Home

My son stood among our packed bags in our kitchen yesterday and asked, "So, is East Eden, ´home´?" 

I said, "Yes." 

"Then what do you call this," he asked as he pointed to the floor.

I resisted answering with something trite like, "home is where the heart is," so I just said, "home."

That got him and his sisters thinking, and me too.  Once a place is your home, once your roots are there, it will always be home no matter how many places you re-plant yourself.  Sure, it is about the people that are in the place you call, "home," but I think there is something to the dirt too. 

I love the way everyone at home smiles a friendly greeting whether they recognize you or not.  I love the way people at home say, "hello."  I love the way farmers wave from the truck or the tractor by raising one finger from the steering wheel and giving a nod of the head, or even sometimes, a tip of the hat.  I love all of these things.

Without them, I would still love the way the air hits my memory because it is mixed with the dust from the fields, exhaust from tractors, smells of cut hay, pollen, and echoes of children playing or a cow giving birth.

My daughter asked, "can I call East Eden, ´home,´too?"

I said, "I hope so."

Olfactory Memories of East Eden

 hay silage turned over after a long summer rain

pony’s breath warm with the scent of grain

 pitchfork striking in the straw/horse manure

 autumn chill running down the spine reassures

 leaves succumbing to wet and worms

 running back home before the skies turn

 saw dust flying as walnut boards go tumbling

 barn door creaking on its hinges: crumbling

 snow sucked from mittens of wool

sight of the stars from the snow on the hill

chimney smoke commingled in fog

 sound of the axe splitting a log

 strawberries rotting soft and hot

 sound of her yelling, “Do not!”

bark peeled back from and old dead stump

beetle climbing across the leaf dump

 film on the pond thick and greening

 sound of the fishing line careening

milk and soap washing down the floor drain

view from the milkhouse through the broken window pane

So one little smell in a faraway place, can bring a person around

To a memory of a different type: sight, touch or sound.

See you in East Eden!

(c) 2016 Cathy Lynn

Respect Posted Property Please

Trespassing on posted property threatens the safety of the community and damages the resource the conservation easement is there to protect.  For examples:
 

1.      Hunting on the property without authorization  and without notification to the landowner at the time of the hunt poses significant safety risks to invited hunters and the landowner and disrupts the wildlife balance of the protected area

2.       Vehicular traffic in the wetland areas of the property.  Wetlands are not only protected from destruction by the conservation easement, but by federal law (National Environmental Protection Act, Clean Water Act) and enforced by the NY DEC, US EPA, and the Army Corps of Engineers

3.      Tapping Sugar Maple trees deprives the landowner of the financial benefit of high value saw logs. Sugar Maple is the most valuable hardwood tree in Western New York.    When the landowner manages the property to optimize tree growth and forest health, the tree tapping trespass interferes with this objective significantly. 

Protecting the values conserved by a recorded easement involves the help of the public to respect posted signs at the property boundaries.

Protected Conservation Values:

1.       Scenic Beauty
2.       Wildlife Habitat
3.       Watershed Resource (Eighteen Mile Creek; Lake Erie East End/Niagara River Drainage Basin)
4.       Water Quality (downstream fisheries)
5.       Recreational opportunities for the landowner and invited guests
6.       Conservation Activities and Education
7.       Agricultural Productivity (Rural Working Landscape)
8.       Sustainable Forest Management
9.       Open Space
10.   Historical Attributes
11.   Carbon Storage
12.   Landscape Corridor (connectivity to other protected land)

Since December 2007, Winkelman Farm Conservation Corporation, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization, has been monitoring a conservation easement it holds on 115 acres of farm and forestland (since 2015, 170 acres).  The WFCC easement protects the land from development but does not diminish any of the other rights held by the landowners.  

 

Winkelman Farm is proud of its record of partnering with farmers in Western New York to support them in their efforts to conserve the values we all hold dear.  We have to trust that the community who benefit from the scenic open space, will do their utmost to help us in our conservation efforts by respecting the rights of the landowners.

