"We always start the season with seedlings because we want to encourage people to grow their own food. Nothing tastes better than a vegetable that's minutes fresh from the ground."
Steve Otrembiak, one of the regular vendors at the summer Saratoga Farmers Market, shared this story on Sunday, March 23, during a community forum on the social, economic, and environmental benefits of shopping at the farmers market. The story captured for me the spirit of farmers markets and the relationships that build between vendors and customers around them.
The forum was organized by representatives of two local colleges -- Skidmore and Empire State -- and the Friends of the Saratoga Market, an all volunteer organization that a half-dozen farmers market regulars formed in 2011 with a mission of helping the Saratoga Farmers Market continue to prosper. I was one of the initial organizers of the Friends of the Market (FOM) and currently serve as its convener, a role that leaves my over-extended, somewhat disorganized self feeling a bit frazzled at times. Nevertheless, the work that I do with FOM has enriched my life in Saratoga Springs and my work as a faculty member at Empire State College greatly because it puts me in touch with farmers and the art and joy of growing and eating incredible food.
Good food formed a foundation of the forum. It opened with an assortment of foods prepared by Parkside Eatery, a Saratoga Springs business, that were prepared entirely with ingredients from the farmers market. When I say entirely, I mean entirely. Even the dressings were made with yogurts, vinegars, fruits, vegetables, and cheeses from the farmers. Parkside representatives bought the ingredients at the market the day before, arriving at the market around 11 a.m. with a local photojournalist in tow.
Following the food was a panel of farmers and customers that in addition to Otrembiak included cheese maker Liza Porter of Homestead Artisans; Abby Foster, the granddaughter of M&A Farms owner Arnold Grant and an agricultural educator with the Cornell Extension Service; Joyce Elliott of Empire State College; Elizabeth Cohen, a student at Skidmore College; and Carol Maxwell, founder of the Lake Avenue Elementary School's "garden project."
Otrembiak noted that as spring moves toward summer, fresh vegetables and fruits start to replace the seedlings that his farm would initially sell. But the customers buying their produce would still report back on the plants they had purchased at the start of the season, providing periodic progress reports. Sometimes, Otrembiak said, they would bring in a discolored leaf in order to get advice on a potential problem. At other times, they would bring a sample of the plant's harvest. Customers also would bring recipes and occasionally samples of dishes prepared with the plant.
"So the relationship builds up and continues," Otrembiak said.
The analogy of seedling to food seems appropriate for understanding the forum's theme "Growing Community". As relationships form between farmers, gardeners, food enthusiasts and others, a community is built and can be sustained year after year.
Otrembiak's story was just one of many shared at the forum that crystalized the power of farmers markets in my mind. I've lived in Saratoga Springs for approximately four years, and unless I am out of town it is rare that I miss a market. I've long sensed that while shopping at farmers markets is all about buying food, something greater is at stake. Being at the market is about learning the vibe of a community and perhaps also about finding your fit within it. This process of learning and of discovery doesn't come with one visit to the market or through occasional visits. It's a sustained practice that -- like growing your own food -- requires attentiveness, nurturing, patience, and time.
Other panelists also described the market as a venue. A place where friends meet, where ideas are exchanged, and where politics are expressed were some of the expressions that came up.
"I'm not sure I'd want you all to see our vendor meetings sometimes," quipped Homestead Artisan farmer Porter, adding that through differences rather than a bland unity communities grow.
Cohen, the Skidmore student who is examining the impact of farmers markets on local communities as part of a senior capstone project, pointed to structural factors in a broader society that might deter such growth. She noted that farmers markets often are perceived as being expensive and intimidating for lower-income individuals and suggested that such concerns be kept at the forefront as farmers markets gain popularity.
Cohen's words hit home for me, at least partly because I have always lived with a sense of being an outsider: I am a daughter of immigrants. I am a woman of color. I am a newcomer in a community where people have extremely tight family and kinship ties. And I am an adult who moved frequently al over the country for school and for work through my 20s, 30s and 40s. Moving to a small, fairly rural community like Saratoga in 2010 after having lived in Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle, Honolulu, and Seattle again produced not only a geographic sense of displacement for me but a cultural dislocation, as well. However, having been a regular farmers market patron in Honolulu and Seattle prompted me to inquire if Saratoga had a farmers market even before I moved here and, upon learning that it did, to visit it as soon as I arrived.
Reflecting on Cohen's words later, I thought that knowing what it was like to feel out of place might offer a new way of understanding how to promote sustainability through an ethos of inclusivity. A society that stays closed to new people or new ideas cannot last long. But for the newcomer understanding how to come into a new setting might take time. Perhaps this knowledge might be like the selling cycle of the farmers market itself -- that process of plant to product to relationship that Steve Otrembiak evoked so poetically.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
Personal sustainability
My colleague Sue Jefts and I met today to shake off the cobwebs on our Poetics of Sustainability project, and to begin finding ways to make our dream of offering a workshop on personal sustainability to faculty, professional and support staff, and students at our college into a reality.
Our hopes for the workshop soar each time we bring it up. However, the reality of the times sometimes has a tendency to crush back those flying hopes. It is a tough time economically for our college and for the nation in general, not to mention the global world that increasingly interconnects us more and more. It is an era where fiscal discipline for taxpayer funded institutions such as our college tends to translate into fewer enjoyments and more and more work. Job security feels less and less certain, and the very existence of higher education as we currently know it even seems to be under the microscope. Will our colleges, our employers be able to sustain themselves through this time period -- a period that seems less like an economic cycle and more of a full-scale restructuring?
Perhaps they will not. So, it seems in this time of duress, that learning how to sustain one's sense of self and one's spirit become all the more important.
