On the importance of local agriculture: In defense of the Food Project's lease at Ingalls school

We live in an age of convenience. Most of you reading this can probably purchase food at more than a dozen locations within a ten minute drive or your home. The majority of this food is ready-to-eat or ready-to-cook. Most of us have sacrificed the art of cooking for the convenience of the pre-packaged meal. We as Americans love convenience, saving time and effort, and not having to do math when it comes to cooking. Sadly this has had some detrimental effects on our health with obesity, bad cholesterol, diabetes, chronic heart disease, and other diet related illnesses sky-rocketing in the last 50 year since the advent of processed foods.

All of us have not-so-fond memories of being forced to sit at the dinner table as children until we ate all of our vegetables. The majority of us only like a few vegetables and many of us don't care for them at all, we eat them because we know we should, it's good for our bodies. I'll be the first to admit that I force myself to eat the majority of vegetables that I do, and surprisingly I find as an adult I actually like a lot of things that I found "icky" as a kid. I now love fish, peppers, onions, leeks, salad, squash, pumpkin and many other things I hated or never tried as a child.

But here is the frightening thing. I, now looking back at things, realize that I was of a generation of transition in diet. Being of Irish-Italian descent and a member of the lower middle class I grew up in a household where we ate a diet that most Americans are familiar with: pasta, chicken, potatoes, spinach, broccoli, roasts, beef stew...and as we lived with my grandparents I was spoiled with plenty of junk foods and baked goods. Here is where my memory picks up something, I also remember eating fast food and pizza often. I am by no means saying my mom is bad for letting us eat such foods, she was just part of a growing trend that is now approaching a norm in America, the single mother. She was a nurse and often worked long hours, 6 days a week and as such she was often far too tired to cook for us, my grandmother by the way was a horrible cook and knew it so she refrained from any culinary adventures and my grandfather had cancer since before I was born so he was often too tired to even get out of his rocking chair and walk about the house due to medications and chemo. So this being said I probably ate processed foods (pizza, take-out, fast food, or frozen) more times in a week than I did home-cooked meals. Being a Lynner in a less wealthy part of town (the Highlands) I was actually one of the lucky ones, most of the kids I knew almost always ate fast food or frozen foods.

So I can now only venture to what the diets must be like for most Lynners as we can say without trying to hide anything that most Lynners, including myself when I lived in Lynn, are lower middle class or even below that. In fact, in terms of residents living under the poverty line, I would venture that Lynn is probably one of the poorest cities in MA and probably the poorest on the North Shore. Often times in poorer families the first thing that gets cut is money spent on food, not in quantity but quality. Anyone who has been to the supermarket knows you can buy more macaroni and cheese than you can fish for ten dollars. Anyone who has been to a fast food chain knows the only vegetables on the menu are either onions or potatoes deep-fried in fat.

With this knowledge that income has direct correlations with diet and that diet is intimately linked with health and thus with well-being and happiness why would anyone oppose a source of fresh produce in an urban city with a large population of under-earning families? Not to use the cliche, but in this economy why would anyone oppose a source of jobs, many of which go to youths which are the worst hit by this current recession.

Let me break it down as to why the Food Project in Lynn is easily one of the more important employers. I don't know the exact numbers as I have yet to find a reliable source so until then I will try to be conservative.
The Food Project employs mostly youths for the summer, the time of year when they aren't in school. This does a few things, it keeps these kids off the streets and away from bad influences like gangs, drugs, and alcohol. Someone who spent all day in the sun working in a garden isn't going to be spending all night smashing windows and smoking dope. The youths are also learning during a time period when most kids relish the idea of watching tv, playing video games and going to the beach all day. I would not be surprised if a study were to be done that resulted in finding that kids working with the food project received better grades than kids who don't. Another bonus is that these kids are learning valuable work skills at an age when most kids are lounging around the house on summer break. Did I also mention that these kids, and the other workers of the Food Project, pay taxes too. That's right, while they are out in the sun sweating away their summer days they are paying for your roads, social security, and many other tax-funded items in your city and state. One more perk is that for both the students and the workers this organization is providing vital job and social skills.

