Heath Schoolhouse Museum

I live in a ruraltown of 750 souls in the western corner of Massachusetts that sits on the Vermont border. On the Fourth of July in 1981 I happened to meet two other friends at the spinning wheel in the town museum. We were celebrating the holiday, but got to complaining that we never went out to dinner, we  couldn’t afford to, and besides there were no good restaurants closer than 40 miles. Actually there were no restaurants  at all closer than 25 miles. So, on the spot, we invented the Heath Gourmet Club that has been meeting ten times a year ever since, beginning that September. We don’t meet in August because we are all too busy with the Heath Fair, and we collapse the November/December dinners into one.

Gourmet Club Anniversary

Here we are celebrating again. Each month the host picks a theme and lets the other four couples know the entree. Then, Sheila, our record keeper, assigns us each a course, appetizers, bread and soup, side, salad, and dessert, or whatever combination suits the meal. Hosting and courses rotate so we all get a chance to do everything.  This keeps down the individual labor and cost for each meal, some of which have been really spectacular. Salmon Coulibiac, Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourginnone, Mock Turtle Soup (made with muskrat), Peking Duck, and many many more. Spanish, Italian, British, African, Japanese, Indonesian and more, especially French. I love French. Sometimes we have Guest Eaters who feel themselves really lucky to be invited.

Obviously we all love to cook and try new things, but we also like to use local produce. Long before we heard of the 100 mile diet we raised our own pork and chickens and eggs, bought good Heath blueberries, apples and milk. We gardened and grew and put up our own vegetables.

Minestrone

We don’t think every meal has to be fancy, but anything made with good healthy ingredients is a pleasure and delight.

Seeds of Solidarity Farm

We have all been able to buy fresh produce at local farms and orchards, but over the past years the number of small farms has increased selling their produce at farmstands and through this new thing called a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture which allows all of us to share in the risk of farming, the unpredictability of weather and pestilence, and farmer’s markets. This increase in the production of local food is good for the farmers, good for the environments, good for the community and good for us of us eaters.

Seeds of Solidarity Farm is a working farm, specializing in greens and garlic, but Ricky also teaches garden workshops and his wife Deb works to create school gardens, and get fresh produce into institutions like schools and hospitals.

Garlic and Arts Festival - The Festival that Stinks

Along with neighbors, Deb and Ricky founded the Garlic and Arts Festival that takes place the first weekend in October. This is a solar powered, grease mobile run, festival. Who cares if it stinks? After the 10,000 people leave and the field is cleaned up, there is only three bags of trash to dispose of. Everything else is composted or recycled. They have proved that we can live more lightly on the land that we usually do. Then they sell some of the compost at the next Festival.

Organizations like CISA have grown up to help farmers be better businessmen and involve all of us in supporting local agriculture.

Annual Harvest Meal in Greenfield, MA

Every year our larger community celebrates the bounty of our area with a giant FREE Harvest Meal. Farmers donate the produce, restauranteurs donate their labor, musicians come and play and we all celebrate. You can make a donation of course, and that money goes to fund vouchers that are given out at the food pantry, to be used at the farmers market. Everyone deserves fresh healthy food. This year 800 people gathered for this feast, some making generous contributions, and others enjoying the meal freely. $4000 was collected for food vouchers.

And everyone deserves to grow their own healthy food. Just Roots is the new Community Farm that has been form on the site of the Greenfield Poor Farm. This is a wonderful opportunity for many people who don’t own land and who like working with others – who can be a real help with advice.

We are fortunate in our area to have Greenfield Community College which is offering a new course this fall on food systems. It is oversubscribed! Read about that here. It is a joy to see the support given to potential farmers.

We wish our good food fortune to everyone. Bon appetit!

For more about Blog Action Day click here.

Growing a Garden City

Sometimes a garden is more than a garden. Sometimes a garden is comfort, safety, job training, real good food for  the hungry and a supportive community.

Growing a Garden City by Jeremy Smith (Skyhorse Publishing $24.95) has an all inclusive subtitle – How Farmers,  First Graders, Counselors, Troubled Teens, Foodies, A Homeless Shelter Chef, Single Mothers and More are Transforming Themselves and their Neighborhoods Through the Intersection of Local Agriculture and Community and How You Can, Too. Whew! I’m out of breath.

This book also made me breathless with its description of a city learning to feed itself while it involved various groups of people in a new community.  Missoula, Montana has a short growing season, 100 frost free days, and the same kinds of needs any city  does, hunger, homelessness, students who don’t know where their food comes from, and troubled students who don’t know where they are  going. The city also has people with vision, energy and perseverance.

Missoula now has seven neighborhood farms and community gardens that give a whole new meaning to the term Community Supported Agriculture. It didn’t happen overnight. The tale of the growth of this program over 15 years is told through the  voices of those who participated from Josh Slotnick, Director of the PEAS (Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society)  Farm, students at the PEAS Farm, to single mother Kim Markuson, Greg Price, chef  at a homeless shelter, and many others.

This is such an inspiring story that shows what a  community with land and energy can build.  We are fortunate in our region to have new young farmers on small farms, part of a national movement, that is giving all of us healthy food – and healthy community.

Haynes and Nancy Turkle

Nancy and Haynes Turkle have been concerned about the environment and the ways we affect it for a long time. Nancy’s graphic design company even worked for the Department of Environmental Protection for 15 years creating educational recycling materials.

During their 20 years living in Groton they were involved in many community activities including helping to found a community garden. As the garden thrived so did  cooperation between the members of the garden and the wider community.

