there is more beauty and happiness and harmony here than i know how to let go of

How To Like It

Tuesday and Friday mornings are harvest mornings. The Down Gardeners meet in the Veggie Shed at 7:30 or 8:00 AM (depending on the size of the harvest and the projected temperature that day). The current market cart coordinators greet the rest of us and review the flowers, fruits, vegetables, and herbs with which we will be working. The amount, presentation, and destination of each item has been carefully determined ahead of time based on past sales and what the garden has to offer.

Following the business discussion, the floor is opened to all present individuals to share poetry, excerpts, interpretive dances, freestyles, etc. Most often people share poems relevant to farming, environmentalism, the current crops, and lately of the changing season. Even though it has felt more like summer in the past few weeks than any past months, there is a definite scent of autumn about. Pumpkins, apples, butternuts, and delicatas find their way into most meals. We find ourselves rising before the sun. Not that we ever stopped wearing our flannels and wool caps, but they at least seem appropriate now.

A restlessness underlies all of the usual tasks. There are only four more harvests. It is almost time to move on. Some people have their plans; others have nothing but uncertainty. We are all young (even if more at heart than in age) and looking for meaningful work and time. We are anxious, and maybe even scared about leaving this place and each other. Ian really chose the right poem to read last Tuesday morning.

How To Like It

By Stephen Dobyns

These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
people’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
Let’s not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept-
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.

Morning Music

8:30 AM last Wednesday.

These are mostly for Guy's momma, but everyone will enjoy hearing Ian, Patrick, and Guy's string trio in the Kitchen Garden.

Garden Creativity

Here is an example of the wit, creativity, and camaraderie we thrive in every day here. It is possible that this video is only hilarious to a 2010 UCSC Farm & Garden apprentice, or farmers and gardeners in general. But I believe that all audiences will find it to be a real hoot. A handful of apprentices spent their lunch breaks during the past month crafting this parody of the constant struggle of grower vs. gopher. Thank goodness we don't have those little buggers in Maryland.




Featuring the talents of Malin Ramirez, Zoe Hitchner, Patrick Sullivan, and Claire Acosta.

Click the icon with four arrows in the lower right corner of the video to watch in full screen. A higher quality video can be viewed on YouTube here.

Lessons This Week

Following Guy’s last post, Santa Cruz hit 106 degrees on Tuesday! A rarity relished by the sunflowers, tomatoes, and eggplants, but dreaded by the strawberries, lettuces, and willows. Similar reactions were elicited by the apprentices from the Southwest, Midwest, and East Coast versus the native Californians. We are back to normal this weekend.

This week we had some incredible classes on farm business planning and plant pathogens. In all the excitement of learning, I do experience periods of sheer panic when I try to wrap my mind around how unrelentingly complex this field really is. Sure, we tout sustainable agriculture and homesteading as “getting back to basics,” to “our roots,” to “the land.” But really, navigating and mimicking the complexities of natural ecosystems to yield enough food to distribute equally amongst the members of our local economies AND make a decent living? That’s tough, man. The more I learn the more complicated it all gets. In many ways, this career lifestyle that we are all pursuing here is more difficult than quantum mechanics.

At the same time, with each passing day I feel more confident that I can do it. I practically learn something invaluable every thirty minutes! On Monday I learned how to grow hops. On Wednesday I realized that I hate cabbage. HATE it. So I’ll cross that off of my crop plan. Better not grow something you don’t like! On Thursday I mastered the differences between the most obvious signs of plant disease caused by bacteria vs. viruses vs. fungi (vs. oomycetes, a subgroup of fungi that spreads primarily through water). Yesterday I finished an herbal tincture to address my allergies. Today I have learned how to make yellow and red food colorings out of marigolds and beets.

Seven weeks to go. More lessons as they develop.

Mer

Back In Action

It’s been a month. Maybe more.

