Dear Evolvers

I'd like to take a moment out of my unexpectedly busy volunteer schedule to thank you. I'd like to thank you for hooking me up with some of the best internet friends ever! A couple of which have become real, local friends, and another few of which have become actual Facebook friends. Some of you are email friends. Others of you have shared your phone numbers with me. If you have, you can expect a call from me, hopefully when the time is just right. Each of you has given me something very special by way of your trust. And I hope I can return the favor.

I kinda dropped out of the mix in December. There was a lot of complex family stuff and unexpected transition going on then. It shook me offline, but I landed in my town. I got involved and woke up with a start to everything that was going on within easy reach!

I'm going to fast forward through my discoveries during January and February and simplify the tale to the moment. My city is awake!

In short, my local community has stepped forward to support the idea of an all-volunteer Orchard which grows free food for the picking. My City government has donated land and resources to bring this idea to life! The community I live in has stepped forward in formidable show of force and leant their every resource out to make it happen! It's weird, new, and delightful. Everyone does have a piece of the puzzle. And you can help us with this emerging example of open-source food by voting online.

The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (an awesome not-for-profit org) has promised to give us the full compliment of starter energy and material and info for our proposal, "IF," we can get enough folks to enter their name and click one button online for 45 days in a row.

If! we can get enough online votes (against Orwell), my native town has a chance to validate my neighbor Elanor Ostram's Nobel Prize in Economics (Namely, that we are smart enough to manage our own commons, thank you).

Please help us at http://www.communitiestakeroot.com. Vote for Bloomington Parks and Rec! Champions of Farmer's Markets, Rails to Trails, Volunteer Orchards, and urban multi-story Eco-Communities!

Monroe County, Indiana is easily identifiable on political maps. It is historically the only blue one in the sea of former Midwestern red breadbaskets. It is also the epicenter of traditionally sacred native shared hunting grounds. This info is buried in our local library. There were tribes N, S, E, and W in the old days when a squirrel could hop from tree to tree lazily from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River unhindered. They all sent hunting parties here. The Empire State Building and the Washington Monument are built with my great grandfather's hand-carved bedrock. Limestone country. Cutters Academy. Pedal fast Bloomington natives! You're racing against ancient Oil interests!

Check the comments out at this link, "Milk Toast" indeed!:
http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/6222

Join our evolving community discussion at http://www.transitionbloomingtonind.ning.com and lend us your wisdom in waking up together.