TED Talk featuring Thandie Newton

I thought I would share this TED Talk from Actor Thandie Newton with you. I hope you find yourself as inspired as I just was. 

Francie

Savannah and Charleston Weekend

 

When you think of Savannah, Georgia what images come to mind? Long avenues of shady trees with Spanish moss dripping from their branches, southern belles and their beaus walking arm in arm down cobble stone streets, perhaps even a lonely grave yard and the iconic statue of the young girl in melancholic deliberation? 

Source

Savannah is all of these things and more to me. I had the pleasure of going to school just 45-minutes away and spent a fair amount of time here as a college student. It was the quintessential getaway for a girl that was practically being driven out of her mind by lunatic roommates, papers, examinations, or just a desire to be outside with delicious frozen cocktail and never once be reprimanded by the authorities for doing so.

Will enjoying a frozen beverage on River Street, Savannah

  

While Savannah and I are on quite familiar terms, R has never been and so it being his birthday week and the 4th of July and all, the two siblings and their significant others decided to take a road trip and spend one night in Savannah and the other in Charleston. This worked out perfectly for me because while airplane tickets out of Savannah are out-of-this-world expensive, I was able to locate a one-way ticket leaving from Charleston for a very reasonable sum.

Day 1: The 4-hour drive to Savannah was fairly uneventful but as we drove into the city of Savannah, I instantly regretted letting R do the driving because the scenery was gorgeous and I wanted him to be able to take it all in. Every building looks like it did 150 years ago. The tree-lined roads lend perfect symmetry to its surroundings. Even the people are interesting: a dash of Daytona Beach Hill Billy, a sprinkling of street artist and jazz musician, a lovely southern genteel sashaying over to the Junior League or charity benefit, the occasional hipster art student speeding by on bicycles. This clash of culture definitely makes for obsessive people watching and makes Savannah a very charming place to visit.

Unsure of where best to stay, I chose the familiar Mulberry Inn on Bay Street right next to the Savannah Pirate’s House.  When my parents would stay in Savannah, they would often bring us back souvenirs of their travels - “real” gold doubloons and pirate hats from actual pirates that inhabited the Savannah Pirate’s House where they ate lunch that day. When we were finally old enough to see the place for ourselves, we were not disappointed  -the old house was eerie and lucidly reminiscent of its bawdy past. I had no problem at all imagining this as a place where real pirates once drank and ate. Dad further fueled our fantasies by telling us stories of the young boys they would take to the pirate house, get them drunk till they passed out, only to find themselves the next morning in the middle of the open ocean with the enticing agreement to work rather than "walk the plank."

After a brief and nostalgic lunch at a Greek restaurant I used to visit back in college. R and I spent some time walking around and just getting acquainted with the area. We walked to the old cemetery, where I remembered various antic dotes of union soldiers changing the dates and names on some of the graves so the markers would read as though a person had died before they were born, etc. I tried to look for some but think we were in the wrong cemetery and did not see anything mentioned on the ample historical plaques that were almost everywhere.

Jenny in Savannah

After our long walk, we met up with Jenny and Will at a brewery on Bay Street, and tried to narrow down our many dinner options. We finally decided on a restaurant close by, known for its locally grown menu, Cha-Bella. We weren’t disappointed. The food was both true to its Savannah roots and sophisticated. We were especially impressed by the long list of local farms they were buying produce from.   

After dinner we returned to River Street, where I drank a delicious frozen concoction from Wet Willies - something with banana and chocolate in it – yum!

Before leaving the next morning for Charleston, we breakfasted at a popular restaurant called B Matthew's Eatery. While I chose the white-chocolate and banana bread French toast, R had the most amazing plate of shrimp and grits I had tasted in my life. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to Savannah.

