nourish the roots

And the livin' is easy / Fish are jumpin' /

2011-07-04T14:25:00.004-06:00

Other than working a couple great jobs (Volunteer and Outreach Coordination for the Wilderness Institute's Citizen Science Summer Monitoring Program and Community Garden Coordinator for the ASUM/Garden City Harvest 70-plot garden), summer 2011 means cooking and hiking.

One of my life plans is to be the neighborhood ravioli maker. I'm practicing (aka slow). It's usually stuffed with mushrooms, herbs, and Parmesan cheese.

We have brought Mabel up to Mount Jumbo (the hill/mountain outside or porch) a couple times now. It gives us a great view of Missoula. It's an amazing feeling to be able to see where I work, where John works, the Clark Fork River, our home, Rattlesnake Creek, the farm I worked at last summer, the vineyard we like to frequent, the wilderness area we hike in, and the bike routes we take everyday...all in one sweep with the naked eye.

Spring Into Action

2011-07-04T14:02:00.006-06:00

After another busy semester, taking a billion credits and teaching freshman comp, I had a few weeks to catch up with family and get a head start on my thesis before my summer jobs got into full swing.

First, though, my official photo as a beekeeper...not that I am one. But someone needed to check to make sure they made it through the winter!

We made Michael and Autumn a canoe paddle for their wedding, and I made a block print for the beer we had brewed for the special occasion. We really enjoyed the Amtrak ride from Montana to Minnesota and back!

I enjoyed my second trip out to Sterling College (most awesome college ever) to work with Sandra Steingraber at Orion's Wildbranch Writing Workshop. It was fun to see Vermont again, Director Dave, my dad's cousin Rita, and the fantastic writers and scientists who accompanied me on a productive week of thesis work.

Costa Mosta Mosta!

2011-07-04T13:16:00.008-06:00

In late March / early April, we headed down to Costa Rica to explore some of John's old stomping grounds and assist with some of the work done in the field by the organization John works for in Missoula. It was a great combination of hard, hot hiking through some of the most undeveloped coastal rain forest in Central America (10 miles in one day, a few more the day before and after), relaxing at a little resort (reading manuscripts for a workshop I would be attending upon return, drinking pina coladas, swimming in bioluminescent waters, encountering a friendly jellyfish, etc), and helping collect data on nesting leatherback sea turtles (and establishing a garden at the research center). Oh...and a surprise birthday cake for John!

Ski Spectacular

2011-07-04T13:06:00.005-06:00

A few friends/fellow grad students and I were invited up to Glacier National Park to write about Avalanche Basin for the Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center. We had a twelve mile round-trip route along Coming to the Sun Road to get to the trail that leads to Avalanche Basin....so we didn't make it to the final destination, as we only had one day, but we sure got a feel for the place in winter! And my national park radio communication skills got a much-needed brush up.

Winter Wonderland Celebration

2011-07-04T11:48:00.004-06:00

Back in February, we headed out to Lochsa Lodge for a birthday weekend away. The snow was too deep to ski, so we snowshoed around (Mabel loved every minute of it) giant old cedar groves, had plenty of delicious hot cocoa, caught up on our reading (even if it was for school), and ended the weekend at the Jerry Johnson hot springs.

Moose, Wolves, and Snow

2011-01-17T20:11:00.003-06:00

Just a short mostly-picture post as an ode to our second try at a Forest Service cabin (we had so much fun on our last adventure), this time at Stoney Cabin in the Deerlodge-Beaverhead National Forest beside Rock Creek. We had a few great meals, some time to read, hike, and explore AND we just happened across a lone moose in addition to a couple of wolves (at a distance, of course). On the way home, we also passed some cattle ranches nestled in the valleys, covered (like everything else) in snow.

Oishi desu!

2011-01-17T19:25:00.006-06:00

That's Japanese for "delicious", a nod to the oldest posts on this blog and my days as an English teacher in Okinawa.

CAUTION: Images below not for weak stomachs.

