Journeyz | Tag Archives: open space

Same Place, New Viewpoint

Posted on August 21, 2012 by gaildoktor Posted in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Chimney on roof of Castle Hill during Thursday concert.

Do you notice that you take where you live for granted? That something extraordinary must happen, for you to pay attention to what’s around you? Either a visitor from out of town (we have an exchange student from Italy spending two weeks with us) or a different view of the same place (I went up on the roof at Castle Hill during last week’s concert with some young people).

I’m not claiming that every single acre or square inch of land that humans occupy (or don’t inhabit) is exceptional or memorable. I know that much of it is mundane, or only made wondrous by our experiences and their sentimental attachment to the places in which they occur. And yet, often there are remarkable resources and sites nearby.

Ipswich happens to be bursting with such treasures. Several Trustees of Reservations properties, including Crane Estate (Castle Hill and Crane Beach), Appleton Farms and more. We have a tidal river (Ipswich River) which wends its way from fresh water origins upriver, over dams, under bridges, through salt marsh wetlands out into the bay and ocean. The landscape of Ipswich includes village center, business district, historical structures (more pre-revolutionary war homes and buildings than any other town in the United States), pastoral and farm settings, wetlands that are part of the “Great Marsh,” proximity to a barrier island called Plum Island that’s an Audubon bird sanctuary, deep water anchorage, miles of white sand beach, and so much else.

Edward Hopper’s work: Dawn in Pennsylvania, 1942.

Yet if you live in some areas, you’re surrounded by pavement. Bricks and concrete. Aluminum siding. This isn’t inherently bad. Often artists, for instance, make us look twice at the places we have stopped noticing, because they’re not innately “inspiring” to us. The painter Edward Hopper, for instance, is one artist in a 20th century movement that caused people to look anew at their own surroundings.

Yes, even our most ordinary landscape can be special. Did you count cracks in the sidewalk as a child? Isn’t that sidewalk special now because of the memories you made back then, watching the grass grow up between the slabs of concrete? Doesn’t that paved space hold, for you, the imprint of the games of hopscotch and foursquare you drew in chalk? Or the snap and pungency of tar bubbles you popped with bare feet on the street in the summer? Or the blades of grass you plucked from their weedy roots and tried to use to whistle? Or the whir of cicada’s wings in the extreme heat, rising and falling with the speed of their wingbeats? You stop hearing those sounds, they become background stimuli … white noise. Yet they’re there. And if you suddenly stop and pay attention, they’re remarkable in their way.

Rooftop view of people attending reggae concert at Crane Estate / Castle Hill (Trustees of Reservations property). Rarely see the concerts from this vantage point!

I’m lucky to live here. And although our landscapes may vary, many contain magic in them. Inherently, because they are beautiful in their origins and their current state. And also because we carry their potential inside us, and bring it to any place we call home, when we pause and look twice, listen again … pay attention.

Maybe because we have a guest in the house, or I’m looking anew at the world just now, while Sarah’s preparing to leave for her adventures … in this moment I can see and honor that.

Among the Overgrowth: Cilantro

Posted on August 8, 2012 by gaildoktor Posted in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Another week of picking up the share at Appleton Farms. You’ve heard me discuss the sometimes sacred and spiritual nature of these visits to the CSA. Other times it’s just a chore to cross off your to-do list.

Depends on whether you go out into the fields to pick, because most of the magic happens during the intersection of human action, plant eccentricities, and whatever critters might be keeping you company out there (birds, butterflies, bees, beetles, mosquitoes, and mice and other scurrying rodents, to name a few).

Some weeks, the skies are slung low with clouds or lightning tears across the sky, and we don’t go into the fields to pick. Other days, it’s so hot and dusty, you wonder if you’re sane to consider going out among the low rows of crops, to bend and stoop, snip and pluck, filling pint containers or bags with your harvest of flowers, herbs and (some weeks) vegetables.

This week, we gathered herbs and flowers. Along the way, we learned a lesson about persistence.

Specifically, we walked among the rows, hunting for cilantro. Its familiar name was missing among the stakes labeled by such savory titles as mint, oregano, parsley, thyme, dill and basil. The CSA uses signage to make it clear where each crop is grown, row by row, and where to pick. Yet we couldn’t find it. We quartered the field, back and forth, systematic, but undirected. No luck. No cilantro stakes.

