Visiting my favorite urban farming family

Dave and Shauna Wolfgram a la American Gothic

Its the exception, not the rule that families are able, have the wont, or succeed at growing anything more than a salsa garden these days. Meet Dave and Shauna Wolfgram, urban farmers in Ogden, Utah. The Wolfgrams, however, are exceptionally successful at most things they set out to do. Their home sits near the heart of downtown Ogden. Their lot sits on about half an acre, surrounded with tall, old trees, complete with a white picket fence. The perimeter of trees adds a warmth and protective layer for their family, their gardens are an urban oasis.

As you walk up to their front door, strawberries, bamboo, perennials, and herbs peek out from their winter beds to greet visitors. The white picket fence encloses the wood stores for their wood burning stove, and just beyond that begins their gardens.

Springtime in permaculture gardens, such as the Wolfgrams, calls for preparing the land for the growing season. Dave opts for techniques, such as sheet mulching, for weed control and to keep the soil moist in the arid climate of Utah. Dave saves his cardboard all year in order to repurpose it in the garden. Once all the cardboard is laid down on the ground, the leaves that fell the season before can be raked on top. His gardens are free of weeds without any need for noxious alternatives. He

Repurposed pizza boxes

bypasses the back breaking tedium of weed pulling by simply employing the old pizza boxes collected over a winter.
Not only does the cardboard get mulched back into the dirt, the Earth receives the benefits of the nutrients that decaying matter offers, by the very act of decaying. The return of the leaves and yard clippings to the soil enhances the nitrogen cycle and the opportunity for increased biodiversity is encouraged.
Dave's commitment to permaculture techniques go on in his gardens. He employs the method of companion planting. This is not a new method. The Old Farmer's Almanac says that the Iroqouis tribe employed this method of farming three centuries prior to the arrival of the Europeans. The trio of plants are symbiotic. The Almanac describes their relationship with love and affection, personifying the trio, when planted, as a real set of sisters helping each other to breathe and grow. They have to planted in order, a few days apart.
                     "As older sisters often do, the corn offers the beans much needed support.
                       The beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three.
                        As the beans grow through the tangle of squash vines and wind their way up the cornstalks into the sunlight, they hold the sisters close together.
                        The large leaves of the sprawling squash protect the threesome by creating living mulch that shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist and preventing weeds." (The Old Farmer's Almanac, 2014.)
 

If you look closely at these pictures, you can see the three sisters growing up together right before your eyes. These pictures are from the last growing season. It is a return to stewardship and symbiosis with the Earth that permaculture provides to urban farmers. So much of that has been lost in modern society as the quest for the almighty dollar replaced the simplicity of living in rhythm with the natural world.
Dave and Shauna make the garden a family affair, just like this course has discussed. The renaissance of close family ties and reinstallation of farming as a way of life work symbiotically, just as the three sisters do in the garden. The Wolfgrams' children are also involved in the life of the garden. Their playful laughter rings through the corridors of the food forest growing in this urban setting. Their hands work the dirt and harvest the vegetables, sneaking cherry and pear tomatoes in the heat of the summer. Their boys have grown up in this garden, not as a relic or some token plot of tomatoes and jalapenos for salsa, but as their way of life. It would not seem so strange and inspiring to learn about all the ways to simplify for those that have only known that.
                                                                                                  
Dave has been my friend for 22 years now. I have always admired his commitment to living a life in rhythm with the natural order of things. Shauna, his wife, is the perfect compliment for him. Their relationship is as symbiotic as the three sisters. Their children understand how to work the land in the age of technology and how to provide food for themselves when the vast majority of the world is dependent solely on the produce section that offers their travel durable fruits and vegetables. It may sound a bit like romanticism and embellishment, but this is the light that shines on this family in my eyes. I hope to find a place to settle in with my own children and teach them to provide for themselves in this manner before the age of technology divorces them any further from their only home, the Earth.














Harvesting & Shucking Corn 'til Sundown Rustic Landscape Painting

Walter Curlee, United States, 2009

16x20 Oil on canvas

 

Walter Curlee created this work in 2009. The artist's statement, on his website, conveys his intention of creating images that inspire recollection of simpler times.  