Those are just the benefits to the people working for/with the food project. Any time spent reflecting on the issue will reveal that many other benefit directly and indirectly from the Food Project at Ingalls. The consumer greatly benefits in terms of the quality and nutritional value of the food. Fresh food is rotting the minute it is removed from the plant or the soil. A shelf life date is not the date when food starts to break down but rather the date estimated that the food will no longer be pleasing to the taste or safe to consume. It is estimated that most produce degrades significantly in nutritional value from the farm to the table. This doesn't sound so bad when the farm is within a 20 mile radius or like the Ingalls farm, ten minutes away, but most farms are not that close. In fact, most of our produce isn't even on the same side of the Mississippi river as we are. It only takes a few minutes of shopping in your local supermarket to read labels in the produce department. I can make you a serious bet that even in fall (our harvest season in the northeast) 90 percent of all the produce will be from points more than a hundred miles away, in fact most of it will be from either California, Mexico, and countries in South America. This being said, a good portion of the fresh produce you eat is not so fresh, but if you buy from your local farmer's market (the Food Project's included) you can be sure that even if their produce isn't as pretty it's a whole lot more nutritional and tastier. If you know anyone that grows heirloom tomatoes like many Lynners do, wait til fall and ask for a bite and compare.

These points alone are enough that any rational person considering them would side with the farm and indeed maybe even champion for more CSA's in their city.

So why not add some more icing to the cake, shall we?

In addition to adding jobs to the local economy, nutritional, fresh, and affordable food to dinner tables all across the socio-economic spectrum in the city, what else does such a farm as that at the Ingalls school do?

This one is my favorite: they provide social capital. What is social capital? Social capital is the concept that social networks, groups, organizations, neighborhoods, families, etc have value like physical capital (tools, machinery, buildings, raw materials) and human capital (talents, skills, education).

CSA's like the Food Project at Ingalls provide social capital in many ways. A supermarket is for the most part not a social gathering place, in fact it often feels hostile towards anyone spending more time than is needed there. Farmer's markets on the other hand are incubators of networking. The people who work at farmer's markets know a lot about what they are selling and they enjoy interacting with their consumers, and due to the fact of their small scale they need to interact with the consumers in order to understand their needs and wants more intimately, and to gain credit and a larger consumer base via word-of-mouth recommendations. The consumers go to these markets because they like knowing where their food comes from, they like being able to discuss farming and nutrition with the workers, and they also like meeting and talking with other people shopping at said markets. I am sure there have been more than a few relationships founded over two people discussing what their favorite type of potato was at a farmer's market.

Not to make this any longer than it has to but here are two more benefits of a local source of agriculture, food security and helping the environment. On the idea of food security, not to sound like a doomsday profit but there will be times in the history of this nation when food shortages will arise and having a local source of food will at least protect a percentage of the population. As to helping the environment, growing food in your yard is a lot nicer to the environment than shipping it in across the country, simple concept right? It is for these two last reasons alone that I think every city, or at least county, should be required by law to grow/raise enough food for their citizens in order to combat not only environmental degradation but the ever rising prices and increasing scarcity of food in this world bordering on over-population.

Here is a final note to that small yet loud minority of people opposed to the Food Project at Ingalls.

1. Rats are as common as humans in cities, in fact there are probably more of them than you think there are in the city. They don't solely eat garden fare but eat everything, mostly garbage and unprotected food in kitchens all across America. So unless you are proposing that we call in the national guard to Lynn to nuke ever rat-den and post health-inspectors 24/7 in every kitchen, at every trash can in the city then your point of closing the garden is moot.