Of course, we might have tried looking for it under other names. Did you know it’s also called coriander, Chinese parsley or dhania? (In our culture, when we speak of cilantro, we often mean the fresh green leaves. Its seeds are identified as the coriander.) It grows commonly in regions from Europe and northern Africa to parts of Asia, and now in North America; it’s a common ingredient in many international cuisines. Possibly the most widely used herb in the world. As eloquently stated by a writer for culinate.com, “For just about anyone who grew up in the diverse culinary traditions of Latin America, the Caribbean, Portugal, northern Africa, the Middle East, the South Asian subcontinent, and most of Asia, cilantro tastes like home.” The same lacey green fronds, regardless of label, add a biting zest to all sorts of dishes.

Another confession. I hunted for cilantro, though I have no intention of eating it. I’m a member of the population that doesn’t like its flavor. Yes, we come in two groups: like or dislike. You can’t be in-between, when it comes to a preference or distaste for cilantro.

In fact, the plant’s flavor is actually a polarizing debate among “foodies.” It’s loved or hated, nothing less. This topic has been covered by publications such as the Wall Street Journal and Smithsonian Magazine, and inspired movements such as ihatecilantro.com. For those who love and eat it, because of its bright note of flavor in any dish, it’s hard to imagine why you’d turn it away. Cilantro-haters are often accused of being picky eaters. Yet there’s some evidence that the aversion to cilantro’s flavor is a genetic mutation; some tastebuds are just destined to revolt against it, because it transforms into a different chemical experience in measurable (but minority) percentages in any population. Cilantro-dislikers describe it as tasting like soap or hairspray, but to me it has the tang of aluminum. Ick. And I’m in good company. Per the same articles cited above, Julia Child felt the same way; she disliked both cilantro and arugula.

So I was walking through the field, hunting for an herb I don’t even enjoy, because my friend wanted some for her cooking plans. The whole point of the day seemed to become the triumph of finding a small bouquet of cilantro.

Finally, instead of giving up and returning wearily to the car after multiple hikes in and out of the field, we asked a farmhand. At first, she said there wasn’t any.

Then she winced sympathetically. “I know frustrating, isn’t it? We’re just getting tomatoes in, and we’ve had cilantro all season, and just when you want both, we’re running low. We planted another crop, so we hope there’s some later on this month.” Finally she added, “Well, we took down the cilantro sign, because it’s mostly all picked, and what’s left is hard to find because of the weeds. But if you walk past the dill, halfway down the row, and push aside enough weeds, you might find some.”

Back out into the fields we walked. Toward the weeds. And what they hid in their depths.

Now mind you, I have made a case for weeds. In my “garden” (dry, desert-like side yard), there are more weeds than healthy domesticated species. Spiky, tall, persistent and oddly lovely. Striking from my point of view, anyway. (You are welcome to your own opinion, of course.)

We turned right at the small feathery fronds of dill (also almost all picked and gone, also unlabeled, but visible if you knew where to look). Hiked beyond the knee-high growth of grass blades and vibrant weeds. Paused. Pushed aside leafy wild plants, seeking domestic satisfaction. Found the pungent leaves and stems of the cilantro. Worked our way down the row, reaching among the growth of unwanted plants, for the ones we did seek. Filled a small bag with cilantro, to use in cooking

The lesson? For me, it was the promise of finding what you want, if you don’t give up. If you look enough. If you go back once, twice and thrice. If you ask for directions. If you persist past the overlooked, overgrown appearance of the row. If you hunt among the weeds. You just might discover what you’re seeking.

And the worst case scenario, after time spent hunting among weeds and wildflowers? Even if you don’t find cilantro, you’ve gained the benefit of time spent in the sun and elements. Along the way, you’ve let go of the other stressful parts of life for a little while. It’s as good as yoga, as far as I am concerned, being out in the fields, picking part of your share.

This time, we harvested sunflowers and cilantro to be used in my friend’s favorite recipe for Thai vegetable spring rolls. And as I do every year, I’ll try a bite, always hopeful that I’ve somehow been converted to a cilantro-lover. But that’s another adventure … Today was just the journey of gathering the leftover cilantro from its exile out in the field, its row unlabeled, overgrown by weeds.

Belonging

Posted on July 11, 2012 by gaildoktor Posted in Uncategorized Leave a comment

Yesterday I returned to Appleton Farms for the week’s share pick-up. And some harvesting of green beans and basil in the field.

Interestingly, one of my friends had mused about the nature of the CSA shares. Admitted that the whole arrangement seems exclusive.

My response? It began as a conversation, but I also did more research. Now I’m exploring the subject here, with you.

At first, I just wanted to say NO. Exclusive? Such an idea defied my self-image.

Me? My family? My friends? Of course we don’t belong to anything exclusive.

