The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest Magazine: Nurturing Our Roots:
“Most young men coming out of our community don’t know who they are,” said Huber when we set off after breakfast for a tour of his 76-acre Delta Farm.
“They’re stuck inside watching TV. These young men are the main reason I do this farming. Farming, you see, gives young people an identity.”
“In 1959,” said Huber, “the general budget for this county was somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000. The population was about 33,000; 15 percent of that budget was spent on criminal justice. Last year, the budget was $24 million, and the percentage spent on criminal justice was closer to 65 percent. But the population has only doubled!”
These baffling numbers gradually took on meaning as Huber continued. “We’ve changed our economy,” he explained. “We were once a stable, resource-extracting economy. Now we’re something else.” Fishing and logging interests are gone. With more people and fewer farms, there’s a shortage of jobs, so idle kids are getting into trouble.
So Mr Huber is growing more than carrots (and damn fine they are, too: I bought some last week at PCC): he’s growing farmers as part of the ecosystem as the article notes. I like to read things like this so I can be reminded that conscious living begins at home: one of our dinners last week — at which those carrots were featured — was all organic vegetables — collard greens in a lemon sesame sauce, carrots in orange juice with orange segments, and mashed potatoes, complete with some nice flaky biscuits — and it just felt right. I need to do better at finding these gems: that was just luck, but you can make your own luck.
Now playing: – Langsam. Misterioso by Simon Rattle – Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from the album “Symphony No.2 “Resurrection”” | Get it