Green Weddings

Good research links... we're not alone :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/fashion/11green.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=26688f44a819decb&ex=1180756800

and

http://portovert.com/

I am such a lucky girl...

To the left is a photo of ONE share of our CSA, Sprout. Sprout is associated with Victory Farms in Hanover. Thank goodness the Freemans and I are splitting a share- have you ever seen so much food? Makes me think I haven't been eating my vegetables! I am very excited to be able to cook again. It is like a challenge: eat all of the veggies before the next ones come in!

Can you see? There are beets and turnips, basil, arugula, bok choy, squash (so cute!), chard, spinach and more lettuces than I even recognize. There is also broccoli rabe, with which I will attempt to recreate a version my favorite pasta at Edo's Squid. (read: lots of garlic...)

As if that weren't bounty enough, Casey brought over some of their home made Mulberry ice cream. The Mulberries are from the park across the way from them. Mmmm...


And, as if THAT wasn't adventure enough, we left the farmer's market and drove up to Ashland to see the farm I have been obsessing over. I still love it, even though we didn't get to go inside. It was fun to dream and to drive the country roads. I am still trying to picture a country life for myself. I don't think I'll be able to leave the city if working along side my friends and throwing parties isn't part of the plan... The appeal lies in the perfect combination of home and adventure. Welcoming and sharing. Honest work. Service but not servitude. Something different every day. Good clean and dirty fun. Just what you want out of life.

Ether

Sunshine and I loved having you all. Lazy's whiteboard will be forever remembered as the defining moment in your first business planning session. A few summary thoughts:

This idea is certainly in the 'ether' phase, so everyone should think about what they really want out of this concept; a slower lifestyle, a place to grow great plants (preferably legal ones), or the opportunity to drive a bus painted with flames.

Eventually, if the idea is to actually have a business (or businesses) associated with property, then the various ideas have to have a market value sufficient to generate $$$. While this may seem to be a minor point in the ether stage, it will become fairly important when trying to pay for the little farm hands' college tuition.

I'm sure all of this will come together nicely, so be free, dream, and in your spare time inch a little closer to moving out of the ether.

A million thanks...

Thanks to Ted and Ms. Sunshine for hosting our first 'White board' meeting. Your world is a beautiful place.

So, in my new favorite movie 'Stranger than Fiction,' Maggie Gyllenhaal, (the anarchist baker) says: "I just figured if I was going to make the world a better place, I would do it with cookies." Mmmm Hmmmm.

Tiny Houses

In my thoughts about this project, the tiny house thing keeps popping up. This likely ties in to the fantastic vacation spot we went to in Grenada that was run by a family with three kids -- beautiful views, fresh dinner on the deck (from the sea, the garden, and the hostess' oven), and, of course, little tiny cottages they built by hand. We stayed in the blue one, which was the one the family lived in as they built the main house. It was pretty perfect.

Turns out, though, that lots of people are interested in tiny houses and many folks create plans or build tiny houses -- even in Virginia! There is one fairly publicized company called Tumbleweed Houses (I think it was actually on NPR). Bottom line --- I learned how to use the html link and now you can see exactly where I have been web browsing -- no need for the Patriot Act after all.

We can talk (or not talk) about soup for hours...

Ok- so I am reading these crazy food books, and I just feel the need to share. This interesting bit is from 'The United States of Arugula', by David Kamp.

“The word ‘restaurant’ is attributed to a Paris soup merchant named Boulanger who believed that soups had curative, or restorative properties. Boulanger’s establishment, which opened in 1765, was said to have been adorned with a sign that read Boulanger debite des restaurants divins, which translates, more or less, as ‘Boulanger provides divine sustenance” (Kamp 32).


yay soup!

Magic Bus . . .

After consulting with some office mates who are planning or recently had weddings, it seems it would be invaluable to offer bus transportation to and from our site -- from church to site and then to lodging. An old school bus would probably be easy to come by and cheap. We could paint it silver! It could have flames! Even spinning hubcaps and iridescent glow in the dark paint! Run on biodiesel! The possibilities are endless.