That’s not who I am. Who my family is. Who my community can be. We’re inclusive, I think. Because we want to be, and also because it’s what we can afford. My kids attended public schools. We’re taking out loans for college, because there’s no hidden savings account or trust fund to pay for it. Some of our friends are well-endowed, others live below the poverty line. My family belongs to the YMCA, not a fancy gym or fitness club. I wait months to get a haircut, so there’s room in the budget for it. We eat leftovers. We deliberately belong to a church that’s open and affirming, welcoming to all people. And of course, no amount of virtue or wholesomeness has ever protected any of us from sorrow or loss; we’ve all had our share of that. I don’t feel like someone who has a lot of extras, I’m not pampered or particularly safe from need or want.

On the other hand, we’re not desperate. We have a home and food, water and healthcare. I have a freelance career and a chance at education. My husband is intelligent, emotionally available, talented, healthy and supportive. My surviving daughter is graduated from high school, going to college, chasing her dreams. My community is creative, provocative, close-knit and as varied as possible, given our town’s demographics. So there’s all that.

So the idea of the CSA as exclusive? Me belonging to something exclusive?! Hah. No way.

Then I considered it again. If you’re looking at the CSA from the outside in, as someone who’s on the waiting list, or doesn’t even think they can afford the price, it may look different. If you don’t …can’t … live nearby, in this region of green lands and open spaces … if you reside in a paved and concrete neighborhood, where the only green things are weeds and traffic lights? It may seem … entitled … to belong to the CSA.

Admittedly, it’s a privilege to have the Appleton shares. But also the CSA shares might feel like they’re only available to privileged people. Like we all belong to a closed club.

After all, Appleton Farms, and any other CSA for that matter, is not a farm stand where you can drive up and pluck what you want from the offerings, and pay-as-you-go. Instead, you buy your rather expensive share at the beginning of the season. You’re committed ahead of time. And in return, the farm fulfills the contract by raising a variety of crops that will offer a well-rounded selection each week, June-October.

That model also means that you can’t just raise your hand and “join in.” There’s a waiting list to acquire a share. Since the farm only supports an estimated volume of crops, they don’t open up chances for new shares every year. You have to sign up and wait awhile to have a membership in the CSA.

As a business model, this works. But it could come across like a gated community, couldn’t it?

Also, the CSA shares are pricey. You can argue that across the span of months, the cost of the share and the amount of fresh produce that you receive will average out. But up front? It’s a lot of money. And a risk. Sometimes, certain crops fail, because that’s the nature of agriculture and vulnerability to weather and infestations, so you might have to supplement some vegetable types by buying them at the grocery store anyway. (Like the year without Appleton’s tomatoes, due to blight.) Realistically, to absorb the cost, some folks split one CSA share two or more ways, because families cannot afford the full amount or use the quantities of produce included in a single share each week.

Plus, you have to invest some time in getting your share. Drive out to the farm to pick it up. And ideally, spend time in the fields, picking more.

Of course, for practical reasons, you probably live close to the farm, or it wouldn’t be very accessible to collect it each week. So this CSA membership isn’t easily available to people who live in a more urban environment.

For all those reasons, the CSA can seem likes it’s a closed community, a resource for people with disposable time and income.

So what’s the response to this concern?

First, every share is supporting a non-profit agricultural enterprise — Trustees of Reservations — that is modeling sustainable farming practices, using many of what they call heirloom-style (non genetically-modified or mass-produced) crops and traditional livestock species. This model is used for development and helps to test and exemplify the viability of such methods.
Secondly, the Farm becomes a hands-on teaching center. Its programs educate new generations of farmers and environmentalists, as well as youth, and also the general public.
Next, the Trustees make parts of their land and resources available to other organizations such as The Food Project, for growing fresh vegetables that can be made available in urban farmers’ markets. The Food Project grows its crops with a youth team that is being trained and educated, providing access to open space and gardens for at-risk kids who aren’t typically connected to the whole process of how food gets from “field to fork.” It brings farming models into urban areas like Beverly, Lynn and Boston. And donates some produce to “hunger relief organizations on the North Shore.” By partnering with organizations like The Food Project, the Trustees leverage their impact in communities where they don’t have a specific footprint. They make their produce and resources available in different markets; they serve additional populations.
Notably, Appleton Farms provides some fresh produce to local food pantries. And sometimes has extra produce available at local farmer’s markets. They address a social responsibility to neighbors in need.
The Trustees also work with teen volunteers and paid crew. Some work are on the farm itself. Some spend time in Metropolitan Boston or other properties, and gain experience keeping trails open and helping to care for open spaces, farms, parklands and historic properties.

Participating in an Appleton Farms CSA share? It makes all of these initiatives, the ones that I described above, possible. It allows farming to be accessible, educational, environmentally-friendly and sustainable on many levels. That’s the bonus.