Our absence from the blogosphere is not neglect; it is tightly correlated with the sudden and spectacular vegetative boom that the farm underwent post-summer solstice. The days are getting shorter everywhere, but here, it is only beginning to warm up (we hope!). July and August, it would not seem, are the summer months. It’s likely that we might have some tomatoes by the END of SEPTEMBER. Peppers come on in August. Our broccoli is THRIVING?! Remember Sunny California? Uh-uh. Un poco. Nada.

HOWEVER, we have just returned from our week-long break, which we spent travelling up the California coast into Oregon, spending the week with a friend whose family lives in Portland. The weather was much warmer but still mild compared to East Coast. Our stay in Oregon was relaxing and we were well treated. We also spent four days at a small music festival outside of Portland called Pickathon, which has a somewhat bluegrass/contemporary folk theme. The crowd was largely young families with many children running around laughing and shrieking. But the camping was quiet and mostly within the shade of the forest. We stayed entertained at the Woods Stage, which consisted of a small, intimate stage surrounded by campsites and with straw bales for seating. Musicians performing there usually played acoustic instruments with only minimal amplification. We saw Martha Scanlan, Foghorn Stringband, and Breathe Owl Breathe to name a few. It was great and all worthwhile especially at the cost of volunteering for a few hours rather than purchasing tickets. Thank you, Pickathon. Thank you, Portland.

Now we are in our Final 10/Pathways. This means that we have begun the final ten weeks of the program and are now in our chosen site for this rotation—the ‘Pathways’ rotation. We all call it the final ten. Pathways-shmathways, we all know it means we’ve only got a few weeks left. Besides, choosing a Pathway site to be in does not necessarily reflect a certain life choice. Mer has chosen the Down Garden and I have chosen the Field. Luckily we are a team and can share experiences, but for most people who are here independently, the choice of a Final 10 site is no big deal. It’s a matter of having fun and being where you want to be right now; while we are still here. What we do next in life will not be like this, so have fun. I kinda wish I had chosen the Up (Chadwick) Garden; but I like the Field. It suits me.

On one hand it’s important to recognize the value of the education we’re receiving. Each site corresponds differently, but mostly I think it’s all good. I think most people agree. What we all are REALLY thinking about is our experiences here, and I’d say they’re pretty significant. The final ten weeks have started counting down and we are getting to feel the emotional tension rising. It’s suddenly real that we love these people and we are sharing something really special. But right now, like the few bubbles rising amongst the group in conversation, we are still able to cut it short. It is not yet time to talk of leaving. So I will leave it at that.

Looking forward to summer come September,

Guy

Recent Activities: A Visual

Pickles, the kid.
This family of goats is on loan to the Up Garden to do some poison oak clearing. We think of it as baby-sitting.

Main Slope - Up Garden
Orin Martin, the garden manager, can be seen alongside apprentice Stephanie setting up the bean trellis.

Double-digging in the Kitchen Garden with apprentice Reed.
You gotta till the land.

That's a swarm of bees!

Little drops on the babies in Prop (propagation).

View from the bottom of the Down Garden.
This is the main 1-acre biointensive garden of the UCSC Farm & Garden.

Just look at Mer in that blueberry patch!

Bleubs!

Claire and Jim harvesting kohlrabi in the Ocean View field on the 6-acre CSA farm.

Some of the items in this week's CSA boxes - bok choi, red ace beets, and romaine lettuce.

What Happens When You Cook

Lining Up to Eat

Lunch: Chilled plum-blueberry-cherry soup, spelt rolls, and salad with avocado and loquat vinaigrette.

Dinner: Homemade spinach ravioli with walnut-parsley sauce or arugula pesto, sauteed veggies, and more salad.



The Appreciation:

Future Farm

Here is a rough outline of my big dream, which for now is called "Future Farm."

