An Exercise in Sustainability

Sustainability is a hot word right now.  Rightly so, as it's a really cool concept:  make choices that consider not only your immediate circumstances but the long run as well.  It's like growing vegetables.  Or kids.  They're with you for at least a season (children even longer!), and so one must not only think about today's rain (or lack thereof) but also the weather tomorrow, and next week, and next month!  Holy cow, it's a lot of work.

In the Baha'i Writings, there are a few professions which are given special import.  Those working in the arts & sciences are praised, teachers and mothers are encouraged to give full appreciation of the work they provide, and farmers are recognised as providing a noble and vital service.

And yet only 1% of the population in the United States can profess to be a farmer!  Providing food for the rest of us!

This past weekend, we had the bounty of dropping in on an amazing family - Diana, Bryan & Rachel - owners of Nothing But Nature Farm in southwest Michigan.  I had researched online at Local Harvest [dot] org to find some localish places (one can only get so local in Chicagoland, where it takes a least an hour in any direction to find some dark sky at night) where we could go on our annual harvest trip that we take.  [Ever since before Olivia (our three year-old) was born, we would go out to Michigan and pick apples.  Once we had a baby, and became more aware of the import of knowing our food & thus our farmers, the trip became much more important.]

Sorry for all of the parentheses and brackets.  My grammar teacher would be appalled.

Where was I?  Oh, yes - Michigan.  I found this little farm online and the post invited any and all to come and check out their handiwork.  So we did.  Without calling.  We startled poor Diana & Bryan in the midst of putting up a greenhouse for their winter greens.  They told us that they had had a poor summer, with a drought in July and too much rain in August, and their poor little garden (which was at least an acre) had been sorely neglected.  What had grown was stunted and hidden amidst weeds.

However, valiant souls that they are, they hardly batted an eye and strode out with us to show us what they had.  Proud parents to dear Rachel (who was four years old and at school at the time), they knew just what to do with Olivia, and soon we were feeding the grass-fed cows by hand.  Diana and I chatted non-stop about minerals and plants and I learned some cool things about this little farm:

• Insects see in the infrared spectrum of light.  Whenever something is amiss in the natural world, particularly in plants, it glows infrared.  And the insects are drawn to it.  So if anything is out of balance in a crop, insects will be all over it.  Therefore, the role of the farmer is to provide the earth & plants what they need to come back into balance.  How, you may ask?
  

• Minerals.  Instead of pesticides/herbicides/fungicides, Diana and Bryan use minerals in the soil.  Mainly locally-mined calcium, but also unrefined sea salt, which is rich in at least 90 trace minerals.  The minerals are absorbed into the plants and we get to eat them.  Yum - talk about salt of the earth!
  

• Remember the feudal system and the three-crop rotation?  For some reason, that part of European History stuck with me.  In the same way, clever farmers are able to pair mutually beneficial plants, each which fixes different nutrients from the soil, to not only aid in growth but to also assist with pest prevention.  Apparently, onions are great at keeping rabbits away.  Brilliant!

My favorite part of this entire trip was the treasure hunt as Diana and I, with my eight month-old daughter Elsie tied on my back, tromped through their garden.  Heirloom vegetables, which have a greater genetic diversity and have not been bred into genetic corners, were peeking through the weeds.  We saw green lima beans and  pink okra, white zucchini and tiny purple peppers, orange winter squash and white tomatoes.  It was beautiful!!

And it's been tasty, too.  My favorite have been these yellow tomatoes that look a bit like lemons.

We petted free-range turkeys and chased chickens, and even stayed to dinner, where we ate burgers made out of last season's cow. :)  In the evening, loath to leave, we finally parted, after a quick but brief escape attempt by our three year-old:

Imagine if each of us had our own kitchen gardens...  But I'll talk about that later.  Right now, my fingers are freezing in the evening breeze - our internet's down and I'm at the local café.  So I'll leave with the thought of petting a free-range turkey: