Back to Deep Snow Country

I spent the second day of the conference dutifully going to sessions, learning about growing ginger better and stuff like that.  Ran out of yarn in the middle of the morning and had to walk all the way back to the hotel room to get some more.

I have been trying to figure out why this conference was better than some, for me.  Maybe it was the knitting, maybe it was having Jon with me at meals, but it was also that I have things I need to know now that I am outside of my comfort zone, learning to grow vegetables in Loudoun.  Farming in Vienna poses few challenges for me, after all these years, but there are great gaps in my education when it comes to different soils and different environmental issues just 30 miles away.

Anyway, it was more interesting and I was comfortable there. So often I feel like I don't belong at a conference. Too many people, too much shmoozing, too many assumptions about my level of interest or level of experience or whatever.  I scarcely saw Ellen at all but various people reported that they knew who I was because she was using my name in all her sessions (she teaches a lot at these conferences, which is great for everyone because she is an excellent teacher).

My one contribution was that I facilitated an information session on CSAs.  They were searching for facilitators a few weeks ago and they asked if I would do it.   At the "crowd sourcing session," we had a lively conversation for 90 minutes, 30 farmers from all over the South sharing questions and answers.  Over the years I have found that I enjoy facilitating -- I don't have to be the expert or prepare a presentation, I just help the discussion flow.  It is fun for me, way better than getting up and speaking.

The big dinner at the end, with everyone in the same room, went better than usual.  Instead of holding us hostage waiting to be fed, they served dinner quickly and then started the speeches and presentations. They got all their ingredients from 25 Kentucky farms. It was impressive, in the dead of winter. We were hostages to the final drawing for the grand door prize: a walk-behind tractor.  We didn't win, but that's okay.

Jon and I were on the road by about 7:00 this morning -- a sunny, bright day, warming up fast.  We drove all day, through Kentucky and West Virginia and finally Virginia, listening to music, talking about things in the news, listening to odd podcasts, napping, eating nuts and dried mango and other car snack delicacies.  West Virginia may have been the most beautiful state on our trip. It is hard to be beautiful in the winter, but the snowy mountains and vistas and valleys and winding roads (of course, why take a big road when you can take a small one?) were striking, especially compared to the flatter, swampier areas in the South.

Back at home, lots of snow has melted but there is still a ways to go.  We went directly to the crushed hoop house to see the damage and decided that the only immediate task was to cut small holes in the plastic to let the water out as the snow melts.  Ah well.

And that ends the swoop through the South. No drama but many hours of excellent conversation and good visits.  The car did great and fuel was cheaper than ever before -- the best price was $1.57 in Mississippi.  Someone should raise that gas tax immediately.

Farmer Conference

Yesterday morning we woke up in the house that Rebecca and John built in middle Tennessee.  They had a mission when designing this house -- it was going to be LEED certified (super environmentally friendly and energy efficient), made with as many local materials as possible, employ as many local craftspeople as possible, and it would be beautiful and comfortable.  They did it.  And even though this was not a necessary part of the mission, they also made it so there are just about no parallel lines or right angles -- or the architect did. It is a most unusual house. And just a few steps outside is John's very successful blueberry patch.  The house is perched on a steep hill, with a view of their farmland below.

Before her busy day and our lazy day, Rebecca made us breakfast and we sat down together.  (I forgot to say that Sarah made us a delicious breakfast the day before -- we are getting royal treatment every single day). 

The trip to Lexington was uneventful.  We got to serious, rich horse country and knew we were getting close.  Miles and miles of well maintained board fences.  Acres and acres of wide open well clipped fields.  Some horses but not many.  

The plan is for Jon to hang out in the hotel room, mostly working on his computer, while I go to the sessions and listen and knit.  He comes out to join me for meals with various friends that are here -- we had a nice dinner with Carden and JP last night, lunch with Eric and Rachel and Martha today and dinner tonight with Martha and Dolores and Don.  I have had glimpses of Ellen now and then, but we don't need to hang out together in Kentucky. 

I decided to choose the sessions that were taught by people I have heard of for years (oh yes -- Jon and I went to the opening panel discussion on Thursday night and got to see/hear Wendell Berry for the first time ever.  He was the best.) so I can put names to faces and form my own opinions about these sort of famous people.  I generally don't come to conferences to learn the nuts and bolts of farming, I come to make sure I am not missing something important. I did learn today that other people have a spreadsheet approach to crop planning, complete with details like soil temperature requirements and days to harvest.  That is so far from the way we do it -- I just have a calendar in my head that tells me the first and last days to plant certain crops.  But now I see how new farmers can get up and running so fast: there are lots of instruction books.

