Farm Beginnings: Bacchanalian Burn Bonanza

Join us for a Bacchanalian Burn Bonanza!

Bacchus is not a controllable god (as you may remember from your Euripides in school) - and neither, it turns out, is fire. My lesson from burning a pile of wood 25 feet wide and 15 feet tall is this - don’t have any guests nearby but do have an excavator.

Don’t have any guests nearby because it is hard enough to watch the large fire catch the grass on fire without having witnesses join you in trepidation. Also, it felt better to have a smaller more sober crowd for when the fire marshall showed up to make sure we had everything under control. It is only because of the excavator that we were anywhere near under control.

The excavator is necessary because as the grass scorches along the ground outward from the fire, the excavator can dig a moat around the area. Helpless, I watched sparks fly into the tall grass. The excavator quickly would rotate on the treads, tamp those out with the bucket, and turn back quickly towards the the line of fire. “Behind you!,” I wanted to shout, “the grass is burning towards the tall grass behind you and on the left, and on the right and did you see it on the other side? The other side is moving fast and...”

and then it was over.

45 minutes after the flames were reaching 30-40 feet into the air, the intense heat pulled the dry wood down upon itself and the focal point of our Bacchanalian Burn Bonanza celebration turned into Mordor.

But I am learning that even Mordor can be put to good use, our neighbors with the horse farm will take the ash and spread it on their pastures for the potash and the lime.

Cheering to sharing with neighbors.

(Here is a video of the fire starting, a haybale was drenched in diesel fuel and lit on fire...)

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of growing what the deer won’t eat. Today she gives an update on the land.

Farm Beginnings: Boxwood; Loving What the Deer Don’t

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke to why she farms. Today she speaks of farming with deer and boxwoods.

Farming with deer might bring visions of Bambi and all of his cousins running around a field prior to harvest into delicious venison steaks. That is not what I am talking about. No, farming with deer is growing goodies I want to eat/enjoy without having the deer demolish them first.

I have a very complicated relationship with deer. I love to watch them run and jump and whisk their tales and yes, I have seen Bambi. Yet I feel the anthropomorphization of the deer population by Disney has adversely affected the biodiversity of our forests. I also like eating them - they are a good source of protein (free range anyone?) and delicious.

Part of planning where to plant goodies on the land involves protecting them from the deer. Deer like to eat most everything in the garden I want to eat and certainly many of the ornamental plants that I would like to smell and look at.

My first step is to plant boxwoods, a trick I learned from Toby Hemenway's book, Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture. Deer don’t like boxwoods. According to a recent NY Times article, “boxwood contains alkaloids that are toxic to deer.” (and a small side note for me to thank them for such a great title). I plan to use boxwood as a fence.

Boxwoods appeal to me for several reasons. They are evergreen, we are renting in an apartment that has many full grown specimens of the slow-growing plant, and I was curious to try propagating from cuttings. I know I am going to be needing a lot of them to make a shield of any utility and the idea of purchasing 50 plants at 20 dollars each was not exciting.

I read recently a book that described a woman who started her arboretum, now filled with 70 foot trees, from seed. “It was cheaper, and she was quite frugal, which is considered sustainable today. She would trade seeds. As she said, plants people share; antiques people don’t share.”

Inspired to be frugal, I purchased Dip N’Grow, and following the directions snuck out very early 2 months ago to barely prune the boxwoods around my apartment. I dipped them into the solution and popped them into the earth. As I lifted the small cuttings from the soil this morning, I did not see any indication of root growth - but Martha Stewart says that it can take up to 3 months.

Besides, it is more fun to sneak out in the early morning before my neighbors are up to take cuttings than to contemplate the cost of a deer fence.

Here is the article on Real Time Farms.

Farm Beginnings: We Farm because Seeds Grow

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of farming trees for the wood stove. Today she speaks to why she farms.

A few weeks ago I gently tucked tiny black and silver specks into wet soil. I placed plastic covers over the soil, put the flats under a sunlamp on the radiator and waited. The soil was very wet. I did not disturb the flats at all, water condensed on the inside of the mini plastic greenhouses.

Four weeks later there is a green carpet of tender strong dynamic life reaching upwards, unfurling new leaves with the courage of a new day.

That is what this whole thing is all about.

Sigh.

In my Master Gardener class a few years ago, the teacher stood at the front of the room the first day and asked us, “Why are you here?” Responses varied: “I love to garden,” “I volunteer at a farm,” “I want to keep my husband company when he gardens,” “I like to grow my own food.”

She listened patiently and then summarized all of the disparate sharing into one shooting star, “You are here because once upon a time, maybe when you were young, you planted something and it grew.”

It grew! Without any sleepless nights, or bank loans, or driving across town running late to an appointment, or jealousy, or broken hearts, or any of the beautiful facets of our human existence - you can place a tiny seed into moist dark earth, show it the sun, and the universe will give you a tree.

Or sunflowers, or kale, or barley your animals can eat. It is the most humbling and beautiful thing to me. On the days when I think I need to be in charge, or even may want to be in charge, am I kidding?

The universe can grow a tree.