They left that garden, and their Groton community with a pang, but have now become members of a new community, Katywil, an eco-village in Colrain, founded by Bill Cole. The Turkles have only been in their passive solar, super-insulated, energy efficient house for two months but as they look down the snow covered hill, between two other houses in  a planned eight house cluster, they can just about see the tops of old Brussels sprout plants in the beginnings of what will be a community garden. They are looking forward to the spring and the excitement of new projects. “We hope to replicate the success of the Groton garden here,” Nancy said.

Katywil is a co-housing development, and can be understood as similar to a condominium project. Each owner has a deed to a house and lot, but the rest of the 112 acre parcel, mostly woodland is shared space. “We have privacy, but we also share resources,” Haynes said.

In addition to sharing the beautiful land, there is a sharing of major tools, a tractor, and wood cutting equipment. All this, as well as the usual garden equipment, will be housed in a proposed garden shed. An arbor and a place to rest in the shade between planting, weeding and harvesting chores will be provided as well.. The planned shed will be of substantial size and will be built to accommodate solar panels that will provide some power for the residents. There is also talk of a micro-hydro power supply.

The governing principles of Katywil  guide decisions so that the community can live as lightly on the land as possible while living a rich and creative life. Growing some of their own food, sharing tools, and working together are some of the ways they will do this. In addition, “We are trying to do things as locally as possible, not only local in terms of Katywil, but the wider local community of Colrain and the surrounding towns,” Haynes said.

Since the Turkles knew that Bill Cole had used students at the Conway School of Landscape Design to help with a master  plan for the property, they turned to the School for a sustainable plan for their own three quarters of an acre. Fortunately the Conway School accepts requests for residential as well as organizational projects for their students to work on. The Turkles had an interesting requirement to accommodate.

The Turkles want to make cheese and have already located a Colrain farm that will sell them raw milk. First, Haynes found he would need training and a permit to move the milk from the farm to his house only a short distance away. I am surprised at the legal requirements that exist in this world – even out here in the country.

Then, once the cheese is made, the whey, amazingly classified as toxic waste, must be disposed of according to regulations. It cannot go into a septic system.  A grass buffer strip could handle some whey, but the Turkles plan to build a drywell to handle the problem.

Of  course, livestock could also handle the whey problem. Pigs and chickens could make good use of whey. I was not surprised that livestock is on the list of future projects.

“We have a lot of projects, because Katywil is just beginning,” Haynes said. Nancy is looking forward to the garden. “I’m not an expert or very experienced gardener”, she said, “but I love being in the garden, and the social aspect.”

Katywil has a homeowners association, as do regular condominium projects, but as an intentional community their decisions are always made with an eye towards sustainability.  Haynes explained that they follow a decision making process called sociocracy at their meetings to come to a consensus. As he talked about future plans it seemed that there will be many projects with the social aspects that Nancy treasures.

Later this spring they plan to build an earthen community oven with the help of trainers from Yestermorrow, a design and build school in Vermont.

As I prepared to leave, I took a final look down the snowy hill with the Turkles. They pointed out the old apple trees that they hoped to renovate, and said more fruit trees will be planted.

As we all deal with rising prices of heating fuels, and gas for our cars – and the fear that these fuels will not be available forever – we are all trying to find ways to conserve energy. The residents of Katywil find that there is an infrastructure for sustainable living, but the creation of this community will be an ongoing commitment by each family for the benefit for all.

The view from the Turkle's south windows

October 19 CISA‘s own Margaret Christie will host Preserving Food: Canning, Freezing, Drying, Storage on Tuesday, October 19 from 6:30 to 8:30pm at the Greenfield Community College’s Downtown Center. Register with Greenfield Community College by email or phone at 413-775-1803.

October 22-23 Tower Hill Botanic Garden is proud to host the Garden Club Federation (GCF) of Massachusetts’ “A New England Journey” Flower Show.  This floral homage to New England’s literary and cultural traditions will be sure to generate feelings of nostalgia and regional pride! The Show opens Friday, October 22, and continues through Sunday, October 24; 10am-5pm each day. The Show is included with regular admission: $10 for Adults, $7 for Seniors, $5 for Youth, and free for members and children under 6.

Presented by the Central North & South Districts of the GCF of Massachusetts, visitors will be inspired by a spectacular exhibit of arrangements, both fresh & dried, that reflect New England’s social and cultural history since 1620. Some of the region’s most innovative arrangers will build breath-taking designs, incorporating the ideas of New England traditions and poets with ingenious combinations. The main part of the show features displays using a variety of standards, such as a foliage design on a pedestal, or making use of fruits and or vegetables in a design. The Divisions include “The Maine Woods,” “The China Trade,” and “The Road Not Taken.”–an homage to poet Robert Frost. Distinctive sections include table settings suitable for “An Afternoon at Tanglewood,” and “Dinner at the Union Oyster House,” and “A Tailgate Party” as but a few examples.

November 7 Just Roots, a local citizens’ group, will host a public forum on Sunday, November 7th at 2pm at the Greenfield High School, to help define the highest and best use of theGreenfield Town Farm as a community resource.

Eveline MacDougall found the site, originally a school playground with sandy compacted soil. Through her persistance and work with town departments the garden was born. Nine years of cultivation by all kinds of energetic gardeners with lots of compost have resulted in beautiful, lush and productive plots. In addition to personal plots, some of which have been important to new immigrants, there is a plot for the local food pantry, a communal herb plot, an experimental permaculture plot and a kids plot that are all tended communally.

It is not only the gardeners who benefit. Many local people find the community garden a pleasant place to walk, or to sit in the shade of a temporary pavillion to visit with friends. community for everyone!

It’s amazing to see what 9 years of conscientious cultivation will accomplish!