So, we have a half chest freezer. We filled it up pretty well with preserved produce from my summer of farming and gardening (lots of kale, basil pesto, plums, huckleberries, you know), but it was missing something. Meat.

John has (unsuccessfully, sorry friend) gone bow hunting the last few years. Over Christmas break, after spending some time in the Twin Cities with our families, we headed up to Aunt Karen and Uncle Tim's in Puposky for some R&R. I visited Grandma, who is now at the assisted living home in Blackduck, and hung out with Aunt Karen. John went out to the woods (and/or the edges of last season's corn/alfalfa fields at a distant relation's farm) with Uncle Tim to see if he couldn't assist with the freezer-filling duties.

Success! He and Uncle Tim (a.k.a. Uncle Pa) had some great time to bond and we got to skin, debone, and process the doe (which we actually got some practice with before our wedding with Timmy's buck back in November, but always under the tutelage of an excited mentor, Uncle Pa) before heading back to Montana with several pounds of protein in our Subaru.

We added it to a great several months of eating food we grew, harvested, shot with a bow and arrow, or otherwise had a strong hand in bringing from field to table (often served on plates we threw and cut on cutting boards we (or someone we know) carved beside glasses we blew and now wiped up with dishrags we knit--just this week!).

Let the Good Times Roll

2011-01-17T18:03:00.011-06:00

So, I have a very good friend. We share Mabel responsibilities, a kitchen, love, excitement for life and traveling and learning and making and filling pretty much everything over the brim with goodness and funs.

We decided to celebrate that in the presence of our loved ones.

My friend gave me a gift certificate back during the week of Thanksgiving 2009 while we were staying in the small one room cabin we first visited in November 2006 (he didn't know, at the time, that it didn't have windows or wood to stoke the only piece of furniture inside--the woodstove) as a young, confused, couple giving it a go at that tenuous time when one is almost done or completely done with college, trying to figure current and future life out (not to mention from 3 hours away...the closest we lived for the first 2.5 years of our time together). The gift certificate was to make rings. We kept it hush hush until we finished crafting our rings and could show them to our family as a means of announcement. The artist who helped us create them was a smart man. He gave us the tools and materials we needed, and pointers along the way. A few sessions later, we had our sterling silver rings, decked out with a dark, warm patina and each other's fingerprints on the inside of each band (and some new knowledge of jewelry-making and metallurgy).

This all, coincidentally, took place in the space that used to be where by father would have his boots resoled in the town I grew up in. We decided we'd have a small family ceremony at my aunt and uncle's place the following Thanksgiving(where I spent every Thanksgiving and near where my grandmother and her twelve siblings were raised), and then a casual gathering of friends at the folk school I worked at back in winter 2008-2009. Which brings us to this most recent Thanksgiving. Almost.

First, I had to find some fabric in town and send it to my mother so she could make my dress. Second, I had to create invitations. Third, we had to plan, organize, and execute everything else, relying on the talents and interests of many of our closest friends and family members and John's crazy Excel skills.

We found the most affordable fabric we could at a little fabric shop in downtown Missoula and brought it up to be measured, cut, and sold to us. Turns out, it had been sitting in a woman's attic since her father brought it back from World War II. It was raw silk from Japan. But, we're supposing, because they invested no money into it, it was all profit, so it was less than 10 bucks a yard. With a Simplicity pattern, Marmy got on her sewing way.
And, using a block print design I had created earlier (on a card which John had actually given me the gift certificate in), we spent several evenings stamping all of the recycled cardstock invitations.

Come the craziness of my first semester of grad school + teaching, John's father and stepmother were a great help with decorations, my father and mother got food together for the party, Aunt Karen and Uncle Tim were prepared to host a slightly bigger Thanksgiving dinner (and build an arbor, several bonfires, etc), and so on.

The big day came, and our late fall wedding turned into a winter ceremony (almost a foot of snowfall plus subzero temperatures...thank goodness I packed the mukluks I made at North House two years earlier). My brother, with whom we drafted the ceremony, officiated (and did a swell job at that!). Our parents each read a quote, message, or passage they found meaningful and brought up to the arbor a stone we had collected from significant places in our lives we hope to build into our future home.
It was followed by a big family dinner and the annual football game out front.

