From Amaranth to Worms

So I finally figured out why I was having so much trouble with the FoodShed Planet Summer Reading Pick of the Week this year. It goes back a couple months, to when I decided to transfer all my FoodShed Planet posts into a Word document so that I had it all, to save for my kids. Blogger gives you no easy way to do this, so I had to cut and paste every single one of my 552 articles individually, starting from the first one (which was three years ago yesterday, if you can believe it!). You can only imagine how much time this took.

However, as I got to reading it all, re-experiencing the journey I've been on and how helpful, inspiring, funny, or perhaps even touching, others might find the information, I started thinking that maybe it might be worthwhile to see if I could turn this thing into a book. I started becoming way more interested in sharing the book within me, rather than the books around me. The FoodShed Planet Summer Reading Book of the Week was transforming, little by little, into the FoodShed Planet book.

So I had the whole magilla printed at Kinkos one day. Over 1200 pages (more than 350,000 words!), at a cost of about 100 bucks. When I went to pick it up, the guy behind the counter handed me a huge box that I could barely carry.

"What on earth do I do with this monster now?" I wondered.

Well, I did what any good gardener would do. I weeded, ruthlessly. Anything that was too local or too time-sensitive got put aside. That included some of my personal favorite titles such as Loony Bin Organic Milk Momma and Danny Devito on a Segway and a Baby Llama with Roses on Its Head.

As I was doing this, I tried to find some inherit structure in what the thing would become, and I felt as if a title would emerge naturally. For awhile I thought, "Is it A Year on FoodShed Planet, organized seasonally?" No, no,no (although I love books organized that way). But not this one. Too sequential. Too rooted in "place." A Tale of Two Wormbins, and Other Stories made it sound like an Edgar Allen Poe knock-off. And that wormbin photo I took is particularly disgusting.

A whole pile of posts seemed to be natural sidebars in a book--recipes, quick tips, even a bunch that gave "the woes, the wows, and what you can do now." I separated those to add in at the end, and kept culling. I started jotting down topics, and an A-Z list developed. Well, actually an A-W list (I never wrote a zucchini post, if you can believe it!). In truth, it was an Amaranth to Worms list.

Amaranth to Worms. From Amaranth to Worms.

"How completely stupid that sounds," I thought. "After 350,000 words, written from the very depths of my heart and soul, this is what I'm left with as a title? From Amaranth to Worms?" Something else may reveal itself, but in the meantime, I keep imagining the fun a talented designer could have with that as a cover title!

And so that's where I was, as of a couple days ago. Dragging my bag (yes, it is down from a box to a bag) of "finalist" articles around with me, from coffee shops to lunch spots, toiling alone, knowing I now had the hard task of putting things in the final order and ending up, by summer's conclusion (I'm big on setting arbitrary deadlines for myself), with a bona fide manuscript to try to sell during the world's biggest economic downturn in decades (do I officially earn the eternal optimist award if I say I have already fantasized about a book launch party at the 2010 Kitchen Gardeners International meetup planned in Australia?) (and yes, I'm still waiting for the answers to reveal themselves to me about the South of France for this year's meetup, Kate!), when I realized, "Hey, why do it alone when you can put it out there for the world's energy to get involved?"

As you know, this is probably the number one thing I've learned during these last three years on our FoodShed Planet. If I continually work on asking more meaningful questions in life, and then open myself up fully to the journey that follows, I have discovered the simple universal truth that the answers always, always, always reveal themselves. (Not always on my timeframe, however.)

So, here we go. Here is my intro: From Amaranth to Worms: Food for Thought to Help You Live More Sustainably. I'm adding a new "chapter" every single day, starting with Worms and ending with Amaranth (so that it is in correct order when I'm done). You can follow along by subscribing here. And you can do me a very nice favor by sending this to all the literary agents you know :) If I ever sell this thing, you can be sure I will dedicate a portion of proceeds to do something positive in the world.

Oh, and for those of you who have stuck with me these three whole years (big, fat thanks, by the way, and don't you think it's funny that in my very first post I apologized for it being long? Little did I know how long my posts would grow to be over time!), I'll be adding updates and lots of fresh info to the chapters as I go along. The journey has changed. I have changed. And with hope, perhaps, with the oddly titled From Amaranth to Worms on your local bookstore shelf, the world will change for the better just a little bit as well.

From Amaranth to Worms

Neighbors-No-Longer-Strangers Connected by the Call of Something Beautiful

This unloved, unused space under the power lines has been calling to me for years now, like the Sirens on the rocks in Greek mythology. I stop on my bike almost every time I pass and wander beyond the opening in the brush, the glorious break of dawn or glow of late day cascading down the valley before me.

















The obsession has grown greater over time. I dragged a teenage neighbor with me there in the dead of winter and told her my secret thought, "Couldn't you just see a community garden here?"

















