Essay 4

Ashley Yermasek
ENG 1020
Dr. Houp
22 April 2009
GROWING FROM THE GROUND UP
It is so quiet that you can hear your own heartbeat thumping heavily inside your chest. A million different emotions are running through your mind right now, excitement, anxiety and fear are just a few. The rush of adrenaline for what you are about to do is almost too much, should you do risk it and do what you came here for, or should you run away right now? Is this small patch of unattended land really worth the risk or the bigger question, why so much worry and fear over planting a garden?
Richard Reynolds defines geurilla gardening as the “illicit cultivation of someone else’s land.” He goes on to add:
It is a simple strategy for winning access to space and a way of improving sooner than beuarocracy will allow. It can be very politicised and it can be very low key. Sometimes it is a short-term gesture, but always it is done without permission. Those who have progressed to gardening in peace can celebrate, but do not forget your guerilla roots. War can return, the land you have permission to garden may be taken away, and a fight will be needed. (“What”)
Guerilla gardening is growing on someone else’s land without permission and since it is not permissible, it is often illegal. There are many different reasons for guerilla gardening, some do it to beautify a neglected space, some use it as a form of political protest, and some use it to grow their own food. Whatever the reason though, the common goal is to tend to a space that is not tended to already.
Guerilla gardening has a rich history and has been around since 1649. A man by the name of Gerrard Winstanley and his followers took over vacant or common lands in Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Kent, and Northamptonshire and began cultivating the land and distributing crops without charge to their followers (“The”). They practiced guerilla gardening as a form of political protest. He was angry because land rights were taken away and many people were living in poverty. He figured that if he and his followers started gardening on unused land they would not only have their own food source, but also prove that the land belonged to everyone, not just one individual. Another guerilla gardener named Liz Christy founded the Green Guerillas in 1973. Christy was a lower east side artist from New York who gathered her friends and neighbors together to clean out a vacant lot on the corner of Bowery and Houston streets (“Our”). The Green Guerillas took on many projects in the city of New York, they threw seed “green aids” over the fences of vacant lots, installed window boxes, planted flowers in tree pits, and helped people transform city-owned vacant lots into community gardens; three decades have past and the Green Guerillas are still a vital non-profit organization cared for by the community (“Our”).
Guerilla gardening is not something that should be done spur of the moment, a well organized plan is needed to carry out the task. Here are some tips from Richard Reynolds on how to be a successful guerilla gardener: spot some orphaned land, plan a mission, find a local supply of plants, choose plants for front line battle, get some Wellington shoes, bag some bags, regular watering, seed bombs, chemical warfare, garden with a girl, spread the word, and transportation (“Tips”). These tips will come in handy in the next week as I embark on a guerilla gardening escapade of my own. I will be able to take all of the information I have gathered and put it together as I start to care for some neglected land.
I will have to find a piece of prospective land that is in need of some care, gets plenty of sunlight, and is easy for me to tend to on a regular basis. I will then decide whether or not to grow the seeds or buy some flowers that are ready to be put in the ground. I will carefully execute my well thought plan and log what I do each day and also take pictures to document the whole process, before, during, and after.
Well I suppose that I have to pick a spot first. Lucky for me there's lots of houses in my neighborhood that are being prepped to sell....apparently the realty companies tore up the shrubs and planned on planting something months back but never got around to it....this is where I step in. Maybe some really nice flowers instead of the shrubs will actually get these homes sold and not be such an eyesore to me in the process. This could be a win-win situation. I have chose to plant the sweet pea flowers, I know absolutely nothing about flowers and which ones are best to grow but I do have this awesome lotion that I got from Bath and Body Works called Sweet Pea and it smells delicious so I think it's a good sign. My son wants to get in on the guerilla gardening experience as well, I know I'm supposed to go it alone but can I really tell my son not to plant something when he's got such a green thumb? Plus he's learning about the environment in school right now so it seems kind of perfect.
So I had to re-think my plan and am now going to buy some flowers that are ready to be planted because my cat got into the sweet pea seeds. I had decided that I was going to put them in a planter and grow them inside and then transplant them later, but my cat got into the planter, dug all the dirt out, and I can’t find the seeds in there. She made a complete mess of everything, dumb cat. So my husband, son, and I went to the Home Depot to get some really pretty flowers and some more topsoil so we could try this out again. This time was a success because I didn’t have to wait for the seeds to grow, seeing how I only have until May 1, this plan was much better. We decided on some very pretty pink flowers, I’m terrible with flowers so I can’t quite remember the name of them though.
My son and I waited until the evening and then traipsed over to the house next door and put our sly plan in to action. My son had so much fun doing this because I told him that we could get in trouble if we got caught, so I think that made it more exciting for him. We decided to plant our flowers around a cute little tree in the front yard because that spot gets the perfect amount of sun and shade during the day, plus it looked like it was in need of a little love. Finally we got the flowers in the ground and it looked so good! We went to our garage and took out some plastic garden fence to put around the area where we planted them so they hopefully will not be destroyed by a lawnmower. This has been a wonderful experience for both me and my son, it is something that we can both look back on and say “we did this, we grew something together.”
Works Cited
"Our History". Green Guerillas. 22 April 2009
.
"The Diggers". Wikipedia. 22 April 2009
.
"Tips". 22 April 2009 .
“What is Guerilla Gardening?” 6 June 2007.
. 22 April 2009

