Cheryl Stewart
columbiagorgeorganic.com
Lives and farms in Hood River

What’s the background?
We bought our initial farm in 1975 and we didn’t know one thing about farming whatsoever. Our first orchard was 95 acres, and we started farming and learning on the job. A lot of chitter-chatter about organic and safer produce started popping up in the late 80s. My husband Ron started using softer materials and he said, ‘I might as well be organic.’ In 1989 we filled out all the papers with Oregon Tilth and were on the road to be organic. In those days it took 2 years, the first yr you were transitional. The following year we were organic so we started with our own label Columbia Gorge Organic. There’s lots of competition, Coke owns Odwalla and Pepsi Co. owns Naked Juice.

Seattle’s winter 2008 has been too long, too gray, and too cold for this transplanted soul. But one day of sunshine can erase the memories of the drab and dreary days past and induce a euphoric state of optimism.

Saturday was just that sort of day as I left home for a romp in the Washington Arboretum Annual Plant Sale. Gazing across the lawn, I noticed a soft blurry blanket of white dandelion fluff hovering six inches above most of my lawn. As I backed out of the driveway I noticed more dandelion foam cresting over the front slope. I confess I’ve been harboring thoughts of chemical weed killers. The weed mass being so much bigger than my time and energy makes the promise of quick weed eradication tempting.  “Darn, I’ll have to deal with that as soon as I return”, I thought .

That’s right, Mother’s Day is right around the corner.  If you are like me, you want to remember and honor your Mom, but maybe you just don’t know how to go about it?

I think most Mothers are trying to downsize their piles of THINGS and minimize their trips to the Goodwill.  Who wants more frivolous, random things to take care of?  Do you feel the pressure now?   There is no need to get your self into panic mode because there are tons of things you can do to honor your Mother, even GREEN things. 

On Friday, May 2, Nau announced that "due to crisis in the capital markets" the company was unable to obtain enough funds to move forward. They did it with their typical charm, even nabbing the best headline, "Goodbye for Nau" for their press release. Through their 5% donation program, Nau donated $223,000 to non-profits in just under one year of business. That's an admirable achievement for a little company struggling to stay afloat.

I covered Nau twice before they launched, first for Ultra PDX in November 06' and later for Plenty Magazine, so this is the death of one of my pet companies. The offices were buzzing with energy back then, and the people could not have been nicer or more enthusiastic. They were heavy hitters too, coming from years of experience at places like Patagonia and Nike. So, what went wrong? At the risk of kicking Nau while it's down, I saw this coming.

Farmers Market Events

Chef in the Market at the Portland Farmers Market
Check out the exciting lineup of Chef in the Market cooking demonstrations for the month of May:
May 3, Scott Dolich, Park Kitchen
May 10, Jack Yoss, ten 01
May 17, Leather Storrs, Rocket
May 24, 10am John Gorham, Toro Bravo, 11am Marco Shaw, Fife, 12pm Tommy Habetz, Meriwether's
May 31, Billy Schumaker, d.f. & Tacqueria Nueve
Demonstrations begin at 10am.
Portland Farmers Market, Park Blocks btwn SW Montgomery & SW Harrison, Portland
*Save $5 on any Portland Farmers Market merchandise purchase of $15 or more

Kick of the 7th season of Hillsdale Farmers’ Market
Hillsdale Farmers’ Market celebrates the beginning of its 7th season.  Free vegetable starts will be given to the first 500 customers.
May 4, 10am-2pm
Hillsdale Farmers’ Market, SW Capitol Hwy & SW Sunset Blvd (Wilson HS parking lot), Portland
*Save $5 on any Hillsdale Farmers Market merchandise purchase of $15 or more

Your iPod has been a faithful travel companion, guardian of your most sacred digital music and status symbol among today’s technorati. So what will you do when it reaches its golden years and the screen begins to flicker or the battery begins to fail? Repair or Upgrade? You have more options than Apple might like you to know.

This morning the League of American Bicyclists awarded Portland with platinum level recognition as a Bicycle Friendly Community, rising from our previous gold level status. The only other city in the US with platinum level recognition is Davis, California. What better reason to get on your bike? Take a spin to celebrate and stop by Ben and Jerry's for the unrelated -but-perfectly-timed Free Cone Day! Read on for more information including biking maps, details from the city's application for platinum status, and--ok ok--the locations of Ben and Jerry's.

A planet-friendly trend appears to be taking off around some new thinking in how we use energy.

There are many activities from manufacturing steel to storing data on computer servers that require significant electricity or other power and generate heat as a byproduct. Until recently, much of that heat was considered a problem to get rid of. Data centers use air conditioning to cool server rooms and the furnaces of a steel plant are vented after melting the metal. Now, some organizations are recognizing how that heat can be put to additional use.

Here's the concept.