The group: There are roughly ten of us that share the dream. I say roughly because while I do not doubt anyone's commitment, I have to leave room for the possibility that not every one of those people's paths will lead them to Future Farm. Maybe some of us will be there to get things started, and others will join as they are ready. Maybe some of us will reside there, but have alternate careers. Perhaps some of us will only ever be visitors at Future Farm. That's okay. No matter who and no matter when, there will be an awful lot of love and fun and work involved. I also say roughly because there are other people in our lives that are becoming more and more enamored with the idea of being part of Future Farm. It is also our hope that members of our families will wish to join us at some point in time.

The place: We all want to be near our families. That is the primary determinant. Luckily, all our families are from Maryland, but some may move in the future. The current proposition is somewhere along the Blue Ridge Mountains with Washington, D.C. as the key urban market. But really, who knows. Another large factor will be where we can access affordable land.

The ideas:

• Vegetables, fruits, and herbs
• Chickens (for eggs, pest management, and nice company)
• Bees (for honey production and/or renting out hives for pollination)
• A moderate- to large-size Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
  
• A low-income CSA
• Farmers markets
• An on-farm restaurant/bakery/ice creamery
• An on-farm bed and breakfast
• A small non-profit farm animal sanctuary for abused and abandoned livestock
• Barn dances and concerts
• Environmental education programs
• Research projects
• Having parents retire to the farm
• and more...

The beginning: I know that we cannot practically start all of these ideas at once. We have to start small and simple. At this point my sketch of the first two years involves not truly embarking on any of these ideas, but doing vital prep work. The farm managers here advise not growing crops for the first year, but rather growing weeds! We could establish our fields and beds, let the weeds go wild, and then obliterate them without having to step delicately around cash crops (Presto! Way fewer weeds to deal with when we are growing food!). We could devote our time to building massive amounts of compost (one of the most valuable and vital resources an organic farmer can have), as well as improving soil structure and fertility. We could establish an orchard, which won't bear fruit for the first few years. We could take the time to get connected in the community, construct facilities, and hold outside jobs to save money. From there it seems the most practical first step would be to start a CSA and a flock of chickens.

I have no doubt that with our dedication and diverse skill sets we could do everything on that list and more. Just slowly and steadily.

Future Farming Hopes and Fears

Last night I was one of fifteen apprentices who met for an informal discussion about our “Future Farming Hopes and Fears.” Some people in this program already have land they are working; some people have worked for other farmers and wish to strike out on their own (that’s where Guy and I come in). Some people want to work in small gardens; others want thirty acres. Some people don’t want to grow crops at all, but rather wish to work in advocacy, education, government, or research laboratories. Some people have no idea what they want to do! However, we all know that our life work will be centered around sustainable food.

Most of the apprentices at last night’s meeting do want to make livings as farmers. We each took a turn stating our big dreams, what obstacles we face, practical next steps, and finally, one thing that we need that could be helpful now – the idea being that perhaps someone else in the circle would have a resource that could address that need. Needs ranged from “an affordable piece of land with access to water” to “a hay bailer” to “a scheduled follow-up discussion.”

I really needed to be part of this conversation. I have big plans, but I have not taken the time to settle down and address them since I got to Santa Cruz. There hasn’t been a lull in the action to ponder how my plans are developing. And boy, are they developing! Every time I learn a new skill I frame it in how I will apply it to my future farming dream. But tonight was the first time in months that I sat to think about its complete picture.

I described to the group – as succinctly as possible, which I attempt again here – what I want to do. First and foremost, I will matriculate into the master’s program in 'Agriculture, Food, and Environment' at Tufts University in Fall 2011. Need: a job in Boston. Need: to finish my M.S. debt-free in 2013, so that I may jump into starting an organic farm.

