Returning

"Did anyone visit Calypso last year?"

In my life I've had a few opportunities to visit places that I've loved and left. Leaving home for college and returning after graduation, visiting Cortona Italy with my family after high school and returning during my junior year of college study abroad, going back to DC for Obama's inauguration after graduating from George Washington University and currently my return to Calypso Farm to help with their fall field trips.

My first experiences in all of these places were ones of growth. Each place taught me about myself and the world around me. It is because of these initial moments that returning to these places feels like coming home. There is a familiarity with the culture, the surrounding environment, and old hang out spots. But in returning, I have found that I need to be aware of the changes that have happened since I left. Most times these changes are small, almost unnoticeable until looked at more closely.

These are the feelings I've been working through since arriving back at Calypso. Nevertheless the past few weeks in Alaska have been great. I have reconnected with the amazing Calypso community and hurtled myself back into the large, and sometimes hectic, field trip coordinating routine. The garden here is just past it's peak of production and large carrots, kale, potatoes, beets, lettuces, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash and more are being harvested. I am constantly amazed by the amount of produce and the variety of vegetables that can be grown together in one place.

I am also still learning new things about the Ester community. Last summer I discovered the gold mining operations in Ester gorge, and I saw the gold mining dredges. I knew that Ester had been founded by prospectors searching for gold during the gold rush. But last week, for the first time, I got to see a prospecting operation up close! Judy, a beloved Calypso volunteer, invited us to tour her husband's gold operation... right in their backyard! Judy and her husband are both retired from their full time jobs but her husband keeps busy following his own gold "vein" (as miners call the streaks of amethyst where gold can be found). The day we visited it was raining, but Bob brightened the dimness of the weather with his jovial explanation of how he found his "vein" and how one sorts through rocks and mud to pan for gold.

"you can't pan in the river, if you ever go panning in a river you know it's a fake operation. You gotta have a bin to catch anything that falls out. Then you can just re-pan instead of it flying off in the current."

Bob took us through the archeology of the site, how he found his vein, and the long... painstaking process of finding gold dust, gold nuggets and gold lines. He also explained how his operation is different from the big mining operations.

"if you're like the high school kids around here, you know that to pay for school all you have to do is go search through the old dredge piles."

Apparently, gold dredges are only built to sort for gold dust-anything bigger like a gold nugget the dredges toss out like a rock because nuggets are so rare to find. By running a small prospecting operation, Bob is able to catch all of the above.

As Fall rolls in and the trees change to yellow, I only have a month left in Alaska. I still don't know what will happen after I am done at Calypso. The uncertainty is exciting, but I am also fighting a slightly nervous feeling. I'll keep you all informed as I know more about my next steps.

Got Veg.

Got Veg? New Holly Youth and Family P-Patch does...

I realize that there is a lot to catch you up on. Especially since I have now officially completed my 2009-10 AmeriCorps term, and I honestly don't know if I can catch up on everything that has happened over the past year on this blog. Never the less there is one thing that I do want to devote time to writing about.

Whether your family, friends or random internet reader interested in organic food and food systems, I think that you will be able to relate to this entry. In the United States there is a huge gap in youth education concerning where the food they consume comes from. I've read about cafeteria lunches consisting mostly of greasy pizzas popped in a microwave right before being served as that days hot lunch, accompanied by heated up frozen tatter tots that count as the lunch vegetable. I've also heard youth grown at the thought of eating a fresh garden carrot with a little dirt on it, stating they'd prefer to get their vegetables from the Safeway down the street (at least they're eating veggies). But statements like this blaringly highlight the evidence that there is a disconnect between American youth and the food they eat.

Yes. I know that these days I am preaching to the choir. there are literally hundreds of efforts across the U.S. to improve school lunches and connect youth to the environment. Despite these efforts, the bills that are being passed in Washington DC are not making big enough changes. Most recently I read an article about the newest bill entitled "Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act of 2010", which grants .6 cents more per child to healthier school lunches... (you can read more here http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2010/06/improving-nutrition-for-americ.shtml). The bill also promises more access for students who are eligible for school lunch programs, and also justifies the small increase in funding by saying it is the first increase in 30 years. It's better than nothing, and probably will help students in the long run. But it is a very small step to solving a problem that has been growing for the last 50 years or more. If government continues to avoid solving the problems in youth nutrition that it has caused through supporting organizations like Mansanto and subsidizing crops that ultimately make us an obese nation, than we will definitely not meet the goals set by Michelle Obama's Task Force to reduce childhood obesity by 2020. Not to mention our youth will continue down their current path of becoming the first generation to dye before their parents (BIG DEAL!).

