the educated serf

Yesterday I spent some time out at Meadow Rock Farm weeding garlic.  Susan, who lost her husband only a short while ago, is hard at work keeping the CSA running on her own.  Her aunt and uncle and their honey-colored bassett hound were there hooking up some truck-based watering systems, washing out bins, and just generally helping out.  I did not get to stay for hot meatloaf sandwiches, which is sad since it sounded better than sitting in the bleachers watching a soccer game with a lot of suburban live-through-your-kids types.   I'll be going back soon -- I have more garlic to untangle. My weeding skills are a little rusty -- especially when you're facing a plot that's had some heavy growth.  Thistle and dandelions, I was prepared for.  But wild geranium plants with carrot-like root structures were driving me crazy, especially since they like to grow right up against the garlic root bulbs.    I wish I could run back up there today and do the other two thirds of the plot.  

( image: gil and lisa listen intently; craig harris and abby on the right -- literally, not intellectually!) Every year for the last eleven years, I've gone to a conference sponsored by the Association for the Study of Food and Society and the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society.   Those names are a mouthful, but the issues discussed by academics and activists are practical, significant, and easy to digest if you care about the way we lead our everyday lives.    We discuss sustainable projects ranging from growing methods to labor to consumption, the historical and contemporary conditions that produce cuisines through the mixing of cultures and ingredients, the unequal distribution of goods, services, technology, and information that shapes what we grow and how we eat.    Well, the list goes on. I have just returned from this year's conference, which was in State College, PA, a town I've been visiting regularly since 1981 (in-law family).  Not as exciting as last ye