Everybody likes a party

As you all are well aware, this is a crew that knows how to throw a party -- yummy food, toasts, music, themes, and organized play. I think that this farm dream is in part a culmination of that. So far we have envisioned somewhere that would be a place for folks to dabble --- event hosting, eventually food preparation, maybe little tiny cottages that people could stay in? The other night I had this goofy idea about building tiny rammed earth cottages in the wooded part of the property, each with their own fireplace and hot tub --- basically the hobbit village. Over the field would be the farmhouse-- a warm place where you could pick up a picnic dinner, rock on the front porch, chat, play music, and pet cats. I see a big pavilion or indoor space where conferences could meet, wedding receptions could be held, and BIG SQUARE DANCES (or maybe a traditional Johnny waltz party) could go until the wee hours! In general, I think we want to grow a place that allows people to connect with nature and each other, a place to renew, and a place to explore. Another thought we had was that if the property had ready fields, we could rent that space to someone who actually does know how to farm or maybe a winery to plant grapes. A restaurant would be a long-term goal and gardens a constant work in progress. I think we could market to companies, youth groups, weddings, family reunions, and other folks that want a place to have a conferences. Finding somewhere close enough to the city that people would not have to stay at the farm in the beginning would be ideal. Also, the zoning issue-- there are so many things we want to do, we have to be careful that the zoning will allow all the possibilities. From my research so far, that seems possible. Also, I think we should have either a swimming pool or a water source or both. And I LOVE the idea of a tree house --- maybe even an Ewok village ;)! Don't ask what the new obsession with "little" creatures is, but it keeps coming back!

the vision

the vision... I am excited to learn about (and hopefully meld) the various incarnations of the farm collective vision....



a wedding & party venue/ meeting place/ retreat center artist and otherwise / learning and teaching center/ music venue/ general place to be away from and still very much a part of the world, as well as a place to explore food, plants, beauty, simplicity



a place to explore sustainability concepts, unique and thoughtful architecture, the simplicity of slow food, local ingredients much of which come from our own back (or front) yard and others come from our neighbors with whom we can create a community



a place to allow other people to live out their own "farm fantasy's" as we have



fresh from completing Alice Waters biography I sit here in a dreamy state of delicious euphoria, it seems worth noting the value and practice of simplicity. It seems like the land itself will dictate and generate part of the vision, the beauty of the landscape speaking for itself, the beauty of the food speaking for itself... a perfect slice of melon



... and maybe a tree house :)

In addition to Babes, Beers and Bikes, I'd like it to be concerned with Food, Fine Art and Folly. Perhaps we should also try to make some dough...

We would like to:
1. Have a cultural/event space that would be flexible enough to host weddings, large seances, yoga classes and swap meets. We would charge something for allowing such nonsense on our property.

2. Have a restaurant for which we grow some of the food. We are good at gardening and have excellent taste in Deliciousness. As well as in picking wine (sometimes). This restaurant may only be open for weekly dinners with a prix-fix menu that will blow off several pairs of socks should you be happening to wear them.

3. Live as independently as possible, eventually relying on the site itself for most of our energy requirements and for a large number of assorted vegetables which we could eat, then having eaten, sell the leftovers for cold cash. This would perhaps include such non-vegetable though highly Delicious plants such as lavender, mint, thyme, etc. which can be largely let loose in a Virginia field rather than planted. These latter could be sold in bulk or even processed on site to extract their life enrichings essences, again to sell for cold cash.

4. Set aside time to both create and appreciate art. We would like to host gallery space in underutilized space such as old outbuildings, bombshelters, teepees, etc. We are humble enough to realize that most of this art would not be our own. We are egomaniacal to think that our discerning taste and sense of design would bust a hole in the art world the size of the hole the Hindenburg burned in the air. Such a situation would likely create an art sales atmosphere much like the stock market in the 80's (though we would decline to put the profits up our noses). Awash in gobs of cash, we would then nestle in a row of bathtubs full of hundreds and giggle to each other like schoolchildren.

5. I believe there were a few other demands...

Info to help

I've spoken with Erin very briefly about your plans, but don't really understand what it is that you'd like to do yet. So that I might try help, can you please describe what you're goals are with this. I'm going to assume that you're in the idea stage and haven't finalized plans as yet, which is fine. A brief description of the concept would be very helpful.

Providence?

