[-empyre-] living off the land in upstate New York

[Renate Terese Ferro]

Stefani Bardin wrote: 
	"For many New Yorkers our relationship to food is filtered through the lens of restaurants, grocery stores, bodegas, street food carts and trucks. As Carolyn 			Steel, author of Hungry City writes, “Food arrives on our plates as if by magic, and we rarely stop to wonder how it might have got there”.
		The Soil Food Web = the pathways of connectivity between the soil, the weather, plants, animals and human that participate in our food ecosystems – 			is so important in understanding the role we play in how are food is grown (and ultimately cultivated, prepared and distributed) and its impact on our 			health and the health of our environment."


Dear Stefani,  

Thanks so much Stefani for posting this project.  I was thinking about the relationship to food our own family has, specifically how here in the middle of the state of New York, many of us have more a direct relationship to the food we eat for sustenance.  Though food seems to be a  little less of a direct ritual here within the city limits of this University town, not even ten minutes away, many of us live on and off the land  directly.  The days and the months revolve around the growing season.  In fact right now many of us are ordering seeds or sorting seeds from those we harvested from our garden last year.  We have been fertilizing our plots and planning where and how we might change the location of planting to not only rotate crops but also allow for plentiful light. Soon we will be turning the earth over with our rototillers (or by hand) and planting the early crops of peas, spinach, lettuce, onions and hoping that there will be just enough rain, not too much to wash away the seeds and just enough to propagate and nurture the new seedlings.  From the end of March if we are lucky to well into the winter garden crops of kale, beets and carrots we can usually eek out those last few crops past Thanksgiving holiday. 

Growing is just the beginning of the process.  The harvesting, cleaning, preparing, serving, eating, composting comprises time centric rituals. I was especially excited last growing season to plant original seeds my friend gave me from her Tuscarora Reservation.  I was thrilled after learning how to plant the traditional sustainable medley of corn, beans and squash in one foot squares provided a natural habitat for those three crops.  You can imagine how I was even more surprised when I managed to propagate old bean seed that I had saved from my own Grandfather’s garden from years before. 

 We have learned that there is a symbiotic relationship between the land we tend the crops we grow, the environment that allows them or prevents them from growing.  Ironically my art studio looks out onto my garden Stefani and I have often wondered just why I do not spend more time thinking about the relationship between food and art.  Of course formal decisions always seep through my decisions as I plant garden rows, select various colors of heirloom tomatoes, or prepare a feast strategically that tickles my sights and senses.  Maybe I keep thinking about the relationship my own grandparents had to the land.  For them it was a matter of survival as it remains for so many of our neighbors.  You see just a a few miles down the road from Cornell University, on the edge of Appalachia, gardening, fishing, hunting, and living off the land is an absolute necessity. 

In our upstate haven we live in a rich and fertile valley surrounded by the Finger Lakes. I feel lucky and thankful and yes I acknowledged the privileged position that I negotiate from. 

 I am looking forward to hearing more about your networked map, the events that are related to it, and the good things that have emerged because of it. I am also hoping that all of you will help me wrestle with negotiating between the complexities between food, technology and art. 

Sniffling and coughing still in upstate New York, 
Renate