I remember ending 2012 with an emotional crash. I was soaring high with the multitude of projects that my college had offered me, and I was working in over drive. Work in over drive was cutting into a lot of things that I cherished: time to write, time to sleep late and spend time with my husband, time to exercise and dream about completing challenging events like an Ironman. I was drinking a lot, and even though I eat relatively healthy foods, I was indulging in junk food binges more than I like to care to admit. In short, I was cutting corners into my down time in order to work and accomplish more.
The crash came at an opportune time: two weeks before Christmas, a much-heralded period of time that many spend with families and loved ones. My husband and I spent it in the best way possible. We relaxed at home, sitting for hours before our fire and sometimes even sleeping by the fire. We read books, pet our cats, and went for walks. I stopped checking my e-mail and began circulating word that I had been hit with something that seemed like it might turn into the flu. That was partially true because I did have a bad cold and was sneezing a lot -- symptoms that medical doctors encourage their overworked patients to use as excuses to slow down. But bottom line, I emerged from the down time with a new insight. I realized that the work pace I was putting myself through was not unusual for a person in an assistant professor position who is hoping to do what she needs to do to gain tenure and the job security that this designation has traditionally promised. I also realized that if I did not receive tenure, I would survive. But if I didn't take care of myself, I might not survive.
And so these days I take care of myself.
Sometimes, taking care of myself feels overwhelming. It shifts priorities and shortens the time available to satisfy work commitments. There's the conventional rule that eight hours of the twenty-hour work day must be devoted to sleep. There's the marathon and triathlon training modality that mandates one to two hours be dedicated to working out, five or six days a week. There's the writing regime that calls for more and more time for the page and less and less time for the world. And, for me, there's the call to service. If asked to do something that I feel will genuinely better society, I usually say yes.
All of this self-care creates an interesting dilemma. Even as I work very hard, sometimes I do not feel as if I am working at all. With that comes conflicting emotions that sometimes translate as defensiveness and sometimes as guilt. I am leaving the office at 4 p.m. because there's a cycling class at the YMCA at 6 p.m., and I want to get in a run before that. I am staying home until 11 a.m. because I have a lot of reading for my classes to do and it's easier for me to read at home (yes, in front of that cozy warm fire) than it is to read in my office, sitting straight up in a chair that even with all of its wondrous ergonomic properties remains too large for my feet to easily touch the floor. I am following a self-defined logic, but how do I explain it to others? How can I be a hard worker if I waltz into the office in late morning or early afternoon? If I waltz out after a few hours because a workout is calling.
This rubric of self-defined logic seems to lie at the root of what it means to create a sustainable life. It is individualized, and not something that can be scaled to accommodate large masses of people or replicated for others to emulate. Yet, I feel, it is extremely important. And, as Sue and I share our visions for such views of sustainability with others, it strikes a chord. People are looking for it, even if they are unsure what the "it" they are seeking actually is.
Our hopes for the workshop soar each time we bring it up. However, the reality of the times sometimes has a tendency to crush back those flying hopes. It is a tough time economically for our college and for the nation in general, not to mention the global world that increasingly interconnects us more and more. It is an era where fiscal discipline for taxpayer funded institutions such as our college tends to translate into fewer enjoyments and more and more work. Job security feels less and less certain, and the very existence of higher education as we currently know it even seems to be under the microscope. Will our colleges, our employers be able to sustain themselves through this time period -- a period that seems less like an economic cycle and more of a full-scale restructuring?
Perhaps they will not. So, it seems in this time of duress, that learning how to sustain one's sense of self and one's spirit become all the more important.
I remember ending 2012 with an emotional crash. I was soaring high with the multitude of projects that my college had offered me, and I was working in over drive. Work in over drive was cutting into a lot of things that I cherished: time to write, time to sleep late and spend time with my husband, time to exercise and dream about completing challenging events like an Ironman. I was drinking a lot, and even though I eat relatively healthy foods, I was indulging in junk food binges more than I like to care to admit. In short, I was cutting corners into my down time in order to work and accomplish more.
The crash came at an opportune time: two weeks before Christmas, a much-heralded period of time that many spend with families and loved ones. My husband and I spent it in the best way possible. We relaxed at home, sitting for hours before our fire and sometimes even sleeping by the fire. We read books, pet our cats, and went for walks. I stopped checking my e-mail and began circulating word that I had been hit with something that seemed like it might turn into the flu. That was partially true because I did have a bad cold and was sneezing a lot -- symptoms that medical doctors encourage their overworked patients to use as excuses to slow down. But bottom line, I emerged from the down time with a new insight. I realized that the work pace I was putting myself through was not unusual for a person in an assistant professor position who is hoping to do what she needs to do to gain tenure and the job security that this designation has traditionally promised. I also realized that if I did not receive tenure, I would survive. But if I didn't take care of myself, I might not survive.
And so these days I take care of myself.
Sometimes, taking care of myself feels overwhelming. It shifts priorities and shortens the time available to satisfy work commitments. There's the conventional rule that eight hours of the twenty-hour work day must be devoted to sleep. There's the marathon and triathlon training modality that mandates one to two hours be dedicated to working out, five or six days a week. There's the writing regime that calls for more and more time for the page and less and less time for the world. And, for me, there's the call to service. If asked to do something that I feel will genuinely better society, I usually say yes.
All of this self-care creates an interesting dilemma. Even as I work very hard, sometimes I do not feel as if I am working at all. With that comes conflicting emotions that sometimes translate as defensiveness and sometimes as guilt. I am leaving the office at 4 p.m. because there's a cycling class at the YMCA at 6 p.m., and I want to get in a run before that. I am staying home until 11 a.m. because I have a lot of reading for my classes to do and it's easier for me to read at home (yes, in front of that cozy warm fire) than it is to read in my office, sitting straight up in a chair that even with all of its wondrous ergonomic properties remains too large for my feet to easily touch the floor. I am following a self-defined logic, but how do I explain it to others? How can I be a hard worker if I waltz into the office in late morning or early afternoon? If I waltz out after a few hours because a workout is calling.