Want less rats? Do what most cities across America have begun to embrace. Keep all your trash in city-issued heavy-duty plastic barrels with lids on them. Not only do they keep the rats out but they keep the raccoons from tipping them over too. I have yet to see a single rat in the streets of my city since we started doing this, and we have a population equal to Lynn's and people just as messy as the messiest Lynner. Did I also mention we have tons of people with large vegetable gardens, but we do have a major pest problem of our own, white-tailed deer and whascly wabbits.

2. To the moron who complained about their windows being smashed in, did you ever stop to think it was a stupid move to publish your name and address in the newspaper and talk about how you call the cops on "thugs" hanging out in your neighborhood. More than likely the poor kids were doing nothing but hanging out, and even minor tagging isn't as uncommon an issue around the city as you would think, I doubt farms are to blame for either of your troubles. Not saying I condone the vandalism of property but it would have been wise to make an anonymous complaint to your local representative first rather than have your name and address out there for all to see. More than likely one of the kids in your neighborhood who you have been bullying for all these years just got fed up from having the cops called on him for being a kid and playing in schoolyard/farm after-dark and decided to be the boogey-man you fear and smash your windows. I know if I lived in your neighborhood as a kid I would have loved to play hide and seek in a garden/school yard at night and if I had you calling the cops on me for being a worrying-nancy I would even venture to say that I would be tempted to break a few panes myself.

That being said, where are the police reports, the window-replacement bills? More than likely you just wanted to see your name in the Lynn Item. In my days as a boy on High Rock street I knew far too many grumpy old folks like yourself who bullied us kids for being kids, sure we may have been guilty of being too noisy but it's not like we were dealing drugs and breaking into houses.

Maybe those opposed just really hate vegetables?

Well, there you have it. I rambled on for far too long, but I like stream-of-conscious best as it is how we think, though it may seem incoherent at times I make no false pretenses at being a refined writer.

So have a heart, and say yes to the food project at Ingalls, for the kids, for the community, for the economy, for your health, for Lynn.

Here is the petition to sign showing your support, and if you live in the area check out the farmer's market when it comes around.

Sign the petition here for tasty nutritious food, summer jobs for youths, hands on learning for students

As always, in the lee of High Rock.

ATTN: New Owner of the FormerJewish Temple on the Lynn Commons

I remember back in spring it was made known that through an auction someone acquired the former Temple on the Commons. It went on to detail that the new owner agreed to pay back taxes and fines the former owner owed the city, it also went on to list that the new owner wanted to give the building to his son to use as a benefit to the city.

So if all this is true I have an idea for the owner's son, budding community up-lifter that he may be one day.

Why not a movie theater? Lynn used to have many small theaters, why not a small movie theater on the commons, it would be a place to keep kids off the street and bring the community together...maybe even attract new residents and curious out-of-towners. It could show old releases of classic movies (and maybe some not so classic movies) you know, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Star Wars, Cartoons for the kids. A smaller than standard admission could be charged, enough to cover the costs and put away some cash towards helping further improve the building or the owners ability to fund future projects, or just as a reward to the owner for such a service to the community.

Maybe on the weekends it could show one currently screening film. It could even serve as to show films made by local film makers.

Think about it, a structure such as a church, or in this case a temple, would be perfect for showing films or small concerts,or even plays and speeches...maybe even classes and lectures!

Let us just hope that whatever the owner does it adds to the city, even if it was just turned into condos would be an improvement to the property as it stands!

More Trees for Lynn

Not to sound like an uninformed hippy, but I think Lynn could use a lot more trees. Sure Lynn already has an expansive municipal forest at Lynn woods reservation, but how many people get to go there once a week who live in Lynn?

Chances are if you are an average working class citizen of Lynn, elderly, or young, you rarely get to go for walks in Lynn Woods. Sure it's not far you say, but after a long day of work how likely are you to drive in traffic across town and go tramping about trails? Chances are you are tired and sore and use your time off of work to relax, rarely will you have the energy to go walking up and down wooded trails on the other side of the city. You're much more likely to go sit outside on your porch or take a walk around the neighborhood. Take a look next time you are on your porch or out on foot in your neighborhood, chances are you will see some trees and a little grass here and there but in this writer's opinion your street is more than likely pretty desolate when it comes to greenery or wildlife.

