Learning to Feed Ourselves

There's something happening here. Okay, you can quit with the Buffalo Springfield. This ain't a war protest. But, perhaps, it's a call to arms. Because there is something happening, right here in Oklahoma, and all over the country.  People are learning to feed themselves again.

If you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, you know that we've been rather enthusiastic about a certain contest to grant five communities a fruit orchard, complete with irrigation and help with the planting. From what I can tell, Edy's Fruit Bars teamed up with The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation and, voila!, the Communities Take Root program was born.  For the communities who enter, this presents an amazing opportunity, and it's a sign of something larger moving through the land.

This hits home for Terri and I in particular because, in this current batch of contestants (this seems to be an ongoing thing... like American Idol... only better), we can vote for one of our own.  Turley, Oklahoma is currently in 4^th place.  If they can stay in the top five until May 31^st, they can win an orchard of forty trees (40 trees!) for their community.  We don't live in Turley, but they are our neighbors.  And they have been struggling for a very long time.  So long that it almost looked like the end of the line for them.

Turley borders North Tulsa and is one of the poorest areas in Green Country.  They just lost their only school and are fighting now to keep their post office.  The medical clinics in the area have all shut down.  Most of the residents have no health coverage and so end up in the emergency room when something goes really wrong, as it often does.  Health, it seems, is not a right of the underprivileged.  These are our neighbors, citizens of Tulsa County, just like us.  But, as it goes in the eternal war of the classes, most who live south of Admiral Place pay no attention.  North Tulsa and the suburb of Turley might as well exist on another planet.

That is, until recently.  There are some bold moves happening in our “underprivileged” side of town.  People there are getting wise to the injustice of the situation.  They're starting to work together to transform their community into something good and strong.  It seems they've figured out that if they don't do it, nobody will.  They know their children deserve better.  They know they deserve health and education and a community that cares for them.  To this end, a foundation has been formed called A Third Place.  Click on the link to see what they've been working on and what they're up against.  Look at their plans.  These aren't the plans of the meek, the tired, the beaten-down.  These are plans born from strength of spirit and motivation.  This is human audacity at its finest.  They're starting with nothing... less than nothing in a lot of cases, but they have drive and they're on a mission to save themselves.

This is where the fruit orchard comes in.  Turley, Oklahoma is located in what is known as a “food desert.” Per Wikipedia (see food desert link), a food desert is defined as "a food environment unsupportive of health; it is defined by barriers which restrict access to healthy foods."  This means that real, nourishing food is virtually unattainable for the citizens in this area, and what food is accessible and affordable is highly processed, cheap, and nutrient devoid, the kind that leads to diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and countless other health problems.  Life on Ramen noodles, mac n' cheese, and hot dogs.  Remember college?  That was eating posh.  So what is this driven community doing about it?  They've built a community garden.  And they're working their hides off to expand it.  Forget hard times and bad luck and being ignored and swept aside... screw government programs that disappear just when you need them... they're going to grow their own food.  And a nice big fruit orchard would fit in just perfectly.

This is a concept that seems to be spreading.  Not just with disadvantaged communities, but everywhere.  All over the country, community gardens and backyard gardens and small farms and ranches are popping up.  It's as if we're all waking up from a very bad dream in which we were held hostage to a system that fed us weak plants from dead soil and the meat of sick, tortured animals, and tons and tons of bleached, processed grains.  We gorged ourselves on this “food” but it didn't nourish us, and the more we ate the sicker we got.  We started dying slow, painful, horrible deaths from incurable diseases.  And the doctors told us we were dying of malnutrition... but we didn't know how because there was all this food... 

And now, in the light of day, we're remembering... we can't depend on any big impersonal "system," not a government system nor a corporate system, to feed us in a way that will keep us strong and healthy.  We have to do this ourselves.  We can do this ourselves.  We can heal our bodies and our homes and our despondent state of mind and go another way.  We can get our hands dirty.  We can grow and raise our own food and, finally, take back control over our lives.

The strongest element of the human spirit is our ability to band together to make a change, to help each other through.  The people of Turley and the other communities out there who are coming together to feed themselves are proof of that.  They are the models of how we should all aspire to be.

