Have you heard the BUZZ? “Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?” is premiering in Portsmouth, NH at the Music Hall playing for ONE NIGHT ONLY on 5/25!
This film is a profound, alternative look at the global honeybee crisis & what people can do to help, from Taggart Siegel, award-winning director of the grass-roots hit, The Real Dirt on Farmer John.

SHOW TIMES

Keep Farming

Join Virginia Kasinki for an evening discussion about how farmers, food and agricultural stakeholders, representatives of municipalities, agricultural commissions, and interested citizens can work together to address this key question:

What role do we want farming to play in the future of our community, and how can we make it happen?

More information here.

A beautiful sunny day for the first market of 2011!

Mother Nature smiled on us.  It had clouded up in the morning, but by opening time at 3 pm there were only a few pretty white clouds in a beautiful blue sky, a gentle breeze, not too many black flies, and lots of vendors and customers celebrating spring!

The rest of the pictures from the market can be seen here.

THURSDAY IS OPENING DAY!

Are you ready?  Thursday,  May 12th, is opening day for the market.  Usual time, 3-6:30, usual place, corner of Rts. 4 and 202/9, some old vendors, some new, fun, food and friends!

Less than four weeks til the market opens!

Winter seems so long, and yet here we are less than four weeks until the Northwood Farmers Market opens for the 2011 season.  The daffodils are just blooming, but in greenhouses and other shelters seedlings are sprouting, and we should have plants for sale, along with some early greens and who knows what other good food and local wares?  I can't wait!

May 12th, 3-6:30 pm at the corner of Rts 4 and 202/9 at the traffic lights in Northwood.

ALDO LEOPOLD WEEKEND

NORTHWOOD N.H., April 1 and 2, 2011

Please join Bear-Paw Regional Greenways, the Northwood Area Land Management Collaborative (NALMC), the Friends of Northwood Meadows State Park, and the Northwood Conservation Commission in celebrating the first Aldo Leopold Weekend in New Hampshire.

Considered by many as the father of wildlife management and of the United States’ wilderness system, Aldo Leopold was a forester, conservationist, educator, writer, philosopher and outdoor enthusiast. One of Aldo Leopold’s most significant contributions was his vision of a “Land Ethic” expressed in his classic book on conservation, A Sand County Almanac. The Almanac is a collection of nature sketches and philosophical essays recognized as one of the enduring expressions of an ecological attitude toward people and the land.

The Aldo Leopold Weekend in Northwood offers the opportunity to consider and reflect on a land ethic in our local communities. The event culminates in a screening of the first ever full-length, high definition film about Leopold: Green Fire—Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for our Time. The one hour film premiered in February 2011 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, attracting 1000 people. The movie explores Aldo Leopold's life in the context of American conservation and environmental history, while also illustrating how Leopold's legacy lives on today in the work of people and organizations across the nation and around the world.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Potluck Supper, followed by a presentation -- Who is Aldo Leopold? -- by UNH Professor of Forest Ecology Dr. Tom Lee, and Public Readings from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac

Northwood Community Hall, 135 Main Street (Route 107 N), 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm

To join us for the potluck, please RSVP to Steve Bailey at acornvally@hotmail.com. In the spirit of the land ethic, please bring a dish to share and your own place setting.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Bird Walk, Woodcock Sky Dances, and Aldo Leopold Readings with Ellen Snyder and Carl Wallman

Harmony Hill Farm, corner of Harmony Road and Blake’s Hill Road, Northwood, 6:30 am – 8:30 am

Saturday, April 2, 2011

New England Premiere of the Documentary Film Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time followed by refreshments and a facilitated discussion led by Karen Bennett, UNH Cooperative Extension Forester

Coe-Brown Northwood Academy, Route 4, Northwood, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

All programs are free and open to the public. For more information or if you plan to attend the movie, Green Fire, please contact Carl Wallman, Chair, Northwood Area Land Management Collaborative (603-435-5209;  info@nalmc.net or Ellen Snyder, Board Member, Bear-Paw Regional Greenways (603-659-6250; ellen.snyder@comcast.net).  The sponsors give special thanks to The Aldo Leopold Foundation (www.aldoleopold.org) in Baraboo, Wisconsin for providing planning materials, the movie Green Fire, and inspiration for this event.

Meeting on farmland conservation and access

New Hampshire Coalition for Sustaining Agriculture
Monday, March 7th
9am to 11am

Located at:
The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests
54 Portsmouth Street
Concord, NH 03301

The focus is on farmland conservation and access.

First on the agenda is a discussion of the recently concluded Installment Purchase Agreement study and what needs to be done in order to make this land conservation tool available to farmers and municipalities in NH.

Second, learn more about the Land Access Project, a multi-year, multi-state, multi-organizational effort to facilitate farmer access to farmland in our region.  (see note below)

The Land Access Project

Access to land is one of the most pressing challenges facing New England’s beginning farmers. Land Here! Assuring Access to Land for New England’s Beginning Farmers (the Land Access Project) tackles the land access issue from all angles.  This 2.5-year project, funded by a grant to Land for Good from USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, brings collaborating partners from agencies and organizations in the six New England states to:

1. Prepare and support beginning farmers to acquire land (increase “readiness”);
2. Help farmers and landowners find and engage each other;
3. Help landowners (individuals, families, corporations, land conservation organizations) and farmers develop rewarding tenure agreements;
4. Make more agricultural land available;
5. Help exiting farmers successfully transfer their farms and farmland to new farmers; and
6. Create, test, and encourage innovative secure and affordable acquisition and tenure arrangements and partnerships.

The Land Access project is organized into task forces to:

1. Improve the way farm seekers and farmland holders find one another,
2. Increase successful farm transfers from retiring to entering farmers,
3. Increase the amount of land held by private, institutional and public non-farming landowners available for beginners to farm,
4. Expand the use of innovative tenure models and agreements to enable more beginning farmers to access secure and affordable land and housing.

For more information contact SPNHF.