As a child growing up in Lynn some streets would become to me like old Western main streets in summer, sun parched, dust billowing about, the good, the bad, and the ugly theme song faintly playing in the background. At the same time other areas in Lynn, like part of High Rock preservation and Post 507 near my house, would seem like vast impenetrable forests. It was in these wooded lots and parks where I honed my love of nature: catching snakes, finding salamanders, watching hawks soar on thermals, seeing crows and mockingbirds at war, hearing the buzzing of winged insects in the tall grasses. Though I loved animals at an early age it was not until the last five or so years that I started to appreciate plant life, in particular the trees of New England.

No other living thing does so much for us and for life in general on earth. In my opinion trees truly are the keystone species to life as we know it on earth. They provide timber for building and for fuel, shelter from heat, fruits and nuts for food, forests hold massive quantities of water protecting the area from flooding, their root systems hold soil in place protecting it from erosion.

Trees employ millions directly and billions indirectly. Foresters, loggers, carpenters, paper mills, farmers, cosmetic manufactures, pharmaceutical companies are all directly linked to trees. Then you have all the stores and businesses who deliver and sell these products and then you have all the businesses who use tree products such as paper and cardboard. You live in a house primarily constructed of wood, you write on paper, you (hopefully) eat fruits or nuts that came from a tree.

And let us not forget trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen thus making life as we know it on earth even possible

Sure, you know this you say, but how many people respect and revere trees for their endless gifts?

Instead we continue to waste their gifts without care and commit genocide on these noblest of lifeforms. Every day they are laid low so that we may clear land for cattle, lay out a plot of land for a transitory business that will be bankrupt in a hundred years or less, pave over them so we may have a place to park or drive or ingest poisonous food. Instead of respecting them for what they do, which is to sustain life and heal the wounds we constantly inflict on our own planet, we slaughter them and scoff at them.

I'm not saying we go out and hang banners on them and give them names, I'm sure all they want from us is to be left alone to do what they have been doing since we were naught but rodent-like mammals held back from evolution by reptilian tyrants.

So my Saugus-river-like-winding essay over I say we pay our respects to these silent guardians. Plant more of their kin on our streets, in our yards. Protect them on the hilltops and in the fallow fields where they are already growing or standing proud. Stay the axe from the Oak who was here when the first people hunted deer, who gave shade to our great-grandparents, who continues to give us oxygen.

That being said, save our friends and guardians who loftily stand on the hilltops of the Lynn/Salem highlands, who cool the vernal pools where rare creatures breed and sing in the spring time, who purify and protect the waters of Spring Pond!

http://www.springpondwoods.com/ Check this blog written by Lynn's very own Katerina for everything about the wonderful woods and vernal pools, Salem/Lynn relations, Salem/Lynn small businesses that are being threatened by big box companies (Lowes and Wal-Mart)

http://www.borealforest.org/school/trees.htm Basic info about what trees do.

http://www.coloradotrees.org/benefits.htm Info about Urban trees and the impact they have on city life, replace Lynn with Colorado if you have a bad imagination :)

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/plantingtrees.html Info and statistics about the environmental importance of trees (for all you number-nerds)

http://www.allfreeessays.com/topics/the-importance-of-trees/0 A forest of essays written by college students about the importance of trees

May you grow tall and may your roots spread far.

Better Utilizing Public Spaces

So lately I've been tossing the idea around in my head of what to do with seemingly dead public spaces in Lynn.

There's miles of abandoned rail, endless stretches of sidewalk, median strips, and plenty of acres of barely-used parks and other open spaces the city owns and subsequently the citizens own.

Why not better utilize these existing areas for the benefit of the citizens of Lynn?

