Invitation to a celebration of Chuck

An Invitation to:
Friends and Colleagues of Chuck Waibel

From:
Carol Ford, Garden Goddess Enterprises
 

Warm greetings to all. Most of the people on this list are aware that Chuck Waibel passed away on August 16, just a month after discovering he had stage 4 colon cancer. Thank you for your support in so many ways during that very difficult time and the weeks that have followed.

You may also know that Chuck was awarded a Bush Leadership Fellowship for 2013-2014. He was very much looking forward to pursuing his plan to create a model for a resilient, sustainable, community-based food system. It was difficult to accept that he would not be able to see his project through to completion, but also quite remarkable to witness how many people stepped forward and said they wanted to help make sure his vision would be carried forward. In the end, he did realize that his torch was being passed on to capable hands. This meant a great deal to him and to me.

It’s been hard sometimes to stay in touch after Chuck’s death. Grieving, yes, that. But also, I did not have access to Chuck’s passwords for his computer files. With the patient help of our friend Ben Winchester, there’s now a consolidated folder of email addresses and working files, which we are using to share this information about Chuck’s upcoming memorial celebration and related events.

The memorial will be on Saturday, October 26, at noon, in the Milan, MN Community Center (formerly the elementary school). There will be a potluck following the memorial, along with an opportunity for those who wish to hear about Chuck’s vision related to the Bush Fellowship project’s reformation. We’d like to use this time when we gather together to connect, discuss, and make a few plans for the coming year. If you would like to help continue his vision, but are unable to attend, please fill out this form:  http://goo.gl/meFcKb

Visitors are also encouraged to spend some time checking out the highlights of our small but lively village including the Arv Hus Museum, Milan Village Art School, Billy Mapletree Giftshop and the Karen Jensen Art Gallery. You can also get a tour of the Garden Goddess passive solar winter greenhouse before digging in at the potluck.

Chuck actually took some time while in hospice at home to let me know what he wanted his memorial to include. I always had my notebook close by in those days and wrote down what he said. I thought you might like to know how much he respected and valued all of you and the influence you had in his life and the lives of others now and in the future.  Here’s what he said,

“I would like to see all the people I’ve worked with on local foods to come together to say good-bye to me but also hello to each other. I can imagine them meeting and greeting, finding common cause and pondering new collaborations. So invite them in and, you know, let them be sad for a while, but then bring them together to share food and conversation and just watch what happens! It’s always been about building community. All of it has. Putting all those dedicated minds together—it’s bound to make great things grow. Let them know this isn’t for my sake. It’s for theirs.”

Please join us on the 26^th in sorrow and in celebration of this guy with a vision that was founded on the belief that together, we can built the tomorrow that will nurture us and the communities yet to come.

If you need directions or have questions, please feel free to contact me at fordcj@morris.umn.edu or 320-734-4669.  I can also give you information on area B&Bs and hotels.

These are the Voyages…

Happy belated Apollo Day! Yesterday was the 44^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I’m one of many who believe that July 20^th should be a national holiday. For us, the space program, civil rights struggle, and the anti-war and environmental movements were of a piece. Humanity appeared to be growing up. We were cleaning up our act, seeing others with more compassion, and were willing to sacrifice for the hard jobs. With our sights on Justice, and the glorious adventure that the Universe presented, there was nothing that we couldn’t do together. The Treyvon Martin debacle is just one example of what we’ve lost since those days.

This song still makes me cry- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-1VtFKiBzo

 

 

I’ve had two personal voyages centering here as well. One began a year ago today. I’ve been saying for years that no matter how bad things get, there will be people alive in a century- after all, if that isn’t true, what’s the use of trying? BUT, those people will only have the tools and stories that we send down to them to work with. So, I went on a long drive through several states and provinces to see what some of us are preparing to pass down. I took hundreds of pictures, got hours of interviews, and saw sights both hopeful and depressing. I slept in cheap motels, in cabins in the woods, and on couches in both remote farmhouses and inner-city apartments. I compiled a pretty decent little memoir/travelogue, but it’s lacking the “zing” to make it really work. I’d been wrestling with it for months before it dawned on me to cast it as a letter to those future people. That’s the massive rewrite that I’m working on now.

It occurs to me that those descendants may have trouble believing many of the things I write: “Do you seriously mean that you took off on a journey of thousands of miles, counting on having food, fuel, and places to sleep? Do you mean that you weren’t afraid of being waylaid by bandits, or picked up by some sheriff who needed another body on his chain gang? You must be kidding!” All of those things have been rare in history, and they can be lost again. If you’d told me that in 1969 I’d have laughed in your face.

