Georgia Farm Culture

Life is Simple

2006-06-29T10:09:00.004-04:00

Tom and Denise Peterson have been journeymen farmers for 25 years. The concept is somewhat of a new one to me, but from the very beginning of their relationship, they have worked, lived, and raised their family on the farms of others. After extended stays in Vermont and Illinois, they decided to look for a place to settle in western Virginia. They loved the Appalachians, were envious of the extended growing season in the south, and wanted to be closer to family now that they had kids. In looking for a place to move, they decided to put a small advertisement in the newsletter of the Virginia Association of Biological Farming, telling people who they were and that they were looking for work. The ad appeared right next to an announcement for a position with Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD), an organization dedicated to developing markets for sustainable farm and wood products, and providing technical assistance to the producers. Fate is a wonderful thing, and after meeting the organization’s founder Anthony Flaccavento, Tom was hired as their first agricultural coordinator. Shortly thereafter, the family moved to the small town of Abingdon.

They now live in an 1876 farmhouse, known locally as the old Walden house. The house has a notorious history amongst the old timers. At one time about 60 years ago, the home’s owner, Mr. Maddox came home one day and killed his entire family before taking his own life. When the Peterson’s first moved in six years ago, their twin sons, who were six at the time, would occasionally catch a brief glimpse of a sad old man walking around the house. Denise too has caught glimpses of a young girl sitting up stairs staring out the window. Tom finds it a bit spooky that his wife and children have such interactions with the supernatural, as seeing ghosts are apparently not part of his repertoire of talents. The general consensus in the community however, is that the Peterson’s have brought a calm and a joy to the corner house, not felt there for years.

I had met Tom the day before during a visit to Anthony’s farm, the director and founder of Appalachian Sustainable Development. ASD was hosting a Sunday afternoon organic farm tour and the crowd of about seventy-five was impressively large, and diverse, with a number of traditional farmers in the mix. Southwest Virginia, not unlike much of country, is struggling to keep family’s farming. With the bottom dropping out of the tobacco market, and federal allotments being cut by as much as 90%, farmers are looking for alternatives for survival. What Anthony and Tom and the rest of ASD have accomplished is no small feat. The organization provides the link between producers and new markets and has generated a growing demand for locally produced foods at small and large retail outlets throughout the state and beyond. Though organized as a non-profit, ASD operates under an unconventional, entrepreneurial mentality. By making decisions as a business they have created a “middleman with integrity” that helps producers centralize their resources for grading, packing, shipping, and marketing. 38 organic growers now package under one brand call Appalachian Harvest, gaining access to gigantic supermarket chains such as Food City and Whole Foods. They now direct market to consumers, informing them about the farmers and the practices gone into growing the food with written materials available right in the supermarket. The more personal approach sells, and many of the large supermarkets are now mimicking the technique.

When I first arrived at Tom and Denise’s house, I immediately felt at home. They had guests enjoying themselves at stools in the kitchen while Tom cooked potato and corn chowder. One of their friends, Kirsty Zahnke, had just finished giving Denise a massage, as part of her homework for massage school. Denise had a glow on her face, relaxed and happy. Kirsty was also one of the farmers in the Sustainable Harvest network and had returned to her family’s farm after many years abroad to make a go of sustainable farming. She and her parents are English, and somehow settled in Big Stone Gap, a once affluent community deep in the heart of Appalachia coal country. A quite charming woman, (something about an English accent in rural Appalachia makes one charming), Kirsty was strong as an ox both physically and mentally. She possessed an absolute passion and commitment to food, sustainability, the environment and education. She had returned to the farm three years prior and was growing sheep, pastured poultry, and preparing a Devon cow for milking.

The evening was the first of my trip where I not only felt completely at ease (I have been fortunate to find that feeling more often than I would have expected), but also in the company of fellow soul mates. These were people who yearned for doing simple but vitally important things that would improve people’s lives, communities, and surroundings.

The evening came into focus when we discussed how the spirit of community is such a small and simple thing. “Life is pretty simple,” said Tom. “You eat, you breathe, and you die.” Each individual develops a vision of how they want that to happen, and for Tom and Denise the question is “who do you touch in the process?” “That’s what we’re trying to do here. That’s why we have people come over to the house to pick up their produce, because they don’t just come by and grab it and leave, they hang around, their kids jump on the trampoline, they see how we grow the food, and we talk or play some music.” Such a lifestyle was at once as appealing as it was foreign. I was instantly aware of the distance between neighbors in modern society, because the ties and the talents that bind us have been replaced with outside goods.

“In modern society, everything is provided for us,” Tom states and that makes us disconnected from one another. He mentions a friend who had visited an island in Greece where everyone wore shoes made on that island. The people were proud of their shoes because they were good quality and someone from their community was making them. You could actually go and watch them make the shoes. And it’s a skill, it’s an art.

The most fascinating thing about Tom and Denise as we stayed up past 11 pm, pretty late for farmers, talking about our search for community, is that their vision was still out there in the future somewhere and they were still working to attain it. Tom spent his day’s trying to find struggling farmers who were willing to risk the transition from conventional producer on a glutted industrial market, to becoming an organic or sustainable producer selling to local people within a few hundred miles who would read about his farm and have a picture of him in their minds as they ate his veggies.

Interestingly, when I mentioned my wonderful trip to Monticello and discussed Thomas Jefferson, one of Tom’s heroes, we realized that Jefferson too was an imperfect visionary with a similar dilemma. He nurtured the establishment of a nation, but the backbone and integrity of that nation required so much more effort. The work of visionaries is never complete. As recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and famed theologian Albert Schweitzer once stated, “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” The Petersons are a beautiful example of how to live, and one I’ll not soon forget.

COMMENTS
6/30/2006 2:43 PM Anna wrote:
Something is wrong with your last post...lots of code mixed in?? Anyhoo, I mentioned to my friend Bryce, a farmer in Berea, that you'll be travelling through. He'd be happy to have you come by. His website, with contact info, is:
http://www.stewardsoftheland.com/
Too bad it's so damn hot out there!

Reply to this 7/2/2006 12:26 PM Justin Ellis wrote:
Thanks Gal,

I know. I can't simply cut and paste or I get jargon. Ah, nothing is simple after all.

Hey thanks for the tip. I'll give your friend a shout. I love connections like this. Thanks for the help...again.

All my best,

--Justin

Man of Character PHOTOS

2006-06-30T10:07:00.000-04:00

Charles Kennedy and Alona

The FIRETOWER

Charles's home as seen from atop the firetower.

The Great Channels

Day 14 - Natural Bridge to Buchanan ...on way to Troutville

2006-06-22T10:15:00.006-04:00

OK. This is going to be a quick one, but my trusted friend demanded I post a blog everyday...which is impossible, but I'll try and do one as often as possible.

I have actually been writing extensively, but I frequently stop at these small town public libraries that don't have usb ports on their computers so I can't transfer my writing to a computer with internet. I've actually been quite suprised at how frequently I've been able to find wireless internet service. Even in some extraordinarily small towns they will have it. And lots of quirky restaurants have it now too. It's actually a great way to draw business because its one of the first things I ask when I arrive in town.

So I realize that I haven't posted that much yet about the farms I am visiting, but that is about to change. In the last couple of days I have really been exposed to some revolutionary thinking in the agricultural world, and I expect that it just might change the way you think about food.

I've also been hestitant to just throw my general thoughts out there before taking the time to refine them. I don't want to offer up revolutionary ideas in such a watered down...blog like way that they go in one ear and out the other.

I am beginning to feel very connected to food. I still stop and buy some trash along the road occassionaly, but I'm noticing some subtle changes. For one, I'm eating a lot more fruit, and every place that I go I try and find the most local variety available. Local is more important than organic. What is the point of organic apples from Venezuela. Shipped food is poorer quality food, and I'll go into detail on this point in the future.

Jefferson's cherries really did get into my head. I've also been reading more about our founding fathers. Benjamin Franklin, likewise, believed in the virtues of a farming lifestyle. He attributed a nation's wealth as coming from one of three sources. The first is outright robbery. Picture the Roman empire, and some of our earlier imperialistic endeavors. The second is commerce, which Franklin compared to cheating. He didn't go into the details, but we certainly live in a commercial society today. And thirdly, farming presents the only honest way to develop wealth, in that it is directly related to the seed you sow. It is a miracle of nature and a blessing by God that the Earth is made in such a way that by working to care and understand the land you can increase its bounty.

There was a respect that these great men had not only for the land, but for the men who made their living from it. Where has that respect gone....because it is certainly gone. Name for me a farmer that you respect and why. I hope that you can name ten, but you probably don't even know ten.

Well the Buchanan library has just turned off their lights and I have 15 miles yet to ride today.

The trip is starting to get interesting.

This entry was posted on 6/22/2006 5:43 PM

Pictures from Polyface

2006-06-21T10:16:00.003-04:00

My experience at Polyface Farms was incredibly rich and opened my eyes to the true potential of farming.

I hope to write more extensively on the experience, but in the meantime wanted to go ahead and share some interesting photos.

One of the Polyface interns, Jordan, shares the morning chores with the youngest working Salatin at Polyface farms, Travis.

Daniel, Joel's son, showed me the potential of the next generation in carrying on the farming tradition with strength, pride, knowledge, understanding, and an overall farm ethic. Daniel has operated his own part of the business, raising rabbits for meat, since he was 7 years old. As he dressed rabbits he described how all social movements begin with about 1% of the population considered "the fringe" who, after many years of hard work, influence another 9% of the population, and it is that combined 10% that then influences the world and the movement becomes mainstream. The effort to support locally produced foods is still in that fringe margin.

So this is what pastured poultry looks like and believe me, this makes conventional practices seem.....industrailized. These pens are moved every day so that the birds are on fresh grass, not living in their own excrement, and receiving fresh air and sunlight. And anyone who knows will tell you, happier birds make healthier birds, and healthier birds taste better. This system is so simple, yet so brilliant in its conception that I plan to devote much time to it in the future.

This is the egg mobile. That's right, even the layers are mobile so that the litter is spread around, and again, the birds are always on fresh grass. Neat huh.

Inside view of the egg mobile. The birds are of course free to come and go as they choose. Notice the slats to allow the droppings to fall to the grass below. The bins are where the birds lay their eggs.

These are cute little pigs. One day they will be delicious bacon, but in the meantime they will live sunny, happy lives. I'll describe the sustainable way that Polyface does this in the future.

This entry was posted on 6/21/2006 11:02 PM

COMMENTS

8/10/2006 9:49 PM vicki pense wrote:
Wow! I just found this place with all the photos from polyface. I'm really enjoying it and now I will look at all the rest - as time permits that is! Happy travelling

Best of What's Around - Scottsville, Virginia

2006-06-16T10:25:00.004-04:00

Last names are obsolete during this trip. Even though Eliza picked me up in downtown Charlottesville, helped me load my bike in her truck, carried me to the “Food Farm Voices” meeting at West Ablemarle High School, then let me crash out at her farm house, then today got up at 6:30 AM, began working at 7, and now it’s 6:15 PM and I’m sitting here on her couch before we shower and go out to downtown Charlottesville for the night, we are still on a first name basis.

Eliza is the heart of the Best of What’s Around Farm. This farm has its own unique place in the spectrum of types of farms. This type fits quite well with the Charlottesville community. One of the first surprises was that the farm is owned by Dave Matthews, as in The Dave Matthews Band. The story is that the University of Virginia was given this 1200 acre parcel as a gift. Not being a land grant university, they were at a loss with what to do with such a large parcel of agricultural land, so four years ago they sold it and Dave Matthews snatched it up. Given the lands agricultural roots he was interested in seeing a small organic operation utilizing the existing farm infrastructure.

Eliza’s family has been friends with the Matthews for years, and had some prior experience on farms working for the family of Nina Planck on a farm on Virginia’s eastern shore. As the on the farm manager, she is doing a fantastic job. She’s quite young for both the responsibility and the degree of work. Her personality is low key, friendly, and calm.

Charlottesville is a fabulous town. The downtown mall is the most pedestrian and family oriented downtown I’ve encountered. The main street is paved in brick, and pedestrian only. Dozens of restaurants have tables and courtyards, each with its own character, lining the center of the street. We headed downtown for “Friday after 5,” a free concert hosted by the city every Friday in the summer. The place was packed. They had built a amphitheatre pavilion for concerts at the very end of the street. A salsa band was the entertainment.

After the show and a quick dinner, we headed to a reggae party. On the way there we exited a residential area into an incredibly dense wood on a long dark dirt road. The party was low key, and the reggae below average. Eliza must have been suspicious of their poor reggae taste because she asked me to bring my I-Pod. When we could bear it no longer, we bamboozled the sound system. At first I had to realize that picking danceable reggae songs from your I-Pod without the luxury of pre-screening is difficult. I don’t have the song names memorized, so it was kind of a guessing game. The party wanted to dance, not nod their head and praise Jah. Eliza came over and said, “You don’t necessarily have to play reggae.” I possess boogie tunes in abundance, and let fly.

It was a late night. The next morning Ken and I walked over to Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting lodge which sits on the property. It’s called Knotty Pine, presumably named for the knotty pine posts that support the porch. Unfortunately I didn’t carry a camera to photograph it…but there are lots and lots of President locales to visit in Virginia.

The Best of What’s Around gang had become fast and easy friends. They were young, energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate. Nothing about their farm was typical. For one, the owner wasn’t in a position where he had to derive income from the farm. This changes the entire context of their operation and how they make decisions.

That said, the fields were well managed, the vegetables in excellent condition, the farm, the buildings, and the operations, finely tuned. The young crew were welcoming, and professional and created a real community feel.

This is just a quick summary. I will elaborated in more detail and add some really nice pictures re: this visit soon.

This entry was posted on 6/16/2006 3:10 PM

Day Four - Williamsburg to Malvern Fields

2006-06-13T10:28:00.004-04:00

No question. Today was one of the best days of my life. May Sligh and her mother Francis showed me a wonderful time at their home. I slept like a log. The décor of Francis’s home would have greatly appealed to mother. She had wonderful antique furniture, old family photos on all the walls, frilly cloth under every lamp. It was spectacular. I’m not sure where she was from but she very much reminded you of Mountain Brook aristocracy mixed with the elite of the Atlantic shore. Very sophisticated, very engaging, wonderfully social.

I awoke refreshed. It was after 7, so I was in a mad dash to catch up and get out the door the same time as May. I was pretty successful. I shoved a scone down my throat and a couple of dried apricots and tried to wash the doughy mass down with some OJ. Then I ran upstairs and took a three minute shower. OK, five minutes. I’ve never taken a three minute shower.

I grabbed everything as quickly as I could, offered Francis my sincerest thanks for the wonderful time and headed to the garage to pack things up. May was so fun, she wanted to take a picture of me all set to go. It was about to start raining so I had my rain jacket on. We said our goodbyes and she drove to work. It was a little after 7:30.

As I came pulling out of the subdivision, there is May pulled over on the side of the road, sticking her camera out the window to take my picture. “You need an action shot.” She said. These are the moments that make this trip so cool.

Down the road a piece I pulled into a gas station to look up the numbers to bike shops. I still had some business to attend to before getting to far out into the middle of nowhere. I needed a new tube (the one I had was a Schraeder valve rather than a Presta), some special screws for my fenders and some butt loob. The problem was it was so early. It was actually just 8 AM when I started making calls. Sure enough, first call I make, I get an answer. Hallelujah. The guy is there, but he’s not willing to open the doors to help me out. He said he had a conference call until 10.

So now I have two hours to kill, so I decide to ride down and see Jamestown which was my original plan anyway before heading west for Charles City. Right as I hit the road, the drizzle starts. It was kind of fun though. I had all the appropriate rain gear, my front and rear blinking lights, and most importantly my fenders. I was snug.

I get to Jamestown by 8:53. It must have been a little under 10 miles. I had planned on sneaking in before they opened at 9, but this plan is foiled when I discover that they open at 8:45. The guy is at the gate, so I tell him that I’m only going to be there for about 30 minutes. He says, “If you go in, it’s $8 per person.” No thanks I say and move on.

I took the Colonial Parkway back to Williamsburg which was 11 miles long. The ride was beautiful and sopping wet. It took longer than I was expecting b/c it’s after 10 by this time. The Parkway spits you into downtown Williamsburg so I went to Scotland Street because I had seen a bike shop there the day before. I cruise down to the shop… and surprise, they’re closed. Patrick had actually told me they were closed on Mondays. Great. Now, I’ve got to drive out Monticello, which is exactly where May and Francis live. I’ve been awake and pedaling for 2 and a half hours and I’m further away than when I started. And I haven’t been to bike shop yet.

I go down the road to the public library and decide to look online for the exact location of the bike shop. While I’m there I figure it’s a good idea to go ahead and print out my contacts list, and farm descriptions. This takes a while. Meanwhile, I am one weird looking dude in the library.

I spent at least twenty minutes trying to get these documents to print. And guess what? I left there without being able to print squat. The morning is going down the tubes fast but I am in good spirits.

I head towards Monticello Road. On the way I remember there is a Staples. My buddy Patrick Sloma (guy pictured with cannonball from my first day in Yorktown) had informed me that Staples will print out 1000 business cards for like $11.99 or something ridiculous like that. He had done this so he could hand out cards to people he meets. Why I didn’t do this before leaving I have no idea. But now that I’m in the know, I go in to talk to Staples. Rudest sales lady I have ever met. Couldn’t care less what you wanted. I talked to her first about printing out those pages that had failed at the library. She tells me there is a $2.50 charge per file opened, and then its 7 cents a copy. The hell with that! I walked out swearing never to do business with Staples again. As I exit, there is a UPS package with Staples name on it lying in the driveway, I pick it up and look for the UPS guy. Nowhere to be seen. I notice the window of his truck is open. I’m in a hurry so I lob it through the window into the seat. Only it catches the corner of the seat falls to the left between the seat and the side of the cab that never opens. I think, uh-oh, what have I done? He’s not gonna find that. I look around, there’s no one to tell. I punch the numbers into the decision machine and they spit out, “Let’s get goin’, this isn’t your problem.” Take that Staples!

And now I’m off. Wait, no. Now I have to go the bike shop. It’s after 11am. I get there. I go in. Nicest bike salesperson I’ve met so far. She was young, she wasn’t an arrogant butt, and she was a girl (I’m partial to girls). Bike people are always guys. I did like the Cahaba Cycles people in Birmingham though. And the Hub owner was cool. But most bike people are jerks. No luck on the screws, but I get the tube, and she gives me two trial sizes of the butt butter to see if I like it. Thanks girlie. Those last two sentences taken out of context would get me in a lot of trouble.

I go out of the store, pull my bike up to a bench and fix my trailer fender, and tape my rear fender where those screws are missing. There, it’s jerry-rigged. I’m pleased with myself despite my ridiculous tardiness. On the way out of the shopping center I stop and get some Chick Fil A nuggets.

Once I’m on Highway 5 I’m happy. It takes you near Jamestown again, and then becomes a beautifully wooded road, very flat, very straight, and very little traffic. That’s what I call a beautiful road. Saw lots of cool things. A pileated woodpecker flew by after I’d been hearing him call. I saw a hawk with a white underbelly carrying a squirrel in its talons. Rabbits, wood chucks (is that what those things are you always see right next to the road). I caught my rhythm today. My legs weren’t hurting too much, but I am worried about all this weight.

I was running late for my 1PM meeting with Paul Davis. I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer his cell phone. This was a semi last minute thing that May had helped set up. May had told me about him, and him about me. I called him Sunday afternoon and then Sunday night he called May and we talked to him for awhile. I liked him right off. When I told him what I was doing he said, “You’re speaking my language with all that. That’s the stuff I’m into.” Paul is an extension agent for Charles City County and the city of Kent. He’s also a farmer. I’ll tell you all about him sometime. He does kind of look like George Bush (see photo) though. Only I like him about 100% more.

The hour and a half I spent with him and Steve Phillips is worthy of much writing.

There is much, much more to this day, but I'm out of time. I ended up camping at a Civil War battle site called Malvern Hill. Here is the last thing I saw before going to bed.

Peace,

--Justin

Comments

6/13/2006 4:26 PM Alice Rolls wrote:
Hey Justin,

Congratulations on starting your trip. I look forward to reading your stories as both a former cross-country biker and advocate for sustainable farming. Walmart was actually an appropriate first destination for you. They have recently made a big announcement that they plan to double the amount of organic products and produce they now carry as they remake themselves and appeal to urban markets. Have you heard of Michael Pollan's book, "Omnivores Dilemma" that is out right now? I wish it wasn't so heavy so you could take it on your ride. It would be the perfect read to accompany your farm adventure.

Best wishes to you in the joyous days ahead . . . and be glad you are not biking in Alberto's path!

Alice
Georgia Organics
6/14/2006 4:59 PM Kes wrote:
Yo Justin - glad you're on your way! We just got back from California and it's a great place to ride. When you get to the Pacific, just turn left and keep going til you hit San Francisco. I'm serious! Tons of great farms to vist and a great way to finish up.

Kes

Re: Somewhere in India

2006-06-11T10:36:00.001-04:00

If you are returning to this blog and are searching for one of my former postings entitled "Somewhere from India," I have temporarily removed it.

Here's an update. I have now heard from my girlfriend. The situation is still tense to say the least. Due to the sensitivity of the subject and parties invovled I have decided to remove the posting until..... well until I think it would be a good idea to re-post it.

I'll let you know further information in the future. In the meantime, I am in communication with her, and fate will decide the future.

Thanks for all your comments.

--Justin

This entry was posted on 6/11/2006 2:01 PM

DAY ONE - The beginning

2006-06-11T10:34:00.002-04:00

I knew that parking my bike, loaded trailer in tow, outside the front door of the airport was bound to raise some eyebrows. Add to that the fact that I am donned in a chartreuse skin tight bike jersey, itty bitty socks and a fanny pack and voila, I’m the weirdest thing anyone’s seen all day.

