We are the 2% - Farmers

So, I quit my job on Monday. Starting April 28, I will be a full time farmer!!!!

I love it when blog articles have the courtesy to come to my attention when I make such life-changing decisions.

We Are the 2 Percent: Occupy Our Land, Occupy Our Food

But talk is cheap and while there is an overwhelming embrace of local food and agriculture, there is an enormous chasm between those who eat well and locally and can afford to do so, and those who cannot. The nutritional divide has never been greater, the number of hungry people in the world growing at staggering rates.

How is it possible that there is such an uprising of people who are passionate and enthusiastic and inspired by the new food movement and yet so few whose hands are actually in the soil doing the work?

In the end there is not so much a food crisis as there is a crisis in participation.

The real shift we need cannot take place when only two percent of us is doing the work to grow the food for the rest, while everyone else is cheering us on. We love the attention, but farming is not a spectator sport.

I found this article from this post, which further emboldens me:

even if we didn't have energy and environmental issues to contend with, we have a gigantic demographic crisis in agriculture - the average farmer is nearly 60 years old, and their children and grandchildren have already left the land to do other work. Who will grow our food in the future? For the very first time in human history, it will be grown by people not raised to the work.

Bring on spring!!! I'm ready.

Indiana is not good for syruping...

Our weather has been thus:

Last week - not a degree above freezing
Today and tomorrow - lows between 25-35, highs around 40 (pretty good!)
Next few days - lows in the 40s

Makes for pretty icky sap. Any plans for syrup in NY?

This sounds like New Years

...but with more goat.

The 36-Hour Dinner Party

Turkeys!

Getting bigger...

 

 

For all you cheese makers

I just read an article about using CLEAN men's handkerchiefs instead of cheesecloth for cheese making or any other form of fine straining.

The Turkey Hut

So...the Logans celebrated Thanksgiving in a good old fashioned redneck way! We cooked the turkey in a garbage can. Yes, that is right. Bill, I am sure you are cringing, but it was cool. Dad did most of it, manning the fire and so on. First there was a blue hut built to keep out the wind. Then there was a stake and something to the catch the grease drippings. Then lots of foil and a 15 lb. turkey. Turn the *CLEAN-BRAND-NEW-NEVER-BEEN-USED-BEFORE(other than burning out the galvanized metals)* garbage can over the the turkey and surround the outside of it with 25 lb. charcoal brickettes. Oh yeah, and LOTS O' lighter fluid (which didn't really catch, so some wood too). And then let it cook. The house lacked the Thanksgiving smells, but the turkey hut was warm and smelled of turkey yumminess. The eats were good, but I think it was more of the act of doing it. What a Thanksgiving to remember!! Please watch the teaser video...

Different Cupcakes

Going off Jon's "pancake" I found some interesting cupcakes. I am not sure what to think about some of these. The chipolte cinnamon sounds a little out of my realm, but I can see you making it Chris!

Check them out. (There's even a black and tan for Jon!)
http://cupcakeblog.com/index.php/2007/01/cupcake-round-up-2/

Hope everyone is doing well! The leaves have finally started to change and fall (rather rapidly, I might say). I was driving home from Maggie's this morning and it looked as if I was on the yellow brick (or should I say leaf) road!

Cheers!

Mmmm... mussels.

We had our first ever mussels in NZ. Green lipped mussels are big busines there. Also - pate. This lunch was courtesy of Uncle Tom and Dena... Enjoyed next to a pond at a winery and quilt shop in Blenheim.

Food, Glorious Food

I have been reading the book Slow Food Revolution, which is about the Slow Food movement www.slowfood.com. The movement celebrates culture, quality food and conviviality. This got me thinking about our group of friends and its genesis. While I know that ESF brought us all together and presented the opportunity for us to meet, I also believe those hours (this isn't a typo, the s is supposed to be there) long dinners in Sadler and Brewster Boland (we made it down their a few times to eat with Chris) proved to be important in establishing the bonds that we still value highly today. While the food (at least in my opinion) was never very good, the setting of eating provided the social context for us to laugh, cry, debate, console, and grow. Who can forget the antics of Joe, who I believe caused more than a few of us to wonder if we would choke to death as we laughed with him? While these dinners did not happen as often when we moved out of the dorms, we all got together for food social events when we could (St. Patrick's Day and other holidays, birthdays, Grandma Noetscher's, etc.) Out tastes got more sophisticated than Sbarro's pizza night but the social essence remained the same.

I feel strongly that this is why we each value quality time together spent around preparing and eating food. This has grown into our hobbies, whether it be beer brewing (I started with Chris at Planet 504), bee keeping, wine making, or the gourmet cooking each of us tries in the backcountry and around dinner tables. When we get together, it generally involves eating well prepared and delicious meals. (I am craving some gnocchi right now just thinking about it). We eat, drink, socialize all around the table and the kitchen, something that is near to us perhaps dating back to the ESF/SU dining hall experiences.

I guess maybe what I am seeing is that we are our own 'convivia' which is a very good thing.