Ok. Now that I've had my rant, I can fill you in on what I've been doing to help the situation in the past year. As apart of my AmeriCorps direct service I provided garden classes to Vietnamese, Somali and Chinese youth on New Holly Neighborhood Campus in South Seattle. The area around New Holly is not a food desert, but a large majority of the families that rent there live below the poverty line. Primarily I worked with the Vietnamese Friendship Association to expose their k-6th afterschool students to organic gardening and fresh produce. Through garden activities I tried to help them understand the improtance of gardens to their environment.

In March I also began to organize a garden club at New Holly for Middle-High School students. I originally started the club as a way to connect older New Holly youth to the P-Patch program, but I also wanted it to be a safe place where youth could come to learn and share nutritious healthy meals. So, with the help of some of the other AmeriCorps in my program, everyother week we cooked dinners and on other weeks we worked in our P-Patch plot. The club was a success drawing over 20 youth to the New Holly Community Kitchen and P-Patch garden. We made dinners of stuffed red lentil/rice peppers, fried eggplant, kale chips, egg drop soup, stir-fry and spring rolls-just to name a few. We also fixed the New Holly Youth and Family P-Patch fence, planned and planted a garden, learned how to make compost and harvested veggies to use in our dinners! The youth who participated were amazing and really fun to work with. They came to meetings excited to cook and share meals. I learned a lot just from planning club meetings and interacting with the youth. To check out a video that was made about the club click here: http://pugetsoundoff.org/video/12312 and to check out some pictures click here: http://pugetsoundoff.org/image/11884, http://www.flickr.com/photos/seattleneighborhoods/sets/72157624421737421/.

It feels good knowing that even though government isn't moving fast enough in terms of food policy, there are still programs that allow people like me to make a small difference in youth education around food. In fact AmeriCorps programs such as AppleCorps are begining to pop up all around the country in the form of FoodCorps. Until the changes we need are made higher up I can only hope that AmeriCorps volunteers, nutritionists, gardeners and others in the food movement keep up their efforts to teach and expose students to healthy, fresh, nutritious food.

Goodbye P-Patch....

I wrote this letter to send to all the lovely people I've met in the P-Patch program over the past ten months. It's a good update on what I've been up to as well...

Hello all,

Time has certainly flown over the past ten months and I can hardly believe that I am headed into my last week of my 2009/2010 AmeriCorps year of service. I have enjoyed getting to know many of you during my time in the Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch program, and it is with a little sadness that I leave you. The P-Patch program has taught me about community and what that means in a garden setting, as well as the importance of passing that gardening knowledge to our youth. I leave P-Patch eager to help youth garden programs continue to grow in the city of Seattle.

Here are a couple of quick facts about what I accomplished this year:
-Taught over 50 youth garden classes throughout Seattle
-Provided 5 garden and food systems workshops to elementary-high school youth
-Helped 4 new youth organizations find P-Patch Plots
-Organized the first Gardening with Youth P-Patch Summit
-Updated youth website and Listserv seasonally
-Wrote 2 articles on youth garden activities for the P-Patch Post
-Participated in numerous outreach events to spark youth interest in gardening
-Completed new updated Youth Resource Binder
- Helped connect 10 High School Service learners to projects in P-Patches

While I am leaving the Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch program, I am not leaving the gardening community. I will be headed back up to Alaska for a little over a month to help out the farm I worked on before coming here. Then I will be returning to Seattle in October. I hope to connect with many of you again in my future endeavors. If you would like to contact me before I leave please do so before August 6th. Otherwise please direct any questions to Kenya Fredie at Kenya.Fredie@seattle.gov and continue to check the P-Patch Youth webpage (http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/ppatch/youth.htm) for garden updates.

Keep doing the amazing work you do!

Happy gardening,

Jackie Dagger
Jaclyn.Dagger@gmail.com

How did this happen....

Well I guess when you're living life and having fun time flies....