Day 1-Lets Grow Something

Well I suppose that I have to pick a spot first. Lucky for me there's lots of houses in my neighborhood that are being prepped to sell....apparently the realty companies tore up the shrubs and planned on planting something months back but never got around to it....this is where I step in. Maybe some really nice flowers instead of the shrubs will actually get these homes sold and not be such an eyesore to me in the process. This could be a win-win situation. I have chose to plant the sweet pea flowers, I know absolutely nothing about flowers and which ones are best to grow but I do have this awesome lotion that I got from Bath and Body Works called Sweet Pea and it smells delicious so I think it's a good sign. My son wants to get in on the guerilla gardening experience as well, I know I'm supposed to go it alone but can I really tell my son not to plant something when he's got such a green thumb? Plus he's learning about the environment in school right now so it seems kind of perfect. I have a few pictures, I am just having a little trouble getting them to transfer to my computer at the moment, but my husband being the computer genius that he is will fix this and I should have them up by tonight or tommorrow.

Essay 3

Ashley Yermasek
ENG 1020
Dr. Houp
3 April 2009
Growing Together
Imagine a place where everyone comes together for a shared love and a driving passion; there is no discrimination, no competition, and no upper, middle, or lower class. Just people working hand in hand to sustain life and care for something on a level playing field. This is a place that was created in unison and can mean many different things to each individual, this is a community garden. For some, a calming oasis to escape the stresses of everyday life; for others, a healthier, more sufficient means of food consumption and land usage. Whatever the reason, these gardens are inspiring unity and hope among many communities and neighborhoods.
The American Community Gardening Association or ACGA broadly defines a community garden as any piece of land gardened by a group of people, it can be urban, suburban, or rural; it can grow flowers, vegetables, or community; it can be one community plot, or can be many individual plots; it can be at a school, hospital, or in a neighborhood; it can also be a series of plots dedicated to “urban agriculture” where the produce is grown for a market (ACGA).
Most community gardens are based off of the Victory Gardens started more than 350 years ago. The San Francisco Garden Resource Organization (SFGRO) defines Victory Gardens as vegetable gardens planted during the world wars to ensure an adequate food supply for civilians and troops. Government agencies, private foundations, businesses, schools, and seed companies all worked together to provide land, instruction, and seeds for individuals and communities to grow food (SFGRO). The SFGRO also states that modern community gardens have their roots in Historic Bethabara Park in Winston-Salem, the site of the first Moravian settlement in North Carolina and the oldest community garden in the country (SFGRO).
The benefits to having a community garden seem endless! Here are some of the many benefits to community gardens as stated in Cultivating Community Gardens: improves the quality of life for people in the garden, provides a catalyst for neighborhood and community development, stimulates social interaction, encourages self-reliance, beautifies neighborhoods, produces nutritious food, reduces family food budgets, conserves resources, creates opportunity for recreation, exercise, therapy, and education, reduces crime, preserves green space, creates income opportunities and economic development, reduces city heat from streets and parking lots, provides opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural connections, includes neighbors of various ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds, builds in a method to encourage the donation of surplus produce to food shelters, and enables gardeners to sell their produce through a local farmers market (CCG). With all these benefits, it seems like every community would want a garden like this.
