Earthworms

What's fair and profitable, local and global, bitter and sweet - and Brown and Green? In St. Louis, Kakao Chocolate is all this and more.

Ingredients in the story of Brian Pelletier, Kakao owner and Chief Chocolatier, include a dramatic career transformation, deep commitment to sustainable ideals and practice, and passionate love for creating the food that makes US feel like we're in love. Brian savors telling his tale as if it were one of his own (popular!) Salted Carmel Truffles. Product of this alchemy? A treat for your heart and ears.

Find Kakao Chocolate products at stores in Maplewood and Clayton, Missouri, and online at www.kakaochocolate.com.

Music: Brandenburg No. 1 performed by Kevin McLeod

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms' tasteful engineer

We know the last four Earthworms editions have been blatantly blithe. We DO still believe in Climate Change, and WILL return to issues-focused interview on Earthworms . . . soon. Meanwhile, let's have some cheese and chocolate with our geese and chickens, OK?

Want to take a peck at keeping chickens- but feeling shell-shocked by the details? Maria Jansen and her clan have EGGSactly the perfect option for you!

The Easy Chicken, a family-owned enterprise, will help you launch a Chicken Adventure, worry-free, by leasing everything you need: Coop, Hens, feeding and watering gear, even a starter sack of super-healthy Chicken Feed. You get to try what may be THE most popular Green home-hobby for up to six months - with expert support from the Jansens, grown-ups and boys.

If it works out, GREAT - rental can apply to owning your chicken-keeping kit. If not, you can return your flock for others to experience. Voila! EASY, ethical, healthy, nutritious, bug-eating FUN. Other options - as you'll hear from Maria, 8-year-old Gabriel, and Zebra the Barred Rock hen - include Baby Chicks for classrooms, visiting their farm to take that first peek at potential peeper-keeping, buying the whole setup you'll need outright, even Chicken Parties.

Maria's new sustainable venture, Jansen Sharpening, can get your good knives tuned up too, but maybe don't tell the hens . . .

Music: Washboard Suzie, performed live at KDHX by Zydeco Crawdaddies.

Thanks to Anna Holland, Earthworms engineer (skillfully dodging Zebra's interview jitters mealworm fling), and to guest volunteer engineer, Matt Abel.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Keeping Geese, Making Cheese (November 2017)

Homesteading is a sustainable trend for rural, suburban and even urban folk. Up on her stead in Liberty, Maine, Kirsten Lie-Nielsen so loves sharing life with a flock of geese she has written a whole honkin' how-to about it.

Could Kirsten's new book, The Modern Homesteader's Guide to Keeping Geese (2017, New Society), entice your feathered fancy goose-ward? Perhaps this Earthworms conversation will! The scoop includes: choosing the best breed of goose for you, hospitable shelter and best geese eats, keeping geese healthy - and much more. Did you know geese are organic crop-weeders?

Kirsten's blog chronicles life on her farm, with useful info for the land-lover in all of us. HONK!!

Music: Jamie, performed live at KDHX by Yankee Racers THANKS to Anna Holland, this week's Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Crystal Moore Stevens: Grow - Create - Inspire (October 2016)

Farm on a Building Raises the Roof (August 2016)

Alpacas of Troy: Sustainable Farming on the Hoof (July 2016)

Farmer Girl Meats - Pasture to Porch, Sustainably (June 2016)

What food (technically) almost makes itself, is portable, gives a happy home to a host of guest flavors - and can be made by anyone, at home? Three hearty cheers for CHEESE!

Merryl Winstein has been making and teaching the art of Cheese for years. Along the way, she realized how much she didn't know - that others could use if the info was available! What to do? Write it up!

She did, and snapped the 800+ photos that show how this culinary alchemy works in "Successful Cheesemaking: Step-By-Step Directions and Photos for Making Nearly Every Type of Cheese." Now anyone can travel the Curds-Whey of this artisan path, with simple equipment, in a personal kitchen - or grow their skills into an enterprise, thanks to Merryl Winstein, Cheese Whiz!

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth Trio. THANKS to Anna Holland, electron-engineering whiz for Earthworms.

Missouri's state park system is nationally regarded as a public property gem. Our parks offer free admission to nearly 90 sites and a wide variety of ecological features, activities and accommodations. Four new parks could add economic benefits to areas in need, and round out the range of natural communities within the park system. But the governor has put a hold on these parks' development process.

Jennifer Connor, who is Ozarks Conservation Program Coordinator for the Sierra Club in Missouri, reports on this process and the spectrum of benefits state residents and visitors could experience in the four new parks in question, which are

• Eleven Point Park, bordering the federal Wild and Scenic Riverways easement of the Eleven Point River;
• Bryant Creek State Park, planned to be a backwoods area deep in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri;
• Ozark Mountain State Park, which will add a natural area to the popular amusement and entertainment region around Branson;
• Jay Nixon State Park, another backwoods park near to St. Louis.

The value of state parks is real, and significant. For example, for every $1 spent on park development and maintenance, the state estimates $26 flow into local and state economies. So what's the problem with completing development of these parks?

Learn more from the Sierra Club White River page on Facebook.

Music: Audrey's Bounce, performed live at KDHX by Western Satellites.

THANKS to Anna Holland, audio engineering whiz!

Related Earthworms Conversations: Missouri State Parks Centennial, October 2016

Scoot over, please, dear tomatoes and peas. Fruit and nut trees and bushes are moving into community gardens. And neighborhood garden leaders are transplanting their "orcharding" skills from Kansas City to St. Louis.

