Thailand, here I come!

In 1 day, I’ll be in Thailand.  For my first trip to Asia, I wanted something accessible.  When I asked on Facebook, my friends pointed me toward Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.  But the timing on those organized trips did not work as well for me, so I booked Thailand.  Similar to Peru in 2013, I have designed an active trip that combines physically demandingactivities with  culture and retreat.   It is hard to top the Inca Trail, but I love the itinerary.  I’ll be trekking to small villages, biking through agricultural areas,, kayaking the River Kwai, staying with families, camping, and seriously roughing it.  I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my some of my best  travel experiences in life,  and there is a definite correlation between the authenticity of the experience and the richness of the experience.

The last time I checked in on this blog, I was driving the streets of Baltimore and contemplating my transitional existence in a city in transition.  My experience was more David Simon than John Waters or Barry Levinson.  And, I was tentatively making a connection between my newfound passion for agriculture and the streets of Baltimore through an ambitious grocery store, Apples & Oranges. 

Fast forward, I’m still transitional, but I’ve landed too.  After accepting a full-time position that has enabled me to live in my eastern shore waterfront cottage, I combine small town life with rural life. Agriculture continues to be a major focus for me and I've found a way to apply my community development skills in that arena.  

I'm looking forward to my full immersion into Asian culture. As a student of Eastern thought (mainly Chinese) for over 20 years, I've put this off too long. First stop, Bangkok. 

Apples, Oranges, crazy drivers, and urban life...

Coming back to Baltimore puts me on edge.  After months of living away, I’ve grown accustomed to a quieter, gentler, lifestyle.  As I drove up North Charles Street, a car traveling about 70 mph, passed me recklessly on my right--only to be stopped at the same red light that I am.  I pulled up alongside the car, my disgust emanating from me, to get a good look at the driver.  The driver was waiting for me.  She already had her window down and, as soon as she saw my face, she started screaming.  “You want….blah blah blah.?”  Repeat:  “You want…..blah blah blah?”  A chant.  She was having a great time, her eyes twinkling throwing her full body into her chant.  This was legitimate entertainment for her. 

I couldn’t hear her, and for a moment, I considered rolling down the window so that I could.  But that seemed risky and all at once, I felt a tickle of uneasiness creep over me.  She might have a gun.  It is impossible to know.  It is not a ridiculous possibility.   I looked her over and made a decision:  She was harmless.  The only power she would hold over me is the power to intimidate me. I smiled.  Not toward her, but as I looked straight ahead.  Honey, I thought, you’ve got nothing on me.   I am at least as crazy as you.  You might have a gun, but I am not afraid.  I refuse.  And with that, the light changed and we both took off.

I had bigger fish to fry.  I was on my way to see Apples  & Oranges, the new grocery store opened by Michele Speaks and Erich March, the multi generationally run funeral home, March Funeral Homes.  I’ve known Michele for years and have watched her talent across a number of platforms, including a stint as a board member to the department of recreation and parks, where she built partnerships with businesses leading to rec center renovations.  I knew her to be willing to speak her mind--smart, with attitude.  She has a huge smile that she flashes frequently, she is impossibly skinny, and when she laughs, she throws her head back.

As I drove across North Avenue to Apples & Oranges, I thought about Baltimore.  It does feel out of control to me.  But it always has.  So why does it bother me now?  At the intersection of North and Greenmount Avenues, I noticed that the fence around the empty lot on the NW corner had a knitted sweater.  Provided by some artist/activists, it could be a sign of hope offered out by one of Baltimore’s great strengths right now, a robust and active artist community.  The streets were lined with vacant houses and the streets littered with trash.  Despite an administration that has pledged 10,000 new residents over the next 10 years, Baltimore feels like a city in retreat.

