Hello- I am new here and writing on this site makes my palms sweat, but I would like to say that I came from Nebraska to go to Allan's BD Conference in October. I felt pulled to it from the time I saw it offered in Acres USA and it was wonderful. I come from a "checkered past" of very conventional production agriculture and until 6 years ago believed this was the only way. When our field no longer grew decent crops even with massive doses of chemical inputs, we began our "quest" for a better way. It has been the most wonderful and difficult thing I have ever been involved with and we have fought an uphill battle all the way-personally and economically. I personally feel that my brains have been put in a Waring Blender and thoroughly scrambled. Nothing that I believed in belongs anymore. What I find is that I believe with all my heart and soul there is a better way. I am pulled so very hard towards the spirituality and connectedness of the bd concepts. But how to get there?!?!? I came home from the conference and made my own batch of barrel compost. I am on my way out now to our small greenhouse to stir a batch of bc using the preps that I bought at the conference for my own vegetables. Most everyone here thinks I have short circuited somewhere. I guess what I wanted to say here is thank you for all of your thoughts on this site. I feel so strongly that I am supposed to be learning these things. Allan spoke in a recent post about creating "sparks" from your thoughts and I think you have helped me here. Much goes right over my head, but some I grasp on a deeper level than even I can really understand or explain. I am on a journey to find and support my intuitive nature (which is the real me) and disconnect from the logical side that I have had to learn to function in in my role here. Hard to do. My dream is to be able to bring our farm to a place that you can just feel the positive beautiful growing energy on when you come here. We like to call it "regenerational" farming. Then to be able to share that with anyone that is interested to help them make changes and avoid some of the mistakes we have made. There isn't much room for mistakes economically any more. Is there a place for bd concepts in larger scale agriculture?? or do those two concepts totally oppose one another? See, here again confusion reigns. I agree with all of you that our earth desperately needs healing. Is it possible to use bd on larger operations? I am thinking of use of preps in our compost tea brewing process. We made and put on about 90000 gallons of tea this past summer. I feel it could be a wonderful way to address larger operations. Not that I feel large operations are necessarily the correct approach, but to face the facts, that is what is going on in our world. And if there is a way to bring even a fraction of those folks towards healing the soil instead of destroying it, then there has to be someone to help show them that it can work. Well, once again thank you for your thoughts. I hope the spiritual world understands and helps those that struggle and are confused, because then there is hope for me! Michelle Wendell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Balliett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2002 6:18 AM Subject: Re: What is Magic?
> > >"Have a meeting for farmer on how to organize cooperative markets & > >2 people will come. > >Have a "class" on how to get 2 blades of grass instead of one & you > >had better rent a huge hall." > > Maybe I missed the point of the above, Markess, but in our area, tell > farmers how to make money fast (Joel Salatin, for example) and you'll > fill the hall. Offer to tell people how to heal the earth and create > foods of higher quality at the same time and very few are interested. > Take the BIODYNAMIC CONFERENCE for example: right down the road from > the BD Conference were TWO of the most famous organic farms in > northern Virginia. Both heavily attended Salatin (i.e. one has 5 > interns, the other 14 interns- almost all came for Joel), NONE > attended the BD Conference. Like Merla, these folks were offered free > passes so there would be no easy excuse to not attend at least > portions of the conference. Although they all implied that they would > be at the conference (heaven's - they didn't even have to cross the > street!), none attended. We had a similar response to the Sustainable > Ag video/discussion series. Very few interested in the philosophy and > principles behind growing food in cooperation with Nature. A few of > the big market people attended one of the presentations, but clearly > just so they could find out who I was and what I could do for them in > the short run. > > We got excellent exposure to the local farm community for all of > these events. We have a N. VA farmer's discussion list, to which > invitations and reminders were posted. I know the big mouths in local > fruit and vegetable growing. No one attended, although the head of > the market did make a reservation but eventually backed out. > > I'm talking market gardeners in the US' 3rd richest county. Little > interest in a larger crop. Little interest in better produce but a > lot of interest in selling more at better prices. > > My remarks above are in no way intended to malign Joel Salatin. His > is the great synthesis: a way of farming that makes the land better > and makes people more healthy while making more money for the farmer > in a 9month work year. Catch him at ACRES this year, if you can. > > Later > > -Allan > >