I arrived in Newport News, Virginia just in time. The receipt for the car I had rented had a 3:30 PM delivery time. After hoofing it all day, skipping lunch and cutting corners on bathroom breaks, I topped off the tank and pulled into the airport at 3:15. This would allow me a whopping fifteen minutes to unload and pack every earthly belonging that would sustain me for the next four months before pedaling off into the horizon. I decided to go in and plead for mercy.

Once I explained my situation, the amused and friendly gentlemen said, “take all the time you need. Even though it says 3:30, you’ve paid for the full day.” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve felt a false sense of urgency, I wouldn’t have had to sell so many t-shirts to help finance this trip. So now I’ve got all this time on my hands, and some final moments to savor fossil fuel powered transportation.

So where did I go? How did I utilize my precious car time; the last spin of the wheel and rev of the engine for four whole months? Considering that the purpose of my journey is to learn about and promote the preservation of America’s farms, I went to the most unlikely place imaginable; Wal-Mart. A lot of people have said a lot of things about Wal-Mart so it seems silly for me to chime in. So here it goes. Wal-Mart replaces identity with convenience. But this story isn’t about Wal-Mart so I won’t qualify that statement.

What I will say is that this Wal-Mart had a massage chair located next to an electrical outlet which allowed me to charge my laptop and record a few thoughts before picking up bananas, batteries and oatmeal.

I returned to the airport, excited to shed myself of all gas guzzling, over-complicated machinery. I unloaded my gear, loaded my bike, put on my blindingly bright clothing, and proceeded to park the contraption outside the airport’s main doors. I was bristling with excitement. As I exited the airport I noticed one of the airport attendants who was collecting baggage carts glancing at my setup with a grin in his eyes. As he strode past he said, “It looks like your fixin’ to go on an adventure.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m about to ride this thing from here to Oregon,” I replied. That stopped him in his tracks. “You don’t mean it….well isn’t that something.” We were both grinning at that point. I hadn’t even gone two feet on my bicycle and I was about to have my first encounter.

The gentleman was an older black man, very thin, a little bit hunched, with a glow in his face and eyes. Everything about him radiated kindness, warmth and respect. “That is just fantastic,” he said. I told him that I was visiting farms as I went and trying to learn and tell their stories. For whatever reason, it touched him that I would set out on such a thing. We had not exchanged more than a few sentences when he asked me, “Do you know the Lord?”

Before I go on with this story let me pause. There was a time in my life when such a question would have irritated me. Religion is a funny thing, it can either bring people together or drive them apart. On this day, it brought two together. I answered, “Well, that’s what this trip is all about.”

We shook hands and William Baker, age 62 told me his story. The story started with a sentence I’ll never forget. “I run marathons. I’ve run five marathons in the last five years.” William had run for long distances as long as he could remember. He never knew why he liked to get out and run like that, but it was something that he could do, so he did it. Then in 2001, right after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, William decided that he wanted to do something to help the families of those affected. But what could he contribute? He didn’t have very much money.

Then he realized that his particular God-given talent was to run long distances. He wanted to use that gift for a purpose. So he signed up for a marathon and called the editor of a local newspaper and explained to him his passion to run this race for others. The newspaper ran an advertisement asking people to donate one dollar for each mile of the race to the families of 9/11.

He was 57 years old at the time. Since then he’s run all of over the country, in Illinois, Miami, and New York and he’s planning to run again this year. The last race he ran to support the victims of hurricane Katrina. William was living his dream. In his words, he felt the Lord calling him to do this work. We exchanged a lifetime of hopes and dreams in about five minutes.

I was amazed by this man. And he was amazed by me. There we were, two people who were trying to do something important with our lives. I was alive inside. William prayed for me right there on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to Newport News airport.

I hugged the man. “I’m so glad we met, this was meant to happen,” I said. “This has been an encouragement to me,” he replied. I felt the same. I knew that there would be many difficult days ahead and this man’s encouragement and support would be a reminder to me of why I’m doing this. Total strangers, and yet at the deepest level of our souls we understood each other.

I rode off down the road. My trip has officially begun.

This entry was posted on 6/11/2006 2:15 PM

COMMENTS

6/12/2006 12:35 PM Anonymous wrote:
My little heart leapeth for joy!
6/12/2006 5:16 PM g wrote:
This story made me smile. Thank you.

Sounds like you've already started to find what you're looking for.

2006-11-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

Final T-shirt entries

I sure enjoyed all the t-shirt entries I received. I'll try and compile them all on one page and let folks decide which is their favorite. Anyone ever come up with any bright ideas for an award?

Now this was what I was hoping for. Farmer models looking sexy in their lettuce. Awesome. Big thanks to my good friend Noelia Springston for sending this photo of her husband laying in a bed.

My handsome and intelliget cousin Harris Blackstone supporting the cause.

Thanks again to everyone who purchased a shirt. I wouldn't have been able to do the trip without your contribution. I'll try and compile a list of my benefactors.

MORE >>

Posted by Justin Ellis at | | |

11/7/2006 9:06 PM Rebekah wrote:
I think the award should be a copy of your published book...
Reply to this
11/7/2006 11:05 PM vicki pense wrote:
I think you should write a book. I have enjoyed all your writing so far and when my daughter-in-law read your blog for the first time she kept on commenting.... He is such a good writer....
Reply to this

Field of Greens

2007-10-07T01:20:00.000-04:00

This morning I headed on over to Andy and Hilda Byrd's 2nd Annual Field of Greens fundraiser. They call it the "Organic Farm Aid" and have a good ole farm, food and music get-together with over 500 people with all proceeds going to benefit Georgia Organics.

Some of my closest farm friends were in attendance and its always good to meet new people at these type events. Its a tight knit community and one with great rewards. My camera only retained battery power for about 30 minutes so I was limited in my abilities to capture all the terrific goings-on.

This was Michael McMullen's daughter who had her own table where she was selling pokeberry seeds. She was incredibly articulate in describing for potential customers the medicinal benefits of pokeberry. Her beaming father stood nearby and commented after her eloquent delivery, "The benefits of home-schooling."

This is a goat. Aren't goats great?

This is an okra blossom. Pretty huh?

This is Tim Mills. One of my favorite people on earth. On the table there is his corn meal, polenta, and grits which he grinds with the help of mule named Luke.

The Mill Farm Brunch

2007-10-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

The Mills Farm Brunch was one of the shining moments of last month. It's been nearly one month ago now on Sept. 9th, but well worth going back to take a look at it. The event was a fundraiser for the Classic City Chefs & Cooks Association, the local chapter of the American Culinary Federation.

Tim and Alice Mills are two of my favorite people in all of Athens. They add a soul to our local foods scene that just makes me smile every time I think about them. I'll do a whole write up about them at some point but this entry is going to focus on the food we had at brunch.

You'll notice we just got a taste of everything, but it was perfect. Almost like a Tapas style brunch. Here's the menu....and the recipes.

Red Mule Polenta with Goat Cheese, Poached Egg, Truffled Hollandaise and Shaved Country Ham

Polenta:

1 cup Red Mule Polenta
2 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon whole butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces Sweet Grass Dairy goat cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Poached Egg:

4 whole eggs
1/2 gallon water
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon tarragon vinegar

Truffled Hollandaise:

4 egg yolks
Juice of 1/2 lemon
dash Chalula hot sauce
2 ounces water
8 ounces warm melted butter
Salt and white pepper to taste
1 teaspoon white truffle oil

For the polenta: In a sauce pan, bring stock to a simmer. Add polenta and stir for 2 minutes. Add butter and cream and cook for 5 minutes. Season to taste and reserve.

For the poached egg: In another sauce pan, bring water to a simmer. Add salt and vinegar. Crack each egg into a small cup and gently place in water. Poach until firm and reserve.

For the hollandaise: Over a double boiler, place a bowl with eggs, lemon juice, water, and hot sauce, whisking until eggs are 150 degrees and form ribbons. Do not scramble. Pull from heat. Whisk in butter and truffle oil.

To serve: On serving dishes, divide the polenta. Place one poached egg atop each dish of polenta. Top with Truffled Hollandaise Sauce and garnish with thinly shaved country ham.

Note: You can shock eggs in ice water and reserve in the refrigerator for use later that day.

- Recipe from Athens Country Club Executive Chef Christopher McCook, CEC

Saffron Infused Double Cream Vermont White Cheddar Red Mule Grits with Dry Rubbed Hickory Smoked Pork and Butter Bean Tomato Chow Chow

Grits:

2 teaspoons Saffron threads
6 cups chicken stock
6 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
2 teaspoons Coarse ground black pepper
8 ounces butter
2 cups Red Mule Grits
16 ounces cheddar, shredded

Smoked pork:

8 pounds Boston butt pork roast
1 cup JMCC dry rub
3 pounds hickory chips
10 pounds charcoal
12 ounces beer

Chow Chow:

1/2 cup yellow onions, finely diced
8 ounces cabbage, finely diced
8 ounces butter beans, cooked
1/2 ounce salt
1 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon ginger
16 ounces green tomatoes, finely diced
4 ounces carrots, finely diced
4 ounces celery, finely diced
6 ounces sugar
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

For the grits: Add saffron to chicken stock. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain stock. Add cream, salt and pepper and butter bring to a slow boil. Add grits, whisking. Cook, stirring, for approximately 20 minutes. Add cheese and allow to melt. Makes 8 servings.

For the pork: Place chips in hot water and soak overnight. Rub pork with dry rub and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight. Light charcoal burn until gray and ashen (in a grill with a lid). Drain chips and spread over coals. Unwrap pork and place on a rack 12 to 18 inches above the chips. Cover and let smoke until wood chips are exhausted. Pull pork from grill, place in an ovenproof dish on a rack, add beer and cover. Place in a 300-degree oven for 4 hours. Remove from oven, trim fat and chop or shred meat. Add barbecue sauce to meat if you desire. Makes 20 4-ounce portions.

For the chow chow: Combine all ingredients in a non reactive pan bring to one boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Cool and store refrigerated. Should be served with this recipe at room temperature. Makes 30 2-ounce portions.

- Recipe from Jennings Mill Country Club Executive Chef Lance Jeffers

Fried Griddlecakes with Country Sausage, Green Tomato Jam and Cane syrup

Griddlecakes:

3 cups Red Mule cornmeal
3/4 teaspoon of salt
6 teaspoons baking powder
Dash cinnamon powder
6 eggs
3 tablespoons of melted bacon fat
2 1/2 to 3 cups milk (at room temperature)

Green Tomato Jam:

3 pounds green tomatoes cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 lemon
1 orange
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Sausage patties

For the griddlecakes: Mix all of the dry ingredients together well. Add the eggs and continue mixing. Slowly add the milk until the batter reaches a pourable consistency. You may not need all of the milk. Add the melted bacon fat into the batter and continue stirring until well incorporated.

Spoon mixture into a well-seasoned pre-heated cast iron skillet and cook on one side until it begins to form an edge and is bubbling inside. Carefully turn and continue cooking until done.

For the green tomato jam: Place the tomatoes in a heavy bottom saucepot and cover with the salt and the sugar. Let them sit overnight. Take the zest off the orange and the lemon, using a zester; save this and reserve the juice. The next day stir the tomatoes and place over a low burner. Add the cinnamon. Add the juice and zest and cook slowly until tomatoes become fairly soft and the mixture thickens. Store in the refrigerator.