Michele and Erich felt that they could no longer sit on the sidelines watching people die from heart disease and other food related illnesses.  In Baltimore, it is possible to have a life expectancy vary by 20 years depending on your address.  And many of these deaths are preventable.  Too many of these people were ending up at their funeral home, their lives cut short by heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and more.  Deaths by violence get a lot of media attention, but the deaths through preventable disease are frequently overlooked.  The fact that all of this exists in the shadow of one of the greatest health institutions of the world, the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, provides an ironic backdrop.

So, in the absence of anyone else stepping forward, Erich and Michele took a huge risk and opened a grocery store offering fresh produce in the heart of one of Baltimore’s food deserts a block away from one of their funeral homes.  When I stepped into the store, I was struck by the orderliness and cleanliness of the store, the beautiful displays of fresh produce, and the fact that there were not a lot of customers.  I quickly found Michele and we found a place to sit in her “community area”.  She had some funny stories to tell and some haunting ones as well.  She was active in the store daily and witnessed the behaviors that were leading to those health statistics.  And there were glimpses of hope too.  After one very obese woman defiantly defended her poor eating habits, Michele told her to think about the fact that she won’t be able to see her children and grandchildren into old age.  The woman hugged Michele and told her that she “would try to do better”.  Other customers got advice too.  One woman’s entire cart was emptied and restocked with fresh foods in favor of frozen.  She was given cooking instructions.  At Apples & Oranges, the customers were family.  Apples & Oranges is on the front lines of enormous social challenges and Michele is developing partnerships to help bridge some of those challenges.

When I asked her about her numbers, she said they were behind projections.  I was reminded of my own past struggles with Urbanite and the struggles of the farmers that I had met over the past year.  To boost sales, she was growing her catering business.  Some local businesses and institutions saw the value in having fresh food in the neighborhood and were making a point to purchase catered meals to boost sales.  I, too, began to notice the steady stream of Hopkins students coming by to pick up lunch.  There seemed to be the ingredients for success, a luncheon clientele and a steady catering business.  On the flip side, the realities of selling fresh food in a food desert were becoming clear to Michelle.  For too long the people in this neighborhood have gone without a grocery store.  They have developed habits, behaviors and even a taste for processed, high calorie, low cost food corn based foods.  And these habits will be difficult to change.

The challenges faced by Michele and Erich at Apples & Oranges illuminate the relationship between poverty, food choices, and health outcomes.  Federal agriculture subsidy programs, developed to ensure our nation’s ability to feed itself, have led us to a point where we are only beginning to understand the costs of those policies.  Unfortunately, for the most poverty stricken, it is costing them their lives. 

Bugs and bumpy landings

The first few weeks of my time on Cottingham Farm involved a lot of drama over the Colorado Potato Beetle (CPB), which clearly loves potatoes, but also has a fondness for tomatoes.  Cottingham is primarily a tomato/potato farm, so in hindsight, when Cleo pointed the bugs out to me, she was positively way too calm in my opinion.  At that time, there were few.  And then, almost all at once, there were many.   CPB’s don’t multiply.  They explode. The organic farming official regulations require that we hand pick the bugs off the plant before resorting to any approved spraying.

I was weirdly obsessed about eradicating the beetles.  I took it very seriously and examined every plant to find and destroy every bug or egg.  I found the whole endeavor physically exhausting and wondered to myself why on earth I insisted on being so dedicated to the cause.  Even my co-worker Miguel, after working on it for a few hours, turned to me and said, “this is boring” in his rudimentary English, and found an excuse to wonder off to another more important task.  Not me.  I was undeterred.   I used to love picking blackberries when I was younger.  Actually, I still like it, but when I was younger, I would disappear for hours and hours to the farthest reaches of the family farm to find every possible blackberry.  Somehow, this search and destroy mission lit up those same neurons that loved the blackberry hunt.  So, oddly, I was comfortable taking the lead and I made it my cause.

