Posts from — October 2009

Tonight I gave a presentation at the Fullerton Public Library all about my experience farming, a few facts about our current food system in the US, and some practical ideas for how to eat better without necessarily up and moving to the farm.

The audience was small but enthusiastic — people seemed to learn some new things — they were especially shocked by the NY Times graphic illustrating the amount of food waste produced by a family of four in a month.

It’s so interesting what parts of our broken food system tug at people. Most studies seem to show that people care most about their health and about animal welfare. Makes sense I guess — they’re the two most personal and emotional aspects of the food we eat.

Anyway, it felt really really really good to be out there talking about these issues and to have people respond so positively. I wonder how much this kind of talk really inspires people to action?

You can get the PDF of the presentation here and the handout here.

I have so much to say that it’s all packed up inside there and I can’t figure out a good place to start. I could draw this out into a really gross metaphor, but you get the picture.

Got back to Orange County and have been feeling dazed. I have a bunch of random projects that I’m working on: applying to graduate school, taking an econometrics class, planting a garden, working for my dad’s startup, hanging out with the fam, reading articles, writing articles, cooking, trying to start this new blog, trying to exercise, looking into farms for next season.

But going in all these different directions, I’m not sure I’m getting anywhere at all.

Toys “R” Us by Andreas Gursky 1999

My general mood these days is like this Andreas Gursky photo. Bad, huh?

Last night, I went to listen to this farmer at the Fullerton Public Library. He talked about a lot of things that made me happy like picking ripe peaches and treasuring family and driving down roads that blow up so much dust that you have to turn your windshield wipers on. He talked about the number of frost hours that peaches require, and he talked about

in turn nurturing and being nurtured. He was talking specifically about his family’s farm in Fresno, but I kept thinking about much I feel out of context and how much I want to put down roots, make a home, invest in land, invest in community.

I heard a great show on the Canadian Broadcasting Network by a neuroscientist who studied the development of children’s brains. She talked about how infants are taking in new input 100% of the time — they are in constant learning mode — open to new ideas, testing out theories, but not particularly good at focusing on a task. Not very good at letting go of some things to attend to one thing in particular.

I remember specifically that she said it could take up until a persons mid-to-late 20s for their brains to fully develop the capacity to focus in. I’m 24. Perhaps there’s time (?)

All this moving around and jumping from this to that has given me an amazing breadth of experience to draw from, but now I’m ready to build something.

I’m still here, I promise.

I’m back in Orange County — for over a week now, my God! And it’s weird. So so weird. I love being with my family, but I’m not used to the freeways and the smog and the lawns and the hot hot heat.

Not to mention the pollen.

For the past four days, I’ve wiped my nose raw, I’ve sucked down Sudafed till no longer qualified to operate heavy machinery, I’ve hacked up green phlegm which seemed to smirk up at me and say “Welcome Home.”

But despite all that, I’m excited because I’ve got plans for this here OC. I want to shake things up — take what I’ve learned and plant it in the ground here and see what sprouts.

More on all that soon enough! For now, to bed and to recovery…