That night, we stayed at the old cabin. Mabel loved running around the forest.

The next day we headed off to northeastern Minnesota to get North House ready for one hundred guests. I can't say enough how much hard work family and friends put into clearing ice, hanging lights, setting out luminaries, and stoking the wood-fired brick pizza oven on the shore of Lake Superior. By Saturday, we were ready. It was great. Everyone made and consumed their own pizzas (for toppings, we went potluck style and had everything from bear to artichoke hearts), ate ice cream and cupcakes (deliciously pumpkin and made by friends), drank homebrew (some we had brewed ourselves, a bunch from friends), danced a contra (called by John's former soils professor), and partied 'til the wee hours of the morning. I cannot be thankful enough.

It was a great way to celebrate our shared time together and the centrality of family, friends, and a handmade life.

Click here to see a slideshow of more photos from the ceremony and celebration.
*click on the orange "view photobook" button and then "full screen" (in the upper right) if you like

Also, it turns out that our superanniversary (when Thansgiving falls on November 25th) will align every 11 years, so look out for a big party in 2021 (with some luck, we'll have those stones built into a cozy home and lots of land to dance on by then).

2010's Autumnal Detectability

2011-01-16T13:54:00.006-06:00

Fall is my favorite season. We (friends in and attached to the graduate program) have regular potlucks, and one of them this fall had a theme centering around the "unappreciated art of stuffed food" as well as turning thirty, which several friends did...quite well, I might add. Squashed filled with stuffing, mushrooms full of cheese, desserts crammed with more desserty things. You get the idea. It was delicious. It was also how the last few months of the year felt, hence the dearth of blog updates. I loved the classes I took, delving deeper into topics and crafts that I was already interested in and familiar with but had not the time nor expertise to jump deeper into and explore on my own, practicing skills within the presence of experienced and dedicated thinkers, writers, and doers. I also found great joy in teaching my own freshman composition class once all was said and done and it was clear that we all learned a lot throughout the semester. Not to mention neat school trips, which I will mention below, and celebrating my partners-for-life status with a small cadre of friends and family. Jam-packed. Like chocolate stuffed pastries.

So let's reach back all the way to mid-October when I joined a handful of other classmates on a trip to central Montana, where we met with ranchers, miners, and other hardworking people we would not otherwise usually have access to in the heart of big sky country:

The weekend before, I was in Minnesota reading in cousin Amy's wedding, where I had the chance to briefly see much of my family for the first time since moving out to Montana, one of whom has since left us and another who is having trouble staying with us:

The following weekend, I was at the AERO Conference in Helena, where most discussions surrounded the subject of the conference's title "Perennial Roots: Reimagining Our Energy & Agricultural Future" and I heard Wes Jackson speak for the second time in as many months:

You Can Believe it is Butter

2010-12-08T23:20:00.014-06:00

In my Politics of Food course, my classmates and I were given an assignment to "understand the relationship among actors and activities involved in creating goods and services - in this case, food" through a commodity chain analysis.

I chose to study two familiar butters: Lifeline, from the fine folks over at Lifeline Farm (with their dairy and creamery), whose original business partners I visited at Lifeline Produce last May, and Land O' Lakes, whose butter I grew up eating and whose corporate headquarters resides in the same town I took my driver's license test nearly ten years ago. Both have had a place in my life (and my stomach). I was curious to learn how the processes the two products went through differed, considering how relatively simple the butter making process is, as well as how complicated the industrial food system is.

In the following video/presentation you will learn what I learned.
1. Click the play button with your mouse.
2. To move through the steps manually, press the forward and back arrow on your keyboard to move through the journey. You can use the little scroll wheel on top of your mouse to zoom in and out.
3. If you prefer the presentation to move through the steps automatically, put your cursor in the lower right corner of the video/presentation window over the word "more" and select "autoplay".
3. For fullscreen, put your cursor in the lower right corner and select "fullscreen".
4. Consider the sense of scale the final image gives you.