Later, at a dinner party, I was asked about my farm work.  As I recounted my recent days devoted to picking the CPBs off the potatoes, we all came to the same conclusion:  Organic Farming is hard, if not unrealistic.  Who can afford that kind of labor?  And, it is true.  Studies have shown that organic farming is much more labor intensive, and therefore expensive, than traditional commercial farming. This is ironic (and sometimes infuriating) because commercial farmers are well subsidized--even as their practices erode the land, pollute the waterways, and grow food that is inferior both in taste and nutritional value.

Beyond the bugs, life on the farm has presented other battles.  The summer rains, when they finally came, came in torrents leaving the aisles between the tomato plants filled with water (and tadpoles) giving rise to man eating mosquitos that attacked with such vengeance that one day, I opted to wear my raincoat in the 90 degree heat to avoid their ½ inch stingers.  A couple weeks later, when the heat index hit 130 degrees, I stayed home.  The realities of farming were hitting me.

At just about that same time, the tomatoes began to turn from green to yellow, red and purple, depending on the heirloom variety, and I finally had my first taste.  I have always loved tomatoes and usually will serve them with balsamic vinegar, basil and fresh mozzarella cheese.  But these tomatoes were not in the same league as the tomatoes that I’ve had before.  These tomatoes transcended all of that and wanted to be consumed with utmost simplicity:  sea salt and basil. 

On other fronts, I found my reentry to Maryland to be bumpy at best.  In my mind, the summer was to be transitional:  I would continue to work on the farm, but I would also reconnect with family and friends in Baltimore.  I underestimated the difficulty in integrating the peaceful existence free of responsibility that traveling enabled as I waded into the reality of dividing my time between Baltimore and the eastern shore.  All the while, my left arm, which had been troubling me, was finally diagnosed:  frozen shoulder.  Farming suddenly became even more challenging as I lost the use of that arm and my tentative plans for continuing farming for the next year were suddenly thrown up for discussion.  As I watched Jenna, the 32 year old farm manager, work 3 times faster than me and handle large machinery with ease, I began to awaken to my own physical reality:  I am a young 47, but I’m still 47. 

And while I enjoy the eastern shore and the endless joys that it brings:   Turtles crossing the road in the early AM;  Frogs hopping across the road after a rainstorm; Deer everywhere, including a handsome buck with at least 6 points who comes around in the evenings; Bunnies everywhere (there were 6 and now perhaps many fewer); A young fox and raccoon eating fruit from my trees at sunset; The regular sighting of a great blue heron fishing from my landlord's pier;  The occasional sighting of a bald eagle; Picking blackberries off the bushes from behind my house for my yogurt shake; and the occasional summer storm yielding double rainbows galore, I feel the stirrings of a new adventure calling. 

What? That is the question.  

Farming in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed

My first day at Cottingham Farm began at 9:30 am on a perfect sunny day. There were enough clouds out that I was shielded by the sun part-time while working in the field planting a row of cucumbers. The temperature was mid 70's and there was a constant breeze. Deer flies would occasionally buzz around, but the breeze kept them moving. I was hot enough while working that I 1) seriously considered for the first
time that I may not be able to handle it; and 2) plotted how I would cool down. According to Cleo Braver, Cottingham Farm's visionary and owner, the creek and pond were too polluted from neighboring farms--farms that were not using organic practices. So my fantasies of midday swimming were dashed immediately; the water hose would have to do.

Cottingham Farm is a USDA certified organic farm located in Easton, Maryland on Goldsborough Creek, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay (via the Tred Avon and Choptank rivers). Cleo, an environmental lawyer, and her husband, an environmental entrepreneur, bought the historic farm as a beautiful place to live, not for farming. For a while, they maintained the status quo: the farm already had a farm manager and he was growing corn and soybeans, which is typical for the eastern shore. In the Choptank River watershed (509,000 acres), 60% of the land is devoted to agriculture and poultry production.