I was thinking along the lines of placing small benches on some streets in convenient locales, outside of shops, restaurants, and bars. Planting small flower-beds along the tiny squares of dirt that show up ever so often along sidewalks. Building bike/pedestrian trails along abandoned rail lines and at the same time putting in urban gardens, fruit orchards, small gardens, wildlife-friendly landscaping along these same rails.

Now of course the current mind-set of most Lynners would be "not with my tax dollars you don't!" So it goes without saying that most of these projects would have to be funded privately and created by the neighborhoods in which they are located. Which I think is great. But it leaves one to wonder, what would Lynners spend their tax dollars on? Wider streets, more car lanes, more city workers? It saddens me to think that we as citizens, not just of Lynn but of America, have grown so lazy and content with the paternalism of the Government. We see trash on our very streets, the ones we live on, and think "the city will clean it up" We go to the beach and complain about parking and wonder why the city won't do something about it, but instead most people would stay home if they were recommended to take the bus or better yet, bicycle there.

So what do we do as citizens of our city for our city? I'll answer with what I do. I write my ideas and I read what others have to say. I read the local paper every day, the internet version because currently I am located in NH. In putting my ideas out there and reading what is going on and listening to what others in the city think I am slowly putting together ways to better the community. If my short term goals are fulfilled I'll be coming back to Lynn in the next three or so years with a degree in urban planning and development in the hopes of using it to get a job working at city hall to steer the city down a path to prosperity for all, not physical wealth mind you, although I hope that ends up as a side-effect of better planning and development for Lynn.

Ask not what Lynn can do for you but what you can do for Lynn.

If you see trash on your sidewalk, throw it out. If you're at home and bored and it's summer, go outside and sweep out the storm drain grill or something. Pick up those cigarette butts out front of your house that find their way into the grooves and cracks of the walkway. Buy some flowers and plant them in that empty, half-dirt, half-grass space on the sidewalk along the street.

To get back to the main topic, I am currently working out a few ideas for open public spaces in Lynn and will share them when I can flesh them out a bit. Sadly as it is mid-spring now some of them may not be possible anymore, but what do I know, I'm not a gardener. One of them I am very excited about is my plans for a flower garden at High Rock reservation. Ever drive up there and feel bored with the landscaping? I know I have. But I guess the view of the city and the tower are more the lure to this spot anyways. There's a bit of a grass knoll which you are meant to park along that I think would make the perfect starting point of this garden. In fact, if I can gain enough donations I think I will personally attempt to use my thumb and test its greenness in this project. I guess phase one in my plan for High Rock park would be to cover that entire grass knoll with flowers. I will consult with flower experts as I know nothing about them other than that they are beautiful, attract birds, and give off a pleasant scent. So who is with me?

Phase one, contact the city and explain this plan.
Phase two, if they agree get out the word and enlist people to help that actually know something about gardening , gather money donations for the purchase of flowers, let the neighborhood know.
Phase three, contact the Item and have them take a nice picture and tell the story and try to inspire others in the city to follow suit and make their neighborhoods more beautiful/user-friendly.

Now as I am not super optimistic about the city allowing us to dig up the park and throw flowers all over the place I am going to initially ask for just permission to use the grassy Knoll along the parkway first. If this proves successful and gains positive feedback from the neighbors I think every spring we can try and have the city let us add something new: New flowering/fruit/shade trees, benches, a rose bush border along some of the rock formations, etc.

So that's what I wish to see be the first step to major improvements in the city. Actual usefulness of public spaces. I'm tired of seeing bored, uninspiring, unused public spaces in the city.

So Lynners, ready to get your hands dirty, your brows sweat-lined?

Rest in Peace Post 507

Warning: I am a graveyard shifter and primarily a stream of conscious writer, so sometimes my writing makes no sense.

Post 507, my memories are brighter than the reality.

I was drawn back to this hidden lot amongst the highlands from a recent reading in the Lynn Item that the land was for sale and will soon become a bustling and hustling charter school. I know the school will do good for the students and be a bright spot in the city for education, but do we need it in the Highlands?

