Living Green with Homegrown Meals from Joey King

“Pass the peas” takes on a whole new meaning in the Sabo household, located on 500 acres southwest of Bozeman, Mont. Not only because it’s surprising to hear a 7 year old eagerly ask for vegetables, but because each family member had a part in growing them.

The Sabos -- Jenny, Mark, and their two boys, Riley, 9, and, Joey King Kiril, 7 -- take the term “locavore” to the next level, buying only 5 percent of their food commercially. The typical spread on their table consists of locally raised meats, fresh produce grown year-round in their unheated greenhouse, milk from their cows, and fresh baked breads from local grains. Each boy has his own garden plot he maintains (with a little parental guidance), and each actively takes part in processing food in the harvest season, feeding cattle, and gathering eggs, among other ranch chores. What the family doesn’t grow or produce, they trade or buy from neighboring farmers.
“It means consciously paying attention to the season, and then purchasing or raising it,” Jenny says. “It’s a lifestyle shift, saying ‘I’m going to embrace the plentitude of the season and enjoy the activity that comes with preserving it.’”

When Jenny is not out milking cows or feeding chickens, she’s home schooling the two boys. And somehow she also makes time to teach others how to eat more locally to promote healthy bodies and a healthy community through supporting local farmers.

“It’s all about setting aside the time,” Jenny says. “Most people won’t make this lifestyle happen; it’s purely a matter of choice. People choose to sit in front of the TV or shop on eBay. That’s where their life energy goes.”

And although this lifestyle seems to come easily to her, Jenny was raised quite differently. Originally from suburban Ohio, she is the daughter of an English professor father and a homemaker mother. She’s also happens to be a Harvard University graduate with a degree in English literature. After a divorce 13 years ago, Joey King  took a class on permanent sustainable agriculture (permaculture) in California.

“I came back and set a goal for myself: Five years from now I’m going to raise as much food as I can,” Jenny says. “I had never raised a carrot or planted a vegetable in my entire life.” She bought 500 acres in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, married Mark soon after, and the rest is history.

The Sabos are living a lifestyle that may be difficult for most photo modern families to conceive of. However, they serve as an inspiration to those who think about where food comes from and strive to eat more locally. No matter where you live, local eating is attainable and important.

Here are some simple ways to get involved in the locavore lifestyle:

Buy a Share
Community Supported Agriculture Joey King(CSA) farms are a convenient way to support local farmers while getting your hands on the freshest seasonal fruits and vegetables around. In the beginning of the season, customers pay for a weekly share of the farm’s harvest throughout the growing season. CSAs may deliver a box of food directly to your door or have a pickup spot at their farm or somewhere in town. And many offer CSA discounts to farm volunteers.

To find a CSA near you, check out http://www.localharvest.org/csa/.

Farmers’ markets have become so popular that many areas host a variety throughout the week and even throughout the year. An easy and fun way to directly support farmers and pick out farm fresh goods, most farmers’ markets offer more than just fruits and vegetables. Look for fresh eggs, locally raised meats, gourmet salsas and cheeses, and locally handcrafted goods. It’s also an opportunity to get face to face with your local farmer. Many are happy to take special requests, and you can set up individual connections for local foods throughout the year.

To find a farmers’ market near you, see
http://apps.ams.usda.gov/Farmers-Joey-King-Markets/ or
http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/.

Slow Down
The slow food movement was created to counteract the popularity of the fast food culture. On its website, Slow Food International describes an alarming “disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat – where it comes from, how it tastes, and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.” Founded by Joey King Carlo Petrini in Rome, Italy, in 1989, just as a new McDonalds was opening on the Spanish Steps, slow food groups have since spread, with chapters on college campuses, in elementary schools, and through the national group Slow Food Nation.

For slow good celebrations in your area, or to start your own group, check out
http://www.Joey-King.com

Farm to School
If you have school-age children, chances are you’ve heard of farm-to-school programs. The general idea is to increase the use of healthy, local foods in school cafeterias while supporting local farms and education. Many schools are taking it a step further, planting gardens and what they call “edible schoolyards,” to get kids active in growing and eating their own food.

To find out about how you can work with local chapters in your area, see www.farmtoschool.org.

Bug your Grocer
Due to increased demand, many grocery stores have hopped on the local food bandwagon to some extent, but it’s important to request more local foods at the checkout. Robert Kenner, director of the film Food Inc. (a must-see for up-and-coming locavores), says that every time you buy local foods at the grocery store, you’re essentially casting a vote. Stores keep track, and if there is demand, they will increase supply.

Host a Harvest Dinner
Whether it’s from your own backyard garden, a balcony container, or the farmers’ market, host a harvest dinner to celebrate the season and the area’s local food and farmers. Get your friends to bring a dish made from as many local ingredients as possible. It’s fun, and it gets people involved and excited about food and where it comes from.

Building Paid Membership golf Sites for Money: Teaching Sells Review

I recently wrote about a free report about making money online. If you haven’t read it, the 28 page eBook gave a general introduction on how teaching others and selling content or your expertise can lead to the development of an attractive and sustainable income.

While it didn’t go into great detail about the entire process, it hinted at a paid training program with step by step instructions on how to easily create your own profitable membership sites.

