El Grito of the Green Revolution 2010
By Roger Jones, Vía Orgánica

With the organic seeds of a twenty-first-century Green Revolution firmly planted in the rich soils of central Mexico, a revolution of consciousness is taking root.

A powerful movement of peaceful assertiveness will protect our sacred rights. A growing grassroots network of people from every cultural and social background will expose the truth. We will awaken and educate our communities so that we can identify the threats to our freedom and survival. We will build a new world of health, justice, sustainability, peace and democracy and break the chains of corporate global greed.

We are all one race, the human race.

In the spirit of the revolution, we proclaim the true heroes of the movement are the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, and, most of all, the children, who will inherit, cultivate and protect our beautiful Madre Tierra, the planet Earth.

We send out our cry for the new Green Revolution on the ninth day of August 2009, in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

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Luscious, spacious and delicious!
By Jennifer Hamilton

Rancho Las Palmas, a lush, green property in Atotonilco, was an ecological dream-come-true when built in the early 1990s. However, for the past seven years the original owner’s dream and the organic garden were temporarily abandoned.

Now under the management of Vía Orgánica, the farm has been re-infused with vitality, as seen with last weekend’s organic agricultural conference.

Spread over 20 acres of land, this luscious riverside property and conference center has several adobe and rock buildings, most sporting extra-thick Huasteca-style palapa roofs. The main salon is one such building, enclosed above by a vast ceiling of awe-inspiring tree trunk beams. 

The rounded kitchen and bathrooms on either end of the salon contain tejamanil, or wood strip ceilings, above which are two luxurious loft sleeping areas on either side of the expansive sala. A large terrace stretches into the palm-shaded yard, bordered by a botanical garden and facing the nearly hidden swimming pool.

Weaving along the stone slab paths, visitors will be constantly surprised. A private bedroom, complete with living area and its own garden, has beautiful views of the ancient river gorge and sunsets. A round, two-roomed adobe suite with palapa roof looks onto the burgeoning organic vegetable gardens.

A family suite with furnished kitchen nestles into the rock, where the property drops into the river valley. One of the biggest attractions of this private, cozy home is the Ofuro Japanese bath and steam room.

The visit to Via Orgánica, however, is not complete without viewing the stables and the luscious organic gardens—now rows of vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, corn, beans, lettuce, beets, kale, herbs, melons and gourds are ever expanding to replace the alfalfa crops.

The organic produce is available at their store on calle Margarito Ledesma 2, colonia Guadalupe.



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Audubon Sightings
By Walter L. Meagher

Barn owls, neural maps and wing silencers Wayne and Susan Colony saw the barn owl at twilight in El Charco. On another evening, the night watchmen saw a barn owl near the canyon. Not only is it beautiful, but like the barn swallow, the barn owl lives in alliance with human settlements. No barns are in our neighborhood, or near El Charco; it would take some sleuthing to find where they nest.

Pellets are a clue to roosting sites. Barn owls swallow prey whole. A single mouse, shrew or vole, one at a time. Later, the owl regurgitates fur and bones in a neat bundle called an owl pellet. An inquiring young naturalist might find a site of pellets, take them home and reassemble all the bony parts a vole.

I was surprised to learn from Mario Hernández, deputy director of the botanical garden El Charco del Ingenio, that: “En las comunidades rurales en esta parte del pais, el tecolote (owl) tiene una connotación ‘mala’ tal vez porque hay un dicho que dice, ‘Cuando el tecolote canta, el indio muerte’.” More likely it is a vole that dies.

Most birds observe ordinary hours of the working day and roost at sundown, as snowy egrets and great-tailed grackles do; but owls, like bats, have evolved ways to exploit food available in the dark. Barn owls locate prey by sound alone. The concave surface of the facial ruff, so singular in appearance and worn by no other family of birds, collects and amplifies sound.

Collection alone does not fix location. The barn owl needs to know whether the sound (a mouse snuffling along its grassy trail) comes from left, right or straight ahead.

How loud the sound is, its time and intensity are all recorded in neural cells in the owl’s midbrain and that information is processed—frankly, details are not fully known—making a “neural map.” With this map, the barn owl flies directly to the source of the sound, without “seeing” the sound source, and seizes a rodent. This remarkable system is so reliable the barn owl lives comfortably all around the world and is one of the world’s most successful predators.

Yet it is not enough to locate prey. Prey must not hear the advance of the predator. Solving this problem, the barn owl approaches silently, flight without a whisper. Usually birds in flight make a sound. Given that the barn owl is a big bird, it should make more sound in flying than a smaller bird. Any sound, giving notice of an oncoming predator, is warning enough for a small rodent to scamper away. However, owls do not make a sound in flying: their wings have a “silencer.” The first primary feather is serrated rather than smooth. Air flowing over a smooth surface, surprisingly perhaps, always makes a sound, whereas serrations on feathers disrupt airflow, creating the silence that gives the owl its second advantage as a hunter in the night.

Neural maps and feather serrations are all matters of biology. Long before they were known, the owl held a place in human cultures. An ill omen for the campesino, but an emblem of wisdom, the little owl (a different species from the barn owl) was the goddess Athena’s associate. But in Europe, as well as in Mexico, many people feared the night-flying bird as an omen of death. Could it be the belief of the campesino originated in Europe and arrived with the Conquistadors? We prefer the bright side and are glad the bird’s presence is honored in the name of the town’s largest bookstore, Libros El Tecolote.

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Gala Opening & Fiesta
The Green Store
Fri, Aug 14, 5–9pm
Plaza Conspiración
Salida a Querétaro

Green companies join forces
By Ben Ptashnik

The Green Store, a cooperative of four companies that promote and sell sustainable green home products and architectural services such as solar systems, compressed earth blocks, composting toilets and rainwater harvesting systems, has its Gala Opening all day on August 14. In the evening, enjoy a fiesta with food and beverages in celebration of the opening.

The cooperative includes Tierra Y Cal, that produces and sells compressed adobe blocks as well as runs workshops all over North and Central America on make compacted earth blocks and use natural clay-based plastering instead of cement. 

Adler Eco-design installs rain-water harvesting systems and water filtration systems, as well as water-saving appliances and fixtures.

Solar San Miguel International designs and installs wind generator and solar systems that produce electricity (Photovoltaic systems). The company also designs and sells thermal solar systems that heat pools or heat domestic water for showers.

Sustainable architecture firm EARTHchitecture, headed by Hugo Dorsey completes the green team. Dorsey plans and designs green sustainable building projects in the San Miguel region with passive solar design, and many other innovative energy-saving techniques.

Located at the Plaza Conspiración, 100 meters before the Pemex and the first Glorieta on the Salida a Querétaro, the Green Store can be spotted easily by its large wind generator and photovoltaic systems that produce electricity on the co-op building roof.