For the country sausage: Fry the sausage patties in a hot skillet, turning frequently until they reach an internal temperature of at least 165 degrees.

To serve: Place cooked griddlecake on plate, arrange sausage patty on top of cake, spoon green tomato jam on top, and lightly drizzle with cane syrup.

- Recipe from Athens Country Club Sous Chef Chris Borden

Girl Ponders Mule.

I took a lot of pictures of Tim's mule Luke who grinds all the corn into the grits, polenta and cornmeal pictured above. Luke's the hardest working member of the family. I like this picture of a girl staring deep into Luke's soul.

Mule Days with Tim and Alice Mills

2007-10-15T19:48:00.000-04:00

It’s 5pm on Saturday October 13^th and I just got home from a lovely day with Tim and Alice Mills. I had called to schedule a time to interview them and they told me they were going to Mule Days in the town of Washington on Saturday morning and invited me to attend. It seemed like a good way to spend the day.

We met at their house at 9:30 that morning and had to wait a few minutes for their daughter Rebekah and son-in-law Brian and granddaughter Emma to get there. They had stopped at Burger King on the way over.

Tim was dressed in his characteristic coveralls and a plaid shirt. Before we stepped out Alice told Tim he needed to put his hearing aids in. Tim has a hard time hearing even with his hearing aids. We piled in Alice’s white Cadillac, which is the first authentic farmer Cadillac I’ve encountered, and Bryan and Rebekah followed behind in their Chevrolet Avalanche.

Washington is in Wilkes County so we drove through Winterville on our way over to 72 then took 72 through Crawford and Lexington and on for another 24 miles or so. On the drive over we talked a lot about the drought and how it had affected things. Tim and Alice have a 140 foot well that they water from, only the ground has shifted and lodge a solid rock into the shaft at about 40 feet. There’s still water at 40 feet but Tim talked about his idea to fire a rifle down the shaft to try and break up that rock. Their loyal and somewhat slow farm hand Paul is super excited about this idea.

Tim, Alice and Paul spent yesterday afternoon fishing up at the Jubilee Lakes and didn’t have any luck. I told them how all the refugees fish everything they can out of the lake and put the whole fish in the freezer, then take the fish with them when they leave for Atlanta. Tim mentioned he wanted to catch a turtle when he realized all the fish were pretty much gone. This got us talking about turtle stew which I’ve never had. I mentioned that it seemed they would be tough. The trick to making good turtle according to Tim is to feed them corn meal for about 2-3 weeks before killing them to clean them out of all the weird things they like to eat.

This got us talking about feeding corn, and how I’d noticed that the supermarkets were advertising “All grain-fed” beef like that was a good thing or something. This conversation was interesting as Tim’s familiarity with the Bible had led him to believe that “fattening” the calf was a biblical instruction from God, that there was nothing wrong with that. We talked about how ruminant stomachs respond to grain and the problems with strains of e-coli that can now be passed from a cow to a human due to the acidic stomach of a cow from eating grain.

The Mule Day was a popular event with cars lined up at the entrance. There was a show ring and a mule drawn plough demo on one side and food and vendors on the other. The event was staged at the Callaway House historic preservation center, a great little locale with a beautiful, stately plantation style home with pillars and big front porch and one of the tallest, thickest southern magnolias I’ve ever seen. It was probably four feet across. They had reconstructed an 1889 one room schoolhouse as well. There was a sorghum mill and they were cooking up the sorghum syrup. This was neat to watch. There was brick fireplace, built of two long walls on top of which they sat a long iron flume. The sorghum syrup was moved from one section of the flume to the other depending on how long it had been cooking. As it was cooking a bright green film of chloroplast coagulated on the surface and was skimmed off. At the farthest end the syrup began to simmer and gain its characteristic dark color.

One of the things I enjoy the most from these type events it the opportunity to learn a few new terms. Of course, sometimes I have to relearn some old terms. The purpose of the event was to celebrate the mule and a mule simply put is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. It’s an F1 hyrbrid so to speak, and usually unable to reproduce. Before we left the house, Tim had explained that one of the advantages of the mule is that they will eat of lot of things that a horse will turn their nose up at. They seem to be hardier in that regard and not as prone to problems such as foundering. There are all types of mules, and as they moved about the show ring the judge explained a little about the cotton mule which was narrower and able to do delicate field work.

There were wagon rides, and tons of food. We walked over for lunch. I had a rib plate and enjoyed gnawing on the bones under the shade of a pine, wiping my face with white bread, interspersed with bites of beans and potato salad. Tim generously offered a delicious brownie with giant chunks of chocolate embedded. I also picked up a couple of three dollar pieces of pottery for Christmas presents.

On the way home I learned a little more about Tim and Alice’s history. They talked about their rodeo days, how every weekend for about 2-3 years they would travel to a rodeo where Tim would often ride the bulls.

They had moved to Athens about 25 or 30 years ago coming from North Carolina where they both had family. Tim got a job on a feedlot owned by a man named Miller, and as part of the deal he provided them with a free place to live. It wasn’t much to look at they said, but they arrived in June and enjoyed fixing it up, adding carpets to cover nearly rotten floorboards and building kitchen shelves. Rebekah was five years old at the time.

When I first asked where they had lived when they arrived in Athens, Alice answered, “The Loveshack.” Anyone who has been in Athens for very long knows that this was where the band the B-52’s lived and wrote many of their early songs, and eventually memorialized the shack with one of their most popular songs. Alice said that the band actually came by one day wanting to visit their old stomping grounds and she and Rebekah got to spend the day with them.

Tim was working on a piece of equipment inside the silage silo and got silage sickness, which can affect you if you breathe the fumes coming up out of the fermenting silage. The gas produced is nitrogen dioxide and kills people every year during the process of filling and maintaining silos. Tim went to the doctor and was told he had two choices. He could take one week of bed rest or he could go the hospital. Well the Mills had no health insurance, so bed rest seemed the way to go. Tim’s boss, Mr. Miller was a hard man and told him he could have the afternoon off but he expected him to be back the next day. Tim said that was not going to work. They spoke the next day and Mr. Miller told him to be back that day. No matter how many times Tim tried to explain to him how serious this was, they had reached an impasse. Tim did carpentry jobs for several months and the family moved into the trailer of a man and his daughter about Rebekah’s age. It worked for a short time but Tim and Alice knew they needed something of their own. They sold the house they had built in North Carolina and bought the little yellow house on Harve Mathis road.

A New Breed of Farm

2008-02-27T12:40:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I came home for lunch and sliced a one inch thick center slice out of a locally grown, organic bright red tomato as big around as the length of my hand, laid it between two slightly toasted pieces of loaf rye bread, slathered it with mayonnaise, sprinkled it with fresh ground pepper and took a bite. It was about 40-45 degrees outside and overcast, but all of a sudden it felt like the sun was shining in my mouth. Eating a tomato this good at this time of year makes you feel like there’s a small crack in the firmament, and a small beam of heaven’s light focused just on you. I like to call that center slice the “steak” of the tomato, and there’s just nothing on earth as good.

Less than a mile away from where I live in Winterville, GA sits an unimposing small farm called Woodland Gardens. My yummy tomato was grown on this farm; only a stone’s throw from the Athens airport, and maybe six or seven miles from downtown Athens. Along the road in front of the farm is an itty bitty yellow sign that reads, “Organic Garden, please don’t spray.” Down a short dusty road stand ten tall domed greenhouses. A curious passerby might pause and say, “I wonder what they’re growing down there?” A good answer would be, “All kinds of stuff!”

My first visit to Woodland Gardens occurred one summer morning, about 4:30 a.m. It was pitch black of course, and I was hitching a ride to the Morningside Farmer’s Market in Atlanta; the only year round farmer’s market in the state that sells only organic products. Before heading off, I helped two lean, quick moving, hard working women load a refrigerated truck from top to bottom with boxes of tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, squash, zucchini, okra, lettuce, potatoes, onions, leeks, herbs, bunches of fresh cut flowers, and about a dozen items I couldn’t identify. Everything had been harvested the day before. This food was fresh. So fresh, it was practically wigglin’!

Everyone at the market was magnetized towards the Woodland Garden booth. The bounty of beautiful shiny fruits with chalkboard signs describing each item and how much it cost in blue, green and pink chalk. The bright colors and the smell of fresh cut flowers, ripening tomatoes and respiring greens entranced passerby. The fresh blessings of the earth had been brought to the big city.

Woodland Gardens isn’t an ordinary farm. It’s a new breed of farm; an example of what farms may look like if society truly decides to try and eat local. Most people can’t yet imagine what eating local actually means. To most of us it probably sounds trendy, unrealistic, or downright confusing. But current and future generations are facing some challenging questions that until the last few years were inconceivable. Where will our food come from? How will people make a living in our rural landscapes? What happens if everybody sells the farm?

Celia Barss is a new breed of skilled farmer. She’s young, she’s savvy, she speaks three languages and she’s the farm manager of Woodland Gardens. Born in Canada then raised in Papau New Guinea and Baltimore, she gained her training as a farmer at the University of California in Santa Cruz. She didn’t grow up on a farm, but she always loved to have her hands in the dirt, and after finding her passion for growing food she never looked back. She knew what she wanted to do and focused on it. These days a farmer doesn’t have to be born on a farm to be born to farm; and that may be a blessing to the rest of us since less than two percent of the nation’s population still grows our food. Celia is tanned, sinewy, and confident in her craft. There’s nary an organic farm or farmer in Georgia that can compare to the level of output, efficiency and quality of produce at Woodland Gardens.

When asked to paint a picture of Woodland Gardens, Celia explains the different structures that allow them to grow year round. A total of one acre of land sits under ten passively ventilated greenhouses called high tunnels, and two heated greenhouses. Four additional acres are devoted to field production. “Each area is the best place to have the crops at different times of the year,” Celia explains, and she’s developed a system of careful rotations to maximize crop performance and efficiency.

The major advantage of greenhouses is they allow a farmer to extend the growing season, thus providing year round income, maintaining full time employees, capturing a bit of a price premium, and allowing folks like me to eat local tomatoes in the month of February. But the greenhouses also preserve nutrients and organic matter in the soil. Since a greenhouse blocks rainfall, precious nitrogen from compost isn’t leached from the soil after a heavy rain. The plants are irrigated with drip tape and nitrogen is slowly released by the decomposition activity of micro-organisms in the soil. _

Every good farm starts with a farmer who loves doing what they do. Isn’t that true of excellence in any craft, and every profession? Celia explained that in addition to this love of the craft many farmers feel responsible for providing good food, “because they’re able to do it.” Fortunately for us, some people are just born with the talents that make for good farmers. They love being in the earth, they have a mind for detail, and possess bountiful storehouses of energy. Bit by bit these individuals are finding their way back to the farm as opportunities expand and society begins to appreciate this contribution. A new breed of farmer is slowly, ever so slowly being born. As this occurs individuals like Celia and places like Woodland Gardens stand out like an experienced older sister who just graduated from college. If you’re lucky maybe she’ll take you out, show you around, and instill in you an encouraging example of future possibilities.