Beyond Grateful.

Here is the post on Real Time Farms.

Farm Beginnings: Farming Trees for the Wood Stove

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of inoculating logs with fungus plugs. Today she speaks of farming trees and splitting firewood.

When I think of farming, I think of neat rows of greens interspersed with chickens and a cow in a field or endless rows of corn - but as you know, one can “farm” many things: honey, Christmas trees, apricots, maple syrup, hickory nuts, mushrooms, etc. As I become more and more excited about perennial cultivation instead of annual plantings (my bedside table is currently groaning under the two volume tome Edible Forest Gardens), I am beginning to shift my timeline for what farming can encompass - like the farming of trees.

Tree farming is a long term endeavor. I think immediately of the story from one of the Oxford Colleges where they planted oak trees when the college was founded in the 1400s; 450 years later they had the wood they needed to replace the 2 feet wide and 45 feet long beams in the dining hall. That kind of forethought and planning is a long cry from the annual gratification of most vegetable farming.

According to the rings I counted on the trees we harvested when the land was cleared, most were probably around 50 years old, and most were around the diameter of my hug. (They would not have worked for the Oxford College dining hall.) Fifteen years before I was born these trees started taking in the sunlight and turning it into carbon. This winter we will release that carbon back into the atmosphere when we heat our house. On a side note, I am sure you read that we are just about to cross over 400 ppm for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - but that is a whole different can of worms.

Or is it? Living in a northern climate means we need to keep ourselves warm somehow in the winter. After three layers of long underwear and a few thick wool sweaters, it is still nice to not have to wear gloves inside the house when cooking, or typing, or reading a book. So therefore what are our choices? We can heat our farm with propane (economical these days thanks to fracking). Or we can heat our buildings with electricity - generated from coal, natural gas, biomass, or the 13.2% garnered from renewable sources. We could add solar panels and insulate the heck out of the house (thank you Transition Challenge Month for listing those as energy challenge ideas), but the sun goes down every night and it is nice to be warm in bed. Ideally we would not be adding more carbon to the environment at all, but that is not the current reality most of us live in.

Using wood to heat our house will be one way we can reduce our carbon emissions to help the Keeling Curve return to the 350 ppm so touted and celebrated by 350.org.

Because at the end of the day an issue that seems like a Gordian Knot the size of a fire breathing Leviathan is really very simple. I don’t think anyone but Mother Nature knows how to plant more propane or coal, but I know I can plant more trees.

Here is the post on Real Time Farms!

Farm Beginnings: Chipping Mulch

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl starting to farm. Last installment Corinna spoke of clearing the land of trees. Today she speaks to chipping your own mulch. I learned the difference between “gym fit” and “farm fit” this weekend. I am barely gym fit and I am nowhere near farm fit.

Imagine a pile of twisted laundry - except that it is made out of various logs and twigs, heavy, full of splinters, and 9 feet high and 12 feet wide. Imagine dismantling that pile in order to hoist the heavy wood to a machine that is fearsome in the Fargo sense of the word.

The machine grabs with its dual rotating jaws the edges of 10 inch wide logs, small twigs, or entire cedar trees. The log that we were barely able to manuever is devoured like a teenage boy inhaling a piece of pizza. Oh and make sure to get out of the way - as the log enters the mouth of the machine, it will twist and move, so any branches that are still attached will whack you on the way in if you stand too close.

Let me take a step back and explain this more completely.

I like mulch. It retains moisture in the soil as it decomposes. You can plant potatoes and make a mound of mulch and easily dig them out in a few months.

Mulch also means you don’t have to weed as often. And if you really want to splurge, you can find cocoa shell mulch (perhaps for a herb garden), and your garden will smell like chocolate when it rains.

It struck me as crazy to go out and purchase mulch when we have a huge pile of brush from clearing the land that we could chip and turn into mulch. So I rented a 6 inch wood chipper delivered to the land on Saturday morning, to be picked up on Monday.

Up drives this truck with a yellow machine on the back. The delivery man gets out, takes a look at our small pile of brush in the woods, and a look at the HUGE pile of brush in the middle of the field. “Too bad they didn’t put this small pile on the big pile in the field. That way you could burn all of it.”

“I asked them not to.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to mulch as much as I can.”

“Really?”

“Yes, that is why I ordered the wood chipper.”

(Truth is, as they say, stranger than fiction.)

The bemused gentleman looks with a renewed eye at the smaller pile of brush. “Hmmm, this is the 6 inch chipper. I could run back and get the 12 inch one? That would eat through the pile in no time.”

“Sounds good, and in the meantime we will start laying out the wood.” My husband smiles at me.

Lesson number one from wood chipping, always get the biggest machine you can. Lesson number two, “laying out the wood” is easier said than done.

Writing this, I feel naive but I did not grok how difficult it would be to untangle 12 foot branches and logs, piled willy nilly on top of each other. We tugged, we pulled, we lifted, we strained, we grunted, we heaved, and eventually the pile started to feel more manageable.

I have 32 bruises on my legs from tripping over sticks, falling into the pile as the wood moved, or carrying logs and running into other logs. I am grateful it was cool enough that I had several layers of clothing on, or it may have been much worse.