It is impossible to tell, aside from the title, if these men are up in the wee hours of the morning, or enjoying the day's last rays of light. Whatever time it is, they are together, working together, sharing a moment of their time together, without electronics, without other distractions, just the two of them.

The subject that strikes me about the image of this father-son duo, is all the rolling hills as visual ups and downs, exemplifying the epitome of farming life. From season to season, times may be good, or they may be bad, but the family works together, no matter what. The colors are dramatic and rich, providing real edges to the images of the piece.

The visual reality of the piece itself remains true to the thread of imagery woven all semester about the farmer performing selfless acts of service. These two men, and their third behind them near the truck, are away from the rest of their families, in this case, until sundown, as per the title of the piece. Thinking not of themselves, but the people they serve, they are out in the fields, finishing their days work with the moon and the sunset for light. The three men could represent the trinity of God the father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit, if one wanted to dig into the spiritual element that accompanies farming for a lot of people.

In the excerpt from Paul Harvey on the Ram 2014 commercial, God had everything to do with the implementation of the farmer. The selfless caretaker of the divine creation. The thread of humanity willing to sacrifice everything for the land and the other inhabitants of the greatest work of the creator.

The reality of the farm, in our current day context, centers on family, as most of the farms in America are family owned and operated, passed down from generation to generation. This image is spot on for the reality of the tradition of farming, the passing of the torch from generation to generation, the education conveyed from father to son or daughter. According to the website Thank a Farmer, "Less than 1 percent of America's farms and ranches are owned by non-family corporations. The other 99 percent are owned by individuals, family partnerships or family corporations."

The message I read in this image is that family and farming go hand in hand. The father and son working together is what the whole act comes down to. The selfless time the farmer spends handing down his knowledge and understanding of the land is priceless for the son, the worker, and every mouth that food feeds.

 

Walter Curlee. Harvesting and Shucking Corn 'til Sundown Rustic Landscape Painting Web 2009

 

Paul Harvey, The Voice of the Farmer: Paul Harvey. Web Ram: The Next Crop Project 2014

 

Thank a Farmer, Fun Facts About Farming. Web Thank A Farmer



Modern Day Farm Folklore

"Oh the times, they are a'changin'" says Bob Dylan in 1964, and they continue to change. So does the face and game of farming and its stories. Some farms have become cooperative ventures looking to serve more than one family with healthy, happy foods and not engage in unhealthy farming practices. In the face of factory farming, co-ops provide a way for people to pool their resources and farm in a more effective manner. The farming cooperatives take on lives of their own and employ the internet to coordinate and work effectively. The web makes the transfer of information so much easier and these farms can effectively serve whole communities and link up with other area cooperatives.

 

There is a culture of farming co-ops disseminating their stories via blogs, just like this one http://www.normansfarmmarket.com/farm-market-folklore. This blog, for Norman's Farm Market, caught my eye with funny stories of their farming experience, which is what folk tales are. The stories we tell and retell to get our lives out there, to leave something of ourselves behind to be told again when we have moved on. The things of legend arise from the everyday.

This family farm, Norman's, was founded by brothers and continues to be run by these brothers. The story I read on their blog that was the thing of lore was a story about watermelons and a Grateful Dead show. Where better to start a folk tale but on a dead lot? They have tales of their battered fleet of modern farm horses (trucks), stories of friends they have loved and lost, and pieces of history related to this farm that have encapsulated a family and a community since 1987. The stories on their blog have probably been told over and over, word of mouth, the makings of folk legends in their part of the world. This is modern day farming folklore.

An unlikely duo of folklore showed up in Utah Phillips and Ani Difranco, two modern day folk spinners and musical geniuses.

 These two put their heads together to put out two albums of modern day folklore, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere and Fellow Workers. These tales do not focus on farming, but on riding the rails, anarchy and post Korean War America and what that war did to its soldiers. This is another facet of American folklore in our modern days. Utah Phillips travelled the country, the world. He subscribed to many innovative modes to tell his stories. I own The Past Didn't Go Anywhere and I saw Utah Phillips at the Egyptian Theater in Ogden. They don't make them like that anymore. Ani Difranco is a one woman liberation army. She has made her way through the music industry weaving stories of growing up on her own, offering women of all ages solace in her words and the stories she's willing to share. A better marriage of folk singers I've never come across.