My thoughts on this are as follows: why would you build a school in such a secluded, quiet, hard to get to place? I want to bet that most Lynners rarely travel to the highlands unless they feel like looking down on the city from High Rock reservation. Why is it so ill-traveled? Mostly because all of the ways up to the inner highlands are steep roads that put a strain on cars, especially older ones (which is why I shudder at the thought of buses trying to go down some of the roads when there's snow and ice on the roads, the highlands rarely gets plowed).
As well, unless you live in the Highlands you really have no reason to go there, it's not some secret short cut to the other side of town nor is it a center of business. The highlands is primarily a lower middle class neighborhood, one I am proud to remember as my birthplace and the land of my upbringing.

The streets are narrow, many of them steep (many times I have been frightened of my brakes failing on some of the streets). Because of the nature of the terrain the streets are also some of the safest in Lynn (surprising because to my knowledge there is not a single traffic light in the Highlands proper) This means kids can play outside with less of a fear of getting hit. As the area is so dense with housing and so diverse in turns, dips, inclines, most of the cars travel slowly which makes it a great neighborhood to let your kids out to play in. Sure some of you may argue the Highlands are a hotbed of gang activity and shootings but I have rarely heard of murders, car accidents, jumpings, or break ins related to the area.

So far anyone not familiar with the highlands may start to form a picture of the area: slow traffic due to necessity, seclusion, and driving environment. A place with a lot of young children (lower income families tend to have more children than higher income earners), a strong sense of community (people always ask west or east, I always reply Highlands, we take pride in our porphyry hills).

Now what does adding a busy, shiny, new school with mostly non-highland residents mean?

-Well, during construction there will be much more noise (say good bye to a quiet sit on the porch/balcony). As well, construction through all hours of the night, much cheaper for the school to do it that way. Large construction vehicles traveling the narrow, steep, crowded roads to get to the site. I bet there will be many missing side view mirrors and scratched sides on cars

-There will be much more pollution in the air: diesel fumes, dirt, concrete dust, and all the other nice things that go with large scale construction.

-Increased and more dangerous traffic: Buses lurching around sharp corners, down steep hills .Think of what it will be like when the snowbanks pop up and the streets virtually become single lanes...not to mention how the buses will deal with going down an icy hill. Not to mention the late mom or dad speeding up the hills to get junior to or from school.

-This is opinion: increased property taxes due to the nice, new, well-performing school. This will basically gentrify the almost exclusively minority and low-income neighborhood in the Highlands and force many of the residents out and into more dangerous, less safe neighborhoods.

-A loss of a large area of social importance: many gatherings have taken place at the post whether from the time when the baseball field was used or at the club itself in the form of vets getting together for a drink or families renting the place for wedding parties and other gatherings.

-Loss of a possible site for urban agriculture, gardens, outdoor gathering place, community center.

-A detractor to the already existing public elementary school, Ford School. I am sure the higher grade point kids will be taken out by their parents and enrolled into the new private school which will bring down the academic standing of Ford. And as it is a public school it will be stuck in a cycle of brain-drain and funding loss.

-A loss of habitat for wildlife. I'm a very amateur naturalist but if I remember correctly there are many salamanders, snakes (many snakes!), newts, foxes, nesting places for endangered birds, resting/feeding grounds for migratory (and endangered!) butterflies and moths, etc. Anyone not familiar with New England ecology should know that reptiles and amphibians in new England are highly endangered and any place they are found should be protected. If anything I would suggest turning this place over to be added to the High Rock reservation, maybe rehabilitate the field. I also suggest sending a biologist up there to check if the salamanders still live there (if they do there is a possibility of making the site protected which will force the school to be smaller and probably not prefer the land as much.)

Now of course I know that this is private land and I support property rights of the owners, but I think they are forgetting how much of an impact their land has on the neighborhood of the Highlands and how much of a detriment to the social fabric of the community they will have by selling it and barring access to the residents.

