Summer

It's hot. At or above 90 degrees just about every day for the past three weeks. Weather this hot, humid, and hazy is like the winter snowstorms, except it doesn't shut everything down. You can't really go outside for long periods of time without running for a temperature-controlled environment. In the winter, you know you're supposed to sit still, conserve your energy, and crochet or read or snuggle, so it's not so bad to stay inside. In the summer, you know you're supposed to go out and play as much as possible, because the days are long and everything is green and blooming, which makes it even more frustrating that the weather is unbearable. I can't even stand being in my exhibit at the zoo because even though it's slightly cooler than the weather outside, it's still just as humid (or worse), and therefore not really an escape from the heat. Instead, I'm stuck at home, daydreaming of the lush, cool, green forests and scenic shores of the Pacific Northwest. I've never been there, but I imagine that they're fantastic.

I've been daydreaming about Oregon lately while exploring professional opportunities there, but I also just started taking a course online through Oregon State University, so I'm in a sort of mental classroom out there. Yes, more school. When I finished grad school, the folks in the office where I did my work-study swore that I'd be back in school in a few years. At the time, I said oh hell no! but I'm eating my words now. I'm in the program that I should have been in all those years ago, when I opted for a degree in an "easier" field instead - I'm going for my Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources degree with a focus on fish and wildlife conservation. Two weeks into my first class and already I'm loving it. Online classes are great because you get to meet people in all different stages of their lives from all over the country. And you can do the work in your own time. So as long as I have to be stuck inside when it's hot and humid out, at least my coursework will keep me busy and engaged.

And come August and September, when all the back-to-school excitement starts up, I get to be a part of it again. Maybe I'm not buying things for my dorm room or eating in the dining halls, but I get to crack open my books and learn some new things.

Otherworldly

Over Memorial Day weekend, I flew out to Salt Lake City, and rode down to Moab, Utah, with some friends for a weekend of tenting in the desert and hiking through the Mars-like terrain of Canyonlands and Arches National Parks and other scenic lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

I love camping. I wish I could spend my days sleeping in a tent, cooking food over the fire, and hiking around the area. I can't imagine much that would make me happier. The smell of campfire and sunscreen thrills me to no end. I think I'm secretly a holdover from our caveman days. However, there are some modern conveniences that I could do without during camping trips, but I don't think I'd want to:

• S'mores, made with dark chocolate. A must-have. 
• I usually sleep with a Thermarest, which does the job but is rather narrow and not nearly cushy enough, so if I sleep on my back, my arms fall off the pad, and if I sleep on my side, my hips get sore. That's part of the fun of camping though, and it feels tough and rugged. For this trip, my friend supplied me with a real blow-up air mattress that covered the entire floor of my two-person tent. At first, I thought, "lame! real outdoorswomen do NOT sleep on air mattresses." But let me tell you, it was awesome. I am a changed woman. For car camping, I'm going with the air mattress all the way. Outdoorsy cred be damned.
• Crocs. With socks. For the record, I think Tevas/Birkenstocks and socks look just fine too. 
• Aluminum foil. It makes the perfect packet for a wide array of foodstuffs to be cooked on or in a fire.
• Here's where I admit that I am a foodie. Camping should not keep you from eating a tasty, well-prepared meal. That includes salmon fillets cooked on said foil over the fire, foil packets stuffed with chopped veggies and seasonings, dutch oven cobblers, chilis, and pancakes. Sure the usual burgers, hot dogs, bacon and eggs are tasty, especially after a long day on the trails or a cool night in the tent, but I kind of prefer fresh food to go with my fresh air. I recognize that this may not be feasible for backpacking trips, but it is indeed possible to eat chicken, snow peas, and rice with pesto sauce cooked over a camp stove in the Yellowstone backcountry. All it takes is a little preparation beforehand (cook and slice the chicken ahead of time, make and package the pesto, throw in some boil-in-bag rice, and pick snowpeas from the garden).
• I'm not a big drinker, but wow, a cold beer tastes really good after a long day on the trail. I also really don't like whiskey, but a sip or two right after a hard hike is strangely refreshing. It washes away all the nasty sludge that accumulates on your tongue when you're huffing and puffing along switchbacks that wind straight up the side of a cliff.
• Good friends with absurd/wacky/hilarious stories and some outlaw country music. No camping trip is the same without them. Many thanks to my Salt Lake crew for the awesome weekend!

