Back in School

Unbelievable, I mutter to myself as I bike to school. 

Here I am. In Davis. It's 10 am, 95 degrees outside, and I'm in bike traffic, thousands of cruisers on their way to class somewhere. I speculate that a goodly portion of these cyclists have never ridden before today. Perhaps that's why we are crawling along the two way intentionally designed bike path. (Like a highway system for bikes. Complete with small traffic lights, parking lots, and street signs)

Strange.

Evidently, I'm going back to school. I'm awakening quickly from my arrogance into a new reality. Again I think, I've underestimated what I signed up for. Overhead compact fluorescence lighting my way into buildings without windows, and indeed into my immediate future- I've arrived.

Back in school.

Crazy. 

Strike, Walk out Rally

For those of you who aren't aware, I've just started graduate school in Community Development at UC Davis. 

I just participated in a rally of several thousand students, faculty, and staff to protest student fee hikes, faculty furloughs, and staff lay offs and pay cuts. Held in the middle of campus, representatives of students, faculty, and staff spoke eloquently about the mission statement stray that has befallen the UC over the past 20 years. They spoke about the major transition from a university system that was conceptualized at inception to be publicly supported- free to the top 10% of California high school graduates, to one that now costs 100% more than it did 5 years ago, with an expected 32% fee increase this year. 

I was shocked to see the amount of students who came out to the demonstration. It included both the usual percentage of ruffians and rabble rousers as well as hundreds of average looking college freshman in attendance. I suppose I'm surprised because I expected Davis to be a complacent mild-mannered college town. Contented to ride bicycles, and distracted by GE requirements, constant testing, and fraternity parties, I expected students here to be disengaged from the political reality of the world around them. 

Not disregarding the circumstances, it was inspiring to see on the first day of class. I hope that the UC administration and indeed the state legislature, who are both in part responsible for the budget deficiencies and subsequent decisions take due note. 

For more information about the concerns of graduate students, and for a more in-depth analysis of the issues, please see links provide.

Our subculture

One of my best friends visited the farm this past week. She's a lawyer from DC, we went to college together, have traveled together, have shared some of life's more intimate moments, and see eye to eye politically and humanistically. But I never can get past just how how foreign her experience of my environment is.

It's such an incredible reminder for me when I experience my life through her new eyes. When I remember that not everyone lives in a tent, makes bread from scratch, and knows intimately where every part of their dinner comes from.

Every time she comes to visit my foodie haven on this left coast, she leaves me with new insights and ideas about how I am living now and perhaps how I can evolve my life practice. Her most salient comment this last trip was an appreciation she made about the culture that I exist in.

You know the one, that young-hip-urban-rural-radical-artistic-back-to-the-farm-life-cooking-dancing-biking-punky-outdoors-intellectual crowd that I have surrounded myself with. Perhaps I had thought about it before, noticed that there were more people around with similarities in style and cadence- but when she encapsulated it with that word- culture- that's when it really hit home.

We organic farmer gardener activists have an honest to goodness subculture. A translatable traversing of time and space cross borders. An ongoing conversation between people who can already finish eachother's sentences, and who will always invite you in to supper. Having mulled over it since she flew home, I've noticed it more, and mentioned it to a few. How lucky are we? To be part of something that's bigger, to be creating and feeding off of some giant upwelling of support. I'm thankful for that subculture. It's like coming home.

A new eye

I'm realizing I've developed a new eye for plants. Over the last six months my world of greenish blur has begun to distinguish itself- sectioning out into plant genus and species, native and invasive, weedy and wonderful.

I'm beginning to get a glimpse of how much I've learned.

Plant Sale

It's now fall.

Brought on by the oaks loosing their leaves,

and the sun slipping over the horizon earlier,

it's glowing orb awaiting my morning alarm before cresting the field

Apples are appearing in farm meals, a new addition to the array of summer loving pies

Hard to imagine how fast it's gone.

Our Fall Plant sale- yes, note the title

is tomorrow

We'll leave Santa Cruz having graced the streets and lined back yards with perennials and winter loving vegetables and flowers,

We're keeping the hope alive for yet another summer,

Now just a glimmer in father time's eye.

Transition Hiku

Going back to school

While still living at the farm   

Is now difficult 

Desert to oasis

From the wiles of the black rock city I've emerged into my oasis of green.

White dust to black dirt.

Barren to lush.

Again I've taken the abundance of farm camp for granted.

Although camping at Burning Man has never felt so lush.

I've returned to the rustic life of having the bathroom 1000 feet from my bed, solar showers outside, no closet etc. My spirits wear thin though my convictions are still strong.

Thank goodness for morals.