Yesterday, in a most lucky turn of events, I got to accompany my friend Anne Lane to her aunt's house in Ashland. I thought I was just going to an art opening- little did I know that I would find exactly what we have all been talking about- a life in beauty and of creating. The gallery/ home/ studio is a converted mill with a pond and gorgeous woods. The structure itself is amazing, as is the artwork. Enjoy! www.crossmillgallery.com

Everyone Wants to Go to Heaven

http://www.localharvest.org/forum/thread.jsp?thread=229&forum=22

here's a thread of advice from farm-owners to prospective farm-buyers. Very interesting, though question of HOW is still unanswered.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

now we all know we ain't going to be "Spartan-like" if we can help it, but other than that aesthetic choice I like Henry's sentiment here. Given that the fellow spent a good amount of time sucking down whiskey at Emerson's rich-hippy enclave you can't blame him for throwing around a little hyberole about lifestyle. His hut was rather small (seen the old foundation many times; it's like a large grave), but I think that was probably more a result of his fine sense of lazy artistness and/or lack of skill. All that fluff about just enough room to hang your hat and chair upon a nail and blah blah was just justification for his lack of timberframing abilities. With any luck we'll figure out that and rammed earth and a hundred other things. Equal parts elegant, strange, modern and artful it will be whatever can be accomplished by a few smart and energetic kids with a desire to live Deliciously and suck out all the marrow of life. Sorry, Erin the Vegitarian. Just a figure of speech.

The Delicious Revolution

Ok- so I have recently finished Alice Waters and Chez Panisse; The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution by Thomas McNamee. The book was quite the fuel for my fire in so many ways. Not only is food our physical sustenance, it is a part of our spiritual sustenance as well. We take part of the world into us, and it creates us. We share this part of nature with each other, and share our work at its production. The process gives us a better understanding of needs being met.

I loved this book because of Waters' recognition of our holistic relationship with food. It is life. This life is the life we crave.

“...Alice expressed the Pagnolian dream that sustained her: ‘an ideal reality where life and work were inseparable and the daily pace left you time for the afternoon anisette or the restorative game of petanque, and where eating together nourished the spirit as well as the body- since the food was raised, harvested, hunted fished and gathered by people sustaining and sustained by each other and by the earth itself’ (215).

How un-American. How gorgeous!

This idea comes to be known as The Delicious Revolution. An all encompassing, conscious view of our place in the world.

“It’s important to encourage all the other values that are beyond nourishment and sustainability and the basic things. Beauty. When you set a table, you know, take time to do that- teaching the pleasure of work- that’s probably one of the most important lessons. It’s also about diversity. It’s about replenishing. It’s about concentration. It’s about sensuality. It’s about purity. It’s about love. It’s about compassion. It’s about sharing. how many things? All those, just in the experience of eating, if you decide you’re going to eat in a very specific way. It changes your life, and it changes the world around you.
This is the first generation of kids who haven’t been asked to come to the table. And we’re seeing the results. They’re out there not knowing where they are. They’re wandering around, disconnected. Shockingly so. And when they’re not being sensually nourished, nothing’s coming in except the McDonald’s information. Fast food not only comes with poisons inside the food and destruction of the environment, but with values that are part of it. It says food isn’t important. It’s cheap, you eat it fast, and you don’t have to eat with your kids. Food is for entertainment, and it should be all the same. It’s okay to drink Coke and eat hamburgers every day of the year. Things that aren’t advertised lose value. Only things that are advertised are really what’s important” (260).


Alice Waters changed the way we eat. She changed the world. She says, “Think. We need to know where our food comes from. We need to know how to feed ourselves, and we need to know how to communicate with each other. Because we all live here together. Three- quarters of the kids in this country don’t have one meal a week with their family. That’s a breakdown in our whole culture. How do we pass on our information, our values, to our children? Around the table!” (259).

In the beginning...

As we begin this journey, I would like to take a moment to describe a point of inspiration, both natural and sensual- from my darling Wallace Stevens.

Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule,
et Les Unze Mille Vierges

Ursula, in a garden, found
a bed of radishes.
She kneeled upon the ground
And gathered them,
With flowers around,
Blue, gold, pink and green.

She dressed in red and gold brocade
And in the grass an offering made
Of radishes and flowers.

She said, "My dear,
Upon your alters,
I have placed
The marguerite and coqueliot
And roses
Frail as April snow;
But here," she said,
"Where none can see,
I make an offering, in the grass,
Of radishes and flowers."
And then she wept
For fear the Lord would not accept.

The good Lord in His garden sought
New leaf and shadowy tinct,
And they were all his thought.
He heard her low accord,
Half prayer and half ditty,
And He felt a subtle quiver,
That was not heavenly love,
Or pity.

This is not writ
In any book.