Springing into Action

Well it is spring 2010 and I didn't write much on my Small Farm Life Blog over the winter.  Kind of lost my good humor a bit under the pressure of harsh economic times.  However, I was very busy lining up topics to write about this spring and summer.  I can't wait to spend a weekend at Moosicorn Ranch in June and tell you all about it.

For those of you who aren't ethnographers, I can tell you that the research side of our work is always a pleasure. For me and this project it means talking with farmers, learning about farming lifestyles, understanding farmer's needs, discovering innovation opportunity in the agriculture sector and networking to find and meet farmers and farm advocates and professionals around the world.  How fun is that!  It also means understanding what it means to live like a farmer by living as much like a farmer as I can. 

Last season as you may recall I didn't do so well what with my wimpy lettuce and small tomato crop.  We are still eating wonderful blackberry sauce on our French Toast and the plum sauce went over well as gifts so all was not lost and I am ramping up for more success as an ethnographer (film-maker and writer) and as a wannabe farmer this season.  Smart gal, last week I attended winter cover crop school and figured out that my soil is high in N and what will grow well in the garden this season. 

What is tres exciting for me now is that the ethnographic work has transitioned into more creative projects.   I think if I only studied farming the rest of my life the research would generate more projects than a 50 person company could complete! 

Here are a few of the creative projects that have come out of the early stage small farm research.

I am making a film called Golden Threads. It will tell the story of a creative thinking forum on Transitioning to a Viable Society that was recently held in Sydney Australia. Of course to me, soil, farming and food safety and production are central to any viable society story and that fact and my interest in how minds change from a cultural psychology point of view was what led me to that project. 

I got back from the shoot last weekend and am very excited about what I learned, who I met, the documentary footage that we shot and the film that is shaping up to be an amazing story about group genius, social change and the future of life on our planet.  Let me tell you I've never been with such a large group of civic minded people and I loved and was inspired by them. 

Sound big picture enough?  I'm looking forward to the editing and am digging up the money to get the work done. I need money for everything in fact, this wanna be farmer's cupboards are just about bare. That's what happens when you cross a start up business with an artistic temperment, farming, a passion for film-making and the motivation to be an entrepreneur. 

The other creative project to spin out of the early stage farm life ethnography...I am now the official Seattle Sustainable Agriculture Examiner. I've just published my first article and I'm already trying to figure out how to spend the .40 cents I've earned :-).  Join me?  Leave a comment?  You can help me boost my income to a dollar! (If you want to sponsor a film or invest in a start-up you can do that too.  Call me.)

Third project?  The Enumclaw Public Garden.  I'm coordinating it this season.  Our rural area has been hit hard by the recession and we can use something positive happening in our community.   How much more positive can you get than people growing food for each other? 

Spring makes me happy. Tulips are about to bloom in my yard. I loved having to run outside and pick two purple tulips to save them from the hail storm we had this morning. They are so precious. The air is very cold and the snow line is just above us in the foothills, quite a bit lower than it was yesterday. To think that just last month people were ready to start planting their gardens, forgetting or not knowing that we can't plant vegetable gardens here without fear of frost or snow until Mother's Day. I admit it, I did put some potato starts in a few days ago with some help from Zola and our beloved beasts. 
 
Photos
Top::  Zola helping to prepare the soil for planting white onions.
Middle:  Cyn just finishing up planting the red potatoes  eyes that sprouted in the drawer during my month away in Australia.
Bottom:  One of our dear Japanese Silver Phoenix Roosters; he's so pretty and so sweet.

Bye for now,
Cynthia
The Wannabe Farmer

Wannabe Farmer Tech Alert: Multitouch + NUI: Augmented Reality Googles and Ubiquitous Computing

Those of you who know me in my other life, the high tech life, know that I am a geek when it comes to novel uses of emerging technologies. Well here is a Dutch video showing how augmented reality can be used in farming enterprises. Have fun looking at this!

