greenhorns spring update!
February already almost done, wobbly weather on the east coast, blossoms started on the west coast. All of us bracing for a big year. The weather certainly is wobbly this season -- "lash down the hoophouse matey!"
Good weather source: Accuweather has a farmer option, with estimated soil temp and moisture. In case you haven't quite gotten your shit together, the Blog's got PLENTY of super duper farm jobs on there. Next year, do yourself a favor: find the farm in summer, interview in person, confirm your commitments in December-- don't wait this long, its stressful!
Some big bad news out of the USDA in recent weeks too, right during the middle of Egyptian Riots one GMO after another approved for commerical planting without regulation and without precautionary testing. Read up here:
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/the-battle-over-alfalfa-continues/
http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/united-in-opposition/
The empire may be striking back, but our daikon forces can penetrate the hardpan, our rippling forearms lift and tip yet more cartloads of manure. If our democracy is contaminated by big business, we must redouble our investment and commitment to our community, our resiliency, our skills and our place.
One farm at a time: this land is our land, this agriculture is direct action.
(this update is a lengthy one, so keep reading!)
Take ACTION
Call OBAMA to tell him you support the Fair Livestock Competition Rule that helps independent farmers and ranchers get a fair price for their hard work. (It’s also called the “GIPSA rule”.)
Read up here: http://archive.gipsa.usda.gov/psp/Farm_bill_rule_outline.pdf
Make a phone call here: http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5800
Small and medium size beef, pork + poultry producers need a fair playing field. All of us need a fair playing field. What we don't need is corn-Cartels and contract-CAFOs. Right?
Fed on slop, raised outdoors, gamboling in the shade + shoveling up the pasture--thats some pig. Thats the kind of pork our country needs more of.
*****
Zoe Bradbury, Paula Manalo and Severine vT Fleming have been hunkered here in rainy coastal Oregon at Valley Flora Farm working on the stack of essays sent in over the past month. In case you've been snoozing, greenhorns is publishing an anthology of beginning farmer essays + expanded guidebook with Storey Publishing.
There are a lot of wonderful, pithy, irreverant, humble and philosophical ones. There are essays about zen farming, painful slaughter regulations, about restoring historical farm equipment, land drama, draft oxen, small town politics, toxic soil, the joy of electronetting.
You know. The real stuff. The stuff facing new entrants, new agricultural ambition-- the logistical everyday spun into a fairytale format of lessons and little jokes.
Mostly. There are also quite a few sappy essays that we have to mark up with red ink. We've discovered a new genre of melodrama. I blame it on drinking too much milk and reading too much Wendell Berry, eating too many herbs with those salads. Golly Moses.
Here is a list of topics that we don't quite have covered:
***If you know others who are writers. Forward this to them!***
SCHEDULE
Lots coming up on the ole schedule. Especially in April, a lot of events in Southeast and Northeast in April.
Then May+June we start to hunker down on the farm, and focus more on outreach/screening schedule than events, still a few big parties. Back out west end of September for Seed Circus, Bioneers, Northwest adventures. Iowa, Colorado, Montana-- you're coming up on the list too.
