Walking through the farm with a series of vignettes, each of
which describe some aspect of the research we did at the farm: NOFA research, field observation, GIS reseach, and connecting with the spirit of the place.
Please note: I have not posted a revised video clip for this portion. I am depending on your input to choose the most relevant topics and best images from the NOFA and GIS research before putting the time into re-editing the clip. Please be vocal about what topics you like and find relevant to this film.
Begin with some sort of
introduction that provides a rationale for us visiting the farm:
N1: Aldo Leopold once
said that “The language of any farm is the farmer’s portrait of himself.” Our first step in learning about this farm is
to meet the farmer and meet the farm.
N2: Interestingly,
Aldo Leopold also went to school just down the street from our farm. He was known for taking long walks in the
countryside, so in all likelihood we’ll probably cross paths with a route he
walked a hundred years ago.
N1: It turned out to
be a beautiful day for a walk. The rain
clouds moved out and we had upper forties and some sun. Comfortable, certainly, for January.
Transition into talk about
the first impressions of the farm:
“We looked around and we didn’t see crops or greenhouses or
the rows and straight lines you expect to see at a farm. Instead we saw grass, lots of grass… grass,
grass, and more grass
“We confronted barriers that were foreign to us. You simply don’t deal with electric fences in
normal pedestrian life. And when we
crossed that barrier, we moved into a new place, both physically and
symbolically. We wouldn’t look at farms
the same way from that point on.
Transition into talk
about agriculture in general:
“So we were beginning to read the landscape at this
farm. We identified plant and animal
life, took in the sounds and the scents, felt the goosh of the pasture beneath our boots. But we wanted to increase our agricultural
vocabulary and deepen the context from which we would read this landscape.
“So we spent a weekend at the NOFA conference. That is the Northeast Organic Farmers
Association and we attended their annual statewide conference, which is held in
January, when farmers are spending a lot of their time indoors.
“And we learned so much.
We were introduced to agricultural topics like...
“Agricultural history, where we learned about the Native
American agricultural practices that took place here before the European
invasion.
“Biodynamics, which is a … … …
“We looked at the role of a prevalent farm substance:
manure. And we began to understand and
value its role in the regeneration of soil.
At this point, we’ll
continue to scroll through various graphics from the NOFA presentations. Each graphic we should have a sentence or two
that relates it to the viewer. The graphics we have available are posted at: https://picasaweb.google.com/
“We found that these studies helped us to better understand
our farm. We now understood the grass as
a crop (show an awesome grass shot)
which is used to feed the cows (show an
awesome cow shot). We learned how
the grass ultimately becomes cheese through its engagement with the cow, and
that a byproduct of that process, the whey, provides nutrition for the pigs (show awesome pig shot).
“We saw how a bounty of grass cut and saved from the summer
would help to feed the cows throughout the winter (show shot of covered hay bales).
And we even saw the role of manure in action, as the tractor spread
chicken manure on one of the front fields, beginning the cyclical process of
enrichment which makes this whole place function
“When we saw the water move across the land, we began to
think of the relationship between the farm and the greater extent of the
watershed of which it is a part. The
water, as we saw it, linked the farm to its region, and so we stepped back and
began to look at the farm from a regional scale.
Officially, this is where the GIS research portion would begin:
“And we began to
see the farm in a different way. We saw
it as a unit within a greater whole, and we looked for ways that the farm
connected to that whole.
“We saw the stream as part of a system of streams…
“We looked at the deciduous forests on the farm and saw them
as contributors to a greater system of forests, providing a refuge for
wildlife, and cooling and filtering the air we breathe.
“We looked at the role of other farms nearby and wondered
about a way to connect to them by foot….
(The GIS maps
available to us are posted at: https://picasaweb.google.com/
After the GIS, we
would transition into the time-lapse sunset scene.
Officially, this is where the Sense of Place portion begins:
“And through all this research, we began to get a sense of
what this farm is. We were learning to
read the ecological and agricultural signatures of the place, from the scale of
the site to that of the region.
“But we also knew that the spirit of the place could not be
captures in GIS data and that the feeling of the place could be sufficiently
described through the lens of agricultural practices.
“We stayed on the farm until dark that January afternoon,
watching the sun descend along with the temperature. And yet the core temperature of our group was
most certainly on the rise, for we were soaking in the genius loci, the spirit
of the place. It is an exciting thing to
experience a place, and that sense of excitement only increases in the presence
of those who share such appreciation. We
would leave the farm that evening more unified than we had arrived, spirits
high in preparation for the weeks of hard work that lay ahead.
What are your thoughts?
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