Then there’s my current personal journey. Yes, I have colon cancer. I feel that I’m standing in the lobby of a big building marked “CANCER.” Tomorrow I go in for surgery, which will mean getting on the elevator over which I have no control. I may get off again on Level One, which will mean that the whole deal is over and done with this week. It could be Two, Three or even Four, which would mean all-out medical war and saying my goodbyes.

In practical terms, I’m in the second day of a two-day prep regime. That means that I’ve had no solid food since Friday afternoon, and must drink several glasses of a salty laxative solution every two hours. It wouldn’t be too bad, except that my guts feel like a nest of snakes half of the time. The “cuttlefish” responds to this by sending out little icy spiky pain balls every few minutes. My chemistry is way off, leading to grotesque mood swings. Anything remotely sentimental gets me crying.

I’m not much afraid of dying. I’ve done that before. What I’m afraid of is not finishing my work.

 

It Just Got Personal- My life has become a metaphor

As some of you know, I’ve been having health issues- weeks of abdominal pain, failing energy, chills, and a raft of other draining not-quite-right things. After months of bugging my doctor to figure something out, he concluded that I had a bleeding peptic ulcer, based largely on my having become severely anemic. What followed was weeks of medication, including an iron supplement that caused severe and agonizing constipation. This was certainly going to cure me if I just toughed it out. My questions and complaints were put off as impatience.

I was eventually able to get in for a colonoscopy and gastroscopy on Monday. The verdict- he was dead wrong. Oh, I did have internal bleeding, but not from a peptic ulcer. My stomach is fine. I have a growth that looks like a mutant cuttlefish in my colon, bleeding merrily away. These things grow slowly, so it should have been plainly visible during the routine colonoscopy I had just three years ago. The chances are 50/50 that it’s malignant, which means that my prognosis as of June 16^th lies somewhere between “painful interlude” and “So Long, it’s Been Good ta Know Ya.” I’m scheduled for surgery to remove the ugly beast next week, by which time we’ll know how bad it really is, how much of my intestines will have to go with it, and whether I’ll be going on Chemo. Oh, joy and rapture unforeseen.

Meanwhile, under orders from my surgeon, I spent most of today, Tuesday, getting a massive transfusion. This was the first thing that my former doctor should have ordered. To add insult to injury, when I got home there was a phone message from that doctor’s nurse, that I need to calm down and try a different formula of iron supplement. I guess that they didn’t get the memo.

A lot of people haven’t gotten the memo in recent decades. Our one and only Earth, like my one and only gut, has been showing symptoms of serious illness for a long time, close to half a century. Aside from a few well-paid loonies and shills, the science is settled- we are screwing up our planet’s climate. It’s our fault. It’s too late to stop it. The people running the planet don’t want to take any real steps, but are tweaking the “iron supplements” of policy in ways which just further centralize things and make them less adaptable. Maybe we’ll muddle through with a painful interlude of economic collapse, die-offs, and the totalitarian government which will inevitably follow. Maybe the consequences will be so severe that all that matters is how much style and grace we show as we bow out. No one can say for certain.

My greenhouse and local foods work over the past decade has never really been about greenhouses or food. It’s been about giving people tools, and experience in a way of thinking, a way that will help them to adapt and thrive in the messy world to come. As long as I have the strength and breath that’s what I’ll keep doing. As a local businessman told me, “Chuck, you may end up saving millions of lives.” That would be nice.

Then there’s that matter of style and grace. I may be about to be handed a rare and precious opportunity. A person’s true character shows best in adversity. I may be about to experience soul-searing adversity. It surely hurts a lot so far. Will I dry up into the whiney husk of a man, or be remembered as one of those noble souls whose fiery trial burned away all the illusions and ego, leaving an inspiration for others? Time will tell. I freely admit that it scares the shit out of me, but know that courage isn’t lack of fear, but being terrified and doing what you had to anyway. Maybe it will be a false alarm, but I refuse to engage in the Bargaining and Denial that climate change deniers do. I only pray that if I must I can be the kind of example that we’re all going to need in the days to come.

Heading into the Bush

I’m sorry that I’ve been away, but things are happening. It’s a new game now.

In just under a month my tenure as a 2013 Bush Fellow begins. (see http://www.bushfoundation.org/leadership/bush_fellowship). This will give me resources to learn what I need to be the leader who can pull off things like the Deep Winter Producers’ Association. I’ll be taking classes, travelling, studying, and discussing things with advisors and mentors.