Another article from Cultivating Community Gardens states that 65 percent of adults in the U.S. are over-weight or obese and more than 33 percent of children and adolescents are obese or at risk for becoming obese (CCG). Obese adults and children are at a greater risk of developing heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. The article also states that in addition to the potential health consequences, obesity creates a substantial economic burden; the direct and indirect health costs associated with obesity are estimated at 117 billion dollars per year, nationwide, in the form of worker absenteeism, health care premiums, co-payments, and out-of-pocket expenses (CCG). If people like this had access to a community garden where they could grow their own fresh fruits and vegetables the rate of obesity might go down.
In addition to promoting health and cutting back on obesity these gardens create educational opportunities as well as help the environment. The CCG states that hands –on community gardens can teach children about the sources of fresh produce, demonstrate community stewardship and introduce the importance of environmental sustainability. They also state that gardens are a great place for children to learn math, business and communication skills through applied activities and interaction; integrating environmental-based education into academic programs improves reading, math, science and social studies test scores and reduces discipline problems in the classroom (CCG). The article also talks about the environmental benefits such as green vegetation can reflect as much as twenty to twenty-five percent of radiation from the sun, thus reducing the heat island effect in cities and cooling the climate in urban areas. It also states that in the United States, a meal travels about 13,000 miles, on average, before reaching your plate; eating locally produced foods reduces fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and a variety of other negative environmental consequences associated with the transportation of foods (CCG).
More and more college campuses are starting to use community gardens not only as an educational and environmental booster, but also as a way to connect with the community. The appearance of a campus is normally the first thing that prospective students and their parents take notice of when selecting a school to attend, a community garden is a great way to showcase the campus. Government Professor and garden faculty advisor Peter Cannavo of Hamilton College in New York is quoted as saying “Food is one of the most tangible connections to where we live and this is a connection that has been lost over the past century” (Campus). Cannavo also states that “Decentralization of food production has made us passive consumers, and a garden is also a way of establishing citizenship in a democracy” (Campus). Hamilton College has also proved how cost efficient it is to start up a garden such as this. The students and professors wrote up a proposal asking for 20,000 in which 13,000 will go towards a water line, around 1,800 will go to a local farmer for help with ploughing and advice, and the rest will go towards a fence (Campus). A local restaurant called Bon Apetit has also gotten involved with the project and are excited about the prospect of buying and growing fresh herbs and various other fresh vegetables, they are even willing to buy everything and anything the garden produces (Campus).
Wilmington College in Ohio has found a way to beautify their campus while also easing the impact of the local job crisis. An article in their school newspaper states that Wilmington College is calling upon its agricultural heritage as it endeavors to take a leadership role in addressing needs in a community rocked by the potential loss of 8,000 jobs at the Wilmington Air Park (College). Wilmington College is offering several opportunities for putting fresh food on the tables of Clinton County residents during their time of need. The center piece will be its community gardens, a series of 20 4-by-12 foot plots on College land that will be used by pre-selected families and individuals to grow vegetables this summer (College).
In conclusion a community garden can mean many great things for communities and campuses alike. A quote from Lady Bird Johnson states “While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many” (Quotations). Whether they are used as a primary local food source, means of education, or bringing people together over a common goal, these gardens can help us grow more than the seeds we put in the ground.
Works Cited
"Cultivating Community Gardens". LGC. April 4, 2009
.
"History of Community and Victory Gardens". San Francisco Garden Resource Organization .
April 3, 2009 .
"Quotations About the Community". April 15, 2009
.
Reed, Mallory. The Spectator. Campus Community Garden Ploughed and Ready to Grow. 2009.
"What is a community garden?". American Community Garden Association. April 1, 2009
.