I have to apologize (yet again) for my absence over the past months. I really enjoy taking the time to write on this blog, but my life in Seattle has been so fast paced, in comparison to Alaska, that I haven't been able to take the time to write-never mind think about what I would like to write about!! But I hope I'm turning over yet another leaf...

About a month after I arrived in Seattle I moved into a house on the north side of Green Lake; an urban oasis for Seattlites urning for a natural setting during the week before taking off for rural adventures on the weekends. The house was nice and in a great location, but for me something was not right. I never felt completely comfortable living there, and I always seemed to have complaints. I didn't feel comfortable inviting people over and was hardly ever in the house. So recently, on a whim, I moved to a house on the East side of the lake.

It is funny how moving just a handful of blocks can make you so much happier! Since moving I have felt more at home in Seattle than ever before. I don't mind staying at home during the week, and have finally been able to allow myself to take up old hobbies again; such as spinning yarn, reading and WRITING! But most importantly taking pleasure in in the time it takes to do these things.

The people in my new house also make it much easier to stay at home. My old roommates were not bad people, but their choices in life hadn't taken them in the same directions that mine have. I often got annoyed with the lack of community in the house and felt I was paying a gross amount for other's energy consumption. I also found myself holding back constantly because I didn't want to be "that crazy hippie roommate" forcing the ideals of environmentalism down my roommates throats. To top it all off I tried desperately to avoid conversations with my roommate Bart who liked to argue with me about the benefits/pitfalls of a growing consumer culture. Sorry... this post is turning into a mantra.

My new roommates don't live exactly the way I do, but at least they share some of my basic life choices- like composting and seeking out fresh local food. these are two things that over the past couple of years have just become no brainers for me. Seattle, more than most cities encourage these lifestyle choices. There are almost daily farmers markets in different parts of the city, and a WEEKLY compost pickup. That's right! compost is picked up and processed by the city of Seattle and then sold back to resident gardeners... AMAZING! Therefore it was that much harder for me to sit in a house where nobody cared.. for six months.

Exploring rooming situations is only one of the growing experiences I've had over the past year. Working in the P-Patch community garden program here has nurtured and grown my love of gardening and interest in food culture.

Stay tuned for more from the Great North West!

ps. I am working on compiling a picture album to share all the amazing moments I've had here with you-and my garden!

SEATTLE AT LAST!

"We're taught to buy things we don't need, to impress people who don't give a shit"

I'll discuss this quote in a little bit, because this post is going to be a jumble of events and experiences running all the way back to September when Ali came to visit me in Alaska. There is so much to catch you up on... including leaving Calypso, traveling down to Seattle, and beginning my new job as an AmeriCorps volunteer. These monumental events in my life have included no shortage of adventures and new experiences. In fact it may just have been the most action packed, at times stressful, emotional roller coaster I've ever been on.

September in Alaska was beautiful (I can't believe how far away it seems now). The dry summer lasted almost until it snowed. Ali's visit was full of crystal clear sunny days. We seized our opportunity to explore the back trails of Calypso, berry pick with Addie, Elsie, Kara and Judy, listen to some local music... and explore Denali National Park!! I could write a whole blog entry about our visit to Denali (otherwise known as Mt. McKinley or "the great one"). But there is so much more to fill you all in on that I will only write a little.

The day we went into the park was one of the last sunny days in central AK. The sun was out and played beautifully off of the mountain's vivid peaks and crevices. Each time we caught a glimpse of Denali I could only imagine the wonder that inspired so many native legends about the mountain before white men claimed it during the gold rush. It is well known that Denali is an elusive mountain to view. Our bus driver explained that only 30% of visitors to the park ever get to see her. Ali and I were beyond lucky; we had clear views of her ALL DAY! My favorite part of the trip into the park (and Ali might say differently) was our hike up the ridge at Eielson Visitor Center. After eating our amazing homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with carrots picked strait from the farm, we started our assent. It was only about a mile hike, but on a basically vertical trail. It was steep! But so worth the pain. At the top we could see, what felt like, clear across the park into the snow capped mountains. We were on top of the world. Seeing Denali was awing and inspiring. There are so few opportunities to see a place so natural, wild and beautiful these days and it was so special to be able to share it with one of the people I care most about.

Just a little under a month after Ali's visit I left Calypso Farm and Alaska... the catalyst event that caused the roller coaster I have been traveling on.