I know that the post has already changed much from when I lived at 66 high rock street and jumped my stone wall to hang out in "the woods" but the memories of that place still burn in my brain. That place had such an impact on my life. I met my best friend there who I would continue to be best friends with from age 4 up until he passed away last year. I spent many days there enamored with the wildlife (it influenced me to eventually grow to have a huge love of conservation and wildlife). It was an outdoor place that kids could go to without fear, no drug deals, gangs, or perverts/kidnappers. At the same time it fostered Independence. I could go there without parental supervision (as I was within a minute walk from my house, and shouting distance). My friends and I felt like we were adults out exploring the open world by hunting snakes in the tall grass, trekking through the windbreak, and climbing the rocky "mountain" to get to the "castle" (High Rock tower).

Like I said at the beginning, I returned to the Post recently,My friend (who shares many of the same childhood memories as I do of the place) and I climbed down from High Rock Park. It's already much changed. A house sits on the rocks we used to watch the clouds from, piles of dirt and concrete coupled with back-hoes litter the fields were we trampled through puddles, captured small insects and animals, made believe we were out on the African Savannah, the path from my old house to the Post is now a fenced parking lot. The windbreak or as we called it the "devil's woods" ,because we always found it creepy to be in there for extended periods, plus the thorn trees looked evil, is also mostly gone.

That aside, there is still a chance for it to easily and cheaply be turned back into a community place, not a private school with a large soccer field off limits to the public.

But knowing municipal government and outside interest this place will be lost and a tear in the fabric of the community will appear, slowly growing larger over the years as the neighborhood transforms into a sterile, characterless, bedroom community for Boston transplants seeking to get away from Boston but bringing it with them as well. (Yeah I know, that's a huge and fanciful assumption of what a private school will bring to the Highlands and mostly opinion.)

I say, let the community (with funds from the city because I know there are grants for these sort of things) purchase the land with pooled funds and turn it into something of use to the neighborhood, not an anchor for future gentrification and the veritable death knell of the community.

But don't take my word for it. Contact the many groups in the Highlands about it.

http://hclynn.org/

There's the link to the Highlands coalition, a resident formed and staffed group dedicated to their neighborhood.

Yours always, fair lady Lynn
Kyle Devaney, son of the Highlands.

On the Wonder of Rabbits as Meat

On Rabbits: Rabbits are a great source of meat, prized in Mediterranean cooking for their tender and delicate meat. I am surprised to find that people who care about their environment and the quality of their food, as well as taste, don't raise the horn on this furry little critter.

Rabbit is almost nonexistent in modern Northern American eating. But why? Rabbit is one the fastest growing domestic meat animals, they live short lives and require very little input as far as food, just hay, grass, and varied greens...they can live on leafy left overs from the salad bowl! Not to mention...rabbits reproduce like....rabbits! They have an amazing number of offspring and rapidly produce more meat than one can handle. Not to mention I believe they have the least non-food parts in any meat animal, very little bone weight, almost no fat, and the skinning of a rabbit is the easiest and cleanest out of any domestic animal (no more feathers in the nose!)

So here is a challenge, find some place that sells rabbit and prepare it in a tasty way...and if you like it buy a good meat rabbit and watch the need for chicken meat fade from your plate...and the food bill go down.
I mean...all you need is a small hutch in the drive way and some leafy food with some hay and minor precautions against predators and pests.

(I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors, it is quite late and I am far too tired to proof-read...not to mention my spell-check isn't there to help!)

Drudgery Is a Catalyzer : Thoughts On a New Path

I have often noticed that when I am at work with my body doing manual labor, my mind wanders and comes up with new ideas, stories, or just sifts through random memories and thoughts. One of the few things I like about my job is that it is mindless, so it basically gives me plenty of time to formulate new ideas. In fact, I would like to think that the majority of my new ideas come from this time of drudgery.