This rubric of self-defined logic seems to lie at the root of what it means to create a sustainable life. It is individualized, and not something that can be scaled to accommodate large masses of people or replicated for others to emulate. Yet, I feel, it is extremely important. And, as Sue and I share our visions for such views of sustainability with others, it strikes a chord. People are looking for it, even if they are unsure what the "it" they are seeking actually is.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Holistic management
A workshop on "Starting from Square One: Creating a Farm to Match Your Goals, Skills, Values, and Resources" today opened a whole new understanding of sustainability for me. The workshop was part of the annual Northeast Organic Farmers Association of New York's annual conference taking place in Saratoga Springs this weekend. Because of my participation in the NOFA-NY's "Locavore" challenge in September, I ended up on the organization's mailing, and learned in November that one could apply for scholarships to attend the conference. I applied, and was thrilled to be awarded one of the scholarships. Determined to make the most of the opportunity, I pulled myself out of bed before 6 a.m. and made it to the conference by 8, with plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast and browse through the exhibition hall books before things began.
What impressed me about this particular workshop was its emphasis on integrating personal values, lifestyle choices, and other professional work into the farming life.
"Farming is not for the faint of heart," stated presenter Erica Frenay, who owns the Shelterbelt Farm with her husband and works with a Small Farms Program operated by the Cornell Extension Office.
Because of the challenges of farming, she noted, "It's important to know that nobody farms alone."
About seventy people attended the workshop, which seemed like an unsustainably large number for a "workshop". Frenay and her co-presenter Kylie Spooner, however, made the three-hour session work with grace and skill. What worked especially well was their blend of personal stories with their emphasis to us on not getting fixated on their stories but rather to focus on the processes they were going through. They also put us to work on a series of individual writing exercises, a strategy that always works well for me. And they encouraged our stories, which turned out to encompass processes that all of us were able to learn from. (Well, I suppose I can't speak for everyone, but I learned a lot.)
Frenay and Spooner built the workshop on the principles of a concept known as "holistic management", which they defined for the uninitiated as "turning sunshine into money." I was unfamiliar with the term, but as the workshop progressed, I realized that the principles mirrored several other practices I've used throughout my life to set intentions and reflect on what's important in my life. They broke it down to three categories: Assessing your resources and skills; envisioning a holistic goal; and then setting some SMART goals for your farm that might be achievable within a one to five year time-frame. SMART refers to goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, results-defined, and tied to a particular timeline. The product, as I understood it, was not a fixed, concrete path to success but more one of establishing a potential destination that might require multiple -- and sometimes diverging -- paths to get there. As Spooner put it, "Think of it [the destination] as the North Star. The North Star doesn't care how you get there."
Holistic management parallels a "goal search" exercise that is part of Julia Cameron's best-selling book The Artist's Way. I have used the goal search for more than a decade to establish an annual goal and action plan for myself, and I have asked hundreds of students whom I teach to complete their own goal searches in some form or fashion. One of the struggles in doing the goal search centers on delineating the difference between "a dream" and what Cameron calls "your true North." She explains that many of us might have the same dream -- for instance, to be a famous writer. What fames means will vary with each person. Defining it for yourself gets at the "true North." I felt that Spooner took the true North concept even a step further when she observed that it doesn't matter how you reach -- or travel toward -- your ultimate goal.
With the work of holistic management came a lot of snippets of hands-on common sense. The farming activities that my husband and I engage in began fairly modestly, with a small backyard garden in Seattle that I described in a talk recently as being the size of a walk-in closet. From that point in about 2007, we began increasing our emotional, physical, and financial investments in this activity that we first called gardening and now are calling farming year-by-year. Last year, the year 2013, marked a watershed year in that we raised enough vegetables to feed ourselves for an entire year. That watershed moment made us realize that we ourselves were no longer just in it as a hobby. It was a commitment to living in a particular way, a commitment to sustaining ourselves, our creative and professional lives, our politics, our health, our communities.
This might be the pre-conditioning for the holistic management process to begin. But turning to common sense, there were a lot of things we had not done that Frenay suggested beginning farmers should do to understand themselves as farmers: register their farm as a business, open a bank account that is independent of the personal account just for the farm, and start researching the federal laws pertaining to what counts as income generated on a farm. I think that a year ago such details would have felt mind-numbing. Today, they felt clear and logical. They seemed to open a new path toward sustainable growth.
What impressed me about this particular workshop was its emphasis on integrating personal values, lifestyle choices, and other professional work into the farming life.
"Farming is not for the faint of heart," stated presenter Erica Frenay, who owns the Shelterbelt Farm with her husband and works with a Small Farms Program operated by the Cornell Extension Office.
Because of the challenges of farming, she noted, "It's important to know that nobody farms alone."
About seventy people attended the workshop, which seemed like an unsustainably large number for a "workshop". Frenay and her co-presenter Kylie Spooner, however, made the three-hour session work with grace and skill. What worked especially well was their blend of personal stories with their emphasis to us on not getting fixated on their stories but rather to focus on the processes they were going through. They also put us to work on a series of individual writing exercises, a strategy that always works well for me. And they encouraged our stories, which turned out to encompass processes that all of us were able to learn from. (Well, I suppose I can't speak for everyone, but I learned a lot.)
