Author: Carlyn Vachow

This past school year I was an RA in a sophomore dorm, so I used “building community” as a justification for my stress baking habit. I have found that people are more willing to offer a sentence or two when I trade cookies for words. Although I made some meaningful and some shallow connections this year when there was food involved, I have had repeatedly meaningful eating experiences at the farmers’ market that we frequent on Saturdays in Louisville. Rowan is always introducing us to his circle of friends at the market (everyone who works there). Rowan has made us feel as though we belong to this little pocket of the city and to Louisville as a whole. So, I go back every week to meet new people and wheedle my way into this community I want to belong to…and for free omelets. The same way that I coax conversation out of my peers with cinnamon rolls, so Rowan baits us with delicious omelets so that we will explore the market and make our own connections. The past several Saturdays, I’ve spent my time at the farmers’ market meeting new people and collecting new suggestions of places to explore with Rowan generally as my guide, but this Saturday I sat down to eat my omelet and was joined by two people who knew neither me nor each other. The moment was a bit surreal as they introduced themselves and it turned out that we were familiar with the same parts of the United States, and all the while the jazz band was playing my parents’ wedding song in the background. They too were not native Louisvillians, but both said that they find themselves returning to this farmers’ market whenever they are in town. When our conversation was at a lull we all turned to watch the band, soaking in the unusually cool weather and our coincidental connections to places. The farmers’ market has proven to be a pleasantly liminal space – between farm and table, people with babies, people with their babies’ babies, old people, young people, flour and scones, eggs and omelets, berries and pies, people who are from Louisville, people who transplanted to Louisville, and people who are neither from nor live here, but return to the farmers’ market nonetheless. I’m no psych major, but what I’ve learned from my limited exposure is the strength of memories that have a smell attached to it. However, I’d argue that taste is also a sense that tethers an experience to the memory archives.

As college students, I think that we often forget that although we live up in our community on the hill, we still belong to the larger Middlebury township when we are there and also to Addison County. We tend to only engage outside of our campus when we seek something that the College does not provide. Although some people believe that “good fences make good neighbors,” that perhaps neighbors should not be involved in one another’s business, I grew up in a neighborhood that operated as a large family unit and I found it to be far more pleasant and conducive to a happy community. Remaining on campus is far easier and more convenient than interacting with a community beyond its boundaries, and although we are guests rather than residents, we should make a bigger effort to be a part of the community rather than “those college kids.”

I certainly count myself guilty in abusing Vermont’s natural and cultural resources. I have not been a good guest. However, it seems that during this program we have all made a greater effort to practice what we preach as well as what our teachers preach. Our participation in the FoodWorks program is evidence that each of us believes in what we discuss and wish to be a part of the progress. We must remember, though that when the summer ends, the work must continue. We cannot be content with the thought that progress will probably puff along without us, or the work done this summer is lost. To continue the work is hard and inconvenient.

On the morning of our fifth day we discussed convenience and how convenience has made us lazy and spoiled as a culture, and consequently allergic to anything that should seem to put us out – cooking with local veggies, paying a little more for local things (food, culture, music, art), paying for a movie ticket, having tough conversations, farming for small scale, etc. “Convenience” reappeared several times throughout the day’s discussions. Nothing that the Amish do is convenient. The Amish are a people understand the allure of convenience, for their values and rules are strict. If a member of the community does not respect the values and practices, they may no longer be a part of the community. The focus is on the sustainability and regeneration of a healthy and rather focused community. Amish people work to provide for themselves and their community. Indeed, they provide for non-Amish people as well, but we are not their first priority.

We should not be the Amish’s first priority. The first rule that a first responder follows when he enters a scene is to make sure that he is safe. If he is not safe, how can he help someone who is in danger? So, how can a small community safely help a larger community when it is at risk? How can we go to other communities and provide aid when problems exist in our own neighborhoods? More relevant – is it safe for a community in rural Missouri to produce enormous amounts of soybeans to provide the nation when there does not exist any edible food besides those soybeans for 30 miles?

All that said…should I have stayed closer to home for college? Am I able to fully engage in my hometown community and the Middlebury community?

One of the feelings I struggled with during our discussion last Sunday was an overwhelming sense that I had no idea where to begin solving the problems that Berry outlines in his book. In “Conservationist and Agrarian” Berry discusses the incredible power that “land-exploiting corporations” hold over American culture and life (public schools, politics, etc.), articulating the inextricable links between everything. So…I found that the more I thought about it, the more tangled the predicament became. When I returned to the text, though, Berry’s essays quelled some of my frustrations. He manages to outline the problems he sees and also offers solutions, rather than seeming fatalistic. I find that this feeling relates directly to the quotation around which we are basing our thoughts: “Be joyful/though you have considered all the facts.” It reminds the reader to remain optimistic in the face of situations and facts that persuade him to be otherwise. One day this week my supervisor took me to a section of the arboretum where I’m working. There they had planted a new cypress swamp to replace one that had been logged in the past. The trees are still very young and I asked how long it would take until the cypresses were as big as they would in an older swamp. He said it would take at least one hundred years… I vocalized my disappointment that I would not be alive to see them. He told me that though it was sad, we cannot allow ourselves to be stopped by what lies before us or how long it takes to replace and fix. If we never act, then nothing will ever change.

Elizabeth, you mentioned “Food, Inc.” and that some farmers felt as though the movie attacked them. It made me think about how important it is an any movement to understand the consequences and fragility of bringing people into a conflict or movement when they may not wish to be a part of it. For many farmers their contracts with bigger companies and the way that our food economy is set up make it difficult to even churn out a sustainable living, so how can one ask them to put what they have in danger by becoming an activist? When someone is focused on surviving, is it fair to ask them to put themselves directly in the line of fire?