Food Security, I want it

This summer I spent some time at the fantastic restaurant F.A.R.M. Cafe eating well-prepared local food and occasionally serving/cleaning up.  F.A.R.M. stands for "Feed All, Regardless of Means," and the model of the cafe is that people may pay a suggested sliding scale donation or volunteer for an hour to receive a meal.

One of the things I learned talking with the chef/director was that a number of the students at the local university participated in the volunteer/eat program.  Some of our students experience "food insecurity"--hunger and the inability to access food.

The USDA defines food security as "access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life."

There are a few things that distress me about students and food insecurity.  1) Their hunger is largely invisible.  People who are hungry generally don't want to look like it, and will go out of their way to hide any sign of vulnerability or need.  I am grateful for programs like F.A.R.M. cafe and the student-run food bank at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO, for making food accessible in a way that preserves the dignity of the person. 2) I want to expand the definition of food security.  We are not certain that GMOs, for example, are a safe "edible foodlike substance" to ingest, and in fact there is some evidence that GM wheat is toxic because it contains a protein that humans haven't evolved to digest.  Have you tried eliminating wheat from your diet for a week?  I've been off wheat for a few months and my gut feels much better. In addition to GMOs, what is the risk of the prophylactic antibiotics used in Concentrated Animal Feed Operations (CAFOs) to human health?  What is the risk of pesticide residue on human health directly and through its environmental impact?

In fact, maybe more of us are less food secure than we think.  Do you think organic food is too expensive for most people to buy?  Isn't there something wrong if I can buy 2 toxic taquitos with whoknowswhat kind of meat in them for 99 cents? 

Fort Lewis College's student-run Food Bank

Getting off the treadmill

My life functions at a relatively fast pace.  It is not unusual for me to start my day with 7 am yoga, work all day, dinner break, evening meeting or rehearsal, fall into bed. I have friends whose lives function even faster--a friend who has had his furniture in storage for 10 years because he travels so much for work; a friend who still pulls "all nighters" to get work done.

We are a little bit crazy.  Maybe more than a little bit. It is also exhilarating to live fully, to be engaged in one's community or profession.  It is also satisfying to mentor others.

And from time to time, we have the conversation.  It goes something like this: "yeah, one of these days, I should maybe settle down.  Maybe move out of the city. Get a farm. Buy some goats."

I should write a related post about the time I decided to take the goats, on leash, for a run, and my subsequent injuries.  Note the absence of leashes in the photo.  There is some nice symbolism for 'letting go of control' here.

If I were to make a movie of my life, I'd have to include an episode from a few years back when I was running on a treadmill. I was jogging along at a good pace when I mis-stepped and was conveyed at a high speed toward the back wall of the exercise room.  I wasn't hurt, but I felt deeply embarrassed.

This is turning out to be a blog post about the fear of looking ridiculous, plus the fear of actually getting hurt.  My point: Transitions.  Transitions can be awkward, scary. But to live authentically, sustainably, well, and in balance, we need to make the transition through different paces.

This is what inter-agency collaboration looks like:

Locks locked to locks...this is how the Forest Service, the BLM, the National Park Service, private land owners who have "in holdings"only accessible by this road and others? are able to access the restricted road to this magical place.

I had a fantastic weekend of work at the Duncan Cabin, just north of Great Sand Dunes National Park.  HistoriCorps in partnership with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado in partnership with the BLM, the SLVPLC, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, and let's throw in AmeriCorps and Adams State College ... worked on restoration of this historic cabin.

I so felt like a country girl, making a corral of all things, at this place.

Kevin Rockey, of Western Mountain Youth Services, after a long day of corral building

I <3 Historic Preservation

Forest Service Archaeologist, Angie Krall, gave the volunteers a history lesson about John Duncan and his cabin.  I loved the integration of history, archaeology, geology, and construction principles in this project.  We even identified and sampled edible plants!  And we started each day with yoga stretches and "waterfall" hydration games, so I don't feel too physically sore from my workation.

 
We discussed multiple perspectives of "land owners" of this place: the Luis Maria Baca land grant from 1600s Spain, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which apparently invalidated the land grant's right to claim (because it was in Spanish?), John Duncan's (the cabin builder) claim for the mining rights (he found some gold nuggets in the nearby hills), his "sale" of nearby plots of land (which didn't really give the buyers the right to ownership), the US Supreme Court decision to award ownership to the San Luis Valley Cattle Company, rather than the people who thought they owned the cabins and land on which they built them. The US Marshalls forcibly evicted those people in the early 1900s by blowing up their cabins. John Duncan's cabin is the only one that remains.

Angie Krall also explained this place's location on the Spanish Trail, from Santa Fe to Los Angeles, and the native peoples who inhabited this place for the past 11,000 years. 

Since the place had been in private hands for the last several decades, there are lots of bits of glass, even shoe leather from the cobbler.  At one point the town of Duncan may have had 3000 residents, a stage coach line, and maybe even a telegraph link.  Now it is a ghost town, with one lovely preserved cabin.

I'm hoping Jonas Landes, the HistoriCorps program manager, will develop summer internships for college students for next summer.  Through partnerships with the multiple agencies, HistoriCorps was able to provide meals (organic!  local!) and even local BEER to appropriately aged volunteers.  We also had a safe place to camp. (note: there was a strange vehicle (white truck, no agency logo) that came on the site between 3:30 and 5 am on Sunday, without its lights on...)

When the cabin is finished, anyone can make a reservation at this fantastic place through Recreation.gov  for about $30-60/night and enjoy lovely views like this:

Great Sand Dunes National Park, from the north