What’s in the ground:

We couldn’t have asked for a better equinox in Philadelphia. Not only was the ground soft enough to finally break through and begin digging out the rows for the community farm, but I was also able to throw down some lettuce seeds. I sadly had not checked on my garden plot since the snow, but I was pleasantly surprised by the spinach roots that had lasted through the winter and my cultivation of my soil. At some point during the winter as the ground began to freeze, I made the hard decision to aerate my soil rather than let the spinach roots take up space. But spinach is a hardy plant and is now in full bloom again.

What’s going on in sustainability:

The organization I’m working with this summer affords me many pleasures. Aside from being at the center of Philadelphia farm organizing and resource management, I also get to leave the office, go out in the field and get my hands in the soil. It’s the perfect balance between the ethereal satisfaction of farm work and the soul satisfaction of community building. And many great lessons can be learned from such a balance.

This one particular day, I was building the foundation for a shade house with two of my colleagues. By the time we had just laid out the parameters for where the posts were to go, it was already two o’clock in the afternoon, with only an hour left to work. Part of this had to do with only having materials and no plans. The other part had to do with the typical Philly farming fashion of everyone’s voice and opinion being heard and consulted over and over.

Just as that old italian man in me began to emerge, the kind of guy I was raised with on worksites whose only acknowledgment of my presence was to tell me to get something from the van, I had a good epiphany of what communal labor looks like in a homesteading culture. Opinions were asked and time was taken not because of some overtly ridiculous adherence to all things PC, nor was it because we didn’t know what we were doing. We took our time and asked opinions because we had the time and mindfulness to do so. Yes, a huge jab at so-called “hippies” is that in the time it would take them to change a light bulb, a red blooded American could rewire the whole house. But I’d like to think that my team proved that cliche wrong.

Once we finished measuring, the posts were driven into the ground and the baseboards were attached in one hour. It was our mindfulness that not only set the stage for such easy labor, but ensured that the best ideas were being heard and we were being conscious of how we built and what we were building with. Rather than the person who tacks together some cheap chinese made product from a box store, or the organization who builds with whatever material no matter its danger to the environment because it saves money and time, we took those extra few hours to do it consciously. It’s this kind of slowing down that is the true testament of sustainability.

Until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.