Field Day at Spring Valley Eco-Farms

2008-04-27T20:21:00.004-04:00

Today we had about 80 or more people out at Dr. Jordan's farm for an educational field day. The rains blessed the midday from about 1 until 2:30, then the skies cleared and we were able to lead the crowd with relative ease.

Personally, I realized how important it is to have places like the farm to introduce people to new farming concepts, and the little 100 acre farm on Spring Valley Road is an amazing place for just such an activity.

The day and the group was split into three sections. Dr. Jordan gave an overview of the history of the farm and an introduction to soils and soil organic matter. Krista took folks up to her research plots to talk about no-till and alleycropping research. Jason used the bulk of the day to discuss the principle concepts of the vegetable operation and the new livestock enterprises.

It was a lot to take in a day. My role was mainly to transport the groups around the farm, and I enjoyed getting into conversations with our guests about yesterdays annual Old Timey Seed Swap, and the challenges we are up against in creating valid arguments for conventional farmers to make the switch to organic agriculture.

As much as I'd like to rehash all the great discussions of the day, I'll keep it simple and focus on the things that best caught my attention.

Jason's discussion of the spader was of great interest. This tillage tool is important in organic agriculture as a way to incorporate cover crop residues throughout the soil horizon without pulverizing the soil and damaging soil texture and organic matter. It penetrates to a depth of 14 inches. Cover crop incorporation should be carried out about 30 days before you plan on planting into the bed. I am breaking this rule pretty badly in my own garden this year. I tilled my weeds under two weeks ago and I planted lettuces within one week and now have planted okra and a few tomatoes this week. Oh well, I'm learning.

They don't make Spaders in the U.S. This one is from Italy. They come in quite a few sizes, including one you can use behind a walking tractor.

We showed the group the new Freedom Rangers chickens. These birds are a beautiful reddish color and come from European breedstock. They are considered hardier for organic and sustainable production, and also possess a richer flavor with more dark meat. Unfortunately the folks that run this business just closed it down so this might be the last batch of these guys. Back to the old Cornish Cross.

It's always great to get the opportunity to hear Dr. Jordan talk about soils and organic matter and how he realized we've really got our work cut out for us in the southeast in preserving organic matter. I love it when he brings up that the GA state legislature declared Red Clay as the official soil of Georgia, which he says is like declaring Smog as the official air of Los Angeles. I noticed today how he explains that because forests are perennial and slow growing, they don't have the same nutrient demands as your agricultural crops, so the slow release of nutrients from more lignous organic matter is not limiting. He then showed a cross section of soil from the vegetable plot and discussed how compost was needed on a regular basis.

Well. That's a quick and dirty summary. I've got an audio recording of Dr. J's talk that I'll try and link to my website soon.

Today's Lunch

2008-04-29T23:19:00.003-04:00

Good farming produces good food. Perhaps an entertaining way to follow the whole loop around will be to show you the wonderful challenge I'm faced with in preparing and eating all the organic food I work, barter, and beg for.

This past week I've had the daunting responsibility of putting down
-1 bunch carrots
-1 bunch beets with greens
-3 greenhouse grown tomatoes
-1 carton sunflower sprouts
-2 ounces cilantro
-2 pints strawberries
-1 bunch asparagus
-1 bunch brocolli
-1 bag leaf lettuce
-1 gallon whole raw milk

This weekend I spent a good 4-6 hours making

1) A carrot - cilantro soup - also using 2 pints homemade chicken stock and one potato. This is still in my fridge as we speak.

2) A roasted beet dip - Roast beets under foil in half an inch water and a little olive oil. Peel beet skins. Put in a food processor with 2 tablespoons orange juice, half cup sour cream, corriander and cumin. I'll post a photo later

3) Beet greens - cooked in a pot with bacon (sorry this was store bought) and onions.

4) One roast chicken with garlic lemon butter - I killed this chicken myself. See Day of the Chicken below for the whole story.

And last but not least.

One BST on sourdough. That's a Bacon, Sprouts and Tomato. It doesn't just look pretty.

Food courtesy of Woodland Gardens, Full Moon Farms, and assorted farmers of the Athens Locally Grown cooperative.

May all your meals be blessed,
J

The Wonderful Fava Bean

2008-05-03T00:27:00.003-04:00

Tonight's meal has inspired me. There are so many foods that most of us have never known. Greens and roots and beans and lettuces and crazy things that make one excited to be alive again, with an incredible sense of discovery and wonder. And yet, the joy is deepened that much more if we can see these plants come up out of the ground, and know something about how they are cared for, and the history of the species, and how it has been used by people in ancient, sometimes distant lands. When the taste lingers with a knowledge of these things, ah, the delicious sweetness of deep roots.

So I'll show a quick peek of tonight's delicious feast and then come back to this and add how these things are grown, where the varieties come from, how long in the field, are they easy or difficult to grow, harvest, wash, transport? How long do they last? How long is their season? What foods do they complement?

This is the very first meal of my life with the fava bean. Celia Barss at Woodland Gardens encouraged me to take some last week after working on harvest day. I was able to pick them with the crew. After a few minutes of picking I found that they come lose from the plant easiest when grabbed and lifted straight up. There may be some risk of damaging the stalk of the plant however.

Like asparagus they are an early spring delicacy. I found in Alice Water's cookbook on Vegetables a recipe for Chilled Fava Bean Soup that sounded tasty. To get to the bean can take some time. First you split the pod and pop out the light green pod. Then you parboil for one minute. Douse in cold water then use your thumb nail to split the pod and squeeze the bean out of this second pod. The inner bean is beautiful dark green. Rinse again and add to a pan with well sauteed onions and garlic (I used some fresh spring garlic) in olive oil. Cover with chicken stock until beans are tender. Add to a blender then add additional chicken stock until the desired consistency. Drizzle with fresh rosemary infused olive oil.

The second dish was a Gratin of Broccoli with Sauce Mornay. Simmer on low 1.25 cups milk with a quarter onion, nutmeg and bayleaf (I substituted rosemary). Separately make a roux with butter and flour. Add the milk and stir on low until creamy. Add a fine grated cheese. I used cheddar and parmesan. Boil broccoli, drain, mix into the sauce. Line a gratin dish (darn I should have used mine, would have made the picture look better) with butter, added toasted bread crumbs to the bottom, add gratin, put untoasted breadcrumbs and butter on top and bake at 425 for 20 mintues.

And Hoila! Radiohead's In Rainbows made for excellent cooking music. Then Bob Dylan's documentary, No Direction Home made for good Friday night entertainment while I ate.

Tomorrow after I take my car in for a new timing belt, water pump and fan clutch I'll be swinging over to the Morningside Market, Georgia's only year round organic farmer's market. I'll get some good pics of the spring harvest bounty and tell a little bit about what I know of these good friends.

Goodnight.

Maymester Begins

2008-05-13T17:27:00.007-04:00

Dr. Carl Jordan's agroecology lab at the University of Georgia offers one of the only intensive courses in both the principles and the practice of organic agriculture offered in the state. This summer is the 5th year the course has been taught as a Maymester session. The course is entitled Organic Agriculture and the Ethics of Sustainability. It's an intensive course, with only 16 total meeting days. 16 students (both undergrads and grads) are participating.

Today was the first day. I'll be sitting in on as much of this course as possible and sharing some highlights here and there as time provides.

Today's guest lecturer was Paul Sutter, an associate professor of History at UGA. Paul is an Environmental Historian and gave the class a good foundation in the history of American agriculture, with specific insights into some of the regional differences in agricultural settlement.

Paul described the settlement of America as a search for arable land. He described the notion of extensive vs. intensive agriculture in which land was seen as a resource whose main value was short-lived fertility. Once this fertility declined it was abandoned for un-spent land. Agriculture in the west was of a migratory nature. He contrasted this with the type of agriculture that developed in the northeast, where continuous mobility was no longer an option. Here farmers had to develop methods to sustain fertility the best they could. One of the ways in which they could do this was using animals to concentrate fertility.

Paul had some interesting things to say about aesthetics and environmentalism. He described how most of our large national forests out west are in areas where there was little opportunity for agriculture. Our aesthetic ideal of nature was isolated from our working agricultural lands. They were put in two separate boxes and environmentalist rarely thought about the latter.

Take a listen to a small part of Paul's talk. I guess this is my first official podcast. Outdoor recording ain't no easy feat so forgive the planes and windnoise.

Enjoy

http://www.farmlandconservation.org/assets/podcasts/Extensive_sound_bite4.mp3

Or Click here

a taste of local grass

2008-06-25T21:40:00.004-04:00

When summertime comes, there’s just something that makes us want to fire up the grill and throw a bunch of hand patted beef burgers onto the sizzling flames. The crackling sound of searing meat and the wafting smells of the cook out cause most of us to salivate with anticipation. Just one whiff often makes one think, “I wonder if I can get an invitation to that cookout?” Our long-time friends the cows, the often uncelebrated guests of honor at the summer cookout, must feel exactly the same way when they stand at the fence staring upon a fresh pasture of tall, succulent grasses and think “How, oh how can I get an invitation to that good looking pasture?” When the fence is finally let loose they scramble into the forage, put they’re heads down and happily begin smacking and crunching. Tall, fresh grass is the cow’s equivalence of a summer cookout. And to a grass fed beef rancher the one sound that’s even better than burgers hitting the grill is happy cows crunching on fresh grass. “That’s my favorite sound,” explains Etwenda Wade, the rancher behind Tink’s Beef, a grass fed beef ranch located just east of Athens in Wilkes County.

With the interest in buying local and sustainable foods in full thrust, grass-fed beef is just beginning to come into its own. Not yet a part of our everyday parlance, grass-fed beef is a simple enough concept, but a full appreciation requires at least a basic understanding of the universe of the cow. Cows are herbivores; which simply means that their bodies are physiologically designed to ingest and digest green plants. Cows began to evolve, with the help of human domestication, from wild aurochs of Europe, Asia and North Africa around 6000 BC. This ancestry has predisposed cattle to be wide ranging foragers constantly on the search for tall fresh grass. Cattle also possess a strong herding instinct as a leftover defense mechanism from the once constant threat of predation. This lingering instinct basically says “eat and move, eat and move, and stay with the group.” By constantly moving they never overgraze the grass, and by staying together they eat faster, competing with each other for the choicest bites and gaining weight fast in the process.

Grass-fed beef takes full advantage of this ancestral ecology between cattle, grasses and don’t forget good old fashioned sunshine by mimicking the efficiencies of nature developed over a millennia. Rather than let cows lolly gag around the pasture, eating grasses down to the roots, damaging the soil, and exposing themselves to their own pathogens, ranchers keep the cows in smaller sections of pasture called paddocks with the use of electric wire fence. The closer quarters make the cows eat faster, then in a few days they’re moved to a fresh section of pasture with tall yummy grass. For the cows it’s just like having a cookout at least once a week. And by managing the relationship between cow and grass in ways more consistent with ancestral patterns, the health and vigor of both are improved.

