Last night at Stardust Cafe I attended a meeting of the “local food” pioneers behind an exciting Local Food Map project. Chief among these pioneers were: Tia Meer (Simple Living Institute), Andrew Landis (CFL Regional Planning Council) and Lance Turner (AeonBlu/Ourlando). These leaders are at the helm of a truly exciting initiative for our local food system.
Their vision is for the continued development of the Central Florida Sustainable Food Project which includes a detailed database of the area’s farmers and producers as well as the retailers, restaurateurs and the general consumers of our locally produced meats, veggies and goods.
Their hope is to launch a print version of the Local Food Guide and an online search able database format by early spring next year. The may be able to do a soft launch of the web application as soon as this fall. Perhaps we can have a little launch ceremony / ribbon cutting at the Nov 20th Winter Park Harvest Festival. There a ton of way to get involved with this exciting project. Please stop by the Facebook page and become a fan of the project and you can stay abreast of the latest on the Simply Living Institute’s website as well.
Kam and I just registered for the Florida Small Farms Alternative Enterprise Conference. Five years ago “farming” would have been the last thing on our minds. However, with the economic downturn we were grateful that the lost art-form of backyard gardening was among our bag of tricks.
During our introductory years of gardening it was so exciting to transition from transplanting Home Depot seedlings into containers to actually cultivating the soil on our own property and planting our own seeds. Watching them sprout and grow was an amazing adventure.
While neither of us would consider our urban gardening adventures an excuse to call ourselves a “small farm”, we do nonetheless feel like the knowledge transfer we’ve had from Tia and Terry at the Econ Farm and the gardening wisdom we’ve garnered form the UF extension office has made us more aware and appreciative of the small scale farms and farmers in Central Florida.
The thought of being able to brush shoulders with our fellow green thumbs and to learn some new gardening techniques at the Small Farms conference made this event a must for us. We hope to see some of hte other small scale urban growers at the conference and look forward to sharing our experience on our blog for those of you who can’t attend.
I’m working on a proper write-up of the Slow Money Gathering but there is just so much to say. Until I can wrap my head around it here are my pictures from my 3 day visit to Shelburne Farms and the Hadwick, VT farm tours.
As I was driving up to the KOA north of Harrisonburg, VA I remembered that Joel Salatin’s farm Polyface was somewhere in western Virginia. Well once Murph and I settled into our site a little visit to Google let me know that we were only 30 minutes away from Polyface, a farm thats sustainable, synergistic model of animal husbandry was made famous by its coverage in Michael Pollan’s eponymous book “Omnivore’s Dilemma”.
Rather than go for a hike in the morning, Murph and I packed up Kodi and drove the winding back roads to Polyface’s front drive. I had read on the website that “self-guided” tours were available so once I deftly parked Kodi, I ventured up the long drive towards the farm. There was a lot of activity with several young college-aged folks gathered around a barn full of farming equipment.
Following signs to the “store” I ended up in the currently under construction farm store. Wendy was nice enough to give me the low down and I browsed the offerings. All of the meat, produce and eggs are kept in old refrigerators with masking tape labels. I love it…..Wendy did say it was in the works to create glass cases, but the mystery of opening a fridge door to pursue the goods has a special sort of mystique to it.
I asked if it was ok to take picture. LOL…She said “Of course go wherever you want, nothing is off limits. They are moving the mobile chicken coops in the back pasture now if you want to see that.” Wait, wait, wait … I can go WHEREVER I want. Who the heck lets people do that anymore. Guaranteed no industrial producer would let you photograph and tour their facilities un-attended or without signing some restrictive waiver.
The regulars and the summer interns were in the pasture moving the mesh electrical fencing to create a temporary paddock for the egg laying hens to forage upon. It was so neat to see the team working together and to be honest the interns looked just as excited to be there as I did. Well Ben used the tractor to pull the mobile henhouse into the new field and then they build fence alleys towards the permanent hen house. The idea is to open the doors on the permanent henhouse and like the running of the pulls of Pamplona to funnel these birds into the new field.
It is such a neat set up. The cows graze the field first, eating the long grass and leaving their piles of manure to mature in the open Virginia air. Flies and beetles have there way with the piles for 3 days and let their larva get good and fat. Then the crew moves the cows to a new field and brings the mobile chicken and turkey enclosures into the cow’s old field to feast on the fat larva of the flies and spread the manure around the field as they forage. What an incredible symbiosis.
Polyface also rears pigs and rabbits as well, with the same attention to quality of life as the chickens and cows enjoy. To say the least the self-guided tour was an eye opening experience and made me long for a larger piece of land in Central Florida in which to put Salatin’s principles to work. There was just such harmony and wholeness to the entire operation. My hat goes of to Joel and his hipster vision and very much look forward to hearing him speak at the conference tomorrow.
Had a good couple days driving. We left the park in Brunswick and stopped by the Farmers Market to grab some grub for the road. Murphy and I had the good fortune of meeting Del and Debra Ferguson, grass-fed cattle farmers from Georgia who had set up their booth at the market in Brunswick for the first time.
I mentioned I was on the way up to the Slow Money National Gathering and a bit about the movement and their interest was peaked to say the least. When you talk about opening up new flows of capital to farmers and entrepreneurs in our local food system people perk up.