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip:

Weekend pursuits

Some good things to do on a warm spring weekend:

• Visit the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. Take a guided or self-guided canoe trip around the bay, attend a seminar, go for a hike or a bird-watching trip, or talk to one of the scientists about the work they're engaged in to rehabilitate the Chesapeake Bay. Try to catch the yearly open house for additional fun and activities, including live music, a tutorial on raising bees, BBQ, a tour of the bay on a research boat, and an up-close look at a horseshoe crab.
• Go for a bike ride on the Washington & Old Dominion trail. Park at a lot on the trail and ride west, farther than you think you should go, then coast downhill the whole way back.
• Make southwestern turkey meatloaf with 2 lbs ground turkey thighs, breadcrumbs, 2 eggs, cumin, garlic, chili powder, oregano, chopped red pepper and red onion, corn, fresh cilantro, and tomatillo salsa. Top with avocado. Eat with a side of roasted butternut squash and mixed wild rice. Then share a cupcake with a friend and watch an uplifting movie.
• Drink some Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat Beer and read an entire issue of Outside magazine in front of an open window while listening to the cars slosh in the rain on the main street below.
• Engage in some serious snuggles with a very snuggly cat. The ideal time is 5:30am, when said cat is ready to get up but you are not.
• Go to REI during a sale and spend way too much time shopping and much more money than you had intended. Then dream about all the cool things you'll do with the stuff you just bought.

Repeat as needed. Doing any or all of the above activities will make going to work on Monday even harder, but it'll be worth it.

Gulf Coast Environmental Disaster

It's really tempting to get on my high horse right now and laugh in the faces of all those "Drill, baby, drill" enthusiasts, but those feelings are far eclipsed by feelings of sadness for all of the wildlife that will be impacted by this awful disaster. The Burdr website has a great post about all of the birds and bird areas that are at risk from the oil spill. I'll post other great resources of information as I come across them. Let's hope that out of this tragedy comes a new approach to energy development and usage in this country and renewed efforts to protect the fragile Gulf Coast ecosystem.

Simple things

It's been lovely in DC lately: sunny, warm, dry, but full of pollen - an outdoorsy girl's worst nightmare. I've been itching to play outside for weeks now, but between my allergic reactions to all the tree sex and the side effects of my allergy medication, I've been miserable. And then, a mixed blessing: the weather forecast has called for a rainy weekend, which would wash away the pollen (yay!) but be, alas, rainy. I decided to brave it anyway and headed down to Prince William Forest Park in Virginia. It's National Parks Week, so I didn't even have to pay the $3 to get into the park. The last time I hiked through the park was last July - I was training for my first backpacking trip and couldn't find anyone to come with me, so it was also my first time hiking alone. And by alone, I mean alone. Judging by all the spider webs strung across the trail, no one had been there for a while. Aside from being constantly worried about getting spiders all over me (although I like to look at spiders, I'm not a big fan of them crawling on me), it was a ton of fun, and so gorgeous.

That time, I hiked a good portion of the South Valley Trail, so yesterday I headed out on the North Valley Trail. The only problem with the park is that very few of the trails are loops, so you have to think strategically about where you park so you can hike out and back. Other than that, I love this park, mostly for its simplicity. On a damp spring day, everything smells like wood, which there's lots of. It reminded me of being in the woods at Camp Windego in Wisconsin, the overnight girl scout camp I attended for two weeks each summer from ages eight to thirteen. There aren't any mountains to hike up, no challenging rock scrambles, no tricky creek or river crossings, and no fancy valley overlooks. The South Valley Trail has some steeper hills because most of it is a little more upland, but the North Valley Trail mostly just meanders through the woods alongside Quantico Creek. About midway through on the North Valley Trail, a steep drop draws the boundary between the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain, and below the boundary, the simple and undramatic Quantico Falls is little more than a shallow creek running over some hard volcanic boulders.

The great vistas of Shenandoah and the Smokies are breathtaking, it's fun to challenge yourself on steep hills and serious switchbacks, and the parks in Virginia and Maryland are hotbeds of unique geologic formations, but sometimes, it's just nice to wander through the forest. I didn't see any deer or beavers, or even any amphibians (too cool out) or birds (they were mostly high up in the tree canopy, though a woodpecker's rat-a-tat echoed across the creek), and the vegetation was mostly deciduous trees, and that was fine. The rain held off and the air was fresh, and after being trapped in a windowless office for days on end, a simple hike felt like the best thing ever.

Save Our Animals, Save Our Tails

There's definitely some truth to the saying that once you start paying attention to something, suddenly you see it everywhere. Following my ten-day, life-changing vacation out West, I made a promise to myself to build my knowledge of plants and animals. For as long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by nature, but when I got to be a teenager, I thought it was nerdy and I did NOT want to be nerdy. It's always been with me though, and it turns out that the cheesiest thing inspired me to fully embrace nature once again: I flew Frontier Airlines home from that vacation last August. The tail of each plane in the fleet features an animal commonly found in the West. That vacation changed me for good, and my sadness at leaving the West was tempered by the thought that I was being ushered home by one of these animals. (As it turns out, Republic Airways bought Frontier and wants to rebrand the airline without the animals. Frontier workers rallied in Denver last week with the call of "Save our Animals, Save our Tails!" to help save the brand.)