You CAN Believe it IS Butter on Prezi

In the end, which product would you choose?

Grand Finale

2010-11-04T18:02:00.002-06:00

Remember that winery/vineyard I mentioned that was just up the way? Well, we made sure to squeeze in a few more visits and I helped with the grape harvest after the first full frost!

It's been a very busy few months, between teaching, learning, and traveling.

Autumn Harvest

2010-10-12T13:08:00.002-06:00

It's no secret. I love fall.

Deer around the Rattlesnake are not shy. Mabel and I encountered 12 of them on one short walk. She has a hard time not eating them all. As do I.

We're harvesting the final few crops on the farm:

Apple cider grinding and pressing!

Random Extra Photo of the Day:

Best missing cat poster ever. Hope you find her!

A few days on "The Land"

2010-10-10T13:40:00.024-06:00

We are killing ourselves. I'm not kidding.

Every day, with some of our most mundane practices (driving cars, running refrigerators, buying "cheap" food at a supermarket chain), we are ensuring the ruin of mountain tops (for coal), the water cycle (well, everything...now hydrofracking, too), and the health of ourselves, the natural systems in which we operate (even when we build walls that physically and conceptually obfuscate the truth), and ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS.

I don't mean to be a downer, but I'm here to make change and this is what I'm up against. Me, and lots of other, much smarter people. But it's an uphill battle.

Read this article by Derrick Jensen and you'll realize, like I did, that personal change is great, but it really won't matter. The vast majority of what ails us can only be solved at a much larger, more political scale (eww, young Grace would say...but now I know it's a fact of the matter and must be faced), because it is at that level that nearly all of issues are occurring. We've given big agriculture and industry 50-100 years to suck all that is good out of the world and we're being left with a toxic, dying shell. Downer.

I'm going to digress, but then you'll see, it's to bring us further along in the same conversation.

Alright, to be honest, I was worried about Wendell Berry. He is perhaps my hero insofar as his eloquence as a writer, thinker, and activist. His sheer intelligence, ability to craft complicated issues into clear problems with solutions, and creative use of poetry and prose to discuss the root causes of many societal and environmental ills, while continuing to advocate for change even in the face of collusion, greed, and incompetence, all give me hope and inspiration.
"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts," he writes in Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.

And, it seems, others are also just a bit concerned. And with good reason. Berry has been fighting this battle for over half a century. He is not young. The feeling that I had, that I wanted to hear him speak with my own ears and interact in a community of thought that includes him, is shared by many other young people that I have talked to. "I want to see him in my lifetime [and his]," I've heard and thought more than once.

Good news. Berry is as determined, clever, and enthusiastic as ever!

When I heard that Berry would be appearing alongside like-minded writer/activists Wes Jackson, Scott Russel Sanders, and Sandra Steingraber (among others) at the annual Land Institute Prairie Festival, I couldn't help but ache to take part in the gathering. The land is what sustains us and is our hope for the future. Many environmental, social, and economic issues can be solved if we change the failed systems that support them and agriculture is a big player in all of this. Hence, my determination to incorporate it into my graduate studies.

The Land Institute researches Natural Systems Agriculture, a mimic of nature's ecosystems. Friends and supporters just call it, "The Land". It holds a weekend of barn dancing and barn conversing during harvest time every year. I was lucky enough to attend the 32nd annual assemblage of minds and hearts.

(Let me be clear, I'm still the same broke twenty-something I have been since entering my third decade on earth. Working for good causes often means volunteering, particularly during tough economic times. I have been able to scratch by because of the generosity of others and the ridiculous work ethic my father instilled upon me. My ability to get to Salina, KS without missing any classes was a product of my loved one's various education- and work-related travels, frequent flyer miles/credit card points, and said generosity. I did make sure he, too, could come, so I had someone to share the experience with.)

