KDHX Earthworms

The mission of Heru Urban Farming, growing on lots in the City of St. Louis, is to bring healthy, sustainable produce to those who need it most. Founder and CEO Tyrean Heru Lewis is a 5th generation farmer with a background in health and physical education, a Master's degree in Management, and a vibrant passion for growing food that will grow health and vitality for the community he feeds.

Heru's passion is a tangible force. Hearing him talk about his work is feeling the joyful focus he pours into working. Inspiring, practical.  Extraordinary. Heru Urban Farming holds Golden Beet Certification from Known & Grown STL, our regional sustainable food brand and certification system. 

Big congrats for the early December announcement that Heru Urban Farming is awarded a $50,000 grant from the University of Missouri-St. Louis Accelerator. Heru is one of five recipients selected from 470 applicants. The award also includes $200,000 in in-kind service from the Accelerator program.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, supported by Andy Coco and Jon Valley at KDHX Production

Related Earthworms Conversations: 
Tosha Phonix: Organizing Food Justice, Growing Community (Oct 2019)

Known & Grown: Brand Boosting Capacity for Local Food (June 2019)

Greenwood Cemetery: History, Community, Restoration Work (Jan 2018)

Earthworms On The Farm -  conversation series NEW for 2021! This periodic feature welcomes farmer participants in Known & Grown STL, a regional local-food certification program and brand from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.      

First up: Crystal Stevens, whose Flourish farm is located near Godfrey Illinois, returns to Earthworms to share her story of family-farming over 100 varieties of fruits, flowers and culinary and medicinal herbs. 

Learn more about Flourish and Known & Grown STL!

Andy Heaslet is Earthworms engineer, supported by Andy Coco and Jon Valley on the KDHX staff. THANKS!

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Known & Grown STL: New Brand Boosts Capacity for Local Food (June 2019)

Tend & Flourish School of Botanicals (Feb 2020)

Grow, Create, Inspire: a Lifestyle Guide from Crystal Stevens (Oct 2016)

Along the trail into a New Year, Terrain Magazine celebrates outdoor activity - and local faves - with 2021 Readers' Choice Awards.

Editor/publisher Brad Kovach shares the what-how-why of this specialized pub's success, promoting hiking, climbing, paddling, cycling and generally, actively enjoying NATURE. 

Big Thanks to Terrain readers for naming KDHX Earthworms host Jean Ponzi your choice as Enviro-Advocate this year! Especially appreciated since Choice honorees are totally proposed by Readers, not suggested by any official list. Yay! Means a lot!

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms Enviro-Active Engineer, and to Andy Coco and Jon Valley of KDHX Production.

Related Earthworms Conversations: 
The New Territory: Traversing the Literary Midwest with Tina Casagrand (May 2017)

Livin' with Rivers: Big Muddy MO with Greg Poleski (Feb 2017)

The Big Book of Nature Activities (June 2016)

Back in Summer 2018, when Earthworms met Tim Kiefer and Beth Grolmes-Kiefer, they talked their dream of urban farming while their subscription compost collection service was taking off through St. Louis' central corridor.

FF toward end of '20 to hear how their Perennial City enterprise is now growing year-round. How Tim and Beth are learning lessons, taking steps forward, back and cyclical - and growing their full-circle urban agriculture dream.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms friend & audio engineer, and to KDHX production pros Andy Coco and Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Fungus Farming for Food & Fun: McCully Heritage Project (Feb 2018)

Perennial City: Urban Mavens of Productive Decay (Aug 2018)

The Easy Chicken: Fowl Fun Comes to You (Dec 2017)
Dr. Elaine Ingham: Soil Science Rocks Plant Health (Oct 2017)

When E.O. Wilson, one of the greatest biologists of all time, wrote his memoir Naturalist in 1994, could he have imagined his work illustrated to reach a 21st century visual audience? Today, he does!

KDHX host Jean Ponzi flips the cover with conversation and full-color VIEWS of the new graphic adaptation of Naturalist (November, 2020 - Island Press), in a special KDHX Earthworms Live edition with guest Jim Ottaviani, author of this evolution of a science classic.  

What did it take to translate the work of a lifetime into comic form? Ottaviani's comic writing opus spans almost every scientific discipline! Earthworms digs into his Naturalist collaboration with illustrator C. M. Butzer and the book's legendary subject, with rigor, humor and plenty of ants.

Please strongly consider buying Naturalist, and any other publications, from your local independent bookstore!

THANKS to Earthworms tech team: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Ronnie Wisdom for hatching out this Earthworms Live!

