Musings on Immortality

I've been thinking recently about death.  I just finished a futuristic novel, in which at the very end the main character says of himself and his former lover, "They're dead."  Which at first seems to be a lie, neither are, in fact, dead.  But the reality is that neither of them survived this traumatic event in history in the sense that once it was all over - the world completely changed and their love destroyed - they were completely different people, unable to quite overcome their past.  In some sense their former selves have died.  

Also in this same book people are searching for immortality, which in the end is a futile attempt.  Everyone trying to achieve permanent youth is completely obsessed with youth.  They talk of aging and eventual death (for those not seeking immortality) in a censuring, scornful way, yet in their search for eternal youth, death is all-consuming.  

I just read an article in the August issue of National Geographic about robots ("Us.  And them.") which brought up this issue of immortality again.  The caption below one of photos states that "LifeNaut...is exploring robot-human fusion as a technological path to immortality."  This seems to me to be a gross fallacy.  Didn't any one of these people read the book Tuck Everlasting in elementary school?  I can't imagine being so narcissistic as to want to live forever.  (Another great example?  Let's take a brief look at Exhibit A: Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter.  The list goes on and on and on...)

Death will always be the great unknown, but it is a journey that we must all take.  And that is really what makes life worth living isn't it?  The ever-present threat of death?  Knowing that you won't alway be around makes you savour the present ever more.  

I hope that wasn't too depressing, I've had the perfect trifecta of events leading up to this, and I had to get it off my mind.  

(Photo from National Geographic by Max Aguilera-Hellweg)

Do You Know What It Means?

I just saw this video for Mat Kearney's "Hey Mama," and I got instantly homesick.  It's filmed in New Orleans, and it made me want to go back there so badly.  I don't think I've ever felt this before about a place.  My chest hurts when I think about what I'm missing.  Last night I fell asleep thinking about how much I wanted an orchid cream vanilla snowball from Plum Street.  

The man in the umbrella hat at 1:05 always stands on the corner of Decatur and Canal preaching with his bible.  I miss seeing him, I miss the silhouette of those Mississippi bridges, I miss the heat, I miss the streetcars, and I miss that sheer joie de vivre.  


(I added my pictures to the Santa Cruz posts yesterday.)

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Music

Day 12: 


Today we had a wonderful feast in the evening - the always beautiful and delicious salad (edible flowers are possibly the best garnish in the world), quinoa salad, chili, grilled salmon, local chicken sausage, and veggies, and the dessert of the course - strawberry shortcake, accompanied by wine and beer. We finally broke our meat fast, and it was so, so amazing. It was a superb last supper. 


After supper we sat around in the amphitheater and had some music. We had a lot of guitars and voices, a fiddle, a tambourine and a percussive frog. We had some Mexican tunes, some Johnny Cash and Americana, a few Chinese songs, and La Bamba with additional agroecology verses. 


One woman absolutely loves to dance and just couldn't sit still the whole time. She turned around to those of us sitting and said, "I don't know how you're not dancing. Isn't that the point of music? What's it for if you're not going to dance?" I think this is the best outlook on life and I will try my hardest to keep this in mind when I leave Santa Cruz. 

A blackbird flying from its perch on a stalk of grass.

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Hopes and Dreams

Day 11:


Today was a good day. We went back to our farms and rated them on their "sustainability" based on a number of factors. The most interesting thing to me was that while all four farms differed a bit in some factors (biodiversity, input costs, etc) all ranked very high on personal satisfaction (nothing below an 8 of 10). 


While the net profits may not be a lot, everyone we talked to was very happy with their life. And who wouldn't be? One of the farmers lives in Santa Cruz farming half the year, and spends the winter surfing in Baja California. 

In one of our dinner conversations, someone was saying that they met someone who's goals were very simple: learn to surf, and learn Spanish. We all thought about it and thought how easy and happy life would be if you could simplify life like that. We talked about how unrealistic, and potentially unsatisfying it is to have your life goal be to change the world. Even narrowing that to changing the food system is pretty daunting. None of us are willing to give up on our dreams of changing the world, but oh how happy we would all be if we could learn to have simple goals in life: surf and speak Spanish. 

