Lechuga

On my 8th grade Spanish final, we had vocab I had never seen. One of the words was lechuga, and I thought I was being so clever by figuring it out- leche means milk, so lechuga must be a dairy product, so I picked yogurt. Turns out it means lettuce. But I'll never forget it!!!

So here is some lechuga growin' right on my window sill. Sprouting up quick!!! Hopefully I'll have some lettuce to eat at the end of term!

Flunk Day!

Yesterday was FLUNK DAY!

Basically, a day when all classes and obligations are cancelled and the school brings tons of fun stuff to do to campus.

AMAZING DAY

paint fights

cranberry juice

(I drank a whole huge bottle of cran while 96% of the rest of campus got wasted)

making a tasty breakfast and watching A Goofy Movie with friends

watching people fly!

eating crappy food

getting free hats and sunglasses

blow up rides

Family Guy marathons

Good friends, good times.

The best of college!

From Little Things Big Things Grow...

It was EARTH WEEK!

Whoooooooot!

All sorts of stuff going on here, but my favorite part was our Earth Week Musicfest!

A bunch of different students playing, including yours truly!

I did a half hour set, rockin in my flannel.

Closed with "From Little Things Big Things Grow", an excellent song by Paul Kelly. Check it out!

HAPPY EARTH WEEK!

The weather is a little crummy, but we sure need the rain!

The garden grows!

My dorm garden is growing! I transplanted the sunflowers and grass into larger containers (empty applesauce cups). I had two types of lettuce I wanted to try, so I used the two small pots from the sunflowers and grass, an applesauce container, and a box lined with plastic from a (industrial college strength) garbage bag to plant the leaf lettuce salad bowl variety. I used the ice cube tray from my mini-fridge as a seed tray for the other lettuce type, black seeded simpson. It works perfectly! I'll see how it goes, hopefully I'll be able to perfect dorm lettuce growing by next year!!!

Where did I get the soil, you ask? My friend who is taking a research class in the greenhouse stole some for me! Don't tell!!!

So all this is costing me it about 5 dollars, between the lettuce seed and little 1 dollar grow kits for the grass, sunflowers, and pine trees. Everything else is reused!!!

WIND

If you sprint fast enough,

the corn runs with you,

whole rows quick on their roots.

Slow down and they jog

calm and breathless.

Stop and they turn

into walls. Hands on knees,

you pant, and all the leaves,

like wings, beat wildly.

-Michael Walsh, from "The Dirt Riddles"

Lovely weekend!

I went on a lovely bike ride this weekend,

worked in a garden and got dirt under my fingernails and planted potatoes,

procrastinated by hanging out with good people and google searching veggies,

went to a pajamarama dance party,

therefore it was a great weekend!

How am I supposed to concentrate...

When all THIS is going on

and this is the view from my classroom?

Today the sky was the perfect shade of blue.

I might love Wendell Berry too much...

...but no one can love him TOO much!

I had never read any of poetry (at least that I remember) until yesterday! I started reading his collection "Farming: A Handbook". Here's one I think the people of the internets might enjoy...

THE MAN BORN TO FARMING

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,

whose hands reach into the ground ad sprout,

to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death

yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie

down

in the dung heap, and rise again with the corn.

His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.

What miraculous seed has he swallowed

that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth

like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water

descending in the dark?

S 510

PLEASE check this out. It's a blog post from over at Greenhorns. There is a food safety bill that is going through Congress and while it definitely necessary, it could possibly screw over small farmers! Read Read Read!!!

Bits and Pieces of College Life!

The trees here have been lookin' AMAZING!

Pretty blossoms all over the place.

After visiting Knox in the dead of February last year, it's a nice surprise to get a beautiful campus! It's been lovely weather the last few days, which makes it very difficult to focus,

especially when you are taking macroeconomics...

I didn't have a watering can for my little plants, so I made my own, using a hammer and a screwdriver :) My sister Lindsey gave me tools for graduation- because I know how to use them and shouldn't need to ask anyone for help. Since I haven't had to fix much (although I DID fix a light once, and now am known as the one in the suite who can fix things), I used them to simply poke holes in the top of this bottle.

Also: I strongly suggest watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution! It's great! He's a brave soul and is doing some good work. It's on Hulu, so it's free to watch. Check it out if you have time!

Wendell Berry, revisited

On the long bus ride to and from Chicago, I had some time to kill, so I did some reading not related to any of my classes (although it inevitably connected!). I read a few essays out of Wendell Berry's "Bring It To the Table: On Farming and Food", a collection of a bunch of his works. Lot of good things to think about!

One of my favorite bits is from "A Defense of the Family Farm (1986)":

Throughout this period of drastic attrition on the farm, we supposedly have been "subsidizing agriculture," but, as Wes Jackson has pointed out, this is a misstatement. What we have actually been doing is using the farmers to launder money for the agribusiness corporations, which have controlled both their supplies and their markets, while farmers have overproduced and been at the mercy of the markets. The result has been that the farmers have failed by the millions, and the agribusiness corporations have prospered...

From "Conservationist and Agrarian (2002)":

I am a conservationist and a farmer, a wilderness advocate and an agrarian. I am in favor of the world's wilderness, not only because I like it, but also because I think it is necessary to the world's life and to our own. For the same reason, I want to preserve the natural health and integrity of the world's economic landscapes, which is to say that I want the world's farmers, ranchers, and foresters to live in stable, locally adapted, resource-preserving communities, and I want them to thrive."

Chicago!

I went to Chicago yesterday, to go to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago and then a lecture by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Pretty fun trip!

Storm rolling in on the way there

Some awesome grafitti

Lake Michigan! (I thought it was the ocean when I was little)

The ceiling in the gorgeous ballroom we were in for the lecture

Plant update

Sunflower: success!

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Number one thing I've learned in college:

Every person between the ages of 13 and 23ish (and most likely into the rest of life) wants to have the biggest problem. People think it makes them special, makes things worthwhile. I say, that's pretty ridiculous! I think we can all learn from mistakes, sadness, failed relationships... and ALSO from happiness, good friends, family. This song is pretty awesome, it's by Frou Frou (also known as Imogen Heap). This song has been in a few movies, including one of my favorites, The Holiday.

A few of my favorite lines:

Drink up, baby down

mmmm are you in or are you out

leave your things behind

cause its all going off without you

excuse me, too busy

you're writing your tragedy

these mishaps

you bubble wrap

when you've no idea what you're like

so let go, jump in

oh well, whatcha waiting for

it's alright

cause there's beauty in the breakdown

So remember the beauty in the breakdown. Some things are meant to be done with, learn and move on. It's kind of my "everything happens for a reason" philosophy. Maybe not for a "reason", but things happen so you can learn and grow. But remember to grow from the good stuff too! I feel like too many people find power from their hardships, and while that is a very productive way to make crappy stuff into something useful, we should also appreciate all the good!

Growing!

Flowers are coming out! It was a tad gloomy today, but it everything is getting ready to bust out!

Plant update: My grass is starting to grow! The sunflowers are starting to sprout a little, and nothing from the spruce trees yet. Success!

Somehow it keeps going...

President Obama can approve offshore oil exploration and possible drilling

Monsanto can exploit farmers in India to the point that the commit suicide

Yet somehow, through all the horrible tragedy of the commons that is our modern world,

THIS MAGIC happens every year.

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

-William Wordsworth