The short drive to Charleston was almost nothing  -thank you GPS! We had no trouble getting to our hotel right on Meeting Street. We lunched at a well-known establishment, Jestine’s Kitchen. It was so sought after that we had to wait in line outside while enviously peering in at the customer’s enjoying their food and sweet iced tea in the air-conditioned restaurant. There were even t-shirts for sale, taunting us in the window, which said “I survived the wait at Jestine’s.” At least they had the decency to put a water cooler out there for us while we waited. Once we were inside I knew exactly what to order: sweet tea, corn bread and fried green tomatoes were our starters. For the meal, R and I split a seafood platter  bursting with deep fried oysters, shrimp, fish and okra, and  two “veggie” sides (macaroni and cheese and collards) For dessert I had a peach and blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Yes, I definitely brought my appetite.

R hates dislikes shopping and promptly left me to do some exploring while I perused the artisan stalls at the Old City Market on Meeting Street with Jenny and Will. Jenny bought some awesome cat-eye sunglasses and Will bought a driving cap that makes him look like a Newsie or at least member of the Mumford and Sons band.

After our shopping spree, we met Rudo by the pier and walked down to Rainbow Row to look at old houses.  We kept running into this strange threesome of teenagers dressed in pirate’s costumes. As we walked along, they kept reappearing and at one point even staged a sword fight on the beach to our amusement. I don’t know if it was some sort of club, they were hoping we would pay to have our pictures taken with them, or they genuinely wanted to be pirates. Either way, it was highly entertaining. I wish I had taken pictures of them; they probably would have loved it. 

Beautiful Houses on Rainbow Row, Charleston

As we walked back toward the hotel, they sky opened up on us and rained continuously for the next two hours. We were pretty drenched and Jenny had bad blisters on her feet, but I think everyone was in good spirits. 

Charleston, SC

Back at the hotel and waiting for the rain to let up we made plans for the evening, and decided on reservations at a restaurant that R had researched and showed us earlier that day. Despite many other awesome places to eat, Blossoms was within our price range, had received good ratings, and was going to have a Spanish guitar player perform that night.

Jenny and Will at Blossoms

At the restaurant, we chose a nice white wine and all four of us went for the She Crab Soup, a Charleston specialty. The soup was rich and tasted of crab and sea just as I remembered it. After dinner, we moved to the lounge area and watched the singer perform.  I ordered Red Velvet Bread Pudding - a magical twist on two traditional deserts.  R ordered a Spanish desert wine called Sherry that he adamantly said was different from Port wine, which comes from Portugal.  The two shouldn’t be confused, he said (even though they both taste the same).

Dropping Will and Jenny off at another interesting outdoor venue with music and lights, R and I headed back to the hotel, so I could prepare myself for the early morning flight back to reality. 

July 4th Vacations in Georgia

I went home last week to celebrate the 4^th of July with the family. R and I left VA and drove all through the night- relying on Red Bull and Waffle House coffee to keep awake during the 11 hour drive to Georgia. We pulled into the driveway at 6AM, just in time to see the sun peeking out behind our big barn and hear the rooster’s crow from my grandparents’ house next door. 

 

Sitting idle on a farm is a near impossible task. There are so many things to do that look like pure fun to a city girl who spends 12 hour-days pecking away on a laptop. Sleeping very little (because of the excitement) I awoke in the late morning and went out looking for my family. I wandered into the backyard with a cup of coffee in hand. Of course mom was out in the garden busy pulling at the weeds that have dared to encroach around her beloved flower beds. Watching her hard at work, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for not already donning my shoes and gardening gloves to assist in mom’s zero-sum game against the weeds.

R slept longer than me, but as he surveyed the yard with his appraising eye he immediately seized on task #1 - the vegetables in the garden desperately needed picking. And so, Mom, R and I launched into the sweaty, yet satisfying enterprise of picking tomatoes. Working in the noonday sun, the ones that were too ripe or the bugs had gotten to first were tossed in the compost bin, while many pristine tomatoes were placed in bins. We did this for most of the afternoon and by the time we finished we had three huge bins of large, medium, and small tomatoes. Each one ready to be devoured – it was a proud moment to see things that have been grown in your soil, that look so good and taste even better. 