Fruit in Chadwick Gardens on campus.

Fog rolling in as we walk back to dinner.  

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Get Used to It

Day 10:


Having been out here in northern California and previously in Hawaii, I have gotten used to living without air conditioning. The last three days out here there has been no fog in the mornings, meaning that it really warms up by the middle of the day. Consequently, it has been warmer in the classroom. However, it's not been too hot (at least for me) but they have been turning on the AC, and it just gets freezing in there! I know that in the humid South, living without AC can be nearly impossible and unbelievably uncomfortable, but I hate, absolutely, positively detest having to dress for the AC. If it's warm enough outside to wear a tank top, I don't want to have to bring along a sweater and scarf and wear pants for the classroom. I wish people could just get used to the warmth and learn not to wear jeans when it's hot outside.


On another note, we had a coffee cupping today (like a tasting, but it's called "cupping"). It was quite an interesting experience, and I have come to the conclusion that I still don't like coffee. I enjoyed trying to figure out the fragrance (dry grounds) and aroma (steeped for 4 minutes). I think I may have been more easily persuaded with something like a cafe au lait rather than black coffee, but such is life! It was funny to watch a table of over 30 people "aspirating" the coffee (not to be confused with slurping!) and trying to determine flavors (the most interesting of which included conifers for one and mushrooms for another. Also one person compared the aroma of one to be like "baby poop". Hmmm...).


While my overall opinion of coffee hasn't changed, I enjoyed learning about coffee and experiencing it with connoisseurs. It makes me see coffee in a different light instead of simply an undifferentiated commodity, which is always important in understanding food systems.


Some things I could get used to:

Flowers on a morning walk.

Found objects from a morning walk: radio, feather, and two plums.

Flowers in the garden.

Moon rising over the hill.

Fog rolling in.

The Santa Cruz Diaries - The Food Commons

Day 9:


Today we heard from Jim Cochran of Swanton Berry and Larry Yee on their unbelievably intriguing and new approach to food sovereignty and local food. Yesterday, ROC took the approach of improving the system, while the Food Commons takes the approach that we need to create an entirely new system. As Jim described it, we need to identify the parts of our current system (including systems throughout the entire world) that work and incorporate them, but also make sure to leave out the parts of our system that haven't worked, paying special attention to make sure that the system is just and equitable for all. In short, what they want to do is create space (held in a land trust) that could be run as a commons and used for food production.


They have recaptured the term "commons" from the Tragedy of the Commons concept by saying (reasonably and rationally) that the commons cannot be over exploited because people will set up rules. The classic example would be turned on it's head because the community governing the commons would not allow each person to have more that, say, five cows grazing in the commons. By holding people accountable, the Tragedy would be avoided. It was an incredibly compelling concept that should be, and is being, given some serious thought.


On a side note I would just like to say that I am craving some good ol' meat!! The food we are being given is undeniably delicious, but there is a significant and noticeable lack of protein in our diet. Veggies are wonderful...as an accompaniment to protein - be that beans, tofu, or meat. I find myself starving between meals in spite of the fact that I eat a good amount at meals. The single slice of chicken sausage as the meat option for last night's pizza doesn't exactly make up for the almost total lack of protein earlier in the day.


I will be absolutely ecstatic to come home to a nice, big, juicy (grass-fed, sustainably grown) burger.

Wouldn't it be awesome if every school could have an educational garden and an outdoor kitchen?

The entrance to one of the classrooms at Life Lab.  The Apple Room is a space enclosed by apple trees.  How wonderful to be able to learn in an environment like that.

