of upload space every month, so ideally I'd like to record 3 episodes each month on different topics. I'm also hoping to have guests in the near future, since I'm pretty sure my voice is rather boring…

So here is the link to the feed. The first episode is there to download or just stream.

And here is the entire transcript of the episode. In the future this will be more like a synopsis and less like a transcript.

"Welcome to the first episode of the PermaFerndale podcast. Since this is the first time I've ever done anything like this, you will have to bear with me as I learn how to get the music and sound features to cooperate. I used to use audio recording software quite frequently years ago when I would record the terrible punk bands I was part of, but it's been close to a decade since and I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty.

So, like any good business, I'll start with my mission statement. One of the main purposes behind my choice to finally start podcasting is that I get a lot of people asking me questions all the time about urban farming, gardening, rain barrels, chickens…etc. Instead of just answering individuals as they come along, I thought this might be a nice way of disseminating that information to lots of people at once. I also tend to prefer making my conversations with others accessible. What good is it to me if I know a bunch of technical stuff and lord it over everyone else? None. That's what. So a big part of what I do, whether it is involving food or farming or permaculture or axes or anything else, is to make my best attempt at normalizing the information and making it easy to digest and understand. This podcast will hopefully cover many topics and, with any luck, I will always be able to keep my audience engaged. So, without further adieu, let's get rolling.

Today's episode is going to focus on the recent decision by the State of Michigan to remove some of the protections of the Right to Farm Act, henceforth referred to as the RTFA. I recently had multiple people express concern to me, via FB, that we were going to lose the ability to raise chickens in our backyards here in Ferndale. I'm finally building my coop this summer, so everyone imagined this to be a huge blow to me personally and they all wanted to be sure I knew what was coming. I will get the first article I read in a moment, but I'd like to start with some basic details for those who do not know what the RTFA is.

It was originally set up in 1981 to protect small farmers from frivolous lawsuits based on normal farming practices that neighbors of farms did not agree with. 

Inquisitr.com has an article that has some very clear bias from the beginning. The unknown author has interview quotations stating that Michigan does not want residents to have food freedom etcetera… They even throw some great misinformation in there by saying the RTFA protected backyard and urban farming, which is simply not true. Luckily, I've seen this kind of extreme outcry in the past and I was able to see through it to the core of what this decision really means. My suspicions were validated in a search recently for a slightly more credible article. 

Bloom, Sluggett, Morgan Law website has a very clear description of what the RTFA is and what this all means…and they cite their sources! Hooray! They say that the RTFA only protects your chicken raising if your farming operation is for profit or commercial in nature. This means that if your local municipality has an ordinance that doesn't allow chickens, you can't have 3 hens and then use RTFA to keep the cops from taking them when your neighbors complain.

This removal of state control is simply to allow the smaller municipalities to make decisions about agricultural practices within their boundaries. The dramatic headlines and outcry that the Dept of Ag has been purchased by Monsanto is ridiculous.

MIGardener: He says he has a family friend who is a Michigan State representative… He went off what people told him… This is not a law, so it isn't illegal to grow chickens… It is a set of standards… people would quote RTFA to grow chickens in cities, which does not protect them specifically…  

So where does this leave us? Well, in Ferndale it leaves us exactly where we were prior to the decision earlier this month. Ferndale allows chickens by ordinance, plain and simple. Now, those who live in areas that do not allow chickens in the ordinance can either continue to do it and attempt to get away with it, or they can petition their local government for a change in the local codes. If that doesn't work, they could move… Basically, we are all back to following the rules of our local governments, which is how it has always been anyway. What a hullabaloo…

So finally, I'd like to wrap this episode up with some information about what I'm doing in the way of a more global goal. I get to talking about all of this stuff and the conversation gets directed one way or another, but I feel like I rarely get to express my true intentions. 

I've started a Facebook group called Ferndale Permaculture. It is loosely based on a group out of Jacksonville FL that I'm a part of and I want it to eventually grow and serve the same type of purpose that the FL group does. The idea is that we are all part of this city and as a community of people, there should be almost nothing we are unable to achieve together. The group is meant to serve as a bulletin board for people to post questions for each other from "What kind of weed is this? Can I eat it?" to "I need a ride to the train station, is anyone available to take me?" In this way, we are functioning on a higher level as a community with no reward system apart from the good feeling that we are helping each other and in turn we are getting the help we need regularly. Attached to this group is a blog I've started to be able to expand on some of the topics covered in this podcast and on the group page on FB. The blog will help us catalog information better than FB currently does.

I'm also starting a small consulting business this year called Sustainable City Designs. It is completely permaculture based, including the payment system, which I will elaborate on in a later episode. I would ideally like to have a few clients that I can work with regularly to build permaculture systems and experiment in the urban design medium. I've already begun to build up my backyard and I'd like to work on many others as well. I'm already working with several friends and coworkers in gardens and small scale design methods, but I hope to expand beyond this soon.

Finally, I'd like to share my final goal with everyone. This studying and designing is all leading to something big, as we all have plans for the rest of our lives. My hope with all of this is to one day have a farm and my only job will be to survive. Ideally we would make nearly everything we need and live a subsistence lifestyle. It would be a much simpler life than we live now, off grid and enjoying life instead of working to pay off debt forever. We have some opportunities that have presented themselves in the past year or two that give me the hope of achieving this goal in 20 or so years.

Thank you to anyone who has taken the time to listen to this. If you enjoyed it and want to talk to me about these topics, or any other topics, you can find me on Facebook or you can leave me a message on my website, which I should mention is still under construction…www.sustainablecitydesigns.com

I have done all the editing and production work for this episode. Our music today is from a Detroit native, Alison Lewis on her 2009 album A Mile Down Division. For the PermaFerndale Team, this is Lucas Zdenek citing the 3 ethics of Permaculture: Care for the Earth, Care for the People around you and finally, return the surplus!"

And here are the links to my sources in the episode: The Inquisitr Article The MIGardener video 

The actual RTFA document The BSM Law article A decent MLive article