Farm Film Feast, and a great big sign.

This weekend was pretty jam packed. I got to travel to western Massachusetts to the Farm Film Feast hosted in Williamstown MA. A multi day film festival with author signings, talks, and gatherings it turned out to be a pretty good time. My favorite movie was called Dirt. A film about how the origins of humans, our spirituality, our world conflicts, and our very beings are the essence and the stuff of dirt. It is also where the most healing needs to happen, and our largest shift in consciousness needs to take place. A great documentary, I'd highly recommend it, it has great imagery, a lot of interviews with farmers, artists, and people who are advocates for the health of our soil. They used the book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan (which I read a few years ago) for the concept for the movie. Watch the trailer below

After the last movie we walked around for a while, ate grilled cheese and gilato's in the Williams College student center, found the local watering hole and met a few very nice folks there, saw the last bit of the NCAA division 3 basketball game that was taking place next door, and got a tour of the area by a lovely student taking time out of her night to walk through the slush and snow to show us where we needed to go!

To cap off the evening we went to a panel discussion on farming, with two local farmers and also Severine von Tscharner Fleming who is doing a movie called Greenhorn all about young farmers, she is also one herself, and is also the director of the Greenhorns project which is a land based non profit for young farmers. Check out the website, a blog, radio show, resources for young farmers, merchandise, maps, events, an overwhelming a cool site!

We drove home in what we found out would be categorized as a hurricane, up in the mountains it was snowing and lightning at the same time, a regular two and a half hour drive turned into over four, you get the picture. The overall feel of this weekend felt very inspiring and I can't wait to get started on new projects, spring coming, new business ideas, and making some of my dreams a reality.

Boc Choy, Books, and Beaches

I have been reading Eco Geography by Andreas Suchankte. I finally made it through the introduction, slightly scathed by some intellectual late night reading, and happy to move on to the true meat of the book! It is a good book on perspective, using your creativity and imagination when looking at the world and the human mind. Some of it is based on Rudolf Steiner's writings and on anthroposphy. It is very thought provoking which I like!

This photograph is from Memorial day when I went with my family to the beach. I'm not sure whose feet those are but I know the small ones are of a gull, probably a lot of sea gulls. It was a pretty overcast day to start but the sun broke through and I managed to get myself into a suit and into the water for about ten seconds. Of course the proclamations of people who were out in it (the three people in the water mind you) were wafting across the water to the tune of "It's really not that bad once you get in" but I knew how bad it would be! There is no fooling when it comes to the temperature of water anymore, there is no kidding you into it after about the first time your toes hit the water when your a year old, and the frigid winter water bites your toes. This sensation is not forgotten, so don't try to fool us!

Today on the farm I harvested peas and squash and broccolli, weeded in several areas and planted five varieties of lettuce (romaine, black seeded simpson, red sails, green oak leaf, and another green lettuce!) and turnips. We also worked in the greenhouse planting some beets. pac choi and scallions. I found out today that the reason there is a spelling difference between "Pac Choi" and "Bok Choi" is that the B spelling is Chinese and more commonly used here in the states and that the P spelling is Taiwanese. I did however just find this article that better describes the misunderstandings of why this vegetable has held all of these names: Bok choy, bok choi, pak choi, pak choy

So hopefully this has been an enjoyable post about books, beaches and Bok Choy!

Farming Again

So in my last couple of posts I think I failed to mention that my farming work has begun again for the season. I work on a small (2 working acres) organic vegetable farm. There are goats and chickens that live there and run around too, but not for the purposes of the people that buy produce for the farm. This is my 3rd year working up the road and around a couple bends where the farm and it's people live. The first week was difficult getting back into the rythm after so many months of doing less activity. This season I haven't had as much of a roll in doing the seed planting which involves mixing compost, organizing seeds, making seed blocks and squinting as hard as the eyes can to see the small lettuce dots that litter ones hands. I have been doing a lot of transplanting the past two weeks. The first large project being getting all of the onions and shallots in, which when it was all said and done consisted of well over a thousand plants.

     I've also been working on planting lettuces and cabbage, potatoes, broccoli, squash and tomorrow a bunch more of the leafy types. Today we worked on potting up tomatoes and eggplants in the green house, placing the 2 inch seed blocks into wider and deeper pots. So now they can expand themselves, loosen their belts and drink up. It will help their figures.

    It was raining hard this morning and last night so we kept our work confined to the brightly lit hoop house. It always impresses me how dark our homes are when you are standing in a greenhouse and the sun is nowhere to be seen outside, but under the plastic material you're transported to a warmer and brighter land. Granted all of the plants are smaller than normal, and you dwarf everything around you...Tiny seedlings are very humbling.