With the age of cheap corn and cheap transportation coming to a close this new system of raising cows offers a long laundry list of benefits. To date, only a handful of Georgia farmers have made the leap. Etwenda Wade, who is a fourth generation rancher with cattle raising in her blood, found the grass-fed beef approach offered her an opportunity to regain a heritage of rewarding farm work while also restoring her own health. Her great grandparents were one of the original pioneer families of central Florida, eventually amassing a staggering 20,000 acres of land where they ran their cattle as they do in westerns, traveling with the herd like cowboys. Being that far south with that much land, they never had to feed hay or grain, so Tink learned about grassfed cows right from the beginning. Growing up with her cousins as neighbors, she picked up the nickname Tinkleberrry from a young cousin that couldn’t quite muster Etwenda. Luckily Tinkleberry, got shortend to Tinky, and finally to Tink.

Tink wasn’t given the option of taking over the family land and to her dismay most of it was sold for housing. Several years after moving to Georgia her dream of returning to farming became a constant obsession. Based on a friend’s recommendation she and her husband visited Wilkes County for the Mule Day celebration held each fall and she fell in love with the town of Washington. “To me it’s the prettiest town in the state of Georgia.”

Twelve years ago they purchased a beautiful and historic 230 acre homestead and Tink started raising cattle. But as is often the case, it took some hardships before everything fell into place. Chief among these was Tink’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis. Conventional treatments for MS commonly produce some adverse side effects causing patients to seek alternative remedies. For several years Tink followed the conventional treatments, but after little success she reached a turning point that caused her to seek healthier ways of living, including a total change in diet. Now she doesn’t eat processed foods of any kind, and hasn’t touched fast food in the last seven years. The more she took possession of her treatment the more she realized that changes in lifestyle, rewarding work, and a healthy environment were crucial to her physical and mental well-being. Today she’s off of all medications and considers her grass-fed beef operation to be her most effective treatment.

Tink’s other breakthrough that inspired her to produce grass-fed beef came from her experience raising hogs in confinement for seven years. When they first purchased the farm it came complete with three swine houses and a contract to raise 750 hogs every three months. Tink has always loved animals and she hoped it would be a good way to make payments on the farm. But her discomfort with confinement really hit home one day when they were loading up hogs to send to the processor and one of them got out and into the pasture where he was able to walk on grass for the first time in his life. Pigs are easy to stress out, and as he walked around he kept “putting his little hoof down and picking it back up” as if to say, “something’s not right, this doesn’t feel like concrete.” All of a sudden the confused pig just had a heart attack and rolled over dead. The shock of the big wide world was just too much for him. That moment is one she’ll never forget and she got out of the confinement business for good.

Just like a good gardener who has to understand the physiology of the plant and the properties of the soil in order to grow a strong healthy crop, good cattle ranchers must spend a great deal of time trying to think like a cow. In fact, it’s not a half bad idea to try and think like a blade of grass too. Tink’s close attention to what her cows eat, and how her fields respond even inspire her to take an occasional nibble now and again just to see what’s going on. “I’ve tasted all the grass out here,” she states. “Clover is very sweet. If I was a cow, clover would be my diet.”

In our rather consumer-centric economy we tend to focus a lot of our attention on the benefits that sustainable foods have on us, the eaters. Things like health benefits tend to get our attention first, with environmental benefits coming in as a close runner up. On the rise is an awareness that sustainable foods also contribute to a better quality of life for those who produce our food. This includes not just the farmers but also our friends the cows. Stories about healthier lifestyles, family-owned businesses, and deeper community relationships tend to inspire, and such inspiration can have a big impact on society’s capacity to change.

“I’m on a mission,” explains Tink. “It started out as just a little thing but now every time I bring beef home and I taste it, and it tastes good, do you know how rewarding that is?”

As one of the only options for eating locally produced grass-fed beef in the Athens area

Tink is on the innovative front-lines of the burgeoning interest in locally produced foods. These kind of benefits extend far beyond the plate.

Cali - FORN - I - A (part un)

2008-10-29T18:48:00.015-04:00

A four month respite from writing. Gads!

An incredible trip to the North California Coast is worthy of picking up the keys again and sharing some beautiful photos.

In the summer of 2007 I had the good fortune to attend the Facilitating Sustainable Agriculture Conference (thanks Dr. J) and enjoyed my first visit to Ithaca, NY and the finger lakes region. I also got to catch up with an old Peace Corps buddy, Noelia Springston, and visit she and her husband's brand spanking new farm. As luck would have it I also got bumped on my US Airways flight up there and yippee for me, got a free ticket voucher out of the deal!

Well the last year's been a bit busy trying to get my Thesis finished, and I kept hoping I could really use that ticket as a reward for a thesis well defended. Well, the voucher was due to expire during the summer of '08 and I had to go ahead and use it or lose it so I guessed I might be done schooling and all by October and booked a ticket to San Francisco for October 10th.

Ha ha. My thesis ain't defended, but, it's job seeking time so that seems like a good excuse to go ahead and head on out there, right?

With a lot of help from my #1 farm buddy (a blonde canadian type) I got in touch with some farms to visit, scheduled a visit to the Center for Agroecology at Santa Cruz, shipped my bicycle UPS and away I went for 11 days of adventure.

So my first comment is that San Francisco just moved right up there to the top of my list of favorite American cities. Though I was quite disgruntled at the time, it was possibly to my good fortune that my bicycle on its ride out west was in a Train wreck and delayed for a few days, leaving me with some extra time to explore the city.

People often rave about the food in San Francisco and for good reason. I didn't have a bad meal the whole time. Here's a quick summary:

the Market Bar @ the Ferry Building----Poached Eggs on Polenta with stewed tomatoes and swiss chard
Cafe Divine @ Northbeach----- Porcini Ravioli, Homemade Gingerbread with caramel, and port for dessert
Chez Panisse @ Berkley----- Baby lettuces with pomegrante, persimmon and fig, Roasted delicata squash, Roasted Fennel, and damn forgot the name of the chicken.
Helmand Palace @ Van Ness---- Aushak - Afghan ravioli filled with leeks and scallions with mint/cilantro yogurt and beef sauce, Mourgh Challow - chicken and split pea curry, Rice Pudding.
Mi Lindo Yucatan @ Noe Valley ---- shrimp/mango ceviche tostado, empanda, flauta, taco de Cochinita

Hmmmm! Yeah pretty good. Fell in love with a little bar in North Beach called the Columbus Cafe that had Speakeasy beer on tap for $1.50 a pint as part of their Recession Days special. Yeah, how could you not fall in love with San Francisco. Oh yeah, and I got to go white water Kayaking on the south fork of the American River just where we discovered gold for the first time in California...good ole Coloma.

So anyway eventually the bike came, I cheered right up and started heading south the 80 miles to Santa Cruz. I rode along the bay early one morning on my way out of town and this is what I saw.

and then the great GGB!

and then down the road a piece the California coast.

I broke myself in pretty good that day travelling 50+ miles. Went past the beautiful town of Pacifica and up and back down the Devils Slide (where these little photos were taken), then on to Pigeon Point Hostel which is one of two lighthouse hostels along this stretch of coast.

Hung out with some good folks here then early next morning had to hot foot it down to Santa Cruz to meet up with some folks at the Agroecology Center at UC Santa Cruz.

But I passed some groovy little places on the way. One of my favorites was Swanton Berry Farm which is one of the first organic strawberry farms in California. The place got my attention right off the bat with this great farm stand sign.

This place had the coolest farm stand I've ever seen. There were samples of strawberry jam on animal crackers, hot strawberry cider (yum), chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry shortcake, strawberry cheesecake, strawberry truffles (sooo good), pumpkin pie, then also cauliflower / leek soup....all organic. Then they had a sofa with a bookshelf filled with books about labor unions and cycling. I fell in love with this one book called the Noblest Invention - an Illustrated History of the Bicycle. I spent some quality time in this place both coming and going. Here's a quick shot of the simple building with a certified kitchen in back and some picnic tables out front.

And check this out. A little sumthin' for the cyclists! Yeah.

I'd run into another red and white sign early that morning as I was riding through literally miles of conventional Brussels Sprouts farms. They grow so many sprouts along this section of coast they actually have a Brussel Sprouts festival according to my Krebs cycling map. There were also sprouts all over the road, presumably swept out the back of hauling trucks. The sprout fields were quite beautiful and you could smell that sweet pungency of a Sprout.

But this red and white sign contrasts sharply with my friendly cycling sign in an eery but funny sort of way.

The Peligro Sprouts!

Well that's about all I got time for today. I'll see if I can't put some more stories up here in the next few days. And get back in the habit of writing.

Organics in Georgia - the warm up to Vidalia Onions

2008-05-13T20:59:00.004-04:00

Several months ago I was doing some research on organic agriculture in Georgia and came across some USDA data from 2005 on certified organic acres in each of the 50 states. I wasn't really surprised to find that Georgia is listed in the bottom ten states for the total number of certified organic acres. In fact 8 of the 10 states at the bottom of this list are in the southeast. However, when I looked at just organic vegetable acreage (you know vegetables are the most profitable and intensive crop type per acre) GA suddenly leaps into the top sixteen states.

Why is that I wondered? Here's a few theories, organic grains (row crops) and livestock take up a lot more acres than vegetables, and these two areas of the organic market just haven't caught on yet in this region. There's a good reason for this. Organic row crops are more difficult to grow in the south due to our poor soils (less organic matter) and high weed, insect and disease pressure.

Regarding organic livestock, most of the nation's organic livestock operations are located out west closer to where the organic grains are grown. Unfortunately organic livestock doesn't mean much more than the animals are fed organic feed, and they aren't given hormones or anitbiotics. Now these can be good things but there are no animal density requirements (in other words 100,000 chickens in a house is o.k.), and no pasture requirements. So rotational grazing livestock operations are now considered the more sustainable choice to organic grain fed livestock. Most of our grass fed beef and other grazing operations don't bother to get organic certification because unfortunately the organic standard for animals has mostly been conventionalized.

So that brings us to vegetables, the mack daddy of the organic movement. 42% of all sales in the certified organic market are fruits and vegetables. And Georgia is somehow nestled up at #16. Who is in front of us? Well, they are some large producers. Here's a countdown of the organic vegetable acres in each of the top 16 states (data from 2005):

Georgia	606
Texas	625
North Carolina	640
New Mexico	643
Minnesota	750
Pennsylvania	869
Wisconsin	928
Vermont	963
Colorado	1,957
Florida	2,140
New York	2,952
Arizona	3,639
Oregon	3,737
Virginia	4,859
Washington	10,331
California	58,327

In '05 there were 98,500 organic vegetable acres total in the nation. Now look at California. They possess more than half the total number of organic vegetable acres in the entire country.

Things are changing quick here in Georgia. Take a look at the six year growth rate in organic acreage. This is just those folks who are certified. There is no information on the number of growers who are growing organically but don't seek certification.

