Pictured here: the able hands of farmer Steven Pedersen, holding the delicious squash he grew this year, Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash.
Something must have been in the air with the farmers yesterday, because Joe Schirmer and Ally Edwards (he, the current, and she, a former, farmer at Dirty Girl Farm here in Santa Cruz) both showed up for meals at Gabriella Cafe (a client of mine). Joe's grandmother, too, though separately from her progeny. We arrived for dinner just as the rain began in earnest, and I spied Ally through the window. She stopped at our table before exiting, and let me know about a really wonderful project she's working on, called Roots of Change. She briefly described it as being a project that, by the year 2029, will have a sustainable food system in place in the state of California.
Pictured here: one of the eighty varieties of squash Steven Pedersen is growing at High Ground Organics Farm in Watsonville.
You can read about the three projects Roots of Change is currently funding here:
1. Building a Vivid Picture of Sustainable Food Systems
2. Building Momentum for Change Leadership Network
3. Sustainable Food Systems Partnership
I see Jim Cochran of Swanton Berry Farm and Nell Newman are on the members roster.
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TIDBITS
• Hey, you Northern California Locavores: here's a groovy little chart of what fruits/vegetables grow when in the Golden State.
• Here is a touching story on how growing organically ("traditionally," in the article) may save some Himalayan farmers from committing suicide. Over 10,000 farmers in five years have committed suicide in that region, faced with overwhelming debt, and frustration at companies like Monsanto and their own governments who declared seed-saving to be "backwards farming." Someone I know once described seeds as one of the most “romantic” things he could think of. And I understand perfectly. Such mystery, that something so tiny could open up like the universe and grow itself again, feeding people in the creation.
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Apropos of nothing farmy at all, I just learned that the Commodore Hotel in San Francisco is closing after November 15. Joie de Vivre Hospitality sold it, and it will be turned into residential housing. I stayed there once: it was the quietest hotel I've ever stayed experienced in the city. Too bad.
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Finally: one last request. If you have me linked on your site as "Small Farms" or "Small Farms Blog," would you please change the name to "I Heart Farms"? Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And that's my post for Day Two of NaBloPoMo.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." —Albert Einstein
Thanks for visiting.
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