Those advisors have warned me that in early July, about two weeks after the official Fellowship period begins, I will be inundated with requests from people who want me to work on projects with them. They will mean well, most of them, but they will drag me off in unfruitful directions. As one advisor said, “Don’t go off chasing rabbits. Remember your goals.”

I had a good example yesterday. A man that I met at a recent meeting called. He was gushingly enthusiastic about a project involving lots of farmers with big greenhouses and centralized storage facilities. I interrupted, and something like this ensued:

“I’m not interested in building a ‘shadow version’ of the Industrial Food System.”

“Why not? It’s going to be with us for a long time.”

“No, it’s going to collapse in fifteen to twenty years, maybe sooner. It’s based on too many contradictions and false assumptions.”

<Several seconds of silence>

“I hope that we’re not all stuck eating rice and beans.”

“We might be, but that would actually be a good-case scenario. My mission is to equip people for what’s coming.”

We concluded with the usual “good lucks” and “you’ll hear from mes.” I probably won’t hear from him.

I told Ken Meter (http://www.crcworks.org/ ) about this. He liked my “disarming tactic.”

Not only do I not have time to chase rabbits, none of us do. We can’t afford to waste our time and resources on the interminable gabfests that mostly just fill up reams of newsprint with notes and drawings, or posters with little colored dots. All of us concerned with local foods have experienced these. It can feel a bit like this scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YawagQ6lLrA

Methods for building our resilience exist. I invented some of them, and want to learn about others. Many people have rolled up their sleeves to do good work. We have plenty of reason for Hope- not hope of preserving The System, but of building something new to succeed it. We can do this. BUT, it’s time for action, not discussions that should have been had fifteen years ago. Wish me well, and come along for the ride- we’re actually going someplace.

Better to Work than Whine- What We're Up To

Report from first DWPA Meeting- 020213

(Deep Winter Producers' Association)

Our first meeting was invigorating, except for the people who couldn't make it. It was informal, with just enough structure to be coherent. The dozen folks were excited to meet others who shared their new passion. It had that perfect feel, a neighborly gathering of people who share a wholesome, inviting idea with high potential for good.

We met at the new Elk's Bluff greenhouse, just outside of Montevideo. Tim Elkington had thought ahead to creating a producers network- he built a meeting room in his barn as part of the greenhouse's processing area. It was fine to be sitting around, talking and drawing ideas on a white board, while just through the windows was the greenhouse packed with fresh growing things, on a windy February day. Tim's wife, Shelly, made a tasty salad from Chinese cabbage that they'd raised, and Lorri Maus brought home-made scones.

Of the dozen people, six already have Garden Goddess-type greenhouses. One mother and grown son came for advice- they'd had to adapt the design in extreme ways, and wanted help with how to correct some problems. Two other groups wanted to talk about their greenhouses-in-planning. Everyone knew others that were thinking of building.

One idea with great potential came from a farmer from near Albany, Minnesota. He wants to build a large greenhouse on the south face of his barn, and turn the old silo pit into a fish tank! I was especially happy to hear about his ideas. Aquaponics, the joining of fish farming with greenhouse growing, can produce extremely high densities of good food. He is also an expert on heating and related ducting, with ideas for the rest of us to tighten up our systems.

Every greenhouse is a bit different. We shared design tricks, and ideas about what crops grow better under what conditions. With our diverse, grass roots attitude, everyone's approach brought something that the others hadn't thought of.

We talked about the concepts of the DWPA. Local chapters will concentrate on an area of roughly an hour's drive, with some overlap of territories, and much cooperation between chapters. From the emails and phone calls that I've received, there are already about ten chapters sketched out in Minnesota and the Dakotas. The focus will be on raising and selling food within the chapter's territory. There will of course be some “exports,” but the stress is on Local-ness.

A big discussion point was markets. Everyone who runs CSAs from these greenhouses, across the continent, has waiting lists far longer than they can possibly handle. All of us get requests from chefs and grocers for our product. We can name our prices. Back-of-the-envelope calculations tell us that we could have a dozen or more units like ours in our area and still not fill the demand.

We gathered contact information from everyone, and will be planning more meetings soon. Our focus for now will be:

• Helping everyone to get the best production they can from their units
  
• Helping others who want to build to get started
  
• Setting up communication for sharing ideas and insights
  
• Planting other active chapters in other areas.
  

