It's catching!

Having my first coffee of the day, surely not a local food product grown or even roasted near Boise, ID, I'm checking email, paying some bills and listening to a locally produced story on Boise State Radio about a local eater, a locavore, actually. Locavore was last year's word of the year in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word refers to one who makes a conscious choice to eat as locally as one can. In short, it's a choice to eat with purpose, to eat politically, to keep money and jobs as close to home as possible.

I applaud these good folks and the movement lead by people like Scott, profiled in the radio piece, moves me to continue to think more carefully about what we eat in our home, where we eat out when we dine away from home, and where we buy most everything. And I am not alone.
So many conversations at Morning Owl Farm Market are ones centering on the woes and possibilities of these times. I know people are afraid, they're not confident about the future of food, the stability of their incomes, the planet's health and the world to be inherited by their children.

Quite often, I find we come down to conversing about choices, and I'm struck by how often the chat focuses on consumer choice, rather than political choice. This fact strikes me as a true marker of our times, that we democracy-loving citizens so often see ourselves as empowered only to the extent, perhaps, that we can or can't buy things. I believe we are more powerful than that and I hope that all of this self-reflection will lead us past thinking of ourselves as radical or righteous to the extent only that we drive or don't, eat locally, or not. These activities surely matter, but I hope we will learn from these choices and make better choices now in the realm of citizenship as well. We can choose to pay attention to the position of various candidates, attend meetings when elected officials are deciding whether to pave some portion of Treasure Valley paradise or leave it open where various lifeforms might thrive or some farmer might plant a seed to feed those living nearby. We might demand our ozone-clogged air be cleaned up by enforcement of laws that are tougher on polluters. We might let the deciders know we don't really want another lane on I-84 so much as we want electric trains, or commuter lanes, or anything to stop rather than encourage another accident, another stop and go drive, another waste of fuel and time and human energy.

I drink this coffee brewed here but not grown here and not roasted here. I look out the window over the Barber Valley at the hundreds of houses in my viewshed, hearing the cars spinning by and the birds competing to be heard. I am going to have bread baked 8 miles away from flour grown and milled 25 miles away with eggs raised on our pasture. I will have a mostly local breakfast today and know I'm lucky, but I'm not righteous. I need to find time today to do more than buy, or not. I need to think about my role as a citizen, my place in the stop and go flow and where I can make a difference as a citizen, not just a consumer.

All of this consciousness is contagious, I really think so. Let's take hope in that today. Let's celebrate that we're waking up, paying attention and making changes one sip and one vote at a time. Hang to hope with me, won't you? What alternative do we have anyway?

Summer arrives divinely

Today was one of the glorious days. Three apprentices arrived in good spirits this morning and with willing hands. We spent the first hour or so talking about the miracle of making compost and how farmers choose the varieties of vegetables that they grow. Collectively, the group has arrived at some pretty good criteria: growing season, precipitation, humidity, maturity day length, yield and taste, ah, taste. We talked about the beauty of being small acreage, direct marketing farmers. We can pick it in the morning and distribute it in the afternoon. The food can be fresh and the food can be grown because it tastes great, not because it travels well. Ah, taste.

After the Apprentices left, I stayed in the garden, weeding and looking about at the 100s of hours of work to be done, but then I thought about something my friend and neighbor said recently. Jude advised wisely that when you finish anything, folding clothes, weeding a bed, putting away the tools, watering the birds, wiping down a table, whatever it is, Jude says to stand back just a moment and look at what you've done with some pride. Today, I tried that. I did what she said to do and it was a damn good day. A day that I'm proud of.

And now, after a salad our farm grew and some asparagus from across the valley, I drink a large glass of water, head to the radio to quiet Terry Gross and head back to the field to move water on the pasture, weed another bed and get ready to stand back at the end of this day and say, ah. For taste, time, for farming, for life. Ah.