So, I had the pleasure to spend my weekend with a few hundred other people--often under the shelter of the big barn--as artists, economists, and scientists (I love that most of them were many of these things and I aspire to do the same juggling trick) shared their thoughts, fears, and hopes with us and we, in turn, continued the conversation with them and among ourselves. Several readings/lectures were interspersed with shared meals, music, dancing, bonfires, and tours of the new research building. We were giddy to be sharing time and space with people who cared about and understood the same issues overlooked by so many of the people we exist alongside every day, but we also understood that the lack of perceived time, education, and willingness to broach tough issues that we faced left us not optimistic, but still hopeful. We were abuzz because those of us engaged with making change were finally all in one place and had to use each other's energy to reignite and maintain the passion that drives us all to push against a broken system most people don't have the opportunity to even recognize.

We were a few feet from "stage," a simple podium with reading light attached against one side of the reclaimed-wood barn. Behind us, a few hundred attendees looked on attentively.

Beyond a member of "The Land" team (a cow), attendees line up to tour the new research building.

The barn was also host to several musicians.

The harvest moon rose behind the bonfire on our first night in Salina.

Who can say no to a barn dance?!

By participating in the system, we reinforce it. By removing ourselves from the system, we stand by and watch it continue to erode our environment and our communities. By actively supporting alternatives, we strengthen a market for positive invention. By communicating truth, advocating change, and demanding that our basic systems are realigned with reality and the vitality of human and environmental communities, we will assist with the transition from global and local peril to healthy, just communities.

It was a beautiful weekend. We camped out--alongside many others--on The Land's land. I was reinvigorated with the energy needed to keep learning about and working toward much-needed change (local, global, human, ecological, etc).

John summed up how small my niches is when he leaned over to me during a lull and whispered: "All of the people you idolize are here in a barn and 1000 people paid $10 to see them." :)

So....Wendell Berry is doing well, the world is in shambles, you can make a difference, but small changes won't get us very far. Systems must be transformed. Short-sighted economic and political interests cannot keep driving us into the ground.

I look forward to working with you.

Berry, giving the annual Strachan Donnelley Lecture on Restoration and Conservation Saturday (Sept. 25) morning, discussing "our constant vulnerability to unintended consequences," and some authentic reasons for hope, including: leadership from the bottom, actual conversation and discourse about the limits of our knowledge, and conservation as an integral part of living.

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-18T13:49:00.004-06:00

We traveled some 90 miles south to May Creek Lodge, a rustic forest service cabin near the Idaho border, over Labor Day weekend.

Our old friend Joe and our less old friend Mabel joined in on the fun. It was a pleasant 2 mile hike in (what will be a great snowshoeing or skiing adventure in the winter) following the creek that separated a hilly forest from a gorgeous willowy meadow.
Plenty of wood chopping, stove stocking, reading, hiking, and lanterns ensued.

John is ridiculously in love with Mabel. Anyone he's talked to in the last four months already knows that.

After one short hike, we turned back due to dark clouds (Mabel isn't a big fan of thunder/lightning/rain). The rain started before we crossed the creek and the last quarter mile of trail to the cabin. Mabel, who was doing fantastically, bolted. When we got back to the cabin, we didn't see her and started calling for her frantically. With no luck, we ventured into the cabin to regroup, where we found she had somehow weaseled her way in and under the bed.

Later on, while John was splitting wood, she also did her best impression of a black bear surveying its territory (perching on a log for an unknown length of time, watching).

After reading the visitor records (and seeing how well stocked the place was), we'll be sure to lean away from our backpacking meals toward finer dining next time.
That Monday marked, for John and I, four years behind us and an ongoing determination to cram as much life as possible into the century ahead.

The Last Few Shares

2010-09-18T13:46:00.004-06:00

We only have a couple weeks of shares left for supporters of the PEAS farm, but boy are we making sure we end on an upswing.

Members visit the farm and pick up the prescribed variety of produce for the week. It always looks mighty fine waiting to be brought home.

Driving North

2010-09-18T12:33:00.003-06:00

A curious equine came up to visit during our short time admiring the Mission Mountains.