It is not that I am not enjoying Seattle. I have put a lot of thought into my conflicting feelings over the past few weeks, and this is what I've come up with. Calypso Farm taught me a lot about life and what it means to BE alive. For one, Calypso was an amazing community that seemed more true to the "real world" then anywhere else I have ever been. They live their lives for every moment, whether that be tending to the plants, taking the time to make meals from scratch, going on hiking, canoing or rock climbing adventures, and most importantly actually connecting to people. My experience there changed my whole perspective on what the "real world" is. When I left the farm I saw myself as returning to everyone else's life. It's a very odd feeling to REALLY SEE all of the shortcuts that people access everyday... me included. To try and rebel against that is tough, and it has been a constant battle for me to try and keep some of the habits I formed on the farm from disappearing. I also learned a lot of things about myself.
My moral is that you can't jump into a six month internship on a remote organic farm without it affecting you deeply ;). I never thought in April when I arrived in Fairbanks that I would be continuing to work with agriculture and food. Yet here I am in Seattle, a place where you can garden year round, continuing to teach kids about food and gardens. This brings me to the quote at the top of this entry. We are taught to live in a world where material goods are the meaning of life. Where money rules who we are, what we eat and who we are allowed to be friends with. But is that really life? and is this really the way we should be living??

Calypso was a step removed from this "normalcy." Money didn't seem to matter as much because we were living off of the garden, and people traded for many other things. At farmers markets with other vendors it was not uncommon to trade some vegetables for a tart, tomatoes or some sort of sauce. We also traded with a yoga instructor who came to the farm every week to teach in exchange for vegetables. Anywhere else we would've just paid for these things without giving any consideration to exchanging our own talents for payment.

Well. that's my tangent. And I think with that said, I am going to have to leave the rest of this story for my next post. I'm looking forward to writing you all about my ferry ride to Seattle and getting settled here over the past three months!

I have also uploaded new pictures to my Picasa album! Take a look!!!

The State Fair

"Who are you here for... my boss Tom"

This blog entry is a little (or a lot) late in coming. I meant to write it directly after the end of the fair... but a bunch of other things have gotten in the way!

about.... a month ago the much anticipated State Fair started in Fairbanks. The fair was one of the events that I had heard about since I arrived at Calypso Farm. This year we were in charge of the Agricultural Hall-so there was a lot of preparation in the days leading up to it... and really during it as well. Those ten days I spent more time in Fairbanks then I have spent the entire time I have been here (about five months).

The state fair in Fairbanks is like a huge culmination of the year. One person I talked to described it as Christmas... without the cold and presents. It's just one of those times where you see everyone that you haven't seen since high school, or all the people you've lost touch with over the years. For me, it was more of a chance to get to see some of "Fairbanks culture."

Everyone goes to the fair... if not everyday, at least one day. They have the same rides and the same food... the same booths... but they do different entertainment and animal shows on all of the three stages. I personally spent a lot of time in the horse barns. They had outdoor stalls set up that you could wonder through and see the horses. Each stall was also labeled with a little description of the horse with their name, breed etc. There was also the petting zoo which Tom and Sus's girls liked to check out.

The other side of the fair was the glutenous smorgasbord of Deep fried, beer battered, powder sugar covered food! I tried to refrain from eating it as much as possible, but I did have some fried dough and a deep fried halibut pocket. If Cheryl (a calypso volunteer) hadn't been volunteering with me the majority of the time, and bringing me incredibly yummy pockets of dough filled with rice and beans, peas, stuffed cabbage leaves etc. I think I would have gained double my weight by the end of the fair! Most people I saw walked around touring the rides, which as is custom, consisted of the well named "fair"eswheel, death drop bungie ride... and other Topsy Turvy man made thrillers.

I might write about this culture as if I wasn't apart of it... but I definitely hopped on the fairiswheel with the girls, joined in eating the glutenous food... and even went up on stage to get hypnotized...

Yep, I did it, and for all of you skeptics out there.... IT WORKED! The first day of the fair I had unsuspectingly told the girls that I had always kind of wanted to get hypnotized... mistake 1. The next day I came in with them again and Tom had already picked out the hypnosis show on that days entertainment line up. I was stuck. So when it was show time I got up on stage... followed Mr. Hypnosis's (for lack of a better name) instructions.... and boom.... I was out. Well kinda. Throughout the show I kept falling in and out of hypnosis... and really it felt more like I was wide awake, just following his instructions and pretending to be a dog... or changing sexes. The farm still knows me as Brad... the man who likes woman who can hike. (hah!)