Fresh picked tomatoes

Dear reader, you might ask why this hadn’t been done earlier? Why did the yuppies from out of town have to be the ones to accomplish this task? Well, the answer is complicated: for one, the garden is a comprehensive monster that you could spend all day, every day in and still not keep perfectly weeded, watered, and mulched. Second, my mother and brother have been taken to task over trying to perfect our cattle grazing operation- obviously there is a very steep learning curve (more like mountain) that they are coming to come to terms with. Third, mom absolutely needs to cut back on her farming duties and focus on healing. Though the cancer is slow growing and confined to her bones, we absolutely want to make sure it either stays there and doesn’t spread or goes away all together. This means taking a breather and focusing instead on all things she enjoys and makes her happy like working in her flower garden, reading mystery novels, and keeping Madeline [cat] and Juliet, Zooey, and Duke [dogs] in line.

Duke and Zooey

Madeline

On Monday, we celebrated July 4^th in a true food-lover fashion consisting of ribs that had smoked for 4 hours straight with pecan wood from our orchard, and a delicious and authentic tres leches cake for R’s birthday (He shares his birthday with our nation’s independence.)

Tuesday and Wednesday Will, R, and I showcased our produce to various Athens restaurants and were able to find buyers for most everything (except for our Basil). We sold tomatoes to The Grit and the Last Resort Grill. Cucumbers and beets went to the newly established and lovely Heirloom Café, and more cucumbers to Farm 255. In addition to all that selling we made some foodie contacts and connections and collected some great tips from other restaurants in the area. I considered it a highly successful venture and a great learning opportunity for us. 

With the tomatoes that were too ripe to sell, R cooked them down and made his famous spicy salsa that we can’t get enough of. We now have jars and jars of salsa and are contemplating more fun things to do with the other tomatoes too ripe to sell: gazpacho, insalata caprese, and BLTs all come to mind. 

It was fun, dirty work and highly rewarding.

 

Highlight #2 of our July 4^th vacations was the road trip to Savannah and Charleston we managed to squeeze in before heading back to the big city. Our trip to the coast deserves its very own blog post and will be writing about it soon. 

-Francie  

TED Talk featuring Robyn O’Brien

 

I found this particular TED talk very interesting. Robyn O'Brien is the author of “The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It”  and an advocate for safer foods.


I had never heard of Robyn, but was intrigued at the headline by our friends over at Elephant Journal that moving to the U.S. will increase your chances of getting cancer by 400%. As some of you may know, my mom has just been diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and this not her first rodeo either - Mom has battled breast cancer three times before.


Robyn's particular story is interesting because she is a former business woman who worked for the food industry before becoming an advocate. 

  

A Trip Home

Hello,

After a brief hiatus the blog is back!

Having finished my Master’s thesis and defense, I was able to come home for the weekend, see the family and report on everything that I’ve seen.

The farm is so lush and green. The first thing mom did when I came home was show me around her flower garden.

Mom plants roses along the fence line

It’s amazing how city life is so loud compared to life in the country. When I woke up in the morning, instead of hearing blaring car horns and sirens, I was greeted with sounds of the farm: birds calling to one another in the trees, the gentle lowing of cows in the pasture next to our house, and the slight hum of a distant tractor engine. 

A view of the farm in May

When I came downstairs, my dad handed me a cup of hot coffee, with a splash of Bailey’s for flavor. I sat out in one of the rockers on the front porch with mom and dad and watched a procession of road cyclists making their way down the road.  I hope that while they were working on their pace, they slowed down just enough to see how beautiful the pecan trees were looking as they passed by our orchard out front.

Breakfast was served continental style on the mosaic table in the back porch looking out on the yard, partially obscured by a huge magnolia tree I practically ‘lived in’ as a little girl. Mom chides me if I try to sit on the side of the table where my back faces away from the scenery. She wants to make sure I can see the farm as I eat my breakfast.

My brother, Will, comes over and brings over his new dog, a German Sheppard named Duke. Duke is just a teenager, but he is already so big that if he jumped on me his front paws would reach my shoulders. I am sometimes nervous around big dogs, but not Duke. For his size, he is gentle, and reminds me of Clifford, the Big Red Dog books I read as a kid.