Farm Party!

2010-08-24T18:28:00.004-06:00

Last week was a whirlwind as we at the farm prepared for the annual Farm Party.

Every third Thursday of August, Garden City Harvest hosts a night of farm fresh food, hep music, drinking (local beer, wine, and chai...of course!), and dancing for the entire community. Everyone who biked (and there were hundreds), got three dollars off admission. Woohoo!

Quite the moral-boosting, community-gathering, fun(d)raiser!

From the celery's perspective.

The food tent! I know exactly where the beef, carrots, zucs, cucs, and salad came from, how many GALLONS of olive oil and vinegar went into the marinades, and just how fulfilling it is to be there for every step of the process. Seeding, planting, watering, harvesting, cleaning, processing, serving, eating!

One of our darling pigs!

The entrance off of Duncan Drive.

Dinner is served! Enjoy the hand-picked and -arranged flowers!

Bicycle parking gets priority. Cars are away--lining the road.

Friends everywhere!

Handy implements reduce the toil. Rest for the evening.

View from the northeast corner.

This part of the field, now ready for cover crop, already gave us plenty of peas, brassicas, and mustard greens earlier in the season. Now it's time to rest and replenish.

Moonrise over festivities.

The fun continues well into the night. A job well done!

Western Montana Fair Time!!!!

2010-08-19T14:20:00.000-06:00

Not to be missed!

Heritage Turkeys, Pigs, and Apples

2010-08-19T13:59:00.004-06:00

We went to visit Bosco, who supplied the PEAS farm with our pigs, and learn about the operation he's molded over the last twenty years just outside of Hamilton.

On a gorgeous plot of land, the friendly man who loves Jerry Garcia and goes by a single moniker has united the rooting and pooping activities of pigs with the pest control and picking-apart skills of turkeys to revitalize and fertilize the soil beneath the century-old apple orchard now under his care.

If you want an easter turkey, a Christmas ham, or a good swig of hard cider, this is the man to know. Over the years, what morphed as an idealist home/side-job into a full-time passion litters the yard around the barn with old pluckers and racks for freshly-defeathered heritage turkeys. Within the barn, stacks of old wooden apple crates and industrial cider presses fill the space from floor to ceiling. You can taste the joys of fall just looking at all of the hand-me-down tools and supplies.

With luck, we'll be back in a couple of months!

Bees Knees!

2010-08-18T16:58:00.002-06:00

Oh no! I can't forget the bees!

There is a small orchard in the Northwest corner of the PEAS farm, and a couple of weeks ago, the people who have been caring for it (Dan and Jenna) came up for a visit and to share their knowledge and experience with us.

I can't wait to get some of these scientifically intriguing, awesome pollinators in my own back yard.

Empanadas

2010-08-18T16:38:00.005-06:00

As mentioned earlier, the weekend farmers markets are THE place to go on Saturday morning. Throngs of people pulse through the veggie-laced aisles, shoulder to shoulder, from sun up until high noon.

Recently, a second market opened up. While the original Missoula Farmer's Market is busy on the north end of Higgins with a plethora of vegetable offerings, the Clark Fork River Market buzzes a few blocks away with plenty of value-added food system members as well as raw produce vendors. Cheese on your left! Bison on your right! Lemon curd blueberry waffles straight ahead (delicious!)! Live music under the bridge!
It's certainly electric.

(I could only get away from the booth before the market opened, so imagine this with hundreds of people chatting, perusing, and filling the space between vendors.)

This summer, I wanted to get my hands involved in another part of the food system. So thanks to a tip from a friend in May, I've spent plenty of time working with Kim at her Empanada (an Argentinian stuffed pastry) stand at the Clark Fork River Market. I've also been prepping the fillings with her Friday afternoon, using mostly local ingredients, many of which have come from the market and the people I've been visiting with the PEAS kids this summer. It's been an amazing opportunity to not only get to know more food producers and the very vibrant farmer's market scene in Missoula, but also to become intimately involved with turning raw ingredients into a beloved local food product.