I like keynote speeches and the sessions that are aimed at generalists the most.  This is the 25th annual conference put on by this organization and they decided to have a series of retrospective panel presentations.  Mildly interesting. Could be better.  But there are apparently 1500 attendees, which is the most ever.

I doubt there will be anything worth reporting in the next day or so.  We plan to leave here early on Sunday morning and drive home in time to get the CSA registration all ready for Monday. It is almost ready but there are some more tweaks that need to happen.

Shiloh

(Jon says to let you know that some pictures are now in the posts of recent days.)

Between Memphis and Nashville we stopped at Shiloh, the National Park that memorializes the Civil War battle in northern Mississippi. Jon has always been interested in Civil War history, and as many people already know, will only visit the sites where the Union "won" the battle. The others are too depressing. They are all depressing, really.

National parks and other similar venues now always have an introductory movie, and this is a superb way to get oriented.  Some movies are better than others, and this one (Jon said) was the best yet. They filmed the whole thing right on site, there were hundreds of re-enactors and they actually were actors, not just place holders.  The story was so real that I could barely watch it.  

I have probably forgotten important details by now, but essentially the army from the north was preparing to disable a critical train crossing in Corinth, MS -- one which made it possible for supplies to get to the south from Charleston and which connected to the Mississippi River. This was relatively early in the war, in early April 1862 when the north still thought they could win pretty quickly. They took weeks and weeks to bring the men and their equipment in dozens of rented steamboats down the river, and they were assembling for a battle.  Of course the south knew this and they were also preparing to defend this strategic spot.  The Union people were waiting for everyone to arrive and the Confederates were determined to surprise them. Between the two sides, they assembled over 120,000 men and more cannons than had ever been in one place.  For two long and terrible days they killed each other, shooting and maiming each other from extremely close range.  In the end there were over 23,000 men dead or hurt or lost.  And no ground had been gained.  Because the southerners ended up withdrawing, having lost a greater proportion of their soldiers, the north won that battle.  One very important Confederate general was killed, which was was very hard on the southern forces. The film focused on a few soldiers who survived to tell the story, becoming newspaper editors etc in later life.  

I try not to think about war in general. I can never understand the premise, that the way to win is to kill more people.  In thiinking about it yesterday, I came to another realization -- that the way you know you have won is when you have demoralized the other side to the point where they give up. And you demoralize them by overwhelming them with your power to kill and your willingness to continue to kill.  We were trying to think of an analogous war to this one (as not all wars are the same, despite the similarities) and Syria came to mind.

The park looked a lot like Gettysburg, with monuments spread all over many acres of mowed fields, and signs telling which army was where, at what point.  Without the movie it would have been hard to be even slightly curious about all this detail. As it was, we only went to about half of the points of interest before heading out.

We stopped at a supermarket in Tennessee, looking for lunch.  It was the first hummus-free store we have seen in a very long time.  French onion dip was the closest food type.  We did buy a bottle of authentic looking local sorghum for future use.  

Tennessee is much more interesting than Mississippi, topographically.  Beautiful rolling hills, big expanses of farms, and it looks like it would be all sorts of green in the summer.  We went on only the small roads (making it very hard for Jon to have phone calls with his work people, as we were in and out of cell service all day).  Sort of like traveling through Virginia on Beulah Road and Route 7, with very little traffic.

We made a second pilgrimage to Ann Patchett's book store, Parnassus, in Nashville and I bought some books.  The store seems to be thriving and they are getting ready to take over the store next door.

Dinner at a small sandwich shop that only sources from local farmers -- Rebecca S knew about it and met us there. Perfect.  Then we walked down the block to a small business that makes Mexican popsicles.  Who knew you could make a living on popsicles? Apparently Nashville is the right place for this.  

Rough Life

We had a long and lazy day (while Paul was at work from 5 AM until 6 PM) -- Jon stayed home to work on his computer while Martha and I went out to do errands.  The thing about living in the boonies is that everything is a long drive away.  We visited a high quality local market (like an early version of Wilson Farms), a pecan distributor and a coffee shop that belongs to some friends of Martha's. After my late afternoon nap, the day was just about done.  We sang happy birthday to Paul and had some King Cake for dessert, rounding out the Mardi Gras observance.

