What's happening?

While I'd love to blog all the time, between the things going on the time to blog has been getting a bit pinched, which bums me out some. Quite frankly, I never like to use the term busy, because I always aim for 'busy' to be doing things one wants to do. But if I were to use the term, I've always thought the fall was my busiest time but now I'm thinking it might be the spring. Certainly in terms of the volume of my year-round farming business, late winter and early spring are the biggest times for me. This might seem obvious for those of you stopping by at the farmers market the last couple of weeks. I'm going to apologize up front for the inability to chat as long as we normally do the rest of year (I may recruit some helpers to sell in the near future so our exchanges won't have to seem so rushed - any volunteers?:).

Anyhow, so I have a (getting longer every week) backlog of some neat food related things I've visited on travels over the last half year or so... eventually I'll post them and some other foodie things too. But I thought I would quickly give a run down of what's going on...

My consideration for joining various leadership teams continues. Slow Food Huron Valley is one. If they'll have me, this is pretty much a done deal since I've been attending the meetings and helping organize events already. FSEP is another and I'm very interested in what they are doing.

The HomeGrown Festival steering committee is facing some major decisions right now, so the actual festival program will be firming up. Probably won't end up being as big as initially envisioned but it is the first year of a new festival/non-profit after all, so we'll have plenty of room to grow. Stay tuned for a fancy new website that will include a new logo and better details on how to get involved.

Green Drinks teamed up with Slow Food Huron Valley (whose brilliant idea was that?) in March for a great event at Corner Brewery which included an exciting talk by Renee Greff regarding their intentions to source more locally. This month Green Drinks will likely be teaming up with the local professional chapter of Net Impact for an event that will be finalized momentarily and will likely have an optional speed networking session courtesy of the Net Impact folks (stay tuned).

The Sustainable Ag Working Group at the University of Michigan (with some financial support from the University and Slow Food Huron Valley) hosted a screening of King Corn on April 2nd to which 75 or more folks attended partaking in great local snacks, a great film, and some decent discussion afterward.

The Public Market Advisory Commission continues to meet at least monthly and has been brainstorming: educational/marketing/outreach ideas for the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, whether any rules should be tweaked, and how to work with the renovation of the market facility (phase 1 is close to underway). If you have ideas on these topics feel free to pass them along to commission members including yours truly (the best time to do that is probably Saturday mornings at the market).

My work at the University of Michigan tends to heat up at the end of semesters always. This semester coming to a close is no different. Throw in some deadlines for various projects and a looming conference next week and look out. Although I am very much looking forward to the Association of American Geographers annual meeting which I'll be at all next week. In particular, I will be attending as many of the talks regarding applied geography in the areas of public health (food access, food "deserts", recreation opportunities, walkability), food systems, sustainable ag, climate change, and sustainability in general. Stay tuned for my report on that.

Before I head to Boston for that I will be a volunteer presenter at the Great American Meatout this Sunday in Ferndale presenting year-round veggie harvesting. This looks to be a very good event organized by VegMichigan. Since you might be wondering, I'll mention while I have been vegetarian in the past I'd say locovore more descriptively covers my current choices regarding what I choose to put in my body. So I use animal based ingredients as long as I have decided it is a source I trust and regard favorably in terms of practices. Know Your Farmer. Having said that I believe regardless of one's persuasion more people should be eating fresh, local fruits and vegetables so the more I can spread the word the better. And I expect this to be an eager and receptive audience with whom I have a fair amount of overlap.

This brings us to what's happening on the farm... which deserves a whole new post I think.