Clark Fork Organics

2010-08-18T16:13:00.007-06:00

We spent some time visiting Josh's family's farm. As if directing the student work at the PEAS farm as a teacher with the university isn't enough, there's a whole other food race happening at home. It is a business that helps support a family of five, so much like Ploughshare Farm where I worked in MN, efficiency and accuracy are the goal and long, tiring days are the means by which one gets there.

Kim, to whom Josh is married, runs the farm, directs the work of several interns, and juggles a massive amount of harvesting (and everything else) that needs to be done on a regular basis to provide beautiful, healthy food on time to several fine restaurants in town, the Good Food Store, the Saturday Farmer's Market (where EVERYONE goes EVERY weekned), and more.

It's exhausting just talking about it, but seeing their children so involved, mentally and physically in the work, is a good indicator of the positive impacts running a farm can have on people. They understand where food comes from and where it goes, they understand how to get it from point A to point B, and they have been raised interacting with the physical world and the neighboring community in very involved ways...giving them a maturity, intelligence, and appreciation for things well beyond their years.

Produce in the Paper

2010-08-04T15:48:00.004-06:00

We have some awesome visitors at the farm this week from New Orleans, where access to healthy, real food is a MAJOR issues. They've come to see the model that Garden City Harvest has successfully set up and continues to expand. A few representatives will go down and visit them this fall.

And their visit made it into the paper! As did a photo of us weeding!!!

Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian

Ahhh. The glamor of our daily work is clear now.

Water from the Heavens

2010-08-04T15:33:00.004-06:00

One of the major reasons, a recent visitor suggested, that our plants are so healthy on the farm is our water. This may be true. Montana is arid. 10-13 inches of rain during the season is average. With a creek running nearby and a couple of wells, the farm has a complex watering system which involved lots of drip lines, a few soaker hoses, and some long, heavy pipes (known as hand lines and main lines -- seen as a silver pipe in the grass of the photo below, and rain birds seen spraying water in the photo below).

We don't have these pipes laid out in permanent positions, that would be expensive and ridiculous. We rotate them by hand four times a day. Someone has to move those pipes.

That's why we all end up with nice biceps by the end of the summer. A pair of students each week is responsible for moving the lines, rotating where the water flows, drips, and sprays, and generally getting to know the farm in a brand new, wet, and dirty light. I had a great partner in Erin, so we actually enjoyed it. Although we don't plant, harvest, or weed on the weekends, it was our responsibility the following weekend to keep the water going (and feed the chickens and pigs, of course).

It's pretty here. Especially early on a Sunday morning.

Farms & Gardens

2010-08-04T15:13:00.006-06:00

So, this summer I'm working at the PEAS Farm up the Rattlesnake. I'm receiving credit for the graduate program I start this fall. This opportunity is available due to a partnership between Garden City Harvest, a non-profit in Missoula that has several farm and community garden locations throughout town...mostly in "urban settings" right within town...and often in neighborhoods with lower incomes, and the University of Montana.

A major issue for people on tight budgets is that the food they have access to is only found in the corner convenience store or in the nearest big box store. Here, they may find "cheap" food, but that cheapness is reflected in their health...which eventually becomes VERY expensive. You can simultaneously appear obese and be malnourished. It's horrifically common.

The farm I work at is a bit out of town and in a wealthier neighborhood, but it is also the largest open space (about 9.5 acres, a former dairy farm) that has become available to the nonprofit and was an opportunity not to be missed.
There are seven community gardens scattered throughout town with plots available for a very reasonable price to the public.
There are three farm/gardens, PEAS being one of them. We visited River Road and Orchard Gardens, which also sell some CSA shares in addition to having community garden plots. An additional farm is cared for and hosted by a youth home in the area.

The vigor, happiness, and curiosity exuded by each garden manager (Greg and Sarah) that we met with was intoxicating and enviable. Nonprofit work may not pay much, but if you organize your life around what you want and what you need, it can be one of the most fulfilling ways to spend the short time you have on earth.