Marty Heller and Michelle Ferrarese
This Mexico journey is the first leg of our "year on," a much needed break between farming projects. We'll post photos and entries when we can - we're glad to share our adventures with all of you!marty and michelle
This adventure is dedicated to the memory of Michelle's grandmother, Alice Della Sheall Nelson, 1915-2006.
Travel Blog Posts
end-of-growing-season catch-up
Published: December 14th 2007North America » United States » Michigan » Traverse City
December 12th 2007
Hi.Wow, it was a whirlwind summer, and we have not taken enough time to share it with you, our friends and families. I've sat down numerous times to write some of the highlights, but have struggled to complete it. It was the end of the growing season when I first started this entry; now, everything that was growing is under snow. Why does it always seem more difficult to do this when it's just your "life" you're writing about rather than some travel adventure? We all know life is no less adventurous... Farming This summer was our first season at the new farm outside of Traverse City. We're renting this land (and our home) from some very generous folks that would like to see it be an active farm again - and we'd like to be ... read more
Finally Settled...and ready for spring!
Published: March 14th 2007North America » United States » Michigan » Traverse City
March 14th 2007
This is long overdue, but I'd like to take this opportunity to let you, our scattered friends, know that we have indeed settled into a beautiful farmhouse in southeast Leelanau County, just 8 miles from Traverse City. We actually moved in at the beginning of February, but you know how moving goes. This past weekend we had a wonderful housewarming party and it was indeed very warming to have so many amazing people (and lots of great potluck food!) show up to welcome us to the community - Bioneers, farmers that we visited on our tour, folks we've met in passing. It seems the warming stuck, as now most of the snow has melted! We are currently renting our home from a cool couple that live in Chicago. It is an old farmhouse on 20 acres ... read more
CSA by CYCLE tour draws to a close
Published: October 30th 2006North America » United States » MichiganOctober 30th 2006
yes, it's true, we're still on the road, but today marks the last leg of our bicycle tour. We will be riding from the Wagbo Peace Center and Providence Farm in East Jordan to Blackbird Gardens in Petoskey - our final stop! We have managed to slip rides into sunny days in what has otherwise been a wet October in Northern Michigan, and it looks like today will also be sunny and pleasant, but there is snow in the forecast for later in the week, so we're wrapping up just in time. It looks like we're going to be just shy of 1000 miles of cycling, and will have visited 31 CSA farms. We have over 60 hours of raw video footage to mill over in the coming months and attempt to shape into a documentary ... read more
August 14th 2006
howdy friends - we wanted to let our people (that's you!) know that our bike tour is going well...we're about half way through and still enjoying the riding, farming, and meeting new and interesting people. We've been keeping a running blog going at www.glbconference.org/csatour2006/ and I know many of you have been following us there, but we thought a little "howdy" through these convenient means wouldn't hurt. We're currently on a detour from the tour - back in the Ann Arbor area for a series of weddings - but we will return to our bikes in Grant, MI (30 miles north of Grand Rapids) the week of the 21st, and will continue our northward journey, hopefully to arrive in Petoskey by the end of October. And how's everyone else? Being a "community of two" on the ... read more
the adventure continues: CSAbyCYCLE
Published: May 29th 2006North America » United States » Michigan » Ann Arbor
May 29th 2006
hey friends - it's been nearly a month and a half that we've been back in the good ole "estamos unidos" (a little pun I shared with a nuez vendor in Oaxaca). While being back has it's pluses and minuses, we've really enjoyed re-connecting with friends and family and preparing for our next adventure. If you haven't already heard, Michelle and I are spending our summer and fall on a bicycle tour of Michigan CSA farms, volunteering a few days at as many as 35 farms as we make our way north across our beautiful state. I'd like to invite all of you to follow along on our bicycle tour at: www.glbconference.org/csatour2006/ We do hope to make regular blog postings about our journey and about the CSA farms and farmers we meet along the way, but ... read more
April 16th 2006
happy easter from Oaxaca. This will be a short one -- no photos, but we will be back in Michigan the night of the 19th, so there will be plenty of pictures and stories to share in person. Chiapas: We took an overnight bus from Puerto Escondido to San Cristobal de las Casas, site of the 1994 Zapatista uprising and takeover of the city. San Cristobal is a beautiful, beautiful city -- reminiscent of Oaxaca in its colors and architecture, but with a more Mexican (less European-touristy) feel, though it has its share of tourists and tourism, much more than we had anticipated. And we were not there long enough to get a handle on the current political situation, but it is calm on the outside. While in San Crisobal, we took day trips to an ... read more
April 10th 2006
Well, howdy all! Mucho perdons for falling so far behind on sharing our travels...We're currently in Palenque, Chiapas. I will try to quickly outline a bit of where we've been and what we've seen and leave the detailed stories for when we return...in t-minus 9 days! A friend comes for a visit Many of you know Solomon Townsend. Those of you who don't should. We were going to visit Solomon at his land in Costa Rica, but that didn't work out. So he came to visit us! A few email exchanges gave us an idea that he was thinking about it, and then we got a phone call at Tashirat and there was Solomon, already in Tepoztlan! We had a great time hanging out, sharing our little routine with him, and going on a few adventures, ... read more
March 22nd 2006
Our last days at Tashirat were spent largely at a computer, believe it or not! As our final contributions to the garden and greenhouse, we put together a rough crop plan for the community. Marty did a cost-benefit analysis of the major crops they wanted to grow, and determined that lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and celery made economic sense to grow for themselves. Michelle wrote up info sheets for the cultivation of each of those four crops, to be used by the Tashirat staff or future volunteers, and we left a crop planning spreadsheet for the community. (Thanks to MTC and Jeremy for the input!) Of course we left notes on the compost piles, irrigation system, and baby salad cultivation, too. It was gratifying to be able to use what we did and what I learned ... read more
March 11th 2006
Greetings everyone. The days and weeks have gone by sooo quickly here. It's hard to imagine how to share the events of our routine at Tashirat - our yoga is certainly improving and becoming more comfortable every day, the vivero (greenhouse) is getting greener as the many seeds we put in the ground weeks ago are stretching into the diffuse sunlight and beginning their magical dance. We're putting a cropping plan in place for Tashirat, drawing on the many resources and talents that Michelle developed while at MSU. We continue to learn more of the intricacies of this special community as we get to know the staff on a more personal level. Friendships with fellow volunteers continue to deepen and strengthen, and we have made a number of other friends in passing. And now we are ... read more
March 10th 2006
Since Marty and I are such food heads, I thought this topic deserved an entry of its own. The food is So Much Fun here, not to mention tasty, fresh, beautiful, weird, you name it, we've probably experienced it, or are about to. Three categories: 1. Plain and Raw-- Here's the thing: the yoga center where we're living is very health and nutrition-focused. So we all think and talk about food all the time. They consider raw foodists to be spiritually advanced beings. For those of you who aren't familiar with the raw culture, it means one who does not cook their food, period. So that means vegetarianism (though maybe sushi counts? don't know...), no dairy products, no eggs, no cooked grain like rice or oats, etc, no baked breads, no hot soup or hot tea, ... read more
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.003s; cc: 10; qc: 87; dbt: 0.0507s; 1; s:notus w:www (50.28.61.183); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.7mb