“Sing your song
Dance your dance
Tell your story
I will Listen and remember”
― Utah Phillips 

Seeking Sweetness, Beauty, Intoxication and Control

How commonplace to see an apple, a tulip, marijuana, though maybe not as common, and potatoes. There does not seem to be anything excessively important about any one of these things, until you look through the lens of Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire. The creative meanderings of this writer's mind takes the reader on a journey through the history of each of these individual elements and the desires they represent in every light from the sacred to their demise. 

The Apple, The story of sweetness

The apple has long since conjured imagery of the Garden of Eden, Johnny Appleseed, Americana, a vision of health that will keep the doctor away if you eat one a day. All of these ingrained images. How about if we flip the lens, as Pollan has done, and look at it through historical eyes as the apple traversed the desires of people for sweetness seldom found in days of old, as well as the drink, the wine of the Americas.

Humans, especially farmers, have worked to domesticate the wildling fruits and vegetables available to them for as long as they've understood how. Some things just will not play ball. Oak trees are one such species that refuses to conform on any level. Apple trees are so much more individual than I had ever known prior to reading this book.

The trees do not "come true" from seeds. A tree planted from a seed will not bear remarkable resemblance to its parent plant. It comes with its own identity, flavor, and temperament, much like humans. Apple trees can be broken, like wild horses, it seems, but their inherent nature is that of a wild, unpredictable fruit.

The sweetness is what first beheld the wanting for the fruit. Sweetness was once a rarity, a delicacy. There were not many things that naturally bore the innocent sweetness of an apple. Sugar. That first of intoxicants introduced to the human consciousness. The sweet tooth. The other derivative of sugar...alcohol.

Apples, not native to the Americas, were imported to the lands when settlers arrived here. Probably carried on the soles of one's shoes, the species had to do some evolving to survive here. The patron saint of the Apple story was a man by the name of John Chapman. He has been glamorized into the vision of Christianity, bearing the sweetness of forbidden fruit to the new world, when in reality, he was a great business man with an eye for the future and a quirk in his heart.

There is an abundance of folklore, his fame walked with him in his bare feet even in his living days. He was a legend in his own time. He got ahead of the progression westward across the continent, leaving apple orchards in his wake. He did so from seed, mostly, not from the grafting process employed so much today. The trees he procured were wild, to quote Pollan ""Dionysian." Their fruits, best for the making of hard ciders to warm pioneer hearts and release some of the tensions of life in the wild.

There were once more varieties of apples than could be named. Now, in line with the demand for getting what we know, exactly what we want, the diversity of the species has dwindled. There is a place in New York that is a living museum seeking to cultivate the biological story of the apple from its beginnings in Khazakstan to its time in the spotlight of the America's.

The moral of the sweetness story is one so pervading in our culture today. By the mere availability to sweetness, the specialty, the delicacy, the paramount importance placed on this simple fruit has been "cheapened" by its sheer accessibility. That is the story of our times.

The Tulip, The story of imperfect beauty

 



Tulips are everywhere, heralding the spring, the break from the cold winter. They overshadow even the daffodils and the crocuses who make their appearance sooner. Why? What is the draw of these flowers?

Flowers are beauty incarnate. Unless one is clinically depressed, flowers will always incite tenderness in the hearts of humans. Humans have used flowers as a sign of food in our days as hunter/gatherers. They were a means of keeping time, to know when seasons would change, etc.

Looking at life through the lens of this book, through the eye of the tulip, is fascinating. Michael Pollan allows the reader to become the flower for a moment, understanding that flowers lure servants to spread their seeds and meet their immobile needs through fragrance, sensuality, and the captivating trance of beauty.

Tulips originally came from the East. They were fresh to the eyes of Europeans. They are colorful and said to be stolen, giving them the allure of taboo. Every so often a tulip would appear so radical in color, in total, riotous rebellion to the surrounding flowers that they intoxicated a whole country, Holland.