Anyway, after that trip, my passion for wildlife conservation was renewed and I realized that I needed to take a more hands-on approach. It started with volunteering at the zoo, where I have had a chance to learn a great deal already from the dedicated keepers and wildlife specialists. Last weekend I got my new binoculars and went birding in Rock Creek Park, where I saw a northern flicker, a red-bellied woodpecker, a bunch of chickadees (Carolina?), two tufted titmice, and a bunch of gray birds I haven't been able to identify. Without the binoculars, I would have just seen a whole bunch of robins and lots of birds I couldn't identify because they were too far away, and I would have walked on without much thought. It's amazing how being able to see high up into the trees or hundreds of yards away changes how you think about the world around you. Who knew that the little nature preserve in the center of a big city could be so diverse?! I think about that diversity every time I see a different species of bird for the first time, just because I'm now paying attention. The melodious little bird by the bus stop: northern mockingbird. The colorful pair of ducks in the creek: wood ducks. The bird swimming in the tidal basin with its body submerged and long neck gliding through the water: an anhinga. The black ducks swimming in the bay near Old Town Alexandria: scoters (I think). With the help of my bird guide and the website enature.com, I've been able to marvel at how many different kinds of birds live in this concrete jungle.

All of this wildlife lives in and depends on the Chesapeake Bay watershed, one of the most polluted watersheds in the country due to agricultural runoff and urban pollution. If more people paid more attention to how many different animals live in our neighborhoods and were more aware of how our cars and plastic bags and chemicals affect those animals, perhaps they'd be more inclined to support activities and policies that reduce our impact on the watershed. That would mean fewer chemicals in our food, cleaner air and water, even more wildlife. Now that it's spring, there are plenty of opportunities to help, including the Potomac River Watershed Cleanup on April 10th and the Earth Day river cleanup and celebration hosted by the Anacostia Watershed Society on April 24th. It's important work, and saving our animals by cleaning up our city will indeed save our tails as well.

Speaking of diversity, go check out the Life series on the Discovery Channel, which airs new episodes on Sunday nights and shows reruns throughout the week. (Warning: the linked website starts to play a video as soon as it opens.) Today's nature programs are far superior to the ones I watched as a kid. I thought I had seen it all, but this show has featured some of the kookiest, coolest, cutest, most amazing animals that we would probably never see otherwise. If this doesn't make you appreciate the wonders of nature, nothing will.

Alone in the Wild

I just watched the reruns of the National Geographic four-part special "Alone in the Wild." In the show, Scottish outdoor explorer Ed Wardle sets out to survive alone in the Yukon Territory in Canada for three months. It's a boyhood dream of his that he's finally getting a chance to live out. He brings the very basics - shelter, rations of rice and oats, cooking supplies, an ax, a fishing pole, and a shotgun (plus some other minor necessities). He does a practice run in June for 6 days, meets various outdoor experts to learn what plants are safe to eat and to do if a bear attacks, then sets off in July for the main event. He has a tracking unit that he uses to check in once a day by pushing either the OK button if he's okay or the SOS button if he needs help. His activities and thoughts are recorded on video via a small camera he can hook up to his pack while he walks.

The first few days are grand - it's beautiful, he manages to find things to eat, he's enjoying the peaceful environment and the challenge of surviving. But as time goes on, he struggles more and more. Canadian law prohibits him from killing the two moose and one caribou he sees, each of which would easily have fed him for a few weeks. Law also prohibits him from shooting ducks out of season. So he's left to subsist on the two porcupines he finds, wild berries and other plants, and fish from the river and lake. His whole existence becomes focused on finding his next meal, but food is hard to come by in the Yukon. Small animals are few and far between. The salmon he expected to start spawning soon don't show up. Wild leaves and tubers provide far fewer calories than he needs. And to top it all off, he's constantly terrified of being attacked by a bear.

Not every day is bad. On the clear, warm days, when he's found something to eat, Ed's spirits are high. He set out to do something extraordinary, and the successful day he's having proves that he can survive in the wild. But when he is cold, hungry, tired, scared, he cries a lot. His loneliness and frustration get him down. He questions why he took on such a difficult challenge. He keeps reminding himself to be strong, but the mental challenge proves to be too much for him sometimes, especially when he already faces physical hardships. After 42 days, he receives food, airlifted to him from nearby, because he realizes he's just not able to subsist. That seems to be the beginning of the end. Loneliness and food deprivation take over. If he had been allowed to kill even one of the moose or the caribou, he may have made it a lot longer. But perhaps the law proved to be a blessing in disguise. Ed follows the cardinal rule of camping: don't give bears any reason to take an interest in your campsite. Butcher and cook animals away from your site, and hang all your food in a tree far out of a bear's reach. The fish, rabbit, and porcupines Ed caught were easily placed in a bag and strung up for the night. But where do you store a whole moose? What do you do with three weeks worth of meat? A bear surely would have taken an interest in Ed at some point, and things could have ended far worse than they did. The laws meant to protect wildlife protected Ed as well.