Essay 2

Ashley Yermasek
ENG-1020
Dr. Houp
25 February 2009
MTR: Handicapping Communities
Big-wig coal companies are playing a dangerous game of intimidation and control with the residents of Appalachia and surrounding coal sites. Mining there works out great for them because these are communities located in the backwoods, off the beaten path and are usually very poor. Without proper schooling, jobs, and outside resources, they are kept in the “dark” about what is really going on and that is just how the coal companies want it. Coal companies are not the only ones to blame however, the government plays its role as well. A lot of these coal companies are in pretty tight with both political parties, so they have a lot of leeway when it comes to destroying people’s property or the property surrounding. The government helps keep these residents poor by not funding their economy so there are no good jobs, the schools are falling apart, and without proper educations it can be assumed that well qualified teachers in these areas are slim to none. MTR is one of the most destructive forms of coal mining; the scars left behind leave the environment and the communities inhabitants caught in a toxic bubble of chemical waste and devastation.
The coal industry is on a burning power trip, and they do not care who they hurt in the process. In Bringing Down the Mountains, Burns talks about how there are three distinct stages of power relations that can be discerned among communities affected by MTR:
Stage One is the infancy/beginning stage; in this stage community members are often trusting of the companies, believing the companies to have the best interest of the community at heart. Stage Two is the intermediate or middle stage when community members are shocked, dismayed and angered as the MTR practices begin to directly effect the community in a negative way. In Stage Three, the final stage, massive buy-outs of homeowners and businesses dovetail, intense depopulation occurs, and migration escalates and soars. (Burns 98)
In other words, the coal companies completely dupe these communities into thinking that they are there to help and then they leave them hanging. When jobs start depleting due to more machinery being brought in, most residents have no choice but to leave and find work elsewhere or stay and fight to keep their communities alive. Burns also describes how most residents first encounter with mountaintop removal mining operations is when the coal company sends them a letter alerting them to plans of blasting (Burns 70). Many residents are not even aware of MTR until blasting begins. A quote from Greta Stone, a forty year resident of the Oceana-Kopperston community exclaims, “You’re so concerned (about jobs), and you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you. The coal companies and timbering companies provide jobs. No one wants to see anybody put out of a job because we have to work…we have to work” (qtd. in Burns 71). A chilling statement from an article on the Kentuckians For The Commonwealth (KFTC), stated by Erica Urias from Pike County, Kentucky reads: “Is coal a cheap source of energy? Not unless you think that people’s lives are cheap” (“About Canary”). This quote rings so much truth because, of course it is the cheapest form of coal extraction for the coal industry and the government alike, but the residents of these coal fields pay a much higher price. With the highest cancer and diabetes rates in the nation, these people are paying with their lives. But aside from this, aren’t they already paying with their lives by watching everything that they have worked so hard for being destroyed one mountain blast at a time?
MTR has become an increasingly mainstream form of destruction. MTR currently takes place in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, but the turmoil can be felt by many cities, states, and towns across the U.S. In the book Lost Mountain, Erik Reece speaks with Teri Blanton, a prime mover in the KFTC. Blanton tells Reece about growing up in the small town of Dayhoit, in Harlem County Kentucky where she says it was the kind of community where neighbors shared their coal in the winter, and friend and neighbor Millard Sutton grew enough vegetables to feed nearly the whole town (44). Blanton goes on to talk about how the coal company tried to scare and intimidate her by sending a truck to slowly circle her trailer all day when she called the highway department to complain about a puddle of black water and coal slurry that stood in front of her trailer where her children caught the school bus. She also recalls how her children were constantly sick and would often break out into “measles like rashes” after bathing due to the groundwater from the well being poisoned with vinyl chloride, trichloroethylene, and volatile organic contaminants (45). Perhaps one of the most chilling statements Blanton makes is when she and Reece visit the White Star Cemetery and she states: “I don’t think I’ve ever been up here on a day I wasn’t burying someone”, she goes on to add, “Almost nobody in Dayhoit lives past fifty-five, at the meetings, the people from the EPA would accuse us of being too emotional. I told them, “Let all of your family members and friends die around you and see if you don’t get emotional” (49). It is apparent that coal companies have no regard for anything they destroy and anyone that they hurt.

