I'm the one who crafted the name "Living Lands Agrarian Network". Actually, if you want to go back even further there were three others who, one evening some time in the Spring of 2007, while hovering around the kitchen table of a student-created conscious-living coop (The Claremont Coop - Facebook it!), were dreaming big. The four of us were best friends, early and mid-twenties, idealistic, passionate, capable, and moving. Myself and one other, Adam Forbes, were just finishing up our degrees at Pitzer College. Noah Westgate had graduated from Pomona College a few years before and had jumped into creating this Claremont Coop with his friend Geordie Shurman - Both of whom where highly instrumental in creating the amazing Pomona College Organic Farm while in school. The fourth person present was Christopher Remmers; a native to the San Bernardino Mountains, a talented artist and young but experienced natural builder. The four of us became close while living together at the coop and working to improve the place and live together (with some others as well).
Time's were changing ,for all of us, and we saw it coming. So anyway, that evening we sat down around the table and began envisioning how we would stay connected through the work we were all interested in pursuing - ranging from organic farming to natural building to starting more coops to creating a non profit that could be the nexus of education for all of these things! None of us were really interested in more formal education like that which we received at college - not to say that we were not grateful to have been educated in that way, but that we were ready for what was next - we wanted our next education to be through living and feeling. We wanted to be connected to the earth, to nature, to soil, to land, to people, to community and to create the meaning of our lives through these connections. There we were, totally excited about this non-profit that we were going to create, like tomorrow! - and so of course we needed a name! How can you go forward without a name, you know? After a bit of brainstorming we came up with Living Lands. That was it. Living Lands embodied what we were after in our lives. Explicit in its connection to the Land and in the form we wanted that relationship to take - through our Lived experience - It also expressed our view of the Land as a Living thing, and worthy of total respect. We had been at this brainstorming session for a while so we called it quits for the night - content to leave it at that - with a name and the idea that this non-profit organization would provide the body through which we could all work together, in education, while geographically separate at times, and in the different interest fields we all had.
And so our lives continued on but the vision of Living Lands remained in our heads only. That's okay though because it just goes to show that the time right then, right there, was not ripe for the total fruition of this vision.
I graduated from Pitzer College in May of 2007 and packed my bags, leaving Southern California and the Claremont Coop permanently. Two days later I found myself back in Nevada City, California; hands in the soil, wide brimmed hat on my head, and happy as can be working side by side with Leo (then Lennard) Chapman at Bluebird Farm. Finally, I was doing what I had been dreaming of; working and living on the land with every hour of sunlight - not to mention enjoying the company of so many lovely folks into the evening every Thursday under the presence of the giant English Walnut tree. Now I'll admit, in that first year back home (yes, I'm a Nevada City Native - having grown up on Banner Mountain in the Little Deer Creek Watershed) those potluck dinners were mostly attended by folks in their 40s and 50s - Leo and Deb's friends mostly. Thankfully, however, several other farms in the area including Mountain Bounty and River Hill had interns that year and most Thursdays I could count on at least a few of them to show up! So yeah, there was a lack of young people, not only in the social sphere, but also in Nevada County Agriculture.
Having just completed my senior thesis on the topic of Peak Oil and the ways in which United States Agriculture would have to be re-structured to adapt to the changing conditions precipitated by diminishing energy availability, I was highly tuned into the dire need for More Farmers! Learning how to farm - about fertility cycles and our local conditions - was a major goal of mine that summer but there was another part of me that yearned to do more than just this! I saw my involvement in agriculture as so much more than just growing food - I felt a calling to engage with people, to confront the barriers prohibiting their involvement within farming; land access, knowledge of farming, support, start up costs, marketing, and socially-stimulating engagement with their peers and elders!
This was when Living Lands became Living Lands Agrarian Network, or at least through the process of myself and Leo throwing ideas back and fourth about how to go about this endeavour. The concept was far too great for only two people to hold completely. We went for it, never the less, and by the beginning of that next year we had expanded to a total of four farm sites within the Nevada City area, had five interns joining us for the season, had expanded our growing into the realm of staple crops like beans and grains to provide for our food needs year round, and were raising chickens for eggs and meat, spring lambs, and pigs! The vision was still young but it had started to take material form and due to our dedication to remaining flexible we were able to remain on the path of This Progress, adapting where adaptation was necessary. This year was, in many ways, still defined by the name Bluebird Farm more than Living Lands Agrarian Network. Our ideas were still forming as to what Living Lands was, how it would function, and how to include others in its creation. One of our interns from this year, 2008, Vince Booth, or, as we fondly referred to him, Number 1 (because he arrived first), had been greatly impacted by the season of farming with us, so much so that he was prepared to stay another year, this time as a partner.