I think we can all relate to Ed on some level, wherever we choose to take chances and live out our dreams. When times are good, when things are going our way, we feel strong, like we can conquer the world. Building a fire and catching a meal can be incredibly fulfilling, and they help us live another day, but what does it mean if we have no one to share those successes with? And facing challenge after challenge with no success can leave us feel beaten down, especially if we have no one to lean on. What finally pushed Ed past the point of no-return is when he pulls out the letter his girlfriend wrote for him and the photographs of his family and friends, and he realizes that his dream means nothing without the people in his life to share it with.  On day 50, emotionally drained and physically weak, he decides to return home. It's a conflicted decision for him. As he says after being picked up from his site, it's hard to go out and live your dream, only to find out it's so difficult to do. But still, he feels uplifted by the fact that he made it for 50 days, on his own, in a beautiful place where most people would love to spend even just a day or two. He lived out his dream, proved he could make it for more than half of the time he had planned to spend in the Yukon, took a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something extraordinary.

Challenges can make us appreciate the small things in life, especially when those challenges occur in nature. Back in the hotel room in Whitehead, Yukon, Ed shoots his final minutes of video. After 50 days in the wild, the tv, the coffee pot, the refrigerator - everything in the room - seems needless. Once you can find happiness sleeping in a hammock and eating food cooked over a fire you built yourself, the modern amenities in life seem so unnecessary. I know I have felt that way after returning to civilization from a camping trip. It's a nice reminder that fretting over the small things, the unsuccesses and the struggles, is pointless, and that having people to share life with make all the difference.

Women and Green Jobs

The Green Economy Post had this interesting article on March 9th about how the green jobs push may be leaving women behind because they may need child care and they may not have the ability to do hard physical labor - much of the green jobs created with stimulus money have been for renewable energy development. But this idea contrasts with the discussion of late all over the Internet about the growing movement of women in agriculture, a field that one would argue is the oldest green job out there. (I, myself, mentioned the agriculture-as-green-collar-job thing here.)

This past Sunday, the New York Times had an article called The Femivore's Dilemma, about how women for a long time had shunned homemaking in favor of entering the workforce, both to provide income for the family and to seek autonomy and personal fulfillment. Being a stay-at-home mother, doing the cooking and cleaning, managing the home, was seen as so 1950s. But women are once again returning to the home to garden, raise chickens and other livestock, can food, and create self-sufficiency, and indeed personal fulfillment. I like this quote from the article:

"My femivore friends may never do more than dabble in backyard farming — keeping a couple of chickens, some rabbits, maybe a beehive or two — but they’re still transforming the definition of homemaker to one that’s more about soil than dirt, fresh air than air freshener. Their vehicle for children’s enrichment goes well beyond a ride to the next math tutoring session." 

One point made in the article is a question that many of my friends, both male and female, have been asking as we enter the workforce: What is this all for? If given the opportunity, many of us would buy some land, set up some buildings, and start a farm. Women abandoned the domestic arts because they felt hemmed in, as though sewing and cleaning were occupations they attended to because they felt they had few options, and they sought out meaningful experiences in the workplace. Now, we're all feeling like we just go to our jobs because we have to earn money, and we think that work with tangible results, like farming, cooking, canning, quilting, can be more meaningful. Perhaps some day we'll find a happy medium.

Perhaps it's just coincidence, or perhaps there's something else out there driving the discussion, but the topic of women in agriculture is hot right now. The DC Environmental Film Festival, which starts today, features a film on March 20th called "Ladies of the Land". The Women in Agriculture national conference is next Wednesday, March 24th, in Baltimore, MD. The book Farmer Jane, about thirty women who are making a difference in sustainable agriculture, has been getting some press lately because it comes out May 1st. Why the recent focus on women in farming? Or have we been talking about it for years without much notice? Does Michelle Obama's involvement in food and nutrition have anything to do with it? What do you think?

