Growing in a new way

A new Year, a new life for us. We sure have had a wild journey since we left Seattle. We've traveled far and wide in North America, and once again we find ourselves back in Washington. Somehow, we always end up back here. But this time, it's different.
We've landed on the sunny side, the dry side, the quiet side, the wild side, the OTHER side. We're much closer to some of our favorite farms, but we're a world away from the progressive cultural norms we grew used to.
Each day can bring on bi-polar mood swings. For example, I go outside and feel so inspired and joyful walking around this tiny town, gazing at stark basalt canyon walls, smelling dry sagebrush. It's delightful that heavy traffic here means we've seen up to four cars on the road. Then I go into a nearby grocery store and want to cry. The local food movement hasn't hit here yet. Several times, store employees have approached me to see if I'm OK as I stand with my head in my hands trying to figure out what processed agri-crap might do the least harm to me and my family. When my son comes home from school and tells me how much candy he was given by teachers and administrators, I want to scream!
But this year, I'm gonna grow a lot of food. It's my goal to grow and preserve as much food as possible. Sun and heat means tomatoes, peppers, melons. I'm excited.

Chasing the Dream

The dream to grow and share food. So simple. So many possibilities. Sometimes seems near the tip of our fingers.
Substantial year-round gardens, hoop house (Pregitzer farm has great ones), basic commercial kitchen, vibrant healthy community (like the awesome Ballard community who supported GreenGo) Short commute walkable or a safe bike ride.

Long Grey Light

Summer Solstice
This year so cool and grey

Fighting the MOOOORE Monster

When one lives a transient existence it's relatively easy to keep possessions few. If it won't fit in the van when we move on to the next farm or adventure, we don't keep it. But now, we find ourselves with a dwelling of our own again and the MOOOOOORE Monster is rearing it's ugly head. (You know that voice of American affluence which tells us we need to consume more stuff. Then we look around, we see fisheries and every other resource being rapidly depleted, and we must know that our greed and insatiable appetite for MOOOORE is to blame).
I really need to have food growing outside our apartment, so I want to go buy pots for a nice patio garden. Our dining room set consists of storage totes, pillows and blankets. I think things would be easier if we had a table to sit at. I would write more if I had a comfy desk or even a table to sit at. Dylan thinks we could organize things better if we had some shelves and wall hooks. We could go to Value Village or Goodwill and re-purpose items for these wants. But then that would be a couple hundred bucks less for our next adventure, and a hundred pounds more stuff to get rid of.
I'm reading a great book which I highly recommend. It's called "Simple Prosperity -Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle" by David Wann.
The past year of evaluating our goals and priorities and ultimately walking away from a conventional life has shown us the line between needs and wants.
So I'll take pride in my food packaging containers-turned -food- growing- containers. As I sit down on the floor (like millions of people around the world), I give thanks for the bountiful food and community and things that ultimately make life richer.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

Every time I hear about the Gulf Oil catastrophe I hear the 2008 McCain / Palin suppoters shouting "Drill, Baby Drill" . I wonder if they still think MORE OIL DRILLING is the answer to our nation's economic problems?
On the other side, those of us who know the perils of our oil addiction-What drastic changes to our lifestyle would we honestly make if it could end the insane wars (environmental and political) for oil?

Here a farm, there a farm, here a friend, there a friend.......

Now we're back on the rainy side of the mountains, learning about sustainable poultry operations. While the climate is less than ideal, the people and education are great.
A very important lesson we've been learning over the last 8 months is the importance of community. There's something very special about this Northwest food community. This year's "Farmer Fisher Chef's Collaborative" keynote speaker was Poppy Tooker from New Orleans. In her speech, she brought us to tears saying, "When disaster strikes, or things get tough, your food friends will be there to help you." This has certainly been true for us.
Thank you to all of our food friends who have been there to help us and educate us and advise us along this rocky road we've chosen!
We hope that soon we will find the stable place we've been looking for and be able to help others find their way.

Autumn 09

Well, we ARE doing the farmy stuff we've been yearning for, we just didn't end up quite where we thought we would. There's a very long story here, but to summarize, we gave up everything except what would fit in our mini-van. We had a great voyage south, planning to work on a farm in Mexico. We made it there, and as you may guess from the barbed wire and toilet with no walls, it was very far from what we were hoping for. We weathered an intense tropical storm in our tent. (Thanks REI for making good gear) We had no running water most of the time, no electricity any of the time, very limited cooking fuel. Several kilometer trek through flooded arroyo awash in every type of human and animal waste imaginable just to fetch clean drinking water and dry goods.
So now we are in NORTH North America. We're out in the country, we got to do some harvest activities on a couple farms here. We're surrounded by farms. We're hunkered down until spring.
Happy Winter Holidays to all! A huge thanks to all of our supporters who helped us get out of the city. We lost our contact book and would really like to be in touch with many of you. So if you read this, please drop us a line.