This watershed represents only a small fraction of the total Chesapeake Bay watershed, which spans parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia plus Washington DC. It is the third largest estuary in the world with over 100,000 rivers and streams, filtering and protecting the drinking water of 75% of Bay watershed residents through its forests and trees. Most of us already know that it's future is gravely threatened by pollution, but probably like me, don't really fully grasp how and why this happens. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's website, pollutants to the Bay come from 4 major sources: urban and suburban runoff (16%), waste water treatment and factories (19%), Air pollution (27%) and agricultural runoff (38%).

Cleo began asking her farm manager tough questions about her farm's practices. It was not long before she realized that her farm manager had no intention of implementing her requested best practices to protect the watershed. Chief among them was to take 50 acres out of production, about 20% of their tillable land, for the creation of buffer zones and a wetland.

It was at that point that Cleo realized that she wanted to redirect the farm entirely for organic vegetable production. Maryland has 2,050,000 acres of farmland. Of that, only 7,100 are farmed organically. While there may be twice that practicing organic growing without the certification, the amount of acreage USDA certified is not statistically significant in Maryland. Cleo is a pioneer, and her commitment to organic growing and watershed sensitive farming is all the more significant because her farm is a part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Environmentally sensitive farming is hard anywhere. To do it in an area where it must be done in one of the greatest watersheds of the world is an incredibly complex business. As the polluted stream and pond on this farm are illustrate.

While it seems hard to believe, Maryland's eastern shore, potential breadbasket to 3 urban areas of significant size, would appear to be woefully behind in its production of chemical free food. When I asked Cleo about the depth of the market for organic vegetables, she answered, "endless".

Now, 4 or 5 years later, Cottingham Farm has developed a small CSA membership, a high end restaurant clientele-including my favorite,-Woodberry Kitchen, and sells wholesale to Whole Fields. The primary crop is heirloom tomatoes, but there are a great many more vegetables grown on the farm.

In this blog, I'll explore the interrelationship of agriculture and the environment through the lens of food farming and Maryland's eastern shore. I'm fascinated by Cleo's vision, one that sees Maryland's eastern shore taking its rightful place as providing healthy and environmentally produced, locally grown food for Baltimore and Washington DC. Cleo explained to me that the market size should decrease, not increase. The idea is to localize, deeply localize food production.

So, on .008% of the farmland in Maryland, my education on my own home state begins from a completely new perspective: agriculture. Can this region, through organic and humane animal food production, become more diversified and economically vibrant while positively impacting the Chesapeake Bay?

Northbound, farm bound and Phase II

My Phase I Wwoofing experience was drawing to a close. Moore Farms was my last farm before I started the long haul to Maryland for what I'm now calling, Phase II. Family matters have unexpectedly come up and I feel the need to be near loved ones.

Over the past 3 months, I've learned a lot about chickens and their eggs, ducks, pigs, quail, and goats, including how to milk one. I've learned to make cheese, yogurt, and bread, drive golf carts, ATVs, a tractor and a roto tiller. I've planted and or harvested herbs, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, flowers, carrots, and potatoes. I've met strangers that became friends, I've struggled with 12 hour work days, the cold, and very occasional loneliness. My diet has changed dramatically, from one heavy in fatty foods and meat to one lower on the food chain and many fewer lattes and alcoholic beverages. I have never felt more adamant about where my food comes from.

I've learned that I need to live near a town with amenities, that I'm not ready to give up lattes or the Internet, that I can now awaken and get dressed in 50 degree weather, that I want to have a little local honey in my tea every morning, and there is nothing more delicious than well made granola. I've learned that I want to spend more time going to see and hear live music, particularly bluegrass, swim in fresh water, hike, write, and be outside (don't we all??!!). I've learned that simpler is better, but hard to achieve.