Frenay and Spooner built the workshop on the principles of a concept known as "holistic management", which they defined for the uninitiated as "turning sunshine into money." I was unfamiliar with the term, but as the workshop progressed, I realized that the principles mirrored several other practices I've used throughout my life to set intentions and reflect on what's important in my life. They broke it down to three categories: Assessing your resources and skills; envisioning a holistic goal; and then setting some SMART goals for your farm that might be achievable within a one to five year time-frame. SMART refers to goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, results-defined, and tied to a particular timeline. The product, as I understood it, was not a fixed, concrete path to success but more one of establishing a potential destination that might require multiple -- and sometimes diverging -- paths to get there. As Spooner put it, "Think of it [the destination] as the North Star. The North Star doesn't care how you get there."
Holistic management parallels a "goal search" exercise that is part of Julia Cameron's best-selling book The Artist's Way. I have used the goal search for more than a decade to establish an annual goal and action plan for myself, and I have asked hundreds of students whom I teach to complete their own goal searches in some form or fashion. One of the struggles in doing the goal search centers on delineating the difference between "a dream" and what Cameron calls "your true North." She explains that many of us might have the same dream -- for instance, to be a famous writer. What fames means will vary with each person. Defining it for yourself gets at the "true North." I felt that Spooner took the true North concept even a step further when she observed that it doesn't matter how you reach -- or travel toward -- your ultimate goal.
With the work of holistic management came a lot of snippets of hands-on common sense. The farming activities that my husband and I engage in began fairly modestly, with a small backyard garden in Seattle that I described in a talk recently as being the size of a walk-in closet. From that point in about 2007, we began increasing our emotional, physical, and financial investments in this activity that we first called gardening and now are calling farming year-by-year. Last year, the year 2013, marked a watershed year in that we raised enough vegetables to feed ourselves for an entire year. That watershed moment made us realize that we ourselves were no longer just in it as a hobby. It was a commitment to living in a particular way, a commitment to sustaining ourselves, our creative and professional lives, our politics, our health, our communities.
This might be the pre-conditioning for the holistic management process to begin. But turning to common sense, there were a lot of things we had not done that Frenay suggested beginning farmers should do to understand themselves as farmers: register their farm as a business, open a bank account that is independent of the personal account just for the farm, and start researching the federal laws pertaining to what counts as income generated on a farm. I think that a year ago such details would have felt mind-numbing. Today, they felt clear and logical. They seemed to open a new path toward sustainable growth.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Practicing thought
(Posted by Himanee)
My colleague Sue Jefts and I met this afternoon for a couple of hours to discuss our project to create a workshop on personal sustainability. The idea for such a workshop emerged last year after we created a successful two-hour presentation called The Poetics of Sustainability for a conference on transliteracy, teaching, and technology last year that focused on our college's response to students, faculty, and staff affected by Hurricane Sandy. We also had begun work with two other colleagues on a course in what our college calls educational planning that would be centered on building sustainable careers, professions, communities, and lives; and we both were members of our college's sustainability committee. In the latter role, we had helped to developed two additional conference presentations on sustainability as well as a webinar for students on incorporating interests in the topic into their studies.
We presented our workshop proposal to a year-long institute for mentoring, teaching, and learning that our college supports. The proposal was accepted with an encouragement that we try and narrow our topic.
I'm good at responding to constructive feedback (or at least I think I am) so I immediately began searching for ways to scale down the idea. But as Sue and I talked to each other and shared our thoughts with others, the project kept getting bigger and bigger -- to the point that it felt almost too large to be, well, sustainable. In a move that might seem to run counter to the very mission of inclusion, I started to resist approaches that did not match my vision of what sustainability was.
My resistance was rooted at least partly in discomfort. I didn't want to advocate an understanding of sustainability that I personally did not -- or could not -- support myself with words or actions. At the same time, I felt increasingly that I lacked the scholarly expertise to address such a huge project. I also began to doubt my own understandings of what sustainability meant. Was it about a reduction of resources? Was it about getting away from the built environment and going out into nature? Was it about giving up meat and becoming a vegan?
I had a couple of months of release time, so I put my active role in the project on hold and went off to work on other research projects and to ponder what sustainability meant.
The more I pondered, the more I began to feel that there was no one right way to define the term at all. Yet, it seemed that sustainability was something important, especially when one started to think of it at a personal level. Sustain means to last, to hold, to prolong, to continue, to keep going. It is the opposite of contract, release, cease, stop, discontinue. On a personal level, it seems to be about making ways for the things that make your own life joyful, energizing, and fulfilling while being cognizant that your own life doesn't exist in a vacuum. Because we are social creatures, a sustainable life for the self is also a sustainable life for a community and perhaps for a life. And … and … and … the idea gets bigger and bigger.
So walking away from the project for a bit caused me to walk into my self. And, it seems, that my life -- on both a personal and communal level -- seemed to grow more sustainable in the process. As I thought about how writing brought joy, energy, and fulfillment to life, I became a regular twice-a-day (and sometimes three times a day) writer. As I harvested beans and planted fall garlic, I began to appreciate even the tiniest connections between returning nutrients to the earth and feeding both bodies and souls. And, as I scrimped and saved and tried to get my life cleared of debt and my household on a workable budget, my financial pressures started to ease. I suddenly found myself feeling like I had more than enough, even though nothing financially had changed. Overall, it seemed, there was more of everything. More time to write. More time to garden. More time to exercise. More resources available. More time for friends and colleagues. More time for students.
Nothing had changed, except for me.
Sue divulged today in our time together that she had experienced a similar evolution. Her workload, which had felt out of her control, suddenly seemed to be within her control. She equated this shift to "doing the workshop on herself."
I felt overjoyed by her phrase "doing the workshop on herself" because it seemed to ease the pressure of coming across as an expert, of knowing all there was to know about sustainability and about what it would take to do things right. It also seemed to reinforce the point that what living a sustainable life meant would differ for nearly everyone.