If you're interested in being a part of this new movement, send me a message. I'm here to help.

Build a greenhouse! Start a Chapter! Change the world, at least a little!

What the Monster Actually Is

I heard my ancestors from the Trail of Tears at my elbow yesterday. I was sitting in a meeting of the Planning Commission in Ortonville, Minnesota. Briefly, the Township had repulsed the efforts of a company that wanted to do aggregate mining. They didn't want the environmentally damaging project next to a State Park and wildlife area. So, the City of Ortonville decided to annex the land and let the project go forward.

My ancestors reminded me that that's been the attitude of this society for centuries. “We don't like how you use your land, so we'll kick you off and give it to someone who can make money with it.”

There are many other instances of the same thing going on, from the spectacularly newsworthy XL pipeline to “local” issues like frac sand mining or nuclear waste disposal. That word, “local,” is the problem. Yes, each instance affects the environment and people in a particular place, but until we realize that they're all of a piece we won't be able to fight them effectively. Our aggregate fight is your pipeline fight is their plutonium fight- are the voter suppression and women's rights fights.

We need to remember that Capitalism isn't the normal economic state of humankind, but an experiment only a few centuries old. It involved, for the first time in history, creating economic organizations which are considered as legal persons. These life forms have only one ethical imperative- to grow and make profits. Such luminaries as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Teddy Roosevelt warned us that they are monsters that need to be kept in cages.

For most of US history there were enough easy resources to be had that The Monster “just” displaced Native Americans. It “just” enslaved black people, then children. The fights that brought us the 40-hour week, safe working conditions, an end to child labor, even the Weekend, are barely a century old. We're in the process of losing them again.

By all means, we need to fight those local battles. We also need to be aware of how they all link together, and back each other up.

But what we most need to do is build an alternative System, as “off the grid” of corporate control as we can. Even growing our own food is becoming illegal in some places- imagine growing a garden as being the civil disobedience equivalent to Rosa Parks keeping her seat on the bus, or to a bunch of guys sitting at a segregated lunch counter. Pushing real Local Foods could get us into that kind of trouble.

Another bit of history. There is a saying from the Holocaust, attributed to Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

They're coming for Homosexuals.
They're coming for Liberals.
They're coming for Teachers.
They're coming for Organic Farmers.
When will they be coming for you?

09/15/12- Elk's Bluff Open House

05:23:11 PM Finally, a break. I got here at about 12:30 to help with setup. I prepared with my computer, business cards, and books in the Processing Room, where I could explain the whys and hows of the greenhouse itself.

Coming up the Driveway

The overall setup is impressive. Coming down the long driveway a visitor sees a big white pavilion tent with tables and chairs. A low bandstand is ready along one wall with a white canvas backdrop. Around the garage are a couple of smaller tents, for serving food and taking entries for door prizes.

The center of it all is the barn-under-transformation. The construction is a bit behind schedule, as we've had several dry, dusty, windy days when little work could be done. They're still planning to be in operation by late October.

Entryway

In the barn's entry and front room is the guest book, with a display of crafts and antiques for sale. Much of the barn has been converted to a funky antique and crafts shop.

Almost finished greenhouse

Toward the rear is the Processing Room. This fifteen by thirty space has two windows and a door that look out into the greenhouse. About one third will be where produce from the greenhouse is packed for delivery. The rest is set aside as a meeting area for organizing the greenhouse network that we envision, and for other community meetings such as Transition.

Just before 2:00, the scheduled start time, we wondered whether anyone would come. Ha! Right at 2:00 a line of five cars turned in- not related, just with the same idea. It hasn't let up since. Carol and I have traded off manning the room, explaining and elaborating. I've occasionally wandered about, taking pictures. I haven't looked at the guest book, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that over a hundred people have come through.

I've personally talked with people from several states- Iowa, Wisconsin, California, and Minnesota, and one from France. Many are thinking about building their own, but some have come representing groups such as food co-ops.


The festivities went on until about 8 pm. The band played, other musicians jammed, people kept coming through... (The short clip is of my wife, Carol Ford, and our friend Richard Handeen.)

This is the kind of community building that makes genuine Local Foods work.

Community- and questions

Community

We had a fine party last night at Java River Coffeehouse in Montevideo, Minnesota. It was a fine party, but for a sad reason. It was to bid a fond farewell to the Wright family, who are leaving our area to move back to the Twin Cities.

That there was good food goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Aside from sloppy Joes it was mostly light stuff- crockpot beans, cupcakes, pico de gallo, slaw, chips. The loyal staff was on hand to make fancier drinks than the free coffee.