Then there’s the selfish pleasure — immediate and individual — of strolling into the barn full of newly-harvested greens and vegetables, opening up a bag, checking the recipe board, and filling your sack. Putting on a hat, carrying your bag and scissors out to the field, and picking and snipping more herbs and veggies for your own table. I’ve already extolled the benefits of this experience: the goodness of the crops themselves, the promise of a shared meal and communal experience, the chance to put away from the freshness for later in the year, and the simple spiritual boost of being connected to the earth, the fields, the cycle of life and the world.

Imagine that by owning a CSA share, you are also creating jobs for at-risk youth and exposing teens from your own town and many other communities and cultures to opportunities in the area of farming, environmental stewardship and open space. Add that you’re educating the general public. Participate in a large effort to develop sustainable forms of farming and land conservationfor the future. Know that you’re feedings hundreds of families, some through the shares they own, others through farmers’markets or food pantries.

Probably I romanticize this experience. And its rewards. I’m sure I do. But I believe in it, too.

Of course, if you work in the fields twelve hours a day, six or seven days a week, for low pay and no benefits, it might not be fun. It could be sheer labor, and lacking in much of the spiritual energy that I find in my one-or-two hours a week of agricultural adventure. That’s another part of the benefit of the CSA; members are buffered from the hardest part of farming, the year-round grind and tedium and labor of it, because if we had to put in all that time and effort, we likely wouldn’t participate. The effort is shared instead.

Of course, some of you volunteer at Appleton. You get a firsthand feel for the more stressful part of farming. Some of you put in several hours every week. Others at special times, like during the garlic harvestthis weekend, getting hot and tired, sweaty and dirty, in the fields with the paid farm crew. It’s not all easy-peezy, belonging to a volunteer-driven organization.

Admittedly, even the effort of claiming your full share includes going into the fields, and it’s not always all fun. It requires bending and straightening, over and over. Physical exertion. Mess. Until you’re perspiring and exhausted, swatting away mosquitoes, wrinkling your nose at the overripe or partly-nibbled remains of leaf and vegetable on the ground where other critters have shared a taste of the harvest. Maybe bringing along irritable family members to help, and trying to keep them motivated. All in order to pick what you’d like to bring home.

Yet I’m usually relaxed when I leave Appleton Farms. For many reasons. I’ve been outside, away from my computer. Maybe I saw some friends. I connected with something bigger than myself (I say this every time, but it’s still true).

Sure, every visit isn’t prayerful, not if you’re racing storm clouds or debating with cranky companions (like small children). You’re grimy. Sore. Stinky.

Yet week after week, we bring home a bucket of flowers, a bag of herbs, and a load of vegetables. We come and go with friends, so it’s social. Usually, by the time we’re done , we’re also smiling.

The CSA? Often once you own a share, you divide it with other households to make dollars stretch, to spread out the time and labor of collecting produce, and to be efficient in use of the abundance. You wait for your chance. Then you extend yourself to afford it, to make it viable. And every dollar and hour invested, in order to belong to this sustainable community, is making that bounty available, in other ways, to other neighborhoods, families and people.

When you know what your individual farm share supports, it’s not exclusionary. It’s amazingly accessible and inclusive. It goes a long way to provide value for you, your family, your community and others whom you’ll never meet.

Yes, belonging to Appleton Farms CSA is also a privilege.

Pick Your Own

Posted on July 8, 2012 by gaildoktor Posted in Uncategorized 2 Comments

I promised myself I’d learn how to recognize and cook one new vegetable every year. See a lean coarse stalk, a leafy feathery head, or rotund soil-crusted root, and know it for what it is. Recognize it as beautiful and tasty, once it’s been scrubbed and chopped, or the outer layer peeled back to reveal its tender interior. The work of a sharp paring knife, and a sense of each plant’s purpose, reveals that each vegetable has its own sweet taste, sharp bite, or clean verdant flavor. And plenty of goodness and nutrition to impart to us.

Why do I care? Me? ‘Cause I’m not a gourmet cook. And I’m a most reluctant gardener. (In fact, I don’t garden. I just don’t.)

Gail with dill from the pick your own part of the Appleton Farms CSA fields

I care, because we have a share at Appleton Farms, the Trustees of Reservations’ CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). It’s also the oldest continuously operated farm in the United States. And it’s a model for sustainable agriculture. Hundreds of families have shares, and receive the bounty of the fields from June into October, with access to a winter supply of vegetables before the end of the year. Plus there’s a dairy store and a small selection of meat (which may appall some readers, but it’s part of this farming model) and access to other locally-made produce, such as honey or bread!

