I wish I could afford to go this year, first time I'll be missing it in almost 10 years

Hi jlee60 I may be interested in doing the same. I have an assortment of hot pepper seeds, and a few other things. Would be great if we can round up a few more to participate. Diane

Ezzirah, Straw is sprayed with herbicides too. All it takes is a very minute amount of herbicide residue (perhaps as small as one part per billion) on hay, straw, in animal manure from animals that ate the contaminated hay, or compost made from contaminated ingredients to contaminate your soil. Contaminated soil will vary in how long it remains barren and for most gardeners it seems like it takes at least 3 or 4 years before they can grow anything in the garden again other than grasses or grains. The 3 to 4 years of "down time" that most people see is a much longer period than the manufacturer says their research indicates. I've linked a permaculture website that addresses herbicide contamination and the writer shows some of their own plants in soil he or she was testing for contamination, and further down the page describes how the contamination issue affected their plants. The only way to know for sure you have non-contaminated hay or straw is to get it directly from the person who grew it and make sure that it was not sprayed with any of the herbicides known to persist for long periods of time. I only get hay from people I know do not ever, ever, ever spray their fields and even then you run the risk that their next-door neighbor could have sprayed this herbicide and it could have drifted into non-sprayed area. When I buy hay from a feed store, I only buy alfalfa hay and I don't buy straw because the local suppliers cannot tell me if it was sprayed or not. Your local feed store or hay broker may or may not know if their hay or straw was sprayed. Our local feed store sometimes knows and sometimes has no idea. All the herbicides that persist in hay, straw, manure, compost and soil are sprayed to kill broad-leaved weeds in grass and grain crops, along road, railroad and utility line right-of-ways, and even on golf courses. Since alfalfa is not a grass or grain (it is a legume), it cannot be sprayed with those herbicides, so there is not a deadly herbicide residue issue with it. I used to bring in lots of mulch and soil amendments from outside our property, whether they were locally-grown hay or bagged products from a store, but almost everything I use now come from our own property because that's the only way I have of knowing I'm not contaminating my soil with herbicide residue. It takes me so much more time to mow and collect grass clippings to use as mulch than it takes to go to the feed store and buy bales of hay, but at least this way I know I'm not bringing contaminated materials onto our property. Just one bale of contaminated straw or hay or one bag of contaminated manure or compost could destroy your ability to raise non-grass, non-grain crops for years. Everyone who has this happen to them always is shocked and has that "I didn't think this ever would happen to me" attitude, and I understand that, but sadly it has happened to them and it continues to happen. In a very odd and ironic twist, the contaminated compost, manure and mulch issue has hit organic gardeners especially hard despite their efforts to avoid chemicals in the garden. That's because it tends to be organic gardeners who are adding compost and manure to their garden beds, and using hay or straw for mulch. For organic growers who are "certified organic", their certification can be yanked after they've gone to great effort and expense to get it in the first place. The herbicide contamination issue is largely ignored by the media and mostly only discussed after many gardens in one area are wiped out by herbicide contamination. I think that's because it first showed up in the beds of organic gardeners back in the early 2000s when organic gardening was not as popular or as widespread as it is now and organic gardeners still were thought of as a fringe element. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Herbicide Contamination

I finally had a chance to seek out the original Newsweek article. Just as I suspected. Turns out Newsweek's definition of "dying" constitutes small declines in overall population coupled with declines in number of people under 18, also relatively small. All of which could be turned around rapidly. Or maybe these cities were over crowded to begin with. Or maybe it's just that people in general are having fewer children. Heck, all of Europe may be dying if that's your only metric. I'm not sure that having a growing population should be considered a definition of "living" either. It could also be a cause of stress. Many cities in S. America are in horrible shape and they have tons of young people. Don't get me wrong, I know that MI was one of the only states that lost overall population in the last ten years according to the recent census. That's the impetus for these articles. But there's also a principle known as "how to lie with statistics" or in this case, how to overreach. I'm one of the ones who left. Thousands of young people are leaving due to not being able to have jobs. But MI has so much going for it, as this video suggests. Those tough folks who manage to stick it out will create a new future under the new circumstances. I almost hate to tell everyone how nice MI is because then you'll all want to go there and live. Michiganders actually like to keep that our little secret. Yeah, dying state, total rust belt, wouldn't want to come here and crowd all our beaches and roads and parking lots and public facilities and stores and drive up home prices. Just drive on by, nothing to see here. Um hello, being relatively uncrowded and not filled up with people is exactly why Grand Rapids is such a nice place. All the big city amenities, much less of the hassles. If you manage to get to live in West Michigan, you are PRIVLEDGED, not dying.