Coal companies are poisoning communities with chemicals as well as lies. The coal companies and the government both work together and try to convince these communities affected most by MTR that what they are doing is safe, legal, and a necessity. A lot of the residents believe this because they know that they have little to no jobs available and for some it is the only means of supporting their families. Burns speaks of how the coal industry was able to convince some underground miners that any ruling against MTR would eventually cause underground mining to end (85). Miners did not like the sound of this at all so most went on the defense. One underground miner commented: “Until we quit letting the environmentalists come in and tell us what we can and can’t do, we aren’t going to have any mining” (85). Any of the miners afraid of losing their jobs will do most anything to keep this from happening.
The term “clean coal” is also thrown around in the press by government officials and coal company operators. An article from Business Week. quotes Blan Holman, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charleston, S.C., as saying “Clean coal’ is like a healthy cigarette, it doesn’t exist”(Elgin). The idea of “clean coal” is a fantasy, dreamt up by the government and coal companies to make the coal extraction process not seem so harsh, it is a lie. Using that term just allows the coal industry to keep doing what they are doing and get away with it, at the residents of the coal fields expense. To think of how many billions of dollars in coal are extracted from these mountaintops and the communities that provide access to it are the poorest in the nation is a sickening thought, but this is what is happening. The only way it can be stopped is by communities and anyone who has some knowledge of what is going on to join forces and fight for it. There are several organizations filled with information and touching, personal stories that you can access on the web and become a part of. The more people know, the better the chances of it being stopped. MTR can be brought down just like the mountain tops they destroy, several voices at a time.
















Works Cited
Elgin, Ben. “The Dirty Truth About Clean Coal.” Business Week. 19 June 2008.
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. “About Canary.” 26 February 2009.
Reece, Erik. Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness. New York: Riverhead, 2006.
Stewart Burns, Shirley. “Bringing Down The Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal
Surface Coal Mining on Southern West Virginia Communities,1970-2004. Ph.D. diss., West Virginia University, 2005.

Draft 1 of Essay 2

Ashley Yermasek
ENG-1020
Dr. Houp
25 February 2009
Draft 1
Big-wig coal companies are playing a dangerous game of intimidation and who knows more with the residents of Appalachia and surrounding coal sites. Mining there works out great for them because these are communities located in the backwoods, off the beaten path and are usually very poor. Without proper schooling, jobs, and outside resources, they are kept in the “dark” about what is really going on and that’s just how the coal companies want it. Coal companies aren’t the only ones to blame however, the government plays its role as well. A lot of these coal companies are in pretty tight with both political parties, so they have a lot of leeway when it comes to destroying people’s property or the property surrounding. The government helps keep these residents poor by not funding their economy so there are no good jobs, the schools are falling apart and without proper educations, I’m sure well qualified teachers in these areas are slim to none.
Cut off from society, constant intimidation, and fear for their lives; this is how residents of the coal fields live every day. They are both poisoned with chemicals in the air and drinking water, as well as poisoned with lies. The coal companies and the government both work together and try to convince these communities affected most by mountaintop removal that what they are doing is safe, legal, and a necessity. A lot of the residents believe this because they know that they have little to no jobs available and for some it is the only means of supporting their families. The term “clean coal” is also thrown around in the press by government officials and coal company operators. To think of how many billions of dollars in coal are extracted from these mountaintops and the communities that provide access to it are the poorest in the nation is a sickening thought.
A chilling statement from an article on the Kentuckians For The Commonwealth website, stated by Erica Urias from Pike County, Kentucky reads: “Is coal a cheap source of energy? Not unless you think that people’s lives are cheap.” This quote rings so much truth because of course it is the cheapest form of coal extraction for the coal industry and the government alike, but the residents of these coal fields pay a much higher price. With the highest cancer and diabetes rates in the nation, these people are paying with their lives. But aside from this, aren’t they already paying with their lives by watching everything that they have worked so hard for being destroyed one mountain blast at a time?

This is all I’ve got so far, it’s a little messy and unorganized but I think it’s a decent start.

Bean Day 2

So my beans have been doing a lot of nothing today...just relaxing and soaking up sun...I let them visit with my turtles and my turtles tried to eat them so that friendship was short lived. I wish I could get them to write my papers for me, that would be great.

Thesis

Here's my attempt at a decent thesis...I'm not the best at comming up with them but I tried.



Mountaintop removal is one of the most destructive forms of coal mining, the scars left behind leave the environment and the communities inhabitants caught in a toxic bubble of chemical waste and devastation.