My younger daughter and I peek beyond the honeysuckle and wild blackberry bushes every time we walk by on our way to school. And yes, even Richard of the Worms helped me pick muscadines there.








I researched gardens under power lines for definitive links between cancer and the electromagnetic field (there is some loose connection between EMFs and childhood leukemia, but this appears to be for constant daily exposure, not the once or twice a week exposure a community garden would yield, plus I found no indication of any weird effects on the veggies).

I talked, rather obsessively, with several city council members about it, yet the land is not owned by the city so the city's potential involvement would come in the future, if somehow the use of power lines became part of the 20-year Comprehensive Plan (a plan on which we are currently working as a community, and on which I serve as part of the steering committee).

I had squelched the burning desire for awhile, until last week when my friend Robin in the nearby community of Peachtree Corners took me to their brand new community garden--under the power lines. Here it is:

And so my thoughts started bubbling over the edges of my mind again, the soft and seductive sounds of the Sirens ringing in my ears, the pull of a place covered with kudzu, filled with the promise of food and friends and family, growing stronger and stronger.

And wouldn't you know it, right about then, I got an email from a young mother of small children whom I had never met, saying she wanted to start a community garden in Dunwoody. I told her where to meet me and I told her everything I could about the "secret garden" in my mind. I connected her with the Peachtree Corners folks. And I have found her to be the kind of take-charge, can-do person who I know for sure can move mountains.

And then I took another step, a step I wouldn't have thought to have taken six months ago, before my city involvement. I contacted the man who was the number one objector to the farmers market (well, not the market, per se, but its proposed location), a man I actually had coffee with a couple weeks ago, a meeting that lasted three solid hours and revealed to me a smart, experienced, positive person who, dare I say, is the salt of the earth. I asked him to meet us in the kudzu.

And he did.

He is a zoning expert. He knows things about lawyers and liability and insurance and leasing land from homeowners (we'd need participation from about three).

"I'm anticipating resistance," I said. I live in an area with a big "not in my backyard" attitude, and my city involvement has revealed that a long list of all the reasons why we can't do something often leads to "analysis paralysis" here.

"Let's just get the details together first, and see if it is even feasible," he advised. "And then, of course, we'll involve the homeowners."

"Okay, good idea," the other woman and I agreed.

"And, wait, when did I become part of the we?" he laughed.

"You're in this thing now, you know," I said, his feet buried in the kudzu, his heart not far behind.

We left with our research tasks divided, three citizens (born in three different decades) of one of the newest cities in the United States of America, now sharing a small mission that might just change the world, or at least our little 12-square-mile world.

But wouldn't you know it, just a day later, as I was getting out of my car at the pool, a woman I barely know said to me, "I saw you standing under the power lines. What were you doing? That is my property."

I felt sweat start to form on my forehead.

"Um, well, yes, we know that is your land. We were thinking, um, wouldn't it be nice to grow some veggies there?"

Silence.

"Perhaps a little community garden?" I went on, sheepishly.

She looked at me blankly a moment . . .

And then . . .

Then . . .

"I LOVE the idea!" she bellowed.


I breathed an audible sigh of relief and we smiled at each other broadly, neighbors-no-longer-strangers connected by the call of something beautiful on the rocks of possibility.

This whole idea may still crash, like the sailors in search of the Sirens.

Or, perhaps, maybe not.

Neighbors-No-Longer-Strangers Connected by the Call of Something Beautiful

Teachable Moments

When I had my older daughter, I was working at the global headquarters of a Fortune 500 company. After a three-month maternity leave, I went back to my job for six of the most difficult weeks of my life, when, as luck would have it, the company offered a voluntary "retirement" package to all employees and I took it, which gave me the opportunity to launch my marketing writing business, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

Launching a business isn't easy, but I was fortunate to be very busy right away. However, please remember I had a four-month old baby! I kept her in the full-time daycare where she had already started, yet I lived only a mile away and had more flexibility about when to bring her in, pick her up and how to handle sick days, etc. so it was actually quite a good situation.

What I didn't realize was that my daughter would meet four other girls in that class of infants who would go on to be the best friends of her life, or that all of us parents of those babies would become, over time, like relatives to each other. In fact, my friend-who-gave-me-the-magic-camera who died three years ago last month, if you can believe it (and yes, the hydrangeas are blooming again) was the mother of one of those girls.

So I've known these girls forever. Teenagers now, they work as junior counselors for a month each summer at a camp at the community center where they had been babies together. After they finish work, they usually like to stop by the whirlpool to relax and chat a bit. The rules that had been posted for years said you had to be over 13 to go in the whirlpool without an adult, and these girls adhered to the rules to the letter.