Filling holes

It's been a rough couple of months. Remember all the happiness I posted about those many months ago? I've had the rug pulled out from under me, my well-laid plans now a pile of rubble. (Sorry for mixing metaphors.) So now I'm just figuring out what to do with myself, trying to pick up the pieces and put things back together. It's not that I walk around in a daze or wail about how awful things are - most days are okay and the lovely weather here in DC has been a curative. And I'm so thankful that I have a home, a job, food, fantastic friends, my health. I have the things I need. It's more like when the wily coyote devises an elaborate plan to catch the roadrunner and puts it all into place, but before he knows it, he's just gone off a cliff and hovers in mid-air, looking at the ground hundreds of feet below, wondering how he got there. When faced with a situation like that, all you can do is accept where you are, let yourself fall, and hope that when you hit the ground, you can pick yourself up and start devising a new plan.

Staying busy is key. While trying to figure out how I got here and what to do next, I've been focusing diligently on my work, a satisfying endeavor. And I've been filling the holes with nature. I volunteered to participate in a lion behavior watch at the zoo - they're introducing the two female African lions to the male African lion with the hope of starting a new pride at the zoo. So far, the male has been shy, wary of the two older females who giggle secretively in the next enclosure over. Last weekend, I got to see them up close, three feet away from the fence separating the humans from the felines. It's an indescribable feeling to stare into the eyes of a wild animal, seemingly as tame as my kit but much bigger, with much more ancient souls. It was like looking back in time, to a place when we were all a little wilder. Tomorrow is my first practice run. I'll report back with any worthwhile notes or thoughts.

Now that spring is springing, I'm looking forward to some local wildlife watching. I just ordered my first binoculars, some Nikon Ecobins at a steep discount from REI - I'll report back what I think of them after they come in and I get a chance to try them out. Already the air has started to fill with the cacophony of birds returning from their southerly winter vacation. There's really quite a diversity of birds in this city. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, I only ever knew of a few bird species: robins, cardinals, the mourning doves that nested in the evergreen tree outside my bedroom window, and some others that I never bothered to identify by name. Here, I've only really noticed the house sparrows and starlings, plus some robins and cardinals. But a few weeks ago, I saw what I suspect were some black scoters in the bay near Old Town Alexandria, and last Sunday, as I waited in the warm sun at the bus stop on a busy street, I took in the melodious song of a male northern mockingbird in a tree right above me. It sounded so joyous, chirping to the other neighborhood birds, bathing in the sun's rays, mimicking the street noise. A female northern mockingbird appeared a few days later on a fence further up the road, and it reminded me of the bird I saw in Meridian Hill Park during Snowmageddon. Hearing the raucous chirping each morning makes me miss the North Carolina bird symphony I enjoyed during the two years I spent there, and it makes me yearn for a quieter home (meaning less street noise) where I can enjoy daily encounters with local wildlife.

The next few months will be tough. Losing something you loved so deeply can be achingly sad. A lone mourning dove perched on the roof outside my window the other day, and its gut-wrenching hoo-hoos perfectly expressed my pain. It's best to take each day as it comes and figure the next day out when it gets there. Hopefully the soft sunshine and the cheerful chirping can buoy my spirits, at least until it gets a little easier to breathe.

Noteworthies

I signed up for the feed from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition a couple weeks ago, and since then I have opened up my Google Reader inbox almost every day to find a well-written post about interesting things happening in the world of sustainable ag. As a member of the agricultural policy community, I have really enjoyed reading thoughtful pieces from people who are actually affected by national policies. Seriously, go to sustainableagriculture.net and check it out. They posted some excellent recaps from the Ag Outlook Forum last month, and the two posts this month about beginning farmers and ranchers are worth a read as well.

While we're on the subject, check out this interesting article from The Atlantic about local foods at Walmart. The store has been the symbol for much of what ails society, but it's hard to ignore the strides the company has taken in the past few years to improve its sustainability. I still won't shop there unless I really have no other choice and it's an emergency, but in many areas of the country where the only store around for miles is a Walmart, providing a market for and access to fresh, possibly local food, is a good thing. Let's hope the company is really committed to taking their local food initiative a step further and isn't just stealing marketing opportunities from local producers.

Agricultural Outlook, Part 2

In the afternoon, I attended two sessions. One was on bioenergy, which is one of the Secretary's priorities, but quite frankly, I'm tired of the topic. The good news is that at least people are thinking creatively about how to produce energy from biomass; the bad news is that there's always going to be a loser in the food vs. fuel vs. climate fight, and mitigating that loss is an ongoing battle.

