New Communities: Or, Why I Haven't Been Updating

I realize that it has been over a month since my last post. All I can offer are sad excuses, like "But I was moving to Pittsburgh and starting grad school and everything was going really fast and it was super hard and it will never happen again I swear!"

Well, they do say not to make promises you can't keep, so I will avoid saying that never again will I avoid this blog because I have, I don't know, a thesis due or something. But I can promise that I will be making a concerted effort to regularly update this tiny slice of the internet so all my lovely friends and family can see what I am doing, where I am going, things I'm learning, stuff I'm accomplishing... I'm sure you get the idea.

To be honest, I was inspired this weekend to update my blog. By this lady.

This weekend was the Mother Earth News Fair in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, a mere 90 minutes down the interstate from here. Fortuitous, no? And in exchange for manning the Chatham University table for a couple hours and participating in the Farmer Olympics (my team came in second to last... but we get a year's subscription to Mother Earth News so it's hard for me to be too sad about it), I got free admission to the fair. Which was only $30, but I am a poor graduate student. And while it was very cold and I was so unprepared to the point that I failed to even bring a jacket (AND we camped out Saturday night... you can thank my 20 degree sleeping back for my continued existence), I did enjoy some of the workshops and keynote speeches. Especially the indoor ones.

One of the speakers I had the pleasure of seeing was one Jenna Woginrich, a lady homesteader, writer and blogger from upstate New York. Her keynote speech, about the importance of community, was particularly poignant for me, considering that I have completely uprooted myself (again... it's what, the fourth time in as many years?) and moved to a completely new place with completely new people to do something I've never done before.

She discussed the various levels of community... the community we come with (family), the community we choose (friends, folks with similar interests), the communities we hire, brush against on accident, seek out intentionally... there are many, too many to describe really.

Yet here I am, deliberately putting myself into a new community of people who, like me, value food and learning and making positive change in the world. By reading books and blogs, by attending conferences, by deliberately moving away from what I thought I should do and choosing a world that was unknown to me but infinitely more exciting, I am building my own community around me, a little bit each day. It's a very exhilarating time, to feel like I'm where I need to be and making the best choices I can make. How can it get any better?

So thanks to all of you who every come to this blog - my family and friends, my neighbors, my long-lost acquaintances who Facebook-stalked me and found this, and you, person who randomly found me because you Googled "sexy girl on a tractor". Thank you for making yourself part of my community, even if it was only for the briefest of moments. I am indeed blessed.

The Farmer and the Farmerette

On Tuesday, Clear Spring Creamery played host to a Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) workshop. And I was on the itinerary. According to the schedule, I was slated to discuss my "personal journey" as an intern at 3:15.

I was not expecting much, to be honest. I thought I would tell everyone what I studied in college (theatre and drama), mention how I became interested in sustainable agriculture (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver) and explain my future plans (Food Studies MA at Chatham University). There would be two or three stilted questions, and that would be that.

Instead, I became embroiled in an hour-long discussion, in which I eventually realized that I was being treated the mouthpiece of an entire generation of young farmers - the so-called "Generation Organic".

The discussion as a whole was quite interesting, and certainly thought provoking - one moment in particular, at least for me. During a discussion about the FFA (Future Farmers of America), I commented that my mom was a national officer in the FHA (Future Homemakers of America), "...before girls were allowed to be farmers," I ended snidely.

A local extension agent cut me short. "Abigail Adams was a farmer," he said. "So was Martha Washington."

I understand his point. Of course women have farmed throughout history, and continue to farm today. But frankly, the view of farming at present- especially conventional farming - is that of an overall-wearing, grass-chewing, tractor-driving boys club.

This predominantly male farmer stereotype has some statistics backing it up. According to the 2007 USDA Census of Agriculture, the average percentage of female principal farm operators is a mere 14%, increasing  to 22% when you look only at organic farms.

But change is in the air, according to the same 2007 Census: from 2002 to 2007, the number of women as operators has jumped 19%, and as principal farm operators 29%. This is significantly higher than the growth of farmers overall, which was a measly 7% in comparison.

Clearly, the tide is turning, and it is turning more quickly in the world of "alternative" agriculture, such as organic and biodynamic farming. I'm looking forward to reading the results of the 2012 Census of Agriculture, to see how the trend is looking.

As a parting gift, I feel I should mention that my blog comes up when one Googles "sexy girl on tractor," just in case anyone was curious just what, exactly, the role of lady farmers is... or should be.