We got back on the road at 7 AM on Tuesday, heading for Mississippi.  Not much to report about the scenery.  Mostly scrubby, sandy, and wet.  Pine trees and marsh.  Houses were mostly small and weathered, made of cinderblock, and single story.  Cars, on the other hand, were not old.  More pickup trucks.  When we got to Meridian, I said we should go through the town just to see what it looked like. Jon read about it on his phone. It used to be a major crossroads for lots of trains crisscrossing the state, but no longer.  It didn't look remarkable but it was a real town with a downtown, the usual perimeter of chain stores and we even drove through a historic part that had lots of nice houses of diverse designs.

Decided to have barbecue at a real place in Tupelo and found a one-of-a-kind place that did not disappoint.  Delicious.

Before we got to my cousin Howard's house, I tried to guess what it would be like.  I hit it right on the head.  An upscale neighborhood with suburban amenities (a lake right outside) because he is the kind of guy who would have a job that pays better than some, is frugal, and grew up living in upscale neighborhoods.  Jon and I haven't really seen him since the 1980s when he was a teenager on the farm for a few seasons but we see his parents relatively often and we still feel connected.

Howard looks just like Uncle Babe, sort of.  He looks like Charles too, sort of. He is cute as a button, with grey hair now.  He and his wife Sarah and their son welcomed us warmly. 

We got a private tour (from Howard) of some of St. Jude's Hospital for Children. He is a Director of Continuous Improvement in the fundraising side of the operation -- has been working there for ten years, helping to identify ways to make the processes better.  No marketing and no working with donors directly but lots of analyzing.  He is doing good work and he likes it.  The hospital keeps expanding so there is no end to the construction and upgrading, and it costs over two million dollars a day to keep everything going.  It seems like an incredibly ambitious effort but it keeps on getting bigger ever since 1962. Danny Thomas would be amazed.

We met Sarah and Alex for dinner in a restaurant inside the pyramid along the Mississippi River that is occupied by the Bass Pro Shop. I had said that I wasn't very interested in seeing that flagship store but Howie overruled me, saying it is a spectacle worth visiting. It is indeed a spectacle.  Inside the giant pyramid there is a world of fake bald cypress trees draped with Spanish moss, lakes with big fish and actual alligators, mountains covered with stuffed mountain goats and black bears and deer and elk, aquariums with large catfish and bass of many types and long skinny fish with pointy snouts or beaks.  There are boats and camping gear sprinkled around but it doesn't feel like a place to buy things, exactly. It is an entertainment space.  We had fish for dinner and walked around afterwards, admiring the all-terrain vehicles and boats that capture Alex's imagination.

usual, we covered a lot of conversational ground in an afternoon and evening and there is much more to talk about so we hope they will come and see us sometime. And I am going to encourage people to come to Memphis because Howard is still the same sweet person he was when he was growing up.

Quiet Day in ViperVille

We only left the property once yesterday, and our destination was less than a mile away.  Maybe even less than half a mile.  We went to the Lottie Volunteer Fire Station for a full tour.

When we visited last time, Paul was a member of the volunteer fire company -- in addition to his roles as treasurer of their church (right next door to the fire station) and also the treasurer of the cemetery that is at the end of their driveway (Lottie New Home Cemetery).  When they arrived in this area, the residents were so glad to have a new volunteer that they gladly handed over a few jobs.  No one seems to mind that there is now a disproportionate consolidation of power in this household. There are approximately 150 people in this community.  (Martha says of those 150 people, only four vote Democratic, including her and Paul).

By now Paul is the Fire Chief, the third one ever. The first one donated the land for the station and was chief for 16 years before handing over the reins to a family member.  The second chief abdicated after a few years and Paul was next in line by then.  So he had to get proper training and he went through a 160 hour course at the community college.  He and one other member of the fire department have been trained this fully.  Paul says it was much easier when he was the Assistant Fire Chief because then he just jumped on the truck and joined in, but now he is responsible, and that is not as easy.  All the volunteers have radios and when the 911 calls go out, Paul always responds, but not very many others do if it seems minor.

Just the other night he answered a call from someone who thought he was having a heart attack.  Paul took the pickup truck with the medical equipment, did the first responder checkup and helped the man calm down until the ambulance came.  No one else got out of bed for that one.  This is one of the main reasons that Paul is the Fire Chief now -- he shows up. Plus he is a nice guy who doesn't ruffle feathers and really does want the best for everyone...no personal ambition. Plus he is super competent.  

Anyway, this fire station is full of big red trucks. Jon observed that if they got a call that required all 7 trucks, they would not have enough fire fighters to staff them all. He asked Paul how many had ever been out at once, and the answer was four.  The station gets a generous amount of money from the county every year (unlike the schools) so they are well capitalized.  The building is used for many other community purposes as it has a space big enough for meetings and funerals.  It's their common house, complete with giant shiny fire trucks. If they have a really big event, they pull the trucks out of the station and use that space for tables and chairs.