6-YEAR GROWTH	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Certified Organic Acres	273	413	665	1,076	1,565	1,799

Now that's some growth. Over 6-fold in five years! So what's being grown on all this acreage. I put in a call last week to Vernon Mullins, the Organic Program Manager for the Georgia Department of Agriculture to ask. Vernon is a wonderfully pleasant fellow, and I could tell he was disappointed that they hadn't tried to figure out the answer to this question before. In fact, he was uncertain if they even could figure it out. He said that when people send in their certification registration, they often just list Assorted Vegetables. Hmmmmm. (but on the paperwork for organic registration, farmers are actually required to submit info on Product Grown, Amount Grown (Quantity), Annual Gross Sales, and Acres in Organic Production - so there is an answer to this question somewhere) He did mention that the only certified animal operation is a 28,000 head layer operation somewhere down in south Georgia. That's a bunch of eggs. I wonder where those are being sold.

One thing is certain, one of the fastest growing segments of organics in Georgia is in Vidalia Onions.

But for that story you have to stay tuned, we're just getting warmed-up.....to the Vidalia Onion!

Polyface Farms - Swoope, VA - Days 12 and 13

2006-06-21T10:18:00.002-04:00

Joel Salatin is a Paul Bunyan looking character. Thick as a tree trunk across the chest, he walks, talks, and guffaws in a big way. I first met Joel less than a week ago when I attended the Farm, Food Voices program at West Albemarle high school. Joel was the MC for the night and was dressed in khaki’s and a sport coat. Joel is a difficult man to place. He doesn’t really look like anybody you’ve met before. He wears glasses and has a real attentive look about him, and so in some ways he struck me as slightly nerdy, in a Brad McLane sort of way (sorry Brad…if you’re reading this).

When I arrived at Polyface farms, late, around 8:30 (this seems to be a popular time for me to arrive), I was slightly surprised at the man who came to greet me. The farm itself didn’t strike me with wonder. The white house with red shutters was a fairly standard looking farmhouse, somewhat flat on the front, no porch, not much of entrance. The walk up to the house was grass with a little gravel before you got to the concrete.

Before walking up to the main house I heard some flapping sounds coming from the barn and I thought I might find someone there. A stretch of the legs after a good long ride is always a good idea anyway so I moseyed over to see if there was still some work to do. I typically like to dive right in to whatever is going on. It reduces the necessity for trivial congenialities.

The barn also didn’t look like anything particularly special. It was a rather large barn, open air, filled with hay on the front two sides, with a clear path through the middle. I walked in and began suspecting that the noise was nothing more than animals feeding. Turned out, that was a good guess because on the backside of the barn were maybe 20 pigs in a pen. They scooted a little when they saw me and then came right up to the fence sticking their ginormous wet noses out wanting attention, food, or possibly conversation. The flapping noise was a plastic door on the feeder that they pushed up with their heads and then closed behind them.

OK, that’s enough snooping around. I headed back to the house. Dusk was settling in good. I rang the bell and Teresa came to greet me. “You must be the fella who’s riding his bike.” “That’s me,” I said. Joel came right behind her, and that’s when I first saw the real Joel. Wearing a t-shirt covered with dirt and sweat, and jeans equally dirty, Joel looked like one might think of a farmer looking; one who had been working real hard all day. They came out onto the small little porch and talked about what it’s like to ride your bike across the country. Joel was real curious, and quite amazed by the whole thing. We chatted for about 20 minutes or so and I asked them where I should pitch my tent.

“Well, you’re welcome to camp anywhere you’d like, but you might be most comfortable at our haybarn. It’s got potable water and you could sleep right on the hay if you’d like.” They both agreed if it was them, they’d rather sleep on hay than in a tent. These were the real deal farmers right here. Neither one had probably spent much time camping, was my guess.

It was getting late, I was tired, they were tired, and from the sound of it, it was going to be a busy day. I gave Joel my general plan, I would work all the next day, stay again that night, and then set off the following day. We now had an arrangement and a plan, so I pedaled on down the dark gravel rode and immediately got lost. When you’re tired, and its dark, and you’re pedaling around dragging 60 pounds worth of gear, getting lost is no fun. There came a point in the road where there were three to four options. I took one, and it just didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He had said that I would pass his son Daniel’s house. I could sort of see a house through the woods, on the other road. I backtracked and drug my sad tired bones up the hill. The nightlife was impressive. Lots of frogs, beautiful sky. I considered sleeping in the hay, but remembered how sick I had gotten as a kid on a hay ride with Dawson Memorial Baptist church. They loaded up a bunch of kids and hay in the back of a Tractor Trailer and then left us to our own devices. Hay was getting kicked up everywhere. That was my first memory of going home, blowing my nose and having dark black boogers. I didn’t want to risk being allergic to hay and ending up worthless on my first day on the farm.

I pitched my tent in front of the barn where loose hay had piled up making it nice and soft. I hadn’t eaten yet and also hadn’t bought any extra food so I had two big bowls of oatmeal with fresh granola sprinkled on top. I was gonna need my strength the next day.

Morning chores start at sun up, and that means 6 AM. I awoke about 5 till 6 and then had to get dressed, put contacts in, wash my hair, and move the tent. I knew it would be in the way later that day. By 6:30 I arrived at the pastured poultry fields.

So before I continue I should mention that I know a little bit about poultry. In addition to living in a poultry raising community for 3 and half years, I was fortunate to have gained some rather unique experience working for an industrial poultry business for the four months prior to my bike ride. So I understand the basics of conventional poultry pretty well. When I had mentioned to Joel the night before my familiarity with broiler houses, he had corrected me saying, “Now these aren’t houses. These are pens. Everything here is going to be completely different.”

Pastured poultry is a fascinating concept. So most people envision what they hear called free range chickens and they think a huge field with some fences with the chickens all spread out across green grass. I hope to go to some actual free range farms at some point, and I doubt it will look anything like this. In fact, USDA regulations only call for free range chickens to have some kind of access to the outdoors. So that means they can be kept in a 50 by 500 square foot building with a six foot opening to the outdoors, and that’s considered free range. Congratulations America, you’ve been bamboozled yet again.

Pastured poultry is not free range chickens. The chickens are instead kept in manufactured pens that are 8x12 feet square and about 1.5 feet tall. The pen is constructed of wood, tin and chicken wire, with ¾ of the square covered to protect the birds from the elements and predators, and chicken wire along the sides of the front half, and on the roof of the last 1/4. At the front of the pen, a bucket of water is attached to a tube leading to a red drinker, dangling inside the cage. The birds have to have constant access to water. Each pen also has a feeder trough that’s filled with mashed corn and soybean feed. And that’s it. Only, each of these pens holds about 75 birds, and the Salatin’s have about 30 pens. That’s 2,250 birds. Although a fraction of what one typical conventional poultry house grows (those houses can contain as many as 10,000 birds), these birds live their entire lives outdoors, and on grass. And that’s the difference.

Joel is a grass lover.

Every morning, the field hands, which consist of Joel’s son Daniel, and two interns, Nathan and Jordan, go out and place each pen on a dolly, and roll that pen off of yesterdays patch of grass that has been defecated upon, and onto fresh, new, green pasture. The pens are staggered in a z pattern so that each pen is pulled onto fresh pasture. In this way, the animals are kept healthy by being rotated to fresh pasture, and then the nitrogen from the litter is applied directly to the field.

We spent the morning filling water buckets and feed trays, and moving the pens the 10 feet forward to fresh pasture. Poultry are omnivores and they also eat bugs. Though not a considerable part of their diet, they do, no doubt find bugs in the grass.

The major preoccupation of conversation during the morning chores is how to deal with predators. A number of chickens had been killed during the night and I was curious what varmint was responsible. I expected a fox or a coyote. Surprisingly, the responsible party was a raccoon. Unable to actually extract the chickens from the cages, they simply sneak up to the cage and grab one through the chicken wire, whereupon they pull whatever part they can through the fencing, gnawing away at it, leaving the rest to waste.

There were two types of chickens kept in the pens. One was the standard variety used by the poultry industry, a white bird. I will have to request the name. The other was a black chicken, that they referred to as pullets, which typically expresses the early development stage of laying hens.

This is a photo of turkeys in an electric feather net at dawn

We finished the morning chores and headed in for breakfast around 8 AM. I met Joel and Teresa inside. Breakfast is a big deal on the farm, its an opportunity for Joel to catch up on phone calls, read the morning paper, chat with Teresa and the kids, and load up on plenty of fuel for the days occupations. I quickly came to realize that it is also Joel’s favorite time to talk. He is fresh and invigorated after a good nights sleep followed by the full circulation induced by the morning chores. Breakfast consisted of Polyface farms sausage and eggs, and fresh milk from a dairy down the road (milk is a staple product on a farm). There was some moist, dark sweet bread as well. With little provocation from me, Joel began an unforgettable discourse on the principles of his farm, and how they fit into his overall world view.

He began by laying a foundation for his philosophy and pointed out the ironies inherent to being an environmentalist, a Christian, a libertarian, and a capitalist. Polyface Farm is a livestock operation, pure and simple. They raise beef, pork and chicken and that’s about it. What makes their farm different is that the perennial grasses of the landscape are at the heart of the operation. He points out some important things to recognize when considering the ecological background of cattle. Firstly, they’re herbivores. If you observe herbivores in the natural environment, they graze intensely in one area, then migrate to a new area and graze there. Two things are accomplished, they don’t stay in areas they have contaminated with their own wastes, and they are always grazing fresh grasses, while allowing previously grazed areas to recover. Secondly, they are herding animals.

I’ll pick this stream up and tell you more about my Polyface adventure…soon. There is a lot, lot, lot more to tell.

This entry was posted on 6/21/2006 5:23 PM

Mission Accomplished - The Big Wrap Up

2006-11-17T23:29:00.001-05:00

The Source of Sustenance

My coast to coast bicycle journey in search of how to preserve America's family farms has successfully been completed. After having a few pictures taken of dipping my front tire in the Pacific Ocean I arrived in Astoria, OR on Friday, October 27^th with a big smile on my face. Riding a bicycle from one ocean to another, across ten states, covering 5,000 miles, visiting nearly 80 farms over the course of four and a half months is not an easy experience to summarize in a few words. The first word that comes to mind is “fortunate.” I was fortunate that God put into my mind the desire and the conviction to carry out such a thing, and that I was physically and mentally capable and determined enough to complete the effort. My final day began with a walk along a secluded beach, listening to the sounds of the ocean and filled with a rising sense of thankfulness. I never went hungry, I never suffered injuries, was never harassed (save the occasional honking of a horn), and was never turned away when in need of assistance or a place to stay. Perhaps calling it “good fortune” minimizes the significance of my well being during these last months to a sort of cosmic fluke; an uncanny roll of the dice. Perhaps a more accurate description of how I'm feeling at the end is superbly blessed.

The final dipping of the tire in the Pacific Ocean at Cannon Beach. (Goonies rock in the distance)

The accomplishment itself, of overcoming all the psychological and physical obstacles and completing a hard won goal, has strengthened my faith and confidence in my own abilities. This is a new perspective for me, and one to be cherished. About two-thirds through the trip I began hesitantly mentioning to people that I wanted to write a book, but I wasn't quite sure I could do it. “If you can ride your bike across the country,” they responded, “you can do anything you set your mind to.” That statement coupled with a now tangible achievement has lifted the limits I formerly imposed on myself. When plagued with doubt I can always remind myself, “If you could ride your bike across the country, why not this?”