Many luminaries from the local arts and music scene, along with many Sustainable Ag folks, were on hand. Java River has two rooms, which worked well- those who wanted to could sit in the louder, more crowded music room, while the bar room was the place for more involved, philosophic discussions. Several people wandered about, alternating doses of crowd and chat.

Some of the folks were writers and scholars of note, so of course talk turned to my book- which brings me to the questions:

Questions

I really need some feedback from my loyal readers on this.

Writing my next book was spurred by people saying that perhaps the Local Foods and Sustainability movements had taken a wrong turn somewhere, so I went to see what was what. Conversations on my road trip, and especially since then, have shifted in their focus. They've become more dire. More and more people are seeing that we've lost the battle to stop Climate Change, that this civilization is going to run right off the Peak Oil cliff at full speed, and that politics has gone utterly insane.

They are losing hope- but the question is "hope in what?" I agree that we're not going to stop the calamities bearing down on us, but that doesn't mean that the situation is hopeless. Hope of avoiding trouble is a false hope, but hope to build something that comes through the tumultuous times to nurture our descendants is very real and sustaining. Pretending that this isn't a stormy sunset does no good, but neglecting that there will be a sunrise is downright blasphemous.

So my question is: Do people need me to take a somewhat darker tone in my writing, but saying that there will be a calm after the storm? We won't be there to see it, but who will be and what they will have to work with are our responsibility. Do I remind that Hope always includes Responsibility?

08/28/12- Step by Step

Can You Dig It?  
We're plugging away at the Elk's Bluff Greenhouse. The trickier subground work is now done. The above ground work will go very fast, especially as a bunch of friends will be coming over to work on it.

Even if all the details aren't finished, they'll be ready for the Open House and party on Saturday, September 15^th. See the Facebook announcement at https://www.facebook.com/events/213681278761712/. Come one, come all! There will be food, crafts, our books for sale, and music on Saturday, September 15^th, 2012, from 2 until 8 pm. Look for the greenhouse on the east side of Highways 7 and 59, just north of Montevideo, Minnesota!

Busy, busy, busy
My next book is also coming along nicely. It brings me joy to remember my voyage of discovery, and to talk over what I found with others.

08/28/12- Good News and Bad News

Good News!

Progress on the greenhouse at Elk's Bluff continues. Yesterday I put in a few hours helping with ventilation pipe for the heat storage system. We should have the entire sub-ground section done by Thursday.

 
Their plan is still to have a big Open House and party on Saturday, September 15^th. See the Facebook announcement at https://www.facebook.com/events/213681278761712/. Come one, come all! There will be food, crafts, our books for sale, and music on Saturday, September 15^th, 2012, from 2 until 8 pm. Look for the greenhouse on the east side of Highways 7 and 59, just north of Montevideo, Minnesota!

Bad News

I got a phone call today from a contact in the Twin Cities. She wanted to talk about the Great Garlic Disaster, which most of us only heard about at the annual Garlic Festival. Few people realize that most of the garlic in southern Minnesota was wiped out by a freakish invasion of leaf hoppers! These critters, blown in on strange winds from Texas, carried a virus that mostly effects garlic. We're lucky, as a slightly different version effects carrots, cone flowers (eccinacia), and dozens of other plants. She's been having some trouble getting solid information on just what happened, and on whether it's safe to plant her surviving garlic as seed for next year.

I told her that this illustrates something that I've seen in my travels- pretty much everywhere is having plagues of invasive species, or locals gone all out of kilter. I've seen mites, Japanese beetles, leaf hoppers, flea beetles, and various borers. In some places they're worried about grasshoppers going berserk just before harvest.

The problem that concerned her is that nobody seems to be talking about this. As gardeners/farmers we're all effected by such events. Knowing what's going on, and what did or didn't help, is vital. I remind folks that we have a site for discussing issues- http://gardengoddessnetwork.ning.com/. It's not much, but it's a way to get the word out. Join us, and post what you've been seeing.

Taking It to a New Level

I'm carving out time as best I can to work on the travel book. My contacts around the loop gave me a lot of good material.



I'm also helping some people here get their greenhouse up and going, as the project has expanded on them. It started with a retired engineer wanting to put a small greenhouse off of his barn. Friends and relations got involved. The greenhouse is now going to be twice as big, and the barn converted into a shop for selling crafts and local foods. The guy is also planting more fruit trees, expanding his spring sugar tapping, and building a chicken coop. This is what the New World looks like.


