To Be a Water Protector: The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers

5 Donald Trump has suggested the deportation of many of those
Bureau.
ere are about 11 million of them. It was particularly striking
immigrants.
many of these workers were deemed “essential” during the -19
that
but they are still “illegal.” Business Insider reports that if the
pandemic,
sector were to eliminate all undocumented workers, the US
agriculture
be le with a $30–$60 billion food production loss. 6 ( ink of the
would
A Day Without a Mexican). I am not sure who is going to pick my
lm
for me, frankly, let alone most of the food that comes from
avocados
Central Valley.
California’s
to the deportations, retail food prices could increase by 5–6% on
Due
with some categories seeing higher jumps than others. For example,
average,
National Milk Producers Federation expects a 90% increase in milk
the
if the country removes the immigrant labor supply. 7 Add to that a
prices
million loss from the 2016 California drought 8 and the unstable
$603
brought to us by climate change. Sprinkle that with some bad water
weather
California is using groundwater in fracking operations, and Nestle
policies:
sucking up groundwater in California and elsewhere to bottle.
is
is about a promise and hope. Gardening and rebuilding our
Gardening
relationships with the relatives which have roots. Rea
rming relationships
with plants is a rea
rmation of our agreements and responsibilities with
Mother Earth.
at’s if, indeed, we are able to survive.
grow a really old squash. We call it Gete Okosomin, or “really cool old
We
at variety has been around 800 or more years and is well adapted
squash.”
northern Minnesota. It keeps over the winter, and when opened up,
for
well over a thousand seeds within beautiful orange esh. Each year,
contains
plant more heritage varieties, watch them grow with wonder, have a large
we
family who weeds together, a pony we use to cultivate, and some
extended
that we are intent upon improving a er forty years of scorching with
soils
agriculture’s pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. All together we
industrial
looking to grow not only food for our community, but with our
are
family by family. And we are intent upon growing hemp, or
community,
as the anecdote to the fossil fuel era. A er all, in the early days of
cannabis,
American farming community, people would grow a half acre of hemp
the
a half acre of ax — which would supply the needs of each extended
and
before cotton from Pakistan, before polyester from China. Native
family
people also grew hemp; it was a useful and magical plant.
e White Earth