After laying out the wood, one feeds it into the machine. As I mentioned above this is a loud, fearsome, powerful, intimidating machine that takes the heavy wood and moves it like a piece of cotton fluff. Here is a little sample (watch the volume on your computer).

After two days of this task - here are my conclusions.

1. The best wood for chips are the actual logs, not the brush/twigs. Therefore there is a diminishing return on labor to feed in the smaller stuff.
2. Not counting our labor, we spent $600 on the machine (including delivery and fuel) for the weekend. We ended up with perhaps 10-12 cubic yards of mulch. In Rhinebeck, NY the village will deliver to mulch to me for $20 and each cubic yard is $20 - 11 yards at those prices would be $240.
3. The proffered option of burning the big pile looks more and more attractive after this weekend of doings.

Live and learn, and the bruises are fading.

Here is the post on RealTimeFarms.com

Farm Beginnings: Clearing the land of trees

Farm Beginnings is the chronicle of a city girl pulled into farming. Last installment Corinna spoke of the why that brought her to farming. Today she speaks to clearing the land of trees.

“I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees... which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please.” That is how I am feeling this week.

It is difficult to watch majestic sturdy creations crashing down and portioned up. I am disturbing the habitat of birds, furry nocturnal creatures, and the soil - all so I can indulge in my self-sufficient quest and live more in “harmony” with the land. Beautiful bird nests used to swaying 55 feet in the air are catapulted into brush piles.

To this I answer - the trees must be repurposed to good use. That is my pledge to the dryads of the forest.

Dryads, I promise to turn your former oaken homes into floors. Not as dramatic as feeling the sun and moving in the wind, creaking against the bark and striving against the pull of gravity, but at least you will be useful and still on the same land.

(The willowy maidens seem nonplussed...) But what about the pink hued cedars, the clover shaped shaggy barked cousins nearby?

How about closets for the milled large ones and fence posts for the smaller ones?

And the smaller oaks, those too adolescent for flooring?

We can inoculate you with fungus plugs, you will house shitake or oyster mushrooms. That way we can start farming this spring. Those that are too big we will split into logs to keep our new home warm in the winter.

What about the brush that is too small for even mushrooms?

That we shall mulch.

But you have no idea how to use a chainsaw or a wood chipper.

I will learn.

The dryads flit away - perhaps mulch is an unwelcome word to tree nymphs. However to me, mulch is the crux of beginning this farm on the right foot. Every farming conference I have attended lately has been dorking about the importance of soil health.

Mulch is my first step.

Pondering, Corinna

Here is the post on Real Time Farms.

Farm Beginnings

I envision this series might be a long lived one. I am embarking on a project that to some people on this planet might seem ridiculous (because they are already doing it and they grew up doing it), to some absurd (because they would rather not be doing it), and to some dirty (because, well, there will be dirt). We are starting a farm.

Chronological seems like the best way to start this story. I grew up in a city. Not just any city. I grew up six blocks from the Capitol (OL) Building in Washington DC. My father loved, and still loves, the ability to walk to the corner store for last minute ingredients - so do I. I started taking public transportation home from school, seven miles away, when I was nine years old: bus, metro, bus, walk. School finished by 3:15 and if I was able to time it correctly I would be home by 4:05 (Unless I took the bus all the way home to do my math homework, struggling to hold the pencil still over bouncing potholes. In that case, I would be home by 4:30.)

In other words, I am a city girl. I love cities, I love walking around cities, I love the energy of the cities and the beauty and the smells and the humanity all piled on top of each other, jostling, stretching, striving.

What the frak (thank you BattleStar Galactica) am I doing starting a farm?

The short answer I am going to borrow from Shannon Brines, of Brines Farm in Ann Arbor. I asked him in December 2009 about his decision to start a farm and my memory tells me his answer was along the line of “time to put my money where my mouth is.”

The long answer is this. I have always been an eater: good food, cooking, being around kitchens, fun ingredients, etc - bring it on. My grandparents had a wonderful home in Massachusetts with lots of plants, grubs, bare feet days, and summer warmth. In 2006, I started rethinking career - do I want to be in charge, do I want to sit at a desk all day, do I want to live and contribute according to what makes my heart sing and my soul flutter, do I want to feel creative and useful? Yes. Do I want to know where my food comes from? Yes.

We started off in Ann Arbor, MI with chickens and a vegetable garden. I love keeping chickens, they smell good (I am not kidding, I like to bury my nose in their warm down - they smell like life), the eggs are amazing, killing them is not too horrible, and they are fun to spy on while dust bathing. Vegetable gardens are an exercise in hope and miracles every year - a connection with the seasons and the adamah (humus) that makes up our adam-ness (human-ness). (Thank you Fred Bahnson at TEDxManhattan 2013).

But there never seemed to be enough room in our tidy back garden. And wouldn’t it be fun to try our hand at goats, or pigs, or growing nut trees, or an orchard?

