from my desk

I spend most of my days in my room at my desk, it seems. This is what it looks like. 

green smoothie/seeing the sun set from eight floors up/note taking implements/a pear from market/afternoon snack/my current reading

unexpected lessons in gardening and culture

In my archaeology class last Friday morning, we discussed the rise of agrarian society in the prehistoric world.

It changed everything, my professor said. It was a societal revolution when humans figured out how to take wheat that was sprouting in the wild and domesticate it. He didn't use these words, but this is what I heard: agriculture is powerful.

Yesterday, in another of my classes, my anthropology professor spoke about Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian monk who gave us modern genetics. And he did with pea plants. He was a gardener. Growing food leads to incredible things. Plants can change the course of history.

My archaeology professor brought up two other ideas that I scribbled in the margin of my notebook:

First, today we live among strangers. In band, tribe or chiefdom societies (those of early man) this would have been unimaginable. Everyone knew everyone.

Secondly, it's true: you are what you eat. Archaeologist can take skeletons that are thousands of years old and discover what the deceased's diet was thanks to chemical signatures left in their bones. What you consume indelibly builds the structure of your body. (Depending on how you choose to eat, this could either be alarming or gratifying.)

Maybe these four ideas seem completely disparate. I'm not so sure they are.

The power of agriculture.

Gardening.

Missing connections.

You are what you eat.

If you can keep a garden, you can feed yourself. That's pretty empowering right there. But a gardener is aware of their food - where it is grown, how it is grown - and so more likely to be aware of their own health. We must stop to nourish ourselves everyday. While that could make it appear less significant of an act, I think it only makes it more important that we eat mindfully. Growing food is also creative, hence it goes against the grain of our consumption driven culture (which, maybe it's just me, but that doesn't seem to be doing most people or our one and only planet much good). From what I've seen, gardens and food bring people together too: tending, harvesting, cooking, teaching, eating, cleaning up. And then - when the compost pile is replenished with scraps from the meal - the cycle continues.

notes from global environment class

I am now happily in the thick of school life again. Rising early, bundling up to walk to class (I knitted my first hat for just this reason), lectures, reading, writing, papers, professors...

This semester, one of the classes I'm taking is called "Global Environment." I was expecting it to be about climate zones, and natural disasters, and the water system, and all that jazz - but no, it's better than that. It's about ecology, sustainability, agriculture/food resources, etc. Right up my alley.

(And even better, I'm taking this class with a friend who occasionally whispers snarky comments and is good at playing the devil's advocate when we discuss weighty environmental matters after class. It lighten things up.)

This week we have an exercise due wherein we have to calculate our ecological footprint using this program. Mine resulted in this projection: if everybody lived the way I do (as best as I could articulate it in the calculator) we would need 3.9 Earths to sustain us. Granted, the program does make assumptions because I am an American. But try it for yourself. Seeing your ecological impact broken down - even if it is just theoretical - can't help but make you think.

In class last week we discussed sustainability and specifically voluntary simplicity - giving unnecessaries up for the sake of the "global commons." It made me consider how much I would be willing to give up.

Or maybe it isn't a voluntary matter. I recently came across this article from the New York Times about a brave lady who, by necessity, went "back to the land" in the heart of the city, and gave up many things only to gain many more.

(Pictured above: one of four massive hanging sculptures on campus. They are paper cranes made of many smaller paper cranes.)

the second semester and a bowl of granola

Tomorrow afternoon I head back to university for the second semester of the year, my fourth semester as a student. When it concludes I will be half way done. Half way. 

And my wish was granted: I wanted another proper snowfall before I went back. It happened yesterday into early this morning, and in the evening the sun was out, bright and brilliant. So I took a walk, took my camera, and had this song echoing in my head all the while. 

I made some provisions for my return to school. Among them, a batch of granola, adapted from Stephanie Congdon Barnes' recipe:

Simple Granola

6 cups rolled oats
2 cups mixed nuts and seeds (I used flax and pumpkin seeds)
1 teaspoon cinnamon 
1 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
1 cup honey and/or maple syrup
Dash or two (or three, if you dig salty with your sweet like I do) sea salt

Method:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Place a baking pan (at least 9 x13—I actually use our big roasting pan) over medium heat on the stove top. Add the oats and toast, stirring for a few minutes. Add the coconut, nuts and seeds and spices and continue to toast for a few minutes more until everything begins to brown and become fragrant.
Warm the honey and maple syrup in a small saucepan until liquid. Pour over oats mixture and stir to thoroughly combine. Sprinkle with salt.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes (it depends on the size of the granola batch and the size of the pan). Check every 5-10 minutes or so and give it a good stir. Allow to cool and store in an air-tight jar.

My third semester at university has come to a close.

I'm one of those people who thrive at school. If I had the money for it I'd get more degrees than you could shake a stick at. As it is, I'm become even more enamored with my major: anthropology. It might have something to do with having a professor who brings in a traditional Mexican healer, a Lakota Soiux woman, and a sound healer and lets them do their thing: a healing, a ritual, a sampling of singing bowls. (This is the same professor who has the class sit in a circle, allows the students to guide the course as they will, and wears the most amazing Native America turquoise amulet ring.) And then there was also the research I did: I interviewed two CSA farmers and wrote a twenty-five page paper complied from said interviews. I felt like a real anthropologist; I was.

This semester: I was introduced to this book, I wrote two papers about this couple, I watched this horribly sad film, and became a reader for my school's literary magazine.

