The Small Farm Conference

We loaded up the orange toaster (Honda Element) and trekked to Grayling for our annual pilgrimage to the Small Farm Conference. We saw Eric Toensmeier's presentation about Permaculture for Farmers. We saw but only a fraction of his presentation on Perennial Vegetables, but I own the book. There were other equally valuable "conferences" to be had outside in the hallways that were a source of distraction. Eric, an eloquent, thoughtful speaker, espoused the wide variety of low labor/high production native food crops that can be produced by multi-cropping and stacking enterprises.

We held onto our hats during Gary Zimmer's keynote address. He has been clocked regularly at 500 words per minute, with gusts up to a 1000 (his words)! To sum up what kind of force Zimmer is: his formerly Buddhist Vegetarian son-in-law now runs the meat-processing facility. Gary doesn't rule out large or small ag. His approach is to go literally to the root of the matter, soil biology - the ultimate determinant of food quality. I sat next to Chelsea, our Gardening Angel, who would regularly show up with a carload of young adults to pitch in and help out on the farm. 

On the way to the conference we were discussing the need for both sides of the food fence to collaborate on solutions. Too much time is being wasted arguing about who's to blame and it's going to take all of our skills and talents combined to fix it. We talked about creating a network, a diverse talent pool to assemble the tools, talents and resources for helping each other in our start ups. 

During Zimmer's talk Chelsea and I started "joint-diagramming" in her words. She drew a circle representing the conventional/global paradigm next to another circle representing the sustainable/local paradigm. Then she drew an overlapping area in the center between the two circles. In permaculture, the edge where two systems meet, is considered the most productive. I whispered "that's our logo". A few minutes later, underneath the logo, I wrote "Middle Ground". I whispered "that's our name", allthough
I'm not sure exactly what was being named. Stay tuned.

A New Year

I have made a monumental (relative to being a speck in the universe) decision to leave a part-time job and only undertake activities that have to do with building our own enterprises and local resilience, especially as it relates to the soil/food web.

As much as we are humbled by the visionaries and mentors who have inspired us, we are starting to realize that we have a role and obligation to materialize those visions and eventually become mentors ourselves and inspire others. Right here in Benzie County.  

The vacuum I've created by leaving my part-time job has been sucking things in like a black hole! Almost every idea I have ever "put out there" has come rushing in simultaneously, like too many children needing your attention at once.

Yup, in "this economy".

Truly, scarcity is a mental construct.

The Great Economy

This morning's read was a fascinating essay called "Two Economies" by Wendell Berry about "The Great Economy".

"The difference between the Great Economy and any human economy is pretty much the difference between the goose that laid the golden egg and the golden egg. For the goose to have value as a layer of golden eggs, she must be a live goose and therefore joined to the life cycle, which means that she is joined to all manner of things , patterns and processes that sooner or later surpass human comprehension. The golden egg, on the other hand, can be fully valued by humans according to kind, weight, and measure, but it will not hatch and it cannot be eaten... if we wish to value the egg in such a way as to preserve the goose that laid it, we find that we must behave, not scientifically, but humanely.... " Berry concludes this thought with the notion that while humans can "add value" they cannot "make value" that is, we can turn trees into boards and furniture. In a good human economy these transformations would be made by "good work", properly valued and rewarded. But a good human economy would recognize at the same time that it was dealing with materials and powers that it did not make. In this context money value, he asserts, is only true when it justly and stably represents goods such as clothing, food and shelter emanating from the Great Economy. Humans originate money in the abstract only by inflation and usury.

I was not able to find a link directly to it, but here is a link to an article in Orion Magazine called "The Idea of a Local Economy "http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/299/

Meanwhile back at the farm, Paul is finishing the last batch of broiler chickens today. And the weather is still mild enough to do this outdoors. Chelsea and Ann begged Paul to let them help - I kid you not! Chelsea is in her 20's and coordinates a after school program. Ann is 15  and in the Creative Writing program at Interlochen. Ann wrote a poem about our goats and read it at a student performance! 

And that's why it's called AgriCULTURE, folks.