A Full Moon Beginning

December 2nd. Wednesday night. A full moon. Feels like a good marking point to start.

Locavore. Someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles. The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to produce their own food, with some arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locally grown food is an environmentally friendly means of obtaining food, since supermarkets that import their food use more fossil fuels and non-renewable resources.

Desert. Dry, arid terrain. A landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres (10 in) per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation.


DAY ONE
I recently returned from Resortlandia, Jalisco, Mexico over Thanksgiving weekend, having escaped a weekend of overstuffing - turkeys and people. Although I could have been anywhere in the world for all the global comforts of the resort town that family obligation had us staying in, it did afford me the luxurious opportunity to relax, take in a bit of sun, and actually read a book. I chose to bring with me Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver as it has been sitting on my shelf for two years, unopened. After a summer of uncovering untold delights in ripe from the vine, local vegetables and fruits at the Famer's Market, I no longer could put off diving into Kingsolver's experience so touted by other devoted readers.

So, I managed to get half way through, and am now squeeking through the rest at a snails pace back home in the quite minutes after I come home from my more-than-full-time paid gig during the day, make dinner for my husband and 20 month-old son, spend some delicious play and winding down time with my son, pet the cats, cuddle with the dog, and find a few moments to read before giving into heavy eyes and much needed sleep.

I've been cooking up a scheme since mid-summer when my love affair with fresh, local foods began. A love affair which really took off when I found a magazine which offered recipes and shopping lists for healthy, delicious 20 minute meals for a month and I reengaged with the joys of cooking. My saddest day this year was when I discovered that the grapes no longer held their delicious sweet flavor of those I enjoyed all summer from my own vines and from local farmers; and if I wanted tomatoes, I would have to endure the mealy orangy-white knock offs that come from the hot house. Having the luxury of eating almost strickly organic foods for the past three years - a budget item my husband and I agreed early on not to base on cheapness but quality instead - I realize now I still did not understand what wonders dining on food grown for taste instead of size and looks can do for the soul.

So, my scheme that has been cooking is to see, like Kingsolver and Pollan, how one can live a life based on local food. As she often does being my favorite author, Kingsolver has a good point made eloquently, and as my friend Ben who is an emerging local ecologist and amazing photographer of everything micro who I'll ask more about this later would agree -- we may already be over carrying capacity here in the desert and should get out and leave it to its original inhabitants - plants, animals, and Native Americans. In Santa Fe we engage in frequent debates about just how much water is left if there is more to use for new developments, if we should be leaving any for the non-human community, or even, let some flow down the river once in a while. Kingsolver having been raised in the mid-south but spent 20+ years living in the southwest makes a good case for leaving the dry heat of Tuscon for the hollers of Virginia in order to embark on a locavore-for-a-year adventure with her 5 person family. Maybe we weren't meant to live in the southwest, or at least not this many of us. I myself grew up in Wisconsin - rolling hills filled with dairy cows, corn and the birthplace of Organic Valley Farmers Cooperative. Or, is going back to greener pastures just an excuse for wimping out on probably the toughest challenge around - can you live a sustainable life in the desert with thousands of other humans and non-humans vying for limited resources?

Santa Fe, for all its poshness, cultural airs, and economic divides, is still small in size, possibly still small enough to figure out how to become a sustainable city. But that remains yet to be seen. What better place to attempt the ULTIMATE HUMAN CHALLENGE - sustainable living - than in the desert. If we can do it here, we should be able to do it anywhere and everywhere, right? I doubt that even as I write it. Having lived as a Peace Corps volunteer in a subsistence village in the tropics - no lack of water there - we still ate more than a few meals of only rice cause nothing else was available from the farms at that moment.

So this is my task at hand - to take on the challenge that Kingsolver was unwilling or felt unable to do - figure out how to be, and if it is possible to be, a true locavore in the desert, work fulltime, be a mom and a wife, and still enjoy life. And while I am at it, I figure I will also embark on the one trash can a year idea recently being touted by Louise because I just can't stand throwing away all that packaging anymore!

What I have going for me:

• 2 acres of my own and 16 acres surrounding me inhabited by mostly like-minded neighbors
• a community well shared by 10, soon to be 12, houses (not city water)
• an organic garden on its 3rd year with lots of room to expand
• 4 chickens and a chicken coop
• neighbors who might also participate in this challenge with me and help grow the food we need to survive a year of local eating
• a handfull of vege seeds for next season
  
• a small orchard (which has yet to bear fruit in any quantity but this year will be year three and I am told they should begin)
• a somewhat flexible work schedule
• Solar powered home
  

What I have working against me:

• Both my husband and I work full time (sometimes more)
  
• the possibility that gardening or farming with water mined from an aquifer isn't in the "sustainable" category (I've yet to come to an informed conclusion)
• lack of storage space
• no greenhouse to start the amount of starts I'll need to feed us all
• even though we've managed to do enough restoration to slow the tumbleweed population the dusty forgotten park adjacent to my property keeps throwing those rolling seed bombs over the fence at us - that is going to have to be dealt with one way or another.
  

Can a full-time working mom make ends meet as a locavore?

That's the challenge at hand.

I figure I will start now on this project so I can build a "sense of place" before planting season begins. I have dabbled in the history of the land I am on, but in the next few months I plan to become a student of this place - the history, ecology, economy, and society of La Resolana. That's what we call these 18 acres at the end of the road adjacent to a park and a sandy river bed. What is the history of Agua Fria Village? Where did the trading route pass through exactly? What was going on on this land before these houses were built? Where is our water coming from and how much of it is there? Is the water and land really radioactive from the Los Alamos National Labs bomb building efforts? Will my neighbors join me and buffer the burden of individual actions with community efforts? And so on and so forth.

My timeline?
December - March: Grow my sense of place, plan, convince my husband, son and community to join me
April: Start Locavore diet - as soon as, like Kingsolver, I think there is enough to begin from nothing with.

Join me on my daily journey in a land of Tumbleweeds and a Handfull of Seeds.

Christina