It never ceases to amaze me how those of us who have the least manage to inspire us the most.

If you want to vote for Turley, OK to win a fruit orchard, or if you just want to see how this contest plays out, go to Communities Take Root and see what a difference you can make.  We only have until May 31st to vote for this go 'round.  Time is almost up.  Vote daily.  Absolutely every vote counts.

If you want to see what others are doing (and what opportunities there may be to get involved), check out the following links:

http://www.communitygarden.org/

http://www.heifer.org/#

http://teachtogrow.org/home

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Season One: Spring Gardening Adventures in Green Country

The weather here in Green Country has been its typical fickle self, making each of my tromps out to the garden a different experience than the last.  Many people (normal, sane people... ahem) wait for nice, sunny days to get out and start playing in the dirt.  But not me... no sir, I fancy myself an urban food gardener, unafraid of a little cold and wet... 

Or I could just be a fool... the jury's still out.

Last Sunday loomed chilly and overcast with intermittent drizzle spritzing through the air.  This signaled to my overzealous mind that it was the perfect day to sow some lettuce seeds...and some spinach...and why not some onions while I'm at it?  So, I suited up in my jeans and sweater, coat and gardening gloves (which are so small they're nearly kid-sized to fit my tiny hands) and headed out to the yard.

And it was...really, really nice.  Yes, it was definitely chilly (it didn't clear 45 degrees that day, and in my world that's chilly), but the chill fell away as I set to work and my body started moving.  And it was quiet.  There was the random shout of a neighborhood kid now and again, and the occasional bird call, but otherwise it felt like the clouds had swallowed up the developed world and told us all to hush.

At one point I noticed a flock of birds gathering in the pecan tree above my head.  Were those starlings or crows?  They were too high up to see clearly, and I'm no master of bird calls.  They seemed to be having an important meeting, however, and I watched them for a time with reverence.

Our entire garden plot is covered over with hay mulch.  We uncover the rows as we plant them, and use the remaining hay as borders and walkways.  I set to pulling off the mats of recently unbailed hay to get at the soil below.  When I did, I saw what I initially took to be a very large earthworm curled up in the dirt.  Hooray! I thought, knowing earthworms are a gardener's best friends.  But then I paused and looked closer.  Curled... coiled is more like it, and the brown is a little flatter, a little scalier than the skin of your typical earthworm.  No, my friends, this was a very small, very brown snake.

I picked it up (remember, I had on my gardening gloves--otherwise I never would've had the nerve) to relocate it under a patch of straw that wouldn't be disturbed for awhile.  I thought I would have to move quick, that it would slither and fight, but it hardly moved a muscle.  It was asleep, dormant from the cold.  I could only confirm it was alive when i tipped my hand to release it to its new bed.  Then it woke up and slithered away, deep under the mulch.

Now, I'm going to assume this was a harmless garden snake of some sort, because I didn't have the heart to kill it (would you believe me if I said I thought it was cute?), so I let it live blissfully asleep under the straw... and because, as I went along, uncovering and planting, uncovering and planting, I found two more. They were each just as cold-dormant as the first, and just as obviously alive when the vertigo of being tipped over signaled their brains to wake up.  I let each of them go unharmed, showing them the same courtesy as the first with their new, snugglier garden accommodations under the hay.

So, please, if anyone sees these pictures and happens to know that, hey, WAIT! Those are baby copperheads!  Or any other creature with a similar reputation, do let me know, will you?  I have no desire to be maimed or murdered for my benevolence toward my serpentine brethren.

This weekend, on the other hand, was in the 80s and uncomfortably warm.  But no snakes this time (I assume they went hunting or something... I don't claim to know the minds of serpents), and it felt like real spring, and my onions and spinach had started to sprout, so I didn't complain.  Spring is a crazy, crazy time.  Mysteries abound and real food is around the corner.  Next weekend, finally, I'll be able to go to the farmers' market and buy food from real farmers, those experienced professionals who know how to get something out of the ground (or the greenhouse) before May.  I will watch and learn, friends.  And, of course, I'll tell you all about it.  

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