It was also appealing to be self-sufficient and hone our useful skills, not just continue practicing my consuming skills, but to dive into the nitty gritty homo sapiens survival skills. Finally, there are the niggling doomsday reasons: what if oil goes to $200/barrel and the price of bread goes to $20, etc? When we moved back to the East Coast - this was our chance.

Step #1 - find land. I feel very privileged and lucky to have access to resources that made this a very painless process - some of our land was used for hay, some for a woodlot, and some was just overgrown with poison ivy and pin oaks.

Step #2 - live on the land.

That is where we catch up to the present day. We are in the process of navigating the living part. In order to build a house - we need to clear some trees from the overgrown area. However, I feel a bit like the Lorax - which is what I will address next time.

Giggling as a Greenhorn,

(Here is a little snippet of who I am - from a few summers ago when I was managing the Westside Farmers Market in Ann Arbor. Hopefully it will make you giggle too.)

Here is the post on the Real Time Farms blog!

Making Nut Milk

I would have loved to have been in the marketing room when they started discussing what in the world they were going to call the liquid that is discharged when soaked nuts are ground in water... Because nut juice, well, really doesn’t work. Yet, as they probably knew, nut milk is not milk. Milk is “a fluid secreted by the mammary glands of females for the nourishment of their young.”* Nut milk more closely aligns with the idea of a cider, “an unfermented drink made by crushing fruit,” because you grind the nuts and press out the liquid. Nut milk is only milky in that it is white and opaque. Though, for those of us who choose not to drink a tall glass of cow milk, nut milk (unlike cider) does fulfill many of the same functions (coffee companion, cereal splasher, etc) as milk. So we will let the nomenclature nickname stand.

By the time I was a teenager, we had rice milk in the house. One could get soy milk latte’s at Starbucks. In the past 15 years more and more milks have hit the market: almond, hemp, coconut, hazelnut, oat, carob, 7 grain. Eden Organic has a rice AND soymilk beverage. Dream has coconut and almond and chia, rice and quinoa, or almond and cashew and hazelnut. Do you want your milk unsweetened, vanilla, chocolate, low sodium, original? How about a single serving package certified Non-GMO? How about a french vanilla nut creamer for your coffee?

Inspired by all of the options on the market I started feeling the urge to make my own nut milk (exacerbated by a recycling container overflowing with almond milk boxes). The only caveat to this story is you need a Vitamix. But once that is in hand, all you need is your imagination and a little forethought (you need to start the night before).

I have included a few official recipes below from Eagle Loft Kitchen because I am more of the eyeball type of cook.

Grab some raw nuts: brazils, walnuts, cashews, hazelnuts. I haven’t tried peanuts yet, don’t know if the flavor would be too intense. I would love to make almond milk but finding raw almonds can be tricky. As of 2007 all almonds are pasteurized in the US. I have not yet been able to bring myself to order raw almonds from Spain from nuts.com, but I am sure I will eventually. 

Soak raw nuts overnight in 4 times more water than nuts. Rinse them off in the AM till the water runs clear. Add anywhere from 2 to 4 times more water than nuts to the mixer. (the less water the more the milk becomes a milkshake) Add nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, fruit, maple syrup, honey, etc according to taste. Throw the switch!

I have been pouring the milk off the top of the residue and then throwing the residue into the compost pile. You could strain the liquid if you prefer not to chew on your milk. 

And voila! Nut juice!

Happy Milking! Corinna

(Here is the post on Real Time Farms!)

Thank you Eagle Loft Kitchen for these ideas as well...

Almond Milk 1 cup raw almonds 4 cups water + more for soaking 2 Medjool dates, pitted 1 tsp vanilla

1. Soak almonds in enough water to cover for 4 hours or overnight. Then drain and rinse almonds well.
2. Measure 4 cups fresh water into the Vitamix (using the handy measurements on the side of the pitcher). Add the almonds, dates and vanilla.
3. Secure the lid and start the Vitamix on low, increasing the speed slowly up to 10 and then flip the high power switch. Process until well blended, 1 minute or more.
4. Strain the milk through a nut milk bag, or 2-3 layers of cheesecloth in a wire sieve (the nut milk bag is SO much easier), for 30 minutes. Squeeze excess milk out of bag (or gently press residue in sieve) then pour milk into a container with lid (I use a 1 litre/quart mason jar). Store milk in the fridge for up to 5 days. Shake well before serving.
5. Almond residue (what is left in your nut bag or sieve) can be discarded, but I store mine for a few days in the fridge to use in recipes such as Zucchini Bread. It can also be used as a facial scrub!

Cashew Milk 1 cup raw cashews 4 cups water + more for soaking 1 Tbsp agave syrup pinch sea salt

1. Soak cashews in enough water to cover for 4 hours or overnight. Then drain and rinse cashews well.
2. Measure 4 cups fresh water into the Vitamix (using the handy measurements on the side of the pitcher). Add the cashews, agave and salt.
3. Secure the lid and start the Vitamix on low, increasing the speed slowly up to 10 and then flip the high power switch. Process until well blended, 1 minute or more.
4. To decrease foam, turn off high power switch and slowly turn dial lower. A funnel should form in the middle. Decrease speed until funnel almost disappears, then hold at that speed for 15 seconds. Decrease again until funnel almost disappears and hold for another 15 seconds. Slowly decrease speed to 1, then turn off.
5. Cashew milk does not need straining. Simply pour milk into a container with lid (I use a 1 litre/quart mason jar). Store milk in the fridge for up to 5 days. Shake well before serving.

