February Tour 2007
It's been a quite amazing week and a half for me. I've criss-crossed New England, visiting farms and contra dances, and been met with incredible hospitality everywhere I go. The world looks so great right now, and I share some of it before memory fades.
I set out a week before this past Friday, right after work, for the Dance Flurry. I'd spent the past couple days snowed in by the Valentine's Day Blizzard of aught-seven, which dumped 4 feet of snow on our house. Those days were spent digging out and making bread, yogurt, eggs, and other snacks for Dance Flurry. No paying 7 dollars for lunch for me! I made a pie too, which I was going to swap for a fiddle lesson Friday morning, but she cancelled on me, so I brought the pie to Saratoga.
Oh Dance Flurry! I'd never known you could be so wondrous. When I first went, two years ago, I was but a novice dancer, and last year's festival was blacked out into an intensive, 6-hour dance of desperation. But here was the festival in it's full 17-concurrent-venue glory. I danced all day and played music deep into the night. I met friends from Ithaca (it seemed like the whole town was there) and D.C. and Oberlin and Vermont. I somehow wound up in a room in the same hotel as the conference (a very precious find) and we piled 2 extra homeless dance bums in it every night. I came away smiling and gliding and spinning everywhere for the rest of the week.
After the Flurry, it was on to Ithaca. Gave a ride to a nice girl from Portland, who talked a lot and kept me awake on the drive Sunday night. Outside of Bainbridge, my back right tire spontaneously disintegrated, but I popped the spare on and found a carload of Ithaca dancers at the gas station willing to drive slow with me the rest of the way in case anything else happened. Ithaca was a fun but too short three days of Cornell Soil Health Workshop (very conventional-ag focused :( ) playing fiddle with Sara Rose and Anna, and moving the last of my stuff out of Bradley's old basement.
I had originally intended to go home to Vermont first and then on to Maine, but I got a tip about a really awesome horse-powered farm in Western Massachucets called Natural Roots. So I changed my itinerary to go visit him. David Fisher is a magical farmer. I spent the day doing chores with him, building a round pen for his beautiful Belgian horses, and playing with his incredibly articulate 2 year old daughter. He's incredibly detail oriented, yet at the same time easy going, and doesn't make you feel dumb when he tells you how to do something. And his crop production is apparently top-notch. A former apprentice I spoke to said that last year he didn't even have to weed! The apprentice also told me though, that most of his apprentices seem to have a full season or two under their belt already, so it seems unlikely I'll get an apprenticeship with him.
While in Western Mass, I stayed with an old family friend who's a senior at Hampshire College. I can't tell too many stories without making this entry private, so I'll just say that it was a trip being around college kids again. Especially hippy college kids. Probably the most wholesome thing I did there was attempt to learn some Klezmer music from some music kids, and I in turn attempted to teach them to play their violin like a fiddle.
Friday I was supposed to go to Gouldsboro, Maine to visit my first scheduled farm, but I got a late start and after a few hours of driving I was feeling tired and a little grumpy and decided what I needed was a contra dance. So I stopped at a Tourist Information Office, looked up the contra dance, which that week was in Whitefield, and altered my route. I showed up at the dance hall an hour early, when they were just getting set up, and within 5 minutes the organizer had offered me a place to sleep for the night. The dancers were great-- about the same size and ability as Ithaca, just maybe a notch better, more numerous, and friendlier. The band rocked-- it was Adam and Jaige, two-thirds of Crowfoot, the most gorgeous looking and sounding contra dance band on the planet. They live like 30 miles away, so I guess they're regulars. And at the break my world got even smaller. I met Beth Whitman, a friend of a friend of my father's who had heard I was coming to Maine, and the farmers of Longmeadow Farm, a farm I'd applied to through the MOFGA apprenticeship program but had neglected to return their phone calls after they expressed interest in me. We had a good laugh about it though.
After the dance, I went home with Toki and John, a 40-something couple who have been lovingly organizing the Whitefield contra dance for over a decade. They gave me a bed, and in the morning stuffed me with a feast of pancakes before breaking out the instruments. They all seem to play a little of everything, even their kids. And there was a friend staying over who was a 12-year old fiddle prodigy. We jammed late into the morning, first on fiddle tunes and then Beatles songs. I finally tore myself away from those sirens around noon, just as they were singing an altered refrain: "You like us too much and we like you." That damn near brought tears to my eyes.