Tulips, like apples, grown from seed don't "come true." The bulbs of the flowers, like the grafting of a tree, will produce the same kind of flowers. Farmers quit farming, everyone dropped everything to deal in the business of beauty, in the business of tulip bulbs.

The beauty would be its own undoing, unfortunately. The rebellious flowers were "broken." It was a virus that incited their colorful stray from the Apollonian order of yellows, reds, pinks. Their beauty, as it is with beauty sometimes, was the bane of their very existence. The cultivators of these unassuming flowers were, in fact, leading them down the garden path to disease and death. The irony. The tulip has fallen victim to the same destructive energy as the apple, commonality. It seems humans do not value the everyday in the same way they value the unique, the once in a lifetime vision of beauty or experience, which brings us to the next desire...intoxication.

Cannabis, the forbidden fruit

 The forbidden fruit of our day. A plant that has been the subject of an all out 'war.' The road to intoxication lies within the buds of this plant, although, it is not the only plant to produce intoxicating effects. Many of our modern day medicines are derivatives of such plants, poppies, for example, produce opiates used in morphine to quell intense pain, as well as heroine that incites ecstasy in its users. The coca plant is used as stimulant to natives in South America for energy, but can also be made into cocaine. Marijuana itself is proven to have medicinal effects for ailments such as glaucoma, premenstrual symptoms, insomnia. Hemp oil was just legalized in cancer treatments here in Utah. But why...why the psychotropic plants in the first place within the plant kingdom? Why is there such a desire for the altering of one's consciousness?

Intoxication is nothing new. Psychotropic plants have been used for millennia, since their discoveries. The wont for the blurring of the edges of this mortal reality is all pervading. Pollan even goes so far as to cite the spinning of children for the feeling of dizziness as a gateway to the search for fraying those edges just a little. The effects of the plants create their taboo. Their taboo created their niche in the underground world of cultivation.

Modern day alchemists of light, water, manipulation of time and the cloning of females has become art in the world of marijuana cultivation. Although these untrained botanists must remain hidden from view here in America, we visit Holland again to see that the cultivation of this plant has become, in fact, a search for perfection that is coevolving with the growers as well as the plants themselves.

These plants have an amazing openness to the indoor growing conditions that have been forced on the cultivators due to the war on drugs here in America. What the enforcers of the laws did not expect was that the plant would not only participate in the synthesis of its domestication, but thrive under these new conditions, increasing the potency of its THC, the psychoactive ingredient most under scrutiny. Taboo and the forbiddance of the subject has become the object of incredible desire. Irony.

The Potato, an unassuming image of control

 The potato. Seems innocent enough. Pomme de terre they call it in French, apple of the Earth. Unassuming. Nutritious. The subject of intense control issues and unnatural intentions is what this apple of the Earth has become. The potato rounds out Pollan's delve into the mysteries of how humanity relates with the fruits of the Earth in this book. I had thought it would be the most uninteresting chapter of the entire work, was I ever wrong.

The potato represents an almost complete source of nutrition, save that of Vitamin A. It is easy to grow, thrives on neglect like most house plants I keep alive. Grows in the dark; however, it is flippant. It requires the right conditions for such easy care. Here begins the paradox that plagues the potato and those who try to harness it, try to domesticate it. The potato, like the Oak tree, doesn't necessarily want to play ball and has, at times, reminded humanity that in diversity lies the key to bounty.

Here we become familiar with Monsanto, a company who has changed the face of agriculture forever. Although they are not the first, Monsanto has taken to playing God with the production of food. Humans have always selected for their most desired qualities in the foods they grow. Those selections have mostly been within the realm of the species of the vegetable or fruit. Not in the case of the "Newleaf" potato. The agricultural giant has actually learned to splice genes from bacteria into the potato. The FDA, according to this book, doesn't even recognize the "Newleaf" potato as a food, but rather a pesticide as it will kill the Colorado potato beetle all by itself.

