A Greener Indiana Presents The Little Turtle Music and Arts Festival

What exactly will be going on here?

Who: 5,000 to 15,000 or so of our closest friends, lovers of music and the arts, those who are environmentally conscious and those who support a grass roots approach to bettering our community, our state and our country.

What: A two day music, camping and art festival featuring a wide range of professional musical entertainment on two stages along with a focus to providing a platform for education, demonstrations, and presentations on an array of pressing environmental issues from alternative power and fuel sources, to watershed management, green legislation, the importance of reducing waste, and our ecological footprint. We would like to see a weekend long effort to reduce landfill waste through zero waste concepts like recycling and composting while providing a large platform for nonprofits, grassroots groups, education organizations, and green businesses to reach the masses and parlay the benefits of such a large gathering.

Where: Porter County, IN Fair Grounds

When: Labor Day Weekend 2009

A Greener Indiana Presents Little Turtle Music and Arts Festival

• Brings revenue to the area

• Helps local businesses and merchants by bringing business awareness, and an opportunity to vend at the festival

• Makes the community an attractive place to live, stay, and visit

• Works as an educational tool and supports education (environment, arts, music, community importance)

• Provides a platform for Professional/Diverse Arts

• Provides a platform for nonprofits working in sustainability, environment, and conservation.

• Provides a platform for green businesses to present and solicit their products and programs.

• Provides exposure to the arts and environmental stewardship for young and old

• Provides social influence

• Provides employment opportunity locally for the week of the event

• Provides funding to sustain A Greener Indiana as an organization

• Provides funding and gift donations for charitable environmental programs and projects

Main Goals of Little Turtle Music and Arts Festival\A Greener Indiana

• Present the premier environmental entertainment/education event for Indiana

• To gather together a large mass of citizens.

• Leave No Footprint

• Present the first Zero Waste Music Festival in Indiana

• Builds towards being able to present an “Off-The-Grid” Indiana Festival.

• Raise environmental awareness through art, education, speakers, information booths, and demonstrations of green BMPs, products, and programs.

• Fund raise money to put back into local communities and the Indiana green movement.

Other Community Interactions

• Farmers Market

• Shakedown Street of Vendors

• Provide an Eco-Village area made up of environmental nonprofits, educational groups, and grassroots initiatives.

• Local Flea Market

• Get unsustainable businesses involved and retrofit them to become more environmentally conscious and sustainable.

• Give local artists, farmers, nonprofits, and business owners access to large numbers of new patrons to purchase their goods and services

• Give participants the ability to garner new membership, supporters, and stakeholders

Direct Marketing

• Space available for over 100 vendors and educators.

• Over 16 slots available for demonstrations/seminars/presenters/speakers

• Sponsorship tags available on banners/promo spots/merch/etc

To stay informed of this event feel free to follow Greenerdog on Twitter or Friend Feed. Of Course Joining A Greener Indiana would be a great way to stay informed and meet others before the event!!

What’s your favorite Social Site? email: Greenerdog@gmail.com

Share this post :

Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Urban Permaculture

Contributed by Mrs. Cara Dafforn

Jack-in-the-Pulpit root is used in alternative medicine and is edible (only after drying and cooking), it is acrid, antiseptic, diaphoretic, expectorant, irritant and stimulant. A medicinal poultice of root used for headaches and various skin diseases. Ointment used for ringworm, tetterworm and abscess. The fresh root contains high concentrations of calcium oxalate and is considered to be too dangerous and intensely acrid to use. Roasting the root after drying it 6 months removes the acridity. In this way Native Americans peeled and ground the roots to powder to make a bread, which has a flavor similar to chocolate. The roots can be cut into very thin slices and allowed to dry for several months, after which they are eaten like potato chips, crumbled to make a cereal or ground into a cocoa-flavored powder for making biscuits and cakes. A starch obtained from the roots is used as a stiffener for clothes.
Caution is advised as ingesting the fresh root can cause poisoning and even death.

