Thursday night was the first meeting of our local residents’ association, which I attended as the first step in our efforts to improve our community. We’ve volunteered to join some communities and the neighborhood watch program, so here’s hoping that we can make a difference.

I can understand choosing Walmart to get the most mileage from a budget, but as the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price shows, Walmarts are capable of destroying small communities. Of course, sometimes a big store is the only place to get something like an electronic device locally. Unfortunately, that’s something that continue to stay that way as mom & pop electronics stores get squeezed by the deep discounts big stores offer.

But people can always start by making choices based on what is available locally, like produce. I think buying from a big chain store nets a farmer 3 cents for every dollar spent, with a lot of the money going to pay for the gas and the overhead of running a large corporation. Why not buy directly from the farmer instead?

And it would be pretty cool to get to know a farmer. Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms has such an incredibly holistic view of farming, saying stuff like he can only have so many chickens or cows because that’s all that the land can support. I would highly recommend learning about his nature-oriented methods – it’s gotten me curious about farming since his farm is responsible yet incredibly productive.