Transition Lab Curriculum Part 1: Food

I recognize I've been remiss - it's been almost a month since I last posted  a blog, and those of you supporting me from afar have been requesting another post, which I appreciate.  The good news about the long wait, though, is that now I can talk about the curriculum of Transition Lab in context of some actual depth of experience now that I've been participating for nearly two months. I'm also posting a delicious smoothie recipe - to skip to that, click HERE.

First of all, I should probably explain what it is exactly I'm doing out here in Montrose, and what this crazy Transition Lab thing is.  I talked in my last post about how what I was doing before (that is, living with my parents while applying for jobs) wasn't working, and that's a good place to start talking about what I'm hoping to move towards as I go through Transition Lab.  First of all, most basically, Transition Lab is an alternative and/or supplement to higher education as it currently functions.  It recognizes some of the key flaws of institutional, university-based higher education (prohibitive cost and/or crippling student loans, difficulty of finding a job afterward, etc) and seeks a systems-based solution.  There's a focus on keeping costs low, ensuring return on investment, and fostering skills that comprise an ability to make a living, rather than focusing on finding just "a job."

 Above is the logo for Transition Lab.  Each of the icons represents a different aspect of the curriculum we cover, and the lifestyle we seek to live after graduation.  The first icon represents food, which is the aspect I'll be talking about today. This is where the goal of 'making a living' is at its most literal - we're learning to grow our own food.  Perhaps more importantly, since not all of us want to be 'farmers,' so to speak, we're learning how to work in partnership with farmers to meet the majority of our food needs.  We each spend a minimum of eight hours per week working on organic farms, community gardens, and several edible home gardens we're working on in town.  So far this season, we've done most of our work on two organic farms located about 10 miles south of downtown Montrose, each of which we visit once a week to work a four hour shift.

Keven, Jake, and Zeno hoeing garlic at Straw Hat Farm

At Straw Hat Farm we spend the time using cultivation hoes to keep the weeds in check around the acre of garlic which grows in front of the farmhouse.  You can read more about Straw Hat by following the link, but they're a certified organic farm that runs a farm store in town, where they sell their produce, freshly-baked goods, and local foods from other farmers and producers in town.  In exchange for our work there, we can shop at the farm store.  This allows us access not only to the delicious pies, cookies, and bread baked by Straw Hat, but also allows us to buy ground beef, eggs, cheese, seedlings, and bulk goods like beans, rice, corn, and flour from other local producers.  Hoeing the garlic is hard work - this spring we've had a few bitter cold days, and a few days when the ground was almost impossible to weed because it was frozen or muddy.  Supposedly when summer finally comes to stay, we'll be wishing for the cool spring weather, but this week promises more 40 degree farming, and I say: "Summer can't come soon enough!"  My dad came to visit early last week, and he elected to have a conversation with the patriarch of Straw Hat, Chet Byler, rather than spend the fourth hour hoeing.  Apparently it's hard work or something.  ;)  Anyway, I have to agree with my dad: "Chet gets it."  I feel very lucky to be connected to that farm and that family.

Zeno walking through the greenhouse at Circle A Garden

The other organic farm we've been working on is also a family farm, Circle A Garden, named for the first initial of the Austin family, who runs the farm (mother and two daughters).  We primarily work with the two sisters who do most of the heavy lifting these days: Betsy and Della.  Both of them have a truly incredible depth and breadth of knowledge when it comes to organic growing.  I'm constantly amazed by the sheer volume of food they manage to produce, but also at the potency of flavor and lasting freshness of everything I've received from the luscious, well-tended soil of their land.  Since it's still spring, and we're obviously not quite out of danger of frost, they're still almost exclusively harvesting the greens, turnips, radishes, and carrots which are grown in the largest of several greenhouses on the farm.  However, over the course of the season, I've been told that they will grow over 100 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and fruits.  We each receive a CSA share (community-supported agriculture) in exchange for our work there, which, let me tell you, is a HUGE amount of food.  Even this early in the season, it's easy to get behind on eating everything we're receiving.  I've been making green smoothies almost every day, just because it's a quick, tasty way to eat through the biomass rapidly accumulating in my fridge.

I'll talk more about both of these farms later, but for now I just wanted to explain how my fellow Transition Lab members and I are meeting our food needs, and how our methods fit with our mission.  This has proven to be a viable way to meet our food needs outside of a conventional economy.  Our need for affordable, local, and organic food dovetails with the needs of these farmers, who always need extra hands, but who often have surplus food rather than cash to exchange for this work.  This is the kind of systems-based solution we seek to apply across our lives, in order to meet our needs in tandem with the needs of our fellow community members.

I''m hoping to post four more posts this week (I know it's a lot to read, but I want to get these fundamentals out of the way) to finish discussing the four other aspects of the curriculum: housing, entrepreneurship, community, and knowledge of self.  I'm planning to post short recipes at the end of each of these posts, but we'll see how that goes.  For now, here's a simple recipe for a green smoothie I made today.

Green Smoothie with Greens, Berries, PB and Yogurt

In a powerful blender mix together the following:

• Sizeable bunch of greens (I used kale and spinach)
• Three large strawberries
• Large dollop of plain yogurt
• Spoonful of peanut butter
• Some kind of sweetener (I used chocolate syrup, but dates or honey would work too)
• About an inch of water

Then, blend that ish up.  Add more liquid, thickener, sweetener, or whatever to taste.  The texture should end up pretty thick, with the frothy texture of a lassi, if you've ever had one of those.  You can add a banana, if you want.  I'm allergic.