We're Organic!

Another Great Reason for Living by the Lake
By Lea Ament

If you sometimes wonder who is laying your eggs, if you suspect that your salad could kill bugs… or if you are simply hoity toity and nothing passes your lips but the freshest, most delicious foods. Chapala Lakeside community could be your retirement heaven.

Last year our first Organic street fair opened to eager crowds. Every Tuesday in the snazzy new Centro Laguna Plaza shopping mall farmers arrive with freshly harvested organic veggies. The location: across from Wal-Mart at the intersection of the Libramiento and the Carretera, centrally located in the Lakeside community. At 10:00 every week the rush starts for purple tomatoes, crisp parsnips, fresh wheat grass, home baked breads, and so much more.

Browsing down the aisles, you will find an amazing selection and variety of fresh and frozen meals. Often these are specifically prepared for specialty diets such as vegan, vegetarian and gluten free. They are ready to simply be heated or tossed in the freezer for later meals. Authentic international cuisine from Thailand, Mexico, India, Germany and North American is presented often by chefs who have lived and trained in the country of choice and are doing this for the love of food and a chance to try new recipes and talk to customers.

But, Where‘s the beef? They have that too; grass fed, humanely raised beef. And, if life gets boring there is also duck, rabbit, lamb, turkey, pork and even chicken. How great is that!

If you become exhausted from checking out sleep masks, homemade shampoo, fresh pressed seed oils, fur lined slippers, organic gardening supplies, the bee farm and eight kinds of sprouts then you may be ready to relax for a moment and meet Adrianna (or her able assistant Barbara). Known as the coffee lady, Adrianna is the Queen of the information table; the hub of the Ecotiangus. She has information on contests (yes, you could win something!). Including; Greatest Vegan Recipe, Most interesting dish made with (seasonal veggie will be selected), and a vegetable drawing contest for kids.  Adrianna has information about classes and demonstrations which are being planned  in cooking, gardening, preserving and other old timey skills and conservation techniques.

To complete you day of shopping for all the good stuff you can wind down at the chic new food court in the plaza. Starting February 15 there will also be helpers available to carry packages to your car.

Beyond the Ecotiangus new ideas are springing up everywhere. A grant has been obtained to develop a Mexican Medicinal Herb Garden in Ajijic. Volunteers planted an organic garden at the orphanage in Chapala. The Lake Chapala Garden Club has designed, and is in process of installing, a Culinary garden at the Wilkes Center. The garden will feature fresh herbs and spices which are used in traditional Mexican dishes.

There is discussion of a seed bank in Chapala. More than one group is seeking town lots for community gardens. Classes in organic gardening, rooftop gardening, seed saving and more are becoming available to those who want to step out the kitchen door and pick their own salad. Home gardens here range from an upside down tomato on the patio to conventional, in the ground, gardens. In between we have green houses, kitchen gardens, square foot, raised beds, automatic watering, hanging gardens, companion planting, worm farms and other specialties going on.

So whether you support your local organic growers or grow your own; Chapala Lakeside has a lot to offer. See you at the Ecotianguis!

Flood Catastrophe Prevention for Ajijic Homebuyers

By Barbara Harwood

A couple of springs ago, a student named Kevin came bounding into the studio: “I think I’ve found a site for my shelter. Can you look?”

One of our duties as Adjunct Professors at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture is to assist the students in designing and building a desert shelter in which they will live during their winters at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“Sure,” I replied,” heading out onto the desert path that led to his newly chosen site.

“Look,” he said, using his hands to show me how the shelter would be set onto the site, “I’ll have the south open to the sun here so it can keep me warm in winter, and I’ll put up a stone wall here on the north to protect me from the winds . . .  “

As he continued, I could see his mastery of the concepts of passive solar heating and natural cooling.

But he had missed something vital. “Kevin,” I asked, “What do you see on the northwest edge of your site?”

“A dry channel . . . like maybe an old creek bed?”

“Right,” I said. “Now look northeast. What do you see there?”

“Another dry creek bed?” he answered.

“Right, and where do these two dry creek beds meet?” I asked.

The light was beginning to dawn.  “Oh, right in front of my site.”

“So,” I said, “in Arizona these dry creek beds, or arroyos, look dry and useless in the dry season. But if we should have a heavy rain, what do you think would happen here?”

“Well, I guess water would run down both of these and they would join right here, and if it got too deep, I guess I would get pretty wet,” he said.

“Right. So what does this mean for the site you have chosen?” I asked.

“I think it means that if there is a big rain I might be in serious trouble – like I might be washed away or even drown.”

BINGO!

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Article: Sliding Down the Oil Curve - Part 3

This is Part 3 of a series of articles by Rick Cowlishaw, LCGG Steering Committee Member, on Peak Oil.

Part 3 of 8. (Just click on the link to read the article. Right-click or Control-click to save it.)

In Part 3 we will discuss how peak oil affects us and how will huge the problem is. We are connected in a pyramid of ways to oil. Each of these will be strongly impacted.

In 2010 the world consumes about 87 million barrels of oil per day, or nearly 30 billion barrels of oil per year. It is doubtful if the world will be able to produce much more oil. After several years of maximum production, we should experience a 3 percent yearly decline[i]. There may be a 100 percent increase in the price of oil for every 3 percent drop in production.

Lake Chapala Green Group Dec 7 Meeting

Mark your calendars for the first Tuesday in December. Our guest speaker is Richard Rhoda, PhD.

Rick will bring a lot of very interesting information to this meeting of the Lake Chapala

Green Group. He is a geographer, and has been an Ajijic resident since 1999. Professionally he has directed major development programs in Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as authoring a book on development planning.

In addition to teaching several university level geography courses and publishing numerous articles in professional journals, Richard has delivered scores of lectures on such topics as modern Mexico, development, urban systems, migration, environment and demography. He wrote Geo-Mexico: The Geography and Dynamics of Modern Mexico, with Tony Burton as co-author.

The meeting will be held at LCS, Neill James Patio, beginning at 3:00. Bring any "green buzz" you have to share.

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• New Eco-Tianguis hours
• Garden Class Space, Translator
• Latest in GTiA Film Series