On a walk through part of their 39 acres with two of their three adopted-from-stray dogs.

We spent the afternoon watching the Patriots have a bad day.  I knitted, Martha puttered in the kitchen preparing yet another delicious meal, Jon worked on his computer and Paul made sure our glasses were full while we kept an eye on the game.  We turned it off when it seemed clear that things were only getting worse for New England.

Meanwhile, back in deep snow country all our neighbors spent many hours digging out, successfully. Unfortunately two out of four of our hoophouse structures collapsed overnight.  They were the two oldest ones so that might have contributed to their demise. Alas. 

The Lottie B&B

Paul and Martha live in a house they designed and built themselves, about nine years ago, far away from most other people -- but in the midst of a wonderful community of neighbors who take care of each other.  About two weeks ago they got an unexpected phone call from Paul's mother, telling them that Paul's father had died suddenly.  They got in the car and started driving immediately: fourteen hours to Kansas.  They left behind their house full of cats and dogs, two donkeys, a hoop house full of crops.  While they were gone, everything was taken care of, with absolutely no notice.

Paul and Martha used to be full time vegetable farmers, going to markets and running a CSA.  They left the DC area about 17 years ago and moved to Alabama, closer to Martha's family.  Paul became a school teacher (math and science) and Martha taught community college (sociology and anthropology).  But they still wanted to keep growing vegetables.  When they moved, they brought a big load of tractors and equipment with them.  This is their second location, and they call their farm Viperville (rattlesnakes, armadillos, coyotes are part of the landscape).

Martha retired recently and now is super busy, keeping up with all the populations that need her attention, in addition to her domestic projects.  Paul still teaches full time and he drives a school bus (each route takes an hour and a half, oh my gosh) and in a year or so he will be eligible to retire with a pension. 

Anyway, we have endless conversations.  Jon and Paul can talk about anything and everything and Martha and I add in the "soft science" topics.  

While we were talking, we had a deluxe breakfast and then we hung out in the hoop house and weeded (their soil is so fluffy and sandy and not a stone or lump in sight), and we headed to Mobile for an early dinner on the causeway before going downtown to see a Mardi Gras parade. Paul and Martha were bundled in many layers because it was cold out, somewhere maybe in the 30s.  The crowds were thin because of the weather, which was actually perfect for us. 

Not being from around here, I was a little mystified by a culture that can support eight weeks of parades, weekend after weekend, and all the fancy balls that accompany that. Even after I read through a quick history of the tradition, it is hard to imagine getting so swept up in something so imaginary.  Each parade is sponsored/produced/created by a different "crewe." Historically there is assumed segregation, although last night the floats were mixed race and mixed gender, which Martha said felt different from her past.

The crew was the "Pharaohs" so all the floats were Egyptian gods or whatever.  The people on the floats threw all kinds of colorful junk off the floats -- beads, plastic stuff, candy, Moon Pies, stuffed animals. The parade watchers collected up bags and bags of this detritus. Jon is sure that the participatory nature of the parades, with people enthusiastically waving their arms and yelling so the people on the floats will throw stuff to them, is the key to the continued popularity of the parades.  We stood on a corner that was reminiscent of a street in New Orleans.

After the parade, the streets were cleared in minutes, and washed. This city knows how to close the roads and open them back up, instantly.

All day long Jon was watching the news of the snow and DC, and gnashing his teeth occasionally as he thought about all the ways that he could have been helpful.  I was just hoping no one would get hurt and nothing dramatic would happen.  This morning Carrie sent us the news that one of the hoop houses collapsed and also the cold frame.  Of course that could have happened even if we were there. The snow must be pretty heavy. Ah well.

No Worries

We had more time than we had first planned, so we were able to think about making some stops along the way.  How often are we driving through random places in the world with spare time?

It rained pretty much all day long, but no ice or sleet.  We listened to news reports, and Jon continued to feel sorry that we were missing all the snow fun, but I have moved on.  

We decided to stop in Atlanta and visit something, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum seemed interesting.  We found it -- and as expected, we were practically the only ones there -- and there was a sign on the door saying they were closing in an hour.  They were closing because there was rain and snow and possible flooding predicted.  So we did a quick walk through and we were reminded of all the things we had forgotten about Jimmy Carter. All I know is he has been a hero forever, and that there must have been some reason the country elected him President, even though the country got un-enamoured after four years.  Certainly he has been a model of intellect and humanity and hard work for his entire life, and how many nuclear physicists have we had as presidents?