Rice Milk 1/2 cup cooked brown rice 2 cups water 1/2 Tbsp maple syrup

1. Measure 2 cups fresh water into the Vitamix (using the handy measurements on the side of the pitcher). Add the rice and maple syrup.
2. Secure the lid and start the Vitamix on low, increasing the speed slowly up to 10 and then flip the high power switch. Process until well blended, 1 minute or more.
3. To decrease foam, turn off high power switch and slowly turn dial lower. A funnel should form in the middle. Decrease speed until funnel almost disappears, then hold at that speed for 15 seconds. Decrease again until funnel almost disappears and hold for another 15 seconds. Slowly decrease speed to 1, then turn off.
4. Rice milk does not need straining. Simply pour milk into a container with lid (I use a 500mL/1 pint mason jar). Store milk in the fridge for up to 4 days. Shake well before serving.

* Never too early to read the words mammary glands.

Here is the post on the Real Time Farms blog!

You can change what students eat! Celebrate the first National Farm to School Month!

(In the interests of being a good lesson planner, I am going to outline the format of this story so you know what to expect. First I am going to share my personal experiences teaching in a school, then I am going to talk about our first National Farm to School Month, then I am going to talk about what Real Time Farms is doing to help. Here goes!)

My first job was teaching in a Washington DC charter school. By my second year, after the patina of terror and bewilderment wore off, I was able to look up from my classroom (which hadn't had a fight in months, thank you very much) and begin to pay attention to other things - most notably, the school "food."

We ate in the biggest space in the school, the auditorium, on long tables with benches that could be folded in half and shoved onto one side for large meetings (when the 320 students would sit on the floor). We did not have a kitchen. The food arrived in big tubs, warmed in metal closets on wheels, served onto paper plates that would be thrown away at the end of breakfast and lunch. I had voted to join the 80% of our students on the subsidized federal meal plan by paying very little (perhaps $60/month?) to eat the same food.

Lunch varied: macaroni and cheese, meat and rice, meat and vegetables, etc. After the first two weeks of serving myself two chunks of nameless meat covered in brown sauce from one tub and perfect orange and white vegetable cubes from another I asked to be given the vegetarian option. Tofu replaced the nameless meat, same sauce. It was edible, mostly monochromatic; none of it was inspiring.

My scalding food memory is wandering among the tables and seeing two bags in front of a 6^th grader. One was a bountiful bag of white cheerful marshmallows and one was a bag of glowing orange Cheetos. "What is this?"

"My lunch. Food today is gross."

"Fair enough, but you can't eat this. You are having my sandwich." I marched up to the teacher table, grabbed my sandwich - a testament to my second year energy: whole grain bread, almond butter, and boysenberry jam. I walked over and handed it to the child. "You can't eat those for lunch, we have a test this afternoon, how are you supposed on concentrate on sugar? I will give these back to you at the end of the day so you can take them home." I took the offending bags and marched back to the teachers' table.

A colleague leaned over, "Corinna, you are a moron. He is not going to eat your sandwich. He has never seen anything like it before. You are doing this for nothing. You can't change what he will eat. Now both of you are going to be hungry."

"I have nuts and an apple at my desk," I retorted, suddenly feeling unsure and silly. Sure enough when I peered over at the tables, my sandwich sat untouched, serene in its neglected glory, taunting my idealism.

Our school was in the second story of a rented building in downtown Washington. There was no outside recess. We would take field trips to our closest playground, a 6-block walk under a highway. We had summer school, school on Saturdays, and I received a cell phone where students and parents could call me at all times.

What we did share with many other schools across the country was the "heat n serve" method of feeding our children. Cheaper to purchase warmed food and pay someone to serve from tubs and throw away paper plates and cups than to have a full kitchen. All of the headache of food preparation outsourced: no hassle over finding a vendor, purchasing delays, training chefs, dishwashers breaking, health code checks for ventilation, etc.  And besides, "you can't change what he will eat."

I am thrilled to report, as you probably well know, that in the last 10 years there has been a cosmic shift. In some areas of the country I feel one is tripping over squash vines or the latest greenhouse effort to get to the front door in time for class to begin. Whether driven by concerns about obesity rates, soda in school, or feeding gray cells - concerted efforts are being made to bring a kitchen with fresh food back into the schoolhouse.

Though often food service providers have contractual limits to how much food can be supplied by outside sources. People are working to max out and push against that 10-15% limit, bringing more farm fresh food to feed our future leaders.

This October is our first National Farm to School month - government organizations, nonprofits, chefs, and farmers are all working to highlight this important issue. Take some time to browse around the Farm to School site, it has a list of regional as well as local initiatives you can become involved in.