The other session was on sustainability and the food system and featured USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, the Keystone Center's Sarah Stokes Alexander, Ferd Hoefner from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, and Brian Snyder from the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. Here's a recap of their presentations:

• Kathleen Merrigan is the USDA's new face of sustainable agriculture, and she was the star of the forum. She briefly discussed the USDA's new program Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYF2) and then took questions, deftly and diplomatically addressing skepticism from some farmers.   The greatest success of this program, and of the USDA(and the federal government) in general, is that there is now a national conversation about food, nutrition, and community. The fact that some people in the agricultural field are questioning ideas about sustainable agriculture means that the message is being heard throughout the country, and everyone is now encouraged to engage in the discussion about what food production and consumption can, or should, look like. More on this in a minute.
• Sarah Stokes Alexander talked about Keystone's Field to Market program, which is a collaborative stakeholder group working together to develop a supply chain system for agricultural sustainability. This project addresses the concerns raised earlier on the plenary panel regarding transparency and industry-wide dialogue about how to make every step in the chain more sustainable. Members of the stakeholder group include grower groups, conservation organizations, agribusinesses, food and retail companies, and academia and research organizations (more information and a list of members is here)
• Ferd Hoefner discussed the farmers market promotional programs and raised questions about what policy can do to create new markets and provide greater access to existing markets. A number of people asked questions about loan guarantee programs in their state.
• Brian Snyder brought up the idea of a sustainable foodshed that could follow watershed boundaries. If that were the case, people here in DC would be actively engaged with folks all the way through Pennsylvania and New York State, since we're all in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Many of the vendors at farmers markets in DC come from Pennsylvania, and since we're on the receiving end of many of the negative watershed impacts, it makes sense that we should be actively engaging our northern foodshed neighbors to ensure that their practices improve our watershed conditions. Brian also pointed out that most of the farms in the U.S. are small farms that make less than $50, 000 a year in gross income - not enough to support one person. But CSAs can change that, and other techniques like SPIN (Small Plot INtensive) farming, can help small farms make more money without acquiring a lot more acreage.

(More thoughts after the jump)

Agricultural Outlook, Part 1

Yesterday and this morning, I attended the USDA's Agricultural Outlook Forum. Conferences are great, not just for the networking opportunities, but also for the chance to take a step back and think about the bigger picture. What are our goals? What is our vision for this field? Who are our inspirations? What mistakes have we made that we can learn from?

The opening session featured overviews of the agricultural economic and trade reports and some pep talks from the U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Jim Miller, the USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, and the Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. There was a lot of back-patting, a little bit of hand-wringing, and a strong call to students and budding farmers to embrace the future of agriculture and contribute to efforts to revitalize rural America. Some of the students asked some great questions in the day's sessions, and they really stood out as honored guests at the forum.


The plenary panel titled "Sustainability, Stakeholders & Customers: Achieving a Healthier & Secure Future" featured Nina Federoff (Advisor to U.S. Secretary of State and USAID), Fedele Bauccio (Bon Appetit Management Co.), Richard Schnieders (Sysco Corp.), and Walter Robb (Whole Foods). What a great panel! These are the ideas that really struck me most about each presentation (after the jump):

Everything is as it should be

Today is my birthday. Last year on this day, it was sunny and 70 degrees outside. I'd never experienced that kind of weather on my birthday before. The days afterward in my 29th year followed suit in a similar fashion. A great deal of the past year was like that - an unexpected and very pleasant surprise. This year, as a special 30th birthday present from Mother Nature, the DC area broke the record for the amount of snow in one season with a couple of small storms and three big storms: Snowpocalypse, Snowmageddon, and Snoverkill. In total, 54.9 inches. That's more like it for mid-February.

Thirty is a big age for people. It's the line we draw in the sand for ourselves. "By 30, I will be doing _______." "By 30, I will have _________." "By 30, I will have made something of myself," whatever that means for each of us. I'm not sure I ever had those kinds of tangible expectations. I dreamed of the same things most people dream of: the home, the family, the job. Well aware of how I change my mind so often, I knew better than to be too specific about what those things would look like. Which is a good thing because at 30, I'm still living a nomad's life, still trying to figure out what home, family, and job really look like to me. The only time I freaked out about still not having those answers was after watching "Julie and Julia," in which the character Julie freaks out about not having those answers and cooks her way to 30. Then I remembered that we shouldn't feel something just because a movie tells us to, and I got over it.

Now, at 30, I'm still fumbling along, a little wiser and much happier. The only picture I had of myself as a 30-year-old was that of a confident woman, smart, accomplished, who above everything else, knew herself well. Since I was a teenager, I couldn't wait to be 30 because I so looked forward to knowing myself and feeling comfortable inside and out. Now, I don't care about not being settled down, not achieving whatever measures of success people are supposed to have achieved by this age. Because I achieved the goal I have always seen as more worthy than whatever I could use to measure myself against others. I feel like the woman I always wanted to be. I accomplished the task of growing up, of getting through the wrenching teens and the tumultuous 20s and making it out alive and relatively intact. I wouldn't take back any of what I've gone through in my life, but just thinking about it all makes me exhausted. And that's been just the first 30 years of this wild journey.