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Chocolate

Since this is a course about food after all, I will share a most spectacular portion of my day yesterday. Chocolate. There is a tiny little restaurant called Chocolate that our group leader told us about, and we made sure to hunt down after dinner. I had an absolutely spectacular "Fuego" hot chocolate with cayenne. Oh it was spicy and decadent and absolutely to die for. We're considering another trip into town solely to try more of their hot chocolates. Not to mention truffles and other desserts. (Please excuse the iPhone pictures.)

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Holistic Systems

Day 8:


Today we heard from a group called "Roots of Change" that is working to make the state of California more food secure. They were very interesting to me because their approach seemed different from any I've ever heard of before. They began by creating round tables for dialogue to occur between seemingly disparate entities - policy makers, environmentalists, businesses, and farmers.


They spoke to each of the participants individually to understand what each saw as the ideal new food system. They created "maps" (diagrams really) of each individual's description and then combined the visions to create a holistic system that incorporated everyone's ideas. In this way they could see what the final product was that all the participants wanted and find a holistic way to achieve this goal. They similarly made a map of the problems that needed to be addressed before this system was achieved. I was very drawn to this approach because I often find myself frustrated when people are so focused on their own goals that the whole gets lost.


Additionally many people throughout this course have expressed their opinions that we need a complete revolution, a total redesign of the food system. I agree with this on many levels, however I think that in addition to this, or rather in the meantime, we need to work within the system. It's a strange dichotomy for me. I am an optimist in the short term. I always try to see the glass half full, to see small steps as big victories along the way to a better future. I firmly believe in action, and that we cannot be apathetic, that we should always strive for a better future. However, in the long term, I am cynical, I am a pessimist. I believe in people, but I do not believe in our systems of change, our governments, our politics to take definitive action in time to make a difference. They are too tied to the corporations.


Because of this I was very incredibly drawn to Roots of Change. One of we people we heard from said that he believes that ROC is there to facilitate these conversations and bring people together to start working on this enormous task of redesigning the food system. He says that he believes the current system will collapse at some point in he not-too-distant future, and that when it does the ROC Network will be there to provide an educated, eauitable food systems solution, not a reactionary one as happened with current food safety standards. (Did you know that you get points off a food safety evaluation if you allow children on your farm? I mean that's just ridiculous.)


Another interesting result of their conversations with people was to shift away from the word "sustainable". Instead of "sustainable agriculture" they came up with "restorative" and "depletive" agriculture based on people's actual definitions of susatinability but also their aversion, or built-in bias against the word "sustainable" which has come to incorporate so Manu different ideas. It was interesting how new language was crucial and integral to bringing people together and eliminating contention.


Some unrelated pictures from around campus:

Through the woods to the bookstore.

Footbridge from the library.

Monterey Bay from the sports complex.

Radio beside the road.

The Santa Cruz Diaries - The Beauty of Birds

Day 6:


Today we spent the whole day in the Salinas Valley at a place called ALBA (Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association). ALBA is an amazing small farm incubator focused on teaching farm workers how to become farmers. They have 90 acres in the middle of the Salinas Valley, also called the salad bowl of the world. Their farm is a little oasis of biodiversity and beauty in the middle a dessert of monocultures.


While I can conceptually understand that organic is better, seeing the real difference with my own eyes is absolutely astounding. You drive through field after field, only changing between lettuce, cabbage, artichokes and strawberries. The landscape has literally been stripped of every life form except the desired crop. After driving through this for miles and miles, you arrive at ALBA, and the first thing I noticed was that there were lots of birds. Why should it be shocking and amazing to see birds in an agricultural area? Yet it was. It reminded me of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Birds are a natural part of ecosystems, but have been completely removed from the conventional model for a number of reasons.


And sure, you can get some monocrop organic farms for a while, but the reality is that there is absolutely no way to grow organically without having crop rotations to renew the soils. And not just a "rotation" of corn and soy, but a true rotation of about three to five different crops from different families to replenish the soil.