The highlight for me though, and I know that sounds wierd.., was when Mr. Hypnosis told us we were on the Jerry Springer show. His instructions were to make up as big of a lie as we could about somebody in the audience. Well... I thought about who was in the audience (pretty much the whole calypso staff) and decided on Tom.... my boss. When Mr. Hypnosis approached me he asked me...
"who are you here for."
-my response
"my boss Tom..." (Tom started to hide behind his wife Sus)
-Mr. Hypnosis
"and... what's Tom's problem"
-me
"....He reads romance novels in the outhouse...."
(hysterical laughing)
-Mr. Hypnosis
"is there anything you'd like to say to Tom"
-me
"That's JUST not the appropriate place"

After the show I approached Tom and all I had to do was look at him to send him into one of his frequent laughing attacks... which of course sent me into one as well.

There is so much more to write about in this post... I have a million stories to tell you all about the past month including Ali coming to visit. I am trying to upload pictures and I hope that they will be posted soon!!! In the meantime please hang in there, I only have two weeks left here!!!! ahhh... and then I am off to Seattle!!
much love to everyone-especially those who have lost loved ones recently. I am thinking of all of you.

Fire, Fair and Fall

"Only YOU can prevent forest fires"

It has been an extremely dry, hot summer in Fairbanks. In fact we have gotten so little water that instead of watering the garden with runoff rain water we have had to call the fire department up numerous times and beg them to bring us some more water!!! At this point they've come up and sprayed water into our pond three or four times. They get a good deal out of it though. In exchange for water we bake them all the cookies they can eat =). From what I can gather a normal Fairbanks summer is not this dry. Normally it is hot and sunny through the end of June and then in July it starts to get wetter. Then august is even rainier and colder. By the end of August the leaves are turning yellow and falling from the trees! This normal summer cycle keeps the fires down, but this year we've been dealing with extreme smoke rolling into Fairbanks from the more than 60 fires in the surrounding areas.

The worst part for me is that the last few weeks of summer field trips were really slow because of the smoke. Two weeks ago I had four Pizza Making field trips scheduled for a group from the Fort Eielson base, but partly because of the smoke all but one field trip was canceled! Then This past week two field trips were canceled, including my last summer field trip. Granted the smoke was so thick on those days that I couldn't even see the upper garden from the resource center, which is right across the driveway. No kids or adults should be spending a lot of time outside in that kind of environment... even if it is part of the natural burn cycle of central Alaska.

Like many other things, I never knew that there is a whole section of the army devoted to fire control. These fire fighters are broken up into two groups, the hot shots and the smoke jumpers. Many of the staff, friends and share holders at Calypso have connections to people working in these positions. So I have learned a thing or two about them while I've been here. The smoke jumpers work from the air, dumping water onto the burning fires. The hot shots on the other hand, work on the ground in teams. They dig ditches to stop the fire, cut down trees etc. They dig ditches because forest fires can go underground and continue to burn through the long, cold Alaskan winter. Then when it gets dry at the end of spring the fires pop out in unexpected places.... you can see the danger in that I'm sure.

I have actually been staring at the fire alert board at the bottom of the hill all summer. Every time we drive past it to go into Fairbanks I look to see what the fire danger is for the day. At the beginning of the summer there were a lot of moderate days... but now almost every time I drive past it is EXTREME (written in black letters over red!). I anticipate that the danger will be going down now that we're getting into the end of August though. It is a known fact that the Alaska State Fair in Fairbanks always brings the rain, and this year is no exception.

Right before the Fair got underway last week it began to get colder. Then the day after Susan predicted that there would be no rain until it snowed... it of course rained. After a beautiful clear night, I woke up to pouring rain outside of Steve's house. It has been raining on and off since then. Normally the mornings are a bit rainy, it mellows out in the afternoon and then eventually clears. I actually like the rain here thus far. It's not too cold yet, and it is always so much fun to go wander the woods and see how different everything looks after it's been sprinkled with water.

more on the fair to come in my next post...

ps. I have a new job!!! At the end of September I will be taking off from Alaska down to Seattle where I'll be working as an Americorps in the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods P-Patches (aka community gardens)