They're having an open house/grand opening on September 15th, just northwest of Montevideo, MN. (https://www.facebook.com/events/213681278761712/). There will be food, a couple of local bands, and media coverage. We want to start this operation off with a bang. It would be wonderful if some of you could come, to meet our sustainability community, and to share your own adventures. Building community is the whole point, and if our community can help inspire yours, or vice-versa, great.

Road work can be good for you

This morning I awoke to find that it's our neighborhood's turn for the water and sewer upgrade work that's disrupted things around Milan this summer. I got home late from the theatre, so of course they started bright and early, with machinery that sounded like a whole battalion of tanks was invading. The critters were all upset. One cat kept running from window to window, trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I hid in the back bedroom and managed to get enough sleep- I hope.
 
When I awoke it was to find a workman at the door, asking that I move my car. I hadn't realized that they'd be tearing up BOTH streets on our corner. I guess that we'll be parking in the alley and coming in through the garden for a while.

I'm not really complaining. The work needs to be done. Change, especially positive change, tends to be disruptive. This had been put off for a while, so it was being a bit more disruptive than it might have needed to be. Things need fixing when they need it- the longer you wait, the harder it gets.

Being thoroughly awake, I put on some music and tackled housework. Today I chose a '50s pop mix: I like the old crooners, the McGuire Sisters, Percy Faith, and Les Paul. While doing dishes I was hit by an epiphany, one of those moments when several ideas crystallize into something new.

The first insight is very obvious, that change requires tearing out the old structures, and is disruptive and scary.

The second was in considering the sentimentality of the music. You can't really blame those who regret the passing of that age. I know, it wasn't great for everyone, far from it, but it was for a lot of folks.

The third element was the conversations that I've had with people about the idea that Western Civilization hit its peak around the late-middle Twentieth Century.

Then it struck me. By the 1950s we'd hit on the general framework for a just and prosperous society. The Civil Rights protests that were starting then were a sort of “road work,” fixing things that weren't quite right. It was work that desperately needed doing, but could be accomplished. The work got more intense in the '60s. We tackled racial equality, women's rights, pollution, and poverty. These things needed fixing, and could be in that general social framework.

Then it went wrong. Some people didn't like the “road work.” They wanted the peacefulness of the '50s without the disruption. They thought that things had been fine before all those troublemakers got uppity. They stood up to put a stop to the whole thing. Nixon got elected. Fundamentalist religions exploded.

We spent the '70s vacillating, then Reagan was elected, and our fate was sealed. The “road work” was left half done. It became mainstream to say that there'd been no need to “tear up the streets” at all.

Consider that Nixon, a scary conservative, would be a Lefty today. That's how much things have changed.

So, here we are, with far worse disruptions on the horizon. We could have avoided many of them if we'd finished what we'd started decades ago, but too many people found it inconvenient.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

That's that phase completed. In a week I covered about 1650 miles. I brought back hours of recorded interviews, pages of notes, hundreds of photos, and a head full of memories. I found what I went looking for. It's surprisingly simple, yet fraught with implications. I was enraptured at scenery, inspired by what people were doing, intrigued at oddities, annoyed at foolishness, and saddened by looking ahead. I discovered the magical effect on a room of saying "I'm a writer doing research..."

I slept in a cottage in the woods, at two tourist hotels, on a couch on a hippie farm in the bush, in a nice suburban bedroom, and on a hide-a-bed in an apartment in St. Paul. I talked with people sitting around kitchen tables, standing around gas stations and tourist traps, on back porches, in a Chinese buffet, in college offices and classrooms, in lakeside parks, and in a semi-clandestine activist gathering. I rescued a disabled veteran hitchhiker, and jumped an oil worker's car.

I talked to store clerks, journalists, construction workers, civil servants, professors, teachers, and farmers. They were from several countries, and ranged from pregnant young women with strapping young husbands, to middle-aged hippies, to retired folks.

What I found, in barest bones, is that people are scared. They see things falling apart, that nothing is dependable any more. They see different Major Threats, but it all adds up to trouble. Most are just rolling with it. Some are getting pissed-off and protesting. Others are thinking long-term, patiently building.

The New World lies in Community, Trust, Compassion, Cleverness, and Foresight. Those words kept coming up, with spins according to situations and experiences.