Do you want to donate your time? Do you feel like dressing up as a carrot and talking about the importance of soil? Do you have sunflowers you could bring in to a classroom and have the kids shuck the seeds?

Real Time Farms is working with several schools to highlight and share the stories of the farm fresh ingredients being served. The software we have been using with restaurants nationwide can easily be used with schools as well. One of our many dreams is to help consumers: parents, teachers, and students follow their food from plate to farm, tracing meals in dormatories and K-12 schools nationwide. Working with Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP), our own regional program (findable in the Farm to School database), we are using our software to highlight what the Ann Arbor Public Schools are serving in their lunch rooms. Over the past few years, FSEP and other Farm to School partners have worked hard to get the local produce of Ruhlig Farms and Horkey Brothers Farm into public school system. The program's reach has been expanding, from one local food item per week to a fresh local fruit or vegetable 3 days a week in the months of September and October. See what they are doing on Real Time Farms!

My scalding food memory will always be part of me, but I am happy to report that many people are working together to change "what he will eat." Working together, we can change what our children are eating.

Here is the post on RealTimeFarms.com

Washington DC's local food landscape and FRESHFARM Markets

I am happy to report our capital city, the thriving metropolis of Washington DC, shuts down roads and stops traffic for local food - and it all began with FRESHFARM markets.

The 501c3 organization runs 11 farmers markets in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. One of the two FRESHFARM Directors, Ann Yonkers, recently shared with me the history and the workings of this dynamic organization.

A native Washingtonian, Yonkers purchased Pot Pie Farm with her husband in 1991 in St. Michaels, MD and quickly became confronted by the local food scene. As Yonkers described it, "the Eastern Shore is such a weird setting. It used to be like New Jersey - almost all of the food for restaurants from Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington came from there. With the advent of chicken farms, it just produces wheat, corn, and soybeans - which are all used to feed chickens. I would go to the farm stands and restaurants and all of the produce was from California. I said this is really crazy. So I started a little business, picking up produce and dropping it off."

Yonkers was thus fertile and energetic ground for when FRESHFARM Board Member Nora Pouillon, of Nora's, struck by the dynamic NYC Greenmarkets, suggested to her friend to start similar markets in DC.

Yonkers and her Co-Director, Bernadine (Bernie) Prince, opened the first two markets (Dupont Circle and St. Michaels) under the American Farmland Trust umbrella in 1997. (Farmers markets are often run under the aegis of a larger organization until they decide to take the time and money to become their own 501c3. It is much easier to be a line item in a church balance sheet, for example, during the first few bumpy years of attracting customers and growers.)

In 2002-3, FRESHFARM filed for 501c3 status and opened their third market - Penn Quarter. "It was a struggle" Yonkers recalled, "and part of the big struggle was getting that first market open with the permits to shut down the street." The Penn Quarter FRESHFARM market location is awesome - tents and shoppers are cradled on a closed off block of 8^th St NW between the Navy Memorial and the National Portrait Gallery, looking straight down the hill to the National Archives (erected in 1931 on the former site of Washington DC's Center Market).

FRESHFARM is committed to tracking the numbers to illustrate that the local food movement is not a passing trend. "We count our customers every half hour. We also take a percentage fee of gross sales, which has made it possible to track how we are doing." As she continued, Yonkers sounded sad. "Most markets have no idea. All over the country there is this giant movement and everyone says - oh it is so great. But it is all anecdotal, not really great in terms of saying this is a serious activity."

So let us talk 2010 numbers. Over 360,000 shoppers purchased food from the 150 plus farmers and producers selling only what they grow, raise, catch or make at FRESHFARM markets. Over 9000 acres of Chesapeake Bay watershed is farmed to support that local demand. More than $19,000 in free food vouchers was donated to low-income shoppers - several of their markets accept WIC, Senior Coupons, and Food Stamps/SNAP Benefits. (Mark Bittman did a great piece on WIC recently in the NY Times.) Over 50,000 pounds of fresh food were donated to their gleaning partners (DC Central Kitchen among others).

I agree with Yonkers's statement that: "every market has its own vibe and quality." Dupont Circle on Sunday is a maelstrom of activity and people. The buildings at Penn Quarter (Thursday) shade the chefs from local restaurants as they roll their carts up and down the street. Saturday Silver Spring's central fountain spills cheer and community into the pedestrian village. I like markets where you can spend time chatting with the growers - perhaps Michael James, of Blueberry Hill, at H Street (Saturday) or Mary Haskins, of Haskins Family Farm, at Foggy Bottom (Wednesday).

Farmers markets are a distillation of the demand and supply relationship between consumers and producers. As Attila Agoston, of Mountain View Farm, shared with me: "it takes four parts - the market, the restaurant, the grower, and the consumer to support one another. We try to respond to what people want and bring stuff that other people don't have."

"We have seen a huge innovation in terms of what comes to market then when we started. Fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants - that was it - and now you can feed yourself." Yonkers smiled. "The whole diversification - we never had any meat, any cheese, and milk - now we have all of these protein products that come year round." Whether preserving food through cheese making or sauerkraut, growers are responding to the year-long demand, and FRESHFARM responded in 2010 by extending the market season to year long for Dupont and Silver Spring.