Jenny with Duke

Even though it is Saturday, and most people have the day off, my brother and Jimmy, a neighbor of ours, have set out to cut hay in two of our fields. The hay will feed our cows through lean times and winter months when grass is scarce. Hay-cutting is dirty work and requires a lot of patience and skill. First, you have to know when the grass is long enough to be cut. Ours apparently wasn’t quite ready when my brother passed over it with the cutter for the first time. 

Our haying equipment

Jimmy, seeing my brother from the road, pulled over in his truck and yelled, “Yur doin’ it wrong!”  This scenario I am sure will be repeated many times as my brother learns how to cut enough hay to feed the cows. Even though winter is far away, Will needs some 500 bales to feed all of our cows through the lean months.

In the afternoon, I took Duke and walked across the cow pasture over to the house where my grandparents live. We sat out in lawn chairs watching baby turkeys and chickens pecking at their food. My parents ordered the turkeys after some family friends asked us to raise them a pair for Thanksgiving. Turkey chicks apparently do not know how to feed themselves, so the grandparents are raising them in a pen along side a few baby chickens. The baby chickens have taught the turkeys to eat, drink, and fend for themselves.

Baby turkeys and chickens 

Small baby plants are also starting to peek out of the earth in Will’s garden. He has planted row upon row of tomatoes, bell peppers, green chilies from New Mexico, cucumbers, and various herbs and spices like cilantro and basil. He has also planted a row of sunflowers to add a little color to the landscape.

I already know my next trip home is going to coincide with the tomato harvest…

*Special Thanks to Russell O'Dillon Photography for some amazing pictures of the farm. 

Back in 15...

Hi Friends, 

Sorry there haven't been any new posts recently. 

The engineer of the celebrated and widely-read  blog post "The Plum Life at the Pastures of Rose Creek" is taking brief break to meet the deadline for a certain final paper, and hopefully graduate - Yay!

Stay tuned though, there are going to be a lot of great stories about farm life coming your way soon. Thank you all for reading and for your support!

Till then, Francie

Busy Week

Happy Friday Everyone! 

It's been a busy week at the Pastures of Rose Creek. After two full days filled with many long hours and lots of hard work, we have  succeeded in working ALL the new cattle. 

What does "working" mean you ask? Working cattle means assessing each cow's health and well being and learning as much about them as possible. 

With the assistance of four wonderful vet students, a professor, and several family members, we had to accomplish a handful of things:

We checked each cows age by assessing the condition of their teeth. 

We vaccinated them to help them stay healthy. 

We had a lot of great help from friends and family!

We checked to see who was pregnant.

And which calves belong with which mom.

 We issued fresh new tags to help identify who is who among our cows. 

Overall, it was a lot of hard work, but we are extremely grateful to everyone who pitched in to make this possible!

Nearly a Chicken Nugget

Hey Folks,

We posted some pictures on our new Facebook page of some of our farm animals. Living on a farm we enjoy being constantly around animals. While some of them provide for our livelihood, others are pets or guardians. Occasionally these lines become blurred.

Case in point, Ferdinand.

Ferdinand, or “Dumplings” as our grandmother called her, was a poultry chicken. Her origins are not completely clear, but she probably grew up in a chicken house and was on a truck bound most likely for a processor the fateful day she fell out of the truck and bounced onto the road in front of our house. When we found her, she had wandered in our front yard, undoubtedly confused but cheerfully optimistic about the fortuitous circumstances that had helped her escape fate as a drumstick.

At the time we had a flock of bantam hens and roosters that roamed freely all over the yard, their metallic-hued feathers reflecting in the sunlight. Compared to the others, Ferdinand’s plain white feathers made her easy to spot. At first, we weren’t quite sure what to do with her, surely she wasn’t smart enough to stick around, not wander off into the woods, or into the jaws of some lucky coyote. In the very least we hoped she would at least lay some eggs for us.