Also joining us in that next season of 2009, which would turn our to be the most formative year for Living Lands, was Maisie Ganz. Maisie had been one of the interns at Mountain Bounty that first year on the farm. She and I took a likin' to each other early on in that season - both of us so passionate about farming and what we were able to do with our lives and the possibilities of living this vision that we were creating! After finishing up her year at Mountain Bounty she worked as the Journeyman Farmer at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills, CA - gaining further understanding of growing for a CSA and incubating her vision for what she was most interested in doing. The next season she joined Me, Vince, and Leo up here in Nevada City to take part in the first official year of Living Lands Agrarian Network. I take full credit for bringing Maisie back to Nevada City and although our romantic relationship did not last through the season the vision that we worked to create together surely has thrived and we continue to work together in wonderful ways.
This was the year that Living Lands became an official 501c3 non-profit organization. The four of us were the founding Board of Directors and thanks to the help of Shawn Garvey our application for exemption was smoothly submitted and quickly accepted by the IRS. So many of the various components were coming together; we had the people, we had the land, we had the support of the community, and now we had the non-profit! But we still needed more people to hold this vision! We learned tremendous amounts in 2009. We learned about farming, each of us building on the experience we already had. We also learned about balance. We discovered that each of us has a different level of comfort with work and leisure, that sometimes it was helpful to have clearly defined lines between work and non-work, we learned that money can create invisible, or at least transparent, ties to one another. You see, in this year we were all more or less "employees" of the non-profit. We all worked together, most of the time, and whatever we made was pooled under the non-profit and then we were all equally compensated for our work. Our job descriptions were more or less undefined and we were flying by the seats of our pants! While we were all good friends and enjoyed each other tremendously, we still struggled to find ways to clearly communicate how we were feeling and to articulate our needs.
We were a non-profit now but we were not able to take advantage of this status for lack of energy and time, although we did get a small grant of $4,500.00 in support of the internship program, again thanks to the guidance of Shawn Garvey and the help of Leo's daughter Rebecca. The Fall season was now finally upon us and we were able to exhale, to begin looking back on the path we had traversed. The beauty of it all was tremendous and the room for improvement was staggering. Change was in the air. Change was necessary if we were going to continue.
Through the great fortune of the community, Maisie had befriended Willow Hein, herself a Nevada County Native, and the two of them had been scheming of ways in which they could collaborate in the coming season. Willow was a farmer, having just finished her first season on her own field off Lake Vera Rd, but was really interested in collaborating with more people and finding support in that. Willow's mother, Julia Kelliher, just so happened to be an amazing communications specialist. Throughout the past 30 years Julia has been working with businesses, organizations, individuals, and groups of people in helping them understand the underlying social and power dynamics affecting their behaviours and the health of their relationships. Maisie suggested we, the Board of Directors of Living Lands, schedule an appointment with her - we agreed. By this time, however, Vince had already departed for the Northwest where his roots are, and had no plans to return permanently. Lacking one board member we elected to invite Willow on as a replacement for Vince's position. She accepted the offer and seamlessly became a part of Living Lands. Once again four strong, we met with Julia and began the work of understanding our organizational structure and the dynamics that were at play. Priceless was this work with Julia. We worked through some persistent issues and came to agreement about how to proceed into the next season. We were all in agreement that we needed a division between the non-profit and the farmers/farm businesses. We needed to maintain the creative capacity of our and farmers and to do this we needed to provide for a greater degree of autonomy; financially, schedule-wise, and allowing each farmers to focus on Their main Interests and to not be diluted by the totality of interests in the group. At the same time we wanted to maintain the positive aspects of the collaboration; working together at times, exchanging ideas, providing education to interns, creating a strong non-profit that could support the farmers through developing on-farm infrastructure and continuing to draw the community into our work through our collective spirit, food-centered events, and other festivities.
We finally settled on a hybrid model. The non-profit would be separate from the farm businesses, focusing on its charitable mission of providing agricultural education to interns, supporting our farm-to-school program, hosting educational workshops for the general public, and supporting beginning farmers through providing access to land, markets, capital, and a social support network. Each farmer would be responsible for running their own business. This means that each person or partnership is responsible for their own financial well-being as well as deciding how much they work, when they work, and how they work. In exchange for access to land, capital, markets, and the social support provided by the non-profit, farmers would be responsible for hosting the interns one day a week and educating them on the workings of their particular farm. To maintain the inter-connection of the different farms we decided to have one day a week, Wednesdays, where all the farmers, interns, and any volunteers work together on one of the farm sites. This day rotates from site to site each week and keeps everybody together as well as provides a big work force for especially large projects - it's cross-pollination!. Farmers are also expected to participate in the fundraising events throughout the year that are crucial to the financial well-being of Living Lands.
