Maybe I will be a farmer.

Suvi's adventures in the career search continue!! Yesterday, she trekked to the country, yes indeed, scenic Stony Brook in Long Island! In a car! This was a reunion tour with Ryan and Emily (from the Nauvoo trip... which i think i failed to blog about... but it was fun and we bonded, so much so that we had to get together again). In any case. Ryan is a gardener. Well, he is a grad student at Stony Brook, but in this summer he decided to plant a community garden, which i highly approve of. He grows all sorts of treats, like tomatoes, green beans, radishes, lettuce... you know, the usual goodies. Unfortunately, no one else seems to want to work in the garden with him, so Em and i finally made our way out there to get our hands dirty and help him out.



We spent the afternoon finding sticks in the woods to act as support stakes for the tomato plants and tying them to these beams of wood. I kind of felt like an Old MacDonald sort of McGyver, gerryrigging twine and old t-shirt to sticks to hold up a tomato stalk bearing a bounteous harvest.



No pictures of that though, because we were too busy working.



The thing is, after spending weeks sitting in front of my computer (yeah right! I know you are thinking that, but really, I am very selective in the information i share with you-- trust me, you don't want to know how many hours i spend staring at a computer screen!), I absolutely loved being there, getting dirty, being productive in a very obvious way, helping plants to grow. It felt good to work with my hands and be outside. I read books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The Omnivore's Dilemma and learn about food policy and eating local... It feels good to know where your food comes from and to be part of that process. I was talking to the plants, thanking them for growing and providing me with sun-ripened goodness. It feels natural, and healthy. Part of me really wants to just go work on a farm for the rest of the summer and fall-- go harvest corn or something. But could I do it for a career? I wonder. I enjoy a lot of other things and might get bored. but then again, I think of my friend Jackie and she has a garden and just got chickens and is well on her way to having a cow... little by little she is growing closer to her food and loving it. it seems strange, we had the industrial revolution that changed the world from subsistence farmers to allow for all sort of other professions. I'm grateful for that, but do you think that maybe we moved too far from it? We are so distant from the land and what keeps us alive, and as I learn more about food, the closer I want to be to the process. Regressing, progressing...



I went to the movies last night with Melinda to see Food Inc. It was really good, even though it didn't share much that i didn't already know from past food policy research about the agro-industrial complex, farm lobbies, evils of Monsanto, food access... it was just a good reminder that while it seems impossible to go up against the corn industry, with their high fructose corn syrup in everything, we vote every day, three times a day for what food we want. And it makes a difference. I mean, Wal-mart has organics. It's frustrating to see fresh produce, hormone free milk, and non-feed lot raised meat so expensive, but i think that there are so many things that we can do, for our own bodies, for the environment, for our kids future. Sounds crazy, but eat less meat, eat more veggies, cut out some of the non-essentials like eating out and snacks so we can feed our bodies what they really need and want. I'm not awesome at this by a long shot, but it is something that I think about a lot, and feel strongly about. I know that i feel better when i eat veggies and less sweets. I want to raise my babies like that, because I feel like that is how I was raised to a certain extent. In fact, i think that's a deal breaker.

As for being a farmer, maybe not this year, but don't be surprised in a few years...