The procurement of such an organism is dangerous territory, especially to tread with the potato. The poor people of Ireland became reliant on the potato. The nourishment from the pomme de terre spurred a population spike, gave the people the avenue of independence, to grow their own food and break free from the restraints of binding government laws and impoverishment. That dependency, that nourishment, became those very same people's demise when a fungus wiped out the crops seemingly overnight.

Pollan interviewed three separate potato farmers in Idaho. One was an older farmer trying to wage chemical wars, with the very pesticides Monsanto provides, against the plagues of Russet potatoes and losing. He would not even eat the potatoes he was producing. The next farmer was riding the wave of "Newleaf" potatoes and technological advances in the maintenance of his fields. He ate those potatoes but did warn that he was unaware of the long term effects of their existence. Our last farmer, an organic farmer practicing attunement to the rhythms of nature, employing the methods of variety in the planting of potatoes, knowing the diversity is the only defense against the plagues of potatoes. Not controlling the plants, but working with them harmoniously.

 

So what does all of this mean? For me, reading this book made me want to throw some apple seeds out to see if they'll "come true," take some time to study this spring's vision of beauty in tulips, experience the psychotropic avenues Mother Nature has afforded us, plant an array of potatoes and buy organic.

Michael Pollan aligns these four species with ideas of Greek mythology, Christian history, the muting of Pagan influence across the board in recent history, paradoxes, adventures, worldwide participation in the cultivation of beauty, sweetness, intoxication and control in one delicious work of written words. Who knew the procurement of farming and agriculture was so rich with adventure, stories of thievery, death, underground dealings and a new world order?

 

 



Relative Legislation for my life

By now, everyone has heard Monsanto, I hope. If not, they have a very informative website about the craft of manipulating seeds and genetically modifying the foods we eat. Hopefully everyone has also heard of Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. Both of these entities are key in the questions surrounding genetically modified foods and whether or not the general public should be aware that their foods have manipulated.  

 

To some degree, genetic manipulation of plants has always been in practice, since people began trying to select for certain traits to be more prevalent in early farming and crop cultivation. Under the increasing demand for crops, as our population grows, genetically modifying things so they grow faster and larger is one solution humans came up with to address the problem. So many things have been genetically modified up to this point. Farmed fish are genetically modified and are not supposed to be able to breed. That is the hope, anyway. No one really knows the long term effects of eating foods that have been genetically modified at this point or how the proliferation of such seeds and entities into the general population of organic things will change the faces of ecosystems and natural occurring organisms.

 

Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, introduced five bills on the identification of foods, etc. that had been genetically modified so that the farmers might be protected and the public might be informed of which of the foods available at the store had been genetically modified. A brief synapsis of the Acts he introduced is as follows, according to The Organic and Non-GMO Report:

• "The Genetically Engineered Food Right To Know Act of 2002, which "requires food companies to label all foods that contain or are produced with genetically engineered material."    
• The Genetically Engineered Food Safety Act of 2002, which "requires all genetically engineered foods to follow FDA's current food additive process to ensure they are safe for human consumption" and authorizes the FDA to "contract out for independent testing of a genetically engineered food and to seek input on the food safety process from the National Academy's Institute of Medicine."
• The Genetically Engineered Crop and Animal Farmer Protection Act of 2002, which establishes a "Farmer Bill of Rights."
• The Genetically Engineered Organism Liability Act of 2002, which "places all liability from negative impacts of genetically engineered organisms squarely upon the biotechnology companies that created the genetically engineered organism."
• Real Solutions to World Hunger Act of 2002, which restricts genetically engineered exports to those nations "already approved in the U.S. and approved by the importing nation.""

It is my hope that Kucinich, and people like him prevail! It is my hope that I am informed of what I am buying and feeding to my family. As the results to the long term effects of such activities remains unknown, I do not wish to be a living test subject and would prefer to be informed.

 

 http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/millenium/UScongressgmfoodslabeling.php

      The Ideology of the Dairy Farm

I am a mother. I am of the firm belief that the best I can do for my children is try, and try really hard, to feed them actual food. This seems like a crazy idea as food is food, right? That is the question I have been asking for years.

