i am back in woodstock after a couple weeks on the west coast travelling with puppets and visiting dear friends. It was so good to see brandyn & nick & bill & amazing brian & becca. yay visits, short but sweet.

today sheri & i went out to angelic organics - one of the largest csa's in the country - csa being community supported agriculture where people buy shares of the farm in return for a box of veg every week during the growing season. if anyone gets the chance to see "the real dirt on farmer john" possibly playing at an indie film house near you, unless you are in india, go see it - very good documentary staring none other than farmer john of angelic organics - so sheri and i were a bit star struck aswe headed to this farm about 30 miles away to pick up 18 60lb bags of high quality dirt in bags with donkeys on them (pictures of donkeys - not real ones). we didn't get to meet farmer john, but we did get to check out their csa learning center - a beautiful straw bale and round wood passive solar lofted building surrounded by chickens goats & HUGE work horsesmunching away and got to meet some mighty nice people. they have soap making and cheese making workshops coming up that i am very excited about. anyway, we got our dirt and spring is coming! we are instaling a green house as soon as the ground thaws, but are going to use the front sun porch on the house as a makeshift seeding room until the greenhouse is ready. i'm so excited.

i read today in mother earth news that people are researching making biodiesel out of pond algae. it is estimated that 1 acre of algae will be able to produce over 3500 gallons per year of biodiesel. to put this number in perspective, an acre of soybeans only produces 48 gallons per year. my, my that is exciting.