Related Earthworms Conversations: Rule of Five, Landmark Enviro-Case from Supreme Court (June 2020)

One Health for People, Animals, Earth - Dr. Sharon Deem (June 2020)

Nature's Best Hope? Entomologist Doug Tallamy says WE are! (February 2020)

Artists can see beauty in peril - so we can move beyond the grip of a problem like Plastic Pollution. Artist Jenny Kettler shows a way through in her photo exhibition Reclaiming Gaia, and this Earthworms conversation.

She shows plastic bags caught in bushes fluttering like tattered veils, a pregnant women shaded by a single-use bottle, and cyanotype sun-developed patterns made by rain. A hand-made book alternates pages of organza fabric with rice paper, inviting the viewer to explore the delicate "spaces between" perceptions. One print that Kettler buried in Forest Park for a year as a kind of archeological quest, motivated a change from gloss to matte photo paper when she realized the glossy stuff is laminated to plastic!

Jenny Kettler fuses vision, awareness, and urgency as keys to unlock barriers of our thinking, to open our hearts.

View Reclaiming Gaia at Stone Spiral Gallery, 2506 Sutton in Maplewood, next door to Stone Spiral Coffee. Opening reception by reservation to stay COVID-safe, October 24. Closing reception November 22, reservations accepted via Facebook.

Jenny Kettler recently earned her MFA from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. She is an Adjunct Professor of art at Lindenwood University, and teaches at Laumeier Sculpture Park.

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms greenly conscious engineer, with support from Jon Valley and Andy Coco.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Live without Plastic? Jay Sinha says YES! (Jan 2018)
Chalk Art, Street Art, Woman-Powered Art RIOT (May 2018)
Artist Takes on Plastic and Invasive Bush Honeysuckle (May 2018)

Thirteen years ago, acclaimed journalist Alan Weisman both envisioned and researched the idea of a worldwide disease that would decimate our species - and change the course of our impacts on all other Earthly life. What was he thinking?

         
Today, like so many of our kind, Weisman is sequestered in one place, envisioning work he was planning to do - on a new book about hope for all this - while sitting out 2020, in the company of his fellow humans.

Alan Weisman's first guest stop with KDHX Earthworms celebrated his 1998 report on sustainable technology in a remote Brazilian burg: Gaviotas, A Village to Change the World. In 2013 his book Countdown: Our Last Beast Home for Future on Earth and KDHX Earthworms were both honored with Global Media Awards by the Population Media Center. On our goes-around-comes-around planet, this conversation explores our pandemic present,through a spirit of common perseverance.  

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, with assistance from Jon Valley and Andy Coco.

Related Earthworms Conversations: An Ecologist's Journey to Make Peace with the Anthropocene (Nov 2019)

Storytelling, Deep Listening: Antidotes to Toxic Public Discourse (July 2019)

Renewal - Andres Edwards on our Connection to Nature (May 2019)

What kind of leadership do human societies need right now? What areas of focus are most germaine to addressing climate change?

This Earthworms conversation explores these questions with Jennie C. Stephens, Northeastern University professor and director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and author of the new book DIVERSIFYING POWER - Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy (Island Press, September 2020).

Stephens advocates for - and shares examples of national and local leadership in - an Energy Democracy focused enough to supplant the literal power structure of the fossil fuel Polluter Elite. With an appreciation for compassion and empathy as essential leadership qualities, Stephens recognizes the critical value of a new order to democratize the dynamics of society and the energy empowering us all. 

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer, supported by Jon Valley and Andy Coco.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Envision Charlotte (North Carolina) Rolls on Circular Economy (March 2020)

A 1999 vision seeded by two Missouri women sprouted, the next year, as a tax-supported program from our state's Department of Conservation. Flourishing today in a non-profit's fertile soil, Grow Native! stands like a swath of Big Bluestem and Blazing Star as one of the strongest native plant programs around.  

       
Carol Davit, Executive Director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation, tells how a diversity of forces grew success. Like the many "weeds" native to this idea, Grow Native! spread to include plant growers, seed producers, home and professional gardeners, and garden centers, statewide. Now housed within MPF, Grow Native! continues expanding beyond a tax-supported agency's state lines, cultivating ecological landscapes in Kansas, Iowa and Illinois.

Perhaps unique in the U.S., the Grow Native! inclusion of public education, professional development, and lively marketing covers the critical human roles so the plants and habitats they create can speak for themselves. Native plants will grow on you!

Check out Carol Davit's pean to prairies, for TEDx Gateway Arch. 

THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Andy Coco, Earthworms mighty cohort of audio engineers.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy says WE ARE (Feb 2020)

Lawn Alternatives with Neil DeBoll of Prairie Nursery (Aug 2017)

Natives Raising Natives: Inspiration from Butterflies and People (May 2017)

Think of the acres, the running miles under power lines that connect us all to the electricity we want and need. Now see, under these lines, vibrant habitat: running corridors of native plants growing food and reproductive cover for beneficial insects, birds, and more. This kind of land-use transformation is real.

Wires Over Wildlife, a cost-share and expert-advisory program, works with utilities and owners of power line rights-of-ways from our Missouri Department of Conservation. Jason Jensen, Private Lands Conservation Unit Chief, leads a team of MDC experts in negotiating WOW agreements and supporting WOW partners in making these management changes work. 

MDC has negotiated the first WOW agreement with a rural electric cooperative, Grundy Electric Coop. Jensen talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about how this kind of agreement works, why this first coop agreement is significant, and how ecological management can save money, decrease chemical use and mowing, and restore the biodiversity bloom to power line rights-of-way across our state.

Jensen is also on the statewide Feral Hog task force. Hear how MDC is working to tackle this major invasive species issue. 

THANKS to Earthworms engineers: Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley and Andy Coco. Virtual podcasting takes a team!

Related Earthworms Conversations:
Biodiversity for Corporate Lands? (May 2020)

Richard Louv: Our Wild Calling (Oct 2019)

Songbirds injured or orphaned in Missouri have one source of human help: Wild Bird Rehabilitation, a focused, modest, resourceful non-profit nesting in suburban Overland MO.        

Joe Hoffman, Executive Director of Wild Bird, returns to Earthworms with an update from their 38 years of dedicated work, plus a basket of noisy Chimney Swifts, a surrogate nest of Song Sparrows, and some musical chirping with his backpack guitar.

This fall, as a fund-raiser, Wild Bird will make four CDs of songs Joe and fellow bird-champions have composed and recorded, for free online download, for two months. Get their eNews to get details for music access. Fun tunes for kids, families and enviro-messaging. Music from Joe's band The Raptor Project was a favorite Earthworms element over our years live on-air. The KDHX Sound Cloud holds a clutch of these tunes.

In addition to primary healing services for the birds, Wild Bird Rehab offers

• Seasoned advice for well-meaning folk thinking they should help a bird they "find" 
• Volunteer opportunities, including plenty of ongoing need for fielding "help" calls, a job you can contribute remotely!
• Resources from other groups helping wildlife
• Ways to support the work of Wild Bird Rehabilitation

THANKS to Earthworms flock of engineers: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley

Related Earthworms Conversations: Bluebirds! (June 2019)
Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy says WE ARE (Feb 2020)

Eagle Days, Raptor Ways with World Bird Sanctuary (Jan 2020)

Keeping Geese with Kirsten Lie-Nielsen (Nov 2017) 

A Tribute to St. Louis' Legendary Bird Man, Walter Crawford (July 2015)

How do we fix nature after we have disrupted it? Practitioners of the science, art and disciplines of Ecological Restoration are exploring this process, on the job. James Faupel does this work.

At the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center in the suburbs of St. Louis, James tends, tracks and works to repair the vitality of ecosystems including wetlands, woodlands, prairies and Deer Creek. His tools range from computer databases to flame torches. His skills evolved through stints in construction and horticulture, hands-on learning augmented by a degree from St. Louis Community College that parallels how professionals of all kinds have grown Ecology as a significant focus. 

Earthworms host Jean Ponzi and James are colleagues in our region's circle of biodiversity advocates. This conversation follows a path of shared passions for working with nature, for nature. With emphasis on how a career trajectory like James' can benefit many more energetic, inquisitive, Earth-appreciating humans.

Litzsinger Road Ecology Center is not a public facility, rather it hosts school and adult groups for structured ecological learning programs. LREC is managed by the Missouri Botanical Garden.

THANKS to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet and Jon Valley - Earthworms all-star engineering team.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Nature's Best Hope? Ecologist Doug Tallamy says WE are! (February 2020)
RENEWAL of Our Connection to Nature with Andres Edwards (May 2019)

Massachusettes vs. EPA. Environmental lawyer, professor and author Richard Lazarus calls this case the watershed equivalent of Brown vs. Board of Education for issues of climate change. 