And while it is too early to draw conclusions, there are standout observations that suggest a direction for me. At every farm, I lived in community, sharing meals and work, and I found it to be lifting, not difficult, never unpleasant. Communal living doesn't have to mean "commune", connoting as Floyd said, "I do all the work and you take all the money". So, I expect to explore this lifestyle a lot more. As for farming, I've learned that it is really, really hard. Really hard! People have always said that, but it is. And it is fulfilling. At least farming the way farming was done on Wwoofing farms, not factory farming (as brutally described in Michael Pollan's brilliant "Omnivore's Dilemma"). Physically, I wonder if I'm up to farming. I reinjured my arm pretty dramatically and my body seriously aches. The sun bleaches my hair and is making new wrinkles! I have lines around my eyes that I did not before-- even though I wear sunglasses constantly.

To get home, I planned a long trip that entailed a visit to Panama City Beach, Knotty Pine Farm, Asheville, Blacksburg, and West Virginia. Along the way, I paid Homage to FDR's Little White House.

Driving lends itself for reflection time (and listening to crazy talk shows that leave me beyond astonished at what is said on them) and I found myself reflecting on the state of the union, so to speak. Truthfully, I was surprised I did not hear any talk of revolution or political dissent as I traveled. There was an underlying theme that underpinned many of my interactions and that theme was the need for people to be in control of their destiny. There seemed to be general consensus that our food sources are insecure, we cannot escape chemicals, and water supplies will be a huge issue in the not too distant future. Energy and how it is produced was another major concern as was the changing weather patterns. I did not hear people talk about Syria, scandals, terrorism, or Hollywood.

The people I met, like myself, were drawn to farming at least in part, because none of us trust the government (which is "us" Lani always pointed out) to get it right. Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring" in 1962! We know that we are poisoning ourselves. We see the evidence in our loved ones in the forms of cancer, depression, neurological disorders, asthma, and suicide.

The short-term decision was clear: keep farming.

So, I pointed my car North so that Phase II of my journey can begin: One farm, all summer on Maryland's eastern shore.

Back roads, getting real, and ladybugs

Even in two weeks, it is possible to form a strong attachment to the projects I have worked on at a farm and the dream of the owners.

I arrived at Moore Farms on a beautiful, warm sunny day. For the first time this trip, I drove with the top down on my convertible, feeling as if I had robbed a bank and gotten away with it. I had just left Knotty Pine Farm and was charged up from great conversations, friends, and dreaming.

This is not to say that I wasn't a bit nervous about a) going to a new farm; and b) going to a new farm as the sole Wwoofer in the back hills of Alabama. Back hills means back roads, and once I was clear of Atlanta, I was traveling on windy two lane highways. As the incidence of trailers and road kill increased, so did my anxiety. I was used to back hills because I spent most of my childhood weekends in West Virginia at my family's farm, but this was Alabama, the South, and I was alone. Plus, there was that confederate flag hanging across a porch of a house along the way. This was new territory for me.

When I finally pulled down the road leading to the farm, my stomach dropped as I navigated major potholes on one of the worst dirt roads I had ever seen. The scene was not encouraging. My first view of the farm wasn't encouraging either. Overgrown grass, a animal yard that was decidedly not pastoral, and a pile of trash on the hillside. "Trash? Seriously?" I thought. "There is no way I can stay here."

I parked, entered a building that had a sign, and found three women working away. Laurie, the farm owner, greeted me with a big smile. "You must be Tracy". I admitted that I was. Laurie dropped what she was doing and gave me a quick tour of the farm. The trash was not garbage, but a huge pile of packing boxes. Moore Farm (and Friends) is a regional CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). I was excited about their model because they have a sophisticated online purchasing system and broker local foods and produce from over 30 farms. Cardboard packing boxes, lots of them, is an unfortunate bi- product of this system. Every week or so, the boxes become fuel for an enormous bonfire.

Laurie showed me my digs. I had a renovated barn to myself. The bed was cozily made up, there was a kitchen and bath, and a huge wall of windows overlooking woods and fields. I immediately went out to the fields to inspect the grounds (and to seek a phone connection, the lack of which was magnifying my anxiety). They were beautiful, filled with red clover, barley, and wildflowers. Laurie and Will use a cover crop system where they plant the cover crop next to the food crop. Once the food crop has been harvested, the cover crop takes over. Because it was still early Spring, there was not a lot in the ground except for carrots. I would get to know those carrots intimately.