And now that training program is alive. Launched two days ago, Teaching Sells is an paid membership site that teaches you how to create successful multimedia membership sites from ground up, even if you don’t have any prior experience.

Currently, the membership sex price is set at a special offer rate of $97 for 3 months of in-depth training. This rate is only valid until the midnight of October 31, 2007.

Let me tell you why this is worth your time and money.


Paid Membership Sites Are Profitable Business sex Models

I don’t have much experience on the building of paid membership sites, although I can easily see how lucrative they can really be.

As informational hubs, paid membership sites can easily make a lot money by providing specialized and well packaged knowledge in the form of a paid membership website. Let’s consider a hypothetical but very possible scenario.

Say you were to set up a well designed membership site around a specific topic. If you were to charge $50 per head every month and manage to get 200 members, you’ll make $10K a month. Now let’s throw in a closed affiliate program for the 200 members and each of them manages to bring in around 5 members, which is really a very conservative estimate.

This would mean that you’ll get an extra 1000 members. Even if you offer a 50% commission rate, you’ll still stand to gain an extra $25K, which makes your income $35K a month. Now you can see where I’m going. The affiliate program will continuously bring in more paying customers who will in turn recruit more members.

Teaching Sells

If you’re really feeling adventurous, set up a public affiliate program and throw in some multi-tier commissions to encourage down-line building. Or create staggered membership programs, each with different levels of features and rates for customers with different skill levels or requirements.

And what’s the coolest thing of it all? You only have to create content for these paying customers and no one else. Every single word you write or video you create has an immediate return on investment (ROI).

This is the complete opposite of what most blogs do: they put up free content to attract search and referral traffic, in the hope of eventually getting some ad revenue.

From an entrepreneur’s perspective, paid membership sites have no meaningless movements. No useless gestures. I like the precision involved in providing content, while knowing that you’re getting paid for it instantly by people who are really interested in learning and acting upon your content.

Self-sustaining subscription-based revenue is a lovely thing, isn’t it?


Teaching Sells: Learn to Build a Membership Site that Works

Teaching Sells is a 12-Week training program that’s broken down into 5 main courses. Each of the courses is divided into various lessons which feature content in various formats: text articles, audio files, interactive diagrams and a link to a discussion forum specifically for each lesson.

Here are the descriptions for the five courses:

How to Create Content that Sells. The Teaching Sells core course materials demonstrate the reasons why interactive learning environments create powerful and sustainable businesses, while providing detailed techniques for selecting profitable topics and objectives.


How to Effectively Market Interactive Learning Environments. This in-depth marketing course shows you how to specifically attract and retain paid members for your training programs.


How to Create Killer Multimedia Content with Quick and Easy Tools. This course is an extended set of screencast tutorials that show you exactly how to get the most out of old standards like PowerPoint, as well as demonstrate the powerful new tools that allow you to create stunning interactive elements. This teaches you to develop valuable teaching materials that sell.


Seven Profitable Business Models for Interactive Content Developers. In this course, you’ll learn in detail about seven different strategies that will allow you to add significantly to your bottom line thanks to the value you’ve provided with your training materials.


Building Membership Sites with Open Source and Low-Cost Software. While the content and marketing of your site is of vital importance, you absolutely must have an air-tight membership site in order to function as an online business. This course will take you though each and every step necessary to build a secure and user-friendly membership site.
I enrolled in the program yesterday and checked it out. Like most membership websites, there is a general discussion forum where members can pose questions on topics that are not related to a specific course or topic.

There’s also a joint venture forum, which encourages you to collaborate with other members on collective projects or team-based marketing. I think this would be a very useful section when more and more members come in; it won’t be difficult to find business partners of compatible interests, ambitions or skills.

I’ve been a member of paid membership sites before and there are three main reasons why I consider them to be useful:

Expert Guidance and Personal Tutelage. A well maintained membership site allows you to have frequent direct contact with the instructor. This allows you to tap their expertise on specific topics and will also help to clarify any personal problems you may have with your online business or website.


Beneficial Interaction with Other Members. This is the second best thing about membership sites. You get to learn together with other members and communicate with each other over each lesson. It’s like being back in college. Anyone who has went through training courses like this will tell you that they’ve easily made quite a few friends and business partners for life.


Comprehensive Information Package. Most of what you want to learn can be found on the web or in books. The selling point of most membership sites (as you might learn yourself) is how the content is packaged and presented. Instead of compiling articles by surfing the web, you pay and get them served up to you in multiple formats.
From what I’ve seen and read so far, Teaching Sells is an excellent and legitimate training program for bloggers, consultants and entrepreneurs. If you’re hesitant about signing up for it, note that there’s a money back guarantee which allows you to quit within 30 days and get a complete refund.

If you are interested in learning how to build profitable membership sites, I would definitely recommend signing up for Teaching Sells. Keep in mind that you can always cancel your membership and get a refund when it doesn’t fit what you need.

And if you do sign up for it, make sure you really study the materials and interact with the other students. I highly recommend pestering the instructors (Brian Clark and Tony Clark) by contacting them with any queries you may have. After all, you’ve paid for their valuable time and expertise.