As I review what happened I'm amazed at all that I did, and what people came my way. My greatest danger was in taking three hours to make a one-hour drive, with all the pictures and people along the way. I could have taken a month on this trip and filled it. I feel bolstered by the words of Steinbeck and Heat-Moon- I'm an apprentice in their Guild. I can write this book. Books?

Farther North than North

Looking south from farther north than North

Growing up in Minnesota, I came to think of the Lake of the Woods as waaay up there, the sticks, the boonies, a place where dog sleds and voyageurs still roamed. Imagine my surreal feeling at eating fish and chips tonight at a window overlooking that Utter North from yet further north.

My bed in a straw bale house at Room to Grow

Where I am- the Super 8 in Kenora, Ontario. In two days I've gone from sleeping in a hotel in a boom town, across miles of prairie, visiting the site of my earliest memories, crossing an international border, sleeping in the equivalent of an Irish thatched cottage, driving through miles and miles of canola (It smells like warm cauliflower), finding a friend of Minnesota friends on a back road of the Canadian prairie, driving through more miles and miles of canola, finding a place in the bush after three turns on unmarked gravel roads, crashing on a hippie couch, driving through glacial hills, across ordinary prairie, across flat-as-a-pancake prairie, through classic northern woods, past a huge meteor crater lake, into the oldest rock outcroppings on the planet among lakes and trees, to a place reminiscent of Grand Marais, but about five times as big.

Committed

Good morning, world! Hello trees! Hello birds! Hello juniper bush! (If you get that, pass it on)


I was too bleary-eyed last night to file, although I did write several pages of notes that only I will need to decipher.


For a day when I really had nothing planned but travelling, a lot happened. In short:

1. I saw the Prairie in all its glory
2. I met a bunch of interesting bikers
3. I picked up a hitchhiker with stories to tell
4. I saw the camper-driving, Albertan, equivalent of the "Little Old Lady from Pasadena"
5. I had an OK Chinese buffet supper with lots of people to watch

And all this while just heading toward the object of my quest. I feel a bit like Bilbo Baggins.

This morning I got an email about changes to the rest of the trip. My contacts, bless 'em, are hooking my up with excellent sources. I'll have to restrain and pace myself, but I'm embracing the itinerary changes. Oh, the places I'll see!

So, it's off to put the feedbag on Sleipnir, dig into my own life sustaining supplies, and head to Bottineau.
 

07/20/12- Onward

They got old on us!

“They've all gone to look for America”

Simon and Garfunkle, America

I've been in the Local Foods Movement for about a decade. I've seen great successes in that time, including our own greenhouse, and our Northlands Winter Greenhouse Manual. Community Gardens, CSAs, Community Kitchens, and Food Co-ops are springing up all over. The “counter-food” culture has grown and changed enormously in that decade, even making the cover of Time magazine.

But some of my colleagues are expressing doubts. Have our successes been the “right successes?” Are we really building something sustainable, a sense of food-based cooperative community, or just a tie-dyed, free range parody of the Industrial Food System? What do we do now that our grass-roots movement has been overtaken by big players with huge resources, their own agendas, and little desire to coordinate efforts? Is that a good thing that we just need to adapt to, or something to shun?

Then there's the sense of urgency- or the lack of it. Fires, floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures are happening on unprecedented scales. Arctic lakes have begun literally fizzing, giving up their millenia-worth of stored CO². The “recovery” from the Great Recession has stalled out but for isolated industries and places. Writers like Richard Heinberg and John Michael Greer point out that the “Era of Growth” is over. Yet, projects like the Transition Movement are making headway only spottily, and the Local Foods Movement seems to have little consciousness of its own vital importance.

I see enormous needs to prepare for, and have some grasp of how to proceed. Why do others seemingly not see or feel this, or don't know what to do? This isn't necessarily the End of the World, but it's certainly the end of centuries of exploitative “business as usual.” A big change is coming- We can do this easy, or we can do this hard.

It's also a spiritual question. Who we are is inescapably linked with the natural world around us, a fact that too many have forgotten. The Changes, which have already started, will force us to face that reality again. We'll need to devise new answers to the Great Questions: Who are we? What is our place? Is there a reason for our existence? What kinds of answers does a people who have lost everything devise? We've seen the wreckage when cultures are overrun and obliterated- What about when it's all human peoples, everywhere? I believe that those answers are growing, even now.

What's happening out there? Like Ulysses, I've fought my own “Trojan War,” and now undertake a voyage of discovery on my way home. What monsters are others battling? What narcotic lotus blossoms have lulled some to sleep? What seductive suitors are trying to steal away my kith and kin?