- Just Food CSA in NYC Conference - March 5 - New York
- NOFA CT Winter Conference - March 5 - Manchester CT
- FarmHack@MIT - March 5 - Cambridge MA ++++SEEKING YOUR PITCH!!!++++
- Trade School "Greenhorns 101" Class - March 6 - New York City
- Screening at Salon 403 - March 7 - New York City
- Georgia Organics Mixer - March 10 - Savannah, GA
- Screening with Otsego 2000 + The Farm Museum - March 16 - Cooperstown NY
- Horticultural Society of New York Panel Discussion - March 18 - New York City
- NOFA NH Winter Conference - March 19 - Exeter, NH
- NH Young Farmers Mixer - March 19 - Wildmiller Gardens/ Tuckaway Farm, Lee, NH
- Ann Arbor Film Festival - March 22-27 - Ann Arbor, MI (tentative)
- Film Night with Catskill Arts Society - March 26 (date tentative) - Livingston Manor NY
- Project Native Film Festival - March 27 - Great Barrington, MA
- Yale Environmental Film Festival - Week of March 28 - New Haven CT
- Soil Kitchen with Futurefarmers- April 3/4/5 (dates tentative) - Philadelphia PA
- Screening with the Film Society of Minneapolis St. Paul - April 5 - Minneapolis, MN
- Virginia Young Farmers Mixer - April 7 - Morven Estate, Charlottesville,
- Screening + Mixer with Appalachian State University and Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture - April 12 - Boone, NC
- Screening + Seed Circus with SECCA - April 13 - Winston-Salem, NC
- Draft Horse Auction - April 13-17 - Madras, OR
- College of the Atlantic Screening - April 15 - Bar Harbor, ME
- DC Urban Farms Bike Tour + Screening- April 16 - Washington, DC
- SPACE Gallery Food+Farm Event Screening - April 16 - Portland, ME
- Screening at St. Paul's School - April 17 - Concord, NH
- Screening and Farm Craft Event with Green Mountain College - April 19 - Poultney, VT
- UCSD Earth Week Screening and Young Farmer Panel at the LOFT - Apr 19 - San Diego CA
- Guggenheim Receptionale with Futurefarmers - May 4 - New York
- New Museum Festival of Ideas StreetFest TENT BUILD - May 7-8 - New York
- Pioneer Valley Young Farmers Mixer, Seed Swap, and Screening - May 13 - Amherst, MA
- Elderflower Forage Bike Ride + Tree Planting with Parts and Crafts - May 15 - Boston area
And more specifically about FARM HACK:
+++ Event Title: Farmhack@MIT +++
Date(s): March 5, 2011
Time: 9:00-5:00pm (Design); 6:00-9:00pm "Ignite" Pitches and social
Location: Microsoft NERD Center, Cambridge Mass.
Event Description: Farmers and engineers tackling hands-on design challenges faced by New England small-scale farmers across the production cycle. Join us for a day of discussion, design, and socializing as we think about ways to work with New England farms as laboratories for innovation.
BOOKING A SCREENING
Thanks to Laura Hanna our movie is magic. Yes. You can book a screening. You cannot yet buy a DVD.
There are screening kits and sponsorship kits. Patrick is in charge of those. Email him at [email protected].
GREENHORNS BANDANAS + Merch
"Get Dusty" with Brooke Budner drawings arranged in traditional American format, including barns and coffee grinders. Very popular in Portland, Oregon. See our ETSY page. New Guidebooks and stickers are in too!
Here is some Literature for your Winter Routines!
Putting In Seed
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
-Robert Frost
germination MAKES IT HAPPEN. See you on the next swing.
Adaptive Seeds. Lonesome Whistle Seeds. Uprising Seeds, A2R Farms. Check out the new young seed farmers of the northwest.
x
Severine + crew
Laura Cline, graphic design
Laura Hanna, editor
Brooke Budner, graphics
Hannah Bernhardt, project management, policy, radio, USDA
Saundra Ball, research, statistics, development
Olivia Sargeant, Seed Circus Connecticut
Louella Hill, Seed Circus Oakland
Elise McMahon, Seed Circus NYC
Jordan Kinsley, Webisode Production
Anna Morton, ETSY
Ines Chapela, logistics
Paula Manalo, wiki, guidebook
Anne Dailey, blog+profiles
Anya Kamenskya, West Coast organizer/ photo
Patrick Kiley, outreach/ screenings coordination
Hallie Chen, Farmhack
P.S. Projects on deck
Seed Circus: ongoing www.thegreenhorns.net/seedcircus
Almanac
Webisodes
Farmhack: http://www.youngfarmers.org/social/farmhackmit