So now it's time to do something with it. I still feel lost, as much so as I always have, but maybe that feeling never goes away. At least now I have a compass and I know which direction to head: Westward from here, but never far from myself.

Birdwatching in the city

I put a bird feeder out on my fire escape earlier this month. For a while, the only thing it collected was snow.

Then, last Sunday, we saw some birds crowded around its little ledge. They ate all of the bird seed in three days - Wednesday evening, I came home to an empty bird feeder. So I refilled it.

Friday evening, it was empty again. I was going to wait until after the snowstorm to refill it again, but this morning, the birds sat on the fire escape railing, staring eagerly into my window.

So I refilled it again, and now I get to watch the snow swirling around while a bunch of hungry house sparrows snack on seeds as the feeder twirls in the wind. Kind of like a birdfeeder-go-round. I pulled out my Field Guide to Birds of North America and identified the males and females.

The cat, however, seems mostly uninterested.

Sensory overlap

Synesthesia: from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation"—is a neurologically-based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.


0 = clear      5 = black or navy blue 
1 = white     6 = orange
2 = yellow    7 = grey
3 = green     8 = maroon
4 = purple    9 = black


January =  white or vanilla sky (soft pale yellow and thin light blue)
February = deep plum
March = rusty orange
April = pale pink
May = deeper pink
June = sky blue
July = real blue, sometimes white
August = soft red
September = golden
October = dark grey 
November = orange
December = pine green

Brainstorming

Some things I love, in no particular order:
nature
outdoor activities
outdoor activity gear
wildlife
kids
food
writing
planning events
telling people about nature
art
sustainability
books and magazines
helping people do things better
learning about other cultures
technology
cooking
volunteering
creating

How do I turn these things into a career?

Peace on Earth

Last week's Snowpocalypse in DC kept people from their last-minute consumerism, held up travel across the region, and gave the federal government a rare snow day. The snow began Friday night and didn't stop until early Sunday morning. It blew sideways at times.

It blocked our gate so we couldn't get out.

It piled up on the fire escape. 

But it was glorious, because for days, the story on tv, in the newspapers, online, was about the storm. We forgot about the health care bill, the ridiculous politics, the big sales on unnecessary stuff, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and focused on what was real, what was right in front of us. We helped each other wipe snow off our cars, we walked to neighborhood bars and puppet shows, drank hot cocoa spiked with Bailey's Irish Cream and Mint, had impromptu snowball fights, and engaged in spontaneous romping. We didn't go anywhere we couldn't walk to, and we spent the days and nights with friends and family, wrapped in sweaters and boots and scarves. For two days in DC, there was peace and love, which is what the holiday season is about, after all.

 

Nature is so cool

The past six months have included a whole lot of soul searching, after realizing that yet another fork in the career path may not be the right one. After thinking long and hard about who I am and what I want, I went back to 10th grade, when I wanted to be a marine biologist or a zoologist. I have always loved animals. My first word was kitty. I used to read all of those kids' encyclopedias of nature. I wanted to work at a pet store or the zoo or volunteer in the Plants and Animals room in high school. I watched hours of nature shows on PBS and the Discovery channel. I even wrote a letter to Jack Hanna (he wrote me back - I still have his letter). But science was hard and writing was easy, so I strayed toward environmental and travel journalism instead. I guess I thought being a wildlife biologist would be somehow "not cool" or too touchy-feely, but I've still managed to do a fair amount of writing about animals over the years, from articles about endangered species in the lower Missouri River to wildlife fact pages for a conservation NGO. And I still nerd out over random nature facts - on a first date to the aquarium years ago, I happily showed off my knowledge of pitcher plants and my ability to quickly spot animals in their exhibits.

I recognize that switching to a biological science-related career at this point would mean more schooling, and I haven't ruled out getting a second degree. But in the meantime, I aspire to become one of those people who really knows their stuff when it comes to nature and wildlife. So I'm volunteering at the National Zoo and ramping up my knowledge of local wildlife, starting with birds.

And let me tell you, spending three hours on a weekend afternoon talking to people about the plants and animals in the exhibit is bliss. I'm at the Amazonia exhibit, and there is lots to talk about - two floors full of fish, turtles, amphibians, birds, mammals, plants, and more. The best parts are when I get to talk to kids who know SO much about nature! They're as jazzed about it as I was when I was a kid, but I was so shy that I would never have engaged a stranger in a conversation about anything. But these kids know a lot, they're so curious, and they love learning. It's great talking with adults too - they're just as interested as the kids, and equally wowed by all the cool stuff they see. No matter what kind of mood I'm in when I walk down the hill to the zoo entrance, by the time I walk back up that hill on the way home I'm buzzing with happiness.