I buy Simple Truth foods from Smith's. They have a Natural and an Organic line. The most amazing thing I found when researching Smith's, a Kroeger Co. Family of Stores, was the 101 Free list. It is truly remarkable how unrecognizable most of the ingredients on this list are as food, at all. It makes no sense to me, see for yourself.

According to the Mayo Clinic, there are definite pros to buying organic. They share some enlightening points on a post titled "Organic Foods: Are they safer or not?" The facts about the situation laid out simply for the reader. There are some fundamental differences between organic and conventional farming that impact human health and should impact choices. Conventional farmers, in today's world, use synthetic substances for fertilizer, while the organic farmer applies "natural fertilizers, such as manure or compost, to feed soil and plants" more like our humble farmers of our readings thus far. Organic farmers rotate their crops and practice more traditional methods of leaving fields fallow, employing livestock in the clearing of fields and maybe even use their hands to eradicate weeds while our "conventional" farmers are doling out hormones, synthetic everything and unnatural pesticides at the drop of a hat.


The absolutely consistent item I buy organic every time is milk. So where does the milk from Simple Truth come from? It is easier than you'd think to find out which dairy your milk comes from. There is a handy little website called Where is my milk from? which guides you through the process of locating the dairy from which your particular carton of milk is from. The milk I purchase is from the Jackson Milk Plant, Inc in Hutchinson, Kansas. The dairy number is 20-283, which is found on the top of the carton near the expiration date. The actual vision of the factory is not as rosy as I had imagined, unfortunately. It looks much more like a factory than the organic farm I was hoping for. This is the actuality of my hopeful organic buying process.



I will continue to buy organic milk because I feel better about the product in its entirety, even though the process is not as sunshine and rainbows as I had hoped. My ideology of the dairy farm does not prove to show happy cows gladly submitting to the milking process, it show the practicality and actuality of feeding so many human beings. There are none of these utopian practices that the word "organic" makes me feel like there are. And that is okay because at least I am sparing my children the chemicals and I can live with that. I do feel like a much more informed consumer with more knowledge of how to find the answers to my questions.

Levi Jeans and Ponytails

Burton McAllister, my mother-in-law's maternal grandfather, bought his family farm from Clara Spencer in the mid 1940's in Southern Utah. The farm was not intended to be the source of income, but the source of food for his family and a place to call home. Burton and his family raised 60 head of cows, grew the hay to feed them, ate them in gratitude, grew vegetables to go with them.

The land that houses the McAllister farm has turned up artifacts going back to the Piute Tribe boasting grinding stones and beads. It also falls on the land that was once the Kanab Fort that tragically burned to the ground killing a local woman and her five sons. There is a historical marker located there.

Southern Utah, being the media mecca that it is, soon brought the movies to film in the unique landscapes for the Western movies of the time. Burton was known to be somewhat of a horse whisperer. His horses were rented by movie producers to be used in the Westerns moving pictures. There was once a time that a movie producer requested to purchase one of Burton's favorite horses. Burton requested what, to him, seemed like an unreasonable amount of money. The producer agreed to the price, and Burton, being a man of his word, had to sell.

In the 1960's Burton McAllister fell victim to mortality's curse and passed away. His daughter Ada had married a Burton of her own and was now Ada Judd. Burton and Ada Judd bought the farm a year after her father's passing to work for their own children. Ada and Burton had five daughters and one son...with hay fever. Those little girls worked the land with their Daddy, driving tractors and riding horses in their Levi Jeans and ponytails. The girls made quite a sight for visitors to the area. They were no strangers to the hard work or the farm equipment, but at the time, it wasn't so common to see a clan of girls doing the men's work and faring just fine. Any boy that courted a Judd girl got a shot at working that land as well. Any man that married one see's the strong work ethic and independent spirit these ladies procured in their days getting their hand's dirty on the farm.

Burton Judd recently met his time of mortality as well and the farm is in limbo. The land is rich with potential in that area of the country, in beautiful red rock country on the border of Arizona and Utah. The family has not decided what to do with the land at this time and the ties to the memories are rich, telling by the light in my mother-in-law's eyes when she spoke of her memories there. There might not have been any amazing ties to the history of the United States, but this family has roots that run deep to this spot on the map.