Hmm, so that seems to be the first week, up to this past Saturday. I'd love to keep writing, but I need to get to yet another farm to visit. Stay tuned for the ever-expanding list of farm visits.
I set out a week before this past Friday, right after work, for the Dance Flurry. I'd spent the past couple days snowed in by the Valentine's Day Blizzard of aught-seven, which dumped 4 feet of snow on our house. Those days were spent digging out and making bread, yogurt, eggs, and other snacks for Dance Flurry. No paying 7 dollars for lunch for me! I made a pie too, which I was going to swap for a fiddle lesson Friday morning, but she cancelled on me, so I brought the pie to Saratoga.
Oh Dance Flurry! I'd never known you could be so wondrous. When I first went, two years ago, I was but a novice dancer, and last year's festival was blacked out into an intensive, 6-hour dance of desperation. But here was the festival in it's full 17-concurrent-venue glory. I danced all day and played music deep into the night. I met friends from Ithaca (it seemed like the whole town was there) and D.C. and Oberlin and Vermont. I somehow wound up in a room in the same hotel as the conference (a very precious find) and we piled 2 extra homeless dance bums in it every night. I came away smiling and gliding and spinning everywhere for the rest of the week.
After the Flurry, it was on to Ithaca. Gave a ride to a nice girl from Portland, who talked a lot and kept me awake on the drive Sunday night. Outside of Bainbridge, my back right tire spontaneously disintegrated, but I popped the spare on and found a carload of Ithaca dancers at the gas station willing to drive slow with me the rest of the way in case anything else happened. Ithaca was a fun but too short three days of Cornell Soil Health Workshop (very conventional-ag focused :( ) playing fiddle with Sara Rose and Anna, and moving the last of my stuff out of Bradley's old basement.
I had originally intended to go home to Vermont first and then on to Maine, but I got a tip about a really awesome horse-powered farm in Western Massachucets called Natural Roots. So I changed my itinerary to go visit him. David Fisher is a magical farmer. I spent the day doing chores with him, building a round pen for his beautiful Belgian horses, and playing with his incredibly articulate 2 year old daughter. He's incredibly detail oriented, yet at the same time easy going, and doesn't make you feel dumb when he tells you how to do something. And his crop production is apparently top-notch. A former apprentice I spoke to said that last year he didn't even have to weed! The apprentice also told me though, that most of his apprentices seem to have a full season or two under their belt already, so it seems unlikely I'll get an apprenticeship with him.
While in Western Mass, I stayed with an old family friend who's a senior at Hampshire College. I can't tell too many stories without making this entry private, so I'll just say that it was a trip being around college kids again. Especially hippy college kids. Probably the most wholesome thing I did there was attempt to learn some Klezmer music from some music kids, and I in turn attempted to teach them to play their violin like a fiddle.
Friday I was supposed to go to Gouldsboro, Maine to visit my first scheduled farm, but I got a late start and after a few hours of driving I was feeling tired and a little grumpy and decided what I needed was a contra dance. So I stopped at a Tourist Information Office, looked up the contra dance, which that week was in Whitefield, and altered my route. I showed up at the dance hall an hour early, when they were just getting set up, and within 5 minutes the organizer had offered me a place to sleep for the night. The dancers were great-- about the same size and ability as Ithaca, just maybe a notch better, more numerous, and friendlier. The band rocked-- it was Adam and Jaige, two-thirds of Crowfoot, the most gorgeous looking and sounding contra dance band on the planet. They live like 30 miles away, so I guess they're regulars. And at the break my world got even smaller. I met Beth Whitman, a friend of a friend of my father's who had heard I was coming to Maine, and the farmers of Longmeadow Farm, a farm I'd applied to through the MOFGA apprenticeship program but had neglected to return their phone calls after they expressed interest in me. We had a good laugh about it though.
After the dance, I went home with Toki and John, a 40-something couple who have been lovingly organizing the Whitefield contra dance for over a decade. They gave me a bed, and in the morning stuffed me with a feast of pancakes before breaking out the instruments. They all seem to play a little of everything, even their kids. And there was a friend staying over who was a 12-year old fiddle prodigy. We jammed late into the morning, first on fiddle tunes and then Beatles songs. I finally tore myself away from those sirens around noon, just as they were singing an altered refrain: "You like us too much and we like you." That damn near brought tears to my eyes.
Hmm, so that seems to be the first week, up to this past Saturday. I'd love to keep writing, but I need to get to yet another farm to visit. Stay tuned for the ever-expanding list of farm visits.