I could go on for hours about today's volunteer session, about the funny things the animals did, about the rare two-toed sloth sighting, the new bird, the funny fish face. And it's so fun to share that with the visitors who leave behind their cynicism, their adultness, their moodiness, and revel in the amazement of nature.

Speaking of which, I am grateful to the many people out there who share their love and knowledge of wildlife with the world through their blogs (and let us know about it through social media outlets). It's great to see such a strong community of writers and photographers out there, spreading the word that nature is fantastic and reminding us that we all need to pitch in to protect it. Keep up all of the great work!

Fallen by the wayside

I've been neglecting this space. I receive and process all of my information now in Facebook- or Twitter-sized snippets. I have lots of thoughts about important things, but other people get to them first, so I fear that what I would say in this space would now sound old and trivial compared to their well-thought-out postings. The growing season is nearly over, and my one pepper and one pea was all I harvested, and I have no other projects aside from trying to figure out what I want to do professionally and then finding a way to do it in Colorado. So all I can think to post in this space starts with I, I, I, and nobody really wants to read that.

But I'll atempt a thoughtful post anyway, because lately I've been thinking about relationships and egos and judging other people. A few years ago, lost in the trauma of some mid-twenties turmoil, I judged some close friends and pushed them away. I decided that my own turmoil was enough to bear and didn't want to maturely address my beef with them. One friend managed to put up with me anyway and we patched things up, and now our friendship is as great as it ever was. Another friend accepted my rudeness and let me pull away, and so we lost many years together. We recently patched things up too, or at least started to, but now we have a gaping hole of years to fill back in. As I'm rounding the corner toward 30, I'm finally able to understand where I was, let go of the ego, and get back the things that meant so much to me for so many years.

People do this all the time. They get in fights with friends, push them away, seek them out to reconnect. It's all a funny dance. We think it's okay to push friends away because we have no legal ties to them. Our relationships are fungible, disposable. But these friends I blew off are like family to me. They are my sisters, if not by blood, then by soul. Kicking them out of my life for good is just not an option. We met in college and bonded during some of our most formative years. We started our journeys together at the beginning of our adult lives. You can't just throw that away.

If that's the case with people we've known for less than half our lives, what then of the people we've known our whole lives? Of people to whom we are biologically connected? We may not like these people at times. We may disagree with their world views, we may feel we have little in common with them, we may not understand their actions. But they are family. We are obligated to care for each other, to look out for each other, even when we can't stand each other. We are more than just floating souls, we are clan. We are kin. So what then of some people who choose simply not to care about family members? Or worse, those who choose to hold family members hostage for their prior actions, for their bad choices or their life struggles? How can you choose to simply give up on parents or children, on siblings, on aunts, uncles or cousins, who care for you no matter what, because that's what family does? How can we choose to hold our friends, or our egos, closer to us than we hold our family?

I say this as someone who is part of a family in which we were just four people living in the same house, going four different directions. It's not a judgment, just an observation. I believe that my parents felt the same way about their upbringings, and we were always going different directions from other parts of our extended family as well. We were all always disconnected. But we're family. We share some of the same traits that can be traced back through many generations. We are alike in ways that we didn't develop by spending time together, because we only just started spending time together. Like it or not, we are connected for life and death, and we will pass these connections on to our families for generations after us. So how can we take such trivial matters as such serious slights? Isn't it our duty to just grin and bear it for now, because these things too shall pass?

It makes me sad that my entire extended family isn't close like some families are (or seem to be). Perhaps it's more like, we don't try to stay connected. I'm just starting to get to know my cousins, who are all closer with the other sides of their families, and I feel like we missed out on so much. I learn about the drama in the family of someone near and dear to me, who may likely be my parter in creating a new family some day, and I see how it parallels the current drama in my own family. And I yearn to patch things back together as well as I can, because I can't wrap my brain around the idea that if we don't like what a family member is doing, that we can just push them away and leave them to their own devices. That we're not obligated to try to help them, or at least try to understand them.

So no, neglect is not an option. If we don't like something, if we're not happy with the way something is going, rather than try to find something to replace it, we try to fix it. We have no choice. When you are deeply connected to someone, the labor may be long and difficult, and often expensive, but a cheap new replacement is just not the same.

A new place for an old sculpture

A few weeks ago I met up with a friend at the National Harbor. I went there expecting to hate it, all Disneyfied and such, but it was actually quite nice. A little empty, since many of the storefronts have yet to become occupied, but it seems like a lovely place to spend an evening.

Remember The Awakening, that sculpture that used to be at Hain's Point? The one we were dismayed to learn had been removed? Its new home on the National Harbor is pretty cool.



The photos, taken on my little camera phone, don't really do it justice, but it looks especially neat at night.



Kids can still play on the statue, and it's a moving image from just about everywhere on the Harbor.