We hope in the coming months to distribute a survey that will give us a sense of what potential participants might like to explore in workshop on personal sustainability, and think we might be able to create our workshop from that. We also hope to initiate a strong and potentially creative conversation on what personal sustainability means through presentations at upcoming conferences for our college's community, and to continue to build our dialogues on sustainable lives from that point. Another colleague has developed a workshop on sustainable mentoring -- one of the most important services our college offers its students -- and has suggested that she might be able to work with us in further development. To that end, we also are hoping to have her present her workshop to the faculty, professionals, administrators, and support staff who are affiliated with our center. Our hope at this point is that sustainable thoughts might lead to sustainable actions, and that others will see how doing the workshop on themselves could make a difference.
My colleague Sue Jefts and I met this afternoon for a couple of hours to discuss our project to create a workshop on personal sustainability. The idea for such a workshop emerged last year after we created a successful two-hour presentation called The Poetics of Sustainability for a conference on transliteracy, teaching, and technology last year that focused on our college's response to students, faculty, and staff affected by Hurricane Sandy. We also had begun work with two other colleagues on a course in what our college calls educational planning that would be centered on building sustainable careers, professions, communities, and lives; and we both were members of our college's sustainability committee. In the latter role, we had helped to developed two additional conference presentations on sustainability as well as a webinar for students on incorporating interests in the topic into their studies.
We presented our workshop proposal to a year-long institute for mentoring, teaching, and learning that our college supports. The proposal was accepted with an encouragement that we try and narrow our topic.
I'm good at responding to constructive feedback (or at least I think I am) so I immediately began searching for ways to scale down the idea. But as Sue and I talked to each other and shared our thoughts with others, the project kept getting bigger and bigger -- to the point that it felt almost too large to be, well, sustainable. In a move that might seem to run counter to the very mission of inclusion, I started to resist approaches that did not match my vision of what sustainability was.
My resistance was rooted at least partly in discomfort. I didn't want to advocate an understanding of sustainability that I personally did not -- or could not -- support myself with words or actions. At the same time, I felt increasingly that I lacked the scholarly expertise to address such a huge project. I also began to doubt my own understandings of what sustainability meant. Was it about a reduction of resources? Was it about getting away from the built environment and going out into nature? Was it about giving up meat and becoming a vegan?
I had a couple of months of release time, so I put my active role in the project on hold and went off to work on other research projects and to ponder what sustainability meant.
The more I pondered, the more I began to feel that there was no one right way to define the term at all. Yet, it seemed that sustainability was something important, especially when one started to think of it at a personal level. Sustain means to last, to hold, to prolong, to continue, to keep going. It is the opposite of contract, release, cease, stop, discontinue. On a personal level, it seems to be about making ways for the things that make your own life joyful, energizing, and fulfilling while being cognizant that your own life doesn't exist in a vacuum. Because we are social creatures, a sustainable life for the self is also a sustainable life for a community and perhaps for a life. And … and … and … the idea gets bigger and bigger.
So walking away from the project for a bit caused me to walk into my self. And, it seems, that my life -- on both a personal and communal level -- seemed to grow more sustainable in the process. As I thought about how writing brought joy, energy, and fulfillment to life, I became a regular twice-a-day (and sometimes three times a day) writer. As I harvested beans and planted fall garlic, I began to appreciate even the tiniest connections between returning nutrients to the earth and feeding both bodies and souls. And, as I scrimped and saved and tried to get my life cleared of debt and my household on a workable budget, my financial pressures started to ease. I suddenly found myself feeling like I had more than enough, even though nothing financially had changed. Overall, it seemed, there was more of everything. More time to write. More time to garden. More time to exercise. More resources available. More time for friends and colleagues. More time for students.
Nothing had changed, except for me.
Sue divulged today in our time together that she had experienced a similar evolution. Her workload, which had felt out of her control, suddenly seemed to be within her control. She equated this shift to "doing the workshop on herself."
I felt overjoyed by her phrase "doing the workshop on herself" because it seemed to ease the pressure of coming across as an expert, of knowing all there was to know about sustainability and about what it would take to do things right. It also seemed to reinforce the point that what living a sustainable life meant would differ for nearly everyone.
We hope in the coming months to distribute a survey that will give us a sense of what potential participants might like to explore in workshop on personal sustainability, and think we might be able to create our workshop from that. We also hope to initiate a strong and potentially creative conversation on what personal sustainability means through presentations at upcoming conferences for our college's community, and to continue to build our dialogues on sustainable lives from that point. Another colleague has developed a workshop on sustainable mentoring -- one of the most important services our college offers its students -- and has suggested that she might be able to work with us in further development. To that end, we also are hoping to have her present her workshop to the faculty, professionals, administrators, and support staff who are affiliated with our center. Our hope at this point is that sustainable thoughts might lead to sustainable actions, and that others will see how doing the workshop on themselves could make a difference.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Daily bread
(Posted by Himanee)
The days are getting shorter and crisper. With the deepening darkness, our stockpiles of vegetables for winter are becoming richer. Winter squash fill an entire table in our cellar, and cans and cans of jam, tomato sauce, and salsa are resting in a basement room that we hope in the next few weeks to turn a root cellar for storing vegetables like carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips, radishes, and celery. Much of this produce still rests in the soil where it grew along with deep green sheaves of collards, kale, Swiss chard, and bok choy. We're now harvesting dried beans by the boxful, and I anticipate that my down time in November and December will go toward shelling.
This has been an exciting year for our backyard farm, and while I don't want to jinx our success, I do feel as if I'm going into the winter season of rest, restoration, and recovery with a sense of peace and of pride. My husband and I have invested an enormous amount of energy into trying to see if we could live more sustainably off our land by growing food and rebuilding soil, and in our third year of work on this project, the little engine seems to be chanting inside us, "You can, you can."