Multitouch + NUI: Augmented Reality Googles and Ubiquitous Computing

Gardening is ultra complex

It's Halloween and it's garden clean up day. I love Saturdays. This is the one day that I save for taking care of my home and garden. I don't actually "work" on Saturdays. We have a light drizzle here in Enumclaw today and its warm. It's nice and I'm just in from cleaning up my garden. Tomato plants and Shasta Daisies are out and composting. Sunflowers are cut for the chickens and I'm making a dent in that pile of junk that I pulled out of the shed when we made the stall for Abby.

A master gardener from our local Garden Club clued us all in this week about how to prepare our gardens for Winter. We are all tres attentive to all of her advice. I learned a lot of things I didn't know and I didn't even know I didn't know them. I am eating it up because the improvisational approach I take to art doesn't work so well for gardening and I've suffered the consequences of this approach this year. I learned how to garden and to paint by watching and helping my mom and then by reading and trying things out over the years. The garden club is really great because there is so much gardening knowledge in the room; now I have a whole lot of moms I can learn from.

I think gardening is ultra complex. It's at least as complex as designing software; maybe not quite as complex as theater. Oregon, where I learned to garden is different than California is different than MA is different than Washington. The light and soil conditions are different every few feet. The seasons come and go and are different every year. We learn new things about growing plants all the time, aesthetic goals change. MAN.

So here are my personal take-aways from Maureen's garden clean-up advice:

1. Dahlias rot in the ground over the winter because rain water drains down to the root through the stem. If your soil drains and you cut the stems and protect them from the rain you have a good chance your Dahlia's survive under our gardening conditions. Sword Ferns and Fir limbs make good winter cover for Dahlias. My first year of growing a lot of Dahlias I left them in the ground and they rotted. The second year I planted a new crop not quite so big, I dug them up and stored them just like they said in the book and lost those. If you dig your Dahlia tubers; don't wash them before you store them in a cool dry place for the winter.

2. Don't put shavings from the horse barn directly onto your garden; compost it first, then spread it in the Spring. Sawdust draws the nitrogen out of the soil. Who knew? In MA I grew my pumpkins right on top of the horse manure pile, lots of shaving there, they grew great. I learned that from my farmer friend.

3. Maureen recommended cutting Raspberry canes to the ground. In MA, I cut them about a foot high and had bumper crops.

4. Clean out all your weeds; these keep growing over the Winter in in WA they look ugly and they are really bad by Spring; not so in MA where we usually had a foot or two of snow or ice for months.

We've got a lot of dairy farms here and I'm longing for a truck load of manure; gotta get out there and mingle with the neighbors to find that. What I don't know is if I should spread it over the grass that is covering the garden area now or if I should till the whole thing so that I can flatten it out and then spread the manure. I've got to do something or I won't have more than a a few jars of current jam and a bowl of tomato soup from my garden again next year. I'll shoot Maureen a note and ask her.

Small Tomatillo and Tomato Crop This Year

This was my first year to grow tomatillos. I had three plants develop out of the 60 I was hoping for.  Prolonged rains this Spring and then a heat wave didn't help and as I've mentioned before, the dirt at my new home needed amending (so I learned.)  Truth is though, I thought I knew what I was doing and could wing it through so so (no cost) seed starting conditions but nope.  I didn't do a good job at all of  starting my seeds and a lot of things went wrong.

I harvested just before the impending freeze last week and ended up with 5 cups of chopped fruit, some of the darn things no bigger than a quarter.  I had a friend in CA that grew a row of Tomatillo plants up to her neck and 15 yards long one year; my vines grew a couple of feet along the ground.  The fruit turned out to be tastey nevertheless.  Last night I made these jars of salsa and a pot of fresh tomato soup from my tiny (but delicious) tomato crop (same issues.)

All in all I figure my harvest dinner and 5 little jars of salsa only took me 6 months to prepare. Go ahead and laugh; I'm laughing too.  Next year, I'll (try again) to grow a real crop of tomatoes and tomatillos and, cilantro, dill and onions to go with them.