I feel like I'm rambling a bit here, but the reality is that until you simply get out of your classroom, off the Internet, out of your textbooks and actually see with your own eyes the phenomenal difference between organic and conventional agriculture you may find it easy to slip back to the conventional produce without too much thought. But seeing the difference in the produce, in the land, in health and in spirit is something that I think will stick with me far longer than the articles about the toxicity of insecticides will. I've seen the difference with my own eyes, and it's not something I will soon forget.


ALBA strawberries:

CASFS Farm:

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Turnip Truck Farms

Day 5: 


Today we worked in groups on a project designing our own, self sufficient, agroecological farms. Our farm was the best! (Not that I've seen the other ones to compare but it just has to be.) 


We designed a five acre farm that had an apple orchard intermixed with cover crops of bell beans and mustard as well as pasture for our chickens, and five rotating fields. In one field we would grow strawberries and alfalfa, followed by broccoli, cabbage, and kohlrabi, then a field of lettuce and spinach, then a fallow year when we would graze our draft animals and milk goats, followed by a cover crop. 


Our housing complex included a house, a roadside stand (with hot chocolate as a must-sell item), a storage and processing facility with an industrial kitchen where we would make thing like jam and saurkraut and we could also cater for our small B&B on the cliff over looking the ocean based out of two yurts, and we also had a distillery to make even more value added products. Oh! And we had a band stand so that we could have bands come or we could host events at the farm including weddings. And the whole group would run the farm. 


Sounds pretty idyllic doesn't it? And we had a wonderful consultant this session, Jim Cochran of Swanton Berry, who said that if we were doing most of the labor we would be able to make a profit. He also gave us our wonderful name - Turnip Truck Farms. 

I'm indefinitely intrigued by the artichoke flowers!  Who knew they looked like this?

Flowers in the PICA garden (we ate tons of edible flowers on our salads from this garden every night).  

Hen house at Life Lab.

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Strawberry Heaven

Day 4:

Today we had an amazing lecture on youth movements that was quite inspiring. It's so amazing what people can do when they put their minds to it.

In the afternoon we went back out to Swanton Berry Farms and I forgot to grab my money! I don't really need another t-shirt, but I sure would have loved another Mexican hot chocolate and a few chocolate dipped strawberries! Ah well, the dessert we had just about made up for the lack of hot chocolate out on those wind-whipped fields. We had a gigantic strawberry shortcake and 5 pies with whipped cream. I had strawberry rhubarb and since I got the last slice in the pan I got all the drippings that fell out of the other pieces. And the best part? I got to take home what I couldn't eat to have for breakfast tomorrow.

Since I didn't get my t shirt this time around, it just means that I have to come back here at some point. A little trip to San Francisco with a quick jaunt down the coast to Santa Cruz, Monterey, or Carmel? I think that's do-able. I didn't know this the last time I was at the farm, but everything in the store is on the honor system - the u-pick berries, the coffee and hot chocolate, jams, baked goods, etc. The feeling that sort of trust in the average person inspires is so wonderful.

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Farmers at the Market

Day 3:


I only have a few insights from today's experience. First is that we hate paying a lot of money for food, especially for organic or natural products. But the reality is that most of the world's poor spend about half of their income on food. While some of us may decide that we'd rather spend our money elsewhere, imagine how much food - organic, free range, natural, the best of the best - we could buy if we spent the same percentage of a middle class income on food. We need to get used to spending a higher percentage on our food if we ever expect to get ourselves out of this obesity and diabetes laden quagmire the nation seems to be in.


Secondly is that we went to the Santa Cruz farmers market today, and what surprised me the most compared to Charleston's market was the number of farmers! While I think it's well and good to promote and support local crafts, a farmers market should first and foremost be about produce and farm products. This isn't such a novel idea, is it? The second distinction that I saw was the amount of organic produce. Again, this shouldn't be so hard to achieve but the south just seems to be lagging so much on this front.


As I've learned throughout my time here at the Agroecology course, the transition to organic shouldn't simply be about the substitution of inputs or practices, but a complete redesign of the conventional monoculture model. You need diversity on a farm, and lots of it. When you have this, your farm will be more resilient on the whole in addition to the ecological benefits of promoting biodiversity.


Well I suppose I did have some food for thought from today after all. I challenge South Carolina to have farmers markets this robust in 5 years. It would be quite amazing to see agriculture so supported in a previously predominantly agricultural region.  

The Santa Cruz Diaries - Strawberry Fields Forever

Day 2:


Today we hit the books in the morning, which was by turns incredibly fascinating and a little tedious. I found the section on pest management very intruiging and was absolutely enthralled by our short section on soil quality, re-enforcing my zeal for composting. (Which I now understand as increasing the soil organic matter in the active layer.)


In the afternoon we took a field trip to Swanton Berry Farms, the  first certified organic strawberry farm in California. We were supposed to learn about their resource management - soil, water, pests, etc - which we did learn about. But the best way to really describe the experience is to say that we began with delicious Mexican hot chocolate in jam jars, jam samples on animal crackers, and ended with gorging ourselves on sun-warmed, organic strawberries in the fields overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I could get used to a life like that. 


In the immortal words of the Avett Brothers, "She knows which birds are singing / And the names of the trees where they're performing / In the morning." Oh boys, you really do say it best. You get so much joy out of simply knowing your environment. You don't walk blindly through the world anymore, and being able to know the plants and animals the way you know aquaintances is so spiritual and fulfilling. 


After a decadent dessert of local homemade ice cream with plum sauce (absolutely divine) we watched a movie. The biggest thing I took away from it was what one person said in an interview about recycling: that there's a fourth 'R' that comes before all the others - redesign. We must learn how to redesign our systems to produce less waste and then follow up with 'reduce, reuse, recycle'.  

Heaven.

The second most delicious strawberries I've ever had.

The view from the fields.

An old, rusted cart for the pallets of berries.

A lone sailboat.

The Santa Cruz Diaries: The Sweetness of Plums

The Goal:

Right now I am at the University of Santa Cruz attending a course in Agroecology, which I am hoping will give me some guidance for my future path in life. I don't expect to just magically figure it all out, but I'm hoping to gather some ideas. 

I have decided to write daily blog posts during my time here in Santa Cruz in order and share my excitement and track my progression of learning throughout the course. I did not bring my computer so that I could be a bit disconnected, so unfortunately I have no pictures to share right now but I will go back later and add photos from each day. 

Day 1:

Today we just had an introduction to agroecology and a tour of the gardening and farming endeavors here at the university, but it was an especially exciting first day. Everyone here is incredibly diverse and equally inspiring. We have a soil biologist from India, a farmer from South Africa, an agrochemist from China, and tons of other exciting people from all across the globe. 

As of now I still have no idea what I want to pursue, but I'm loving being surrounded by a community of like-minded people. I also love that the emphasis of a student program here on campus as well as my program is the importance of big, delicious, picked-from-the-garden meals enjoyed in the presence of tons of people. In other words the transformative power of food. 

What struck me the most today was the beauty and tranquility of the garden and farm spaces, the amazing payoffs of persistent hard work in landscape transformation, and the sweetness of a warm plum plucked straight from the branches of a tree. 

Bunnies enjoy plums too.

An enormous poppy outside my building.

The CASFS farm at UC Santa Cruz.

Chard and what seems to be poppies and squash. 

Happy Fourth of July!

July 4th is possibly one of my favorite holidays.  Right up there with Thanksgiving, but in the summer.  Why?  Because you get to eat tons of wonderful, summer food, hang out with friends and family, play fun summer games like croquet, bocce ball, swim, have watermelon seed spitting contests, watch the fireworks, play with sparklers...oh the possibilities are endless!  

I love dreaming about all the delicious, uniquely American summer foods you could serve.  This year we'll have pulled pork, peach ice cream, and Pimm's Cups (perhaps a bit British), and I was dreaming about making fried green tomato and pimento cheese sandwiches, peach cobbler, and some good ol' boiled peanuts.