Dean Gunderson, who is Garden Programs Manager for STL's long-growing Gateway Greening, is collaborating with The Giving Grove, based in KC and led by Rob Reiman. These folks are digging nourishing new delights into the urban neighborhoods they serve, while cultivating "edible tree gardens" into their knowledge base. Hazelnuts, anyone?

Music: Cookie Mouth, performed live at KDHX by The Provels

THANKS to Anna Holland, engineering for Earthworms

Related Earthworms Conversations:

PawPaw, Reviving America's Forgotten Fruit (Sept 2015)

EarthDance Farms Grows into Permaculture in Ferguson, MO (April, 2017)

A Cinematic Ode to Seed Savers (Nov 2016)

While nations of the world are meeting in Germany to ratify trade deals related to Climate Change, performers in 40 of those nations will be spotlighting "the issue of our time." Climate Change Theater Action is a worldwide rapid response from the arts to this global issue, where awareness and action are imperative from humankind.

In St. Louis, theatrical impresario Joan Lipkin - founder of That Uppity Theater Company - is teaming up with the U.S. Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter and other partners to present Playhouse Emissions, short plays and staged readings, aiming to move the audience to action.

Lipkin's "uppity" creative courage and partnerships have staged productions about diverse issues in St. Louis and beyond for decades. Never shying from a tough topic, she talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about the challenges she encountered, dealing with climate change as a dramatic focus.

St. Louis event details: Monday November 6, 7 pm; hosted at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, 9001 Clayton Road. Admission is free, but registration is required. In addition to performances by leading local actors and dancers, environmental and social justice groups will interact with attendees after the show, about local-to-global action options. Music: Deep Gap, performed live at KDHX by Marisa Anderson

THANKS to Anna Holland, engineering this Earthworms edition Related Earthworms Conversation: Ralph Nader's fable "Animal Envy" gives creatures a voice on global issues (November, 2016)

It's underfoot, but is it understood? Nature's capacity to feed plants, which in turn feed us (and all Earth's living kin), is powered by critters we CAN see (with a handy microscope), that we CAN WORK WITH, to harvest multiple benefits. Soil scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham champions this kind of partnership, and teachers humans how to partner with Nature to organically increase food crop yield, restore the health of degraded soils - and even sock tons of climate-changing Carbon into soil, sustainably.

St. Louisans get to meet, hear and directly learn from Elaine Ingham on November 2-3, when the Deer Creek Watershed Alliance and partners host her for a free pubic talk, soil science microscope workshop, and in-depth soil science seminar for landscaping pros.

Serving as Chief Soil Scientist for the organic advocacy Rodale Institute since 2013, Dr. Ingham continues her distinguished work in microbiological research as head of Soil Foodweb Inc., based in Corvallis, OR and at her research farm near Berry Creek, CA.

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth Trio. THANKS to Andy Coco, engineer for this edition of Earthworms

Related Earthworms Conversations: EarthDance Farms in Ferguson Missouri (April 2017)

Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute: Growing our Food in Prairies (September 2015)

Living more simply? Understanding ecology? Taking an Eco Challenge to change some personal habits? The Northwest Earth Institute, working from Portland, Oregon for nearly 25 years, offers courses for personal online learning to group exploration and discussion.

Lacy Cagle, NWEI's Director of Learning, develops courses geared to engage the public with sustainable thinking and action, and work in academic circles to advance "sustainability pedagogy." Her take on how humans have been thinking, are learning to think (and act) - and how we COULD grow our Greener perceptions - makes for a most thought-nourishing Earthworms conversation! Coming up October 11-25, the 2017 EcoChallenge is an NWEI action project. Individuals or teams of humans will dig into habit-forming opportunities, aiming for Green changes. These individual efforts DO add up!

Music: Mister Sun, performed live at KDHX by Hunter's Permit

THANKS to Andy Coco, KDHX Production Chief, for engineering this Earthworms interview. Related Earthworms Conversation: People's Pocket Guide to Environmental Action with Caitlin Zera (July 2017)

The Patterning Instinct in Human Nature (June 2017)

Experiential Education (March 2017)

The BIG Book of Nature Activities (June 2016)

Crystal Moore Stevens: Grow, Create, Inspire (October 2016)

Here in the KDHX region we don't worry much about water. St. Louis sits at the confluence of the 4th largest watershed on Earth. Not the case in many other parts of the U.S., or the world. Where there's not so much water, how can fair access to water be ensured? For drinking, food production, sanitation - and more uses.

In Washington D.C. the non-profit Center for Water Security and Cooperation is researching questions of water equity, and advocating for fair water-related policies. Earthworms guest Alexandra Campbell Ferrari is Executive Director of these efforts. Her organization deals with water security questions that, in many areas, have not been raised before. For example, what rules should exist to support people who can't afford their water bill? Should people have to choose between affording rent, electricity, food or water?

This conversation dives provocatively into water issues. Tap into it - and consider how water security could be more cooperatively handled!

THANKS to Andy Coco, engineer for this Earthworms edition. Music: Big Piney Blues, performed live at KDHX by Brian Curran.

Learn more in St. Louis October 17 at the Water Justice Blitz, presented by the U.S. Green Building Council-Missouri Gateway Chapter, hosted by Washington University. Speakers, discussions, CEUs and more.

Related Earthworms Conversations:Mississippi River Town Mayors: Leadership in a Global Way (June 2016)

Invest in Infrastructure, Nature's and Ours (April 2017)

Living with Rivers: Big Muddy MO (February 2017)