For lunch we went to a nearby natural foods supermarket and got some hot soup.  As we were driving out of that neighborhood, Jon noticed how interesting and funky the businesses were, so I said he should look it up and find out where we were.  We were in Little Five Points, which google told us is the bohemian capital of the Southeast.  How about that? That supermarket was getting ready to close until  Sunday morning, in anticipation of the bad weather.

We left town and headed west.  After a while Jon remembered that we were going to gain an hour, so we might have time for one more stop.  We made it to the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, AL one hour before closing.   There is a real pattern here, Hana and Jon arriving at empty museums one hour before closing.  We now expect there to be a tour guide just for us, and there is one almost every time.  This museum was small and told the story using all the current day museum technology - films, audio, large photos, posters, memorabilia, newspapers.  We learned lots of interesting details that would never come up in a textbook or an article.

Got to Paul and Martha's house by 7:45 or so, a bright haven in the midst of a dark and quiet landscape.  The middle of nowhere.  Dinner and talk talk talk until Jon we went to bed.  So cozy and nice here, and the conversation material is endless.

Heading South

We chose the dates and destinations of this trip long ago -- and the whole point was to get to Lexington, Kentucky for the annual sustainable agriculture conference that I try to attend every other year.  So we looked at the map and identified a loop that would be fun because we would get to visit people all along the way.

As the trip got closer, we started to make arrangements with our friends for our visits.  Everything seemed super simple.  And we haven't headed south for such a long time so we were not even thinking about weather. 

But wouldn't you know we are now missing what is predicted to be one of the biggest snowstorms in memory.  We have been home for the last big three -- most recently in 2010.  In 2010 we didn't lose power but we spent a lot of energy knocking snow off the hoop houses, with the help of our Blueberry Hill neighbors.  In 2003 the greenhouse collapsed under the snow. It is really fun to be home in our neighborhood during big weather events, actually.  One of the high points of living there.

So for the last few days before we headed out, Jon did all that he could to get things ready.  He added anti-gel stuff to the greenhouse oil tank, put away all the golf carts (which included fixing a flat tire that was so frozen that he had to bring it into our living room to thaw for a day), he purchased and pounded in reflectors to keep the snow plows from damaging the brand new walkway that is still unfinished, he wrestled the snow blade onto the loader (although this snow may be too big for that blade and Jim may need to put the bucket back on instead) and he cut and split a lot of firewood, both for us and for Paul and Cookie.  We also stopped grocery shopping a while ago and tried to leave our refrigerator full of nothing but condiments. I stocked up the egg refrigerator on our porch and left some instructions for Anna and Betsy to keep track of my little food providing tasks for the neighborhood.  We left home regretfully.  But it didn't seem sensible to stay home just to be part of the storm.

Our plan was to go first to a cabin/house in North Carolina that Jon's friend Ed owns.  We have been meaning to go there for a long time. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.  Gradually it became clear that the snow would get there while we were sleeping, and we might not have such an easy time getting back down off the mountain.  We gave up on that plan.  

Plan B was to spend the night at Dave and Bernice's in Asheville, and to get out of town before the snow hit there.  But Dave and Bernice are serious weather-watchers and they called us while we were on the road to tell us that there would be four inches on the ground by 7 AM when we woke up at their house, and it would be snowing hard all day.  They said that we might consider a different route, and we could come see them a different time. I told them we would call them back after we talked about it.

All along the highway, there were big signs alerting us: "Winter storm alert.  Check local media for details."  No one could miss that there was a storm coming, even though the roads were dry and the sky was pretty clear.

We decided that we could still go visit them if we didn't spend the night, since the snow was supposed to start at midnight.  So we had a lovely two hour stop-over, with a full tour of the yard and all the gardens and improvements. We got caught up, and we had the most delicious chicken stew soup plus Dave's blueberry pancakes for dessert (since we couldn't stay for breakfast). 

When you visit friends or relatives who you have lived with, there is always so much to talk about. Even if you haven't seen each other lately, the news and stories flow very easily.  On this trip, every house we visit will be in that category.  SO different from traveling in Europe or anywhere that requires research.

We drove until we felt pretty sure we were outside of the snow path, and we stopped at a motel that is in the vicinity of Clemson.  When we woke up this morning, we looked at the google map and saw that  the roads in Asheville are all clogged up, red red red. In fact, the highway that we left about twenty minutes before we stopped last night was red on the map.  It seems that we are having our usual good fortune with weather, so far.