Contrary to our skepticism, we noticed that Ferdinand had taken to her newly found freedom with what can only be described as “zest.” This chicken was a real risk taker. Dad, who loves hanging out in the back yard in a lawn chair, sat down one summer evening with a slice of warm pizza and cold beer. Not realizing he was being stalked, Dad sat the plate down on his lap to take a sip of beer. When BAM! In a flash of feathers, Ferdinand reached out with her long neck, yanked the pizza of his plate, and took off with dad’s slice of pepperoni pizza dangling out of her mouth running just as fast as she could go.

Another time Ferdinand got an eye infection that made her really sick. Dad who has touch with animals that rivals a university-educated veterinarian performed a delicate, but necessary operation to remove the infected eye. Not only was dad’s surgery successful but after only a few days in a cardboard box and some antibiotic ointment, Ferdinand was back in action.

Though she was tough, she was the only chicken of ours to let you pick her up, or keep you company as you walked around the yard. When she wasn’t plotting to steal your food, she would even hop up in your lap and let you pet her. And when you stroked her feathers she would coo.

I only have one picture of Ferdinand, but it is a great one. In the photograph, she is sitting on her tree stump and is nestled against her boyfriend, one of our bantam roosters. The two of them look like one of those content older couples that have celebrated many wedding anniversaries together.

Ferdinand was part of our family for many years before she passed. She showed us that chickens can be warm and friendly and funny and definitely provide more than just a source of protein. Ferdinand also demonstrated that relationships can occur in the most unsuspecting of places among the most unlikely of creatures - something we would have never known had Ferdinand not escaped that produce truck.

Thank you for reading and we hope you have a great week!

Turning Back the Clock on Farming

Hi Friends,

We wanted to share with you a great article about young farmers featured in the New York Times. According to the Times, young people disenchanted with sitting in a desk all day, are picking up a pitchfork and choosing the farming profession instead.

And surprisingly, many of these young farmers have decided against industrialized farming. Like us, they are working to embrace many of the same small-scale farming methods used by their grandparents and great-grand parents before them. 

Can you believe that it has actually been less than a century since conventional farming methods merged with modern industry?  

As a means to combat rising food prices during the Cold War, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz began a large agricultural subsidy program. This subsidy program pushed farmers to maximize their crop yield by planting their crops “fence row to fence row.”  The U.S. Department of Agriculture then compensated these farmers by buying whatever they couldn’t sell on the open market.

While the subsidy program had the desired effect of bringing down food prices across the United States, as the individual calorie became cheaper and cheaper to supply, farmers had to plant more and more to make up for their falling crop prices.

Inadvertently, quantity of the yield became the modern farmer’s new focus of attention, and in order to stay competitive in this new market farmers were forced to divert more money, time, and finite resources on techniques and equipment that would maximize the volume of crops their land could produce. 

Many farms today rely on specialized equipment; indomitable GMO seeds that come with non-negotiable patent protection clauses, and lots chemical fertilizer - anything to bolster volume and gain an edge in a highly competitive, industrial market.  

Quality is often sacrificed in order to meet the demands of an industrial fostered market.  The practices that once helped farmers make names for themselves as having the plumpest tomatoes, the biggest watermelons, or the sweetest, crispest, onions now lag behind on the list of priorities. 

We really hope that more farmers and consumers alike can work together to change this practice. It would be wonderful to once again see farmers storing heirloom seeds from their best plants, or experimenting with soil and compost to grow the better tasting crops.

In the meantime, at the Pastures of Rose Creek, a new truck can wait and we are very thankful our old farm tractor is working just as hard as it did twenty years ago.  So, this week we are giving many thanks for the fortunate condition of our farm and the wonderful community we live in.

Well, back its back to work, those fences certainly are not going to build themselves(Moo.)

Daffodils and Baby Cows

 

  We are starting to see our front yard populated with the same daffodils that our great grandmother planted at the farm over a half-century ago. Though short-lived, the daffodil’s beautiful yellow blooms are always the first to arrive and usher in new life on the farm. 

