True community, local foods and self sufficiency

Went to visit a local community garden, CSA and agritourism spot yesterday, Luscher Farms. The property was left to the City of Lake Oswego by its previously owner and namesake, Mr. Luscher. What the city inhereted was a working farm, complete with a farm house, barn, chicken coop and other farm realated infrastructure. The space has been well utilized getting the community involved in local foods and healthy living. The CSA provides those community memers without a greenthumb fresh produce weekly while providing farmers a living wage. The community garden allows interested folks to grow veggies, fruits, flowers and herbs at nominal cost. Oregon Tilth, an organic certifier (look at labels long enough and you'll spot them) has a demonstration garden on-site. The operation has become a hub where locals from Lake Oswego and West Linn gather to tend plots and chew the fat. Luscher Farms would be a great model to shape the new Wilsonville Community Garden after. Check out more here http://www.ci.oswego.or.us/parksrec/Luscher/default.htm

Ever wondered what it would be like to drop everything and go live in the woods. Most of us would give likely give it up after our belly rumbled a few times or the thermometer dropped below freezing. One neo-pioneer named Eustace Conway is doing just that in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Eustace went into the woods at 17 years old and never really returned, though he is far from a hermit. He has created a life for himself living in a teepee, subsisting on available foods in the woods and local dumpsters. He is the largest landowner in Watauga County, has crossed America on horseback and by foot, twice, hiked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in a loincloth, subsisting on wild plants and graduated Appalachian State University with degrees in Anthropology and English. Eustace is doing far more than sustaining himself; he is capturing the spirit and indigenous knowledge of mountaineers that is slowing dying along with the elders who lived the lifestyle he pursues.
Check out --->turtleislandpreserve.com