I picked up some pre-shaped burgers and a nice T-bone from them along with some “Devil Crab” cakes and a glass of fresh squeezed lemonade from another nice couple. Fat and happy we hit the road and rendezvoused with Kam, Keltin, Michelle and Whit who were attending a bridal shower for Whit’s brother in law’s fiance.
It was great getting to see Keltin and Kamrin. Even though it had only been two days I missed them and getting to hold Kelty girl and kiss my wife really did my heart good. It was a great stop of in Charlotte as I also got to see Leigh and Kevin Mays and their little tike Tyson.
Murph and I headed north along the hilly and pastoral Hwy 81. We set up shop in an RV park in the Shenandoa National Park and pulled the grill out to do a proper “Guys Grill Out”. Following the “Cooking Grass Fed Beef” outline that Del gave I produced a perfectly cooked medium-rare steak. Murphy devoured the bone like a Savannah lion and both of us just have to just say that life on the road is pretty darn good (minus the absence of the lady folk of course).
Murphy and I have officially hit the road. We packed up Kodi (our travel trailer) and gassed up the Fox (our Ford F150) and headed north. Not too far on the first day but we did make it up to Brunswick, GA. And I think we’d both agree it was a good stop. We visited Mary’s road side produce Van, Spanky’s seafood on the river, The Georgia Pig BBQ and enjoyed a swim at out very plush Coastal GA RV Resort. Check out the images below for a view into our life on the road.
The audio of yesterday’s interview with Woody Tasch is now online and you can listen below.
As always joining Julie and Jeremy in the WPRK studio is always a pleasure but yesterday’s interview was particularly incredible. Slow Money is such a great “catch-all” for me. About 85% of my posts have to do with food and in particular our local food system and the consumers and producers that make it all happen.
I can think of no greater investment of my time and finances then to support our local food producers. There are so many local consumers who have never tasted a real vine ripe tomato or who settle for produce the ripened on a cross country truck rather than down the street. Slow Money is the perfect combination of ethos and praxis and our interview with Woody should have a little bit of something for everyone.
I’ll be joining Julie and Jeremy today on Front Porch Radio WPRK 91.5 to interview Woody Tasch the author of “Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money“. He is also the president of the non-profit that bears the same name which seeks to create sources of capital to nurture the services and social networks necessary to support 1% of our assets being invested in our local food systems. We’ll post the recorded version here and on FPR as soon as we can if you aren’t able to listen live.
You can listen life from FPR website – follow this link – and click on the “listen Live” options on the right side of the page.
Just want to share a link to a nice write up in the O-Sentinel about Urban Gardening titled:”Our future FarmVille?” by Víctor Manuel Ramos. While I knew about the Winter Park Health Foundations $150k grant for community gardens in our area it was news to me that:
If you read any of the “green” leaning blogs in Central Florida chances are good you’ve heard about the book and movement Slow Money. Well this summer from June 9th – 11th I’ll be up at the Slow Money’s National Gathering in Vermont to brush shoulders with and learn from some of our nation’s most progressive thinkers.
“Slow money is a new way of connecting investors to local food systems. A new way of connecting money, culture and the soil. A new kind of social investing and philanthropy for the 21st century.”
There are so many things already happening in Central Florida that are a model of the Slow Money ethos and how it stimulates local economies, food systems and entrepreneurship. We are doing a great job investing our social and economic capital in sustainable and thoughtful ventures that provide quality products and services to our local community.
Speaking of which, Dandelion Communitea Cafe and Homegrown Co-op both ranked in the top 10 in the recent Slow Money Business contest. Kudos to Julie and Emily for these recognitions as well as giving so much more of yourselves and your businesses than profit alone would dictate.
It is my hope that other Central Floridians will make the trek to the national gathering so that we can draw strength and encouragement from like minded Americans and bring back new insights for our burgeoning Slow Money movement.
Please let me know if you’re going and likewise for those of you who can’t I will be sure to blog all about it. Please click on the image above or on this link to get more information about the Gathering.
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Last night at Stardust Cafe I attended a meeting of the “local food” pioneers behind an exciting Local Food Map project. Chief among these pioneers were: Tia Meer (Simple Living Institute), Andrew Landis (CFL Regional Planning Council) and Lance Turner (AeonBlu/Ourlando). These leaders are at the helm of a truly exciting initiative for our local food system.
I picked up some pre-shaped burgers and a nice T-bone from them along with some “Devil Crab” cakes and a glass of fresh squeezed lemonade from another nice couple. Fat and happy we hit the road and rendezvoused with Kam, Keltin, Michelle and Whit who were attending a bridal shower for Whit’s brother in law’s fiance.
Murph and I headed north along the hilly and pastoral Hwy 81. We set up shop in an RV park in the Shenandoa National Park and pulled the grill out to do a proper “Guys Grill Out”. Following the “Cooking Grass Fed Beef” outline that Del gave I produced a perfectly cooked medium-rare steak. Murphy devoured the bone like a Savannah lion and both of us just have to just say that life on the road is pretty darn good (minus the absence of the lady folk of course).
As always joining Julie and Jeremy in the WPRK studio is always a pleasure but yesterday’s interview was particularly incredible. Slow Money is such a great “catch-all” for me. About 85% of my posts have to do with food and in particular our local food system and the consumers and producers that make it all happen.
Just want to share 
