Re-Thinking Soup

Great minestrone soup made from freshly harvested vegetables that very morning from the Jane Adams Hull House Kitchen garden! I attended this monthly public conversation at the Jane Adams Hull House - University of Illinois Chicago campus today, which focused on the sustainability food movements that are peppered across Illinois and the US.

The conversation was led by Josh Viertel of the Slow Food movement, which grew out of a protest to the opening of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome, Italy! The small group of protesters showed up with a big cauldron of prepared penne pasta and soup bowls and distributed free soup to the crowds. This eventually led to the chanting of wanting slow food as opposed to fast food represented by the American fast food chain.

A majority of the sustainability food movements in the US are primarily manifested in community gardens in urban areas. Not big enough to have a real impact on the mono-culture cash crop food programs which have taken over the majority of the agriculture tax dollars. The structure of the Farm Bill has led to the demise of the small farmer growing food for consumption and the growth of growing food as a commodity!

Disappointments, Opportunities, Milestones!

In September of last year, when my first assignment with the Peace Corps was delayed due to a sports injury, it seemed appropriate to research ways to expand our niche high voltage, industrial and commercial electrical design and install business; Electrical Systems and Services, Inc. Running an operation in 'bear market conditions' left Jay with very little time to research the field for clean energy, green initiatives to complement our business. So both Angeli and I were in a position to do this important research as our plans for graduate study/peace corps respectively, were delayed due to unforeseeable reasons.

We organized our work to cover the market, incentives, training, certification and other related issues. We also took the first step of attending workshops, site visits and researching products and manufacturers before making any recommendations. The strategic decision Jay made based on this data was to add viable 'green, clean' power need solutions for our clients in our immediate area, who could not afford huge capital outlays, yet wished to participate.

He took the initiative immediately and installed an off-grid solar powered LED parking lot light, which comes on at dusk and turns itself off 6 hours later. Last Friday, Aug 14th he held a grand opening event to install the first small wind vertical-axis wind turbine in Wisconsin! It was so well received as it's wind needs are only 6-12 mph at a height of 30 feet, looks like lawn art and does not need heavy equipment to install and maintain. Check out the following two links: http://tinyurl.com/qswzxr with son RJ and http://tinyurl.com/ofuwhd featuring Jay.

Maybe, just maybe there may be an opportunity for this kind of small wind turbine in Macedonia!