I need to go see. I may or may not like what I find. The voyage may even be perilous, but I doubt that it will be boring.

Sleipnir in Milan

I'll try to blog along the way, but may have limited Internet access in some places. The blog posts will also find their way into the book I'm writing, Travels with Chuck in Search of the New World, with an appreciative nod to John Steinbeck for blazing the road-story path. I plan that each chapter of the book will include interviews, photos, and the impressions and ideas that they bring forth.

Almost There

“No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy”
        German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke

I've seen that the same can be said of trips. Just before, or just after, you start something will come up. This morning it did- nothing major, but resulting in a change of route and timing.

I wouldn't mention it at all, except that it relates directly to the book. Several of the folks I'll be visiting are involved in research to make Sustainable Ag more- sustainable. This often involves writing grants, which is a headache in itself. What's worse is how the grant agencies tend to write the requirements for their “Innovation Grants” in such a way as to exclude anything really innovative. They tend to want to fund projects to make fundamentally unsustainable Industrial Ag projects look “greener,” gobbling up funds that new ideas need to come to fruition. None of us has escaped this madness in our efforts.

One of my contacts emailed me today, that they need the time we'd planned on to recover from a surprise of this sort- disappearing funding and changes of plans. We'll still get together, just not when, where and for as long as we'd planned.

John Steinbeck got into trouble trying to take his dog, Charlie, across the US/Canada border. I'm planning to cross that border more than once, but Carol insisted that I need a “Charlie” along. I've also thought that this trip calls for a special cap. Problems solved!

Yesterday was Crazy Day in Montevideo. The dance studio on the main drag was having a garage sale, at which I found an authentic, new, well fitting Greek fisherman's cap, and an ideal traveling companion, a plush koala bear. I plan to name her/him “Travelin' Toonie, the koala copilot.” Toonie cost two dollars. In Canada they have a $2 coin called a “toonie.” Hence- Travelin' Toonie. (S)he will appear in photos along the way.

07/19/12- Preparations

“We are on a mission from God.”

The Blues Brothers (The original, not that crappy sequel)

I finished Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie, again, and have started on William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways and Carolyn Baker's Sacred Demise. These books feel like conversations with good friends- sometimes sad friends, but simapitcos.

Christianity has a saying, “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” Most Faiths have something similar, but that's the best known version. For me, it's that smoothness when I'm “in the groove.” When I'm not, it's like I'm constantly bashing my head against obstacles and clashing with dunderheads.

As Joseph Campbell put it, “Follow your bliss.”

It was that way with Garden Goddess. We built the greenhouse, and things easily fell into place. People we needed to know just showed up. Chances to spread the word competed for our time. Not that it wasn't hard work, but it was work that flowed.

That changed. Yes, our greenhouse manual was selling. Yes, people were building greenhouses. Yes, we had speaking engagements. But, we ran into more obstacles. People started to get weird on us- Ones who should have been partners ignored us or got in our way. Connections and plans that should have worked out, didn't. We could feel that the context had shifted. I started saying to myself, “My work here is done.” We needed to rethink things.

With this trip and writing work, I'm back in the groove. Improbable but significant people have just shown up to be a part of it. I was prepared to camp, but folks all along the way have offered beds.

Carol's story is Carol's story to tell, but I'll just say that she's having similar synchronicities and bliss.

“I'm off to get my life-sustaining supplies- corn meal and gunpowder and ham hocks and guitar strings.”

Yukon Cornelius, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

My, that preface got out of hand! What I was originally going to write about was going for trip supplies. Yesterday I went to the Big City out here, Willmar, population about 20,000. Don't laugh. That would have been considered a city anywhere on Earth clear up until about a century ago- context matters.

As I sat having lunch in my favorite Chinese buffet, finishing Travels with Charlie, and people watching, I got the feeling of being in Rome a few years before the barbarians invaded, or Pompeii before Vesuvius blew. No, not quite Rome- they knew what a threat the barbarians were. There was an episode of Doctor Who a while back that made the point- The Pompeiians didn't really know what a volcano WAS. They had no concept of the danger they were in.

Maybe both apply. Some people understand what kind of trouble we're in, but most don't. The insight that developed from last weekend's incident at the theatre, see my Lessons on Human Nature, is that they literally CAN'T. Getting angry and arguing with them is useless. It would be like arguing with that pleasant Down's Syndrome fellow the other night.

We must each ask, “What am I doing?” not “Who am I arguing with?” or “What fruitless protest am I involved with?”