The Winds of Change

It's blowing hard in Davis.

Central Valley winds, coming down from the North. Bringing leaves, and school, and fall. As it gets darker I'm finding myself inside more often- reading for classes, and correcting papers.

Graduate School, thus far, is satisfying. I enjoying the matrix of complex theory, stacks of new literature, and academic writing, but most of all, I'm liking teaching. A TA for the new Food Systems course on campus, I get to apply what I've learned over the last decade, and indeed over the last few years specifically. Sharing my own life experiences and creating new ones with a group of 15 undergraduates. It's inspiring to see them interact with food and agriculture, subjects which to many of them had been previously foreign. A whole new world.

Wondering now if that might be one of the most satisfying things to experience, finding something you love, and having the capacity and the courage to share it with others.

Apprentices are everywhere

I now know that coming down from the shear high of the apprenticeship program is already, and is going continue to be, rough. But while my heart is aching, and my head distracted by still palpable memories of the farm, reality has sunk in, and I am moving on.

Thankfully, the fall has been padded by apprentices of the past. I am currently teaching in what will be the new Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems major at UC Davis. (Though the major has not yet been passed, it seems to be well on its way.) The class that I'm the TA for, CRD 20: Food Systems-- was co-created by Damian Parr, a past apprentice. And today, I took my lab section on a field trip to Soil Born Farms, an urban farm and educational project in Sacramento which was created by two past apprentices.

So even though at noon today I was in my windowless reality, mourning the loss of my former life, by four pm I was touring a farm that reminded me very much of home. With me I had 15 undergraduates, all experiencing the agro-foodsystem. Little did they know it, but their experience was facilitated by 4 UCSC apprentices. One who designed the course, two who created the farm for them to visit, and me, the facilitator who got them there.

That's powerful learning. When you learn something and are so impassioned, that you have to keep reproducing it, and you are driven to rope others into learning, and growing with you. Again and again, UCSC.

Heartache I suppose

I'm sitting in my new space. New lab room. A windowless fluorescent reality.

Reading emails from farmies who are too experiencing the loss. A pain behind my t-shirt feels like heartburn, but I know it's not.

One email described the wreckage left in the wake of the apprentice exodus like a grungy christmas. A mass indeed. Massive departure of farmies that is.
Now, I sit massively missing the religious experience of community,
of communing on the land,
now that I've landed somewhere new and foreign.

And in my windowless glowbox,
Just experiencing heartache I suppose.

It's over

It's over.

Finally done. My season at the UCSC Farm and Garden is Finished. Finito. Finality.

To paraphrase Orin Martin, who paraphrased someone writing about baseball- a poem for the end...

It's about waking up to the sunrise over the Monterey Bay,

It's about walking in to fresh cooked breakfast, groggy eyed farmers, hot tea,

It's about biking up the big hill to the Chadwick garden, past the students, overlooking the sea,

It's about double digging, and weeding, pruning, and propagation,

It's about farming,

It's about gardening,

It's about the field, and production, about feeding people,

It's about classes taught outside, under trees, in the dirt,

It's about learning,

It's about people come together, from far flung corners, to share,

It's about sharing space, and stories, and seeds,

It's about friendship,

It's about more than any pamphlet or extension credit, or letter home could tell,

It's about six months of magic and synergy,

It's about more than blog posts will explain,

and in the rallying cry of Orin--

Terra Pretta! Terra Pretta! Terra Pretta! Earth First! Earth First! Earth First!

(and we with that- we beat their swords to plowshares)

Rocking to an end

Last night, while the wind blew at the farm center windows, and the wood fire heated up the main room,

The realization set in.

It's almost over

Six month later, this group of 4o some odd folks is now a family. Coming together in perfect time just to split back apart. Splinting back to our corners of the world.

As the storm set in, our rabble rousing musicians blew in from somewhere, set to make music on one of their last nights together. Raucous as usual but with a tinge of sadness, they sang our favorites. Musically thumping and bumping and whooping- the diligent cooks, crafters, and computer laden apprentices put down our knives, wreaths, and screens to lend our voice to the chorus.

So rock me mama like a wagon wheel

Rock me mama anyway you feel

Hey mama rock me

Rock me mama like the wind and the rain

Rock me mama like a southbound train

Hey mama rock me

Rocking us into the night, and into the storm. By singing along I was attempting to forget that this is my last week as an apprentice, and the last week in one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

Prom fit for Royalty

One of the other apprentices and I threw a Prom friday night. Full on dinner and dancing, ball gowns and boutonnieres. Folks showed up regally decorated in insect theme, and we practically brought the barn down with laughter and dancing.

Farmy Olympics

For one day only, the farm olympics came to CatFace Farm yesterday. Dressed in spandex and wigs, sunglasses and knee socks, the apprentices duked it out for metals made out of oversized zucchini strung onto necklaces of combined red twist ties.

The english fork toss, an irrigation relay, apple bobbing, hose coiling, and of course- 'whats up?!'-- we laughed till our sides ached. Mad chaos of competition and squealing devolving into the all-too predictable rotten tomato war.

It's good to remember to have fun as a farmer. Sometimes we get too serious and self important about food production, and saving the world, and whatever, that we miss how important laughter, and spandex, and rotten tomatoes really are.

Farm Art Show

One of my favorite yearly events, the Free Wheelin' Farm Art Show has come 'round again. Double click to examine flyer and come out to support bike powered young organic farmers!

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.