For us, daffodils are both a reminder of our family’s history in this place, and a welcome sign of our farm’s future potential.     

And so when three calves were born this week, the significance of daffodils and springtime on our farm took full effect. While, two of the babies were anticipated, the last birth took us by complete surprise. 

  We are all very happy to see so much new life on the farm and hope that the good fortune will continue. Besides being just plain adorable, there is something encouraging and uplifting about watching a newborn baby calf learning to walk on its wobbly legs. 

What we learned from Polyface.

Have you ever had an Aha! moment that challenged your way of thinking? We had this happen to us two years ago at a small family farm in Swoope, Virginia called Polyface Farms. From his vast understanding of animal life cycles and the eco-system of his home in Virginia, Joel Salatin and his family have created a marvel of a farm.

Three days after his cows graze on an acre of land, Mr. Salatin pulls up with his portable hen house called an egg mobile and a multitude of chickens descend on the land pecking away happily at the cow pats that are by now bursting with insect larvae – a chicken’s equivalent to filet mignon. 

Not only do the chickens receive a hearty meal, thanks to the ample fertilizer provided by both cows and chickens, when the grass grows back, it is healthier and heartier than before – eliminating the need for modern, chemical fertilizers.

As you can imagine, the trip to Polyface left us spell bound and transformed the way we view farm production. Not only is Mr. Salatin’s approach to farming a viable business model, the farm itself enhances, not compromises, the bio-diversity and sustainability of the land.

Click here to see a great video of author Michael Pollan talk about his week at Polyface Farms.

Keeping all of this in mind, last night during our family meeting, we made the decision to purchase a respectable herd of 97 cows from a local farmer. While our intention is to establish a smaller cattle operation, this will be a great learning experience until we can introduce more animal and plant variety to our farm. Like the Salatin’s farm in Virginia, we are striving to find that unique balance between plants, animals, and the earth.

Welcome Alrigo!

Today we would like to formally introduce you to our Piedmontese bull Alrigo. Alrigo is Italian for “Ruler of the Estate.” Alrigo or ‘Al’ as we fondly call him is quite a handsome fellow. We think our farm’s lady folk will fall head over hooves (ha ha!) for this dashing young Italian. So far, Al has demonstrated little of the fiery temper legendary with bulls. Various members of our family have had to clear a few fences on this farm to escape the horns of a furious bull. I think everyone around here hopes that Al's family tree contains more Ferdinand’s than   "Inferno’s." Time will certainly tell. 


Piedmontese is known as one of the most “complete” cattle breeds of today. Alrigo’s ancestors were bred over 25,000 years ago in Italy, but weren’t introduced into the United States until the 1980’s. Grass-fed Piedmontese beef is lower in fat and cholesterol than chicken, but remarkably tender and delicious. We think this beef will be a favorite among individuals who either just love a steak rich in flavor or those who are looking for a lean, high quality beef, healthier than the variety sold in most grocery stores.


Al won't be lonely for long, as we will soon be purchasing our first herd of cattle to join him here at the farm. 

Getting Started

Hello Friends,

It’s a new year, a time for change, and for our family farm we have some BIG changes in store. We have always harbored dreams of slowly restoring our family farm to the viable, productive enterprise it once was. For many years, we lived among dust-choked machinery, silent cattle stalls, and a dormant granary. We missed that certain joie de vivre farm life produces.

When it seemed profitable to sell, rather than surrender our farm to those titans of subdivisions and shopping centers, we held firm. We finished other obligations such as nourishing our education, and working far away from home, and waited.

Somewhere along the way people began questioning the quality of their food. Whether the production processes of big growers were ethically unsavory, environmental concerns made them rethink the long distances most foods travel, or they simply hungered for a quality of food produced honestly and locally, folks once again yearned for family farms. We know that nothing tastes better than a fresh-picked heirloom tomato, in the way that nothing tastes quite as good as beef raised right down the road from you. 

So after much thought and careful planning, we believe the time is right to begin anew. A wise Chinese philosopher once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” We hope that you will follow along with our family as we undertake this adventure together.