Much of the CSA share is planted, cultivated, and harvested by staff, interns and volunteers on the farm. We don’t have to go out and put seeds in the earth, turn the soil, pull weeds, water row upon row of plants, or participate in the other labor included in bringing a single plant to leaf and table. Instead, shareholders enter the cool interior of the lofty barn, and fill a single large bag with produce already plucked from the earth. We walk among wooden bins overflowing with leafy cabbage and lettuce, chard and carrots, beets and turnips.

So my goal to learn new vegetables and make a meal of them? So far, so good. Well, I learned to identify kohlrabi, which is in the broccoli family according to my friend Meryl, with its bulbous root and leafy stalks; it is good diced small into coleslaw or salad, for instance. A few years ago, I learned to appreciate dark green kale, whether its chopped and massaged into a tasty salad or simmered with sausage in a Portuguese kale soup recipe. I’ve made pesto and fresh salads from the farm’s selection of basil and tomatoes (tomatoes aren’t ready yet, fyi).

Another part of the experience is picking. We wear boots and hats, sunscreen and probably insect repellent, then go out into the fields with scissors and bag, to pick whatever has grown ripe. We come back with snow peas and basil, oregano and snap peas right now. Many herbs, actually.

Again, do I really know what I’m doing? No. But I’ve learned.

Sigh. Or remembered back, to childhood when our family depended on the produce from a large home garden to supplement the meal on the table. My mother, who worked fulltime, nevertheless became adept at canning, freezing and storing produce in ways that it would last through the winter months when our family income was stretched too thin to heat a large drafty house and buy enough food for a family of six, too. As a child, contribution to the garden? Weed. Pick. Shell. Knock beetles and other unwanted infestations, critters that vied for the same green leaves and juicy crop we needed, off the leaves.

Back then it was a burden. A task. A necessity.

Miri gathering herbs at Appleton

Now I go out into the field, often with a friend, and choose which rows I’ll walk down. Bend over and search among the pale green vines, coated in dry earth, for promising sugar snap peas that aren’t too fat or leathery. Snip tassels of dill, bouquets of chive and mint. Visit the flower garden, and bring home a few lacy heads of yarrow, a flower whose name I didn’t know until this week.

Usually, just like waking up for 5am yoga, I debate with myself about the merits of getting out to the farm for PYO (pick your own) moments. I’d be happy enough to take just the share already picked for me, and miss out on the other juicy and floral opportunities. Wouldn’t I?

Okay, okay, I know there’s benefit to the pick your own crops. I’d be disappointed not to enjoy them. Or not to make the effort to partake in that part of the CSA.

So I put away the bag of vegetables already neatly harvested for me, and head out to the fields. Once I’m out among the knee-high rows of early summer crops, kneeling down, sometime alone and sometimes chatting companionably with other shareholders, adults and children, it’s a form of healing and meditation. Something loosens up and gives way.

Out in the fields, amazingly, I grow relaxed. Feel connected.

The presence of the natural world and the character of cultivated land surrounds me. I hear a chorus of birds, some startled out of hiding in tall stalks a few rows away, warbling or crying. Catch the furtive rush of small mammals who share the fields with us. Brush away the drone of a curious insect. Hear a tractor in the distance. Smell the up-close pungency of manure from the dairy pastures.

Pluck. Snap. Snip.

I’m learning to know these shapes and scents, these green and colorful plants, by their leggy vine or bushy shape, their pale flowers and crisp fruition. I have plans for what I’ll make with them. Some fresh. Some baked or stored for later in the year.

Yarrow from the flower garden at Appleton Farm’s CSA

And when I leave the fields? I feel beautiful myself, outside and inside. Like the cultivated crop I am coming to know, one name and recipe at a time, I may be a little dusty and droopy on the exterior, until scrubbed and freshened up. Once peeled back a bit, and bared to the light? Inside of me there is a hard nub of persistence and life, something too tough, bitter or stubborn to bite and swallow, but also a crisp or soft part that is tender, flavorful, nourishing. Some part of myself that’s willing to give way and be made into something new.

In its way, spending an hour or so in the fields at Appleton is a form of prayer. A letting go. Connecting with self and something greater.

My bag is filled with the bounty I’ve chosen or picked. With the promise of meals to come, experiences to share with family and friends as we savor these flavors and times together. And my heart is at ease, reminded of a part of life that it’s easy to miss, either because we don’t have a reason to go into the fields, or we just barter away the chance by shrugging our shoulders and saying it doesn’t matter, really, does it?

It matters. It does. That’s one more thing I’ve come to recognize – and name, for myself anyway — in the shadows of the barn and the broad, green expanse of the CSA fields.