Deep down I know I'm not a farmer; I'm not even much of a kitchen gardener this year.  But I just can't stop trying; I don't know why. I've always thought it was some kind of ancestral thing; my grandpa always grew a good garden and my mom and her twin sister were both driven flower gardener.  I spent a lot of time in the garden with mom; she used to let me dig the holes for the bedding plants and I used to love to water.  Where I grew up in Marion County Oregon, I spent a lot of time on farms picking strawberries and beans when I was a kid and one of my first memories was of my mom taking me to her friend's farm where I got to collect eggs from the chicken coup.  I still so love that.  Prior to my grandpa though, I don't know much about my ancestors or if they were farmers from way back.  Could have been royalty for all I know.  For whatever reason the sights and sounds and smells of farming and farming lifestyle have inspired me and gardening (if not farming) is in my blood. 

And this brings me to something I'm thinking deeply about.  I've joined a social networking group called Farmers for the Future.  What a great thing it is.  In one of my conversations there some of my new friends said they were angry about farmer stereotypes; I bet you know what I am talking about.  Uneducated dirt farmers, driving 50 year old cars because they have to, one dollar in their pocket. That's the movies.  That's TV and novels.  It certainly doesn't describe Farmers for the Future. 

And to all of you out there who read my blog, be aware that stereotyping is hurtful, just like all stereotyping is and those of us who know better well, we ought to help others know better too.  I'm smart and I have a killer education but there is no way I'm smart enough or even tempered enough or strong enough to run a farm that can feed my family, let alone the world.  

I'm less romantic about farming than I was at the beginning of this ethnography and I'm far far more respectful. I wish I had  known when I was young what I know now.  If you are young and you want to farm, be really smart and learn from elders and go to an agricultural college.   We don't pull knowledge from thin air and take it from me, trial and error farming isn't going to feed your family. 


Cynthia
The Wanna Be Farmer

PS: Is there such a thing as premature celery? I had one plant with stocks that were as tiny as they could be and still be celery.  

Hidden dangers: A call for small farm and yard toxic waste awareness and reclaimation programs

After a year and a half of working on the Small Farm Life Along the Cascades Range ethnography project I have clarity about one very important problem in need of a set of education, advocacy and entrepreneurial solutions.

We need small farm and suburban yard clean-up and toxic waste awareness and reclaimation programs.  It really hasn't been all that long in a cultural historical sense that we have had garbage service let alone the knowledge that we need about properly disposing of toxic waste. 

Yesterday I found dead old oil cans in our shed and dampened spilled slug bait and weed killer that filled the drawers of an old cabinet.  I was able to clean up a good part of the spilled oil but not all of it but guess what, now it's in a equine senior feed bag and I haven't a clue what to do with it.  Last year I lived on a farm that had an old and unused underground gas tank only 50 feet from the well we used for household cooking and bathing, old car batteries sitting outside in the rain, insulation from an old trailer strewn around the property after a wind storm and reams of plastic sheeting decomposing under a thin layer of top soil, a legacy from a short-lived attempt at flower farming. 

This is just two farm properties among thousands that have been polluted and now pose hidden dangers.  What else is out there?  How do we find it?  What do we do about it?

As beginning farmers take over  older farms that are changing hands and reclaim abandoned farms to create new ones and as farm land is turned over to suburban dwellers who grow kitchen gardens, these new farmers need to protect themselves, their animals and customers from from these unseen and forgotton poisons.

We need research, advocacy, education and entrepreneurial solutions to address the hidden dangers caused by forgotten and unseen toxic waste in our farm and garden soils.

I received a survey from Waste Management in my e-mail yesterday, now I know what to tell them about their service and how to improve it.  Rural communities need education and affordable, consistent and dependable toxic waste testing, removal and disposal services.  These once or twice a year collection activities just aren't enough to meet the need.  