We changed a lot, but we all felt good about the decisions. Now it was time to put the new ideas to the test. The 2010 season was profoundly different than 2009 for the balance the new arrangement provided all the farmers. It opened the door for growth within the organization, largely because it freed up people's creative energies, but also because it was a clear-cut way that people could become involved in the network as farmers. The proof was in the pudding; The 2010 interns ALL decided they wanted to stay and join Living Lands as Farmers in 2011! And so it is that we have created four new farm sites this year to accommodate the various projects each new farmer aspires to create. Another part to the success of 2010 was Rachel Berry. Rachel, in the beginning of the season, worked with us as an event coordinator helping with the Farm Tour and Membership Drive in July as well as the Fine Dining in the Fields dinner in September. Being able to hire Rachel freed up energy for the Board of Directors and was she the right woman for the job! So right that she has remained with us in an expanded capacity as the Director of Living Lands; maintaining databases, organizing fundraisers, grant writing, working on public outreach, organizing our workshop schedule, providing valuable perspectives on different issues, as well as bringing her unique set of skills related to herbalism and wild-crafting - which she shares with her husband Matt, from whom we have also reaped benefit.
First Rain Farm. By now you're probably wondering why that name was even in the title of this blog posting. Keep reading. It took me all of the 2010 season to go through the "separation" process from the name Living Lands Agrarian Network. The name had become so much of who I was - all of my energy for the past three years had gone into creating this Thing! And now we had created a sharp division between this thing and me and the other farmers! I farmed in 2010 more or less under the name of Living Lands and towards the ladder part of the season I began thinking about My Farm. It was all up to me - so what was my farm? I have a perpetual habit of trying to do everything - and not being content with it until it's done the best it can be done. So you can imagine how I must feel some times - trying to grasp on to all parts of agriculture while being stretched further and further apart as the reality of time and energy constraints become apparent. I grow lots of greens and mixed vegetables for Briarpatch and the Nevada City Farmers Market, I raise dairy goats for my own milk habit and a few other folks, I have a small flock of egg laying chickens, I make a fair bit of compost, worm casting, I grow 30 varieties of vegetable seed for Sierra Seeds Coop, I raise pigs with Mathew Shapero for direct sale and the farmers market this year, I teach gardening workshops throughout the year, and I grow the produce for a small fermented foods business I have with my sister, Wendy Van Wagner, and her husband, Joe Meade, at In The Kitchen. I farm on three parcels of land - One one Wet Hill Rd. and the other two on Cement Hill Rd. - the total area is about 3.5 acres.
In thinking about a name for my farm I really wanted a name that embodied something beautiful; some words that spoke to the essence of an experience.The name Living Lands Agrarian Network was very explicit in that it is a network and it's a network of people involved in the agrarian lifestyle. Over the past five years we've all been aware of the growing number of farms and new farm names, in Nevada County and beyond. Many of these names embody the spirit of the emerging local foods movement; food justice, ecological practices, fertility loops, healthy food, etc. These names are telling you what they are about - letting you know that they're not not just any old farm but that they have greater moral aspirations. I appreciate these names and the aspirations behind the names but for my farm's name, I find myself wanting to settle into the comfort, the beauty of this place where I farm. Through the name First Rain Farm I am attempting to convey the essence of something beautiful in my relationship with this place.
First Rain as a name would not make sense in all places for the reasons I have chosen. It's a place-based name in direct relationship to our climate - there must be a fancy-sounding french name for such an essence, anyone? First Rain speaks to the fact that for a long portion of time during our summer months we receive no rain. The ground becomes parched unless irrigated, the air is hot and dry, the grass turns brown, and the dust kicks up, covering the leaves of the trees on the way to the river. And it takes its toll on us as well. Our skin is dry and dusty. The sweat evaporates before it drips and our eyes squint under the intensity of the sun filled sky. Once in a while we might get a thunderstorm or a light sprinkling of rain in August, but certainly not every year, and usually not enough to penetrate the ground. The First Rain I'm talking about is the one that comes in late September or Early October. It's the one that moistens the ground many inches deep, it washes the leaves of the trees, cools the air, relieves the plants, and releases that amazing fragrance into the moisture-filled air. It's the big sigh of relief after a scorching summer of long days without this all-powerful respite. This is the First Rain that brings enough moisture to germinate seeds and to green up the dry, brown grass on the hills. This is the return of life.