And yet I do not know what I want to be "when I grow up." People ask me this question constantly, it seems. Nervously, I answer some ridiculous little something about perhaps working in non-profits, or museums, or maybe permaculture. When I say I'm studying anthropology I typically get one of two responses (except the one time when the reply I received was an obscenity): "Wow!" and "What are you going to do with that?"

The truth is I don't know. I'd like to, but I don't. It used to bother me that I didn't have a firm job title in mind, something I could cling to and say: this is exactly what I'm after. I'm not studying anthropology because I want to be an anthropologist. We do not live in a world that needs another Margaret Mead or Claude Levi-Strauss. That I understand. But we do live in a world where we need people who are work to create cross-cultural understanding. I want to be one of those people. And I wouldn't mind getting my hands dirty in the process.

At this point in time, that is as much as I know. And that is okay. Ken Robinson, in one of his TED talks, says we can't predict with any accuracy what the state of the world is going to be at the end of the week, let alone in five years, so how can we prepare? Now, I do not feel the need to chose a career and say absolutely this is what I am going to do with my life. What I have is the present, and in it all I can do is study what I love, and open my mind, my eyes, and mouth.


And get really good grades. That helps too.

notes from a sustainability conference

This passed week my school hosted a sustainability conference and launched the beginning of the Sustainability and Education Research Project (SERP). I got to attend three of the sessions: one on population growth, one on local foods, and one with the programs director of the No Impact Project. 

I left with these notes and my head buzzing with ideas. 

The United Nations' definition of sustainability: "...development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 

Population Connection/John J. Jeffries/Homefields Farm/Lancaster County Parks/Essen/The No Impact Project 

Artwork by Stephanie Holmes

change of season

And so summer has turned into fall. I was not the least bit sad to see it go.

I've never had any particular affection for fall, even though my birthday is in October. This year, though, I am relishing the change of season. The cooler weather means I can wear scarves and sweaters and boots, and sip warm tea in the afternoon, and the world is tinted gold. But it also seems like a mimicking of my feelings right now - I feel happy caught up in shifting seasons.

I am one month into the first semester of my second year at university. People ask if I still love it. Absolutely. More so than I ever did before. I love it when my head bubbles over with ideas and new information. (And, I must admit, I love the independence I have too.)

One of these new ideas: For a project recently, I've been interviewing local farmers. In my second interview with one farmer, I asked him why he got into farming. His reply stopped me in my tracks:

"I got into farming because there weren't too many things I could do for work that I thought could contribute to the kind of world that I wanted to exist in. And I couldn't find anything with farming that was compromising with what I thought was right. So. I got into farming. I was inspired by people who were self-sufficient and could grow their own food, you know, build their own buildings, fix their own stuff, and generate their own energy, and didn't rely on other people, didn't rely on institutions. Um...that's why I got into farm. I wanted to live close to the land and interact with the land. Because we live on a planet, and I wanted to take full advantage of getting to live on a planet. Like Earth – where you can grow stuff. And then, you know, reading different people, books, talking with different people. That's how I got into it. And I just thought: if you can grow your own food you don't really have to worry about anything. And if you're not worried about starving then you don't have to worry about anything, really. Course, there's always things to worry about – like, whatever. But I thought on a basic level if I could grow my own food I'd feel really secure. And it would be really empowering. And it is. I was right. It is really empowering."

My favorite line: "...we live on a planet, and I wanted to take full advantage of getting to live on a planet."

There will be more posts coming. In the month following the end of my internship I wasn't sure how to approach blogging in this space. Now I know. This my journal and in it I will explore living on a planet. I will take full advantage of getting to live on a planet.

schools with farms

Now that I am home again and all our holidays are behind me, my mind has shifted to thinking about school - which I'll be returning to in twenty-five days. But I am still working at Side by Side, so I started wondering about a coming together of farming and academics.

Bennington College's Sustainable Food Project was the first thing of this sort I ever came across. In 2010, students put in a proposal (read it here) to create a new student garden that would benefit everyone on campus: the students themselves, the faculty and the staff. The plot they wished to use was part of the already existing community garden. The proposal was accepted, two student interns were hired to tend the garden in the summer and the project took off. They now call their spot of ground Purple Carrot Farm.

Further North, the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine has a sustainable organic farm that is managed by COA students, staff, faculty and farm managers. Beech Hill Farm is an outlet for the students to conduct projects, designs, studies or participate in work-study time but it also serves the community. Produce is sold on site and to several eateries on Mount Desert Island, it's served in one of the college's cafes, and they also have a CSA. The seventy-three acres were donated to the college in 1999 by two alumni.

Devin worked on Fulton Farm at Wilson College and, from what I hear, gained a wealth of knowledge and experience there. (And that is, oddly enough, him in the image above. The fellow to the right.)

Most recently, my one friend who has been touring colleges in preparation for applying told me about the farm at Dickinson College. It's sixty acres several miles off campus. A large part of the (certified organic) harvest is served in the dinning halls, but they also have a CSA (Campus Supported Agriculture) that has over a hundred and thirty members in the community and they sell their produce at local markets and restaurants, plus they donate some to Project SHARE. Beyond the veggies, they also have animal life: sheep, cattle, and hens. The students are a major part of this operation; they can work, intern, volunteer, or incorporate it into their academic work.

This is by no means an exhaustive list; these are merely the farms at schools I've come across. There are many, many more all over the country. And that's encouraging, really.



images: one/two/three/four