It was hard not to defrost around Laurie. She was easily one of the most knowledgeable people I had encountered on my trip. She was full of information, sharing with me the ins and outs of the business, candid about hardships, and incredibly positive and uplifted about the benefits. The other really important detail: Moore Farms is walking the talk. It was the only farm so far that served only organic/naturally grown foods and used environmentally friendly products everywhere. No cheating on this farm. And the results were apparent to me later when I was in the fields. I saw more ladybugs than I've ever seen anywhere. And, the bird life was incredible.

Any issue, was decidedly mine. This was the first farm that I visited where the owners were making a living. There were some stark realities with living within the farming budget. The animal pens were all made of recycled materials. The fences were functional, not pretty. Yet. The cleansers were enviro-correct and more expensive. I was humbled. I legitimately had to ask myself about my own priorities. And so, my next two weeks of farming began. A new dream to wrap my brain around.

Southern women, smiles and shaped brows

After a few days at Knotty Pine Farm, I found myself downplaying my "northern-ness" and emphasizing my tenuous connection to southern culture: "My mother's family was from Richmond....". And truth be told, I've always felt a special connection to Richmond with it's gentile architecture and less frenzied pace. Plus, two of my closest friends are from Alabama. And even though West Virginia is not southern, I'm half West Virginian and feel that gives me plenty of latitude as far as the whole gun thing goes. Plus, Maryland is on the Mason Dixon Line and the eastern shore is clearly southern in my mind.

After close observation of the women in Mobile, I determined that one secret is to smile. Not a fake smile, laced with sugar, barely covering strain and stress taut face muscles, but a full on flash bulb kind of smile. A smile that really did make me feel welcome and want to sit down with a glass of sweet tea and stay a while. I found myself wondering if they taught this in school.

So, I practiced this. I had been alerted to the whole smiling thing before by one of my southern friends, but that was in the context of flirting. This was different. This was equal opportunity smiling. I had some work to do. To help myself along with my attempt to pass, I also threw in some southern euphemisms, like "y'all", until Floyd called me out on it.

Lani tolerated this, but she is convincingly, assuredly, and confidently, northern. New England northern, in fact. I, on the other hand, want to ferret out all my possible parts, and I was hoping to find or create some southern in me. Or, maybe I'm just Mason Dixoned.

That weekend, Floyd and I went into town for dinner at the local saloon (the one that doesn't actually sell alcohol) to eat and hear some live music. Kim and Lani had gone on a two day trip for a meditation seminar and we were left holding down the fort. The restaurant was packed and I did my usual scan to see who was there taking note of outfits, makeup, hairstyles, and smiles. We had arrived to town on an ATV, which seemed pretty authentic, and I purposefully did not wear my urban eyewear, which surely would have outed me as a urbanite. The ladies in the restaurant were not decked out at all. I fit in.

Dinner seemed to go smoothly enough. I was facing the musician, who was quite good incidentally, and Floyd and I chatted about future plans for the farm while he waved and greeted nearly everyone in the room. So, I was quite amazed, and maybe just a tad humiliated, when the musician, who had not been talking much at all up until that point, looked at me and dedicated the next song to the northerner in the room. He said it was a song about how things are done down here in the south.

I was quite flummoxed. And Floyd seemed a bit unraveled as well. This was out and out finger pointing and it was done with a level of seriousness. He nailed me, but based on what? The song itself had a bunch of lyrics that celebrated southern hick-ness. I was a bit distracted, but I know there was a line about rifles, and definitely one instructing me to never order grits (because they always come as a side).

I scanned the room once more to see what physical characteristic might alert someone that I'm not "one of them". I decided it was the eyebrows. Southern women all have very shaped eyebrows.

Eyebrows and smiles. They go a long way.

PS. The extra beautiful images are compliments of Lani.