So this year comes, and this new sign is posted that limits any user of the whirlpool to 18 years old and older (you used to be able to go in with an adult if you were over the age of five, for a time limit of ten minutes. My kids would dip their feet when they were younger and we spent much time talking about how the whirlpool can help people and how we must be respectful of others who are using it). I ran into the girls when I rode my bike over to pick up my younger daughter and they were very upset. Long story short (although when people say that, it means the story is already too long!), I told them I'd find out some background info and then if they wanted to go further with it (and perhaps try to change the rule back), I'd help them.

Initially, I was told me that the Department of Health required the new rule. Easy research on my part revealed a 61-page document in our county code that did not, in fact, specify the age of 18 as a requirement. After several conversations, I was finally told, "Well, we made this decision because of liability and insurance risk because kids were roughhousing in the whirlpool." It appears as if the kids who were mostly causing the problems were younger children whose parents weren't supervising them appropriately and non-members from a high school swim team who rented the pool one night a week. I suggested possible solutions that would not penalize those who had followed the rules, but I could see I wasn't going to get anywhere.

I had a talk with the head of the center about the "teachable moment" here for a group of girls who felt as if an injustice was done and that they were being denied access to a community benefit for which they had previously had access, at no fault of their own. I told him they would like to present their case to him, and he told me pretty much that there was no chance of change but he would listen to them or reply to a letter from them.

So I saw the girls and I shared what I had discovered, especially how important it is in life to "go to the source" of information and not rely on what you are being told for facts (particularly when the facts just don't sound right).

The girls were upset and explored numerous directions that they could argue. One of them did recognize the chance for change was slim to none, and the fact that they were only going to be working here for another two weeks.

And then I added the lesson I've learned from all my advocacy work for local food, sustainability and the other issues close to my heart:

"Okay, listen, this issue is probably not a big one in the realm of things for which to fight. But one day, there will be something that truly matters to you. Something for which you will be willing to go to the mat. And what you learn now about building a case and presenting a point of view will help you then. So, no, you may not change any thing this time. But if you embrace this opportunity to express yourself persuasively, I can guarantee you one thing for sure. You will change. And that will make a difference in your life."

"Oh, no, Mrs. Baker is going to cry," one girl said, and they all laughed, because that's what I always do at moments like these. Teachable moments. Life moments. Moments when I look into the faces of emerging adults and see the babies they were just yesterday, it seems, and the leaders in our society, with strong voices and confident actions, that they will be tomorrow.

Teachable Moments

When Pigs Fly

So I'm at my friend Farmer Sue's Art Barn at Morning Glory Farm yesterday on a little hay ride around her field when she swings the 50-year-old tractor into the woods and then stops suddenly. She turns around and leans over the flatbed and says:

"Ya' know, I believe that if you do the right things and you trust, then when you ask God or whoever or whatever you believe in for something, you will get it. It may be in a different package than you were expecting, however. The trick is to be able to recognize it."

She said that not long ago, she wanted to expand the farm to the remaining twelve acres that surrounded her current six acres but the price for land where she is (where land is getting snapped up for subdivisions) was $75,000 per acre, way beyond anything she could dream of affording.

Sue then went on to point out the gorgeous house next to the woods, on the piece of land that a couple from Atlanta bought. Turns out this couple fell in love with Sue's animals. They now allow them to graze on their field of grass every single day.

Next, Sue pointed out an elegant new horse barn behind the woods. The owner of this barn keeps her show horse there. Turns out she lets Sue keep her filly with the show horse for company, and she lets Sue board her other horses inside the barn during the winter.

So, no, Sue didn't get to buy that land. But her land use ability grew in a very different way, a way she couldn't have imagined, a way that cost her nothing and enriches her life immensely with relationships she never anticipated.

At about this point, with the way Sue was telling the story, so raw and pure and heartfelt, I started to choke up a bit. In fact, I thought I was going to let out an audible sob, when I heard one 11-year-old say to another, "I thought she broke down," meaning the tractor. Little did they realize that someone was about to break down, in the back. Me.

Back by the barn, where many of the sweet seemingly-straight-from-Central-Casting animals were mingling freely and happily, I kept thinking about Sue and how she allows herself to free-fall into the world's hands. How she left her city life nine years ago and built this place from nothing, animal by animal, art party by art party. How the impossible has become possible for her, little by little, in ways that couldn't even be predicted, and how she is currently perched on the precipice of unbridled opportunity, with several provocative directions readying themselves for her.

It was about then that I saw it. This pig with wings (okay, it was two chickens in just the right position to suggest wings, but still!) and I thought of that saying, When Pigs Fly, that usually means never, that something isn't possible.

Well, folks, this pig is flying. And anything, apparently, is potentially an option.



(Don't worry about the goat stuck in the hay--that's silly Larry and he worked it out!)

(And the lamb in the second picture is Cecil--he was shaved because he just had surgery. He is Farmer Sue's bottle-fed baby and he may be the cutest little guy in the world. And he smells like Heaven.)

When Pigs Fly