Ta da!

Well if I wasn’t feeling integrated enough at Full Belly already, I can say with confidence that I feel quite at ease now. Yesterday, without knowing, I made it in to the Full Belly Beet which means that approximately 1,500 CSA customers will be reading the newsletter and seeing my smiling face washing collard greens!

Eco Farm Buzzz

Talk talk talk. Everybody came home from Eco Farm a bit in awe. Joe had wider eyes and Alex only said, "I gotta hit the books". By the sounds of it they met a lot of smart people over there.

Hallie, a veteran conference-goer, talked about the heated debate between three well-known farmers, one of which was the CEO of Stonyfields dairy. All were talented public speakers and she said the audience was totally fired up as the three spent a good hour jabbing at each other in their discussions. They talked about such heated issues as: Is small the only beautiful? and, can organics really work on a large scale? 

If only Hallie hadn't mentioned that discussion maybe I wouldn't have those questions swirling around in my head so often. But to complicate matters even more, at lunch a few days ago Judith also brought up one of the workshops she had been to. It was a talk by a woman who discussed the mounting issue of wolves being reintroduced in Montana.

Even a few days ago if anyone had asked me whether or not I was in agreement with the reintroduction of an endangered species I would have said yes without thinking twice, but hearing her talk more I found myself once again in a bit of a pickle:

On the one hand there are the Greenpeacers working eagerly to get more and more wolves brought to rural Montana. At the same time, sheep farmers who have lived in those areas for many years are finding that the wolf population is thriving, at the expense of their flocks.

Here we find ourselves in a sticky situation. Who is in the right? The farmers have built their lives around these sheep and all of a sudden they are being attacked from all sides, with very little help from anybody because everyone is busy trying to bring in more wolves. Everybody says more wolves! don't kill the wolves!, but what can you do when they are killing your livelihood? Driven to an end, some farmers are now even illegally shooting wolves without saying anything. In a matter of years, they have been turned into wolf-killing criminals. 

Having spent a little while on farms now I can more easily understand the farmers' frustration. But at the same time, we must realize that the wolves were really there first, it is us who has invaded their turf. But now, who should move? Will we ever find a happy medium?  

Newbies

I don't care what they say about this being the "slow time" of the year, this farm is still bustling all the time. Just last week two almond farmers gave us a lunch-time lecture about their farming. Today, a new intern arrived. Greg. (And with him came Ona who is staying here for one week.) Then at lunch I sat down next to a stranger, a man from Kentucky who was visiting for the day. He talked about Livepower farm in Mendocino which really struck me as an interesting place. It's a tractor-free farm that uses only horses. Oh the things I could do if only I had more time in my gap year! Already I can feel the time running through my fingers like sand. 

Mud

It all happened in a matter of seconds. First we were driving along and then suddenly, we weren't. The entire pickup tilted to the side and we sat for a few seconds inside the cabin, our wheels spinning themselves deeper and deeper into the mud. The car chose a perfect time to slip off the road because we were stranded at the most inconvenient place along the road, smack dab between the two main hubs of the farm where anybody might drive along and rescue us. We sat thinking about our next step for a while but luckily there was a crew nearby so we begged them to pull us out.

Celso drove away heroically with his big truck and returned promptly with a hefty chain. Jesús wriggled his way beneath the rear end of our pickup and hooked one side, Celso having already attached the other side to his truck. He climbed in and started the engine, nothing. Wheels spun helplessly and flung pebbles at my legs, leaving my jeans covered in specks. But finally after a few minutes of pushing and pulling, our truck managed to climb its way out of the ditch and we were on our way. All in a days work!

More and more and more, and less

Again, lots more life today. And as I have become so well aware of now -- with life, comes death. I took care of two new lambs today. And also this morning the sow gave birth to seven new piglets just as we were in the middle of chaos, chasing a blundering pig around the garden. "Turmoil in the animal kingdom!" I shouted to Alex as I ran across the yard. 

Anyhow, after a lot of frustration we did finally manage to herd the pigs into their trailer. But in this moment of calm I suddenly felt the intensity of the moment. On one hand I knew that I had just secured these pigs to their unfortunate fate, sealing them safely inside the trailer that would carry them away to the butcher. At the same time, just feet away from these unfortunate ones, I knew seven new lives were busy nursing at their mothers' side.