Thursday, July 21, 2011

I dragged a couple of the kids along with me tonight to the Urban Agricultural Zoning Update for a neighboring city. It was pretty neat, both because we got to see Eric in professional action and also because the interest in urban agriculture was palpable.

In my family we have a joke that whatever I'm interested in will crest in popularity two or three years later. Not so much the vegetable gardening, that's been around forever, but in the whole "Now I call it a farm" approach to growing things in urban areas. Bees, chickens, other livestock, plus extensive gardening I guess. I call it "Zeitgeist surfing," and if I could only figure out a way to cash in on my prescience, well, we'd have a redecorated kitchen and my bedroom would have walls.

So anyhow, familiar faces (Esperanza, Lisa, and the 4-H crew) and new faces but old names (Rachel) were there and that was pretty great. There was such a crowd that I couldn't hear all of the questions being asked in the break-out areas, and the two tables dedicated to livestock questions were getting heated, with some animal-rights folks and evangelical vegans arguing that the city should disallow the rearing and slaughter of meat animals, and some just plain randomness, so I wandered around a bit and overheared folks talking and making connections.

At then end of it, I asked one of Eric's coworkers if she'd like to come and see the garden, and gathered up my by-then cheerfully helping children and toddled back across the water to our town. A good night. The next few council meetings are going to be Very Interesting in that town.

4 comments:

Lisa said...

The meeting was fascinating. It's great to see the city responding to this issue in a positive manner. And Eric was a very impressive facilitator. He kept, I thought, the perfect tone, pragmatic, positive and wryly funny.

Melissa K. McDonough, M.P.P. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Melissa said...

Thank you for inviting us to see your garden—-my partner, Jill and I would love to visit. It was wonderful to finally meet you last night---I'm amazed at how much I learned from you in just five minutes. Let me know when might be a good day/time to come by….

Stefaneener said...

Lisa, thanks! I was very proud. I thought it was a good meeting, in terms of crowd-energy.

Melissa, same to you! I'd love to hae you guys over so call.