"I am so glad, I can hardly believe it!" Expounded Yonkers, "I wanted to start a farmers market in a town where policy is made. The world is coming around. The little food movement is the most innovative sector, by far."

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!

Encomium for the USDA and the glory of the DC/Baltimore foodworld!

(Other than being a good word for freerice.com, encomium denotes a song of praise.)

Just in time for a perfect week of spring weather, I visited DC (my hometown) and Baltimore to walk up and down the Mall, visit the Department of Agriculture (USDA), talk to restaurants in love with transparency, take pictures of markets, and explore the food changes that have happened to my town in the past 7 years (since I left).

It was a dizzying week because the food world in the capital area has exploded. Farm to fork restaurants are sourcing from a myriad of new and vibrant farmers markets, rooftop gardens are supplying veggies to restaurants across the street — fed by compost from the very restaurants, and the USDA not only hosts a farmers market onsite — they shared the locations of all markets nationwide.

I began the week talking to Amanda Eamich, Director of New Media at the USDA. Eamich was able to highlight and share several of the tools the USDA has provided to help inform policy and the public. The Economic Research Service (ERS) section of the USDA has built two amazing online tools to help pinpoint food availability and broader “determinants of food choices and diet quality.” The Food Desert Locator shows all areas in the country that are more than 1 kilometer from a source of healthy food — you might be surprised at certain locations. The Food Environment Atlas enables you to view on a map a plethora of food choice determinants. Factors such as the 2008 sales tax from soda vending machines, the 2009 low-income preschool obesity rate, or the 2006 relative price ratio of green-leafy veggies to starchy veggies each jostle for your attention in this captivating tool.

Not only is Eamich working with those two tools, she works with the blog. That is right, the USDA has a blog. And what a blog it is. As the tagline says: “United States Department of Agriculture: Reaching Out, Every Day in Every Way.” There are updates about the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign, the People’s Garden expansion to overseas, Chef’s Move to Schools, ‘Know your Farmer, Know your Food’, and even what Smokey Bear has been up to. I walked away feeling our government has truly a vertiginous collection of disparate programs and initiatives all designed to provide access and education around healthier food in “every way.”

The next four days were a whirlwind of visiting restaurants in DC and Baltimore. Chef Rob Weland of Poste Moderne Brasserie showed me his courtyard garden in the Hotel Monaco — where you are literally eating next to a tomato plant growing in a pot. Chef Spike Gjerd of Woodberry Kitchen gave me a tour of his kitchens, including the sausage aging room (all butchered and made in house, naturally) and the wall of in house preserves (the last of the 2000 pounds of tomatoes from 2010 and the first jars of 2011 ramps in evidence). Chef Winston Blick of Clementine spoke of providing compost to Hamilton Crop Circle - a rooftop garden across the street - that, in turn, returns vegetables to his customers. I met with Nic Jammet, one of the founders of Sweetgreen, a sustainable build your own salad/yogurt phenomena that has rocketed to ten locations in the last 3 ½ years. I look forward to attending their Sweetlife Festival next May.

When not gawking at menus I was able to visit two farmers markets in the middle of town — and I mean in the middle of town. One is 3 blocks from the Mall and the other is 3 blocks from the White House — producer only, crowded, and diverse (orchids, wood fired pizza, and the first strawberries of the season - glorious). Thank you FRESHFARM for your great work creating pedestrian villages in downtown DC.

My last day started with a meeting with Debra Tropp and her team of committed farmers market devotees in the Farmers Market and Direct Marketing Research Division of the USDA. Food Tech Connect recently posted a great article describing the need and uses for the Farmers Market Directory in a conversation with Tropp. As a former farmers’ market manager, I remember last year feeling honored and vindicated to fill out the survey to populate the directory. I was doing something important when the government asked me the number of people who came to the market or whether we accepted Bridge Cards — my little stretch of pavement 18 weeks of the year became part of something large and meaningful.

Little did I know my 15 minutes filling out the survey would be transformed into a resource available to the world. The information in the Farmers Market Directory is what first populated Real Time Farms database of markets.

The cherry on my Sundae week was meeting with Gretchen Hoffman of the American Farmland Trust - the vanguard group who worked in the 1980s to create and implement conservation easements for farmland. A few years ago, Hoffman spearheaded the America's Favorite Farmers Market Contest, voting starts June 1st!

A week of good food, good company, and good learnings - what more could one want?

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!

(I would also like to appreciate Wendy Wasserman of the USDA, without her help and good sharings my week would have been very different.)

Who knew? I am a domestic terrorist for taking pictures of farms.

"Have you heard about the Slow Food campaign? They are urging supporters to send in pictures of farms to protest against the Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota bills that would make it illegal to take a picture or a video of a farm. They are calling it the farmarazzi campaign." Two weeks ago, I am sharing the news with a fellow breakfast diner at a noisy table at SELMA Breakfast Salon.

"I don't like to hear the word Nazi, that word upsets me."

Nazi, how did we get to Nazi? I am talking about a photo campaign to protest bills, not gassing trainloads of children and systemic fear mongering by the state.