Still, there is much to learn, and as the 2013 growing season draws to a close I am plotting new projects for 2014 and beyond. Among them are:
1. Raising mushrooms;
2. Adding blueberries and raspberries to a clutch of strawberry plants that were gifted to us by one of the Saratoga Farmers Market vendors last June;
3. Creating a perennial herbal tea garden; and
4. Growing grains.
The last of these four projects is the most ambitious, and might be unfeasible for the amount of land we own. Yet, it is appealing. For the past year, we have been baking our own bread, and I have roughly calculated that we go through about 120 pounds of flour a year. Flour is not expensive -- the brands we get are about $4 to $5 for a five-pound bag. But I don't know where that flour comes from or whether the grain from which it's milled has been genetically modified or doused with pesticides. Having a local source -- and better yet my own -- would be much healthier in my view.
One of the Loca-vore challenges that I agreed to take on was to do a community assessment of the availability of local foods. I wish I had had the time to do a formal assessment because the results would have been interesting to know. Informally, I can say that nearly everything we consume -- food-wise, at least -- can be obtained from local sources at prices that are affordable to most. The main exceptions are: butter, nuts, flours, and items like cat food, sodas, chocolate bars, and teas. Butter can be made at home fairly quickly if one has a food processor such as a Cuisinart, and teas can be produced if you grow the right herbs. While I haven't found a satisfactory solution to sodas, chocolate bars, and cat food, I did do some research on local flours. I found that there are grain growers and some companies that mill grains from these growers to produce flour for a consumer market. But as I feared these locally produced flours are seen more as specialty items and are priced as such. Those prices are a little too much for an already taut paycheck.
The good news, however, seems to be that local farmers who are committed to sustainable agriculture are aware of this dilemma, and are beginning to investigate options for producing what are called "heritage grains" themselves. The heritage grains lack the genetically modified compounds that comprise so much of the commodity flour that goes into making wheat. Some farmers considering the possibilities of growing heritage grains have been wondering if it was the loss of seeds of those grains in the wave of mass produced store-bought bread that has contributed to growing outbreaks of wheat allergies and other ailments. I wouldn't necessarily support this claim without looking into it more myself, but the idea of knowing the source is decidedly appealing.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Festivals as sustenance
(Posted by Himanee)
Today marks the eighth anniversary of my marriage to my husband Jim. We married later in life -- I, at age 42, and he, at 32. For that reason perhaps, the ritual of our anniversary is marked less with flowers, chocolate, and expensive gifts and more with jokes and mock sighs of relief that we've managed to hold it all together for this long. This year's joke was about how all the blisters of the past eight years had finally healed, a point that Jim and I discussed animatedly as we devoured our anniversary dinner.
Dinner was homemade risotto, though I splurged a little and bought pine nuts, dried porcini mushrooms, and a finely grated pecorino cheese to go along with the butternut squash, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bok choy from our garden that I tossed in.
Our anniversary also marks the official beginning in our household of seven months of non-stop holidays. One of the advantages of being an interracial and religiously pluralistic couple is that the plethora of festivals that accompany the multitude of cultural and religious traditions that comprise our partnership give us a lot of excuses to celebrate. Following our wedding anniversary is Diwali and a slew of related festival days around it. After that (or sometimes before, depending on the vagaries of the Lunar calendar) come Hallowe'en, El Dia de Los Muertos, my birthday, the Muslim festival Idh-al-Fitr, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, all the Advent Sundays, all the days of Hanukkah, the Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas, the days of Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jim's birthday, Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent, all the days of Lent, Valentine's Day, President's Day, St. Patrick's Day, the Spring Equinox, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. I am thinking of adding Passover to our list of observances as well as Ramadan. For now, however, October through April has evolved into a series of celebrations.
It strikes me that the festivals begin as the fall harvest season is nearing its final stages and that they end just as spring planting season starts to really rev up. It also strikes me that festivals offer another way to build sustainability into one's daily life, not so much because of an urge to rush to party after party but more because they offer an excuse to slow down. Celebrations need not be elaborate or fancy. A memorable meal, a goofy handmade gift, or simply a small ritual such as leaving a lamp burning all night in one's home on the night of Diwali to guide the Hindu epic hero-god Ram out of the forest and back to his kingdom can re-create a festive spirit by themselves. More to the point, the festivals are like markers on a calendar, reminding you that e-mail can be closed, work can be curtailed, and one can go home on time (or even early) because an important event is waiting.
My mother and my sisters all observe a Hindu festival that occurs four days after the full moon that precedes Diwali known as Kaurva Chaat. During this festival, married women fast for the health and longevity of their husbands. Chauvinism aside, I joined them in observing the fast on the first Kaurva Chaat that followed my marriage. I haven't done so since, partly because my husband doesn't want me to fast at a time of year when teaching and other work demands tend to come thick and fast. What I remembered most about the festival, however, was not the fast but the gaiety that fills the day. You're supposed to wear bright, happy colors; paint, draw, or create something pretty; and prepare a meal that breaks the fast of several flavorful and wholesome dishes. You're also supposed to be on watch for the moon. Its appearance signals the moment that one breaks the fast. The happiness of the event breaks up the day, giving one a reason to get up from the computer for a creative break. While I probably will not fast, I look forward to doing something special on that day, for no other reason.
Festivals also follow different rhythms of time, and getting on their cycle can help put the grind of the work week and endless mountain of work into a different perspective. It seems appropriate in this sense that they occur in the interim period between harvesting and planting when lands rest and recover. They offer a reason to slow down, to celebrate successes, and reflect on the strengths of one's prior progress, and to consider how one might work better, more smartly before planting the seeds for the next harvest cycle.
Today marks the eighth anniversary of my marriage to my husband Jim. We married later in life -- I, at age 42, and he, at 32. For that reason perhaps, the ritual of our anniversary is marked less with flowers, chocolate, and expensive gifts and more with jokes and mock sighs of relief that we've managed to hold it all together for this long. This year's joke was about how all the blisters of the past eight years had finally healed, a point that Jim and I discussed animatedly as we devoured our anniversary dinner.