The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court (Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2020) is the saga of politics, law, strategy, persistence and a dash of fate through which the U.S. Supreme Court defined CO2 as an air pollutant, changing the course of this country's regulatory climate. From the marginal enviro organization lawyer who crafted the petition, to the Bush era's "kneecapping" of climate policy, to the state attorney who defied all criticism to make his case, to the senior Justice whose opinion took a stand - this story is wildly, recently true.

Richard Lazarus has argued cases before the Supreme Court. He's a native of St. Louis, transplanted east. His book is a classic, for the environment and for the law. 

Earthworms host Jean Ponzi will converse again with Richard Lazarus for a Left Bank Book FB Live author event on July 22.

THANKS to Earthworms team of engineers: Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Climate: A New Story with Charles Eisenstein (Nov 2018)

Photographer Neeta Satam: Documenting Himalayan Climate Change (March 2018)

Peoples' Pocket Guide to Enviro Action with Caitlin Zera (July 2017)

Earthworms remembers a great Great Horned Owl, Charles, whose hoots and habits enlivened conversations on KDHX with Mark H.X. Glenshaw, "the Owl Man of Forest Park." Mark informed readers of his Forest Park Owls blog on July 7, 2020, that he had not seen Charles in any of the habitats he observes since May 14. He has been observing Charles and his mates since 2005. Although Mark says it's possible Charles has relocated to an entirely new habitat, it is likely that he has died. 

                      Charles in the Nest Tree, 2013

Mark is a keen, respectful observer of owls, whoooo he comes to know and love. Earthworms honors this relationship passage!

And as we followed this summer's saga of Bruno, a black bear who walked from Wisconsin down into Missouri, we recalled our conversation  Bears! in July 2018 with Laura Conlee, State Furbearer Biologist for MO Dept of Conservation.

MDC Biologist Laura Conlee at work - Bruno in Missouri

Conlee was featured in news reports of MDC deciding to tranquilize Bruno and remove him to the safety of a bear-suitable habitat, after he got backed into a corner of suburban St. Louis roadways - with over 400 people watching him. Bruno became a media sensation. Conlee reminds us to Be Bear Aware - for our safety and especially for well being of the bears!

Summer breeze past your helmet, streets fly beneath your wheels, intriguing sites interpreted by a leader of St. Louis' cycling scene. 

Most years, this is one of the annual St. Louis Community Rides, hosted on a specific date by Trailnet, our town's cycling advocacy group. Staying safe and healthy for 2020, Trailnet invites you to ride Placemaking STL anytime July 25 to August 24, taking a new app with your refillable bottle, for cycling with a Scavenger Hunt twist, exploring some of our town's cool plazas.

The app has clues to find ride locales. When you get into site proximity, a lovely virtual human will pop up to interpret the site for you. Fun on two wheels!

Dana Gray, community sustainability advocate and "Plaza-Making" tour guide, joins Trailnet's Mobility Coordinator Joe Windler talking these innovations with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi. 

Trailnet is hosting a bunch of these summer 2020 DIY Community Rides, with themes ranging from  LGBTQIA+ History to celebrating Juneteenth to Biking the Vote. Events wheel through September.

THANKS to Earthworms team of engineers, Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet and Jon Valley.

Music for today's show is Measure Once by Matthew Von Doren.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Trailnet's New Vision: St. Louis Gets Around Greener, Healthier, More Lively (Nov 2016)

 As schools look toward re-opening amid COVID-19, a new toolkit from Women's Voices for the Earth helps parents talk to  teachers and school officials about harmful disinfectants — while also promoting safer and effective product alternatives and best-practices, aimed to reduce toxic exposures, and help keep not only our kids, but also our educators and school staff, healthy and safe.

Key questions: what is the difference between "disinfecting" and "cleaning" and why does this difference matter? (It DOES.) 

This toolkit promote safety, health, and sensible use of product and their chemicals - and dialogue among stakeholder humans! Maria Ignacia Miranda Santis, WVE Program and Outreach Manager, details this campaign and it's "parent" project, Parents Against Quats, a campaign supporting parental leverage with schools to eliminate products using quartenary ammonia. 

The science based grass-roots organizing power of Women' Voice for the Earth, and WVE's consumer-savvy campaigns, have been taking on corporate and government interests for 25 years. Efforts to amplify concerns specific to women - from moms to workers in nail salons. Successes include pressuring Johnson & Johnson to remove a carcinogenic ingredient from (are you ready for this?) Baby Shampoo in 2011, when Earthworms first met WVE. WVE's Detox the Box campaign takes aim at manufactures of tampons and other menstrual products that harbor toxic ingredients. This is a powerful, focused group!