I have never learned more in a shorter period of time than I have these last few months. First and foremost, I will never be able to look at food the same way again. All food has an origin, and I will enjoy food best when I have an understanding and a respect for those origins. There are lots of ways to raise cattle, to grow an apple, to plant and harvest wheat, to operate a dairy. All food is not the same; there is a story behind our sustenance. A farmer's philosophy, practice, and knowledge greatly determine the nutrition of the food, the well-being of the animals, the integrity of the landscape, the character of the family, and the culture of the community. When we buy food at the grocery store we rarely know any of these things. In the midst of our so called “information age”, we have never known less about the origins and the impacts of the food we consume everyday. If my journey was in part a search for more enlightened living then my next steps are too seek out locally produced foods, indeed, even encourage them. My food dollars spent at the grocery store just don't support the things I care about anymore.

To say that I've developed my interest in agriculture the long way around would be an understatement. I grew up in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. I'm certainly not ashamed of my roots, but I also recognize that city life deprives the human spirit of a deep understanding of the source of all things. For the urbanite, our sustenance in the form of food, water, and even fresh air is generated in some mysterious manner on lands unknown. We take for granted the processes of nature, or the labor of our fellow man that keeps us alive, and as a result we make poor decisions. These decisions have had consequences to the health of our bodies, and to the health of rural communities.

I am grateful that after so many years, my ignorance about food and how it is produced is slightly less complete. The ground feels a little more solid beneath my feet as a result. But it has been the means by which I have acquired this knowledge that I now recognize as so unique. How fortunate I've been to study one of the most basic aspects of our daily nourishment; not in a classroom, not from a book, but directly from the farm families whose very lives provide something for the rest of us to eat. I witnessed hundreds of little snapshots of mankind's relationship to the land. As I learned about wheat, or cattle, or peaches, it was always within the human context of an individual, a family, a farmhouse located in a particular valley, situated in a particular state. As I roll over the trip in my mind, each farmer had a unique story to tell, and because I was looking, some wisdom to share. Before the printing press, before radio, before t.v., and before the Internet, our knowledge of the world was exchanged orally, directly from individual to individual. This form of communication differs from the others in that it requires no technology, it is direct, it is personal, it is interactive, and it is relational. In the process of my search for knowledge and understanding, I ended up gaining friends.

It hardly seems possible that in the course of a few hours I would make such strong connections with total strangers. I think it had something to do with the bicycle. A bicycle traveler is easier to trust. If we were up to no good, we sure hadn't devised a very good get away plan. And because of our vulnerability, the human heart is called to assist. By riding thousands of miles on a bicycle to see them, and asking them sensible, important questions, I often sensed my hosts rediscovering the significance in the way they lived their lives, and the value of their contribution.

“So what is it going to take to keep farmers farming?” This was but one of many ways I asked the question at the heart of this trip. An easy answer never materialized. What did materialize, in my heart and mind, is a deep appreciation for the land and the beautiful way in which God and nature have allowed us to provide for our own nourishment. The diverse, and often inconsistent answers to my question may come from farmers themselves, from more enlightened consumers, from farmers markets, from alternative food sources, from public policy, or from rural communities that can take charge of their identities and their future. But the starting point for such grand undertakings are simple enough. Each individual will have to pause a moment, examine their life, and make a conscious decision to rekindle a relationship with the source of their own sustenance.

Thank you to everyone who has experienced this journey along with me. I received so much support and encouragement throughout the adventure, and as a result I never felt alone. It also inspired me to push on during the rough patches. Without the prayers, the kind words, and yes, the donations and t-shirt purchases, I don't believe that this trip would have been the success that it has become. I owe an impossible debt to a great many generous souls out there. My only hope for repayment is to continue down the strange path of discovery I've now found. I promise to share some stories along the way.

I think this has to be my favorite photo from the trip. It's me and Susana Lein posing American Gothic style in celebration of our efforts to rescue her delicious Bloody Butcher cornmeal corn. Our tools were simple....stakes, twine, and a small sledge. Doesn't everyone use these tools when growing corn? One of us is taking our re-enactment a bit more serious than the other.

Press on the Trip

2006-10-28T15:11:00.001-04:00

Good Press was a difficult thing to drum up on this trip. At the early stages I just didn't feel like I had a firm enough grasp of what I was doing to try and talk to reporters. And of course there was the time factor. In addition to riding 50-60 miles a day I was trying to visit farmers, write a weekly newspaper article, take notes, take photos, find a place to sleep each night, and make sure my family wasn't freaking out. So I didn't have a lot of time to look up local newspapers and tell them my story.

Then a good friend Michelle Blackwood set up an interview for me with Kingman Leader-Courier while I visited her families farm in Kingman, KS. Michelle had seen my entry entitled Problems Abound, and generously offered to help with a few of them.

The interview was hilarious. When I took a step inside of the office headquarters it was like walking into a paper from 50 years ago. The place smelled like old newspaper, primarly because all the old copies were kept in a disorganized clutter in the back room. Talk about a fire hazard. The editor/publisher did the interview and asked all about what kind of food I ate at night, where I slept, how long I'd been on the road.....and then....that was it.....the interview was over. We had spent about 5 minutes talking about his son who had lived in Georgia and then about 5 minutes on the interview. Nothing about farms. When I told the Kinsler's (Michelle's family) about the interview they laughed and said, "it'll be a miracle if any of the informaiton you gave is correct". A few weeks later my sister called and said she had received a copy of the paper in the mail. They had taken a couple of pictures of me. One of them was actually on the front page, and then the second photo was also included inside the paper with the second half of the article. The pictures were virtually identical. Once I get back I'll type it up and publish it because based on my sister's reading it should be quite entertaining.

Shortly thereafter I wrote a press release and started sending it to a few larger papers a few days to weeks before my arrival. No one responded. I even called a few. Often I never even talked to anyone who had seen the press release. Given my limited time, I pretty much gave up on the idea and focused on more fruitful pursuits. Then every once in a while I'd jet a few out.

Finally I got an e-mail from the Nugget Newspaper in Sisters, OR from Jim Cornelius.The interview was at 10:30 in the morning, but it was a cloudy, groggy day, and Jim invited me into his office which resembled a bear's den. It was completely dark and he sat in the shadows and began to interrogate me. It just wasn't the kind of environment that elicited inspirational vocabulary. After each question he would kind of sternly peer into me as if to see if anything interesting could possibly fall out of such a dull story. In all fairness, Jim was very helpful in suggesting I visit the Small Farmer's Journal before leaving town.

So here is the result of what I thought was a miserable interview.

Before you read it I should add that I had a couple other encounters. One was a story in the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a real live ranchers paper. I can't imagine the conversations it must have stimulated. I need to ask for a copy of that story as well. Finally, just yesterday a young woman named Shasta with the Tillamook Headlight Herald stopped me while shopping for fruit at a roadside Farm Shop called Bear Creek Artichokes. She had just graduated from college in Eugene and this was her second week on the job. She saw that I was bike touring and asked if she could interview me. We sat on the hood of her car and for about twenty minutes all the ingredients of my trip began to come into focus. I don't know what she'll write but I told her everything from Thomas Jefferson's agrarian vision for the nation to statistics on the percentage of American's incomes spent on food relative to our past and to every other nation in the world. I loved it.

Without further ado....here's that Nugget article.

Cyclist takes pulse of U.S. farming

By Jim Cornelius
News Editor

Justin Ellis is nearing the end of his cross-country bicycle trek. photo by Jim Cornelius

Justin Ellis' business card lists his occupation as "Seeker."

It's a pretty good job title for a young man who spent his summer trekking across the United States on a bicycle, visiting farms to discover the state of American agriculture.

He's visited 60 farms in his trek and has discovered - to no one's surprise - that farming as a way of life is under stress in America.

"People... are skeptical of future prospects," he said.

Farmers feel a reduction in the pride and respect accorded to their way of life, and many are not sure they want to see their children carry on what has been for many a livelihood and culture spanning generations.

Ellis saw evidence of this before he even started his trek, in his home town of Clarksville, Georgia.

The community is rapidly changing, with an influx of newcomers with no connection to the poultry farming that has been the town's economic mainstay. The sense of common values is eroding.

"There was a lot of division in the community that wasn't there before," Ellis said. "You just didn't have the same community dynamics that you did. The community ceased to have pride in (its farming heritage)."

That kind of change was a common phenomenon across the nation. Ellis chose the bicycle largely in order to get a closer view.

"I thought I'd understand it better if I visited these farms by bicycle instead of the rapid pace of an automobile," he said.

His seeking has a purpose. Ellis is in a master's degree program at the University of Georgia, heading for a career in shaping agricultural policy. He hopes to craft policy that will support small farming.

"I needed to understand the playing field better," he said.

The picture is not all bleak. Ellis noted that many farmers and ranchers are finding local niche markets with high quality, specialized products. The model of Oregon Country Beef, which seeks local markets and partners with restaurants such as Sisters' Depot Deli, may hold out real possibilities for farmers.

"The farther apart the producer is from the consumer, the less viable it is for the farmer," Ellis said.

The cultivation of local markets may be an antidote to the erosion of farmers' ability to make a living.

"People are seeing hope in that," Ellis said.

Comments

10/31/2006 7:54 AM Rebekah wrote:
The article and picture turned out to be impressive.

Scenes from Oregon part 2

2006-11-02T23:06:00.001-05:00

Even the bus stops in Oregon are cool. Not to mention that this bus stop is out in the middle of the country. That's a field next to that bus stop. Oregon is cool.

Travellling through the Willamette Valley during fall harvest was one of my numerous lucky breaks of the trip.

Jim Calkin of Heavenly Harvest Farms is a mastermind of agri-entertainment. This was my first encounter with a corn cannon which fires whole cobs one hundred feet using compressed air. Jim's daughter comes home everyday from school and practices her pneumatic riflery. A shot inside the barrel wins $50.

A rain storm drove me inside this barn for lunch. This old Farm-All tractor had personality.

I desperately wanted the whole trip to be able to visit a full scale dairy operation. My wish came true just three days before the end of the trip in a little town called Hebo, OR. I had stopped and asked for a place to sleep at the Hebo Christian Center and they graciously arranged for me to visit fellow member Tony Hurliman the next morning. Tony was fantastic. Completely enthusiastic about the dairy life and just a good natured human being. He loved his cows as much as a man was ever intended to love a cow. And they loved him. As we stood in his pasture talking his entire herd came to gather around him, and nuzzled him, begging to be petted.

This was Tony's father and a heckuva character. The day was his birthday and he was 85.

T-shirt models

2006-07-22T12:04:00.001-04:00

So here it is, my first submission of folks modeling t-shirts.

This is one of my good friends Dr. Brent Beall and his girlfriend from South Carolina. Brent is the head of the Environmental Technicians program at North Georgia Technical College in Clarkesville, GA (home of the Soque).

They sent this message with their photo.

"Brent and I were in Atlanta for the 4th. We were wearing your t-shirts and we decided to ride our bikes a mile to a Mellow Mushroom restaraunt. We were able to tell a couple people about your journey that day because of them.

We're cheering you on!"

Now that's pretty cool. Send me more photos of people modelling the shirts and tell me some stories.

--Justin

This entry was posted on 7/22/2006 1:17 PM