"Oh no, you misheard, I don't like that word either," I slow down and raise my voice, "fffaaarrrmarazzi. Like paparazzi, but farm-a-razzi."

Two weeks later, Slow Food USA has collected more than 33,000 signatures for their campaign, 450 pictures of farms, the legislation has been "indefinitely postponed" in Florida, and Slow Food continues to collect pictures and signatures - urging supporters to contact legislatures.

I recently asked Jerusha Klemperer from Slow Food USA what prompted them to start the farmarazzi campaign in the first place. Klemperer shared, "We first noticed this legislation after it was covered on NPR, and then saw the coverage and concern grow... A well-managed farm should have nothing to hide. Slow Food has always been about connecting producers and consumers so that each can understand each other and build a relationship."

Prompted by Slow Food's campaign, and Klemperer's sentiments, I set about trying to understand more. I became curious as to where this legislation came from. I couldn't stop wondering why three states would all propose the same type of legislation, at the same time, with very similar words.

In the last decade, there seems to be a growing trend to represent animal activists as terrorists. The Ag-Gag bills, as described by Mark Bittman, are the latest addition to this trend. Let us explore the trend and the history that got us here.

In 2003, the FBI received their audit from the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General that stated:

Consider transferring responsibility for investigating crimes committed by environmental, animal rights, and other domestic radical groups or individuals from the Counterterrorism Division to the Criminal Investigative Division, except where a domestic group or individual uses or seeks to use explosives or weapons of mass destruction to cause mass casualties.

Thank you, Will Potter of Green is the New Red, for bringing this to my attention. (You can read the full audit here.)

The recommendation states that in 2003 animal right "radical groups" are being investigated under the "Counterterrorism Division." In a March 2008 Fox News article entitled FBI: Eco-Terrorism Remains No. 1 Domestic Terror Threat, it is argued that "for years, officials have battled against members of shadowy groups such as the Earth Liberation Front and its brother-in-arms, the Animal Liberation Front. Law enforcement has made strides prosecuting cells."

Where is the line between domestic activism and terrorism? To the FBI it is a narrow (perhaps invisible) line. A May 2011 Wall Street Journal's opinion piece speaks to the seeming disparity of having an animal activist rub elbows with mass murderers in the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Terrorists" list. But the FBI is just following the legislative lead from Congress.

In 2006, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) was passed to "provide the Department of Justice the necessary authority to apprehend, prosecute, and convict individuals committing animal enterprise terror... for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise." The law specifically states that it shall not be construed "to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from prohibition by the First Amendment of the Constitution."

Words have power. The word "terror" is terrifying and our government seems happy to use it often.

Yet for someone working in an animal testing facility I can understand that it would be horrible to have your office bombed. It would be mind-numbingly awful to have insulting slogans painted on your car or home, a total invasion of your sense of security (read here about activities and arrest of 7 activists targeting one of the largest animal testing laboratories in the UK courtesy of The Guardian).

Is terrorism just "mass destruction"? What constitutes mass? More than 100 people in an office? 30 animal testing labs? 5 factory farms with 40,000 birds? This is a quagmire. Our latest addition to the "animal activist = terrorist" trend are the Ag-Gag Bills proposed in Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota.

According to my lawyer friends, the argument in support of the Ag-Gag bills is this. I apply to work in a chicken farm. I take pictures or a video of animals being cruelly mistreated. I post the video on my website. Consumers are so disgusted by what they see that they stop purchasing eggs from that farm and someone breaks in to the facility to free the chickens.

Sharing the information I found gives others a reason to act. I am facilitating criminal activities even though it is not my intent. I have then committed "animal facility interference" (as defined by the Minnesota Ag-Gag Bill, House File No. 1369) and the loss of revenue and potential threat of theft is certainly "interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise" according to AETA. The Iowa Ag-Gag Bill, Senate Fill No. 431 states this conspiracy relationship clearly:

A person who participates in a conspiracy to commit the offense of animal facility tampering, and who acts in furtherance of that commission, is guilty of the same offense as the person convicted of committing the offense on or in the animal facility.

In April 2010, the Humane Society posted a video they had created by going undercover at two chicken farms using the same methods I outlined above. It is a very disturbing video (here is the link if you want to see it) and it would be illegal under these proposed bills.

John Maday, managing editor the nation's oldest monthly livestock magazine Drovers, argued in February 2011 in response to the proposed Ag-Gag legislation that:

We need more transparency in agricultural production. In reality, the vast majority of livestock operations are well-managed, with owners and workers adhering to high standards of animal care. Consumers do want to know more about their food and where it comes from, and when they have a chance to see and experience modern livestock production first-hand, they typically come away with positive impressions.

For farmers and ranchers, the focus should not be on legislation or other means of concealing their production practices. Instead, they should engage the public with a policy of transparency.

Thank you Slow Food USA for bringing this to my attention and for your campaign. Thank you John Maday for your belief in "a policy of transparency" for our farms. Thank goodness I am not the only observer of this trend not sure we are heading in the right direction.

Here is the article on Real Time Farms!