THANKS to Andy Coco and Jon Valley, engineers for this Earthworms edition.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Applying Eco-Logic to Protect Streams AND Roads with Danelle Haake (July 2018) 

Peoples' Pocket Guide to Enviro-Action with Caitlin Zera (July 2018)

Psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon's life and work took a sharp turn six years ago when she turned own feelings of hopelessness and despair toward action. As a self-proclaimed Climate Warrior, she began leading others through TheClimateMobilization.org, a part of the climate emergency movement working alongside  Sunrise, Climate Strike, Extinction Rebellion and other urgent-action groups.

Salamon's has written a self-help guide to direct more of us into the kind of all-in action she continues. She talks with Earthworms' Jean Ponzi about this new book, Facing the Climate Emergency: How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth (New Society Publishers), and how the necessary urgent climate response is connected to the Covid-19 pandemic and now the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and Carolbeth Trio
THANKS to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley - Earthworms team of audio engineers

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Tosha Phonix: Organizing Food Justice, Growing Community (Oct 2019)

Climate Communications from Saint Louis Zoo (Sept 2019)

Leah Clyburn: Organizing to End Environmental Racism in STL (Oct 2019)

Corporations own a lot of land, from workplace campuses to the property under long-run power lines. Wildlife Habitat Council has worked with companies, worldwide and over 30 years, to prompt investment in biodiversity as a benefit to the bottom line.

Margaret O'Gorman, President of WHC, writes and talks about what makes this process work, for the companies and for Nature in her new book Strategic Corporate Conservation Planning, a Guide to Meaningful Engagement (Feb 2020, Island Press). This Earthworms conversation includes stories about collaborations like BEECH (pictured above), an environmental education center created and run by Bridgestone Tires in Warren County, TN.

In the US and 27 countries abroad, this work is moving "beyond regulation," proving that achievement of real conservation goals are and should be part of doing business.

Read: how WHC work is addressing US Sustainable Development Goals.

Thanks to Andy Heaslet, Andy Coco and Jon Valley for keeping Earthworms sounding strong!

Music: Aftershock, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case

Related Earthworms Conversations: Envision Charlotte NC with Amy Aussieker (March 2020)

Green America Campaigns for Solutions, with Beth Porter (Nov 2019

Cost, access, lack of info? The incentive program Grow Solar sunsets these barriers to investing in clean, renewable energy for residents of our St. Louis and Metro East communities. 

Grow Solar pools regional buying power to secure significant discounts for residential installations. Offered here by the Missouri Botanical Garden and Midwest Renewable Energy Association, Grow Solar action starts with an informative Power Hour that will immediately advise attendees on feasibility and potential costs. Interest is strong, and growing. Brilliant!

Earthworms welcomes Grow Solar's Jenn DeRose and Kevin McKee to describe the program's process and benefits, for St. Louis area communities in Missouri and Illinois.

Music: Mister Sun performing live at KDHX.

THANKS to Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet and Jon Valley, the actual engineering team bringing you virtual Earthworms.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (May 2018)

City Energy Project: Powering Efficiency in St. Louis Buildings (January 2018)

Ecologists know health is connected for all that lives. But most humans are not yet hip to this fact. One Health, both title and theme of a globally vital body of work makes this point for elephants, turtles, water, soil, etc. etc. etc.  - and us. 

Dr. Sharon Deem directs the Institute of Conservation Medicine for the Saint Louis Zoo. Her work with animals, here and abroad, gave rise to the research, understanding, philosophy and curriculum called One Health, a collaboration with Drs. Elizabeth Rayhel and Kelly E. Lane-deGraaf, who teach this material at Fontbonne University. One Health draws from many disciplines, shows a way toward many solutions to issues from human to planetary scale.

This Earthworms conversation ranges around One Health implications for our species during this Big Time Out, from a place of deep appreciation for Nature's health commitments and safeguards - for all species, on this 50th Earth Day.

Don't miss hearing Sharon Deem's TEDx talk!

THANKS to Earthworms engineering team, Andy Coco, Andy Heaslet, Jon Valley. 

Music: Main theme from Swan Lake, performed live for Earth Day and Earthworms by Stephen Blake, husband of Sharon Deem, from the shelter of their home.

Related Earthworms Conversations: 

Richard Louv: Our Wild Calling (Dec 2019)

Relatives, Responsibility, Mindfulness with Dr. Daniel Wildcat (Oct 2018)

Bears! with biologist Laura Conlee (July 2018)