Veg Out

    Have you heard of “food desserts”? I certainly never did until reading last year in The New York Times about entire swaths of urban areas with nothing but corner stores filled with processed, packaged foods and no produce whatsoever. I started paying attention and it is true. There is something you can do about it. By making a donation to WholesomeWave.org, they will provide fresh fruits and veggies to those underserved communities. How great is that? Actually, it is even better, as Wholesome Wave obtains their organic produce from small and mid-sized farmers.

Wild in the Streets

     I live in a nice town adjacent to Berkeley, California, that is very urban, but I have a big o' backyard, which I love- it is the reason I live here. I have raccoons, a family of squirrels, and a pair of deer who seem to love the yard as much as I do. One of the older trees bears a huge amount of apples every fall, much more than my boyfriend and I can cook or eat, not to mention our friends, coworkers, and deer and squirrels. So we bag up the extra apples and take them to a place where deer congregate at the edge of the woods a few blocks away. Every time I deliver a new bag, I see lots of deer tracks, showing that my four-legged friends enjoy their apple a day. So before you just compost the extra bounty of your garden or fruit trees, take a look around and see what else might appreciate a neighborly gesture.