Cynthia

The Wanna Be Farmer
Pacific Ethnographic Research Center

Wanna be farmer suffers from Trash Trauma and Toxic Waste

Oh my god.  The wannabe farmer had quite a disgusting day cleaning out the shed that was supposed to be cleaned out before we moved in to our place last year.  YUCK.  I swear that I will not leave toxic waste behind in my shed when I die.  I'm on a quest to get rid of every toxic chemical that was left behind here and I'm telling you, there is a lot.  5 gallon buckets of oil, lots of them.  Some of the oil spilled and was smelling so bad I was sick and almost lost it yesterday.  If it makes me sick it can't be good for my little old pony gal so today, with rain clouds thick and winter coming, I had to clean the shed.  What kind of mom would I be to build my horse a stall and maker her breath toxic waste?  Ten dollars and 99 cents later I'm home from the Ace Hardware with some environmentally friendly oil spill clean up powder.

I dump the white powder out to sop the oil up and yeah it works.  I was able to sweep the oil up but now what do I do with the soggy crud?  Toxic waste anyone?  Sell it on Craig's list?  E-bay?  Save it for that once a year toxic waste day we have around these parts?  What do I do with it until then?  AH yuck.  I find more spilled oily stuff on the shelf of an ratty old cabinet.  I open the drawers and what do I find?  Drawers full of spilled slug poison and weed killer.  OH MY GOD.  I couldn't face it.  I'm afraid of it.  I'm taking a break but I know I have to get it out of there.  Am I going to die of poison dust or of disgust or of the combination?  I'm swearing.

The wannabe farmer (moi) meant well.  John and I are building a stall in the shed for Abby, my old horse, to keep her out of the rain this winter.  I foraged for wood from the old barn that lies rotting under the blackberry bushes out back.  Found some good pieces.  John removed all the nails and then had a heck of a time sawing the old wood.  He muscled his way through the circular saw cuts with motor burning and smoking (I was screaming but he couldn't hear me) with moi sitting on the fur side trying to hold the board still as it rocked forward on the wheels of the ancient edger it was sitting on.   Not the safest of situations.  Got the wood cut without a mishap (thank you for that huge favor)  only to find out that the nails we had wouldn't go through the wood.   HUH?

I really have to laugh as I fight the urge to jump in bed for the night and rid myself of the look of disgust that has taken over my face.  The good news is that Abby will soon have a place to protect her from the the rain and the "rattling devil winds" that come whipping off of Mount Rainier.  We will have succeeded once again in making do for our animals using our meager talents, tools, materials and finances to get the job done.  We are big on fortitude.

Meanwhile, piles of toxic waste and garbage are now sitting in our back yard and I'm praying that it doesn't rain tonight and that John brings home a tarp from ACE.  $10.99?  You think?  He did.

Thank you Johnny boy for all you do when you would rather be doing something else.

Did you know that cement nails and finish nails don't work when you are framing but framing nails work great?  Now I know that too.

Drawers in the old shed were full of snail bait and weed killer spilled out of old bags

Miscellanious junk spending the night in my yard

Disgusting

This is where the stall will be

This is junk I set aside for a local sculptor who makes fabulous art out of this kind of thing

Old milk cans; we'll keep these

My Abby girl with the neighboring cow girls.  Tonight about 40 of these beasts surrounded Abby's corral and wanted in to share her hay.  Oh my god.  80 eyes in the flash light scares us all.  

M

Ethnography, Art and Farming

As DuVal Ethnographic Research Center I've chosen two of the most financially precarious professions to study with my ethnographic lens i.e. contemporary art and small farming.  Why I have this passion to find and foster a convergence of ethnography, artistic pursuit and farming or where it will lead, I really can't say.  But I do have the passion; that is the fact.

I just returned from a road trip to California where I helped some of my artist friends with their new music performance called Hand to Mouth, a celebration of the seed from soil to plate.


I was concept testing a business idea Fresh Hot Art Promotions, an Internet mentoring and on-line marketing and promotions service for artists.   This is an outgrowth of other Internet mentoring services I was testing with non-technical solopreneurs earlier this year and the curated blog I started recently featuring the "freshest art of the day."  I post art that has just been completed on the day or as close to the day it is completed as I can manage.  Hmmm.  Fresh Art.  Fresh Food.  What's the connection?  Creative unfolding?  Journey's?  The make or break it function of context?  Time sensitive delivery?  Like cooking?  Like picking fruit?  Like innovation? Like product development and delivery? These are all creative endeavors. 