Thank you.

More Farmers Please...

Check this out.  Keeping farmland in farming may not be the only solution to locally grown food.

http://sb.cc.stonybrook.edu/news/general/150813FreightFarms.php

just another link about food...with an important message

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/18/463109192/thou-shalt-not-toss-food-enlisting-religious-groups-to-fight-waste

EDMAR Farms is protected by a Conservation Easement!

It was such a nice moment: I was in my kitchen in Europe cheering champagne glasses with four people sitting at a kitchen table in East Eden thanks to FaceTime.   The Parysek farm is finally protected by a conservation easement, which means it will stay farmland forever. 

As the phone was passed around the table, I was moved to see each face:  Martha, the wife of  the late Eddie, the bus driver who protected me during the vulnerable grade school years, who loved the land and the view because it represented peace on earth; Karen, their daughter who, with her sisters Linda and Marcia love the farm so much that they cannot envision another purpose for this spot, and whose down-to-earth voices remind me of their brother Kenny, Winkelman Farm's first president; Lucille, the Notary Public, who is the mother of my best friend during those years that Eddie was protecting me; and finally Sam, who gives his time and energy to Winkelman Farm because he believes that this corner of the world is special and deserving of protection for the public's enjoyment.

We can all celebrate tonight, for all those good people whose last glimpse of life would have been enriched by the thought that this view would last forever.

Thank you for your support!

Merry Christmas.

 

Why Contribute to Winkelman Farm?

I was recently asked to set up a table to display Winkelman Farm at a charity bazaar in Switzerland. The point of the Bazaar is to raise awareness and fundraise for charities. I was asked to join because friends presenting at the Bazaar know that I also support Winkelman Farm.  I instinctively hesitated to participate because our cause of farmland conservation in Western New York State pales next to the other causes:  schools and orphanages in developing countries. 

Charity is about helping those in need, so Winkelman Farm is there to address a need in Western New York to keep farmland in farming.  Winkelman Farm is also about justice, that is, fair play and equity.  Is it fair that the farmer who takes care of the open spaces we all enjoy is not compensated for that service?  By “farmer” I mean the small family farmer that treats the land as the inheritance of her children.    This farmer stretches pennies to keep things working, to provide food for our tables, to ensure that crops are rotated for our drive-by viewing pleasure, and to conserve the spaces for wildlife to thrive in our watersheds and wooded areas.

In this case, charity is righting a wrong: it is an injustice that the people that work their backs off to feed us cannot afford to keep the land that we enjoy, open over generations.  They are not in a position, in their retiring years, to make gifts - even tax-deductible ones - to the public of scenic fields and forested land.  We, the public, do not pay enough for our food to give them this luxury, even as our food is transported further and further from the field to our tables.

Winkelman Farm addresses this injustice by using charitable funds to purchase conservation easements on farmland so that retiring farmers can comfortably hand the land down to their children, or sell it to another farmer, so that the land produces benefits for all of us forever.

So, no, I will not present Winkelman Farm at the charity Bazaar in Switzerland.  I will go and support the children who need help in Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Nepal and South Africa.  At the same time, I will continue to support Winkelman Farm because I believe that farming communities are important to our children’s future in Western New York.

 

 

I had to share this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21j_OCNLuYg

Jon is a farmer from northeastern Thailand. He founded the Pun Pun Center for Self-reliance, an organic farm outside Chiang Mai, with his wife Peggy Reents in 2003. Pun Pun doubles as a center for sustainable living and seed production, aiming to bring indigenous and rare seeds back into use. It regularly hosts training on simple techniques to live more sustainably. Outside of Pun Pun, Jon is a leader in bringing the natural building movement to Thailand, appearing as a spokesperson on dozens of publications and TV programs for the past 10 years. He continually strives to find easier ways for people to fulfill their basic needs. For more information visit http://www.punpunthailand.org