I will be starting this farm with some dear friends. Some of those who have heard our idea for what I envision as a “family” farm have probably dismissed it as naïve, idealistic, and doomed to leave us in poverty. Yeah, it’s idealistic – why reach for less than optimal health and happiness? I am going to do it. I am going to. It is what I want above all else. I could not be happy doing anything else for a living. No one at the meeting last night showed a flicker of doubt. They simply asked, “so what do you need?” Needs right now: help writing a business plan; models for farming communities – particularly how to manage business money, how to make group business decisions, how to manage space and property so that we can be a close-knit community but still have our own private spaces. Need: to know that people outside of this heaven of a bubble believe, too.

I’ll write more specifically about Future Farm (which we so happen to have nick-named it) next time.

Mer

A Word About The Oil Spill

Here’s what I know: Over a month ago an apprentice friend of mine making light conversation in the garden asked me what I thought about the oil spill in the Gulf. That was the first I’d heard of the accident at all, but yet only a few days after the spill itself. Since then I have read only sparse headlines and heard only quip cable news blurbs on the television in the hotel bedroom during our trip to L.A. last weekend. The general consensus it seems is that it’s BAD and will only get worse, but the scope is yet to be realized by many. How will it have an impact on my life here in Santa Cruz? How will it affect you at home? What about the Gulf Coast? I haven’t got an answer.

My response: Some say “what’s the problem?” and some say “who’s to blame?” The issue is deeper than that. A million times—THE ISSUE IS DEEPER THAN THAT. I don’t think we have to know much information to understand the immense shock that an incident like the BP oil spill will cause to our world. You can feel it. Our planet will suffer and with it our culture will suffer too. Our values supported that accident to happen. We humans as people are the sole cause for this great act of devastation. I can hardly live for that. I am also not about to get self-righteous—my way of life has always been entirely dependent on oil for fuel. Consuming oil also isn’t the worst thing I’ve done either; I drive cars FAST.

What I felt when I heard about the oil spill and imagined the devastation felt as common as any truly disheartening news. Unfortunately I think we get that a lot these days—like the mining accident in West Virginia earlier this year. What I feel is sadness and remorse and a little bit of fear; maybe even a lot. Most of us are willing to admit that we feel the same. Others dismiss the issue as if it was not a problem, or maybe that the problem is not for us. It seems pretty heinous to think that way, if there were any thought to it at all. But I am willing to bet that any person who has thought about their values and has the courage to stand up for them would not be willing to play the devil’s advocate for the sake of argument. The truth is clear that what happened is wrong. If it doesn’t feel wrong then someone has sacrificed their values to feel right.

Here’s where it ties in to farming: Someone asked us to write this entry because they were curious how the way we engage with farming has shaped our perspective of the BP accident. Both Mer and I were equally as uninformed when the question arose and it was a while before things really fell in to place to write this out. My stance is that in any instance where a decision is made that sacrifices the core values of what feels right and wrong there are victims, and to not acknowledge those victims is also a sacrifice of value. Most of the apprentices here, and I dare say all, have at some point thought long and hard about their values and have concluded that this way of farming, or to farm at all, is consistent with their values, and we all hope that is good. Convention tries to teach us of new values and we readily fall in to them, but sometimes the convention hides the damaging effect of the action. Perhaps if we had the same knowledge about the effect oil has had on our global culture when we started drilling we would not have been so eager to build the infrastructure that now nearly controls our whole lives. Anyone who still chants “drill baby, drill!” may not relate and they continue living as the convention dictates.

Here we are constantly checking our values for consistency and nothing is set in stone. The way that we respond to the questions of life are predisposed to the values of convention, but in breaking that mold by truly thinking rather than simply listening has helped us feel good about life; and it has brought us here together. Nobody wants to cause an accident, whether you are a BP executive or a self-employed organic farmer. But nobody should sacrifice the value of life, their own or others, for the sake of a bottom line. The danger is not in how decisions will affect us directly, but in how it will affect others. And instead of ignoring or writing off the problem of values we need to promote life and happiness through the general well-being of the entire global community and not just our own communities or ourselves. If we cannot do that then we are committing evil, and boy you know it when you feel it.

Guy