Farming in the City

When my Mom and Dad moved into the town of Airdrie from the small farm they had been on for twenty some years out by Irricana, my twenty-something daughter began to fret. I never lived on that farm. I visited it lots but my Dad was an oilman and when I was growing up we spent lots of time following the rigs in a mobile home. We often returned to our family roots in Pincher Creek where my uncles and aunts farmed and ranched. As Dad brokered his years of experience as a rough neck into more responsible positions we found ourselves in Calgary and Edmonton. Then just as I entered my last year of university Dad's work took them to back Calgary and he fulfilled his dream of his own land. On the acreage they bought, they settled to raise my younger siblings, Brown Swiss cattle and allowed my horse-mad sister to purchase a paint horse to show.

"How will my kids ever learn all the things we did, Mom? Do you think my cousin, Leanne, will marry a farmer?" My daughter already had her sights set on a fine young man who was city raised in Calgary and she has always had the ability to take a long view and worry about it. She and her brother spent idyllic times "on the farm" riding horses, pulling weeds, stacking bales and floating down the irrigation canal while actually growing up in the city.

So next weekend, we will do our best to get my grand-daughter to a farm. The last couple weeks Anisha has been snacking on the ripening tomatoes we planted seeds for this past February and her Aunt Jenn brought raspberries in from her parents garden out by Stony Plain. But I think we would enjoy a bus ride in the country to see and taste out "on the farm".

Sunday, August 26, GEA, Live Local (handling ticket sales) and Northlands (where you can park and catch the tour bus) are teaming up to get folks out to our exceptional growing lands with an event called Farming in the City. North-east Edmonton is home to a large valuable area of fertile land with a fascinating micro-climate. The event promises some history (one of my favorite parts of tours) and the opportunity of a sensory experience to help connect us with our food roots (could not resist that little pun).

To infinity and beyond

I am pin-balling my way on this blogging, Tweeting thing in ways that look a great deal like Buzz Lightyear after he speaks his “famous” words, “To infinity and beyond!” and jumps.

It is common for folks my age to worry a great deal about the future: health issues and care, living on fixed incomes and the current pace of change, change, change.

I am trying to follow the advice of my mentor in Tweeting, Karen Unland, to treat the Tweet world (try saying those 5 words quickly 5 times) like a stream and dip in it when I can. She says not to worry about what I am missing when I am not there. This zen-like approach has freed me to discover many wonderful writers and thinkers.

As the internet has a larger population of digital natives than digital immigrants (like me) I am finding to my joy that many of those natives are deep, deep contemplators who are passionate about things I care about and are using their techie powers for good.

Karen has also helped me discover that the internet is full of lots of accurate and current information. I do not have to be afraid of the great deal of misinformation out there. 

I don’t even have to look at it. Another freeing concept!

Which leads me to her recent Tweet about media change from MASTERMAQ. It contained lots of insider type notes about that changing media world and yes, I found it interesting, so I practiced my new “Retweeting” skill.

But what should I see on his recent posting list: a careful, deep and thoughtful piece about Edmonton’s work on food and agricultural strategy. As I read through it, I find he has pulled together ideas from my personal journey in this area – Edmonton’s recent Food in the City Conference, GEA, Doug Kelly’s book $100,000 an Acre and has added graphics and links and all the stuff a dinosaur called teacher/librarian LOVES.

But the icing was on the top and bottom of this cupcake. On the top, under What I’m Reading I found an article called Twitterology: A NewScience and at the bottom where I found a link to an old piece he did on Edmonton’s Future Leaders.

Ching, ching, lights flashing: my brain “to infinity and beyond”.

I am going to mow the lawn nowJ

From my Twitterology reading I learned folks can tell a lot about you from your emoticonsJ