Image Credit to Noumenon

Anyone who has tried vegetable gardening knows just how satisfying it is to harvest your own food. However, I find the harvest even more satisfying when I don’t have to do any of the gardening leading up to harvest time. That’s right! I’m talking about picking wild foods, specifically grape leaves.

Image Credit to Toby Hudson

I know that the snow is still on the ground here in Ohio, but it’s never too early to start planning your garden. With that thought in mind, I wanted to talk about artichokes – not the root kind (Jerusalem artichokes), but the leafy, delectable globe artichokes.

Image Credit to Ostroff Law

In the first part of this series, I talked about some of the dangerous effects fracking has on the environment. However, the problem with fracking isn’t entirely an environmental one. Pollution, health hazards and earthquakes are the chief concern, but shale oil drilling comes with a few economic side effects that make life harder for average Americans. People are finding that their property values are dropping, banks are refusing to write mortgages, and insurance providers are starting to deny coverage. Let’s take a closer look at how these factors are affecting our lives.

Image Credit to Joshua Doubek

If you spend any kind of time talking to landowners in rural Ohio, the conversation always eventually shifts to shale oil, natural gas and fracking. Around here, the consensus is that fracking is a good thing. After all, anyone who owns more than a few acres of land knows that they can cash in their mineral rights for thousands of dollars per acre.