 

The field guide to Indiana Wildflowers by Kay Yatskievych published by Indiana University Press on page 284 says this perennial herb grows in most counties of Indiana in woods and bogs.

www.easywildflowers.com
www.wildflower.org

 

Follow Greenerdog on Twitter

Share this post :

Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Urban Permaculture

Contributed by Mrs. Cara Dafforn

Jack-in-the-Pulpit root is used in alternative medicine and is edible (only after drying and cooking), it is acrid, antiseptic, diaphoretic, expectorant, irritant and stimulant. A medicinal poultice of root used for headaches and various skin diseases. Ointment used for ringworm, tetterworm and abscess. The fresh root contains high concentrations of calcium oxalate and is considered to be too dangerous and intensely acrid to use. Roasting the root after drying it 6 months removes the acridity. In this way Native Americans peeled and ground the roots to powder to make a bread, which has a flavor similar to chocolate. The roots can be cut into very thin slices and allowed to dry for several months, after which they are eaten like potato chips, crumbled to make a cereal or ground into a cocoa-flavored powder for making biscuits and cakes. A starch obtained from the roots is used as a stiffener for clothes.
Caution is advised as ingesting the fresh root can cause poisoning and even death.

 

The field guide to Indiana Wildflowers by Kay Yatskievych published by Indiana University Press on page 284 says this perennial herb grows in most counties of Indiana in woods and bogs.

www.easywildflowers.com
www.wildflower.org

 

Follow Greenerdog on Twitter

Share this post :

Upcoming www.AGreeenerIndiana.com Events

To stay current with www.AGreenerIndiana.com Events follow the Greenerdog on Twitter

Lilly Global Day of Service

Time: May 20, 2009 all day
Location: Indianapolis?
Website or Map: http://www.smallerindiana.c...
Contact Info: Sarah Grain at 317.264.7555 x106
Event Type: fundraiser
Organized By: Linda Broadfoot

 

Mark Trela Day long workshop covering many aspects of biodynamics.

Time: May 23, 2009 from 9:30am to 3pm
Location: Terre Haute, Indiana
Street: 425 S. 16th Street
City/Town: Terre Haute
Contact Info: 812-243-7425
Event Type: biodynamic, workshop
Organized By: Mark Trela

 

FrogWatch USA Training Workshop

Time: May 23, 2009 from 6pm to 9pm
Location: Winterhaven Wildflowers and Native Plant Preserve
Street: 5724 S. 900 West
City/Town: Westpoint, IN 47992
Website or Map: http://winterhavenfarm.us/
Contact Info: 765-249-2298
Event Type: free, workshop, educational
Organized By: Wendell Zetterberg, Jr.

 

Green Drinks Bloomington - Maggie Sullivan, Director of Local Growers Guild

Time: May 27, 2009 from 5:30pm to 8pm
Location: Upland community room
Street: 11th
City/Town: Bloomington, IN
Event Type: green, drinks, -, networking
Organized By: Green Drinks Bloomington

 

Natural History of Wetlands Weekend

Time: May 29, 2009 to May 31, 2009
Location: Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College, Farmstead Site
Street: 425S
City/Town: Wolf Lake
Website or Map: http://www.goshen.edu/merry...
Contact Info: 260-799-5869
Event Type: educational
Organized By: Jennifer Schrock

Share this post :

Black Gold Movie about coffee and Fair Trade in Ethiopia

So I while attending a coffee tasting by the Midwest Coffee Company I was pleasantly surprised to learn about where my coffee actually comes from and it inspired me to do some research to try and learn the effect of my purchasing decision on the lives of the people who actually farm my coffee. We here in Indiana are pretty supportive of farmers and well farming is just in our culture. The values and hard work ethics are something that most of us here in Indiana can identify with which is why it was very interesting to learn of the farmers in Ethiopia and their struggles and how my coffee purchasing decisions effect them.

My research lead me to a movie Black Gold. According to IMDB Black Gold was nominated for the British Independent film award and won and was nominated for the Sundance Film Festival as well.

British Independent Film Awards 2007 Won British Independent Film Award Best Achievement in Production Nominated British Independent Film Award Best British Documentary Douglas Hickox Award Nick Francis Mark Francis

Sundance Film Festival 2006 Nominated Grand Jury Prize World Cinema - Documentary Marc Francis Nick Francis

Now I did want to do some more research and try and verify some of the statements on this film and really try to get at the story behind this movie from different angles and maybe even get some perspectives from the producers themselves. On that note the forums at Black Black gold are full of good discussion. Here is a good one from the Starbucks section of their forum.

So if you are a Fair Trade or Organic entrepreneur in Indiana feel free to send me some information on your company and its effects on the Indiana economy to greenerdog@gmail.com It is my mission to bridge the gap between consumers and producers so that we as Hoosiers begin to develop a relationship with our food and those that grow it so we can make decisions that effect our environment for the better. Feel free to follow me on Twitter as well.