My friends have been creating and performing highly intelligent, entertaining and insightful performance art in the San Francisco Bay Area for years and didn't have an on-line presence.  With the new show scheduled to open in May and near-term rehearsals and benefit performances coming-up I dove in head first to do what I could to "help grow their audience beyond their mailing list." 

Hmmm.  Growing.  Subsistence Arting?  Subsistence Farming?  Just barely getting by?  Sometimes not getting by?  Working a job to support the art?  Working a job to support the farm?  There are some haunting parallels between ethnography, artistic and farming lifestyles.  But what that means and why I care?  This is ethnography and the truth is, I'm not sure and its OK.  Ethnographers, artists and farmers all have to be comfortable or at least tolerant of uncertainty.  It's something we have to be good at or we perish, in one way or another. 

My goals were to encourage my friends and their the work in progress, help them build their Internet skills, build them an Internet presence, work fast, work collaboratively, give them an on-line voice with aesthetic integrity and meet aggressive deadlines using free Internet tools, my digital still and video cameras and my (yes, beloved) side-kick, my MacBook Pro. I wanted to provide the how and the why to their what. 

The result?  Pretty good!  We collaborated from afar for about a week using e-mail and then Google applications to share text, jpeg files and build the blog.  That required setting up a new IGoogle account and mentoring how to use the applications to achieve immediate goals.  Together we wrote a press release and secured a newspaper story, created the content for a set of flyers and posters, chose and then altered an image for these flyers and posters (with the help of artist friends) and rewrote and proofed until I thought I would lose my mind dealing with all of the revisions we created and vetted.  I got the flyers and posters printed here at my local copy shop where they give me one on one help to get the results I want and then...off I went on my 1500 mile road trip to document rehearsals and street performances at Farmer's Markets in Northern CA.  A two day drive from my place, a week on location and three days home.  You do what you need to do to meet the goals right?   If your plums are ready to pick, you pick them and can or jam them or you lose them.  I wanted to capture those rehearsals when they were ripening, during the jamming, before they were set, while they were fresh! 

Here's a taste of the Hand to Mouth blog today; http://www.agapeperformanceart.blogspot.com

I've written before about how difficult it is to be away from a small farm.  Farmers just can't leave the the farm long.  Plants and animals need near constant attention not to mention the machinery and the family.  It was difficult for me to leave my place and leave it to the guys to manage.  They aren't as engaged in the farm as I am; they aren't farmer wannabes like I am.  My tomatoes were just beginning to ripen, apples were coming on, the broccoli was just ready to pick, pears were plumping up and the horse needs a shelter before the rains.  When I got home the broccoli had gone to seed, the Halloween pumpkins had succumbed to an underground attack by some unseen beast, the apples had fallen to the ground, the elk had trampled the little pear tree, my potted flowers were dry as a bone, blackberry vines had grown over my vegetable beds and the lawn was a foot high.  There is good news too though.  My family is well and happy to have me home, our young rooster has learned to crow, all of the animals are still alive, the sunflowers grew a couple of feet, the tomatoes are still turning red and we have two new sugar pumpkins for our Thanksgiving feast.  

What I've learned about real farming is that like artists farmers are virtuoso improvisers, they create highly complex and usually very large compositions and they plan and practice these compositions as a conductor might conduct an orchestra but over a much longer time.  A farm is a work in progress for the life of the farmer and the life of the farm.  Keeping up with time is a musical challenge and it is a farming challenge.  Farming isn't something with a rousing finish or predictable acoustics.  Farming is a coming together of man with nature and is a process of composition that is fundamentally dialogic, in the moment and perpetually...fresh.

Farming is far from the simple life that non-farmers might imagine and farmers bring incredible intellectual and creative talents to their work; they are inspired and driven like artists to create irregardless of social and financial reward as long as they can possibly manage to keep going.