CT Rollergirls are Back!

Starting up again after the summer hiatus...
Sweet as a Peach in the Middle of a Highway

Ice Cream
PBR
Cupcakes
Fishnets
Wheel Toss
Great Music
Cool MCs





Fall season begins Saturday, September 21st
CT Sports Center
21 S. Bradley Road
Woodbridge Connecticut

Season starts with a Double Header:
Widowmakers Vs. Bone Crushers

plus
CT Death Quads vs. Ottawa Slaughter Squad

Doors open at 5pm, First Whistle at 6pm

$12 at the door, $10 in advance (online), age 6 and under are free!

www.ctrollerderby.com

Plus: Special prizes and raffles!

Milford Farms and Farmers' Markets

Supporting local agriculture is fun

By Barbara Currier Bell
As seen in the MilfordMirror on July 26, 2013 

In the early 21st century, Connecticut has been getting back to its family farming “roots.” Environmentalists promote family farming as wise land-use policy, especially in Milford, blessed with prime agricultural soils. Health-conscious “locavores” demand access to food with the freshness, high nutrient levels, and low pesticide burden provided by neighborhood farms.

Finally, economists emphasize small-farm rewards due to employment, land-use diversification, and so-called “external” efficiencies, meaning efficiencies realized from the services nature supplies free of charge. Milford has three summer farm markets: One at Treat’s Farm in Woodmont, one in downtown Milford by the train station, and one in Devon on Route 1 between Naugatuck Avenue and the Washington Bridge. These markets support family farms by giving them new outlets for distribution.

[Editorial insert]
The Downtown Milford Farmers Market runs every Saturday through October, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., in the parking lot near the River St side of the Milford Railroad Station. All the vendors are self-producing Connecticut farmers. Features Scratch Bakery goodies and breads, locally grown vegetables and herbs, hormone-free meat and poultry, and much more.

The Village of Devon hosts a farmers market on Sundays at the municipal lot at 120 Bridgeport Ave. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fresh seafood, fruits, vegetables, flowers and baked goods. WIC and DSNAP vouchers accepted. Live music.

The Woodmont Farmers’ Market at the Robert Treat Farm is held Wednesdays. Located at the corner of New Haven and Merwin avenues, the Woodmont Farmers’ Market will be open every Wednesday, from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m., through the end of September, rain or shine.

So far so good, but community-supported agriculture (CSAs) up the ante. They’re small farms using direct distribution. Whether alone or supplemental to farmers’ markets, CSAs are more nitty-gritty than the markets and more fun.

First, “fun.” Typically, the way a CSA works is that members pay a set amount in advance for a summer’s worth of farm product. On a certain day each week, members pick up a basket of food at their CSA, but they don’t know in advance what’s going to be inside. They might get a few items they’ve never heard of, such as bok choy, kohlrabi, or tatsoi, radishes in unlikely shapes and colors, red currants or white eggplant or purple squash they scarcely know how to prepare.

Besides sheer novelty, these unfamiliar species offer way more diversity than a customer ever finds at a grocery store, even counting exotic imports. Then consider the abundance. Flowers and herbs can be cut as bonuses to the weekly basket, and, sometimes, when a particular vegetable or berry crop ripens all at once, members can pick all they want.

Next, “nitty-gritty.” CSAs bring members up close and personal with farmland. Sometimes, as mentioned, members act as farmhands themselves; in any case, when members are at the CSA they see their food growing, not just sitting on shelves. The ecological connections underlying agriculture are evident all around.
Here, the farming history of Milford comes alive. Sun, rain, and the slow progress of the seasons rule. Farm work is more than isolated individuals can do by themselves, so community becomes important, as reflected in the way CSA members share a common schedule and set of basket items; additionally, many CSAs celebrate the end of their year in September with a party for all their members—a feast entrée from the farm, the rest pot-luck.

Originally, America was a nation of farmers. What our forebears called the “symmetry” of nature was all-important: They tried to preserve it with diligence, patience and frugality.

Today we use the term “sustainability.” Regardless of the label, the basic concept is illustrated in every CSA: Human beings are not “above” nature, but embedded in it together with all nature’s creatures.

Our health depends on the health of the land.

 Ahhhhh.....May Day tomorrow!

Everyone move to the Left.

 The first Question is:
How can you be in 2 places at once when you aren't anywhere at all?

 
 The Firesign Theatre....well that should take some folks back,
way back,                                  way       way      way      back.

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<   Here's Wots Happ'nin' in Hartford

Please Join Us in Calling for and Increase in the Minimum Wage!

Wednesday
May 1st 12:00

CT State Capitol

North Steps

Join Governor Malloy, Lt. Governor Wyman, and faith, labor and legislative leaders as we stand together to call for an increase in Connecticut's minimum wage. 

As low-wage workers fall farther and farther behind, corporate lobbying groups such as ALEC push legislation to scale back wages ever further. Raising the minimum wage isn't just the right thing to do for working families struggling to make ends meet, it helps build a stronger, more stable local economy. 

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Here is Wots Happ'nin' in New Haven: 

Rally & March

Wed May 1st at 5 pm on the New Haven Green.
 Then...

<  Celebrate!
Sun May 5th 
at the People's World annual rally with a video of the march, May Day Around the World, and a panel of leaders in immigrant worker organizing, jobs pipeline, organizing for environmentally sustainable peacetime jobs in Connecticut, and labor-community neighborhood organizing.