Dinner was homemade risotto, though I splurged a little and bought pine nuts, dried porcini mushrooms, and a finely grated pecorino cheese to go along with the butternut squash, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and bok choy from our garden that I tossed in.
Our anniversary also marks the official beginning in our household of seven months of non-stop holidays. One of the advantages of being an interracial and religiously pluralistic couple is that the plethora of festivals that accompany the multitude of cultural and religious traditions that comprise our partnership give us a lot of excuses to celebrate. Following our wedding anniversary is Diwali and a slew of related festival days around it. After that (or sometimes before, depending on the vagaries of the Lunar calendar) come Hallowe'en, El Dia de Los Muertos, my birthday, the Muslim festival Idh-al-Fitr, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, all the Advent Sundays, all the days of Hanukkah, the Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas, the days of Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jim's birthday, Mardi Gras and the beginning of Lent, all the days of Lent, Valentine's Day, President's Day, St. Patrick's Day, the Spring Equinox, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter. I am thinking of adding Passover to our list of observances as well as Ramadan. For now, however, October through April has evolved into a series of celebrations.
It strikes me that the festivals begin as the fall harvest season is nearing its final stages and that they end just as spring planting season starts to really rev up. It also strikes me that festivals offer another way to build sustainability into one's daily life, not so much because of an urge to rush to party after party but more because they offer an excuse to slow down. Celebrations need not be elaborate or fancy. A memorable meal, a goofy handmade gift, or simply a small ritual such as leaving a lamp burning all night in one's home on the night of Diwali to guide the Hindu epic hero-god Ram out of the forest and back to his kingdom can re-create a festive spirit by themselves. More to the point, the festivals are like markers on a calendar, reminding you that e-mail can be closed, work can be curtailed, and one can go home on time (or even early) because an important event is waiting.
My mother and my sisters all observe a Hindu festival that occurs four days after the full moon that precedes Diwali known as Kaurva Chaat. During this festival, married women fast for the health and longevity of their husbands. Chauvinism aside, I joined them in observing the fast on the first Kaurva Chaat that followed my marriage. I haven't done so since, partly because my husband doesn't want me to fast at a time of year when teaching and other work demands tend to come thick and fast. What I remembered most about the festival, however, was not the fast but the gaiety that fills the day. You're supposed to wear bright, happy colors; paint, draw, or create something pretty; and prepare a meal that breaks the fast of several flavorful and wholesome dishes. You're also supposed to be on watch for the moon. Its appearance signals the moment that one breaks the fast. The happiness of the event breaks up the day, giving one a reason to get up from the computer for a creative break. While I probably will not fast, I look forward to doing something special on that day, for no other reason.
Festivals also follow different rhythms of time, and getting on their cycle can help put the grind of the work week and endless mountain of work into a different perspective. It seems appropriate in this sense that they occur in the interim period between harvesting and planting when lands rest and recover. They offer a reason to slow down, to celebrate successes, and reflect on the strengths of one's prior progress, and to consider how one might work better, more smartly before planting the seeds for the next harvest cycle.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Loca-vore update
(Posted by Himanee)
September comes to a close tomorrow. With it, the loca-vore challenge ends technically. Since I was out of state for the first 11 days of September and my husband was immersed in canning peaches and tomatoes, we decided that we would give ourselves two more weeks to try and meet the challenges we set. Nevertheless, with the month coming to a close, I wanted to offer a brief progress report on our efforts, to date.
One of the things that I learned this month is that being a full-on loca-vore is not as easy as it appears. My husband and I already do a lot to eat out of our backyard and to buy the bulk of what we eat from local farmers. But as the month went by I came to realize that there was a lot more that I could do.
I also realized that there were a lot of things about my lifestyle that didn't lend themselves easily to local eating.
For instance, my husband and I both trained this summer for the Adirondack Marathon, which we ran happily and successfully on Sunday, September 22. Happiness and success depended on being able to keep ourselves properly hydrated and fueled with quick energy over the course of the 26.2 mile route. For me, that meant sipping the Powerade (a Gatorade equivalent) beverage offered at the water stations every two miles in order to keep electrolyte levels in my body steady. It also meant downing a packaged "power gel" or "energy shot bloc" every four or five miles. I got the gels at the local EMS shop and they were, according to the package labeling, 90 percent organic and had brown rice syrup and natural fruit extracts as their primary ingredients. But they were manufactured (and I do mean manufactured; after all, they come in foil, vacuum sealed packages) by a national company that markets its product worldwide. I did investigate possible alternatives, but in the end decided that the tried and true sins of corporately-produced replenishers were a safer choice than the dizziness, dehydration, and nausea that I might experience if I ran without such aids.
Another blip in our goals toward goodness turned out to be chocolate. To put it mildly, both my husband and I love it, and see no harm in indulging ourselves with a post-dinner Hershey's Bar or Nestles Crunch. Chocolate can serve as a pain reliever for mild soreness and fatigue, so its consumption can be justified. But trying to find a locally-sourced chocolate bar that's not outrageously expensive can be quite challenging. I did find a somewhat happy resolution tonight, however, while shopping at a new store, Healthy Living, in Wilton, when I picked up a bag of semi-sweet chunks of Callebaut chocolate in the bulk food aisle. The chocolatier is Belgian, but a search of the company's website shows that they engage in fair-trade practices and buy the raw materials used to produce their chocolate from small growers in the regions where cocoa beans and other chocolate-making ingredients grow naturally.