Well here is one...
Lynn Shore Extension: Phase One

I think that one of the easiest places in Lynn to change is the waterfront. There's virtually no residences in the way of any possible planning, and much of the buildings along the southern stretch past the roundabout are either abandoned or not right on the waterfront. Well for today's post I am going to focus on the waterfront that is fully public already, the area that follows Lynn Shore drive from Swampscott up until a little past the Nahant roundabout.


copyrights to Google

Basically the two red circles represent two areas of immediate interest that could be updated to increase traffic to Lynn's waterfront.
The one to the left represents a vacant lot, I am unsure if it is city property or not, but if it is available and not contaminated I think it would make an excellent feature to the shore, especially seeing how it is already empty and abuts Lynn Heritage Park, and is within walking distance from Downtown Lynn. I have no idea what to put there, maybe a memorial park? Maybe move the Museum there and some city offices? Maybe a two screen Movie theater like Salem Cinema? Maybe just a nice field with some trees for picnicking or taking in the breeze.

The second red circle is already public land, it currently is a baseball field and tennis court. I say ditch the baseball field, in all my years of living in Lynn I never saw a single baseball game there...and it's not currently accessible by foot traffic, at least safely and conveniently anyways. Not to mention, how many damn baseball fields does Lynn have already? I want to say upwards of 20, and few of them are rarely used on a daily basis. So I say replace the baseball field with maybe something more useful. Again I have no strong thoughts on the subject, maybe an outdoor concert venue, maybe something Lynn doesn't have yet? I'm not really sure.

The main feature, however, of what I am proposing is an extended pedestrian path stretching from the Left red ring of the vacant lot all the way to Swampscott. Lynn Heritage park already has some paths and is a public place why not take it a step further and link it with the baseball fields near the rotary and go a step further and logically and conveintly link it with Lynn Shore drive's promenade?

I already see one small trouble spot that I am sure can be ironed out, the marina is in the way but hell the path can just extend around it or something and then loop back around into the baseball/tennis court area.

Even if the above can't be accomplished I think at least one thing should be done to connect Lynn Heritage park with the Lynn Shore Reservation.

That is the overpass on the Lynnway approaching the Nahant rotary. I think in order to safely increase pedestrian traffic from Downtown a path must be started at the above overpass through the Heritage park (which is sadly underused) and continuing on to the also underused public space at the rotary and finally connecting with Lynn Shore Reservation requires one thing.

How do we connect the Heritage Park and the rotary public space with the Reservation (the path that runs along Lynn Shore drive?

I proposed building another overpass for pedestrians, one right over the entrance to Nahant. One that stretches from the public space at the rotary over the four lane highway that goes to Nahant and touches down near the tot-lot on the Lynn Shore Reservation.

I think an overpass for pedestrians should cross over this intersection and touch down over near the tot-lot.

I think it should look a little nicer than the Lynn way overpass, a little less industrial, maybe more artistic.

One of my ideas is to hang two wrought-iron signs one over the entrance to Nahant and one at the exit from Nahant. One reading "Welcome to Lynn" the other "Welcome to Nahant"

well that's it for today, off to drawing an image of the pedestrian overpass.

Blast and Confound the Winds

The devil rides the winds up and down New England today. A spell of cold has seethed into So. New Hampshire out of no where, didn't we just have two fifty degree days a week ago? Eight degrees yesterday with a wind chill of eleven below, Five degrees now...but how the wind bites at the flesh.

This is my first blog, so I have forayed into new territory! The gods in Asagard shall be pleased!

I shall lay out what I plan to do with this blog in a short list lest your eyes grow sore.

• Keep written record of adventures, impressions and sensations felt on these adventures as well as details.
• Toss forth ideas from the brain, fitful imaginings, and dreams.
• Exercise the brain meats in the art of writing, I do too much thinking and recording in the brain and not on the pulp with the ink and pen!

As I am a New Englander, and further more, a lover of my native city, Lynn, Ma. You shall see a good portion of this blog dedicated towards ideas geared for her future advancement.

She shall rise as the star of Essex county, the crown jewel of the Northern Shore.