11th Annual Fish, Farm, & Forest Tour! My little family, and a bunch of much, much older other people!
I do not have a problem with older people. Some of my best friends are senior citizens.* I do slightly resent a publicized “family-friendly” activity designed with about zero consideration for small children. The small children there – our Nels, and the sole-other young family P.’s two little ones – nevertheless had a good time together (in part because we moms missed some of the adult-activities to play outside on tractors etc).
The tour was great and opened my eyes to the almost 500 farms in our county. We visited an oyster farm, a cranberry bog (this was seriously interesting!), a ranch with a presentation on forest management and their sustainable forage farm paired with pulp industry operations (I had to miss this for abovementioned reasons), and a fish hatchery. My favorite was the oyster farm. Ironically (or probably not, I am not so good at identifying irony) even though I’ve lived here off and on for many years I learned more about oyster farming from an episode of “Dirty Jobs” than living alongside such endeavors. Saturday I learned a tiny bit more while other tour participants gobbled up grilled and smoked bivalves.
The tour was also a bit disturbing because many aspects were completely and unflichingly pro ag-business; independent farms (like the one we support) were not mentioned nor was there much mention of what I’d consider the future of food – local, decentralized ownership and smarter, less chemical- and process-intensive practices (such as the raw milk movement – although it’s always funny to me when we go back to principles quite established in human experience it’s called a “movement” or “trendy”)**.
As a bonus at one point one fellow got up and started talking logging history (gee, living here twenty-five years of my life I’ve never heard any before! P.S. we have entire MUSEUMS dedicated to this and in-county not one Native American museum I know of) and before long he was using strong language to condemn the environmental movement, which he said is completely controlling everything in forest and fishery managment. He got very upset talking about this lovely boss he’d had and the beautiful shiny log trucks that used to be in the now-empty lot. These fellows often speak in terms of decades – the time a logging business existed. I understand the pain that’s been lived in my community and I live and breathe this reality (and I completely loathe the over-simplified charicatures of residents in this area as knuckle-dragging rednecks – as I do worldviews of “progressives” who pretend they do not live off the backs of the US working class and the overseas slave class). Seventy years of a logging operation now gone, very sad, it really is. So is killing off wildlife species, and whatever happened to those Native cultures that lived here for not decades but – guess how long? No, guess. 10,000 years. I don’t second-guess nor criticize the anguish of those suffering our long-standing bottomless economy legacy – I only wish for a little more of that seasoning called Perspective.
So the trip was really awesome but it was also kind of the story of white guys just trampling and eating everything they see.
We saw some lovely mushrooms. This little one was about the size of a quarter.
We saw her brothers and sisters nearby – larger than dinnerplates, but with this classic toadstool shape. Nels and I were really into these big mushrooms.
The weather was that breathtaking misty shroud which turned into a soft rain.
More mushrooms: today’s lunch, the chanterelle (sautéed in butter and garlic), avocado, and (local raw milk aged) goat cheese sandwich. Awwww yeah.
Today I worked very hard on sewing (I hope to post awesome pictures very soon!), helped the new indie bookstore brick-and-mortar operation move some shelves, cooked for everyone which meant about five or six extra kids running in and out (food included crumpets with whipped cream and preserves and, for dinner, a lentil, sausage, rice, carrot, potato and spinach stew; it was entirely gratifying to see several children devour this with much gusto***), then went for a late-night spooky and dark run (so spooky I had to call Ralph and ask if he’d come escort me – like a total hero he did!).
Lovely fall times.
* This was a bad joke. I’m sorry. Read comment #1 & #5 for clarification. Thanks commenter lizzie for (indirectly) bringing it to my attention.
** There was however a lot of discussion of home gardens and the tour leader Don Tapio just about floored us with his knowledge on most every ag-product subject you could imagine.
*** “That’s the best thing you’ve ever made,” my daughter tells me just now as I type.
I dont see that it has anything to do with older people I mean we are none of us “youth”anymore are we ?
It seems that you want to speak to the organizers of the event about the non-kid friendly event instead of complaining about it on your blog.
I would LOVE to see a cranberry bog! I think they are just fascinating! Lucky you.
Giving a shout out for Don Tapio- who is completely awesome, friendly, knowledgeable and approachable. He gave me great counsel regarding some of that home gardening over the telephone and through email. Although my questions seemed basic to me, I was pleased to have a horticulture expert like himself give his time and energy to help explain things like local soil composition and ph and how it effects different strains of blueberry bushes. While helping me, he never once seemed like he would rather be doing something else.
@luckychrm
I agree. He likes what he’s doing so much and he knows much of his subjects in and out. It’s truly amazing to see someone so competent who enjoys their work so much!
@k8
The majority of US cranberries are produced on the east coast and I know there are cranberry bogs in some places you wouldn’t guess. The “Dirty Jobs” episode there was one in the southern US somewhere, if I remember right.
@lizzie
It seems that you want to speak to the organizers of the event about the non-kid friendly event instead of complaining about it on your blog.
How do you know I didn’t speak to the organizers? And – my blog is not a complaint-free space. I’m not sure what would give you that impression.
I want to make it clear we did in fact experience inclusivity and warmth by our senior companions on the trip. Lots of smiles. My bitching was directed entirely (if briefly) to, as you intuit, organizers.
I wrote “I do not have a problem with older people. Some of my best friends are senior citizens”. It was a jest. I was trying to sound like someone who DOES have a problem and is a dick. My jest fell flat, at least to one reader and probably more!
I am truly sad if I hurt any feelings.
By the way there was one tour-employee who kept saying nasty things about teenagers and if I hadn’t been squashed in the back corner of the bus I might have spoken up.
Ageism is a nasty thing and it’s used against older people and younger ones alike! I don’t want to be a part of it (anymore). I do want to retain my sense of humor and I do want freedom to write on my blog and not be taken in bad faith.
Man, that joke “Some of my best friends are
black/asian/etcsenior citizens” made me laugh out loud. I probably snorted milk out my nose, too.That stew sounds amazing–and it’s so cool that the kids liked it!
I get frustrated with things that are advertised as good for the whole family that should be subtitled “As Long As Every Family Member Is Over Twelve Years Old.” The CNN tour in Atlanta comes to mind. Still, it looks like an overall good time.
@schoolofmom
I get frustrated with things that are advertised as good for the whole family that should be subtitled “As Long As Every Family Member Is Over Twelve Years Old.
Well-put! I see a lot of this. My kids are old enough and we’ve been raising them more correctly lately so they can often handle “older” activities. It’s really exposed me to just how many things are really excluding young kids and their carers (almost always women). For instance on the bus jaunts where we were “required” to be silent as someone up front on a tinny microphone talked for twenty minutes straight about logging roads (that is not a pretend example), Nels sat quietly or whispered to his dad (he was sitting on his lap). But how potentially stressful and un-fun for anyone with a younger and/or more active child.
I will post the stew recipe soon!