A final "sin" was our binge two nights ago on late-night nachos. I had signed on to volunteer for the Adirondack Ragnar Relay's two-day event, and my shift was from 7 p.m. to about 11 p.m. at a transition point a little north of Lake George. In preparation, we made an early dinner of a mussel stew served with vegetables from our garden and our homemade bread. But by the time I was headed home I was ravenous, and could only think of one word: nachos! We had homemade salsa, and a hunk of cheddar cheese. At least the cheese was Cabot's New York Cheddar. But even if the package of tortilla chips that I picked up on my way home said "Stewart's" -- a local convenience store chain -- the chips themselves were most likely manufactured elsewhere.
On the success side, I discovered that stevia is a wonderful sugar substitute. I used dried stevia leaves to make a pear pie about a week ago and in a blueberry pancake recipe this morning. Both of the recipes called for sugar, which the stevia stood in for wonderfully. I look forward to growing more of it next year, and to getting used to seeing small flecks of green in dishes that require sweeteners.
We also learned that we could make our own butter in our Cuisinart with Battenkill Dairy's wonderful cream. I had made butter in the past with the famed jar-shaking method, but the Cuisinart whirs the cream to butter in about five minutes, and eases the process up considerably. I also learned that a pint of cream will yield more than two cups of butter (which is essentially the equivalent of a box of four sticks), and if I buy the cream directly from the Battenkills at the Saratoga Farmers Market, the price is about 50 cents cheaper.
With two weeks to go, we still have a lot on our list to conquer: building a root cellar (we've been so busy harvesting that we haven't had much of a chance to think of storage, beyond the ground itself which happily remains unfrozen); finding a source for local grain for making bread; and doing a community assessment on the strengths and challenges in our local food systems. We'll do our best to make a dent in these challenges as October approaches.
September comes to a close tomorrow. With it, the loca-vore challenge ends technically. Since I was out of state for the first 11 days of September and my husband was immersed in canning peaches and tomatoes, we decided that we would give ourselves two more weeks to try and meet the challenges we set. Nevertheless, with the month coming to a close, I wanted to offer a brief progress report on our efforts, to date.
One of the things that I learned this month is that being a full-on loca-vore is not as easy as it appears. My husband and I already do a lot to eat out of our backyard and to buy the bulk of what we eat from local farmers. But as the month went by I came to realize that there was a lot more that I could do.
I also realized that there were a lot of things about my lifestyle that didn't lend themselves easily to local eating.
For instance, my husband and I both trained this summer for the Adirondack Marathon, which we ran happily and successfully on Sunday, September 22. Happiness and success depended on being able to keep ourselves properly hydrated and fueled with quick energy over the course of the 26.2 mile route. For me, that meant sipping the Powerade (a Gatorade equivalent) beverage offered at the water stations every two miles in order to keep electrolyte levels in my body steady. It also meant downing a packaged "power gel" or "energy shot bloc" every four or five miles. I got the gels at the local EMS shop and they were, according to the package labeling, 90 percent organic and had brown rice syrup and natural fruit extracts as their primary ingredients. But they were manufactured (and I do mean manufactured; after all, they come in foil, vacuum sealed packages) by a national company that markets its product worldwide. I did investigate possible alternatives, but in the end decided that the tried and true sins of corporately-produced replenishers were a safer choice than the dizziness, dehydration, and nausea that I might experience if I ran without such aids.
Another blip in our goals toward goodness turned out to be chocolate. To put it mildly, both my husband and I love it, and see no harm in indulging ourselves with a post-dinner Hershey's Bar or Nestles Crunch. Chocolate can serve as a pain reliever for mild soreness and fatigue, so its consumption can be justified. But trying to find a locally-sourced chocolate bar that's not outrageously expensive can be quite challenging. I did find a somewhat happy resolution tonight, however, while shopping at a new store, Healthy Living, in Wilton, when I picked up a bag of semi-sweet chunks of Callebaut chocolate in the bulk food aisle. The chocolatier is Belgian, but a search of the company's website shows that they engage in fair-trade practices and buy the raw materials used to produce their chocolate from small growers in the regions where cocoa beans and other chocolate-making ingredients grow naturally.
A final "sin" was our binge two nights ago on late-night nachos. I had signed on to volunteer for the Adirondack Ragnar Relay's two-day event, and my shift was from 7 p.m. to about 11 p.m. at a transition point a little north of Lake George. In preparation, we made an early dinner of a mussel stew served with vegetables from our garden and our homemade bread. But by the time I was headed home I was ravenous, and could only think of one word: nachos! We had homemade salsa, and a hunk of cheddar cheese. At least the cheese was Cabot's New York Cheddar. But even if the package of tortilla chips that I picked up on my way home said "Stewart's" -- a local convenience store chain -- the chips themselves were most likely manufactured elsewhere.
On the success side, I discovered that stevia is a wonderful sugar substitute. I used dried stevia leaves to make a pear pie about a week ago and in a blueberry pancake recipe this morning. Both of the recipes called for sugar, which the stevia stood in for wonderfully. I look forward to growing more of it next year, and to getting used to seeing small flecks of green in dishes that require sweeteners.
We also learned that we could make our own butter in our Cuisinart with Battenkill Dairy's wonderful cream. I had made butter in the past with the famed jar-shaking method, but the Cuisinart whirs the cream to butter in about five minutes, and eases the process up considerably. I also learned that a pint of cream will yield more than two cups of butter (which is essentially the equivalent of a box of four sticks), and if I buy the cream directly from the Battenkills at the Saratoga Farmers Market, the price is about 50 cents cheaper.
With two weeks to go, we still have a lot on our list to conquer: building a root cellar (we've been so busy harvesting that we haven't had much of a chance to think of storage, beyond the ground itself which happily remains unfrozen); finding a source for local grain for making bread; and doing a community assessment on the strengths and challenges in our local food systems. We'll do our best to make a dent in these challenges as October approaches.
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